The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
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I am not a robot: PhD students and exploitation
The majority of scientific research is carried out by PhD students who are not paid wages but a 'stipend' of £15,609 — and this year's increase is not in line with inflation — ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL report on their plight
In the wake of Ann Widdecombe’s murder, JOHN GREEN wonders whether the government will really get to grips with the root cause of these attacks on our MPs
The new PM’s opening addresses offered hope, council homes and reform — but little detail on how any of it will be delivered, warns CLAUDIA WEBBE
Despite the screeching from the right-wing media, Burnham’s speech chimed with the public mood - and socialists should take advantage, says Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO
Scotland's Labour leader cannot continue to evade responsibility for the party's decline, argues LAUREN HARPER
Nature as well as society works dialectically, asserts the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
FOR those of us that believe that people are the future of humanity, robots and machines present a challenge — and an ambivalent prospect. The industrial revolution, in which machines were introduced on a huge scale, changed the relationship of the working and capitalist classes, as well as the relationship between workers and their labour.
The invention of machines has in some ways improved the quality of human lives. However, the net benefit seems impossible to calculate: machines are used, in practice, not to improve lives, but to increase capital. Today billions live half-controlled by machines.
In our last column, we discussed the consequences of automation applied to personal communication in the form of chat bots. Robots of all forms are also big news in the practice of science.
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Nature as well as society works dialectically, asserts the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
ANDY HEDGECOCK welcomes an entertaining, useful guide to the threats and promises of mathematical rationality
MIKE SCOTT assesses the AI threat to jobs in the first of a pair of articles on the problems it poses
JOHN GREEN’s palate is tickled by useful information leavened by amusing and unusual anecdotes, incidental gossip and scare stories