Skip to content

anti capitalist musings

The rest of the blog

A cylindrical metal tin filled with bright red paint, sitting on a neutral grey surface. The paint is smooth and glossy, with the tin slightly scuffed, giving a utilitarian appearance.
direct action

Red Paint Is Not Terrorism

This is what it comes down to: the Labour government wants to put a group of activists who threw red paint at arms factories in the same legal category as ISIS.

Government Spending

Welfare Over Warfare

As Labour signs off on bombers and benefit cuts, Britain is being reshaped—not by necessity, but by choice. Welfare is being gutted while defence sails on untouched. This isn’t fiscal realism. It’s a war budget in peacetime.

A close-up image of tightly rolled newspapers stacked vertically, with dim, moody lighting and a grainy texture that gives the scene a vintage, noir atmosphere. Some headlines and columns are partially visible, adding to the sense of layered, obscured information.
Book Review

Who Gets to Tell the Story?

Journalism doesn’t need saving by those who made it toxic. Wright names the rot—Murdoch, the lobby, the Oxbridge cartel—and shows how the presses keeps running.

A dark, oil-painted 1950s-style illustration titled “Daddy’s Home” shows a stern, scowling man resembling Donald Trump standing in a doorway, holding a briefcase. He wears a black suit with a red tie and looms under dramatic lighting. To his left, a woman looks frightened, covering her mouth with her hand. In the foreground, a young boy with a furrowed brow glares angrily. The mood is tense and ominous, evoking themes of authoritarian return and domestic dread.
Donald J Trump

Daddy’s Home: Trump, NATO, and the Spectacle of Power

Trump didn’t just return to NATO; he returned as “Daddy”—a role not earned through diplomacy, but conjured through spectacle. Baudrillard warned that when image overtakes reality, politics becomes performance. The bombs may have hit Iran, but the real strike was rhetorical. What mattered wasn’t destruction, it was the appearance of obliteration, the meme of authority, the myth of restored order. In the empire of simulation, the sovereign returns not with treaties, but with merch.

Hand-painted protest signs displayed against a neutral background. One sign on brown cardboard reads “THEY SAY CUT BACK WE SAY FIGHT BACK” in bold black letters. Another, on black card, reads “NO CUTS TO PIP!” in large white letters. A third sign, painted blue and white, says “WELFARE NOT WARFARE,” with the word “NOT” inside a red prohibition circle. The style is bold, rough-edged, and defiant, evoking a DIY protest aesthetic.
Britain

Under Siege: Labour’s Crisis of Vision

Labour won power by promising stability, but what it offers now is paralysis. It has no strategy to counter Farage, no defence against a Tory right fightback, and no imagination to confront the ecological and economic shocks coming fast over the horizon. While Reform sets the agenda and the left reorganises, Starmer retreats into technocratic caution. The government is not leading Britain—it’s managing decline, and doing it badly. Unless Labour finds the courage to confront the forces tearing the country apart, it risks becoming the caretaker of its own collapse.

Front cover of the hardback version of The World After Gaza
Book Review

The World After Gaza – a short review*

Pankaj Mishra’s The World After Gaza is a searing indictment of Western complicity in Israeli aggression, exposing the ideological, economic, and political forces that have enabled the destruction of Palestine.

A stylised graphic illustration of a modern red London double-decker bus on Route 24 to Pimlico, set against a backdrop of classical city architecture and a London Underground sign. The image uses a bold 1968 protest-era colour scheme of red, beige, yellow, and black, with minimalistic, flat shapes evoking vintage political poster design.
Britain

London Is Not Over—You Just Don’t Belong in It

Matt Goodwin’s claim that “London is over” isn’t analysis, it’s a panic attack in column form. Behind the talk of pints and train delays lies the same tired script the Mail rehashes every few weeks, just in time for its readers to rage over their cornflakes. Crime becomes a cipher for immigration, anecdote stands in for data, and the city’s diversity is framed as an existential threat. But what really offends Goodwin isn’t decline—it’s that London no longer looks or sounds like him.

An IDF Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer demolishing a house in the Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada

A Crime Against Humanity in the Making?

Donald Trump’s latest scheme—expelling Gaza’s population to neighbouring countries and transforming the strip into a capitalist playground, exposes the brutal logic of imperialism. With threats to withhold aid from Egypt and Jordan unless they absorb millions of displaced Palestinians, this plan is not just a violation of international law but a blueprint for ethnic cleansing.

Dystopian global war.

A Critique of “A Global War Regime”

Michael Hardt and Sandro Mezzadra’s article “A Global War Regime” examines the interplay between militarisation and capitalist structures, yet, from a Marxist perspective, it overlooks crucial aspects like class struggle, the state’s role, and the ideological mechanisms underpinning militarisation.

M1 Abraham tanks in the desert

Echoes of Iraq: Lessons from a Haunting Legacy

As we approach the anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, there has been a surge in retrospective articles examining the conflict and its aftermath. These introspective pieces provide an opportunity for us to reevaluate the decisions that led to the war, its far-reaching consequences, and the lessons we can glean from this turbulent period in history. By engaging in such reflection, we can better understand the complexities of war and work towards preventing similar catastrophes in the future.

Beyond a US-China-Russia Conflict

As the world continues to shift towards a new global order, the competition between the United States, China, and Russia has become increasingly apparent. While some may argue that conflict between these powers is inevitable, others question the effectiveness of Marxist alternatives in a world that is dominated by state capitalism and imperial tendencies. In this article, we will explore the complexities of the US-China-Russia relationship and examine the limitations of Marxist ideology in addressing the challenges of our current political and economic landscape.