Class

As Black Lives Matter continues to make gains, Counterfire writers discuss a personal selection of films concerning race and class in the US and UK

For the third time this week, tens of thousands of people gathered in London to demand an end to police racism, reports Lucy Nichols

In an essay soon appearing in the Bunyan Studies journal, John Rees looks at the Leveller programme in relation to the social structure of 17th century England

Class struggle doesn’t go away in a pandemic, writes August Nimtz

We must push for the kind of transformative solutions that the government will do everything it can to avoid, argues Reuben Bard-Rosenberg

As part of our series on the revolutionary Frederick Engels, on the 200th anniversary of his birth, Elaine Graham-Leigh looks at Engels' The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State

Barbara Foley’s introduction reflects the strengths but also some of the weaknesses of contemporary Marxist writing on literature, finds Dragan Plavšić

Out of the Chartist movement, the struggle against slavery and for international socialism, why the demands of May Day remain as vital as ever today

Working class people are the worst affected by the health crisis and the government's response is geared toward protecting the rich, writes Richard Allday

A classic work of social history chosen by Dominic Alexander

Not as stupid as was hoped, ordinary working people can resist Cummings and his super-weirdos, writes Sean Ledwith

Capitalism is subjecting itself to great strain and we must be prepared to help it on its way, writes John Clarke

Instead of being pressured and punished, staff must be supported and properly resourced

Reuben Bard-Rosenberg speaks with striking worker about the action and how we can support it 

Opposing HS2 in the name of reduction damages the working-class green movement, argues Elaine Graham-Leigh

Living in Fire is a pithy yet powerful introduction to James Baldwin’s political life as a street fighting intellectual, raging against the world’s racist and reactionary forces, finds Adam Tomes

Sanders puts class warfare back on the agenda, writes Alex Kerner 

Schoolman's staged version of Persona is a postmodern car crash, finds Tom Lock Griffiths

Lindsey German on class and internationalism

Rebecca Long-Bailey’s appeal to ‘progressive patriotism’ is misguided but the working class internationalism of the 1860s is inspiring, argues Alex Snowdon

To fight the deliberate misrepresentation of Labour's radical policies, we must address the reasons underlying the systematic media bias, argues Des Freedman

Workers are ready to fight the government's attack on their rights, reports Reuben Bard-Rosenberg

Lindsey German on class, leadership and this week's strikes

Richard Wolff in Understanding Marxism concisely introduces Marx’s essential arguments on exploitation in capitalism, and workers’ democracy, finds Graham Kirkwood

The oppression of family and class unite in this taboo-busting drama, writes Sofie Mason

Policy, however good, isn’t enough to win a general election, argues John Rees

Ignored warnings show working-class lives mean nothing to the Tories, writes Lucy Nichols

For Black History Month, Counterfire asked activists today to tell us about their black hero and how they provide inspiration in our struggles today

A surge in strike action in the US shows a labour movement that’s fighting back, argues Kate O’Neil

A collection of classic Socialist Register articles raise vital questions about Marx, Lenin, Gramsci and revolutionary organisation, argues Alex Snowdon

Tanika Gupta's reimagined Ibsen shines a light on the class-based oppression inherent to colonialism, finds Ellen Graubart

To get rid of the Tories, Labour must fight the status quo with radical class politics, argues Alex Snowdon

This is an issue that unites the class, writes UCU activist Vladimir Unkovski-Korica

Democratic rights don’t fall from the sky, they are fought for and won, insists Alex Snowdon

Labour must distance themselves from the status quo and instead fight for radical change in the interests of working people, argues Martin Hall

There is nothing for Labour to gain from putting the ‘national interest’ first and delaying a general election, argues Shabbir Lakha

An analysis of hegemony and consciousness among the economically distressed middle class of Argentina provides lessons for activists everywhere, finds Orlando Hill

A politics based on anti-corruption obscures class and tends to benefit one side. It's not the left, argues Reuben Bard-Rosenberg

Bernie Sanders is running for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election, what difference can he make this time?

