tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81297205241342414052024-02-21T02:23:56.557+00:00Paddy HackettPrincipally consists of pieces connected with the struggle for a communist society. By communist society I dont mean societies like the Soviet Union.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-85587391533118420992017-01-16T16:44:00.000+00:002017-01-16T16:44:02.724+00:00Vulture Funds and Diarmaid FeritterVulture Capital<br />
Paddy Hackett<br />
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Diarmaid Ferriter, in a piece of his published in The Irish Times, is of the mistaken view that there is good and bad capital. He cannot understand that all capital is based on the exploitation of labour power. It is profit driven. Capital cannot be regulated. Capitalism in a small open economy such as is the Irish economy is even less open to significant regulation. At most the effects of capitalism in the Irish Republic can be marginally modified.<br />
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Factory closures and rationalisations that throw workers out of work is no worse than “vulture capital” that throws tenants out of their apartments. There is ample evidence that there has been much of this. It compares well with the adverse effects of “vulture capital” in Ireland.<br />
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Feritter describes this capital as foreign. But indigenous capital is just as capable of taking on a vulture quality as is foreign capital. Indeed Irish capital is on the record for having engaged in this kind of conduct. The increasing centralisation and concentration of capitalist farming is another example of vulture capital. It forces small farmers out of existence. Capital, in general, has an inherently vulture nature. It would not be capital if it did not have this nature. The large scale offshoring of manufacturing capital from the US economy to the Chinese economy is as much a form of “vulture capital” as any other kind of capital. Offshoring has resulted in the casting of thousands of American workers out of employment and into destitution.<br />
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The imposition of taxes on incoming vulture capital cannot stop vulture capital penetrating the Irish economy. At most it may modify its volume. Even that depends on global circumstances that transcend the diminutive Irish economy.<br />
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The point is that capital, by its very nature, is fluid. Without this fluidity it would collapse and then the Irish economy would be in an even more acute state. Ferriter is pushing a narrow nationalist agenda which is unrealisable in today’s capitalist world. It is a utopian programme designed to delude the working class of Ireland.<br />
The “horrendous consequences for homeowners left at the mercy of the vultures” don't just apply to homeowners. Such “horrendous consequences” apply universally to workers in New York, Dublin and Aleppo. Capitalism, by its very nature produces “horrendous consequences”: wars, famine, unemployment, homelessness etc. There is no possibility of eliminating these serious problems under capitalism. Capitalism cannot be modified to eliminate them. Feritter misleadingly claims that the Irish government can take us down this road. The “horrendous consequences”for homeowners in Ireland cannot be divorced from “the horrendous consequences” of war and famine. They are all inevitable and related products of capitalism. The only solution is the elimination of capitalism by its forcible overthrowal through social revolution.<br />
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“the State was already prepared to ignore one of the lessons of the crisis by aggressively encouraging and facilitating the unregulated vulture funds to offload the toxic assets from the banks, whose very lack of regulation created such a mess in the first place.”<br />
Even had it tried the Irish government, given its inherent limitations, would have been unable to prevent “vulture capital”, Irish or foreign, from picking up Irish based devalued assets. In a crash weaker capital crashes and is devalued and then picked up by stronger capital. This is a law of capital that has a universal character. This law occurs for diverse forms of capital such as industrial capital and capital in its property form. In the absence of this law capital could not recover from crashes. Indeed it would not exist.<br />
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The crash that hit Ireland formed part of the world crash. It was not simply caused by unregulated Irish banks. Narrow nationalism mistakenly endeavours to disconnect the two. The global crisis merely exposed the limitations of the Irish economy including its banking sector.<br />
“The notion of collective responsibility has been conveniently used to distract from failures of leadership, and the prioritisation of private capital over public purpose.”<br />
There is no choice here. The inherent limitations of the governmental form prevent the prioritisation of private capital over public purpose. Under capitalism society is profit driven and based on the exploitation of labour power. Consequently “public purpose” cannot serve as the driving force of society. To establish public purpose capitalism must be replaced with communist society.<br />
“a relatively small number were able to skew the market through speculation, reckless lending and a refusal to reduce the inflation of the property market”<br />
The property boom was not the cause of economic meltdown. The property boom in the Irish Republic was a manifestation of the global economic crisis. Neither was it a product of subjective factors: “a small number”engaged in market manipulation. The latter, in so far as it existed, was a symptom of the unfolding cycle of objective economic events.<br />
“Taking a stand against the vulture fund and the state that supports them” deludes the working class thereby impeding the class struggle. The source of the problem is not a particular form of capital –“vulture capital. There is no good and bad capital. All capital has an inherently vulture form. The source of the problem is capital in general. This being so capitalism must be challenged –not a particular form of it.<br />
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“it is not “all about the economy”, it is about people and their right to a home.”<br />
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Alas, under the current social system, it is not “about people and their right to a home.” It is about profit maximisation. Feritter misunderstands the very nature of Irish society. In this way he is spinning an ideology that envelops the working class in illusion thereby assisting in the perpetuation of capitalism.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-32266115727711716722017-01-10T12:09:00.002+00:002017-01-10T12:16:50.013+00:00Apollo HouseApollo House<br />
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The street sleeping problem in Ireland cannot be merely solved by the adequate availability and quality of accommodation. Even if the latter is achievable, which is questionable, the problem will not inevitably go away while the current social system persists. Adequately available good quality accommodation will only perpetuate the problem. This is because improved conditions will tend to encourage others to gravitate towards the street because of the availability of quality accommodation for street people. Rather than minimising and even eliminating the problem it will magnify it. Through this process the size of the street people will increase. Furthermore if quality housing is made available for all of the homeless by the state this, again, only sustains the problem. This is because guaranteed quality housing encourage a never ending number of people to avail of it. The solution reproduces the problem. This again tends to increase the size of the homeless relative to the working class.<br />
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The source of the problem lies much deeper. It is located in the inherently oppressive nature of social conditions under capitalism. Rough sleeping is largely a product of people with psychological and other problems. These problems are caused by the prevailing conditions of oppression and alienation. Capitalist society damages people. The solution to the problem requires the elimination of these alienating and oppressive conditions. This must involve capitalism’s replacement by communist relations. But this social revolution must assume global proportions. It is not a problem that is merely national in form. Indeed the entire national issue is itself, an historical problem, a product of capitalism. No nations existed in the Stone Age.<br />
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Suggesting that governmental policies are responsible for street sleeping is to fetishise government thereby investing it with magical powers it cannot have. Government is a limited political institution. As a product of capitalism it cannot transcend capitalism’s inherent limits.<br />
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The HomeSweetHome campaign based in Ireland has “failure” built into it. This is because it peddles the illusion that capitalist governments, through popular pressure, can solve street sleeping together with the housing problem in general. The effect of this illusion is to hinder the development of class struggle by implying that social revolution is not a necessity. HomeSweetHome’s assumption suggests that capitalism is progressive and thereby in no need of forcible overthrowal. Consequently the campaign does not exist to authentically solve street sleeping nor the housing problem itself. It creates the appearance of solving it –an image. Instead HomeSweetHome exists to obstruct the development of class struggle –to perpetuate capitalism and thereby the housing problem itself. It promotes a superficial programme bearing a plausible character that, in fact, constitutes an illusion.<br />
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The HomeSweetHome campaign fuses “art” and politics into a form of pageantry or theatre. It turns politics into theatre –an image. Such a strategy is a reflection of HomeSweetHome’s lack of confidence in its own politics. It believes it must introduce entertainment (images) into its campaign to win popular support. Its assumption is that politics alone is not adequate enough to mobilise popular support. Political theatre tends to bypass critical thinking. It thereby tends to draw people’s support for a cause on the basis of a rational deficit. Because of this it's popularity bears an inevitably ephemeral character.<br />
It is the politics of the heart over the head. The theatrical character of the HomeSweetHome campaign reflects itself in the diverse nature of its<br />
popular support: from Christian do-gooders to liberally leftie types. It is supported by a heterogenous collection of people because it does not pose a challenge to the system. It is a cross class campaign that ignores class division.<br />
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The politics of the theatre seeks to manipulate the masses through the form of entertainment –pyrotechnics. From the commercial world of entertainment celebs are deployed by the HomeSweetHome campaign because of their market value or commodified character. HomeSweetHome, itself, engages in marketing to enhance its image. Its existence is all about the creation and development of itself as spectacle or image. Its supporters can only relate to each other through music and imagery generally. It is, in a way, the music (image) and not the issue that rallies their support. This degree of support has not been given to the McVerry trust<br />
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which has been in existence for many years? Appearance, not essence, is what counts. The spectacle or image envelops its supporters.<br />
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HomeSweetHome fetishes the street people as a means of enhancing itself as a spectacle. There is now no place for dialectical thinking. The street carnival is the thing. Market value of musicians replaces artistic quality. Image, as market value, is now substance. It is market value that counts –the law of value. The street people are merely a feeble pretext for enhancing the marketing of HomeStreetHome. If there were no street people they would have to be invented.<br />
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The campaign is not being spearheaded by the street people themselves. This is because, as a category, they are not cohesive and have no independent power. The street people, as do much of the non-street homeless, form part of a subclass, the lumpenproletariat. It contrasts with the working class whose power is rooted in the character of its relationship to the production process. The street people’s backgrounds are diverse: drink, drugs, crime etc. As a small vulnerable category it is incapable of mobilising itself to promote its interests. It forms, as Marx would suggest, part of the lumpenproletariat. Such a category can serve to undermine the class struggle as was witnessed by the existence of the Nazi storm troopers and the gangs used to attack striking workers. It, as a category, is distinct from the working class by virtue of its independence from the production process. Consequently it lacks the capacity to challenge the system. It is a category that depends on the capacity of the working class to liberate humanity from alienation. But this liberation is a function of the transformation of the production process. This process entails replacing capitalist relations with communist relations through social revolution. Given this the dissolution of street sleeping and homelessness generally must be based on revolutionary action. Street sleeping is a derivative problem whose dissolution is only possible through the abolition of capitalism. Strategically speaking tackling street sleeping politically is to misdirect politics. It is to put the cart before the horse. Such a misleading strategy can only succeed in confusing the working class thereby impeding its political development. It is not a central issue for the working class itself and fails to promote the class struggle. Street sleepers and much of the non-street homeless form part of an underclass that shares a common feature with the rentier layer of the capitalist class Both are parasitic on the production process. The street sleeping people and much of the official homeless are not subject to exploitation. This is because they don't sell their labour power. Unlike the working class they stand outside the wage relation. Despite this its existence is largely a function of the economic system. As the economic system goes through cycles so too does the size of the lumpenproletariat.<br />
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Under capitalism the housing problem can no more be shut down than can wars, famine and pollution. The only real solution is by the working class forcibly taking over the building industry, vacant premises and land to solve the housing problem. This popular seizure of assets requires the creation of factory, office and street committees along with workers’ militias under a federation of workers councils. This system must be informed by participatory democracy. This transfer of wealth is only achievable through revolution. In a sense Apollo House is a demonstration as to the feasibility of the seizure of power by workers. The seizure, occupation and management of Apollo House was largely undertaken by workers. The state played no part in the Apollo House project.<br />
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Workers can only successfully take control of and manage society through participatory democracy. They don't need the state. They, without any state, can solve social problems. They can end housing, health and the other problems by the forcible seizure of power involving self-organisation.<br />
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The housing and street people problem cannot be solved by the implementation of a programme based on the assumption that a solution is possible under capitalist conditions. This strategy is tantamount to effectively supporting capitalism and thereby the disguised perpetuation of the housing and street people problem. Different elements within the spectrum of the liberal Left advance different programmes. They compete with each other as to which element possesses the most rational programme. They don't see that the problem is not an issue of rationality. It is not a superstructural problem. It is an infrastructural problem as to the character of the foundations of society. They cannot see that it is, at core, an issue as to the kind of society necessary to produce a sustainable solution to the housing problem. The housing and street people problem, as an ethical question, is only solvable through the politics of class action: social revolution. Social revolution is ethical.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-13059430869576348762016-12-30T14:43:00.002+00:002016-12-30T14:54:18.943+00:00The Negative Aspects To State Spending<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;">State spending in Ireland supports many small firms. These are firms that are so inefficient that they would face extinction in the absence of enormous state spending. Many, if not most, of these firms are low waged and non-unionised. Their conditions of work tend to be bad too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 28px;" />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;">This means that much of the surplus value generated by more efficient firms is transferred, through the imposition of taxation, from these firms to these less competitive ones. The outcome is less capital available by the more profitable firms for capital growth. This hinders the growth and concentration of industrial capital. It correspondingly constrains the growth and concentration of the industrial working class.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 28px;" />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;">Not unconnected with this, state spending artificially maintains many of the villages, and even towns, in rural Ireland. In the absence of state spending many of theses villages and small towns would cease to exist. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 28px;" />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;">In short state spending hinders class polarisation in the Irish republic. This hinders capital growth and concentration and the corresponding growth and concentration of the working class. This, in turn, hinders the politicisation of the working class.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 28px;" />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;">The Irish state promotes backward capital and thereby artificially sustains a backward (petty) bourgeois class to the detriment of the working class and the class struggle. Consequently increased state spending cannot serve the class interests of the working class. Ironically much of the Irish Left promote spending by the capitalist state as the way forward.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 28px;" />
