Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Ireland and Economic Depression

Ireland and Economic Depression
Paddy Hackett


The world capitalist economy has plunged into a sustained economic depression. The signs are that this depression shall be deep and prolonged. The principal way by which capitalism can come out of the depression is by reducing both the living standards and employment conditions of the working class. The only other solution is social revolution involving the seizure of power by the working class from the capitalist class necessitating the establishment of a world communist federation. Because of the peculiarities of the Irish situation: booms powered by bubbles and a Fianna Fail dominated government that instead of storing up its surplus revenue, in anticipation of future contingencies, largely squandered it. These funds were largely used to bribe the electorate into voting the Fianna Fail party back into power. It was also used to support its capitalist friends such as Irish property developers and bankers.

Since the outset of the depression the same Irish government has been engaged in a sustained attack on the working class. It endeavours to achieve this by splitting the working class --pitting worker against worker. By maximising the fragmentation of the working class it is rendered more vulnerable to a crushing defeat. Immigrant workers are split from indigenous workers; public workers from private workers; female workers from male workers; unskilled workers from skilled workers etc. In its current attack the government has singled out the public sector workers. To achieve a cutback in the income of these workers it has actively led a sustained campaign against them entailing the polarisation of pubic and private worker. This is the basis from which it has imposed a substantial pension levy on the public worker. Success here will render it easier for the state to reinforce this cutback with follow up cutbacks in the incomes of the entire working class. Its declared intention of widening and further increasing income tax within the next month is irrefutable evidence of this. The government also hopes to continue the reorganisation of the public sector work force. "An Bord Snip" with its mandate to focus on slashing employee numbers and spending within the public service forms part of this plan. The consequent reorganisation and diminution of the public service will lead to a weaker and harder pressed workforce. It is hoped to ultimately reduce the public service worker more or less to the same condition as that of the average factory or shop worker. Then capitalism will have a cheaper and more docile workforce. The European bourgeoisie is watching this conflict with keen interest. Cowan will be Europe’s new hero should he succeed in defeating the public sector workers and indeed the working class in Ireland as a whole. His success may provide them with encouragement to attempt to impose similar conditions on their own public sector. The present struggle in Ireland is not just a local matter. It also has a European dimension that may influence events in the European Union.

In view of this it is imperative that the working class meet this capitalist onslaught, led by its state, with stiff resistance and the correct politics. Working class action must involve strikes culminating in the general strike together with the setting up of workers' councils for the organisation and administration of economic, social and political life. In the struggle the conservative unions must be replaced by communist unions. In connection with this communists must struggle to set up workplace committees as a means of organising against the bosses and the leadership of the conservative trade unions. In solidarity with the working class in Ireland the European working class must strenuously resist their own ruling class too in the struggle for power.

The government has been actively encouraging the mass immigration of workers into the Irish Republic on an unprecedented scale. This is but a further way of promoting more division within the working class. Immigration is a social engineering device intended to drive down the price of labour power through competition. It is also intended to hinder the prospects of the working class in Ireland evolving into a unified revolutionary class force. The working class based in Ireland must overcome this division by endeavouring to create unity among migrant and indigenous sections of the working class in Ireland on a principled revolutionary basis.

None of the political elements represented in the Oireachtas can offer a solution other than essentially the same solution as that of the Fianna Fail Party. They are each bourgeois in character including the Labour Party, the Green Party and Sinn Fein. They simply attempt to dress the same solution up in different clothes. They all actively support a solution to the capitalist crisis at the expense of the working class. The leader of the Labour Party, Eamon Gilmore, has expressed his opposition to strike action and does not reject a pension levy in principle. Neither is he, in principle, against increased taxation being imposed on the working class. He merely calls for “fairness” in taxation. The Labour Party and Fine Gael claim that cutbacks in the living standards of the working class are necessary and correct. Their difficulty with Fianna Fail is their alleged lack of fairness together with the unscrupulous way in which they are imposed. The opposition of Fine Gael and Labour hinges on matters of ethics. Fine Gael and Labour like to present themselves as corruption free in contrast to Fianna Fail. They oppose the form as opposed to the substance of Fianna Fail's politics. They thereby present a false opposition since ethically there can be no essential difference between the parties. If Fine Gael and Labour were in power as much as Fianna Fail they would exude just as strong a smell as the latter. Again this is a rather derivative difference of no real significance. In effect the main party in power and the opposition are similar. Consequently the Dail opposition concentrates its opposition largely around matters of corruption, ethics and competence. These constitute matters of secondary importance that obstruct the healthy development of class politics.

The voluntary reduction of salaries of high profile figures from the business and media world is merely a ploy designed to exert further pressure on the working class to accept living standards.

The growing army of the unemployed means that the production of surplus value, total profits, has diminished. This means that fewer resources exist from which to pay for state expenditure. This forces the state to cut spending, increase taxes and borrowing. Borrowing is a form of future taxation with a difference. Interest must be paid which amounts to an addition to future taxation. This constitutes a further deduction from total profits which further adversely affects investment conditions. This tends to bring about a downwards spiral. Consequently the Irish economy is forced to further contract in order to reproduce the conditions for recovery. Spending cuts, taxation and borrowing must be further increased.

The present depression is a result of the bourgeoisie's refusal to let the economic system follow its "natural" cyclical downswing whereby capitalism cleanses itself of less profitable forms of capital. This leads to a restoration of profitability and greater sustained economic activity. Instead the capitalist class through the medium of its state modified the downswings through counter-cyclical interventionist activity. The ruling class fear a generalised depression because its destabilising consequences may lead to revolution. In general the more the cyclical behaviour of capitalism is modified and prevented from completing its "natural" cycle the greater, more intense the crisis. The evidence suggests that the capitalist social system has plunged into depression. No amount of state intervention can prevent it from assuming an acute form this time round. We have now entered a new historical epoch. Politics can never be the same again. Under these new conditions of sustained and deep stagnation the class struggle sharpens. Consequently capitalism's obsolescent character becomes increasingly visible and thereby the need to abolish it.

At present the leadership of the working class (trade union and political leadership) has been offering solutions intended to rescue capitalism from its demise. Capitalism can only be rescued at the expense of the working class. There exist no significant political forces advocating a solution necessitating the transcendence of capitalism. Communists must endeavour to create a communist current within the working class. This can begin by organising circles of communist intellectuals. Such a communist intelligentsia conducts an intellectual struggle to propagate communist doctrine. As this intelligentsia develops and spreads its influence it has the basis for linking into the more advanced sections of the working class to form a communist strand within the working class. This is the basis on which a revolutionary communist movement can be built.

Under the present critical conditions a communist movement would draw up an action plan as the basis for struggle against this sustained attack on the working class.

Economic Depression and Fianna Fail

Economic Depression and Fianna Fail
Paddy Hackett


The following is my opinion:The Fianna Fail party has a strategy. It is my opinion that Brian Cowan, as Taoiseach, is being increasingly viewed by the Fianna Fail Party as a transitory leader of the Party. The Party will sacrifice him to save its skin. He will be saddled, so it hopes, with all the blame concerning the harsh decisions that are currently being made by the Fianna Fail led government. Consequently, in true Stalinist fashion, he will be eventually sacrificed to "the masses" to save the Party.

