Letters

Trans theses

It is amusing to annoy comrade Andrew Northall to the extent that appears from his letter last week (‘Pile of drivel’, November 20). Paragraphs 2 to 5 of his letter are merely the exasperated ‘gobble, gobble’ of a left equivalent of ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’, offering no evidence of his claims and not worth a reply.

In paragraphs 6 to 8 comrade Northall offers a substantive argument: that I have managed to “sucker the Weekly Worker group, including in theses 10 and 11”, into the idea that queer-bashing and violence against women are “at root driven by the performance of competitive heterosexuality”. He objects that this fails to take account of “a class-divided, exploitative, capitalist society” or of “the state generally having the monopoly of force or even violence to maintain the subjection of the majority and the continuation of class rule”.

The idea that the state has the “monopoly of force” is Max Weber, not Marxism. Thesis 10 in the CPGB’s ‘Communism and trans liberation’ (Weekly Worker November 13), perfectly clearly, concerns non-state violence. The point is that this is driven by the capitalist economic order, as it impacts on men and women, and the competitive formation of relationships - not by the state. It is “performance of competitive heterosexuality” because it is largely, though not completely, a matter of men showing off their ‘masculinity’ by attacking soft targets. The last sentence of this thesis, on racist violence, refers explicitly to non-state racist violence.

The political significance of this point is that what drives non-state violence is social-economic dynamics. Hence, the common liberal demand to increase police powers to deal with it is hopeless - as is, in fact, demonstrated by the complete failure of this approach in the last 30 years in relation to violence against women.

Thesis 11 is directly addressed to state discriminatory policing. However, this discriminatory policing is not a matter of the immediate defence of capitalist class interests in the security of exploitation (unlike attacks on pickets or demonstrators, eviction of squatters, the prosecution of ‘benefit fraud’ and so on). There is no interest of capitalists as such, or of property-owners more generally, in sexist, racist, etc, policing.

The capitalist class has an interest in getting the working class to identify with the capitalists’ political representatives. But how this is done varies. The capitalists move from backing the ‘party of order’ to the ‘party of liberty’ and back. In the 1980s to 2010s the dominant form in the ‘west’ was backing the ‘party of liberty’: neoliberalism, free trade, anti-discrimination and so on. In the Middle East, however, US imperialism backed political Islamism as a form of the ‘party of order’; and since around 2000 the shift towards big capital backing nationalist and patriarchalist politics has extended to Japan, India, several eastern European countries … and recently to the imperialist core, most visibly with Trump. The recent shift has illustrated how rapidly big capital can dump one policy for another.

Rather, as it says in the theses, discriminatory policing results from the fact that “‘professional’ police forces are dominated by conservatives (a feature of Soviet Russia from the early stages of the rise of Stalinism onwards, as well as of capitalist countries generally)”. It is an indirect consequence - not an intended one - of capital’s commitment, since Peel’s ‘blue devils’ were established in 1829, to ‘professional’ (mercenary) police forces (from which the early Soviet regime failed to break). Unlike non-state violence, radical change could be made here - by replacing the professional police force with a conscript militia (thesis 22, and CPGB Draft programme, §3.12 ‘Militia’).

In paragraphs 9-16, comrade Northall reasserts the policy of the “broad, popular democratic alliance, directed against monopoly capitalism”. This section of his argument actually supports, rather than undermines, my argument in the introduction to the theses. His commitment to this policy drives him to quote with approval Eurocommunist Tricia Davis in the July 1984 Marxism Today, arguing that the working class cannot unite itself without overcoming its division by “sectionalism, sexism and racism” - meaning the acceptance of the demands of the women’s movement, and so on.

The working class promptly displayed in the miners’ Great Strike of 1984-85 that a strong movement of the class automatically tends to produce unity and draw in layers of the oppressed behind it. The Eurocommunists, in contrast, used their conception to argue a scab policy in the Great Strike. This scab policy lay behind the attempt of the Eurocommunist faction to take over the Morning Star, which is at the root of the split which is the basis of today’s CPB. It is then startling that comrade Northall’s “broad, popular democratic alliance” commitments lead him to approve Davis’s proto-intersectionalist arguments of 1984.