In this article, originally published in 1998, Lindsey German traces the history of International Women's Day - initially a celebration of the struggle of working women fighting back over suffrage and conditions at work

Mike Davis punctures many myths about Marx and shows how important the history of working-class struggle remains for today, finds Dominic Alexander

The Brexit crisis is best understood through a strong methodological framework, argues John Rees

Kim Moody’s book on labour, unions and capitalism, is very valuable, but revolutionary organisation is essential, argues Richard Allday

Mouffe’s elaboration of a left populist strategy contains some useful insights but ultimately rests on the centrist ideology that it appears to criticise, argues Josh Newman

Tis the season to be radical with Morgan Daniels' pick of Christmas songs

Feyzi Ismail talks to Hester Eisenstein on current trends in Feminism and Marxism, #MeToo, intersectionality and reformulating issues of class as central to feminist theory and practice in this episode of Counterfire Media's Podcast

Stick in the Wheel are an urban folk group rooted in the tradition but with a hard, forward-looking sound and attitude, reports Josh Newman

The Extreme Centre are never to be trusted especially when they mobilise under the banner of democracy, argues Lindsey German

Mistaken Identity reveals identity politics as the strategy of defeat, but solidarities are built through engagement in existing movements, argues Elaine Graham-Leigh

The government has pushed the full roll-out of Universal Credit further down the road, but we must stop it altogether, argues John Rees

We are not a poor society, and should not be failing our children like this, argues Kelly Grahan

Trade is Warcriticises globalisation, but does not distinguish national from class struggle, and fails to understand capitalist imperialism, finds Orlando Hill

Against the Grain explodes traditional views of the origin of civilisation, but lacks an analysis of the formation of class, argues Elaine Graham-Leigh

The Tories are responsible for the huge growth in homelessness and rough sleeping, it'll take systemic change pushed from below to solve it argues Daryl Peach

Is there really the great divide? John Rees examines the changing landscape of the countryside

We cannot turn a blind eye to the class cleansing where homeless people are moved on whilst royal wedding fans camp out unhindered

Never mind austerity, feast on the joy that is a royal wedding and stop moaning, says Jonathan Maunders

Windrush, May 68, Palestine, UCU strike, Marx and more - Counterfire freesheet edition 025, May 2018

On the bicentenary of Karl Marx's birth, Paul Mason writes about the relevance of Marx today. Dragan Plavšić explains where he gets it wrong

Chris Bambery on the history of two great capital cities, and the architecture of power.

A sold-out annex theatre was treated to Jacqueline Mulhallen’s moving, informative and funny performance, Sylvia, the radical Suffragette leader

The views of Toby Young have no place in society, let alone education. Sack him now, argues Judy Cox

Siva’s understanding of race, class and imperialism, and of humanity in general, will continue to inspire resistance to injustice and hope for socialism

In a time of the rebirth of mass politics, the right is fighting back. The left must meet this challenge, argues Kevin Ovenden

Basic Income is not a beyond left and right answer to automation, argues David Bush

Lindsey German argues for the development of a theory that can respond to changes in work organisation and the feminisation of the workforce

Night Thoughts is the subversive musings that Wallace Shawn cannot admit during the day; witty and involving, the book should be spread widely, finds Dominic Alexander

Alison Pennington found them all in a road trip through remote Tasmania

When it comes to social division, socialists need to keep their eyes on the prize – class, argues Lindsey German  

The wildly popular series has attracted a number of interesting attempts to analyse what it tells us about the contemporary state of capitalist culture

Doctor, activist and local resident Mona Kamal describes the genesis of a tragedy

Class is back - for it to advance requires anti-capitalist politics, not the frontist politics of being to the left of whatever seems like a temporary solution to a fundamental dilemma, writes Kevin Ovenden

The Tories will make life worse for us all, whatever our age

As shattering arbitrary cuts to bereavement payments come into force this week, Kara Bryan exposes the sheer barbarity of austerity ideology

Deirdre O’Neill and Mike Wayne explain why they are making a new documentary, The Acting Class

Buy online: A short, sharp analysis of class structure and combativity after forty years of neoliberal offensive

In the third extract from The Capitalist University, Henry Heller writes about growing resistance to the corporate university

The second extract from Heller's The Capitalist University describes intellectual and political conformity that dominated academia during the Cold War

We republish the first of three extracts from Henry Heller's new book The Capitalist University, which resonates with the marketisation of HE in Britain

Uber drivers win the right to be classed as workers as opposed to self-employed, in a huge step forward for the labour movement, reports Lindsey German

Steven and Hilary Rose debunk the ideologically loaded claims of reductionist neuroscience in a short but clear book, finds Elaine Graham-Leigh

In this major new analysis, Lindsey German looks at resistance to neoliberalism, oppression's relationship to class, and how new forms of organising and the united front are central to a socialist transformation of Britain

Tom Watson recently accused 'Trotskyist entryists' of 'twisting the arms' of young members of the Labour Party. A young left-wing activist responds