When he has done the “dirty work” he will be shouldered with the blame for Fianna Fail’s lack of popularity. He will then be replaced by a new and “shining” leader. Since many of the nasty decisions will have already been taken by Cowan, the new leader will appear as free from such blame --a smiling and kinder figure –a people’s person.

It is hoped in this way that any popular support lost by the party will be recovered as a result of the election of its new leader. The mass media will give her/him the customary honeymoon period. In this way it is hoped that the party will win the next general election. Fianna Fail hopes to be able to claim too that it saved the nation from collapse under very adverse global economic conditions. In this way Cowan, as a figure from Greek tragedy, will have fallen on his own sword. The Party, by distancing itself from Brian Cowan, will have saved the day by exclusively holding Cowan responsible for having imposed harsh policies on the working class.

There is no better party than Fianna Fail to successfully appeal to patriotism as a device for rallying the Irish people behind it.Paddy Hackett

Money Printing

Money Pumping
Paddy Hackett


“It is crucial now that the world - and Ireland- creates inflation, not deflation. If we haven’t the stomach to print money(which would be by far the easiest exit route), we need to turn on the taps through government borrowing” (This Is Not The Time ToPanic by David McWilliams: Sunday Business Post 15th March, 2009)

In his comments on current economic conditions David McWilliams suggests that under the present economic downswing the Irish state can liberally borrow funds to compensate for the steep fall-off in revenue from taxation. It also suggests that this wholesale borrowing will largely relieve the Irish economy of the problems it has been experiencing as a result of the economic downturn. He also claims that this mass borrowing will prepare the Irish economy for taking advantage of the pickup in the global economywhen it comes.

David is a victim of the illusory way in which capitalismpresents itself. He seems to think that the Irish economy can essentiallyavoid the effects of the global economic downturn by borrowing. If this is the case then there need never be recessions since economies can merely borrow their way out of them. Borrowing thenis the the agency that prevents economic recession. But it is just this borrowing that has largely helped turn boom into bubble withits current deflation. The very borrowing of the banks and privatecompanies in Ireland and elsewhere was a factor in intensifyingthe economic conditions that created speculative practices. It is only at a particular stage in the downswing that the injection of cash into the economy can precipitate recovery. At this stage the economic slump has effectively bottomed outrendering it ready for take off. If it was as easy as David suggests there would never be recessions and there would be no need toabolish capitalism and replace it with communism.

Little Confidence left in the Unions

Little confidence left in the Unions
Paddy Hackett


The rejection of strike action by the membership of IMPACT is a reflection of at least one thing.The action was voted down because many of its members are unhappy witht the way in which the IMPACT official leadership and the official leadership of the trade union movement as a whole is leading its membership. There is little confidence in the existing union leadership. The character of the trade union leadership is such as to obstruct the working class in the struggle to defend living standards. They have failed miserably to effectively engage in the propaganda war against the working class. Trade union representatives hardly exploit the media to get the correct message across. Consequently they let diverse opposition elemeents take over tv, radio and print. Just listen to the Joe Duffy show to get a evidence of this.Leading up to the big march in Dublin the ICTU had hardly did much to actively publicise and encourage attendance at the march. They prefer to engage in secret talks with government and employer representatives concerning so called social partnership. Social partnership is merely a means to restrain wages and force workers to work more intensively. The union leadership has been deliberately damping down opposition against the government in the hope that it will reward them with a privately negotiated deal to effectively betray workers.Neither Fianna Fail, the Green Party, Fine Gael nor The Labour Party are against making workers pay for the economic depression. Each only differ as to how to make them pay. Even the trade union leadership is not against the imposition of taxes on workers nor cuts in wages. They merely call for fairness. But "fairness" means nothing. It is merely a word designed to fool the workers into accepting cuts in living standards.The working class needs to break with the union leadership replacing it with a leadership that advances its class interests.Paddy Hackett

The Colonisation of Sinn Fein/IRA

The Colonisation of Sinn Fein/IRA
Paddy Hackett


Contrary to what Kieran Allen claims in his article, The Death of Radical Republicanism, the conflict within the six counties of Ireland led to the strengthening rather than the weakening of the Northern state. It was the ongoing strengthening of the six county state that shaped the conditions facilitating the making of The Good Friday Agreement (The Sunningdale Agreement dusted down). The IRA bombing campaign provided the reactionary environment for the promotion of the growing strength of the six countystate. The Orange state, an integral part of the British state, constituteda decisive obstacle standing in the way of the radicalisation of the massesin the North, in Ireland and Britain itself. The Provos played a key role incontributing to the fortification of that very obstacle. Instead of helpingto shrink and abolish it, the Provos helped make it stronger. In generaltheir theory, programme, strategy and tactics strengthened the six countystatelet, the 26 county state and the and the British state itself. Had theNorth/ South talks between Lemass and O Neill been free to proceed in theearly seventies, who knows, there may by now exist an independent 32 countydemocratic Irish republic. It has been the very strengthening of thenorthern state, as an integral part of the UK state, that has facilitatedthe reaching of The Good Friday Agreement and prevention of theestablishment of a formally independent 32 county Irish Republic. In thatsense the politics of the Provos promoted the sustenance of the Orange statewhile preventing the evolution of a 32 county bourgeois democratic republic.The strengthening of the two states North and South of the border renderedthe emergence of a formally independent 32 county democratic Republicimpossible. The result was victory for British Imperialism over the nativeIrish bourgeoisie. The IRA had become so weak in relation to British imperialism's six county state that it had no alternative but to surrenderin the form of TGFA. The Good Friday Agreement constitutes a definitivedefeat for the Provos. The only distinction between Trimble and Paisley isthat the latter was able to extract the maximum terms of surrender from theProvos. What was a defeat for the Provos has been paraded as their victory.The Provo movement had become so weakened and demoralised that McGuinnessand Adams were able, with ease, to win the vast bulk of its rank and fileover to a position of surrender. Indeed the Provos had become so weakenedthat the British ruling class itself had turned the Provos into a colonyserving the class interests of imperialism.What was imperialism's (the British state's) strategy for surrender of theProvos was presented as the IRA's brainchild (TGFA). Indeed so much had the colonisation of the IRA by the British ruling class progressed that it was increasingly difficult to ascertain whether significant elements in the leadership ofthe IRA were agents of British intelligence. The Donaldson affair is an indicator ofthis.There is an entire history here that has yet to be made public. Indeed thehistory of the Provos is the history of its take-over by the British state. Her majesty's Sinn Fein/IRA has been transformed from a petit bourgeois republican movement to a reactionary bourgeois party.Incidentally I was once a very active member of Sinn Fein who believed SinnFein could be turned into a Marxist party. However my experience of therepublican movement and growing political consciousness taught me that thiscould never be. There were others, within Sinn Fein at the time, who hadentertained a similar utopianism.

