Given that the world seems riven with fighting and wars, is it surprising that many people see conflict between humans as the natural state of things? Yet the vast majority of interactions that take place between human beings on a daily basis are cooperative, peaceful and harmonious.

So why the contrast? It’s because the root cause of modern wars lies not in any natural human inclination towards fighting or violence but in the rivalries between governments acting on behalf of their national capitalist classes for control of raw materials, trade routes and markets. In a stateless, moneyless world of cooperative endeavour – socialism – such rivalries would not exist and the natural human ability to cooperate rather than compete would come into its own.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

This episode examines how UFO narratives have been shaped by secrecy, misinterpretation, and capitalist interests. It discusses the BBC4 documentary “What Are UFOs?”, which revisits pilot Alex Dietrich’s 2004 “tic tac” sighting and the 2015 “gimbal” video, both later explained by experts as camera and motion distortions of ordinary aircraft. Many so-called “unidentified” incidents, the article notes, are better understood as sightings of classified military technology—echoing cases like the 1947 Roswell crash, now known to involve Project Mogul, a Cold War nuclear-detection program. Likewise, triangular UFO reports from the 1980s onward likely stem from experimental U.S. stealth craft tested at secret facilities such as Area 51. The piece argues that the UFO craze thrived amid Cold War paranoia, government secrecy, and Hollywood storytelling, eventually evolving into a profitable pop-culture industry. Ultimately, it concludes that the enduring fascination with UFOs reveals more about capitalism’s power to generate fear and fantasy than about life beyond Earth.

From the October 2025 issue of The Socialist Standard.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

To read more news, views, and analysis please visit: worldsocialism.org/spgb

or, for a free three-issue subscription to The Socialist Standard: spgb.net/podcast

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/world-socialist-radio/

Speaker: Paddy Shannon

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Even in a socialist society the legacy of capitalism would pose deep challenges—particularly in areas tied to personal behavior, health and consumption. The episode points to obesity, processed foods, addictions, pollution, synthetic drugs and industrial toxins as examples of harms created under capitalism, and raises the question of how a socialist world would responsibly manage them without exacerbating individual dependency or imposing authoritarian controls. While acknowledging that some “withdrawal symptoms” might result from removing harmful, profit-driven products, a democratic socialist society would not perpetuate illnesses for profit, and would need to find ethical, collective ways to address lifestyle and health issues.

From the October 2025 issue of The Socialist Standard.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

To read more news, views, and analysis please visit: worldsocialism.org/spgb

or, for a free three-issue subscription to The Socialist Standard: spgb.net/podcast

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/world-socialist-radio/