<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstyletallbody"; font-size: 28px;">Take Car</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-91672257345656121162016-05-09T13:42:00.001+01:002016-05-09T13:43:43.604+01:00The Anti-Water Charges Campaign<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The AAA-PBP alliance argues that Irish water should be funded from progressive taxation with the emphasis on those earning over €100,000. Clearly the latter sum is not, by today's standards, an enormous sum. This effectively means that the middle and working class are to fund the national water system. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">Progressive taxation is a bourgeois tax that is enforced to sustain the capitalist state. It is not a tax that exclusively hits capitalists. Progressive taxation is a cross-class tax. Consequently there is nothing radical when AAA-PBP promote this fiscal form as part of a solution to water funding. However it has the appearance of radicalism. It is a policy designed to deceive the working class.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The AAA-PBP alliance, in effect, claim that the Irish (capitalist) state is the benefactor of the working class (if in the right hands). The inference, then, is that water maintenance serves the interests of workers when only under (capitalist) state control. But the alliance fails to point out that the state is capitalist. Consequently that state will privatise or statify water assets should it ultimately serve the interests of capitalism. Therefore the alliance's call for the continued statification of water is unjustifiable from a proletarian perspective.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">Neither direct water charges nor progressive taxation are solutions to the problem of water. Both are bourgeois fiscal forms. Both hit the working class in different ways. But substantively they have the same character. Progressive taxation is a more deceptive fiscal form.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The only solution is direct ownership, control and regulation of water resources by the working class. This means the establishment of directly democratic workers councils --communism. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The AAA-PBP position actively seeks to contain the struggle over water within the parameters of capitalism thereby preventing the working class from becoming class conscious and taking political power into its own hands.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The Right2Water campaign, as it stands, is a cross- class alliance that serves the interests of capitalism at the expense of the working class. This is explains why there is a substantial number of deputies supporting the abolition of water charges.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The alliance argues that the justification for the abolition of water charges is the "democratic mandate" within the Dáil (parliament) to abolish these charges. But Dáil mandates have existed since the establishment of the Irish state. These mandates have been, largely speaking, anti-working class, ones that much of the Irish Left would have refused to support. The Thatcher and Blair governments, in Britain, had parliamentary mandates. Yet much of the Left opposed these mandates. There is no obligation, morally or politically, for the working class to support "democratic" mandates. This is because bourgeois democratic mandates are not necessarily morally or politically justifiable.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The argument that the Irish state can take surplus value from the capitalist class to solve the problems of the working class is both illogical and impossible. Surplus value deductions, by squeezing profits, undermine the capitalist econonic system. It is a programme that falsely suggests that capitalism is not obsolescent and can serve the class interests of workers. Because of its inherently class nature the state is objectively unable to serve proletarian interests.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The lack of radicalism of the Right2Water movement has now been concretely demonstrated by the political activity of the two major bourgeois political parties along with its (Indpts) satellites. By their suspension of water charges they have resolutely undermined the Right2Water campaign. With a stroke of the pen the FG/FF alliance has destroyed that movement. The latter now can no longer mobilise much of the the populace in the way that it did. This was possible because the raison d'etre for the campaign was based simply on the specific form of taxation, a bourgeois issue, rather than the issue of power and its nature. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">It is ironical to hear a deputy from PBP say on the RTE news that the intervention by FF/FG on the water issue constitutes a breakthrough. This is to suggest that these two political parties bear a progressive character. The deputy's comment is a further indication of the purely bourgeois character of the anti-water charges campaign. The latter was one enormous illusion presented as radical by the leadership of the Right2Water movement. The AAA-PBP alliance is exploiting poverty, pauperization and the exploitation of labour power to advance its power base within the decadent dynamics of capitalism. This can only obstruct any opportunities that exist for workers to emancipate themselves from the shackles of capitalism.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The water problem, the health problem and homelessness can only be solved by workers setting up a system of factory/ office committees and workers' councils. Under such directly democratic workers' forms the Irish state can be both confronted and destroyed. This is the path to the establishment of authentic com unitarianism. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The promotion of statism by the AAA-PBP alliance is a bourgeois strategy that is hostile to proletarian interests. It is ironically a programme that the SWP and the Socialist Party were formally opposed to, in its extreme form, with respect to the extinct Soviet Union. They have now taken a 360 degree rotation -- a revolution. But not the revolution that communists advocate.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">Superstitious belief in the Irish legislature and the state, itself, is generally reactionary. What may serve as a tactic has been converted into a strategy by the #AAA-PBP alliance. Bourgeois democracy is an obsolescent institutional form. It is not the way towards emancipation.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">There is no royal road to class emancipation. Anti-property tax and water charges campaigns are cross-class alliances that cannot challenge capitalism. They bear a superficial character that is incapable of challenging the existing social system. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">It is the contradictory nature of the process of production that is at the heart of the problem. The fiscal sphere is not. It is merely concerned with how surplus value, already generated by production through exploitation, is to be distributed. Changes as to how this distribution is undertaken are not of fundamental significance. This is because the production of surplus value has already been realised. Exploitation has already been effected. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The only way to deal with the issue of the water system is to seize it. This means working class ownership, control and regulation of the water system. Under these conditions taxes can never be an issue. This is because they would not exist. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">The task of the working class cannot be concerned with reforming the fiscal system. Its task is the elimination of all taxation. Taxation is a capitalist form. It is not a form by which the class needs of the working class are met. Progressive taxation, in particular, is a bourgeois form. It is not a form by which the class needs of the working class are realised. Consequently the call by the AAA-PBP alliance for funding of water through progressive taxation is not a solution to the problem. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">Neither is borrowing by the state a solution to the water problem. This is because borrowing is undertaken at the expense of the working class. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">A social revolution is necessary if the problems of the working class are to be solved. This entails the seizure of power by the workers through the establishment of a federation of workers' councils that replaces the state. A community without a state.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">Take Care</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;">Paddy Hackett</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 40px;"></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-22882939073441205422016-03-04T13:41:00.001+00:002016-05-09T13:40:05.646+01:00People Before Profit Alliance<br />
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The People Before Profit Alliance seeks the total abolition of water charges. To fund the provision of clean and safe water it supports the cost of this service being imposed on the capitalist class and sections of the middle class. The logic behind the position means that the total cost of all state spending should be, largely speaking, imposed on the capitalist class and sections of the middle class too.<br />
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Under these conditions the capitalist class would be left with no alternative but to withdraw its assets from the Irish economy. This would lead to the effective disappearance of the Irish economy. Consequently the income of the working class would collapse while unemployment would become widespread. Apocalyptic conditions would prevail.<br />
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Neither can the leadership of the right2water campaign support any abolition of water charges made by a future capitalist government. This is because it's abolition will result in the charge being largely imposed in a veiled form on the working and lower middle class (under general taxation or whatever). Should such support be forthcoming from the right2water leadership it will clearly expose its reactionary character. The abolition, suspension or modification of the water charges by a bourgeois government cannot be justifiably claimed to be a victory for the leadership of the Right2Water campaign.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-66522037454365935062016-02-28T11:57:00.000+00:002016-02-28T11:59:07.806+00:00The Irish General Election 2016The General Election Results<br />
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The Irish General Election results are showing that there has been no radical change in Irish politics. The general election results are evidence of the political and ideological stagnation within the working class. The evidence produced by the elections shows that the Irish working class is politically and ideologically stagnant.<br />
Despite its disastrous record leading up to and including the world 2008 financial crisis Fianna Fáil has electorally won back much of the working class and lower middle class. The increase in support for Sinn Fein is merely support for another bourgeois party by the working class and other social strata. It is ironical that the Socialist Party has been describing the Sinn Fein party as an “anti-establishment” party. There is nothing “anti-establishment” about Sinn Fein. Indeed it has been going out of its way to demonstrate how pro-establishment it is. Increased support for the mix bag of Independents is largely support for other bourgeois political elements.<br />
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The modest support for the Left is of no real significance. Indeed much of this Left has been becoming increasingly more moderate. Much of their political interventions are little or no different from that of much of the Labour Party of yore. As it sniffs the power it will move further to the right. This Left is largely opportunist and will cut its cloth to increase its popularity.<br />
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Given this, overall, there has been no significant shift to the Left. The politics and ideology of the Irish working class is as it was in the days before the 2008 financial crisis. Essentially taking place is a reconfiguration or recalibration of bourgeois politics in Ireland to meet the present class needs of the bourgeoisie. The effect of this is to block off the working class from becoming more politicised thereby posing an increasing challenge to the existing system.<br />
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Any modest gains made by the Left, given its opportunism, will further encourage it to focus on electoralism to the detriment of more radical activism. Emerging from the new political situation will be a tendency by this Left to fetishise electoralism. There is now a strong possibility of the Left joining together to form a new party. Such a new party may even unite with relatively “radical” elements within the existing Labour Party. Such a party will descend into a crass opportunism in the style of the present Labour party. This will bring us back to where we started.<br />
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Ultimately the source of the problem is the existing character of the working class movement. It is a stubbornly politically stagnant working class. It is a class scurrying about since the 2008 world financial crisis seeking out diverse political elements that it mistakenly thinks will prevent it from loosing “ its benefits” of one sort or another. Consequently it will go to bed with any political element that, it believes, can protect its “welfare” –even with former terrorists. It lacks a class morality. It fails to understand that under capitalism the coalition government was compelled to cut back on the living standards of the working class and the lower middle class. The only other solution is a communist revolution. Despite their claims neither Sinn Fein nor the Left can solve the problems of the working class from within capitalism.<br />
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The southern Irish working class has not shifted in a leftward direction. Instead it is still essentially politically and ideologically stagnant. It was the world financial crisis that generated the shake up in Irish politics –not the working class nor parties such as Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party nor the SWP. Indeed it was the crisis that rendered them more popular. This is the power of capitalism. Needed, more than ever, is a principled communist movement.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-65273441922423878732016-02-10T11:20:00.003+00:002016-02-10T11:20:57.585+00:00Did Steve Keen Get It Right?Review of Steve Keen<br />
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Steve Keen, the author of Debunking Economics, argues that economic crises are caused by excessive private debt. He claims that the financial sector plays a key role in creating this debt. The banks, he argues, are not simple intermediaries between lender and borrow. When they lend they increase debt and thereby credit and money. He claims that austerity imposed by the state is not the solution. For him the latter intensifies the problem. For Keen when private debt is contracting cutting back on public debt through austerity simply magnifies the problem. On this basis, if anything, the state needs to expand its intervention under such conditions. Keen fails to understand that the problem is due to lack of total profitability or surplus value. It is then a problem located in the process that generates surplus value (profit). The problem is not created in the circulation process. Consequently the problem is not due to the diminution of private borrowing. The latter is merely a symptom of the problem. Hence Increased state borrowing cannot solve the problem. Indeed increased state borrowing merely sustains weak private capitalists in business. This prevents the crisis from forcing out weak capital as a means towards restoring profitability. Keen never informs us as to what, itself, is the cause of debt. This is because capital is the source of debt and thereby its regulator –the law of value. The financial system, including the banks, is thereby the product of value relations. Keen fails to view social categories historically.<br />
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Keen, instead, falsely bases the existence of the crisis free stage of the economic cycle on subjective factors: psychology and memory. He makes the false assumption that memory of the previous debt ridden crisis makes investors and others risk adverse. This is hardly a justifiable assumption as a basis for offering an understanding of the economic cycle. It makes the false assumption that subjective factors standing outside the economic cycle are the cause that leads to crises. It also, in a sense, implies that the fading of memory explains the shift away from being risk adverse leading to the burgeoning of debt. Consequently the cycle of remembering and forgetting is the basis for the debt and economic cycles. Now psychology is the ultimate basis for economic behaviour. This is no better a basis than the utilitarianism, that Keen criticises, as the basis of neo-classical economics. Keen is forced to promote a fictitious account of the existence of economic recovery because of his repudiation of the process of capitalist production as the core location of crises. Because he has rejected a materialist account of the capitalist economy based in the production process he must resort to idealistic assumptions. But these are no more than mere myths.<br />
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The problem with Keen is that he views the problem in reverse. By privileging debt as opposed to production he reverses the problem thereby taking surface appearances as the source of the problem. For him result is cause. But the problem is not excessive debt but the opposite: over-investment of capital with respect to the degree of exploitation obtaining. It is this that is responsible for excessive debt. Capital is over-produced in relation to profitability.<br />
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In contrast for Keen over-accumulation of capital is driven and facilitated by excessive accumulation of debt. Credit not production is cause. He fails to understand the opposite to be the case. The over-accumulation of debt is a product of the over-accumulation of capital. Because there is an ultimate limit to the overproduction of capital there is a limit to the scale of possible debt. As capital accelerates to such a degree that it turns into over-accumulation credit consequently contracts. It is over-accumulation that causes both excessive debt and the consequent credit contraction. Under these circumstances the ratio of debt to GDP spirals out of control. But this ratio is merely an index that over-production of capital has occurred.<br />
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The contraction of credit manifests itself on financial markets through the emergence of wild speculation. Eventually there is a credit crunch. Credit thereby becomes less available to make investments and to meet debt obligations. This is a chain like reaction.<br />
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The state steps in to compensate for private credit contraction through what is known today as quantitative easing. This prevents the contraction from sufficiently deepening to make a robust recovery a reality. Consequently the conditions for a real recovery never assert themselves. This then leads to further problems. To realise real recovery the crisis needs to deepen sufficiently to restore profitability. This is because the general rate of profit is the source of the problem –not debt. This means that many weaker capitalists are eliminated. It also entails the pauperisation of much of the working class. It is the restoration of profitability through the destruction and devaluation of capital that creates the conditions for recovery. But under certain very adverse conditions war may be a necessary condition too. This was the case in the period leading up to the Second World War. And the Great Depression, then, was obviously not caused by excessive debt accumulation. Under these conditions the fall in the general rate of profit is arrested and restored to a higher rate.<br />
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However this does not provide a permanent solution to the capitalist economic crisis. The contradictions ultimately reassert themselves. Ultimately the only solution is the elimination of the existence of social relations in the form of value relations. This is achieved through the realisation of communism by social revolution.<br />
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Keen maintains that the problem is caused by the excessively high ratio of debt to GDP. Debt here is a multiple of the GDP. This, he claims, becomes increasingly unsustainable eventually leading to a steep fall in asset prices. Under these circumstances Ponzi finance is the first to collapse. This initiates a domino effect that runs right through the financial system. For Keen modern capitalism is powered by debt. The debt cycle drives the economic cycle.<br />
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The possibility of the existence of credit relations originates in money’s function as means of payment. The possibility of credit is a product of the inner nature of the capitalist mode of production itself. The limits of the valorisation of capital determines the limits of credit and debt. Not the reverse as Keen holds. The more profitable capital is, the more credit becomes available. The quantity of capital and the scale of its valorisation dictate the degree to which credit and debt can expand. Capital constrains credit expansion. Otherwise it's expansion would proceed ad infinitum. Then growth would prove an endless process. But the more disproportionate the volume of credit in relation to industrial capital the greater the intensity of the contradictions that manifest themselves. The rate of credit expansion is forced to contract. Credit turns into its opposite. This contraction entails a fall in demand and a corresponding contraction of the economy. Excessive accumulated debt is the appearance of the crisis not its cause.<br />
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The underlying cause is the inadequate valorisation of capital. It's inadequate expansion. Credit expansion and debt is capital’s attempt to overcome its immanent limits or barriers. Because it cannot overcome its limits a crisis is generated. The crisis is the solution to the problem. But it is merely a provisional solution. Revolution is the authentic solution.<br />
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The state engages in an austerity programme of cuts in state spending. This adds to the painful nature of the crisis. It entails further hardships both for elements within the capitalist class, itself, and the working class. The state fears the deepening of the crisis for political reasons. Consequently instead of the crisis deepening itself to the degree necessary for a full recovery the state steps in to try to moderate the crisis. But this intervention fails to solve the problems of capitalism. It merely distorts the form by which the laws of capitalism manifest themselves.<br />
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The reproduction process of capital consists of the production process and the circulation process. It is a contradictory unity. The circulation process involves circulation time. It is a necessary form of the expanded reproduction of capital. In contrast to the production process it cannot produce value. It forms a barrier to the production process. Circulation is a contradiction. It both facilitates and hinders the valorisation process. Circulation time is always a barrier to the creation and realisation of value. Consequently the necessary tendency of capital is not only to shorten circulation time but to reduce it to nothing wherever possible i.e. to bring about circulation without circulation time.<br />