Terrorism and Leftism

Terrorism and Leftism
Paddy Hackett


The prevalent view within left liberal to radical left circles is that the Mujahadeen and later the Taliban including Bin Laden are a product of the CIA, Pakistani ISI and Saudia Arabia. These facts are used to morally discredit Washington and its so called war against terrorism. They also suggest that a large scale intensive war involving bombing will do more harm than good. It will, they argue, lead to further terrorism and even increase regional and perhaps even global instability. They claim that the civilian population will suffer most --thousands to die from bombs, guns, starvation and disease. They argue that instead of seeking revenge through mass terror Washington should seek to identify the conditions that determine terrorism. Washington, they say, must learn that its foreign policy is the source of this terrorism. By eliminating these conditions they eliminate terrorism and many other problems.The above leftist/liberal conception constitutes a rather utopian notion of capitalism. It suggests that imperialism can adopt a rational procedure that will lead to the elimination of terrorism within capitalist society. Such is an anti-communist position. It is clear that if it is possible, under capitalism, to eliminate the conditions that breed terrorism then communism is superfluous and not a historical necessity. It also implies that terrorism is a problem for capitalism and that it will benefit from terrorism's demise.This utopian perception also suggests that the issue of terrorism is a moral question as opposed to a political question --a class question. It is a perception that tacitly suggests that US imperialism's war against terrorism is morally questionable given that it created the very terrorist leader, Bin Laden, it now wants to eliminate.This argument of liberal and left intellectuals ignores the significant fact that the spurious war against terrorism is merely a hegemonic figleaf for imperialism's attempt to enhance itself geopolitically in its relentless struggle to both defend and advance its class interests. The latter is the essential morality underlying its policies.
In other words it possesses no real concerns over the morality of terrorism. It merely deploys moral ideology as a means of disguising its real aims and the politics that flow from them. It will create an Osama Bin Laden today and eliminate one tomorrow. Its actions merely exist in the context of money relations --the maximisation of profit. It exploits Sebtember 11th within the same (monetary) context. It cares no more nor less about the conduct of a Bin Laden than it does about this or that fireman killed in the collapse of the WTC skyscraper. Each is viewed within the perspective of exploitation, profit and its geopolitical conditions.Capitalism, as a system of exploitation and oppression, inevitably produces the conditions that lead to terrorism. Consequently to eliminate the conditions that breed terrorism is to eliminate capitalism. Capitalism is the condition that leads to terrorism. Capitalism cannot eliminate itself.Since it will not eliminate itself it is left with no alternative but the use of force in its attempt to eliminate terrorism. Its use of force is somewhat successful in containing terrorism. If it were not Washignton would not use it.Clearly its limited success has a contradictory character. While it contains terrorism it also breeds it. The genesis of Taliban constitutes the concentrated essence of that contradiction. While capitalism wilfully created the Taliban it now seeks to contain it and even crush it. Even if it succeeds in this it will need future Talibans of one sort or another. A similar situation can repeat itself again. This is in the nature of capitalism. Capitalism both creates and destroys terrorism. This is capitalism inherently contradictory character --its albatross.The crucial point is that terrorism is not essentially a problem for capitalism. Capitalism produces terrorism because it needs it. Its validity is viewed within a functionalist logic -- this is its morality. Capitalism, in itself, is not concerned if terrorism is responsible for the deaths of over 6000 people in the US. Indeed sometimes it exploits such atrocities. These deceased mean no more to it than the deaths of a similar number in any third world country. This is why the argument from the liberal/left intelligentsia that a US worker has more value than a third world worker is false. To capitalism one is of no more significance than the other --their significance is their insignificance. Capitalism is only concerned about them from the standpoint of its exploitation of their labour power. Any stronger response by the US bourgeoisie concerning US deaths is merely an appearance designed to deceive in the interests of maintaining and increasing its exploitation and oppression of the world working class.Capitalism needs terrorism to obstruct the development of a communist working class that can effectively challenge and overthrow capitalist relations. Terrorism is an expression of the absence of communism within the working class. As communism grows within the working class terrorism will tend to correspondingly diminishes. However under conditions of a growing communist movement the bourgeoisie deliberately fosters terrorism as a device to disarm and undermine the growing communist movement. Consequently Bush's declaration of war on terrorism is a war that he cannot and does not want to win. If anything what Washington seeks is the control of terrorism in the interests of capital. His politics has been the protection of Washington regulatated terrorism by attacking terrorism antagonistic to his imperialist interests.To conclude: The only way terrorism can be eliminated is by replacing capitalist social relations with communist ones. This means social revolution. I care about the thousands of workers killed and injured in Afghanistan and Manhattan. This is why I am a communist.