Mike Macnair
Oxford

Myopic YP vision

Jack Conrad, in the November 16 Online Communist Forum meeting, as well as Carla Roberts in her article, ‘All out for Liverpool!’, have referred to the Spartacist League as holding “conservative views” for not agreeing with their proposal for an “emergency motion” at the Your Party conference. According to the CPGB comrades, the Spartacists do not care about democracy, and the implication is that we basically trust Karie Murphy and the current leaders. Once again, the CPGB comrades are refusing to deal seriously with what we have put forward and are responding with demagogy.

The Spartacist League supports the Socialist Unity Platform’s efforts to bring the left together for the conference; we support the idea of a fringe event for socialists (to which we have contributed financially) and we agree with many of the points proposed by the Sheffield demands. What we object to is the “battle plan” for Liverpool, which consists of submitting an “emergency motion” counterposing a new conference in 2026 to the current bureaucratic one.

We objected to this, firstly, because we thought it would polarise the conference on a confusing procedural point rather than drawing a clear political line. Secondly, because it would be seen by delegates as a wrecking operation and yet another power play.

Thirdly, and more fundamentally, we argued against the idea that the entire intervention of socialists at the Your Party founding conference be about rules and structures! Instead, as part of fighting for party democracy, socialists should fight for the party to adopt socialist positions to draw a clear class line at the conference - namely for Your Party to be anti-Nato, anti-Zionist, working class, etc (not quite the transitional programme, comrade Roberts). It is for this rather simple proposal that we are absurdly being branded as holding “conservative views”.

The problem that the Socialist Unity Platform is facing is that it has no socialist platform to speak of - not even a minimal one - on which to unite the various elements in it. Opposing sortition, the ban on dual membership or the two-thirds majority to change the constitution, while correct and necessary, do not constitute a socialist platform and are not a basis for unity. In fact, one can agree with these, while still supporting Nato or Zionism (eg, the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty).

Without a minimal political basis, one cannot speak of socialist unity. This is why the Socialist Unity Platform is constantly wracked by disagreements over the minutiae of every proposal. And this is why we are seeing the bizarre spectacle of Jack Conrad singing the praises of Counterfire’s John Rees, who he hopes can rescue the project. This is the same comrade Conrad who penned an article headlined ‘Put politics in command’ (August 28).

Yes, we must fight for party democracy. But party democracy is not a cause in itself. It is supposed to be for something: ie, to push for a programme and a vision for the party. Yet a programme - or even a set of minimal political demands - is explicitly what the CPGB and many in the SUP have consciously refused to push. They argue that it is pointless to do this until there is a fully democratic structure. With such a conception, we will be talking about ‘democracy’ for as long as it takes Sisyphus to push his rock up the mountain.

The only way to regroup the socialist movement is on the basis of political positions. Unprincipled combinations united only on “anti-bureaucratic” sentiment is the road to hell.

Vincent David
Spartacist League

Sortition YP costs

The advocates of sortition often claim that it is some anti-elitist system, which stops all those egotistical individuals and groups from being able to control the party by always being elected as delegates to conferences.

Of course, this rhetoric does not account for the fact that these egotistical individuals and groups could only ‘control’ the party by having support from members who elect them. The most serious issue with the supposed anti-elitism of sortition is that it means that an entire layer of members - the people who aren’t able to travel all the way to conference - have no representation.

Sortition, when applied to a political party, is very effective at generating a representative sample of the people who are able to sign up to travel to conference. That is not the same as a representative sample of the party as a whole. For very many people across Britain, being able to travel to a conference requires either a car or a very expensive train journey, and very many other costs, such as accommodation and childcare.

Of course, advocates of sortition believe that these expenses can be simply covered by the party, although, given how much the leaders of Your Party have been complaining of the difficulty of running the conference without all of the £800,000 they are demanding from Zarah (despite the fact they already have the membership fees of 50,000 members) indicates to me that running such a conference is already financially difficult enough for the party without adding hundreds of thousands to the budget to cover the costs of all this. Of course, if such a scheme is financially possible, it would be ideal. However, the focus purely on the financial aspect does not properly consider all the other reasons why people (particularly workers and carers) might be hesitant to sign up for a conference.

Even if there’s some guarantee of being paid for their expenses, for very many people it is still quite a daunting endeavour. They might have to book time off work, taking up valuable holiday days, arrange childcare, etc. We should also be aware that the type of person who actively wants to use their free time (which many workers and carers have not much of) travelling to and from a political conference is necessarily going to skew towards older, wealthier people.