Capital endeavours to overcome this barrier through credit. Valorised capital finds its realisation in capital’s circulation process.<br />
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Credit emerges from the reproduction process to overcome this barrier. In other words the capitalist secures credit to facilitate the fluent continuity of the circulation of capital. The banks are an institutional form by which this is achieved. However money capital cannot directly valorise itself. It is only capital (self expanding value) in the form of the process of production that achieves this. It is therefore imperative that money capital functions within the circulation of capital as soon as and as little as possible. In this way the scale of valorisation is maximised. But there is no guarantee that this is always achieved. This is because of the separation of sale and purchase –the source of the possibility of crises.<br />
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Capital can only create surplus value within the production process. Each phase of production must be followed by a phase of circulation which continually interrupts the continuity of production. Thus the conditions of production arising out of the nature of capital contradict each other. The contradiction is superseded and overcome in only two ways: by the division of capital and through credit.<br />
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Circulation time is a barrier to the creation and realisation of value. Consequently the necessary tendency of capital is not only to shorten circulation time but to reduce it to nothing wherever possible i.e. to bring about circulation without circulation time.<br />
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In this context the function of money is bound up with unproductive expenditure. Insofar as money is value it is a cost of circulation to capitalist production. Money in the form of capital, money capital, cannot produce value. Hence capital strives to economise on money positing it as a merely formal moment.<br />
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The entire credit system together with the over-trading and over-speculation connected with it rests on the necessity of valorisation expanding and leaping over the barrier of circulation and the sphere of exchange. Credit is an inherent form of the capitalist mode of production. However it cannot create surplus value. It is confined to the non-valorising circulation process. Credit helps to keep the acts of buying and selling further apart in time and thereby forms the basis for speculation. It arises out of the difficulty of employing capital profitably. Credit and debt exists within the framework of the drive for valorisation. Overproduction and the credit system are means by which capital seeks to break through its own barriers and to produce over and above its own limits.<br />
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As capital expands it causes credit and debt to grow. In the absence of such credit the economy would not grow. Its rate of expansion cannot be subjectively regulated. This is why the state’s relentless attempts to manage money never eliminate crisis, stagnation and even war. The drive to valorise capital cannot exist in the absence of credit and thereby debt. This is why valorisation historically creates credit and debt.<br />
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Credit is derived from the existence of money in the form of means of payment. But the production process creates money and money capital. The circulation time is shortened by credit thereby rendering the valorisation of capital increasingly independent of the circulation process. The greater this independence the greater the disconnection between the production process and the real market. The real market becomes increasingly independent from the valorisation needs of the production process itself. It is this independence that provides the condition for the emergence of Ponzi finance. Consequently there are increasingly less constraints on the degree to which production grows. Production becomes increasingly production for production’s sake. But this state of affairs cannot be indefinitely sustained. Capital cannot transcend its immanent limits.<br />
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Credit becomes increasingly speculative acquiring a Ponzi character. As Keen puts it the ratio of debt to GDP spirals out of control. This is just another way of saying that capital fails to valorise on a scale sufficient to justify the volume and rate of debt expansion. In other words the production of surplus value fails to grow at a volume or rate commensurate with the volume of debt. This means that the base (let us say the GDP) on which this massive volume of debt rests is too small to sustain it. Eventually this debt becomes increasingly chimerical and thereby, in a sense, increasingly meaningless. This is because it is ultimately disconnected from its source –the production process. The credit system collapses and production consequently contracts. Investment slows down even coming to a virtual halt. Keen by suggesting that austerity intensifies the problem does not understand the unproductive nature of much of state spending. As unproductive it is a form of expenditure that contributes nothing to the creation of surplus value and thereby growth. In fact it largely constitutes a deduction from total profit.<br />
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For Keen it is not a question of diminishing profitability being the central problem. It is debt becoming increasingly excessive and assuming a Ponzi character. Ponzi finance becomes unsustainable because of falling asset prices. But it is not falling asset prices that is the cause of the problem. It is the growing difficulties with valorisation. In this way Keen fetishises debt positing its cycle as the driver of valorisation. <br />
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Crisis is the forcible establishment of unity between elements that have become independent. Although it appears in the process of circulation the crisis is an interruption in the process of reproduction as a whole.<br />
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Keen essentially shares the same conception as neo-classical economics, Austrian economics and the various forms of Keynesian economics. None of them see the contradiction in the capitalist mode of production as the source of the problem. Instead they see the product of capitalism, credit and debt etc, as the cause of capitalism. They see circulation as the problem. This is why they believe that it can be seriously modified or changed by the state in one way or another such as budget deficits, quantitative easing etc. But ultimately the laws of capitalism cannot be managed. Ultimately they must manifest themselves even if in a distorted way. Capitalism, not debt, is the problem. It must be abolished and replaced by communism. <br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-45486379834590616132016-02-05T13:44:00.000+00:002016-05-09T13:40:05.661+01:00Benthamism<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Bentham confined his discussion to the current society under which he lived. He never advanced the need for the replacement that system with communism. He did not base his ethics on the need for revolution. Revolution involves the existence of actors in the form of collective forces (classes). They are not grounded in players in the form of individuals. His ethics was reductionist and not holistic. A worker or a capitalist implies class. It is class that determines the nature of the individual. These are social not individual forms. Consequently to privilege the individual is to abstract from class. It is a Robinsonian view. It is social forms that determine the role of the individual --not the reverse. The transformation of social forms changes the character of the individual --not the reverse. The specific social relations of production are the drivers --not the individual. Benthamism, on the other hand, offers the individual as the driver which is why society is presented as constituted from the sum of individuals.<br /><br />Should workers realise communism through social revolution they realise this project not as individuals but as workers --in the form of the working class --a social form. Nor is class consciousness the sum of the individual consciousnesses of workers. The latter is a contradiction. Class consciousness is exclusively a form of social (public) consciousness. The basic historical forms are class forms and social relations. Individuals cannot exist outside the social relations that connect them together. Individuals cannot exist independently of social relations or social forms. Bentham believed that individuals exist independently of social forms.<br /><br />Under capitalism social relations of production are reified. It is this reification that imposes inherent limits on the working class. In other words the relations between producers, in the form of workers, assumes the form of relations between things. It is this reification that must be abolished if workers are to be emancipated.<br /><br />Under reification it is not possible for workers to achieve "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." The latter is an ethical illusion presented by the ideology of utilitarianism. The latter misrepresents the character of capitalism. It suggests that capitalism is a natural, thereby eternal, system. Much of the radical Left misleadingly prescribe the greatest happiness principle under capitalism. They fail to acknowledge the limits of capitalism. This the ethical basis for its claim that the interest of the working class is achievable under capitalism.<br /><br />Much of the radical Left is imprisoned by the Enlightenment tradition. In other words it has not transcended the limits of the Great French Revolution. This is partly because the programme of The Great French Revolution has not been realised by the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie were so threatened by the modern working class that it feared it's own Enlightenment programme.<br /><br />Much of the radical left seeks to complete the programme of the Enlightenment programme. It fails to comprehend that this programme is no longer realisable under capitalism. It is now an unrealisable Utopian programme -- an idealistic programme. Only under communism can the needs of the working class be met.<br /><br />Utilitarianism, because of its individualist reductionism, precludes the necessity for social revolution. It is inherently anti-revolution. Since its slogan of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" is based on the individual utilitarianism precludes the role of social forms. Without social forms (as opposed to the individual) as driver revolution is impossible. Social revolution necessarily implies social forms as actors.<br /><br />Clearly utilitarianism is an ideology that distorts the character of society thereby misrepresenting the way forward. It is a consequentialist ethics that denies the working class its historic role.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-27900376852078687682016-02-05T13:40:00.002+00:002016-05-09T13:40:05.650+01:00Utilitarianism And The Radical Left<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In general the Left in Ireland is utilitarian in their moral and political philosophy. It is forever making demands for this and that. Generally its demands are not concerned with the need for the emancipation of the working class together with the need to eliminate alienation. This is because it does not seek the elimination of capitalism. Instead it seeks the Utilitarian increase in pleasure and reduction in pain. The greater happiness principle of Jeremy Bentham. The latter believed that “the greater happiness of the greatest number” was achievable within capitalism. This is essentially the position of much of the radical Left. This Left is not even reformist. Reformists claim that it is possible to incrementally turn capitalism into socialism by means of reforms. This Left’s call for socialism is at most aspirational. It does not dialectically tie it in with its Utilitarian Action Programmes. It's political philosophy is a vulgar version of Utilitarianism. It is not even aware of the Utilitarian moral assumptions underlying its political outlook.<br /><br />Utilitarianism is a reductionist moral philosophy. For it the unit of society is the individual. Consequently it ignores class division and advocates cross class policies as does much of the Irish Left. It's active leadership of the anti-property tax and anti-water rates campaigns are an example of this. It's support for electoralism is another. The latter means the support of the atomisation of the working class though elections under representative democracy. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-10619431379403528872015-10-30T20:36:00.000+00:002015-10-30T20:36:51.823+00:00Sinn Fein Is A Failure Appearing As A Success.The current Sinn Fein leadership has failed in its principal long
standing aim of achieving a 32 county Irish republic. This is because
achievement of national self-determination of the Irish people is
impossible under capitalism. It supported the IRA's capitulation to the
forces of British imperialism. Sinn Fein has returned to the position
taken many years ago by what is today called the Workers Party. It has
also effectively accepted the same deal, the Good Friday Agreement, as
was accepted by the SDLP many years ago in the form of the Sunningdale
Agreement.<br />
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Following this surrender its popular and electoral strength has
ironically grown enormously over the years. Accordingly the electoral
success of Sinn Fein, North and South of the border, has been on the
basis of defeat, failure and surrender. In a sense failure appears as
success to much of the Irish working class.<br />
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Ironically the Irish citizenry are apparently fooled by this political
charade. It rewards failure and surrender at the ballot box. Logically,
if anything, Sinn Fein should have suffered wipe-out at the ballot box.
Ironically the SDLP was the successful party in the North since it was
essentially its programme that SF submitted to with its acceptance of
the Good Friday Agreement. Yet the SDLP suffered electoral slaughter at
the hustings in the North.<br />
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The Irish citizenry suffers from a (schizoid) contradiction. There is an
absence of logic in their political consciousness. Its morality is
venal. Sinn Fein, within the context of the Irish republic, make many
promises. Promises that they cannot support given that it supports
capitalism as a social system. Its programme is unrealisable under
capitalism. Given its abject and opportunist abandonment of the national
struggle their is no guarantee that it will not blithely abandon its
current programme too when its political circumstances change. Yet the
public apear to learn nothing. The Official Republican camp did the
same. By abandoning its original aim -- the achievement of a 32 Irish
Republic- its popular support increased eventually giving it seats in
the Dail. DeValera and his comrades did the same. This led to their
growing popularity and electoral successs culminating in its forming the
first Fianna Fail government. In Ireland failure and abandonment of
politial principles spells success.<br />
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Clearly this is a serious problem that reflects the current character of
the modern working class in Ireland. Its an indication of the venal
nature of the Irish working class. It has no interest in principled
politics. It is merely concerned with supporting elements within society
that it believes will "protect", even appear to increase its economic
benefits. It has the hallmarks of what Lenin and elements within the
German radical Left in the first quarter of the 20th century termed "the
labour aristocracy". The real poor in Irish society are a marginal
group that is largely ignored. The Irish electorate within the state
south of the border is merely concerned with maintaining its living
standards even if that means voting for a party that supported bombings
and killings for a cause that it later abandoned. Its principle is its
pocket. The venal Irish working class is not concerned with eliminating
the systemic exploitation of labour power once it has money in its
pocket. It does not care as to the blood stained nature of any bourgeois
party once it believes it will protect its holidays abroad. It is a
working class infected by the acquisitiveness of capitalist morality. In
the Marcusean sense it is a bourgeois working class.<br />
<br />
A radically fundamental change ( a paradigm shift) in the culture of the
working class is necessary if it is to become a revolutionary force. As
a revolutionary force it must adhere to principled libetarian politics.
Effecting such a coomprehensive transformation is a long and arduous
process. It will not necessarily occur in the short term and it has to
be realised by the class itself. There cannot be any substitutionism.<br />
<br />
The anti-water charges campaign has little or nothing to do with class
politics. This populist campaign has not become a force because the
working class is moving to the Left. It is simply an opportunist
campaign that simply wants a return to the status quo ante. It is a
venal response to growing hardship caused by the austerity measures
imposed by the state. It is not anti-statist nor anti-capitalist
campaign. The diverse elements that constitute it merely want a return
to previous living standards. They are not engaged in challenging the
class nature of Irish society and the need for its replacement with
communism.<br />
<br />
Consequently parties such as the Socialist Party and the Socialist
Workers Party are merely accommodating this opportunism by their
involvement in the anti-water charges campaign. Indeed the Irish working
class have shown its first signs of vitality over the water charges
issue. Yet this mass mobilisation is being mounted at a time when the
Irish capitalist class have recovered from the shock and collapse in
confidence suffered by it in the aftermath of the financial crisis of
2007/8. This earlier period would have been a politically more correct
period for mass mobilisation. But again the reactionary Irish working
class get it wrong. Questions need to be raised concerning the nature of
the Irish working class. Romanticising the working class as undertaken
by the radical left merely holds back any chances of authentic political
development. It is almost a taboo among this Left to make any serious
criticisms of this working class. Left communists are not obliged to
pander to a working class that has been backward for so long.<br />
<br />
In order to stand a chance of assisting in the revolutionising of the
consciousness of the working class it is necessary that communists
struggle to raise the consciousness of the most class conscious elements
within the working class. Its aim is the raising of class consciousness
as opposed to appealing to the less politically conscious strata within
the working class by coming down to its level through the medium of the
anti-water charges campaign.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-67908569183648092312015-10-30T20:29:00.001+00:002015-10-30T20:29:44.789+00:00The Yes Vote Is Not A Victory For The WorkersThe outcome of the same sex referendum in the Irish Republic shows a clear majority in favour of it.<br />
<br />
Many people see this outcome as a manifestation of progress. However
this is far from the case. The popular vote in favour of same sex
marriage merely means that the electorate support the widening of the
institution of marriage in Ireland. But the issue is that marriage is an
oppressive institution that sustains the nuclear family. Marriage today
is predominantly an institution of the state and the Christian
churches.In the course of human history the family has assumed different
forms. The present prevailing family form in the West is a bourgeois
form that plays a key role in inculcating bourgeois morality and
ideology into the working class.<br />
<br />
Much of the radical Left and the gay rights movement by calling for a
yes vote were promoting nothing but the fortification of the bourgeois
marriage institution at a time when the working class have been
increasingly shifting away from it. Instead of calling for a yes vote
the call for the abolition of marriage should have been the demand. The
very ironical fact that many of those that promoted and voted a yes vote
are members of the Catholic Church illustrates the bourgeois nature of
the yes campaign. Furthermore the fact that the major parliamentary
parties actively supported a yes vote is more evidence of the bourgeois
basis of the campaign. <br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-30678832674065073472015-10-30T20:22:00.001+00:002015-10-30T20:25:58.205+00:00Syriza Cannot Solve The Problems Of The Greek Working ClassThe referendum is a decision made by the Syriza government because it
has run out of road. Syriza lacking strategic vision is entrapped in a
political cul de sac. Its politics have reached their limits. After
approximately five months of negotiating with the EU leadership the
abject result is capitulation to austerity. The recent draft deal would
have meant the acceptance of even more austerity. Accepting such a deal
would have split Syriza and alienated much of its popular support.