The State and Capital

The State and Capital
Paddy Hackett


There is a tendency to divorce the capitalist state from the economic system that corresponds to it. Although there may appear to be justification for this as a theoretical device it can only be justified in a very qualified sense. The point is that it is a false abstraction to create such a theoretical divorce on the whole and especially ideological to create such a divorce inside social reality itself.Although Marx produced a critique of political economy based on value relations capital has never existed independently of the political state whether that state had an absolutist, liberal democratic or fascist form. It is impossible for capital to exist in any serious way independently of the state. Consequently we cannot justifiably discuss and succeed in understanding both the real nature of the state and capital independently of each other --the one cannot exist without the other. This being so the wage worker can be analysed in the context of the contradictory unity of citizen and wage worker.The legal relations assume the existence of the state. The exchange between labour power and variable capital is impossible outside a legal framework. This same legal framework is indispensable for the operation of the laws of capital. Consequently the operation of the law of value under capitalism presupposes the existence of the state. This being so it makes no sense to analyse either capital or the state independently of each other. To produce an analysis of the state on a stand alone basis make no sense and simply misrepresents both the real nature of the state and indeed capital itself.This being so any attempt to promote the view, neo-conservatism, that market relations can serve as regulator in the distribution of wealth makes no sense. If the law of value, as is commonly believed by many Marxists, is the regulator of the reproduction of wealth then the need for a state is superfluous and at best merely supplementary --a mere luxury. The operation of the law of value cannot be explained outside the context of the state. The problem is that communism has not been able to achieve an analysis or critique of the state in the context of the contradictory unity between capital and state. Probably the nearest thing to it has been Marx --Lenin here, we can completely ignore. The latter added nothing new to Marx/Engels understanding of the state and indeed virtually ignored its contradictory relation to the laws of capital.The law of value means that commodities must sell at their values. In the absence of a state and its legal system this law could not exist in any real sense. In the absence of a state the use values in question would never become commodities since the sellers, if anything, would have their products stolen at gun or sword point. Similarly under modern capitalism in the absence of a state the supermarkets would not be able to sell at market prices since the potential buyers would simply liberate the goods from the supermarkets. In short the equalisation of the rate of profit would be inapplicable. Consequently the law of value in the form of the laws of capital could not exist and neither too could capital. Without the state capitalism could be. Indeed, except for the opprobrium with which the term is associated, it might be incorrect to describe all capitalist societies as state capitalism.Instead of the laws of capital anarchy would obtain whereby society would reduce itself to one of perpetual conflict between different elements within the population.This being so it is incorrect to suggest that industrial capitalism emerged as a result of the development of commodity production. To posit economic history in this way is to suggest that economic development and transformation is a history that takes place essentially within the framework of economics. The decisive point is that the development of commodity circulation proceeds within the indispensable context of the state. Implicit then in the development of capitalism and the operation of its laws is the existence of the legal system underlined by state force. Implicit in capital is force and violence. Capital contains within itself violence. It is this aspect of capital that is omitted from analysis of capital through the confining of analysis to the context of economics and even political economy. Political economy is a bourgeois category that mystifies the relation in capital that implies violence. Political economy is a bourgeois mystifying category. It is the traditional position of Marxism to invest the category political economy with an objective scientific neutral category. Lets remember that Marx's Capital was intended as a critique of political economy. The bourgeois category political economy must be critiqued. As I indicated there has been traditionally a tendency to assume, despite Marx's Capital, that political economy is a neutral category and that the problem is the specific form of political economy (Ricardo, Malthus etc.). What is ignored is that Marx's Capital was not political economy but a critique of it as, perhaps, an ideology. The category political as are the categories value, commodity, capital, prices etc are reifications.What is particularly ignored is that the category political economy contains a violent aspect. It is this violent aspect that must be explicated since it is this aspect that is largely ignored by both left and right. The traditional tendency has been to regard the political economy as clean and at most merely an ideological construct in need of theoretical correction. In short critique of political economy is experienced as an exercise in mere pedagogy in which its ideological character is misconceived as one of mere distorted thought requiring rational adjustment.Capital, then, implies the political state. As capital develops the state is correspondingly developed. There obtains an internal unity between capital and state. Buried within capital is the state –state capital. As capital develops the state issues out of it. It is a mistaken abstraction to focus on capitalist development to the exclusion of the state.Capital as a specific social relation of production contains within it a relation of violence to develop out of it in the form of the state. However this dialectical relationship is not simply a logical one –the capital logic school. History is of decisive importance here. The form of the state has its source in the capital relation . However how that form specifically develops is a function of history and thereby the class struggle. Capital then implies a specific form of violence, of force, in the form of the political state. Capital then implies relations of violence and consequently creates an entire structure of violence in the context of politics --the state. Social relations in the form of capital are violent in character, are state in character, are political in character. Capital is a necessarily violent social relation. The mistake is made of presenting capital as essentially a violent-free relation observing economic laws that are equally violent free. Economics is consequently viewed as a violent free zone --a merely academic exercise in need of theoretical transformation (Althusser).Since economics has a violent aspect to it and is concerned with inherently violent social relations the character of that violence and its form of development must be made explicit. The violence residing in economics must be highlighted. In short capital and economics are forms of violence –reified forms of violence. One might go as far as to assert that the state and capital are a form of the class struggle.Consequently the only way to transcend political economy is by abolishing the violence inherent in it. This entails the abolition of the violence inhering in social relations in the form of capital. Such a process of abolition constitutes the class struggle. This means that the abolition of this violence by abolishing state capital is a historical process rather than a logical (capital logic) process. However the abolition of violence is tantamount to the abolition of the class struggle. This being so the violence inhering in capital must be analysed and highlighted every bit as much as is value character and what that represents. But we must immediately correct ourselves: The analysis of the value form is simultaneously an analysis of its violent aspect too. Capital cannot be correctly analysed without a corresponding analysis of its violent aspect including its development in the form of the state. It is not so much the content or the function of the state that we are concerned with here. Instead we are chiefly concerned with the form of the state. We establish the form in which the state appears under state capital before we can investigate its content and corresponding functions. Indeed the content of political states may tend to be of a universal nature.Traditionally capital and even the state has been analysed in this violent free way –in a form that is free of the class struggle. Capital tends to be analysed as if it exists independently of the class struggle. Indeed capital is a product of the way in which the class struggle specifically developed in Europe. Indeed in so far as violence and class struggle is introduced into the discussion this is done in a marginal, external almost incidental way.Capitalism, then, is a violent conflict ridden system of production. Consequently many of its problems are resolved in the form of violent class struggle --chiefly by way of political violence. Under capitalism the form chiefly assumed by violent struggle is politics. Politics is a fetishised form of violent struggle. At the same time it must not be forgotten that economics is a form of violent struggle too. Economic development is a systemic form of violence and struggle.Capitalism, then, is a form of organised violence. The development of capitalism is the form of development of organised violence which expresses itself in the form of the development of the state –the form of development of the class struggle. Given that capitalism is essentially a form of organised violence it follows that despite its positive aspect it is still by definition a primitive savage system of the reproduction of wealth.History in general then has entailed the development of violence. History has been the history of violent class struggle. Violence is the history of its development. Auschwitz and Hiroshima are expressions as to what new forms violence has been developed under capitalist society. Under capitalism violent struggle is both endemic and systemic taking on a dazzling spectrum of forms: from verbal abuse to physical abuse to genocide.Given the inherently violent character of capitalism it follows that the study of the state is central to the study of capitalism. It is here that violence achieves its quintessentially capitalist character and its chief form --its political form. Violence, then, assumes the political form. Politics constitutes the mystification of violent struggle. Violent class struggle as politics as the state achieves a highly developed, mystifying and veiled form. Consequently violence under daily capitalist existence is not recognised. Its source in capitalism is especially not recognised.Despite saying this capital assumes the existence of the state. Capital could not come into being in the absence of the state --in the absence of violence. Capitalism requires violence -organised violence- for its existence. However having established itself capital is then the form by which violence is organised and further developed. Under capitalism