With a system of elected delegates, people who aren’t able to go to a conference themselves can have actual representation within the system by electing those delegates that they think represent them the best. With the wonders of modern technology, local branch meetings can be conducted via Zoom (or a hybrid in-person plus Zoom meeting), so that those of us who otherwise wouldn’t be able to consistently travel to meetings are able to participate and elect delegates who represent us.

I understand that sortition was probably the only realistic way to operate the founding conference due to the fact that the existing branches aren’t yet official. However, I do hope that those delegates selected by sortition understand that many of us have not been able to have representation within this process, and that future conferences can consist of elected delegates.

Dovah
Oxfordshire

London YP

I’m writing on behalf of the organising committee elected on November 22 to ask you to inform your readers in Your Party about the following developments and plans.

The meeting on Saturday was called at short notice by an ad-hoc group of around 10 comrades in five London boroughs, with an invitation for any YP branch, proto-branch or other group to send one to three representatives. This followed wider support expressed in two Zoom calls the week before. The meeting took place in person in Camden, with half a dozen online. A total of around 40 people were present. Several boroughs and constituencies were represented, as well as two student societies.

The meeting was conducted under an elected chair and voted for its decisions after open debate, including friendly amendments and a contested vote on the size of the OC, and exemplified inner-party democracy. It unanimously agreed to proceed with a call to convene a London-wide delegate assembly of Your Party in the first half of February - allowing time for YP groups to organise proper delegate elections and to agree on motions, etc. The aim is to end the paralysis of ‘branchless’ functioning that has held things back. There was great support for this initiative and enthusiasm about the nature and openness of the meeting.

After some debate it was agreed that it would be best to have an interim, second, larger organising meeting on Saturday December 13 (2pm to 5pm), which will again be open to any interested YP members in London, but with a bias towards wide borough/constituency and workplace representation, with the explicit aim of deciding the proposed agenda and delegation mechanism for the agreed delegate assembly. We want to enlarge further the representative character of this way of organising.

The OC has one job: to call a meeting in December, and then stand down for an elected committee to organise the final assembly. It has seven members from six boroughs, and can call on the strong practical support of many comrades willing to help.

We wish to invite the participation of any YP group in London: please email us at yplondondelegateassembly@gmail.com for more information.

Alex Green
Islington

Durham YP

Redhills, the newly refurbished Durham Miner’s Hall, the ‘Pitman’s Parliament’, was the venue for the launch of Your Party in County Durham on November 15. Zarah Sultana was top of the bill, with worthy support acts from, among others, Audrey White and Ian Elcoate, the Teesside anti-racism activist and Weekly Worker reader. It was a rally rather than a business meeting to establish a branch. Still, the speeches were fair enough, with plenty of support for socialism, a republic and militant opposition to not only Reform, but the far right on the streets.

Around 75 were present, with an encouraging age range, from teenagers to pensioners. They gave active support to Sultana - not just for her politics, but her condemnation of the attempt to sabotage her appearance on Question time by the so-called independent MPs, including Corbyn. There was little sign of the dewy-eyed hero worship of Corbyn, even though some would probably have been Corbynistas not so long ago. There is an understandable irritation at his failure of leadership and the questionable politics of the other independent MPs.

The Weekly Worker and The Socialist were the only left papers on offer, as well as leaflets from the Democratic Bloc, such as it is. The Revolutionary Communist Party, which has a presence in student politics in the city, was noticeable by its absence. Still, it was a chance to contact people who will form the basis of branches in Durham city, as well as outlying constituencies. It seems crystal-clear though that this was likely to be a ‘left’ Labour Party rather than the revolutionary party the working class needs.

The following day was the Tees valley regional assembly at the International Community Centre in Middlesbrough. About 45, somewhat older, people assembled for a meeting more inspired by an HR department away day than a political party. Instead of speaking to all present or sending a resolution forward to the leadership, we were stuck in tedious breakout groups, calculated to make sure that everyone has a say, but is heard by almost no-one. Again, but this time without the teenagers, a bunch of former Labour and trade union activists talked to one another about their aspiration for a left Labour Party. It’s a start, of sorts, and most wanted a break with the anti-socialist, anti-democratic Labour Party, but it’s not going to happen without a lot of work.

Ian Spencer
County Durham

Glasgow YP

The Glasgow-wide meeting this week for those with sortition was billed as “Your Party founding conference - building solidarity across Scotland” and states: “While we may have different opinions on key political issues, we hope we can all agree on one thing: the founding principles of the party should empower Scotland-based members with the autonomy to debate, decide and carry out the work we need to do effectively within the timescales we face.”

