One of the motivators that leads people to left-wing politics is the desire for a world of peace, without violence. Every day under capitalism we see war, genocide, state brutality and interpersonal abuse, alongside the hidden violence of structural inequality which sees the global poor starve and die of treatable illnesses.
Many political leaders and activists from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jnr have argued that pacifism is the necessary moral and political choice to win a just society. But can we liberate society from oppression and exploitation through only peaceful means?
This session will explore how Marxists understand the violence of the state, capitalist society and the movements which seek to change it.