violence assumes an alienated form which mystifies it and makes it more difficult to highlight. Capitalism is shot through with violence. Capitalism can go no where without holding hands with violence. Capital both assumes and is the source of its development. Capitalism is the dynamic underlying both the development of both violence and the state. Law is the mystified form assumed by violence under capitalism. The state is the mystified form assumed by violence under capitalism.The state is an abstraction. (The state is the class struggle in abstract form.) The state is a form of alienation from society as community. The state is community abstracted from society. The state is the form in which relations between people assume the form of a thing; relations between people (the class struggle) assume the form of relations between things.Capital is an abstract social relation that stands independently of people. It is community in the form of an abstraction. Capital, as abstract social relation, implies organised violence in the form of the state. It implies organised force in the form of an abstraction. Capital assumed the existence of the state. Capital cannot exist without a state. It is therefore quite mistaken to view the state as a structure that is articulated onto capital in an external fashion. There is an internal unity between the capital and the state.Capital can never operate freely --freed from the trammels of the state. if capital were able to operate freely strictly according to its own laws it would undermine its existence as capital. This is why those who say that the market should be the regulator so that capital is state free are presenting a false negative utopia. This is a bourgeois ideology that in a mystified way seeks improve the conditions for profit maximisation at the expense of the working class. It is an ideology that pretends to seek the eliminate the state from capitalist reproduction when its aim is nothing of the sort. It simply seeks the restructuring and reorganising of the state in such a way as to improve conditions for profit maximisation at the expense of the masses. It at most seeks to downsize the state where it is not to the advantage of capital to preserve a bigger state.The impression is given too that the laws of capital operate purely according to a logic of their own. This in general can never be the case even in the absence of social welfarism. The law of the equalisation of profit and tendency of the rate of profit to fall can never act in unadulterated form. There will always be state elements at play that prevent the free-play of these laws. This is because the development of capital is not a logical process as the capital logic people believe. This is because the development of the capital relation is historical and not a forms of functionalism. The necessary existence of state elements mixed in with capital is an expression of the existence of capital as an historical matter thereby entailing specificity and even contingency. The development of capital is not a logical or rational process freed from the complexities of the class struggle with history and thereby specificity stick all over it. Even in the 1929 crisis the state modified the free play of these laws of capitalism. Despite this fact it must be borne in mind that the laws still work their way through in the last instance. However they operate as tendencies that work there way through more thoroughly at one time than at another. There can then be no simplified description that accurately depicts the operation of the laws of capitalism in their pure form. Any account of what is happening in the real world will tend to be complicated by a manifold of facts all impinging on the situation as a conjunctural one. This is why it is so difficult to explain what is happening in the contemporary world and partly why there are a manifold of conflicting accounts of how the situation developed. It is a very difficult task to analyse and provide an account of the contemporary situation in the world today. Failure by communism to produce an accurate account of the world today is not necessarily a reflection on the bankruptcy of communism. It must be remembered that in the past no such account was ever provided of life under industrial capitalism. All we can strive to do is get close to such an account. It is the incapacity to provide an all embracing account that makes it so difficult to provide the correct strategies and programmes. It also helps explain why there is a manifold of conflicting tendencies within the radical left. Indeed a complete explanation would imply closure and thereby the absence of history.In every conjunctural situation, besides the basic prevailing tendencies of capital accumulation, there obtain a multitude of factors internally related to these tendencies at work that complicate the situation and render it a daunting task to provide an accurate account of the situation in all its ramifications. This is what make the process historical and not logical or functionalism. However the laws of capital provide a basic thread that makes this task more achievable. It is this thread that the bourgeoisie are incapable of picking up.The state is necessary for capital’s existence. Capital cannot exist in the absence of legal relations. Law and justice are necessary for capital’s existence. Consequently the judiciary, the courts, the lawyers, the police and the prisons are necessary aspects of its existence. Without these features of the state capital could not exist. Consequently the legislature is necessary in order to create laws. The army is necessary to protect one capitalist country against another –to protect one capital against another and against the masses. The bureaucracy is necessary to organise these various structures and relations guaranteeing their forming an integrated whole. The more apparently benevolent social aspects of the state are designed to assist in the maintenance of the working class in a condition that suits capital’s interests and to promote passivity in the more oppressed strata of the working class. This has all to do with the specific character of the class struggle and the corresponding balance of class forces. Other aspects of the state are designed to generally preserve an environment that allows individual capitals to operate on a level playing field, so to speak –to contain capitalist fraud, cheating and robbing which when not contained can prove detrimental to capital as a whole and even lead to the destruction of capital.All these functions of the state are necessary aspects of the existence of capital. Capital cannot exist without them. Capital cannot exist without this kind of state, the capitalist state. Capital as a social form logical and historically entails the form of the state. Capital, as a social relation of production, produces the class struggle, violence, in the form of the state. The task is to investigate the specific form of the capitalist the state. The more capital develops the more the political state develops. This state is a sophisticated form of organised violence necessary to capital’s existence –indeed a necessary aspect of capital’s existence. The state is a pervasive form of organised violence transformed into a vast structure of alienated (sublimated) violence existing in diffuse mystified form. The capitalist state is a vast structure of hidden or veiled violence.The character of the capitalist economic system is such as to present appearances that contradict its essential nature. Its essential nature is mystified. Consequently appearances are mistaken for reality. This means that the mass of the population misunderstand the real nature of capital and its political state. Consequently they mistakenly perceive capitalism as a natural rational, even logical, system that makes sense. This ideology that capital spontaneously generates reinforces the masses acceptance of the system including the state. Spontaneously produced bourgeois ideology further veils the hidden violence of the state –further mystifies that organised violence in the form of the state. Consequently it reinforces the active participation of the masses in their own violent oppression; the active participation of the masses in the perpetuation of the capital relation and organised violence in the form of the state. This produces a situation whereby the masses actually actively participate in their own oppression through the medium of the state. It may even go as far as some elements of the masses even occupying active oppressive positions within the state itself. The state form as a form of the class struggle is a fetishised form of that struggle. As the state it hides the class struggle by actively seeking to present class struggle in a form that obscures it by presenting the members of the working class as citizens. Citizen is a reified category that conceals the existence of class.Given appearances contradicting and concealing the essence of things under capitalism it follows that capital is a concealing or veiling of being –of social being and thereby social being in the form of the class struggle. But capital’s characteristic of veiling social being simultaneously provides the form by which being is unveiled, highlighted or unconcealed. Capital then while concealing also unconceals through this concealing. Capital yields truth by lying. This is its contradiction. Social being then through capital conceals and at the same time reveals its essence –its truth. The truth or essence of social being is revealed through the development of capital.Both the state and ideology are forms or aspects of capital.Just as the capital relations spontaneously produces an ideology that sustains its existence it correspondingly produces a state form that equally sustains its existence. Indeed the state is a form of the capital relation. It exists in the context of the capital relation. Capital then contains within itself organised violence in the form of the state together with a corresponding ideology. Capital, as a social relation of production, contains within itself both violence and ideology –the forms by which its perpetuation and development is guaranteed. As capital develops violence and ideology correspondingly develop. They maintain a dialectical unity with each other. In the course of their contradictory development they take on the appearance of separation from each other in different ways. However in critical situations their unity is reconstructed and they appear as an explicit unity. Perhaps in periods of continuous development these aspects of capital grow apart from each other only to be forcibly reunited in periods of crisis.The capital relation is both valorisation, organised violence and ideology. These contradictory aspects of capital develop within the form of capital and are eventually externalised in a form that more adequately accommodates the contradictory unity: the contradiction is externalised. Under this form the state, ideology and value assume a fetishised existence independent of each other. Under this form appearance contradicts essence. What appears to be separate is in fact a unity. However this appearance of separation is what further develops bourgeois ideology giving the appearance of separation with all that that entails ideologically and politically.Given that capital is a reified social relation of production the way in which social relations in general manifest themselves will have a correspondingly reified or twisted form. This expresses itself in consciousness and communal relations taking on the form of ideology and state respectively.