Vladimir Unkovski-Korica looks at the context behind BHS' collapse

A short look at why those in the north of England mainly voted to leave the EU - from Guerrera Films

The government has been stunned by the strength of the strikes and protests, but what now for the movement? John Mullen investigates

While mainstream ideology repackages its old myths and lies, Kevin Ovenden argues for a radical re-assertion of class-based anti-racism 

For St George's Day Mark Perryman explores the connections between English football’s golden moment and national identity

A 'Northern Powerhouse or Northern Poorhouse' demonstration converged on Sheffield last Saturday, Jon Moorcroft reports   

Yasmin Dahnoun speaks to Fernando González, whose documentary Limpiadores tells the story of the SOAS cleaners' fight for justice

The anti-austerity movement is an opportunity to force women's liberation onto the political agenda says Yasmin Dahnoun

This Wednesday's spending review will see the Tories wriggle their way out of the impasse created by the Lords' decision to delay the tax credits cuts, argues Joanne Land

Socialism is back on the agenda as an alternative social model in Lebowitz's Socialist Imperative, but we cannot do without the revolutionary party, argues Kit Klarenberg

Brian Palmer’s Revolutionary Teamsters shows the contemporary relevance of a major episode of revolutionary trade-unionism from the 1930s, argues Richard Allday

Across the world, class remains central to understanding the way the society works, as the current issue of Socialist Register(2015) demonstrates with great thoroughness, argues Alex Snowden

In the wake of the wave of demonstrations to support refugees, the long history of anti-racist organisation is recalled in the current issue of Race and Class, finds Dominic Alexander

The mounting burden of work in our lives is what fuels the rise in inequality. We work so they get rich, but the answer is collective resistance, argues Orlando Hill

The latest anti-union proposals from Cameron’s cabinet show the naked class hatred of democracy that lies at the heart of the Tory party writes Richard Allday

Video of the session 'Hero to Zero (hours)? The worker in the 21st Century' with Susan Newman, Guy Standing and Alex Snowdon from Dangerous Times Festival 2015. Produced by Paul Hanes

From the session 'Women’s liberation, class and feminism today' at Dangerous Times Festival 2015

Capitalism has used new technologies to fuel an intensified wave of commodification, but faces contradictions too, argues Mike Quille, reviewing Huws, Labour in the Global Digital Economy

A Diet of Austerityargues that to fight climate change, we need system change, and the blame must not be shifted onto individuals, finds Orlando Hill

Labour's defeat has been followed by Blairite attacks on the union link and on Unite and Len McLuskey in particular. Richard Allday looks at how socialists should respond

Enduring problems of class, class consciousness and political organisation are illuminated in this important new collection of E. P. Thompson’s essays, finds Dominic Alexander

All sectarianism is damaging to the working class interest. But Miliband's threats to Scottish voters are dangerous, potentially mortal writes Brian Heron

The Guardian May Day article misrepresents Marx and detracts from the critical lessons learned from his life and work argues Susan Newman

How the working class is blamed for the world’s ills: The final extract from Elaine Graham-Leigh's new book, A Diet of Austerity: Class Food and Climate Change

The entire human history of exploitation and oppression is vividly summarised in Willie Thompson’s Work, Sex, Power, finds Mike Quille

John Tully’s history of the Silvertown strike reveals industrial and imperial connections, and the nature of the worker’s struggle against them at a crucial period, argues John Westmoreland

Richard Allday responds to the latest Tory attacks on democracy, from curtailing trade union rights to eroding the powers of local authorities

London bus driver and senior Unite rep Preston Tabois spoke to Counterfire's Dan Poulton about the London-wide strike and its wider context

The continued rise of the SNP has led to increased metropolitan suspicion and a growing backlash. What is the content of the SNP’s nationalism?

Lindsey German: sacking Emily Thornberry over a tweet is another own goal - and after Scotland and the vote on air strikes in Iraq, Labour really can’t afford to score many more

Kevin Ovenden looks at the history of race and class in London's East End and the current battle to beat back the Tory attack on Tower Hamlets

Nigel Farage should not be allowed to hijack the widespread disaffection with the Westminster elite argues John Westmorland

Following Yes majorities in party heartlands Chris Bambery examines a Scottish Labour under threat of annihilation

Selina Todd’s The People is a very welcome and successful assertion of the centrality of working-class experience and power in the history of the twentieth century

Alastair Stephens looks at how democracy in the UK is dying at the hands of the neoliberal ruling elite

