Systematic ideology

The theory they developed was expressed by Walsby himself in his 1947 book The Domain of Ideologies and those involved in the group set up an organisation to propagate their views called the Social Science Association (SSA) which existed from 1944 until 1956, attracting a number of new recruits during the Turner Controversy.

From the 1980s onwards, George Walford, editor of Ideological Commentary and former secretary of the SSA, watered down some of the theory's more obviously elitist elements and even left the SPGB money at the time of his death.

He did this on the grounds that although in his view the party would never help achieve socialism, it did perform a valuable function by demonstrating through its application of critical analysis, logical thought and theory the limitations of other political groups that valued these less highly (a perspective which had informed Harold Walsby's decision in 1950 to surreptitiously rejoin the party through its postal branch and write articles for the Socialist Standard under the pseudonym H. W. S. Bee).

Its basic premise was that people's assumptions and identifications (the factors making up their ideology) are not explicable in terms of material conditions in general and their relationship to the means of production in particular—and are never likely to be.

The more an ideology represses the preferences for family, tradition and so on in favour of social change, dynamism and the pursuit of theory as a guide to action, the fewer in number its adherents are likely to be, with anarchists (or anarcho-socialists) being the smallest of all.

Of particular interest to him are a single group, the non-politicals; and five major political ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, socialism, communism and anarchism) which can be listed as a series, with each seeking to repress its predecessor.