Editorial Charter

Red Pepper is a magazine of information, campaigning and culture. It provides a forum for the left to debate ideas and action. Red Pepper encompasses a broad range of views but its basic editorial standpoint is:

The ideals and aspirations for a classless society organised to meet social and individual needs are more relevant than ever. These ideals hold out an alternative in a world where unemployment and the massive indebtedness of poor nations to the rich has forced millions of people to live in hunger and despair and yet where the resources exist to provide a fulfilled and dignified life for all.

The needs of future generations can only be met if economies become based on sustainable development, preserving natural resources and providing technologies that enhance life. Such economies require a redistribution of present concentrations of private land and wealth under a variety of forms of democratic control.

The eradication of discrimination on the basis of race, gender, nationality, sexuality, religion and bodily or mental ability is as central to socialism as the ending of class exploitation.

Lasting social change to the real benefit of those exploited and oppressed can only come about through their own self- organisation. Such organisation needs to be international as well as national and encompass democratic control over organisations and leaders.

The genuine fusion of red, green, feminist and other radical traditions requires a thorough re-evaluation of many conventional ideas and forms of organisation developed by the left and labour movements. Such a re-evaluation needs to acknowledge that social change will remain a utopian dream without the framework of unity.

Accordingly we stand for:

Internationalism: mutual solidarity between those organising for a better world against the new world order of the multi-nationals, banks and unaccountable inter-governmental institutions.

Sustainable, socially useful production: a redistribution of wealth and waged labour so everyone has the opportunity to earn an independent livelihood. The organisation of production and distribution on the basis of a variety of forms of social ownership and democratic control.

Welfare not warfare: the dismantling of cold war arsenals and institutions and the diversion of resources to meeting basic needs for nutrition, shelter, health, education and autonomy.

Self-determination and democracy: the right of peoples to determine their own future and preferred form of government free from state repression. For an end to English subjugation of the North of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The sweeping away of unaccountable centres of power and the fairest possible system of elections and representation in all institutions of government.