Issue 48 of In Defence of Marxism magazine – the quarterly theoretical journal of the Revolutionary Communist International – is out now!

Recent developments in Artificial Intelligence have provoked a mixture of fear and enthusiasm across the world. In this article, Daniel Morley, examines the claim that AI is ‘conscious’ or ‘superhuman’, draws out the real potential for this technology, and explains how we are really enslaved by the machine under capitalism.

“It’s bananas,” exclaimed Dr Erica Nelson, co-author of a paper on a collection of fuzzy, red smudges of light from distant galaxies picked up by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): “These galaxies should not have had time to form.” And yet, there they are! Massive, mature, insolent galaxies, shining brightly, in complete disregard of the fact that the Big Bang theory says they cannot exist.

Mass firings are occurring across the tech industry, including at online behemoths such as Twitter and Facebook, portending trouble for investors, users, and employees. It is time to take Big Tech under public ownership and workers’ control.

Generation-Z is sometimes referred to as “the doomer generation.” “Doomer” is a popular internet term for someone who believes that societal collapse is imminent, humanity is inherently selfish and cynical, and there is no point in trying to improve anything. Of course, the majority of young people do not take positions quite as extreme as […]

How do we acquire knowledge? Is there a real world beyond our senses? And if so, what is our relation to it? In this important theoretical contribution, marxist.com editor Alan Woods mounts a defence of materialism against idealism and the obscurantist, postmodernist subjectivism popular on university campuses today.

28 November marks the 200th birthday of Friedrich Engels. Rob Sewell commemorates this bicentenary by looking at the vital contribution that Engels made to developing the ideas of Marxism, for which we owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. Pre-orders of Wellred’s new edition of Engels’ The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State are […]

The Communist Manifesto opens with the lines, “A spectre is haunting Europe.” Over 160 years later it appears that the spectre of Marxism is as potent as ever, with supporters and detractors increasing daily. Why is it that an old German philosophy student, buried over 100 years ago in Highgate cemetery in London, excites such […]

Slavoj Zizek has built up a reputation as a respected “Marxist” academic and is seen as somewhat of a “rock star” on the left. However, his recent attempts to translate his theories into concrete policies for a possible future SYRIZA government in Greece reveal that there is nothing revolutionary in his thinking. He is in […]

In the past couple of weeks, Edward Snowden has become the latest in a long line of whistleblowers. It has been revealed that the US National Security Agency has been given backdoor access to telephone exchanges and a long range of online accounts from major service providers, underlining how the state breaches users’ privacy on […]