It rules: “Please note: this is a space for collective discussion, not for promoting personal political agendas or other parties” - thus foreshadowing the potential witch-hunt of the left if the present YP leadership get their way. The agenda is then dominated by the breakout rooms so beloved of Glasgow organisers - which will, of course, further shrink any chances of meaningful debate and ensure there’s nothing at all on any other issues arising.This comes on top of my attempts to get the Glasgow North proto-branch to discuss the Socialist Unity Platform and its approaches towards conference. I couldn’t attend the meeting on November 24, but asked for SUP to be put on the agenda. It was allotted five minutes. alongside report-backs on the regional assemblies, whilst the vast bulk of the meeting was devoted exclusively to longer-term local issues.

The relevant meeting notes posted immediately after - and effusively praised by the chair - ran thus: “If there are fireworks in Liverpool, and even moves towards a split, my feeling is that we in Scotland should stand aside from that. I think we should insist relentlessly on the issue of autonomy for YP in Scotland, meaning a Scottish conference and branches asap in the New Year deciding on our own constitution, leadership, Holyrood elex, etc. And I think we should support the other amendments circulated by Zarah, or similar, including on co-leaders, but oppose and avoid getting sucked into a split dynamic. [I see the SUP amendments are more or less identical, but with no mention of autonomy in Scotland or Cymru!] If we end up having to form a separate legal entity in Scotland, as they have in Cymru, I think that should not be seen as a split, but as a pragmatic necessity.”

Last week Corbyn made blithe media statements after he sat in on Glasgow regional assemblies’ breakout groups “in listening mode”. He said that there was clearly an appetite for another independence referendum and that would be enthusiastically supported by YP.

Then HQ’s unofficial spokesperson in Scotland, Jim Monaghan, declared in reaction to the Wales UDI: “The difference in Scotland is that the UK HQ backs us standing at Holyrood. They have also agreed to underwrite the costs of a Scottish conference in January and agreed to access to the data to make that happen. Our relationship with HQ is far better and there is no disagreement with our plans so far.” He also stated: “I think the idea of a breakaway separate party in Scotland is the wrong move right now and I don’t see any appetite among members for such a drastic action. Until today I hadn’t seen or heard anyone calling for this. I think moving ahead with our current plans, however flawed the UK conference might be, is the best way forward.”

As with the whole shebang, we await further developments with little more than trepidation.

Tam Dean Burn
Glasgow

My headline

The title of my article, ‘No oranges for England’, was replaced by the new headline, ‘Splitting over unity’ (November 20), and the Weekly Worker editors added their own introduction. I fully accept you have the right to make your own critical comment on my article - if I don’t like it, then there is the letters page. So far, no complaint from me.

However, if you change my headline, I think you have crossed the line. You have edited my words and substituted your own. In this sense you have changed my argument. This is more like censorship than political commentary. It could be seen as treating readers with contempt by suggesting they read a different article to the one I wrote.

I will continue to be supportive of Weekly Worker, but hope you will take this comment seriously, because it is in the interests of the paper that readers trust what is being put before them. They might expect you to make your own hostile comments to articles written by non-party writers, but not to change my words and twist the meaning.

The editors’ introduction says, “Despite its own Labourite name, Steve Freeman, of the Republican Labour Education Forum, says there can be no unity with those whom he calls social monarchists … or even those who are committed to Socialist Unity as a label of convenience.” No problem with this commentary apart from its politics.

First is the comment on ‘Labour’. Here it is a reference to the forum’s origins in the Left Labour Alliance. Labour in this context concerns the labour movement (ie, the Labour Party and trade union and socialist movement). It is not about the absence of republicanism in the Labour Party alone. RLEF members come from a variety of political backgrounds - social democratic, socialist and Marxist. They are united in their recognition of the absence of republican ideas and policies in the labour movement.

The central question is in the editors’ revealing comment that “there can be no unity with those whom he (ie, me) calls social monarchists”. This is simply a false imputation. Of course, there can be unity between social monarchists and social republicans: for example, in opposing fascism, supporting the Palestinian people or striking workers. Some confessional republicans are even members of the social monarchist Labour Party!

However, tactics are about specific moments and situations. This moment is about the formation of Your Party and the centrality of democratic republicanism to this project. The RLEF was represented among a broad range of left groups, including social monarchists, on the basis of fighting for a ‘party republic’. This issue was limited to a democratic constitution for YP. We supported this united front with social monarchists and argued for the republican principle of the ‘sovereignty of the membership’ and regular elections, accountability and recall of representatives.