Irish Economic Development and National Sel-Determination

Irish Development and National Self-Determination
Paddy Hackett


The driving force that determined the character of economic development in Ireland from the latter part of the 18th into the early 20th century has been British capitalism. British capitalism has grown at the expense of Irish economic development. The economic development of Ireland has been subordinated to and determined by Britain’s mighty economic development.Economic development is an interconnected process. The specific quality of the production of wealth in the form of commodity production has been its expansion of production through the increase in the social division of labour which produces greater dependence among the producers as well as, of course, increasing anarchy in production. And commodity production in its more developed capitalist form while producing increased indirect socialized production brings about socialized production itself. The latter form widens and deepens such that it proves itself a primary contributor in the creation of the world capitalist system of production.To argue, as some do, that the locality of North-East Ulster grew separately from the rest of Ireland is to disregard the social character of the commodity form. It constitutes a denial of the mighty revolutionary role played by the capitalist system in turning world production into a world economic system. It mistakenly suggests that British capital exercised no central determining role over north-east industrialization and that the latter developed on a separate independent basis. Besides overlooking the peculiar character of imperialism this is to suggest that capitalist relations today are still progressive capable of promoting independent economic growth in oppressed countries. In this way the very fundamental conditions for the replacement of world capitalism with world socialism is entirely disregarded: that capitalist relations are not adequate if the productive forces are to be satisfactorily increased in the interests of humanity and that contained within bourgeois society are the material conditions for the establishment of socialism.As already indicated the character of Irish economic growth was determined essentially by British capital accumulation. During the 18th century Irish economic production was subordinated to Britain’s expansionary interests which was then a world commercial capitalist power. This oppressive bond explains why provisioning flourished on this island during the 18th century. It provided much of the basic requirements for feeding the crews of both the military and merchant and naval services as well as the commercial centres of the Colonies. "The provision trade killed, salted and packed the beef in barrel for export." (R.D. Crotty: Irish Agricultural Production; page 15). This trade produced "a whole complex of subsidiary trades, cooperage, tanning and tallow manufacturing among others." (ibid: page 15). But all these trades created a demand for labour power and for the means of subsistence of that demand for labour power. As a result of domestic demand for dairy produce, and even for corn, was increased , which in turn helped to make dairying and tillage in Ireland somewhat more profitable (ibid; p. 15). Besides this British commerce also determined both the growth and character of merchant capital. This ensured the increased centralisation of merchant capital at specific centres in Ireland, especially in the South. In turn this led to the even further social division of labour involving greater manufacturing expansion in or near these centres providing for many of the needs of their growing populations; glass-making and brewing are examples. This was a further stimulus to both population growth and agricultural expansion which, of course, expressed itself in increased social division of labour.The growth of commodity circulation and consequently commerce, is determined through the increase in the social division of labour both at the national and international levels. Even Ireland was not to escape such economic developments. But instead of this increased division of labour creating a corresponding increased home market, enlargement was restricted; the British home market expanded at the expense of its Irish counterpart.Whether in the money or any other commodity form, considerable wealth was being extracted from Ireland to Britain’s benefit. This appropriation of Irish wealth was a product of the unequal exchange of labour through the trade that took place between the two islands. The retention of Irish wealth in Britain by both owners of Irish land and sections of the commercial bourgeoisie constituted an added drain on Irish material reproduction. Needless to say the banks had a hand in this process.As a pre-capitalist form of appropriation of the labour of Irish producers, the rent-form hindered the expansion of national commodity circulation. By siphoning off a large portion of surplus product in the form of rent, the landed nobility left considerably less surplus product available for exchange in the commodity form: this restricted internal commodity circulation.Through merchant capital, its chief economic mediator in Ireland, Britain exploited Ireland. It served as the transmission belt through which Irish wealth was delivered to the British bourgeoisie. Trading relations in Ireland were promoted in a restricted form by the trader; in his absence, both the export of provisions and other commodities would have been constrained. In the interests of its own expansionary needs Britain’s commercial bourgeoisie determined the growth of both the provision trade and other forms of production. As a result of increased trade the merchants grew more powerful and thereby generated further manufacturing growth. But it had to be a growth constrained within the framework of Britain’s economic interests. By hindering the development of an Irish national commodity market, Britain was depriving Ireland of one of the primary indispensable conditions for the development of an independent Irish capitalist class.The Irish landed aristocracy played a secondary, although important, role as agent for British capital. By virtue of his private ownership of the land, the landowner appropriated the labour of the peasant producers in the form of ground rent. By means of such appropriation, they were enabled to have surplus product exchanged via the merchant with Britain for its "equivalent" in the general form of money or in the particular commodity form. Within certain limits, this meant that the landed nobility helped determine the character of trade between the two islands and consequently, in some degree, the character of Irish production. He influenced the character of production because of his impact on the material composition of trade. Furthermore, the landlord’s retention in Britain of a substantial part of the surplus product, in whatever form, as already indicated, was a deduction from wealth in Ireland with all the negative effects that followed this. Instead of the peasant producers determining how the surplus product created by them was to be employed, the parasitic landlord class appropriated the large bulk of it, in both its own interests and those of the exploiting classes in Britain. By fostering the export of primary wealth from the country, they were promoting the unequal exchange of labour against Ireland’s interests besides, of course, indirectly strengthening the economic power of the merchants handling the commodities. The harsh reality is that the landed nobility actively contributed to Britain’s growth at Ireland’s expense. The landlord’s were a reactionary class who obstructed independent capitalist development on this island; they were a barrier to production. Without the merchant and the landlord, Britain could not have so successfully subordinated Ireland to its own economic interestsIt was British exploitation of Irish producers that brought about restricted capitalist growth in Ireland. And this, only in the interests of British capital expansion together with the corresponding expansion of the British home market. Through British capital’s mode of appropriation of the labour of the Irish producers, it contributed towards its own economic growth as well as the very restricted expansion of Irish production. British capital expanded through the oppressive exploitation of the industrial working class and through the oppressive exploitation of other peoples. British history is testimony to this brutal reality. Irish production helped build the British market. It was the British market that produced Irish capitalism. The secret behind the character of Irish growth is British oppression. Many bourgeois historians prefer to remain at the superficial level of the market where justice and equality appear to reign. To cover up Britain’s oppressive role and its obstruction of Irish independent capitalist growth together with its blockage of the evolution of a national commodity home market, they must ignore the secret of Britain’s transformation into a bourgeois imperialist power.We must also make it clear too, that the role of the Irish banks increased in importance in transferring wealth from the country to Britain. Much of the deposits lodged with them in Ireland were transferred to Britain. In relation to deposits made in Irish banks in he 19th century Raymond Crotty has this to say: "The banks in turn transferred these savings to the London money market where they earned 2.5% or more. Thus Irish savings were financing British industry..." (Banking on Ireland’s Decline; Irish Times, March 16, 1981).The transformed economic character of Britain formed the underlying force that led to the industrialisation of North-East Ulster. From the latter part of the 18th century Britain had been in transition from a world commercial power to a world industrial capitalist power which led to a corresponding change in its needs. No longer was the provision trade to continue to play the same relatively important role between the two islands; instead agricultural and cloth exports were to replace it in importance.. The repeal of the Cattle Acts is evidence