Rather than face this it fell back on the referendum tactic. But this
forthcoming referendum can only add to the confusion and further
demoralisation of the Greek working class. This is because the
referendum is ambiguous. It is not clear as to what it is about. It is
not clear as to whether it concerns a vote for or against the Euro and
even EU membership. The brevity of the campaign and the surrounding
financial conditions entailing bank holidays, capital controls and cash
withdrawal restrictions may not help debate. The referendum, as it
stands, is a manifestation of the political bankruptcy of Syriza.<br />
<br />
Should the public vote yes in this forthcoming referendum it will mean
the transfer of political power back to the previous conservative Greek
forces. In that way Syriza will have, in effect, surrendered power to
these conservative forces thereby missing a golden opportunity to
actively participate in the radicalisation of the Greek and European
masses towards the seizure of popular power and the establishment of
communism. But Syriza's very nature prevented it from such an
achievement. Its function is the disarming of the Greek working class.<br />
<br />
The Greek crisis is an acute and concrete manifestation of the limits of
capitalism. The Greek crisis can only be resolved on a European and
global basis through the popular democratic establishment of communist
society. It is not a choice between being in or outside of the Euro.
Both choices are capitalist I character entailing austerity.
Anti-austerity is only realizable through a popular based social
revolution that transcends the limits and contradictions of capitalism.<br />
<br />
The various programmes advanced by much of the radical left are lodged
within the limits of capitalism. But it is these very limits that the Greek
financial crisis is manifesting. Leftists proposing the limits of
capitalism to solve those very limits is a contradiction.<br />
<br />
The principal problem, then, is not the bourgeoisie. The principal
problem is the failure of the working class to recognise through its
experience the Greek situation as a manifestion of the limits of
capitalism. This is not, as such, an objective problem but a subjective
one. It is a problem of the consciousness of the Greek and European
working class --class consciousness. Capitalism in the form of the Greek
crisis is telling the working class that it, capitalism, has limits and
thereby cannot satisfy the needs of the workers. Yet the working class
resist this thereby persisting in the maintenance of the deluded image
of a capitalism that can overcome its own limits.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-42105632808916865522015-10-30T20:09:00.002+00:002015-10-30T20:12:35.415+00:00No Anti-Austerity Campaign Can Be Successful Under CapitalismThe Greek working class have no option but the promotion of European
communist insurrection to abolish the EU and the capitalism that it
supports. The Greek working class cannot achieve communist on a national
basis. A revolution confined to Greece would be strangled at the hands
of European and US capitalism. Greek society is too weak to successfully
transform itself on a nationalist basis. Communism in one country is an
impossibility.<br />
<br />
Staying in or out of the Euro is not an option for the Greek working
class since both options will involve austerity for it. Only communism
precludes austerity. Syriza's anti-austerity platform is based on the
false view that an austerity free membership of the capitalist Eurozone
is possible for the Greek working class. Events are verifying the
pro-austerity nature of Syriza. Even if Syriza was to take the working
class out of the Euro austerity will still face it.<br />
<br />
Consequently the entire debate as to whether Greece should stay within
the Euro or not is a bourgeois debate of no real relevance to the
working class. It is an option presenting itself within the limits of
capital. Indeed present conditions concerning Greece are acutely
manifesting capital's limits and the need to transcend them in the form
of communism. Much of the Left, such as the Irish Socialist Party, show
solidarity with Syriza in its pseudo anti-austerity campaign. In this
way it is promoting capitalism and deceiving workers. Of course in
Ireland the active politics of the Socialist Party suggest that
anti-austerity is possible under Irish capitalism.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-36884980844156983072015-10-30T19:49:00.001+00:002015-10-30T19:49:45.696+00:00State Budgets Never Serve The Class Interests Of WorkersThe annual budget statement is a bourgeois matter. It is the obligation
of communists to highlight the latter rather than getting exclusively
immersed in its details. No matter how popularly appealing a budget
appears it can never serve the class interests of workers. Sections of
the Left relate to state budgets as if they are pliable and can
consequently meet workers' needs. In this way they seek to delude the
working class and thereby promote capitalism. The state budget cannot,
by its very nature, transcend the limits of capitalism. No government
can transcend these limits through the medium of the budget. <br />
<br />
It is not a subjective matter. It is an objective matter determined by
the laws of capital. Conservative bourgeois governments do not introduce
annual budgets that fail to meet the needs of the working class because
of their immoral nature. Capitalist constraints prevent this just as
the law of gravity and the second law of thermodynamics impose objective
constraints on the physical world. The nature of budgets is not a moral
question.<br />
<br />
Consequently arguments made by the radical Left as to how adverse the
substance of a particular budget is amounts to no more than mere
political rhetoric designed to obstruct the development of class
consciousness. Such delusional rhetoric is designed to suggest that
capitalism is a progressively rational system capable of serving working
class needs. It falsely suggests too that bourgeois governments fail to
meet the needs of workers for morally subjective reasons. This assumes
that such governments consist of "bad people".<br />
<br />
In the light of the foregoing it is clear that it is not the obligation
of communists to evaluate budget details in themselves. To do so is to
base a budget on the false assumption that it can serve the interests of
workers. At most the content of a budget must be discussed as evidence
of the inherent inability of budgets to meet the needs of workers. <br />
<br />
Having said this I am not claiming that all budgets, although bourgeois,
are of equal value. Some budgets may more adequately serve the class
interests of capitalists than others. Analogously some bourgeois
governments are better than others at representing the interests of
capitalism. Bourgeois governments can vary in competence.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-25164600241775352772014-10-08T18:04:00.001+01:002014-10-08T18:04:29.297+01:00Election Candidates and Sinn Fein<br />
Capitalism cannot solve the problems of the working class.This why a social revolution is historically necessary.The working class must achieve communist revolution.No amount of tinkering with the system can convert it into a system that satisfies the class interests of the working class. Reformism can never serve the class interests of the working class.Consequently the realisation of radical demands to the benefit the working class is impossible under capitalism. The claim that a programme of such demands is realisable under capitalism is a utopian claim. It constitutes an idealisation of capitalism and thereby its defence. It,therefore, promotes the sowing or reinforcing of illusions in capitalism. If such a programme is realisable then the struggle for communism is unnecessary.<br /><br />The reason the recent austerity offensive against the working class has been mounted in Ireland and elsewhere by the capitalist class is because capitalism cannot meet the class needs of the modern worker. The recent global recession was an objective, not a subjective, event.<br /><br />This means that it was not caused by capitalist greed, a nasty government or any other such subjective factor. It was due to the objective characteristics of the capitalist economic system that it broke out. This being so it follows that capitalism as an inherently obsolescent system must be replaced by a new objective system --communism. It is only by this dramatic revolutionary transformation of objectivity that the needs of the masses can be met. The only way that the inevitable problems manifested by the recession can be solved within capitalism (provisionally) is by an attack on the working class through strategies involving austerity. Radical demands advanced by the radical left, if realisable, would only deepen recessionary conditions thereby rendering working <br />class conditions even more severe. In that sense these radical demands, instead of benefiting the working class,would tend to worsen for the latter. This is because, as I have been arguing, capitalism cannot solve the problems of the working class.<br /><br />Whats more the solutions to the problems of the working class cannot be solved within a nationalist framework.The solution,social revolution,is only achievable on a global basis beginning in the most advanced capitalist countries such as the U.S. Given this there can be no social revolution on the island of Ireland independently of Western Europe.<br /><br />Even if the working class achieved concessions prior to the <br />global recession, that broke out in 2007/8, they would have contributed to the emergence of the economic and financial upheaval itself. This, as I have been arguing,is because capitalism cannot solve the problems of the working class.<br /><br />In view of this the rhetoric by Sinn Fein, the Anti Austerity Alliance and the People Before Profit Alliance featuring on RTE's Prime Time programme amounts to nothing but illusion. Their election candidates showed no understanding of the need for revolution. Their rhetoric suggested that capitalism can be managed or reformed to the benefit of the working class by effectively taxing the rich and not the working class. Indeed the entire show confined itself to suggestions as to how to reform capitalism in one way or another. In that way the participants sought to effectively defend the capitalist system. Essentially all contributors were essentially advocating bourgeois politics. If the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party are genuinely revolutionary they would have challenged RTE and its other contributors by advocating the need for revolution. <br /><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-25720380563661000882014-10-03T16:17:00.001+01:002014-10-03T16:17:17.037+01:00Vincent Browne and The People's Debate<div class="article">
I watched with interest the programme called The
People's Debate on TV3 chaired by Vincent Browne on Wednesday night
October 1st.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly each of the contributors, with one exception, based
their comments on the assumption that all solutions to the problems of
the Irish working class are solvable within the framework of
capitalism.They do not see capitalism as the cause of the problems
experienced by the Irish working class. They do not see that the only
solution to the problems of the working class is social revolution
involving the replacement of capitalist society with communist society.<br />
<br />
Many, if not most, of the contributors, were advocating the reforming of
capitalism in one way or another. They failed to make clear that the
problem is not the way capitalism is structured but capitalism itself.
It is an obsolescent system that cannot meet the needs of the working
class. <br />
<br />
People from the Anti-Austerity Alliance and People Before Profits
featured prominently on the show in suggesting capitalist solutions to
working class problems. They want to save capitalism from itself. Both
these organisations are fronts for The Socialist Party and the Socialist
Workers Party respectively.Yet as radical socialist, even Marxist,
parties, they support capitaltism while pretending to be against it.<br />
<br />
Parties such as the SP, SWP and Sinn Fein are essentially no different
from each other nor from Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Fianna Fail.
They are all bourgeois nationalist parties competing for power within
the capitalist system. Reformism is still alive and well and embedded
within the Irish working class movement. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-31905060524329964352014-05-22T10:42:00.000+01:002014-05-22T10:42:41.107+01:00The Call For Nationalisation Is A Bourgeois DemandState expenditure is largely unproductive expenditure. It thereby does
not produce value. This means it constitutes a deduction as opposed to
an increment in total surplus value. This involves a corresponding fall
in the rate of accumulation of capital. The latter tends to ultimately
manifest itself in the form of a fall off in industrial growth.<br />
<br />
As valorisation becomes increasingly difficult capitalism is compelled
to reduce state expenditure. To counteract this it engages in increasing
privitisation of its assets --denationalisation. It becomes
increasingly impossible, then, for the state to extend nationalisation.
The government does not privatise its state assets because it enjoys
hurting the working class. Because of the specific nature of the
objective conditions it is forced to privatise. <br />
<br />
Under these circumstances calls for nationalisation and increased state
spending are utopian and idealistic.These calls fail to correspond with
objective reality. These calls then amount to no more than the deception
and misleadership of the working class. By reinforcing illusions in the
working class concerning capitalism reformism obstructs the working
class from moving towards a realistic programme of communist revolution.
<br />
<br />
Because of monopoly capitalism's growing limits it must seek to minimise
the state. On the other hand with a few exceptions it needs to
eliminate or cut welfarism and related spending. To achieve this it may
even need to abolish the formal democracy obtaining in the West.<br />
<br />
However savage cut-backs by the state can only lead to sharpened class
struggle. Under these conditions the emergence of class consciousness
may make itself felt among the working class leading to the birth of a
communist movement. Under these circumstances reformism will grow less
plausible and influential within the working class. In view of this it
is reactionary for reformism to make calls for nationalisation and
increased spending by the state. <br />
<br />
Despite the 2008 financial crash there has been no visible shift by the
working class to a class conscious political paradigm. The working class
is still dominated by reformism in one form or another. Even the Greek
working class, despite its militancy, is still imprisoned within
reformist ideology. The working class of the world still supports the
capitalist system in one form or another. <br />
<br />
Privatisation programmes undertaken by capitalist states must be
combatted by the working class fighting for the control and ownership of
these state assets. This revolutionary seizure of state assets is only
possible within the context of a sustained attack on the capitalist
state itself. This entails a class struggle for the abolition of the
state and the capitalist system. The seizure of state assets such as
health care services is only possible within the framework of a
revolutionary struggle to destroy the capitalist state. The proletarian
seizure of health care will bear a popular democratic character. Health
will no longer be based on profit nor on a political strategy designed
to serve the class interests of capitalism.<br />
<br />
Health care is simultaneously a necessary reproduction and repair of
labour power.Much of nationalised health care forms part of the value of
labour power. But much of it is unproductive too. This means it is a
drain on surplus value. In that sense it directly contributes to the
fall in the general rate of profit together with a corresponding decline
in the economy.<br />
<br />
Much of health care, whether private or public, serves to maintain the
value of labour power by ensuring that the latter is preserved in a
healthy condition. The health of the working class serves the interests
of capital. This is because the health of the working class is of
concern to the capitalist class with regard to the valorisation process.
An unhealthy working class is not going to be as available for
exploitation in the prodiction process.<br />
<br />
Nationalisation was introduced as a strategy designed to help pacify the
working class in the interests of capitalist stability. It was also
designed to support the economy. But nationalisation has contributed to
falling profitability which has interfered with the rate of capital
accumulation. Because of this capitalism seeks to increasingly privatise
health care especially in a period, such as this, when the
profitability of capital is a growing problem. <br />
<br />
Calls for the continuation and extension of health care nationalisation
are bourgeois demands. Instead the call must be for the ownership and
control of health care by the working class. This can only be achieved
by the abolition of the state and its capitalist basis. Under these
conditions the criterion of profitability no longer exists. <br />
<br />
A part of the health service maintains the health of the active working
class. Consequently it maintains and even increases the value of labour
power which leads to a reduction in profit. Although the above is true
it tends to be counteracted by health care maintaining and even
improving the condition of labour power thereby maintaining and even
increasing its capacity to provide labour within the production process.
In that sense it cannot be simply regarded as unproductive activity.
However the part of the health service that does not maintain and
increase the present and future value of the working class is
unproductive. This constitutes a direct deduction from surplus value and
thereby contributes to the decline in economic growth. Clearly state
health care, overall, tends to adversely affect the growth rate. <br />
<br />
The nationalised section of health care is funded by the state
effectively through taxation which is a revenue drawn from value. This
is a deduction both from surplus value and the value accruing to the
working class. It represents a transfer of value away from the
consumption of the active working class and the accumulation of capital.
