Ideological Commentary |

George Walford: Ideology in the Reviews (53)

September 3, 2012

Systematic ideology presents political movements as expressions of stages in ideological development. In establishing this view it criticises the Marxist view that they arise, fundamentally, from class interest. Daniel Bell reviews Arpad Kadarkay’s George Lukacs: life, thought and politics. [1] Lukacs ranked with Gramsci and Marcuse as a major figure in Western Marxism. His father,… read more »

George Walford: Not Even by Force

May 28, 2012

Pipes R. 1990 The Russian Revolution 1899-1919 London: Collins Harvill. Final judgments about Soviet Russia will remain premature until the authorities there have fully opened their archives and scholars had time to study them, but Richard Pipes does not try to hide his opinions. He sees Lenin as a brutal coward who urged his followers… read more »

George Walford: What’s Wrong with S.I.? (53)

August 11, 2014

Systematic ideology distorts its subject-matter. It cannot avoid doing so, for any attempt even to sketch out, however lightly, the assumptions underlying intentional behaviour attributes to them a firmness, coherence and explicitness they do not possess in their original condition. Other disciplines suffer corresponding difficulties. Sociologists distort their subject-matter when they use questionnaires, for the… read more »

George Walford: Editorial Notes (53)

September 12, 2012

CHRISTMAS cards, Birthday cards, Get Well cards, Mother’s Day cards… IC introduces the GO AWAY! card. Carry a supply, hand them out to bores, pests, and botherers. EDMUND Burke: “the British House of Commons… is… filled with everything illustrious in rank, in descent, in hereditary and acquired opulence, in cultivated talents, in military, civil, naval… read more »

George Walford: Anarchy Now!

September 3, 2012

If there is one thing on which anarchists agree it is that anarchy would be a society of freedom. This has no sooner been said than it has to be qualified: under anarchy all would be free to do as they liked, provided they didn’t interfere with the freedom of others. That sounds innocent enough,… read more »

George Walford: The Two Freedoms

September 3, 2012

When a conservative government clamps down on people who want to publish books about the security forces, when it restricts demonstrations, strengthen the police and imposes a uniform curriculum on the schools, and does all this while claiming to promote freedom, the reformers and revolutionaries find the combination difficult to accept. When socialists, communists and… read more »

George Walford: Anarchism

September 3, 2012

“Anarchism is probably about nine-tenths discussion and one-tenth action.” (Freedom October 1989) The remark appears with a suggestion that anarchists should work for redistribution of goods and services, but the value of such a change is doubtful; it would mean duplicating the efforts of other groups. Ten years ago there were, for example, already some… read more »

George Walford: Graduated

September 3, 2012

Graduated income tax, and effectively unlimited picketing rights for trade unions, were introduced in the 1870s by Disraeli, Conservative Prime Minister (Roy Jenkins in the Sunday Times, 13 May). from Ideological Commentary 46, July 1990.

George Walford: Laws

May 27, 2013

Laws make criminals. True; without laws there can be no crime. But attractive though it sounds, the absence of crime does not make it easier for people to live together. Observation of hunter-gatherer communities, which have no laws, shows that although without crime they yet suffer from individuals who take things from others against their… read more »

George Walford: Police

September 3, 2012

The Independent (30 April) has a front-page article and two inside pages on police corruption. A week or two earlier in the Sunday Times Books section John Stalker, himself a high police official until he got up against the RUC, spoke of police corruption as an accepted fact. The establishment of a police force overcomes… read more »