Classics revisited: “The First Workers’ Government” by Gilbert Mitchison (1934)
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What would Socialism in Britain look like? A view from an alternative future

Classics revisited: “The First Workers’ Government” by Gilbert Mitchison (1934)

Institute of Economic Affairs and Kristian Niemietz
Feb 20
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‘Classics Revisited’ revisits a publication from a previous century from a present-day perspective, to show how much, or how little, has changed.

Writing in 1934, Gilbert Mitchison imagined a near-future socialist Britain

When I first joined Twitter around 2014, a popular theory on that platform was that the Cameron government was deliberately defunding the libraries in order to keep the population ignorant. A population which reads is dangerous to the ruling class, the theory went, because they might start asking questions about the structure of society – and once they do, anything can happen! 

With that in mind: I have a suspicion that Tim Martin, the controversial founder-chairman of Wetherspoons, is secretly a comrade, and that he is using his pub empire as a cover operation to distribute subversive literature among the populace. Hear me out.

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