Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century
 
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21st Century

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social reproduction

Rishi Sunak grinning at a baby, and on right, Sunak at a conservative party conference stage.

The Tories’ pro-natalism agenda

Colin Wilson unpacks the right-wing agendas behind the new Tory childcare policy.

Woman and child in devastated cityscape

I Forgot to Die: thinking through the social reproduction of Palestinian life

Tithi Bhattacharya uses the lens of social reproduction theory to show how the disruption and annihilation of Palestine life is inherent to the Zionist project.

Global crises and global revolts

Shireen Akram-Boshar on multiple global crises and revolts, signalling rising popular rage against the neoliberal capitalist order

Base rate rises, housing crises?

‘We need to fight back together and find solidarity across lines that have previously been staged as battle lines.’

crowds march in London with a big heart shaped NEU balloon

NEU annual conference

Pay strikes, support staff, Ofsted, and Prevent: rs21 members cover the key debates.

LGBT+ activists block out transphobic bigots

Gender Recognition Reform in Scotland

The de-medicalisation of Gender Recognition in Scotland appeared to have majority political support, but as rs21 members Graham Checkley and Leslie Cunningham describe it has revealed a vein of transphobia.

Trans+ Pride, London, 2020

Fighting the US right and its anti-trans crusade

The US right has proposed over 200 bills attacking trans people. Why are they so obsessed? How can trans people and the left fight back?

The actuality of the revolution: exploitation and oppressions

In this extract from Revolutionary Rehearsals in the Neoliberal Age, Neil Davidson suggests ways to draw struggles against oppression and exploitation together.

Image shows a red-filtered photo of a laundrette, empty except for one woman in the background.

The double shift: talking childcare and gender in the pandemic

As many nations re-enter lockdown, Kate Bradley interviews two rs21 members on their experiences with childcare, work and gender during Covid lockdowns.

Capitalism, debt and feminism

Kate Bradley reviews A Feminist Reading of Debt, finding an insightful account of the relationship between debt, gender, and capitalism, as well as examples of how to fight back against debt.

Cover image of Revolutionary Rehearsals

Extracts from Revolutionary Rehearsals in the Neoliberal Age

On the possibility of socialist revolution and the tragedy of the Egyptian revolution.

Image shows four protesters outside Mencap protesting for justice for careworkers in March 2021. Photo credit: Care and Support Workers Organise.

What a way to make a living | Working in care for 16 years

In the latest instalment of our What a Way to Make a Living series, rs21 member discusses their experience of working in care and how wider changes to the care sector have affected the pay, conditions and experience of care workers over time.

Relatives carry a woman who fainted after seeing the body of her husband at a hospital in Ahmedabad, India

Turning a profit from death: Modi’s pandemic response in neoliberal India

The recent upsurge of Covid across India has laid bare the Indian state’s utter failure to protect its population.

Large crowd at Black Trans Lives Matter demonstration in London

Video: building the fightback against transphobia in Britain

Charlotte Powell and Jules Joanne Gleeson speak about what is needed to win trans liberation and defeat transphobia in Britain.

Image shows an internal chamber of the Seimas, the seat of Lithuania's parliament in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Civil partnerships and reproductive rights in Eastern Europe: an interview with Laima Vaige

rs21’s Leslie Cunningham interviews Dr. Laima Vaige, a feminist and LGBTQ activist from Lithuania, on same-sex partnerships in Lithuania, abortion rights in Poland, and LGBTQ people’s experiences across Europe during the Covid crisis.

An image comparing £30 worth of food with a meagre basket of food provided by a Tory-linked private firm to children entitled to free school meals.

Let them starve – food and class in Tory Britain

The Tories and their cronies will let working-class children starve. We don’t just need food for all – we need to take over the food system.

‘We have a right to stop’: interview with a socialist nurse

Whereas the first wave of Covid-19 was an occasion for government-sponsored jingoism, the second wave is seeing health workers abandoned and left to manage the unmanageable.

The exception as the rule: Toronto’s social reproduction organising

In Toronto, community organisers are battling Covid in the shadow of colonial racial capitalism.

Image is an aerial view of a pro-choice rally in Poland, showing thousands of people filling a crossroads, in 2020.

Poland’s feminist uprising

Women in Poland are making their own cause for hope by taking the streets. rs21 spoke with several feminist activists in Polish union Inicjatywa Pracownicza about the recent wave of feminist strikes and protests.

A group of people tending to a small flowerbed under a windowsill.

What a way to make a living – A former mental health care worker

A former care worker details her experiences in residential mental healthcare.

‘I was born a baby not a boy’: sex, gender and trans liberation

Shanice McBean argues for a Marxism with trans liberation at its heart through a materialist analysis of gender and sex.

Defund the police. Disarm the state.

The demand to defund the police should extend beyond reallocating existing government spending. We also need to address the racist ways that the state polices all aspects of working-class life.

What a way to make a living | A personal assistant in social care

Hanna Gál interviews Meriam Mabrouk on working as a personal assistant in social care.

A blue sign in a grassy park that reads 'Keep it moving@

Covid capitalism

In this essay originally published in Spectre Journal, Tithi Bhattacharya and Gareth Dale explore state responses to coronavirus to mitigate the crisis of capital.

revolutionary reflections | Marxism and childhood

Estelle Cooch traces the contradictory history of childhood under capitalism. How do we defend childhood and fight for a world where play and creativity are not limited to children?

Women, Work and ‘Directly Confronting Capitalist Power’

Sue Ferguson discusses socialist-feminism, capitalist childhoods and social struggles today. While conducted weeks previously, this interview goes online amidst a pandemic, exposing and aggravating a crisis of social reproduction.

Empty supermarket shelves in a Sainsbury's store.

Social reproduction in crisis

The coronavirus crisis brings into sharp light capital’s reliance on social reproductive labour, Kate Bradley argues.

The cradle will rock

The social crisis produced by the coronavirus has had a major impact on children and the way their care is organised. Here, a nursery worker reflects on a fortnight of uncertainty and change.

Workers at a call centre in Poland.

What a way to make a living | Introduction

Meet our new article series, What a way to make a living, which will explore the lived realities of work and exploitation under modern capitalism

revolutionary reflections | Value, force, many states and other problems: part 3

In the third and final part of his essay on violence and capitalist social relations, Colin Barker insists that capitalist states cannot be theorised without recognising their multiplicity.