Editing Bertrand Russell (section)

===Society===
{{Main|Bertrand Russell's political views}}

Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for most of his life. Russell remained politically active almost to the end of his life, writing to and exhorting world leaders and lending his name to various causes. He was a prominent campaigner against Western intervention into the [[Vietnam War]] in the 1960s, writing essays and books, attending demonstrations, and even organising the [[Russell Tribunal]] in 1966 alongside other prominent philosophers such as [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[Simone de Beauvoir]], which fed into his 1967 book ''War Crimes in Vietnam.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=War Crimes in Vietnam |url=https://nyupress.org/9780853450580/war-crimes-in-vietnam |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=NYU Press |language=en-US |archive-date=10 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240910144655/https://nyupress.org/9780853450580/war-crimes-in-vietnam/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Russell argued for a "scientific society", where war would be abolished, population growth would be limited, and prosperity would be shared.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |title=The Impact of Science on Society |publisher=New York, Columbia University Press |year=1952 |chapter=Conclusions |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/impactofscienceo0000russ |chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref> He suggested the establishment of a "single supreme world government" able to enforce peace,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |title=Which Way to Peace? ''(Part 12)'' |publisher=M. Joseph Ltd. |year=1936 |page=173}}</ref> claiming that "the only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |url=https://archive.org/details/humansocietyinet0000russ |title=Human Society in Ethics and Politics |publisher=London: G. Allen & Unwin |year=1954 |page=[https://archive.org/details/humansocietyinet0000russ/page/212 212] |url-access=registration}}</ref> He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a [[world constitution]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Letters from Thane Read asking Helen Keller to sign the World Constitution for world peace. 1961 |url=https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK01-07-B149-F04-022.1.8 |access-date=1 July 2023 |website=Helen Keller Archive |publisher=American Foundation for the Blind |archive-date=3 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703034807/https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK01-07-B149-F04-022.1.8 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Letter from World Constitution Coordinating Committee to Helen, enclosing current materials |url=https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK01-07-B154-F05-028.1.6 |access-date=3 July 2023 |website=Helen Keller Archive |publisher=American Foundation for the Blind |archive-date=3 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703034812/https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK01-07-B154-F05-028.1.6 |url-status=live }}</ref> As a result, for the first time in human history, a [[World Constituent Assembly]] convened to draft and adopt the [[Constitution for the Federation of Earth]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Preparing earth constitution {{!}} Global Strategies & Solutions {{!}} The Encyclopedia of World Problems |url=http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/strategy/193465 |url-status=dead |access-date=15 July 2023 |website=The Encyclopedia of World Problems {{!}} Union of International Associations (UIA) |archive-date=19 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230719215501/http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/strategy/193465 }}</ref> Russell also expressed support for [[guild socialism]], and commented positively on several socialist thinkers and activists.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kleene, G. A. |year=1920 |title=Bertrand Russell on Socialism |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1885165 |journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=756–762 |doi=10.2307/1885165 |jstor=1885165 }}</ref> According to [[Jean Bricmont]] and Normand Baillargeon, "Russell was both a [[Liberalism|liberal]] and a [[Socialism|socialist]], a combination that was perfectly comprehensible in his time, but which has become almost unthinkable today. He was a liberal in that he opposed concentrations of power in all its manifestations, military, governmental, or religious, as well as the superstitious or nationalist ideas that usually serve as its justification. But he was also a socialist, even as an extension of his liberalism, because he was equally opposed to the concentrations of power stemming from the [[private ownership]] of the major [[means of production]], which therefore needed to be put under social control (which does not mean state control)."<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Bricmont |first1=Jean |last2=Norm |last3=Europe |first3=BaillargeonTopics: History Marxism Philosophy Socialism Places: Europe Soviet UnionWestern |date=1 July 2017 |title=Monthly Review {{!}} Bertrand Russell and the Socialism That Wasn't |url=https://monthlyreview.org/2017/07/01/bertrand-russell-and-the-socialism-that-wasnt/ |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=Monthly Review |language=en-US |archive-date=10 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240910144656/https://monthlyreview.org/2017/07/01/bertrand-russell-and-the-socialism-that-wasnt/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Russell was an active supporter of the [[Homosexual Law Reform Society]], being one of the signatories of [[A. E. Dyson]]'s 1958 letter to ''The Times'' calling for a change in the law regarding male homosexual practices, which were partly legalised in 1967, when Russell was still alive.<ref name="GALHA">{{Cite web |last=Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association |date=2 November 1997 |title=Lesbian and Gay Rights: The Humanist and Religious Stances |url=http://www.galha.org/briefing/lgb_rights.html |access-date=17 February 2008 |archive-date=10 June 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020610084110/http://www.galha.org/briefing/lgb_rights.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

He expressed sympathy and support for the [[Palestinians|Palestinian]] people and was critical of [[Israel]]'s actions. He wrote in 1960 that, "I think it was a mistake to establish a Jewish State in Palestine, but it would be a still greater mistake to try to get rid of it now that it exists."<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly – November 2003 |url=https://www.lehman.edu/faculty/rcarey/BRSQ/03nov.russell.htm |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=www.lehman.edu |archive-date=10 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240910144727/https://www.lehman.edu/faculty/rcarey/BRSQ/03nov.russell.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> In his final written document, read aloud in [[Cairo]] three days after his death on 31 January 1970, he condemned Israel as an aggressive [[Imperialism|imperialist]] power, which "wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression." In regards to the Palestinian people and [[Palestinian refugees|refugees]], he wrote that, "No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the [[Middle East]]."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Siddiqui |first=M. S. |date=23 May 2021 |title="Bertrand Russell's Last Message" on Israel and Palestine. |url=https://www.heritagetimes.in/bertrand-russells-last-message-on-israel-and-palestine/ |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=Heritage Times |language=en-US |archive-date=10 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240910145202/https://www.heritagetimes.in/bertrand-russells-last-message-on-israel-and-palestine |url-status=live }}</ref>

Russell advocated for a [[universal basic income]]. In his 1918 book ''Roads to Freedom'', Russell wrote that "[[Anarchism]] has the advantage as regards liberty, Socialism as regards the inducement to work.  Can we not find a method of combining these two advantages? It seems to me that we can. [...] Stated in more familiar terms, the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful...When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free."<ref>{{Cite web |title=A short history of the Basic Income idea {{!}} BIEN — Basic Income Earth Network |url=https://basicincome.org/history/ |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=basicincome.org |date=22 January 2015 |archive-date=3 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230103180555/https://basicincome.org/history/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In "Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday" ("Postscript" in his ''Autobiography''), Russell wrote: "I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Bertrand |title=The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1944–1969 |publisher=Little, Brown |year=1968 |page=330}} Published separately as 'Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday' in ''Portraits from Memory''.</ref>