Brian Heron: The new 'powers' granted to Holyrood do nothing to reduce poverty, to reign in inequality, to remove Trident or to save the health service

Lindsey German looks at what impact the vote results will have on Britain and Scotland

The Scottish referendum has demonstrated the centrality of the demand for democracy to working-class struggle, writes Alastair Stephens. This is a democratic revolt against neoliberalism and despair

Chris Bambery: whatever the final result it’s worth looking at what the Radical Independence Campaign has achieved and how it might be emulated elsewhere in the world

Chris Bambery: the British elite see working class support for independence and hate and fear it at the same time

Chris Nineham reviews 'Two Days and One Night', a new film by the Dardenne Brothers

The history of the working class of Hell’s Kitchen, New York, explored through the prism of subjectivities of space, is a project that promises more than it is able deliver, in Joseph Varga’s Hell’s Kitchen and the Battle for Urban Space

In this second extract from A People’s History of Scotland, Chris Bambery discusses working-class movements of the early nineteenth century

The importance and coherence of Sylvia Pankhurst’s lifelong activism is revealed by Katherine Connelly’s grasp of her political commitments, making this book an important new account her life

In 1934 three mighty strikes brought the bosses and bankers to their knees and ushered in a new era of labour-capital relations in the United States writes Sean Ledwith

Today I spoke at the Dangerous Times festival in London alongside Selina Todd, author of ‘The People: the rise and fall of the working class’. This article is based on the talk I gave

In the second part of the review of Socialist Register 2014, Alex Snowdon discusses the changing nature and position of the working class

In the first of a two-part review, Alex Snowdon looks at Socialist Register discussions on the nature of the ruling class

To protect against climate change we need to replace a society based on accumulation for profit with one based on production for need writes Elaine Graham-Leigh

Ben Wray looks at the comments of the Ipsos-Mori Scotland Director who argued that class 'is the most important factor' in influencing the decision of voters the independence referendum

Lindsey German responds to John Riddell's article, 'Clara Zetkin in the Lion’s Den'

Tansy Hoskins explains why the outrage over Miley Cyrus's VMA appearance on Saturday night is significant

Labour's weakness on class and immigration only helps the employers writes Richard Allday

‘Let a great assembly be, of the fearless and the free’ - Maxine Peake reads Masque of Anarchy in Manchester as a call for today

The outrage expressed by most pundits over events in Falkirk Labour Party demonstrates their belief that politics is the preserve of the elite and that the common people should stay out of it

Got your emerging service worker confused with your established middle class, your precariat with your lumpenproletariat? Let some socialists with work experience provide a real framework for understanding class in the 21st Century

Elle Gierre looks at what the treatment Balotelli's tells us about the deep seated racism of Italian society and the experience of the 'italiani di seconda generazione

Owen Jones  speaking at Firebox cafe on 7 March 2013. Film by Paul Hanes

Lindsey German wrote this review for Historical Materialism over a decade ago but it wasn't published. We are posting it now as part of a series of contributions to the debate on women's oppression

George Osborne has announced real-terms cuts in benefits. The attack on welfare is an act of class war, argues Adam Tomes

In 1809 audiences at a major London theatre started a concerted campaign and won. Jacqueline Mulhallen, author of The Theatre of Shelley, tells their fascinating story

Michael Gove’s replacement for GCSEs is an all-out attack on working class kids, argues Adam Tomes

David Graeber’s ambitious attempt to interpret the span of history through the prism of debt is flawed

In the 1840s Engels wrote ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’, based upon his experiences in Manchester. Ben Metters reviews a contemporary theatrical take on this political classic

Private security firm Close Protection UK (CPUK), used unpaid labour and workers on sub-minimum wage pay to provide security for the Diamond Jubilee pageant on Sunday, the Guardian reported

Protesters are back on the streets of Nepal again as politicians fail to reach consensus on the constitution, and parliament is dissolved

Chris Walsh reviews the Scottish Ballet's production of a classic.

Condition of the Working Classaims to update Engels’ classic. Elaine Graham-Leigh talked to Deirdre O’Neill of Inside Film about the project and the relevance of Engels’ work today.

Owen Jones, Cat Boyd and Adrian Cousins speaking at the session on 'The working class ain't what it used to be' at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas

On International Women's Day, Tansy Hoskins suggests some great radical books which have inspired movements for social change.

Black History, Black Struggle, a recent issue of the journal Race and Class, offers an important opportunity to reassess past struggles against racism in the UK and the US, argues Faduma Hassan.