<br />
<br />
Education plays a similar role to health within capitalism. A part of it
involves the training of labour power in the interests of the
capitalist reproduction process. This heightens the value of labour
power while improving the capacity of the worker to provide labour. The
result is upskilling of labour power. Overall this aspect of education
may more or less prove to neutral in ughrelation to capital
accumulation. Research contributes to increasing the productivity of
labour by promoting technological progress. However the residual part
constitutes a deduction from surplus value without any change in the
value of labour power. Much of this aspect of education is ideological.
It is designed to maintain and even increase citizen support for the
capitalist system through false consciousness. This feature of education
obviously contributes to the contraction of growth. <br />
<br />
The armed forces, the police and much of the state bureaucracy
constitute significant deductions from surplus value. They constitute an
unproductive expenditure. Thereby they lead to a fall in the rate of
profit which further constrains the expansion of capital. This is why
governments seek to reduce the cost of these state features.<br />
<br />
State expenditure, as a whole, constitutes an enormous deduction from
total surplus value. This largely unproductive spending involves an
enormous contraction in the accumulation of capital. It is a deduction
that has been growing significantly in the aftermath of the 2nd World
War. In the present period of growing problems, regarding the
accumulation of capital, there have been continuing feeble attempts to
shrink the state or at least reduce the annual rate of state spending.<br />
<br />
The contradiction is that burgeoning state spending was undertaken to
compensate for the inherent limits of capital entailing mass
unemployment and many other problems.Yet this spending paradoxically
leads in turn to the reinforcement of these limits. Indeed much of the
entire state constitutes a deduction from total surplus value because it
constitutes unproductive expenditure. This is why there have been
attempts, not very successfully, to shrink the size of the modern state.
In this way capitalism is its own grave digger.<br />
<br />
Capitalism, because of its growing limits, is decreasingly able to fund
welfare and other expenditure. Capitalism is unable to meet the demands
being made by left reformists such as the SP/SWP and other political
organisations. Consequently reformism deceives and misleads the working
class by suggesting that capitalism is manageable in such a way as to
solve the problems of the working class. <br />
<br />
If capitalism can solve the problems of the working class then it is
superfluous and misleading for communists to call for social revolution.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-40701513668328934042014-05-22T10:35:00.001+01:002014-05-22T10:35:29.433+01:00Why Reform the Gardai in Ireland?The whistle blower controversy concerning the Gardai is a non-issue concerning the class interests of the working class.<br />
<br />
The gardai, as a security force, forms an essential arm of the Irish
capitalist state. Consequently its function is to serve the class
interests of the capitalist class --not the working class. Therefore
calls for the improvement of this security force by "leftists" suggests
that the Gardai in some way represents the class interests of the
working class or is an apparatus of a state that stands independent of
the capitalist class.<br />
<br />
The Gardai can never serve the interests of the working class despite
the degree to which it is reformed. Any reforms undertaken are, at most,
made to deceive workers into believing that the Irish state exists to
serve the interests of the wage worker.<br />
<br />
The more a police force appears to serve the class interests of the
working class the more successful it may be in fooling the working
class. <br />
<br />
All this stuff about misconduct within the Gardai has no real relevance
for workers. At most its so called misconduct merely exposes the
bourgeois nature of the force. Parliamentarians like Clare Daly, Mike
Wallace and Ming Flanagan by tub thumping in relation to the Gardai are
merely engaging in populism designed to fool the working class. Sinn
Fein, not to be outdone, has been engaged in a similar exercise. <br />
<br />
Calling for the resignation of Allen Shatter, as Justice Minister, is of
no significance. It does not matter politically whether he resigns or
not.He will be simply replaced by another politician from the parties in
coalition government. By calling for his resignation the appearance is
created that his replacement by another politician from a bourgeois
party will make a difference. <br />
<br />
The calling for the jailing of white collar crime is another issue that
is not the business of the working class. Prisons are oppressive
bourgeois institutions. <br />
<br />
The only correct call, from the standpoint of the wage worker, is the call for the abolition of the Gardai. <br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-44253831919280111342014-05-06T12:48:00.000+01:002014-05-06T12:48:07.644+01:00The Gerry Adams ArrestSinn Fein claim that the recent arrest of Gerry Adams by the PSNI had a
political character designed to damage Sinn Fein. It claims that there
is a dark element within the PSNI. It also slanders Dolores Price and
Ivor Bell.<br />
<br />
The above claims are a further reinforcement of the reactionary nature
of this political party. Its claims suggest that the PSNI as a necessary
part of the British imperialist state is non-political. As an organic
part of the capitalist state the PSNI is of necessity political. When
the latter intervenes in demonstrations organised by nationalists or
loyalists it is acting politically. Ironically for Gerry Adams and the
stalinist like Sinn Fein the six county police are only political when
they arrest Gerry. It is not being political when they arrest a
"dissident" Republican but when they arrest Gerry it is. The point is
that when Sinn Fein opportunistically accepted the establishment of the
PSNI it was, ipso facto, accepting the entire force. Sinn Fein cynically
want to see the PSNI like the parson's egg.<br />
<br />
The essential point is that Sinn Fein/IRA betrayed its core principles
many years ago when it officially accepted the existence of political
partition and its two reactionary states on both sides of the border.
This means it accepts the validity of the imperialist domination of the
island of Ireland.<br />
<br />
Furthermore it is highly unlikely that the arrest of Gerry was
undertaken without the consent of the British government. Sinn Fein
knows this but seeks to reduce the arrest to the level of an aberration
caused by a cabal within the police service. This is because Sinn Fein
supports both British and Irish capitalism. And this is why its
opportunist economic program in the South is based on the absurd
assumption that economic and social problems are solvable within
capitalism. This assumption and the programme built on it means that
Sinn Fein is not an anti-capitalist formation. Neither is its success
largely due to its performance. It is due largely to the recent world
crash and the consequent exposure of Fianna Fail, the Green Party, Fine
Gael and the Labour Party. Sinn Fein is inherently a bourgeois
opportunist party.<br />
<br />
The party's denigration of Dolours Price, Brendan Hughes and others is
an indication as to the degree to which Sinn Fein has descended into the
mire. Incidentally it is an indication of the journalistic cowardice to
which Ed Moloney has descended as evidenced by his comments on the
recent arrest of Gerry Adams. In the interview on American radio he
effectively accepted that the interviews with Price and Hughes had a
dubious character.<br />
<br />
Concerning the abduction, killing and disappearance of Jean McConville
by the IRA let me say this: If Gerry Adams was seriously suspected of
being directly involved in her killing then why did the British
government, the Irish government, Fianna Fail, the PDs, Fine Gael and
the Labour party negotiate with him or support such negotiations leading
to the GFA? The British and Irish governments were prepared to
negotiate an agreement with a political leader who was understood to be a
leading member of the IRA and thereby responsible for killings and
bombings including the McConville killing.<br />
<br />
Given the establishment of the GFA it makes no sense to punish
individuals who were members of the IRA. It makes no sense to hound them
on the question as to whether they were IRA members. This problem
should have been sorted out during the GFA negotiations. I would have
thought that secret diplomacy by the involved parties would have covered
this. Again the opportunism of Sinn Fein/IRA is again exposed if there
was no settlement concerning this in this regard. It is now being
hoisted by its own petard.<br />
<br />
Overall the McConville issue is being venally exploited by sections of
the bourgeois media and the political establishment to damage Sinn Fein.
The foregoing no more care about Mrs McConville than they do the
victims of HSE incompetence. To conclude: The Adams arrest may have been
carried out as part of a plan to get an agreement on past actions of
individuals from both the Republican and Loyalist camps. Such an
agreement might bring to an end the arrest, trial and imprisonment of
activists for their previous actions. This makes me wonder whether these
recent events were choreographed by Sinn Fein and the British
government. Gerry looked well for a guy kept in detention for four days
and subjected to continuous questioning especially as he had not eaten
for the first two days of his detention.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-87315263180534422172013-10-02T11:21:00.003+01:002013-10-02T11:25:48.334+01:00The Reformism of Maurice Coakley<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Below is a piece from me criticising the interview with
Maurice Coakely concerning his recently published book</span><span class="MsoLineNumber"><b><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> <span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></b></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #111111; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ireland in the World Order: A History of Uneven
Development</span></em><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #111111; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">?</span></strong></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> The interview
was published on the website PoliticalEconomy.ie on March 28<sup>th</sup> 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: It argued that the Irish capitalist class had been
shaped by this structural underdevelopment and showed no inclination to develop
an independent industrial base. From the 1960s onwards it sought to insert
Ireland into transnational networks – above all by making it a conduit for US
capital investment orientated towards the European market. Some of this was
manufacturing industry that created real employment but much of it was
fraudulent, with the Irish state becoming complicit with tax evasion on a
massive scale. While the country significantly increased its average standard
of living, it also made itself deeply dependent upon foreign capital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Maurice’s above use of the concept “underdevelopment”
is questionable. This is because in the course of his interview he suggests
that a sufficiently strong popular resistance movement can create conditions
within Ireland that liberate the Irish people from conditions of oppression. Since
such liberation from oppression, in its very nature, means an end to “underdevelopment”,
for Maurice then, the latter is not necessarily a socio-economic condition that
prevents independent development. For Maurice too the creation of these
conditions does not involve the abolition of capitalism. Given this his concept
of “underdevelopment” is of no historic significance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: The radical left has long argued for greater
workers’ control at the level of manufacturing industry but we also need to
think through what needs to be done in other sectors of the social order. The
workings of government and its many institutions should be transparent to the
citizens and should be subject to democratic supervision. That would
necessarily involve participation and consultation not only with the workers in
any given institution, but also with citizens involved with them, like patients,
commuters, residents etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">The minimum measures necessary to defend popular living
standards and the welfare state will face fierce opposition from the ruling
elites. If a pro-worker government is to succeed in these very modest goals, it
would need to achieve a deep popular mobilisation, and a politicisation of the
populace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: The above indicates his conception is tantamount to
suggesting “structural underdevelopment” can be significantly modified or even dissolved
within the framework of imperialism. But the notion of “underdevelopment” is
based on the assumption that it is a necessary and unavoidable aspect of world
capitalism. Consequently<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“underdevelopment”
can only be eliminated by eliminating capitalism. This being so there is no
room for Maurice’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>brand of reformism
within this theory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">To claim that this Irish capitalist class <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">showed
no inclination</i> to develop an independent industrial base” suggests that
this indigenous class has had choice as to how the Irish economy was to be
structured. This then means that, for Maurice, “underdevelopment” is not an
inevitable outcome of world capitalist development but a product of the subjective
choices of the Irish capitalist class. This then suggests that the Irish
capitalist class is not<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dominated by imperialist
capital (British capitalism). But this must is evidence that Maurice is contradicting
the very nature of “underdevelopment”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This implies that the Irish bourgeoisie has
been a subjectively lazy or unenterprising class. Laziness, then, not “underdevelopment”
or foreign capital,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is mistakenly the ultimate
source of the problem for Maurice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">The economic development of Western Europe in the aftermath
of the Second World War was largely determined by US capitalism. These Western
economies were in an extremely dependent state. Yet it would make little sense
to describe Britain, France and Germany as in a state of “underdevelopment” as
a consequence of its then subordinate relationship to US capitalism. Even today
there obtains a relationship of subordination between US imperialism and
Western Europe. Indeed Maurice’s claim that the capitalist world is composed of
a hierarchal state system suggests that there different degrees of structural
development with regard to individual states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">To historically link social resistance in Ireland to a
striving for national independence makes little sense. If Ireland’s condition
was that of “underdevelopment” then there obtained no possibility of national
independence been achieved. However the conditions existed for the realisation
of social rights or reforms within “underdevelopment”. Catholic Emancipation
was, in a sense, realised within the context of underdevelopment as was the
land question. Yet these movements of social resistance were not necessarily
linked “to a striving for national independence.” The conditions of nationality
entails the existence of an emerging indigenous bourgeoisie free from
conditions of “underdevelopment”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given
Maurice’s perspective such an Irish bourgeoisie must be non-existent because of
underdevelopment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">The character of the Irish economy in relation to global
capitalism is not a result, as Maurice implies, of the subjective actions of
its capitalist class. The Irish capitalist class cannot subjectively determine
Ireland’s economic structure. If it could it would then constitute an
independent capitalist class involving an independent nation state. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice resorts to petit bourgeois morality when he claims that
much of US investment has “a fraudulent nature”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is no more fraudulent than the
exploitation of labour power. Collapsing economic and political phenomena into morality
merely obfuscates reality and obscures the way forward.</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">The Southern Irish state did not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">make itself </i>dependent on foreign capital. The objective processes inherent
in world capitalism made it dependent on foreign capital. All capital is
ultimately dependent. Dependent on the industrial working class as the source
of value (capital). Neither foreign nor indigenous capital are morally better
than each other. One is as bad or good as the other. The point is that they are
both sources for the extraction of surplus value from the modern worker. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: At a more general level the book argues that uneven
development is intrinsic to the capitalist system. This is not just a matter of
the laws of the capitalism system working themselves out unevenly - though
there is an element of that - but also that patterns of development are heavily
shaped by politics. Global capitalism is a hierarchal system, and states play a
central role in moulding that hierarchy,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Maurice’s claim that “global capitalism is a
hierarchal system” is a questionable <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
rather undialectical claim. The USA was originally a British colony and then in
the 18<sup>th</sup> century was a relatively weak nation state. Yet it was to
eventually become the strongest capitalist state in the world. Germany was slow
to emerge into an independent state. Yet today <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germany is, arguably, the strongest state
within the EMU. We see then that the strength and weakness of states is a
somewhat fluid matter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: The failure to the Irish state to pursue a course of
independent economic development has made the Irish economy exceptionally
vulnerable in the event of crisis. The Irish state found itself with very
limited leverage to negotiate with the institutions of global and regional
governance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: An individual state cannot freely choose to follow a
course of independent economic development. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not a subjective matter. It is a
historical matter grounded in objective processes that transcend, albeit
involve, mere subjectivity. Otherwise any state could freely choose to follow a
course of independent economic development. If a country, such as Maurice
claims Ireland to be, is in a condition of underdevelopment then this is even
more so the case. States don’t have the power to subjectively determine the
character of their economies. Furthermore capitalism is international in
character which means that Irish capitalism is driven by global capitalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: To make matters worse the political elite has become
closely interwoven with a rentier/financial oligarchy whose interests are very
removed from any development project, or from the needs of the wider
population. The Irish elite as a whole has become characterised by a mentality
that combines dependency and fraud, a combination not uncommon across much of what
is called the ‘developing’ world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Capitalism, including Irish capitalism, is a class
based system –not an “elite” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>based
system. The Irish state is a capitalist state that ultimately serves the
interests of the capitalist class. Thereby this system never existed, as
Maurice suggests, to serve “the needs of the wider population”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The category “wider population included all
classes obtaining in a specific social formation. Neither can it be one of
“mentality”,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as Maurice suggests.