We refused to make a programmatic agreement with the social monarchists. When the proposed Democratic Platform began to dabble in programmatic unity with the social monarchists that was the end of the road. The hegemony of social monarchist ideas in the Labour and trade union movement is a massive limiting factor on the potential of the working class. They have to be challenged on every occasion.

Social monarchism is the ideological subordination of the working class to the capitalist class. The very idea that when the new party is being formed we would capitulate to an unprincipled programmatic bloc in the name of ‘Socialist Unity’ beggars belief. No wonder the monarchy has survived for centuries if politics in the working class movement is about the unprincipled programmatic unity by bending the knee to social monarchism.

What went wrong? The united front on YP democracy started to be reconstructed over our heads or behind our backs. It was constructed on the principle of unity between social monarchists and social republicans. The hot-potato term, ‘democratic republic’, does not appear in the official YP statement or in this more radical unofficial ‘Socialist Unity Platform’ statement. Why not? The answer is obvious.

You are invited into a house and to help move the furniture around. Next, somebody removes the roof and the rain starts pouring in. Or is it the royal tears of joy? One week later a new roof of a ‘Socialist Unity Platform’ is agreed. Now the house has another roof and another name - politics for the unity of left social monarchists and social republicans. It has the more polite name ‘Socialist Unity Platform’. Yes, we ran out of this house before it starts to burn down!

Making tactical agreements is one thing. Making a programmatic compromise on democratic republican principles is opportunism. It is one thing to have a united front on YP democracy. But to turn into a ‘Social Monarchist Unity Platform’ is a bridge too far. Are we so desperate to remain in this one big tent constructed at the initiative of the Communist Party that we will support such programmatic unity? Will we be banished to the English left’s republican desert for 40 days and nights? We remain firm for YP having a democratic republican constitution rather than a top-down bureaucracy.

Then the Weekly Worker editors say that I want no unity “with those whom he calls social monarchists”. The term, ‘social monarchist’, describes an actual social contract between a constitutional monarchy and the working class, created during World War II. We are not inventing this, but telling a truth and not sugar-coating it with phrases about the ‘welfare state’. The editors imply that I invented this so-called ‘social monarchy’ just to be beastly to the poor, downtrodden, left social monarchists who love the 1945 constitutional settlement and want to restore it.It is natural that the Weekly Worker editors want to protect their new left monarchist friends in their newly constructed halfway house of ‘socialist unity’. I am condemned for not wanting programmatic unity with social monarchists “or even those who are committed to Socialist Unity as a label of convenience”. This starts to get to the heart of the matter.

This “label of convenience” is surely about rebuilding the Communist Party of Great Britain. The next step, as Jack Conrad was reported as saying in the Weekly Worker, is: “… the Communist Platform will be launched in Liverpool - not merely to bear witness, but to exert an influence in favour of democracy and genuine socialism” (Thesis and synthesis’, November 13).

Steve Freeman
email

My appellation

First of all, thank you for publishing my letter in last week’s Weekly Worker (November 20). I note that the heading/title that you gave it was “Nat separatist” - an appellation that I assume wasn’t meant to be complimentary.

I do wonder why you consider it good practice to act in an uncomradely manner towards people who are trying to engage in an honest debate with yourselves around important issues? As an aside, I wonder how you would characterise an organisation that seldom misses an opportunity to defend the integrity of the UK state.

However, I assume that such an appellation is part of your political response to my calling for the democratic dissolution of the UK union into its constituent nations as a positive resolution of the various national questions and a necessary step towards socialism.

My understanding is that the CPGB is in favour of some sort of federal republic as a solution to these various national questions. I assume that you would wish this to be achieved by the democratic activity of the working class to bring about a voluntary union in such a federal republic. That being the case, I would like you to tell your readers, how are the working classes of England, Scotland and Wales to freely express their desires on the issue, unless they have some form of political autonomy/independence from the UK that allows the issues to be debated freely and democratically?

I suggest that this democratic debate would not take place overnight. I contrast such a process with the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, where the people of Scotland were relentlessly bombarded with unionist and anti-Scottish propaganda by the main unionist parties and some socialists, and was certainly not conducted in an atmosphere of freedom.

I look forward to your responses and continuing the debate.