of Britain’s changing needs. Such dramatic change induced a new social division of labour in Ireland, increasingly subordinated, of course, to the expansionary interests of British industrial capital. This chiefly took the form of the South producing agricultural produce for the growing British market while in the North-East was concentrated linen production for that same market. And instead of these developments forming the basis for a correspondingly increased growth of the Irish commodity home market, they helped enhance forces of production on the British mainland while contributing to the expansion; and all at Ireland’s expense. Instead of Irish agriculture and industry primarily contributing to the independent development of the productive forces of this island, they were, in effect harnessed towards fueling the expansionary requirements of British capitalist production. So the changed internal social division of labour of the Irish economy merely contributed indirectly towards Irish economic development. Consequently, town and country were separating in a very narrow and unbalanced manner, so much so that the town was most developed industrially, after the 18th century, only in the North-East of the country. And one of the results of this was that the surplus land population, unlike in Britain, was not significantly absorbed by the towns. In a sense the separation between town and country developed in such a way that the country was Ireland and the town, Britain. To sum up: The social division of labour in Ireland changed chiefly in the interests of British capitalist growth and, as a result of the successful exploitation by British capital of the Irish producers. Indeed the character and significance of this division was eventually destined to generate tremendous historical and political change in Ireland.While it may, of course, be true that the modification of the land tenure system in the form of Ulster Custom served as an aid in the creation of the conditions for the industrialisation of North-East Ireland, it must be stressed that the expansionary requirements of the British bourgeoisie proved the decisive element. It must not be forgotten that Ulster Custom was but a mere modification of a land tenure system that, in general, embraced all of 18th century Ireland. In Ireland the land tenure system was a motley medieval system of landownership hindering the development of agriculture and even more importantly, independent capitalist development. Essentially, Irish landed relations served Britain’s interests and obstructed Irish economic growth.As has been suggested it is not true that Ulster Custom by contrast, with the equivalent situation in the South, necessarily led to a greater surplus product accruing to the agricultural producer which consequently contributed to the creation of the conditions for industrialisation. Agrarian relations then were not simple. Merely because Ulster Custom prevailed in a given region it does not automatically follow that the producers would have secured a bigger portion of surplus product than elsewhere.As well as the surplus product connected with it many conditions influence agricultural production. And Ulster Custom is not by far the sole determinant of the quantity of surplus wealth produced in the agricultural sphere for investment. Among the factors that may make up for the absence of Ulster Custom are the following: The duration of existing leases; the rate of return of investments on the land; the degree to which investments are undetectable by the landlord so that he correspondingly fails to increase rents; depreciation; investment in labour power; the composition of production and price fluctuations; how crops are related to investment whether land tenure in the form of Ulster Custom is completely absent or present in some degree even though not called such. There are other considerations to be taken into account as well. However it is not the task of this piece to present an explanation and analysis of these factors to the readerWithout the material conditions that produced the circumstances for the industrialisation of the North-East, no amount of modification of the land tenure in the form of Ulster Custom would have had the same results. In so far as industrialisation did take place, it was accompanied by a restricted increase in the Irish home market. But we must again stress that both these developments were determined by British economic developments and were consequently a function of them. 19th century North-East industrialization was not an expression of national independent capitalist development. It was Irish industrial growth of an extremely limited and dependent nature.By the latter part of 18th century feudal relations were but a medieval obstruction to the forces of production. Indeed, as already indicated the Irish feudal landed aristocracy were a agent in the oppression of the Irish producers; and this was true of the landlords in both parts of the country. To create the best conditions for wider and more rapid independent capitalist growth the abolition of private landownership would have been one of the chief and indispensable requirements. Such would involve the "transformation of the patriarchal peasant into a bourgeois farmer." But, on the other hand, bourgeois "development may proceed by having big landlord economies at the head, which will gradually become more and more bourgeois and gradually substitute bourgeois for feudal methods of exploitation." (Agrarian programme of Social Democracy: page 239 of Lenin Collected Works, vol. 13) And at the time there was no question of either course being underway.The role played by the Irish landed nobility both North and South, was radically different to that played by the English landed aristocracy. The latter, however impurely, facilitated agricultural capitalist growth, while the former obstructed it. In correspondence with this role, the English landed aristocracy implemented a policy of land clearance resulting in larger farm sizes, while the Ulster landlords permitted increased sub-letting of their lands resulting in smaller landholdings; this obstructed the development of agriculture. Agriculture flourished in England and remained backward in Ulster.And furthermore, through the instrument of the Irish Parliament and in close collaboration with the London controlled Irish Executive, that same Ulster landed class obstructed the creation of the conditions necessary for independent Irish capitalist growth. Through the medium of the political state they also obstructed the Catholic and Presbyterian producers in advancing their interests through political means; the Penal Laws were but one manifestation of this. Their reactionary character was clearly revealed in their counter-revolutionary opposition to the bourgeois rising of 1798 in which North-East Ireland Presbyterians actively participated.Quite clearly by the latter part of the 18th century, the feudal relations of production were but a medieval obstruction to the expansion of the forces of production in Ireland. Marxism must identify the central and dominant social relations that determine both the character and growth of the productive forces. And in the period under inspection, this social relation was capital in the concrete form of both British and Irish capital with the latter playing the subordinate and dependent role; this character of the relationship existing between them explains the latter’s oppressed nature.The character of the development of the world social division of labour basically determined Ireland’s peculiar economic growth. The former took place through a revolution in the relations of production; the replacement of feudal relations with capitalist relations and their subsequent rapid development and expansion. It was expressed in Ireland through the determining force of British capital. And this was further mediated through the merchant and the landlord. Put peasant differentiation was among the chief results, a basic prerequisite for the spread of commodity circulation: In "capitalist production the basis for the formation of the home market is the process of the disintegration of the small cultivators into agricultural entrepreneurs and workers."(Lenin: The Development of Capitalism in Russia; page 71.)And the home market that formed was narrow and weak and not at all independent, having as the source of its existence the British capitalist system. It was not as some misleadingly believe the medieval landed property relations that formed the central historical force that erected the conditions for an alleged independent capitalist Ulster. For Marxists, on the other hand, feudal agrarian relations, have been under continuous subjection to undermining so that today, in the epoch of capitalist decay, they have no role to play except for the most reactionary way.18th century southern manufacturing capital was a result of wealth accumulated through the exploitation of the producers of Ireland by the merchant and the landlord. None of these manufactories would have been set up without the extraction of wealth from the Irish producers. In this context, it is clear that linen manufacturing in the South was no superficial phenomenon but an integral part of the Irish economy. Because it formed part of the European linen production, however loosely, which was plunged into international recession then, manufacturing linen production in the South was triggered into decline which was to prove irrecoverable. And since the material conditions were insufficiently mature in the South, its decline had to be irreversible.Furthermore, outside of this, industries in the South such as brewing and glass-making although having suffered in the economic recession were to experience some sustained recovery following the introduction of more advanced technology. In general any industrial decline that took place in the South over the latter part of the 18th century was a product of the changing character of both Britain and Europe. Britain’s transformation into an industrial power changed the character of Irish economic activity leading to a new social division of labour in Ireland which generated a process of decline