Psychology is not the driving force of societies. A different “mentality” cannot
free Ireland from dependency and “fraud”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: There has been a radical change in the balance of
forces between capital and labour – to the detriment of labour – over the last
few decades and this has been one of the defining features of contemporary
capitalism. Other significant changes have also occurred. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Over the last few decades, global capitalism – especially in
the North Atlantic economies – has been characterised by a massive expansion of
the financial sphere, a process known as financialisation. Behind the financial
upsurge are some wider changes in the global economy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: The post-war world followed on the heels of the
massive defeat of the world working class at the hands of both capitalism and
Stalinism. Yet, in the aftermath of the war, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Western working class experienced, to a
large extent, radical improvements in both its working and living conditions. So
Maurice’s claim that changes in the balance of forces against the working class
necessarily involves falls in its living standards is not supportable by the evidence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: One is the presence of global over-capacity in
production which inhibits investment. Too many goods are chasing too few
customers. Many corporations don’t see any way that they can achieve profitable
returns by investing in new production lines so they are either hoarding their
profits or looking for speculative fields to put their money in. In the old
core zones of global capitalism, investment rates have been falling for
decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: If the above comments <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are true then the recent industrial
development of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>China could not have
taken place on such an enormous scale. To suggest that profits are being
hoarded makes no sense. Hoarding profit (surplus value) can only mean the
contraction of profits. If surplus value, in the form, of profit is hoarded
then it ceases to function as capital. It thereby must contract. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if industrial corporations invest their
profits in a bank they are still not being hoarded. Banks cannot make profits
by hoarding. Over-capacity in capitalist production cannot, given capitalism’s
nature, constitute a sustainable process. Over-production of capital occurs at a
particular stage in the business cycle. Over-production is followed by
stockpiling of commodity capital and the eventual devaluation and destruction
of capital itself. This entails the increased centralisation and concentration
of capital. The consequent capital adjustment brings about an end to this
over-accumulation of capital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cyclical process can be softened, even
interrupted, by progressively increasing public expenditure. The latter
ultimately constitutes a deduction from surplus value. But there is a limit to
this process. This is why the 2008 crash and the Euro crisis took place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">There cannot persist in a sustained way, as Maurice is claiming,
too many goods chasing too few customers. The goods, the commodities in
question, then cease to be goods (commodities). Too many goods chasing too few
customers is based on false underconsumptionist assumptions which conflict with
Marxist political economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: In this context financialisation was useful because
more people could buy goods on credit, but the huge debt which was built up
from the 1990s ultimately became unmanageable and the financial system
imploded. We are living with the consequences of that. Most of the world’s
banks are underwater, and have only survived because of massive infusions of
public money from governments around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Huge debts are a relative matter. The accumulation of
huge debts does not necessarily, as Maurice claims, become unmanageable leading
to the implosion of the financial system. The debt tolerance of capitalism is a
function of the scale of surplus value produced by its valorisation process. Debt
tends to cause problems when the valorisation process is producing insufficient
surplus value relative to debt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: Because workers could not afford to buy the goods
produced, the credit system was vastly expanded to cope with this but it
ultimately collapsed under the weight of the huge levels of debt which had
accumulated. The crucial point is this: <i>capital will not be able to resolve
the crisis this time by further assaults on labour. </i>This does not of course
mean that they won’t try. But even if they are successful in their efforts, it
will not end the systemic crisis. On the contrary, it will deepen it because
ordinary people will be even less able to afford the goods being produced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Expanding credit excessively is capitalism’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>means of seeking to escape from its profitability
problems. The enormous burgeoning of credit had a universal character in the
West. To claim that “assaults on labour” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>involving further cut-backs in the price of
labour power will not help resolve the crisis is ludicrous. To claim that such
a development leads to further underconsumptionism demonstrates Maurice’s
ignorance of the nature of capitalism. If there obtains a sustained accelerating
accumulation of capital then falling wages do not necessarily lead to falling
demand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: Marx spoke about the ‘over-accumulation’ of capital.
We usually think about this as an economic process, but it is also a social
one. The huge wealth and power that capital has built up over the last three
decades has become an obstacle to the capitalist system itself<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: But if, as Maurice claims, growth and profitability have
been falling then it cannot be the huge wealth and power of capital that is the
cause of the crisis. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If profitability is
falling then the scale of capital is correspondingly contracting. To suggest,
as Maurice does, that capital would be rational if it followed a certain
programme is to misunderstand the nature of capital. The only way capital can
be rational is by its self-negation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
very nature of these aspects make such rational action impossible under
capitalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: If capitalism was a rational system it would have
imposed harsh sanctions on the bankers and the brokers, and ensured that
sufficient resources went into social services and into the creation a
sustainable energy system. It would also make a serious effort to ensure that
the general population would be able to buy the goods being produced by
capital. But capitalism is not a rational system, or rather what is rational
for the individual capitalist – or the individual state – becomes irrational
for the system as a whole.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Maurice is again engaging in contradictions. If, as
Maurice claims, capitalism is not rational then it is inconsistent of him to
call for a programme involving the public ownership of the credit system since
this would constitute a futile attempt to render capitalism more rational. Yet
he has already claimed that the capitalist system is not rational.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: If a substantial popular and democratic resistance
to neo-liberal polices does not emerge, we are likely to see a deepening of
destructive and irrational trends, alongside more imperialist adventures,
across the globe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Popular and democratic resistance is not the issue. The
issue is the emergence of a global communist movement that successfully overthrows
capitalism. Neither is it, as Maurice suggests, a matter of mere resistance to
neoliberalism but the mounting of a sustained offensive against the capitalist
class. Maurice’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>antiliberalism suggests
that there is a good and a bad capitalism: defeating bad capitalism in the form
of neo-liberalism while restoring the previous good form of capitalism. The
only way to eliminate neoliberalism is to eliminate capitalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: To many people, including many trade unionists, this
seemed like a good deal. It is only with the global financial crisis that the
downside of the deal has become more evident. Suddenly, Ireland was being
demoted to the status of a ‘peripheral’ state, albeit a periphery of the
world’s second major core region. One of the reasons why resistance in Ireland
has been muted so far is because people are afraid that resistance could be
counterproductive, that deeper confrontations could damage Ireland’s position
in the global system. The EU leaders and the debt collectors are aware of these
fears and use them to their advantage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: The problem is, not simply, as Maurice suggests, the
failure of the Irish working class to seriously challenge the cut backs. The
problem is that the cut-backs cannot be successfully challenged within a national
framework. Only the European working class, including the Irish working class,
can successfully challenge the cut backs by transforming itself into a working
class communist movement. On its own the Irish working class, no matter how
radicalised, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is objectively too weak to
destroy capitalism in Ireland. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: While many are beginning to realise that there may
be a heavy price to pay for having so lightly abandoned national sovereignty,
they see no easy way to regain it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: It is ironical that Maurice should suggest that
Ireland had (before the fall) national sovereignty given that he claims it has
been in a state of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“underdevelopment”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ireland’s has been surrendering its national
sovereignty over many years. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To a
certain extent it has been the further loss of sovereignty, as a result of
becoming part of the Eurozone, that has led to the southern Irish economy’s current
disastrous economic condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed it
is questionable as to whether Ireland has<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>ever <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>been<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>an authentic sovereign country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: The argument put forward by the European Commission
and the European Central Bank – that cutting public spending will rejuvenate
the private economy by making it more competitive – is simply not credible... It
is clear that the austerity programmes are not only having a disastrous social
effect, but are also damaging the capitalist economies in the affected
countries. Not only are these deprivation programmes socially and economically
harmful but they have also significantly eroded the position of the political
establishment in these states. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Austerity does work. Indeed an austerity programme is
needed for Western capitalism as a whole. The reason as to why <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Western capitalist class has not faced up
to its problems is because of fear of the working class. Divisions within that
capitalist class is another reason. If widespread austerity was introduced it
would lead to the demise of the weaker sections of the capitalist class. It is
this component of the capitalist class that may be more sceptical concerning an
austerity programme. For capitalism to recover there needs to be enormous cut
backs made in the living and working conditions of the working class together
with the elimination of less<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>productive
forms of capital. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: To make matters worse, they are now forcing austerity
policies on their neighbours, ignoring the evidence that these are thoroughly
counter-productive. As an economic strategy, this was bound to crash because if
the peripheral economies are on their knees, who then is going to buy German
goods?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Above is the false underconsumptionist rubbish
repeatedly spewed out by much of the radical left. If German capital is to
continue to accumulate it needs to export both commodities and capital to other
parts of the EU. To achieve this it needs to maintain and increase
profitability. Exporting capital is one of the chief means through which to
achieve this. This means keeping costs down including both the price of the
commodity labour power and social benefits. The imposition of EU wide austerity
can help prevent German profits from falling. This is done by reducing the
price of labour power and the elimination of weaker forms of capital. The
latter is largely sustained by state spending of one sort or another. The
biggest danger confronting the West European bourgeoisie, concerning this, is
the potential challenge from the European working class. However because
profitability conditions are so bad West European capital has no other option
but to take action that may lead to historically significant challenges by the
working class. However current working class weakness is encouraging it to impose
radical austerity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: More than that, it would appear that as capitalism
becomes more mature, it can only be stabilised by more and more public
spending. Without that, these economies go into reverse gear. This is what is
happening today across the European periphery. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: The opposite is the case. Because of capitalism’s growing
maturity public spending needs reduction to a necessary minimum. It is enormous
public spending that largely constitutes a deduction from surplus value leaving
less room for the accumulation of capital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: One way of overcoming Europe’s debt problems would
be to simply write off the debt. This happened to German debt in 1953, with the
blessings of Washington. Were the European Union to do this, it would be a
massive blow to the interests of financial capital, and it would probably force
the European states to take public ownership and control of the credit system.
Another solution would be to print money to inflate away the debt. This would
damage both the interests of financial capital and also of savers, who would
see the real value of their savings reduced. It is considered to be politically
unacceptable to the German government. Instead, the ECB, the EC and the Berlin
continued to push through austerity programmes that they know are
self-defeating. This whole policy is incoherent and behind the arrogance of the
European leadership one can detect more than a hint of panic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: It is not the job of the working class to assist
capital in its effort to resolve its problems. Much of the Irish radical left
have been repeatedly engaged in this treacherous exercise. It is a reactionary
exercise which deceives the working class. The class interests of workers is
not advanced by announcing ways to save capitalism from itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Anyway the European Union won’t write off debts because this
means a reduction in total surplus value accruing to its capital –particularly
the capital of its strongest economies. It will only engage in such
undertakings when left with no alternative. The other solution promoted by
Maurice is “to print money to inflate away the debt.” Inflation is an
anti-working class measure involving consumer price rises which tend to reduce
working class income. Excessive money printing can destabilise capitalism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: Some of the points that the Keynesians make are
valid enough. There is a necessity to increase public spending in both social
and physical infrastructure. We are, however, not likely to see a return to the
high growth rates of earlier decades, nor is it clear that high growth would be
a good thing. The Keynesians have yet to get their heads around the global
ecological crisis. Endless economic growth is simply not possible, nor is it
ecologically viable. The global environment is much too fragile for that. If we
are to establish a viable economic model, it has to include an agenda of moving
towards a sustainable energy system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Public spending means more debt. Excessive debt has
been a key source of the problem. Calling for a “pro-worker government” under
capitalism is tantamount to calling for more credit and public investment
independently of its profitability. Yet more credit, contrary to what Maurice
claims, only intensifies the problem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: Given that a return to high growth rates is impractical,
it is difficult to see how a social compromise between capital and labour of
the sort that existed in the post-war decades could be revived. At a very
immediate level, the private banking system is a massive obstacle to economic
revival because it represents claims on future production. These claims are
strangling investment projects. This private financial sector needs to be
closed down, and the credit system should be turned into a public utility
system, like electricity, water or transport. A publically owned,
democratically structured credit system would enable the population to
determine where investment should go and what forms it would take. Such a
programme would not, in itself, abolish capitalism, but it would significantly
re-structure the system and shift the balance of power from capital to labour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: The nationalisation of credit means more debt. Given
the global character of credit its nationalisation by a little Irish state is
impossible. In fact the public finance that is being injected into the world
banking system is a form of nationalisation by the back door. This enormous
financial cost is being undertaken at the expense of the working class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bank nationalisation would prove an even
greater burden on the working class. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">If the financial system was to be made public on a popular
democratic basis in such a way as to enhance the interests of the working class
the capitalist class would challenge this attempted restructuring of capital. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The capitalist state then could not, by its
very nature, support such nationalisation. The nationalisation of finance is
just not possible under capitalism. Finance capital is by its very nature
private. Capitalism cannot be managed in the way that Maurice suggests, A
managed capitalism constitutes <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
negation of finance capital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Neither is capitalism going to shift what Maurice calls “the
balance of power” against itself. The state is an organ of class power that
cannot thereby serve the interests of the working class. Furthermore given the
global character of finance capital a puny Irish state lacks the power to successfully
challenge it. Neither capitalism nor its state are rational which means a
rational capitalism cannot exist. Popularly determining where resources are to
be invested means that profit is no longer to be capital’s driving force. This
is to fly in the face of the law of value. This an historic impossibility.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: The crucial arena for establishing a modicum of
self-determination is the financial one. The debt burden imposed upon the
population is not only immoral, it is also impractical. It effectively condemns
the state to extended stagnation, which will be accompanied by a gradual but
accumulative reduction in social spending and social rights. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: The above piece makes no sense. Immorality is not the
issue. Morality is not an economic policy. The category <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>population includes capitalists, petty
capitalists, the industrial working class and lumpen elements. In this context
it is a term of great ambiguity even <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>suggesting
that Ireland is not a class society. Maurice’s conception suggests that the
state is a neutral force that can be used by either working class or capitalist
class. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: The details of what policies a progressive
government would need to introduce would have to be worked out collectively and
these would change over time depending on circumstances. In the 1930s trade
policies were considered more central than they would be now, but that could
change again. A lot of good work has been done by people like Michael Taft, the
<i>Anglo Not Our Debt </i>campaign, and the <i>Irish Left Review</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: There can be no such political institution as a
progressive Irish government. If such a government were possible then there is
no reason as to why Fianna Fail, Fine Gael or the Labour Party would not have formed
one. These parties don’t act in a reactionary way because they sadistically
enjoy punishing the working class. The point is that they cannot<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>function as government without being
compelled to implement policies that serve the interests of the capitalist
class both in its indigenous and foreign forms. Their policies are not a
product of subjective factors but of objective ones. Furthermore the EU would
obstruct the existence of a progressive Irish government.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Michael Taft is a reformist nationalist who sees the solution
as a reformist one that is confined within the Irish national framework. This
is a utopian solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: Any political advance towards a more just society
must begin from where we are now. In the case of western Europe, a defence of
social rights and the welfare state has to be the starting point for launching
a political challenge to the existing order, at least for the foreseeable
future. </span></div>
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"></span> </div>
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: “A more just society!” Is this The Just Society
programme promoted by the Fine Gael Party in the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century? It is not a matter of a defence of social rights and the welfare
state. Capitalism has launched an attack on the working and living conditions
of the Irish working class because it is left with no real choice. Why else
would it engage in such an exercise? Why is the state currently engaged in this
exercise on such a scale? The current government is not engaged in a severe
austerity programme because for the pleasure of it. It does not willingly
promote a programme that makes it increasingly unpopular. The point is that it
has no real choice under present circumstances. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: However, a strategy that is based solely of making
demands on the state and expects that the population, or the working class,
will become radicalised when these demands are not met, is hardly credible.