Bob Goupillot
Republican Socialist Platform

Superb article

Ted Reese’s article last week about the “everything bubble” was superb (‘Capitalism’s structural rot’, November 20). My only criticism concerns the following:

“As the economy deteriorates further, the Fed will have little choice but to once again drop its rate down to zero - as it did for the first time ever in 2009, and then in 2020 - and print money to buy debt from banks and corporations at an even greater rate than it did in 2008 and 2020, when the money supply grew by a shocking 40% in less than two years. The Fed’s coming intervention will again devalue wages and savings, amounting to another - likely greater - round of inflation. Countering inflation will, compared to the past, require limiting bailouts to a smaller proportion of the private sector and making even greater cuts in public spending.”

This is incorrect, I believe, for the simple reason that Federal Reserve interventions are not infinitely repeatable. You can’t do a 2008-style bailout over and over again. If the Fed were to again cut interest rates to zero, markets would panic, the dollar would crash and the central bank would be instantly forced to reverse course. Instead of cutting rates, it would end up raising them.

What Reese’s article shows is that central-bank interventions are increasingly counterproductive and that a massive write-off of financial assets is the only alternative. Markets are gorged on fictitious capital and are fast reaching the point where they can’t take any more.

Daniel Lazare
New York

Jim’ll sneer at it

It remains incredible to me how the professional problematisers of the ‘communist movement’ in Britain have so uncritically re-engaged with Labourism through their fervent support of the Your Party initiative. Earlier this week, the Weekly Worker shared an image on Facebook of a cathedral in Greater Manchester, packed to the rafters with a herd of hungry believers, who were being delivered a sermon from a figure at the altar.

How could the sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued, ruthless criticisers of all that exists miss such a golden opportunity to point to this image as an apt symbol of Labour’s historic roots in Methodism? That an unwavering faith is a core tenet of said ideology and this could be playing out again through Your Party right now?

With characteristic quick wit, I shared the picture, said that the median age was about 65 and it looked like a shot from a Sunday Songs of praise. An RS21 comrade commented that the composition of the hall wasn’t actually that old. I replied, saying that it had loads of people from the New Left generation because YP is a project by the New Left generation.

Of course, this is just a facetious remark with some kernel of truth in it. There probably were some younger people there, but, no matter their age or generation, they are all the children of the New Left, who dutifully carry all of its ideas and instincts forward to new moments and horizons. The egregious exploitation of ‘hope’, the myriad failures and betrayals or even the politics in command do not alter the course, when politics is religion.

As the saying goes: it’s better to laugh than to cry, and I’m done crying about ‘the left’. Like the rest of the working class, I’m either ignoring or laughing at it now.

Jim
Rise member Sheffield

Veganuary

You can’t win an argument you don’t make - which is exactly why this letter is needed. Marxists, committed to solidarity, justice and collective liberation, have every reason to champion veganism as part of a broader struggle for a fairer world. If our politics demand that we oppose exploitation, then we must also confront the vast, normalised exploitation taking place in slaughterhouses and factory farms.

We live in a society where we lavish affection on dogs and cats, yet refuse to extend the same empathy to cows or pigs - animals who are just as intelligent, social and capable of suffering. This contradiction isn’t accidental: it is shaped by a system that encourages emotional closeness to some species, while commodifying others for profit. A Marxist analysis reveals how ideology, culture and tradition masks exploitation, teaching us to support the violence built into our diets.

The experience of slaughterhouses makes this violence impossible to ignore. Visit one if you don’t believe me. Animals endure terrifying, painful deaths, while the workers who perform this labour are among the most exploited in the global economy. High injury rates, psychological trauma and unsafe conditions are widespread. The same profit-driven system that treats animals as disposable units of production also treats workers as replaceable cogs. A Marxist vision that seeks to dismantle oppression cannot ignore this intersection of cruelty and exploitation.

Veganism, then, is not simply a dietary choice: it is an act of solidarity with all beings harmed by capitalist food production. It challenges the belief that profit should outweigh life - human or animal - and rejects the commodification of sentient creatures.

Added to this, Dr Michael Greger’s fantastic book, How not to die, shows how a plant-based diet prevents disease and, from a Marxist perspective, exposes profit-driven industries that prioritise illness, making plant-based eating a form of resistance to capitalist exploitation.

With the season of generosity approaching, a cruelty-free, peaceful Christmas is a meaningful way to practise compassion. Moreover with Veganuary just around the corner, Marxists have a perfect opportunity to explore this ethical shift.

Tom Taylor
email