in the South. It was the British bourgeoisie that was chiefly responsible for industrialisation on this island. The manufactories were produced from the surplus labour extracted from the producers of this country through exploitation; Ireland was a sphere of exploitation for British capital.Some commentators misrepresent 18th century southern industry as a development that is dismisssible, that bears no intrinsic connection with the economic character of the South and indeed the entire country. Such an aim is designed to conceal their inability to ascertain the real forces underlying that industrial growth. But more importantly, if the two nations theory is to appear to have any credible standing, they must seem to have verified that the real basis for industrialisation was confined to the North-East region. And since it is a concrete fact that an industrial structure existed in the South in the 18th century, they must offer a reason for its decline that corresponds with their two nations prejudice.Integrally connected inner relations are a principal feature defining a nation. These relations take principally the form of the home market, however restrictedly, based on the social division of labour in conjunction with all other relations, both cultural and otherwise, that spring from this.In Ireland its force has been both relentless and brutal. As we have already indicated, over the 18th century and earlier part of the 19th century, Irish economic development was determined by the force of world capitalism which was mediated chiefly through British capital. Through Britain the formerly combined and uneven economic character was combined so as to eventually evolve into a nationally combined development that was both politically and explosively expressed in 1798 through the bourgeois democratic rising that erupted then. The character of Irish national development was a manifestation, at the time, of the form of world economic development and British development in particular. Because of its unique mediating relationship to Ireland, Britain’s oppression of the latter refracted the character of world economic development there. This happened because, if Britain was to compete successfully as a capitalist power with other nations, it must oppress and exploit Ireland as intensively as possible in order to equip itself as much as possible for that struggle; the more it exploited Ireland, the greater its strength and consequently the greater its chances of success. The international struggle for profit itself, and the degree of Britain’s success in this struggle, in turn further reflects itself in this country since it determined in what way and to what extent the appropriation of the labour of the Irish producers was to proceed. And this of course inevitably affected the character of the reproduction of Irish material wealth. And Britain’s success in the 18th century, in its struggle for world commercial supremacy was clearly a determining factor in her transformation into the world’s leading industrial capitalist power which, as we have already said, exercised a transforming affect on Irish economic development in the 19th century. Britain did not exploit Ireland for reasons of moral corruption. She was compelled to if she was to strengthen or even survive as an independent economic power. The underlying forces operating both within British society and at the world level demanded both within British society and at the world level demanded this from her. Despite appearances to the contrary, Ireland and the world were unmistakably growing in unity: through Britain world capitalism oppressed Ireland and consequently stimulated the creation of the oppressed modern Irish nation.The eventual concentration of industry in the North-East and agriculture in the South, during the 19th century, is concrete proof of the depth and breadth with which the law of uneven and combined development asserts itself. British capitalism’s exploitation of the Irish people was successfully achieved by means of definite social relations of production. Although the indigenous producers were directly exploited through diverse forms (including the rent-form), it could not have taken place so successfully had capitalist exchange relations been lacking. These relations created from diversity the appearance of equality and uniformity.And because British capital appropriated the wealth of Ireland through these uniform social relations, reproduction of material wealth was welded together, evolving into one Irish national economy: a nationally oppressed economy. Since the combined exploitation of Ireland bore the same uniform character in relation to every part of Ireland (capitalist exchange relations of production), it eventually evolved into combined national exploitation which was ultimately, form the end of the 18th century onwards, expressed in the form of the oppressed Irish nation.Put very simply and succinctly, the modern Irish nation was a result of the following historical process. Through commodity exchange relations, the universal and combined indirect exploitation of the Irish producers by British capitalism led to the creation of an oppressed Irish bourgeoisie. Through their increasing penetration and growing regularity, these relations together with production itself, created new classes. By this means the growth of an Irish merchant bourgeoisie was stimulated which involved, although restrictedly on account of British exploitation, increased concentration and centralisation of wealth. The consequences of this, of course, was the growth of industrial capital at the centres that had been produced by trade and hence the creation of an Irish industrial bourgeoisie; the small Irish industrial producer was increasingly becoming a common sight along the economic landscape. Growing peasant differentiation was another result of commodity production as was the increasing number of small bourgeois traders. And all these developments of course, were rooted in the social division of labour. Thus an oppressed Irish bourgeoisie together with a circumscribed home market were formed.But for"the complete victory of commodity production, the bourgeoisie must capture the home market, and there must be politically united territories whose population speak a single language, with all obstacles to the development of that language and to its consolidation in literature eliminated. Therein is the economic foundations of national movements. Unity and unimpeded development of language are the most important conditions for genuinely free and extensive commerce on a scale commensurate with modern capitalism, for a free and broad grouping of the population in all its various classes and, lastly, for the establishment of a close connection between the market and each and every proprietor, big or little, and between seller and buyer.Therefore, the tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied. The most profound economic factors drive towards this goal, and, therefore, for the whole of Western Europe, nay, for the entire civilised world, the national state is typical and normal for the capitalist world." (Lenin: The Right of Nations to Self-Determination).However history was to prove that the Irish bourgeoisie was too weak and divided to succeed in achieving "the formation of an independent national state." (ibidem)With the development of trade both internally and externally and consequently the emergence of an Irish bourgeoisie and home commodity market, the social division of labour progressively unites all commodity producers into a unified "productive organism" whose parts are mutually related and conditioned (Rubin; Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value). And since the producers are inseparably inter-connected and mutually dependent through the commodity production relations the basis is formed for the advancement of a common language and culture. This historical movement gives rise to a mass national struggle for the establishment of an independent national state which is a central political weapon through which to establish the political conditions best suited to the promotion of capitalist production and a common language and culture. Clearly then, the creation of an oppressed Irish bourgeoisie, a circumscribed home market and the tendency towards a common language and culture are the chief ingredients that constituted the oppressed Irish nation.World economic development brought into being a weak Irish capitalist class that was persistently denied an independent national state consisting of a centralised administration, the necessary political conditions for its development into strong independent capitalist class. This meant that the necessary political conditions best suited to the establishment of both a common language and culture were not achieved and that consequently the nation continued to exist in an oppressed condition. This is clearly manifested today in the extremely weak and divided nature of the Irish bourgeoisie as well as in the noticeably divided nature of Irish language and culture the Irish bourgeoisie is an imperialist dependent class, in decline, while objectively the Irish proletariat is much stronger and, in contrast, has been growing in material strength. It is now the only class capable of conquering political power through the establishment of an Irish workers’ republic.To sum up: Ireland suffered oppression at the hands of the British ruling class while its nature determined the character of Ireland’s economic development. This oppression manifested itself in many diverse forms, one of its chief forms was the uneven and combined development of the northern and southern sectors of the national economy. Furthermore, British exploitation determined the peculiar character of Ireland’s growth into a modern nation and consequently, the complex problems facing the Irish working class in the class struggle. British capitalism crested the Irish nation, but, equally, it created the conditions obstructing its development into an independent bourgeois nation state. Independent economic development is generally not possible in a nationally oppressed country in the epoch of the decay of capitalism.