Politics has moved on over the last century and the ruling class now appeals
directly to the population – mainly through the media – arguing that while
certain social rights may be desirable, they cannot realistically be granted or
maintained because the state cannot afford them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: Appealing to the population mainly through the media
is not to appeal directly to the population. The bourgeois mass media is a
reified form. It itself forms a part of the problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: If the left is to defend the earlier gains achieved
by workers and the wider population, it needs to explain how these social
rights are to be paid for. It is not good enough to say: “that’s their
problem”. It is our problem too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: This above means that there is essentially no
difference between “the left” and the two political parties currently in
government. Both “the left” and the government are then arguing for policies
within the narrow constraints of the national capitalist framework. The point
is that the problems of the working class cannot be solved within the
constraints of a national capitalist framework. Consequently the left cannot
“explain how these social rights are to be paid for” under capitalism. This is
because they cannot be paid for under capitalism. The bourgeois political
parties are right when they make this claim. Again it has to be wondered what
Maurice means by “the left”. Is this left to include the variety of different
groups that are considered to be “the left”: ranging from Stalinism to
Trotskyism. Is it possible for such a left to subscribe to the same programme
(“socialism in one country”)?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: Re-distribution of income is only one part of a
programme of transition to a more equitable society. Another crucial aspect is
control over the credit system. This would involve not only having capital
controls but also a publically owned credit system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Paddy: It is questionable as to how the above programme of
action can be successfully realised within the framework of the EU. The EU is
not going to passively sit by while this programme is implemented. A publicly
owned credit system used to benefit the working class is a contradiction. The
credit system forms a necessary part of finance capitalism. It exists to serve
the interests of capital as opposed to labour power. It exists to sustain and increase
the exploitation of labour power. Consequently it cannot be designed to benefit
the working class.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Maurice: The radical left has long argued for greater
workers’ control at the level of manufacturing industry but we also need to
think through what needs to be done in other sectors of the social order. The
workings of government and its many institutions should be transparent to the
citizens and should be subject to democratic supervision. That would
necessarily involve participation and consultation not only with the workers in
any given institution, but also with citizens involved with them, like
patients, commuters, residents etc. This kind of project would need to be
accompanied by the development of new democratic media. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Marx is often criticised for failing to outline a
comprehensive plan for a socialist society, but this is arguably a strength of
his position rather than a weakness. We have to begin from where we are and
work from there. The minimum measures necessary to defend popular living
standards and the welfare state will face fierce opposition from the ruling
elites. If a pro-worker government is to succeed in these very modest goals, it
would need to achieve a deep popular mobilisation, and a politicisation of the
populace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Paddy: The above piece is grossly misleading.
However the problem is that many workers are deceived by such ramblings. There
cannot exist a “pro-worker government” under capitalism. To argue for a “pro-worker
government” is to paradoxically argue for a pro-worker (capitalist) state.
Should such a society be realisable there would be no need for communist
society.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-20620584442632790972013-07-23T15:54:00.001+01:002013-07-23T16:03:10.014+01:00The Great RecessionAppearances contradict
reality!<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
The current global crisis
is a manifestation of a fundamental problem in the process of the accumulation
of capital. The problem is the lack of surplus value production. This
contradiction has been <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>concealed by
decades of accumulating debt. Burgeoning financialisation involving bull
runs<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>since the 1980s have helped
disguise the long-term <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>weakening of the
advanced capitalist economies. Economic performance in the United States, Western
Europe and Japan has deteriorated<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>since about
1973. The years since the start of the current cycle, which originated in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2001, have been worst of all. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
The declining economic
dynamism of the advanced capitalist world is rooted in a major sustained fall
in profitability, caused primarily by the secular over-accumulation of capital.
This problem goes back to the early 1970s. By 2000 in the United States, Japan
and Germany, the rate of profit of private industrial capital had yet to make a
comeback, rising no higher<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>than that of
the 1970s. With reduced profitability, capitalists had smaller surplus value to
add to their labour processes. The perpetuation of reduced profitability since
the 1970s has led to a steady falloff in accelerated capital accumulation
across the advanced capitalist economies. The economic interventionism of the capitalist
state have obstructed the realisation of the conditions for the necessary radical
devalorisation of capital. Consequently <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>economic downturn has not been precipitous
enough to bring about a full recovery involving a restoration of profitability.
The outcome is sustained stagnation.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To counter this persistent stagnation states,
led by the United States, have been forced to underwrite ever greater volumes
of debt through ever more varied and exotic financial forms. Initially, during
the 1970s and 1980s, states were obliged to incur ever larger public deficits
to sustain growth. But while provisionally keeping the economy relatively stable
these deficits also rendered it increasingly stagnant. They thereby promoted
the continued stagnation of capital by preventing capital proceeding through
its “natural” cycle involving sharp downturns. This interventionism obstructed
the return of accelerated capital accumulation. The state is now securing progressively
less growth for any given increase in borrowing.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
States, in the early
1990s, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sought to overcome the problem by
a budget balancing policy. Deficit reductions brought about by budget balancing
resulted in a significant fall in aggregate demand. Consequently during the
first half of the 1990s both Europe and Japan experienced devastating
recessions that turned out to be the worst of the post-war period. The U.S.
economy, itself, experienced the so-called jobless recovery. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
Since the middle
1990s, the United States has been obliged to resort to more powerful and risky
forms of stimulus to counter the tendency to stagnation. This is why public
deficits were replaced with private deficits and asset inflation. In the great
stock market run-up of the 1990s wealth on paper, fictitious capital, massively
expanded. This development entailed a record-breaking borrowing increases.
Consequently a powerful expansion of financial capital and consumption was
sustained. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
Government financial
policy together with the general neo-liberal agenda of the bourgeoisie led to
the historic equity price bubble of the years 1995-2000. Equity prices rose as
a response to the law of the tendency of the general rate of profit to fall. New
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>investment, free from significant
technical composition of capital increases, exacerbated the prevailing over-accumulation
of industrial capital. This was followed by the stock market crash and
recession of 2000-2001.This development depressed profitability in the
non-financial sector to its lowest level since 1980. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
Greenspan countered
the new cyclical downturn with another round in the inflation of asset prices. By
reducing real short-term interest rates to zero for three years, he facilitated
an historically unprecedented explosion of household borrowing. This
contributed to and fed on rocketing house prices and household wealth. The
world housing bubble between 2000 and 2005 was one of the biggest of all time.
It made possible a steady rise in consumer spending and residential investment
which together drove the expansion. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
Bush’s budget deficits
together with record household deficits succeeded in obscuring<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the weakness of the underlying economic
recovery by creating the appearance of sustained economic prosperity. The rise
in debt-fuelled consumer demand as well as super-cheap credit superficially and
provisionally revived the American economy. It also led to a new surge in
imports and the increase of the balance of payments deficit to record levels. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
Simultaneously,
instead of increasing investment, productiveness and employment to increase
surplus value, individual capitals sought to exploit the hyper-low cost of
borrowing to improve their own and their shareholders’ position by way of
financial manipulation — paying off their debts, paying out dividends, and
buying their own stocks to drive up their value. This financialisation created
a fictitious prosperity The same sort of things had been happening throughout
the world economy — in Europe and Japan. In the United States and across the
advanced capitalist world since 2000, the contradiction has been as follows:
The slowest growth in the “real economy” since the 1970s and the greatest
expansion of the fictitious economy in U.S. history. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
Just as the stock
market bubble of the 1990s eventually burst, the housing bubble eventually
deflated. As a consequence, the house-driven expansion during the cyclical
upturn moved into reverse. Just as the positive wealth effect of the housing
bubble drove the economy forward, the negative effect of the housing crash drove
it backward. With the value of their household residences declining and
household borrowing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>collapsing households
were forced to consume less. The sub-prime crisis arose as a direct extension
of the housing bubble. Because of the ensuing enormity of the banks’ losses
credit froze up at the very moment of the slide into recession.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-right: 90.95pt; tab-stops: center 177.2pt;">
It is clear from the
above argument that it does not necessarily follow, as held by much of the
Irish Left, that stimulus provided by the capitalist state to the domestic
economy is not a prescription for providing a way out of recession. Indeed the
argument above teaches the lesson that “artificial stimulus” can constitute a
factor that sustains or encourages recession. Most of the Irish Left, including
the less passive trade union UNITE, focus its efforts on campaigning for a
solution within the framework of capitalism through the medium of the
capitalist state which they misidentify as an eternal nanny state. They thereby
sustain the illusion that capitalism is potentially a system that can serve the
interests of the working class. If this utopianism of the Left were true then
there would be no need for communist society.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 83.85pt 10pt 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Euro crisis is a general a product
of the conditions that contributed to the Great Recession.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 83.85pt 10pt 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After the crash of 2008 the contradictions
of the Euro grew increasingly visible. Consequently the market increasingly discovered
its shortcomings. This manifested itself in the growing economic and financial
problems of the so called peripheral states within the Euro zone. States such as
Greece, Portugal and Ireland. These economies were running growing budget
deficits. This meant that they were compelled to increasingly borrow on the
financial markets. But because of the worsening economic conditions under which
they were forced to do this, together with other factors, the interest rates at
which borrowing was possible for them became increasingly usurious. No longer
were they really in a position to borrow on the bond market. This meant they
were left with merely two options: a bailout from the EU or default. In this
way the economic crisis for these states became a growing problem for the EU
itself culminating in a collapse of the Euro and its banking system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One thing needs to be made clear. The Irish
economy did not collapse because of irresponsibility regulation, banking and unscrupulous
bankers. Pinning the blame on the aforementioned is a form of populism that distracts
the attention of the working class from the real problem –the contradictory limits
of capitalism. It is because the generation of surplus value within the reproduction
process was the central problem facing the Irish economy that the bubble was created
involving vast amounts of debt. To compensate for the absence of economic growth
based on profitable industrial production bubble conditions were created that inevitable
burst.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 83.85pt 10pt 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The banks of the core Euro zone were
bloated and sitting on mountains of toxic debt collected from its periphery and
elsewhere (the United States included). Consequently the core was vulnerable to
collapse too. Because the core members were not prepared to let their banks
collapse they imposed draconian conditions on the states that received
financial help from them. This forms part of an attempt to protect its banks by
rescuing funds from the periphery that was owed to the core of the European
banking system. But the real aim of the markets was not merely to force the
peripheral states into default. The underlying aim was to collapse of the Euro
itself thereby bringing about the reconfiguration of the European capitalist
system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 83.85pt 10pt 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ultimately the source of the Euro crisis
is not, as some argue, its flawed architecture, rampant financialisation nor
the Great Recession itself. Nor was the Euro crisis itself due to reckless
spending by both the public and private sectors of Greece, Portugal and
Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 83.85pt 10pt 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">These latter factors<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the Euro crisis are the result of the
failure of the valorisation process to produce surplus value on a scale
sufficient to provide accelerated accumulation of capital. Because of this
failure capitalism has been compelled to conduct itself in a way that has led
to massive financialisation involving copious credit culminating in financial
crisis, crash and economic recession. Debt is not indefinitely sustainable when
there obtains abject failure by the system to produce surplus value (profit) on
a sufficiently large scale. As I have indicated before, the failure of capitalism
to bring about an adequate restoration of profit during the 1974/75 crisis marked
a turning point that resulted in the sustained stagnation of capital. The 74/75
dip was not sufficiently deep to overcome the crisis of capitalism.
Consequently even if the ECB was to currently dish out mountains of Euro the
problem would only partially sort itself out in the short term. In the long
term it would lead to a much more acute problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 83.85pt 10pt 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Public nor private debt is not the
problem. Public/private debt is a product of the problem of profitability.