'Class warfare came to one street in one moment on Oakland on a Saturday afternoon' as Occupy Oakland tried to transform a vacant public building into a Community Center

How socialists relate to the working class has always been a source of tension within the socialist tradition. Chris Bambery suggests that the early years of British Communism provide lessons that are still very relevant to debates today.

The development of capitalism entails two complementary processes. The first, explored in MHW 54, is competitive capital accumulation. The second, explored here, is the making – and continual re-making – of the working class.

Higher education is often presented as a road to opportunity and the route to a more prosperous or equal society. But would more graduates bring greater equality?

The revolutionary processes in the Middle East cannot be fully understood without an analysis of the role of the Gulf states in the global economy, and as integrated into the regional construction of US power.

The debate about the nature of the contemporary working class is critical for anyone who wants to see radical change. Elaine Graham-Leigh reviews two controversial books on the subject.

As public sector unions prepare for a day of coordinated strike action in defence of pensions on June 30th Alex Snowdon looks the state of the union movement.

John Westmoreland recalls the first great working class movement - the campaign for political and social change in the 1830s and 1840s known as Chartism. He explains the vital political lessons it provides.

Spanish people have taken to the streets in huge numbers with public squares occupied by protestors opposed to austerity and calling for real democracy. Alex Snowdon argues that this is the new shape of working class resistance.

Despite dominating western Europe in the 11^th century by the 14^th century Feudalism was faced with a crisis that generated a wave of revolutionary struggle. Neil Faulkner looks at the causes and outcomes.

The violent and centralised modern political state has been on display both on the streets of Arab cities and Britain. How should socialists view the state? Alex Snowdon introduces Chapter One of Lenin's classic work The State and Revolution

We in Wisconsin are nearly two weeks into our struggle against Republican governor Scott Walker's union-busting bill and there are no signs either side is about to surrender.

In these videos a leader of the newly formed Independent Union of Real Estate Tax Collectors speaks about the struggle to form independent unions and a speaker from the Centre for Socialist Studies speaks on the working class movement.

Installing Andy Coulson as the ConDem's spin-doctor-in-chief was always a big risk. But then the Tories, like their City-dwelling compatriots, love to gamble.

Laura Woods looks at the issue of abortion and how reproductive rights are central both to women's liberation and class politics.

The national debt has become a mechanism by which international finance-capital disciplines the British ruling class. The bankers’ message is: protect profits and impose cuts or we sell British financial assets and create a Greek-style crisis of state solvency.

We are told by the media and politicians that the concept of class is no longer relevant. Lindsey German argues that we cannot understand the current crisis without it.

Free to read or download online, Chris Nineham's short book looks at the ideas of Georg Lukács the Hungarian revolutionary whose work explored the hold of capitalist ideas on workers' consciousness and how it could be broken.

Georg Lukács made a large contribution to Marxist theory, but especially significant are the series of essays he wrote under the title History and Class Consciousness. Of these the crowning achievement remains the section Reification and the Class Consciousness of the Proletariat’.

Neil Faulkner argues that every socialist, green activist, trade unionist, and anti-capitalist needs to see building mass action against the cuts as the central political priority.

This week Neil Faulkner looks at the rise of the first ruling classes as the surplus created through the increasing productivity of human labour allowed a section of society to live without producing.

Neil Faulkner argues that the attack on education represented by ‘free schools’ is one front of the class war launched by the Con-Dem government.

Dominic Alexander reviews Neo-Liberal Scotland: Class and Society in a Stateless Nation, ed. Neil Davidson, Patricia McCafferty and David Miller (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 459pp

When will someone make a film about the incredible life of Alexandra Kollontai? Born into a rich family, she rebelled with an 'unsuitable' marriage, was radicalised by visits to textile factories, became a political campaigner in the late 1890's and then left her husband and child to study Marxism in Europe.

It is the Russian Revolution and its achievements that gives Lenin his place in history. But it is also the degradation of the original revolutionary spirit under Stalinism that largely accounts for Lenin's poor reputation, even on the left.

Dominic Alexander defends E P Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class - one the most debated and influential of all the books produced by British Marxist historians

As we enter an election campaign that may end thirteen years of New Labour government, Alex Snowden takes a look at Tony Cliff’s assessment of Labour's victory in 1997.

Mephedrone, the latest legal high to hit Britain’s clubbing scene, is to be classified as a Class B drug within weeks and a ban on importation was put into force yesterday.

Principled soldier deserves our solidarity, argues Katherine Connelly, convenor of Colchester Stop the War Coalition