Because of the lack of profitability debt has ballooned thereby reinforcing the
problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 83.85pt 10pt 14.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For capitalism to economically recover a
very deep depression involving massive reductions in the value of wages and social
welfare spending is a necessity. The only other (authentic) option is communist
revolution. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-57389337114613467902013-07-03T15:56:00.002+01:002013-07-03T15:56:42.125+01:00World War Two Was Not A Conflict by the Allies Against Fascism.<blockquote class="article-intro">
The Second World War was not, as is popularly thought, a people’s war or a war fought by democracy against fascism. The Allies were not essentially concerned as to whether the Axis was fascist or not. However the Allies were concerned about the threatening character of the capitalist Axis to their economic and commercial interests. As with the First World War the Second World War was an inter-imperialist conflict. It was a war fought by Britain, France and the USA against a coalition of powers led by German and Japanese imperialism. </blockquote>
Britain and other Western powers fought the Axis ultimately in the interests of US imperialism. Washington was prepared to lend and lease the necessary resources to its Allies in order to defeat German imperialism. America did not wish to see German domination over Europe growing as a rival to it. As A.J.P. Taylor wrote in his work The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: <br />
<br />
<em>“No one state has ever been strong enough to eat up all the rest; and the mutual jealousy of the Great Powers had preserved even the small states, which could not have preserved themselves. The relation of the Great Powers have determined the history of Europe.”</em><br /><br />According to AJP Taylor: <br />
<br />
<em>“the balance of power survived Napoleon’s challenge to it almost unscathed. The French bid ended in 1870. A new balance followed; and only after thirty years of peace did it begin to appear that Germany had stepped into France’s place, as the potential conqueror of Europe. The First World War was, on the part of Germany’s enemies a war to restore or preserve the balance of power; but, though, Germany was defeated the European balance was not restored. If the war had been confined to Europe Germany would have won; she was defeated only by the entry into the war of the United States.”</em> <br />
<br />
This quasi proxy strategy of Washington’s meant that World War Two was fought by US imperialism at a fire sale price. It ensured that, where possible, European soldiers died instead of American ones. Washington’s strategy largely resembled 19th century Britain’s: ensuring that no single European power dominated Europe. For hegemony over Europe by a single European power meant its rivalry and even its mastery of the world. This is why Washington resolutely sought an enduring power balance within Europe. By a balance of power obtaining between the Soviet Union and the West European capitalist powers no one European power could exclusively dominate Europe and thereby pose a global threat to US capitalism. Through the stratagem of the Cold War Washington hoped to isolate the Soviet Union from Western Europe thereby preventing either European side from gaining hegemony. Western Europe hoped to piggy back its way to prosperity on the back of America prosperity by means of the institutional form of the European Union. This delicate and anomalous power balance has tenuously provided sustained relative post-war stability. The EU has been the institutional form too by which the West could facilitate the economic development of capitalist Germany while institutionally constraining it in such a way that it never posed a mortal threat to the West. We see then that the war against Fascism had little to do with the political character of the Axis powers. However since the collapse of the Soviet Union we have been in transition to a new epoch in the life of world capitalism. The global financial events of 2008 have established this new epoch. <br />
However the extension of Stalinist Russian into the heart of Europe complicated things. Consequently Washington sought through the strategy of the Cold War to isolate and weaken the Soviet Union as a European and global player. In this way it has been able to maintain an anomalous balance of power in Europe. These were the conditions that helped America maintain itself as the leading world power. <br />
<br />
The European Union was the strategic form by which Washington hoped to maintain control over Germany while allowing it room to commercially expand without posing as a threatening force strangling Washington and indeed France and British interests. Western Europe, as the EU, hoped to piggy back its way to prosperity and power on American interests. This state of affairs has been largely successful and has prevented the break out of serious inter-imperialist war for the last sixty or more years –some achievement for capitalism it has to be said. <br />
<br />
Churchill’s calculations were based on the exclusively strategic interests of British Imperialism and the need to defend the British Empire. In addition he had not given up hope that Russia and Germany would mutually exhaust themselves thereby creating a stalemate in the East. This outcome would relatively strengthen Britain’s hand. The interests of US imperialism and British imperialism were contradictory in this respect. Washington, while formally the ally of London, was all the time aiming to exploit the war to weaken the position of Britain in the world and particularly to break its grip on India and Africa. At the same time it sought to halt the advance of the Red Army and gain control over a weakened Europe. This explains US haste to open the second front in Europe and Britain’s lack of enthusiasm for it. Britain’s delaying tactics may have prolonged the war. However the relentless Soviet advance obliged Churchill to reconsider his strategy. <br />
Britain would probably have preferred a weakened, yet relatively strong, Germany as a counter weight to the Soviet empire. The divisions between London and Washington arose because the interests of British and US imperialism were different and even antagonistic. American imperialism did not want Hitler to succeed because that would have created a powerful rival to the USA in Europe. On the other hand it was US imperialism’s interests to weaken Britain and its empire. Its aim was to replace Britain as the leading power in the world after the defeat of Germany and Japan. The decision to open a second front in Italy was dictated mainly by the fear that following the overthrow of Mussolini in 1943 the Italian Communists would take power. While Churchill’s attention was fixed on the Mediterrean it became clear to the Americans that the USSR was winning the war on the eastern front and that if nothing was done the Red Army would just roll through Europe. This is why Roosevelt pressed for the opening of a second front in France while Churchill argued for delay. This led to friction between London and Washington. The second front had been mooted for 1942. The Mediterrean operations were a sideshow compared to the colossal battles on the eastern front. <br />
<br />
In addition the Americans had their own reasons for wanting to satisfy the demands of the USSR to open the second front in Europe. They were involved in a bloody war with Japan in the Pacific where their troops had to conquer heavily defended islands, one by one. They realised that to take on the powerful land armies of Japan on the Asian mainland would be a formidable task in the absence of the Red Army also launching an offensive against the Japanese in China after the German army has been defeated. This was a weighty reason for Roosevelt to agree to Russia’s demand to launch Overlord and overrule the objection of the British. <br />
<br />
The Soviet Union’s role in the war was basically one of self-defence against imperialism. Stalin was prepared to engage in any degree of opportunism to safeguard the Soviet State. This is why he could zig zag in his relations with the two imperialist camps. Initially his preference was for a grand alliance with the democratic imperialist powers. However they did not appear to be too interested in such an arrangement. Given that Germany, Japan and Italy had formed an Anti-Comintern Pact and that Japanese forces had attacked Soviet forces he agreed to a non-aggression treaty with Hitler. The USSR and Germany was to divide up Eastern Europe among themselves including Poland. Germany wanted to invade Poland with the support of the USSR. <br />
Internationally this meant that Stalin shifted the policy of the Comintern from involvement in a crusade against fascism to one involving the absence of active support for any imperialist powers involved in future conflict whether they are members of the Allies or Axis. This was an about turn that many elements within the Comintern found difficult to accept. The shift from calling for an anti-fascist front to declaring the conflict as inter-imperialist constituted a staggering turn around. Communist parties were not to take sides. These parties were to focus on the class struggle against the bosses. Neither was a revolutionary workers’ government to be seen to be a possibility. Consequently a popular front government included a government of Stalinists and reformists etc. Indigenous communist parties were not to seize power but join in popular front governments. <br />
<br />
But in June 1941 Hitler broke his agreement with Stalin invading the Soviet Union. Consequently a Grand Alliance was not formed consisting of the USA, Britain and the USSR. The Comintern instructed its parties to support every anti-Nazi government and join every anti-Nazi resistance movement. Workers were no longer to go out on strike in countries supportive of the Grand Alliance. Instead they were actively to support Allied governments. As a result of this about face the communist parties around the world increased their popularity. <br />
<br />
The point is that that World War Two was an imperialist war. It had nothing to do with democracy. Britain, France and even the USA has colonised and repressed peoples around the world. There was no democracy at work here. Parts of the world were direct undemocratic colonies of Britain and France. A war for democracy against fascism could not be fought by Empires that maintained such colonies. <br />
<br />
The principled position of revolutionary communism concerning World War Two is that it was an inter-imperialist conflict involving the unavoidable military engagement of Stalinist Russia in the interests of protecting from destruction by imperialism. Consequently communists were left with no option but to call for the mounting of a popular principled campaign against the war as a means of defeating capitalism thereby replacing it with communism. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-90610197335621077052013-07-03T15:44:00.000+01:002013-07-03T15:44:23.274+01:00Fodderless Farmers And Begging BowlsAttacks are being mounted against the public sector worker as part of an attack on the working and living conditions of the Irish working class. At the same time the Irish state actively promotes and subsidizes the farming community. The working class must highlight this contrast. The privileging of the Irish farming community by successive governments is a practice that is obscured and hardly highlighted by the bourgeois media.<br /><br /> The farmers are moaning again. Looking for financial and other assistance from the Irish state because of the dearth of cattle fodder available to farmers. Already the latter are given annually over a billion euro. Revenue from taxation pays most if not all of this. They also obtain help in other forms. Then many of them engage in creative accounting to make their income appear to be less than it is. Some of them have investments outside of farming and lines of work.<br /><br /> Pat Kenny, on his show, was interviewing the Minister of Agriculture and an IFA official on the issue of the lack of fodder for cattle farming. He never raised any challenging issues with them despite the fact that Pat consistently challenges trade unionists interviewed by him on his show. He never points out that any added help offered to Irish farmers is paid for by revenue from taxation. Irish farmers, like the banks, are a privileged social category within Irish society. They virtually escape criticism by the bourgeois mass media. Farming is portrayed as a commercial activity. Yet when adversity confronts them they go begging from the state. And the state is only willing to subsidize them. Yet the representative body of farmers is the IFA. This is a body that is anti-working class in its stance concerning wage agreements and other matters that directly concern workers.<br /><br /> The current Minister of Agriculture is forever defending the farming community while his government are forever attacking the Irish working class. The farming community must be exposed as a parasitic categoryAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-7275447593038737282013-07-03T15:36:00.000+01:002013-07-03T15:36:21.505+01:00The Irish Bus Workers' DisputeThe Bus Eireann workers have gone out on strike to challenge the state’s attempt to significantly cut pay and extend working hours.<br /> There is little or no chance of this strike being successful unless the striking workers are in a position to endure a sustained strike lasting several months. The most that can be expected from this struggle is a compromise involving some modification of the cost-cutting plan.<br /> These NBRU workers have not generally gone out on strike because they are communists seeking the replacement of capitalism with communism. The most that can be said for them is that some of them are reformists of one sort or another. In other words they believe that capitalist society can evolve into a society in which their conditions of work and living standards of can be ultimately enhanced. Many of them don’t even possess a reformist culture. They simply believe that their living standards should be protected and even enhanced. Even if these workers are to win the strike it will not follow that their consciousness will be transformed into a communist character. If anything it will only reinforce their already existing prejudice that capitalist society is a natural and acceptable social form.<br /><br /> The Bus Eireann workers cannot see that capitalism is not progressive and is not designed to necessarily improve the living conditions of the working class. Consequently to simply mount a campaign against cutbacks is to promote the contradiction that capitalism can still exist while serving the interests of the working class. Capitalism is an obsolescent exploitative system. Consequently the only way that the class interests of workers can be advanced is through revolution --the replacement of capitalism by communism.<br /><br /> The correct strategy for the Bus Eireann strikers is one in which a popular campaign is mounted against cuts in living standards within the overall context of the abolition the capitalist state as a means towards establishing communist society. The Bus Eireann workers must fight against its employer within an overall struggle against all cutbacks on the living standards of the working class. In this way their action programme provides the principled basis for active support from the rest of the Irish working class. This is the principled basis for class unity.<br /><br /> But the key problem is that there exists no revolutionary communist party to provide leadership in the class struggle. The Socialist Party, the SWP and the People Before Profit are merely reformist organisations that seek to provide a more benevolent capitalism. In this sense they are Utopian and seek to inculcate illusions within the working class.<br /><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129720524134241405.post-44861162510812789262012-08-02T18:56:00.001+01:002012-08-02T19:15:57.741+01:00Why There Is No Communist Movement Today?<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It
took two world wars involving the deaths of over 60 million people, millions of
injured and the massive destruction of houses, factories and other buildings to
create the postwar conditions that were to prevail in the West. These
conditions entailed a most peculiar contradictory development of capitalism. These
are one's in which exploitation of the working class itself together with
oppression persisted alongside economic protection by the state and eventually
by emerging unprecedented social liberalism in the West. This peculiar state of
affairs reflects the fragile balance that has persisted for all these years and
which is now coming to an end because of the emerging constraints imposed by
growing objective limitations. What made this epoch so peculiar was this
strategic aspect involving the apparently 'magnanimous' character of Western
capitalism. Now capitalism has no choice. It cannot pursue this strategy any
longer. Growing costs can no longer allow it. This means that the only choice
is capitalism minus these socio-economic frills or world social revolution. Given
these conditions this determined that this strategy could not be indefinitely
sustained. It was merely a provisional strategy. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Modern
western capitalism today presents itself in socially liberal and social welfare
forms giving off the appearance that it solves working class problems. Since
World War Two the growing affluence of the Western working class has been
extending itself so much so that much of this working class has increasingly
lacked any working class identity. Consequently, notwithstanding its negative
character, capitalism has been giving off the appearance of itself as a free,
just and democratic society invested with diversity and even colour. We are
presented with a capitalism that has plausibly realized Gay rights, black
rights, travaller rights, children rights and many other forms of civil and
social rights. In a sense this liberalism is an illusion designed to fool the
masses that they live in a free, just and democratic society capable of capable
further expanding its horizons in those directions.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Generally
in the West individuals, in a quailfied way, are free to express their views
independently of how subversive those views may be. They are even, in a sense,
free to organise themselves against the government. Marxists even become
professors in bourgeois universities. Given that capitalist society is defined
by Marx as inherently oppressive it appears as an inexplicable contradiction
that it should have this free and just character in the West while still
retaining its inherently exploitative and oppressive character. Capitalism's
inherent nature contradicts its plausible appearance. Given these extraordinary
contradictory conditions the present capitalist period has been a most peculiar
one. Modern Western capitalism has largely provided much of what the Left has <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sought through the ostensibly ultimate
destruction of capitalism --social revolution. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Communism
has been effectively undermined by this strategy of capitalism's. This is why
communism, as a politics and even theory, is virtually non-existent. Communism
can never be successful while this strategy of capitalism's is both sustained
and sustainable. Western Capitalism, in a sense, has stolen<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>radical socialism's clothes. As a result it has
succeeded in the virtual dissipation of potentially dangerous oppositional
forces while achieving the (relative) pacification of the working class. But
the bourgeoisie have paid a big price for this unique, even fragile, balance of
class forces. It is a balance too that has "artificially" tended to
give reformism an extended lease of life. This in turn tends to obstruct the
emergence of a communist movement. Instead its role is replaced, in the main,
by a plethora of reformist political groups, many of which are disguised as
revolutionary<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(revisionist).</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The
bourgeoisie by providing a public sphere within which radical leftism, in its
diverse forms, can exist and even burgeon induces 'the more conscious' elements
within the working class to mistakenly experience capitalism as an acceptably
progressive system merely in need of reforms rather than replacement. The
growing integration of leftist elements into the mass media, academia and the
institutions of the bourgeois state tends to further domesticate their putative
subversive politics. Consequently false consciousness crystallises into a
universal reified ideological formation within the working class. This, in
effect, leads to revisonism/reformism as the key ideology and politics of the
working class. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Complementing
social liberalism is welfarism in the form of social protection and the many
other benefits that are dispensed to the lumpenproletariat and to, perhaps, a
lesser degree the low income strata of the working class. The economic
protection of the lumpenproletariat and the working class appear to protect the
masses from the harsher realities of life. The upshot of this is the insulation
of the masses from class politics and thereby the insulation of capitalism from
communist revolution. Elements within the bourgeoisie benefit from what is
described as “corporate dole” and other forms of support. This helps keep
otherwise disgruntled sections of the bourgeoisie quiet. The farming
bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie receive financial and other support too. This
undertaking by the state helps maintain the cohesiveness of the bourgeoisie. In
a contradictory way capitalist society is emancipated from class struggle and
thereby revolution. Social reality is turned upside down.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because
of the way in which social welfare is organised and distributed what is, in a
sense, a single comprehensive issue, the issue of communist revolution, is
split into a diverse number of issues. Generally these issues are experienced
as having no necessary connection with each other. Consequently the immediate
conditions for a unified class struggle are conspicuously absent. These
conditions tend to encourge a plethora of single issue campaigns that have no
inner relationship to each other. By splitting the class struggle into a myriad
of atomised single issues its inherent subversiveness suffers. The result is
identity politics and the marginalisation of class struggle. Single issue
campaigners tend to be of the view that individual issues can be realised
within the framework of capitalism. They tend to be indifferent to other
issues, other than their own, even to the point of not envisaging any
relationship between the issues. The splittting of the class struggle into a
multiplicity of issues eviscerates it thereby rendering it ineffectual. This
leads to the political atomization of the working class. It also renders it
easier for the bourgeoisie to confront this atomized working class in a variety
of ways that involves playing one element off against the other.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Formerly
opposition to capitalism had a more challenging and subversive character.
Eventually capital adjusted itself so that it now met much of what this
movement was demanding in a superficially emasculated way. It eviscerated the
demands of "the anti-capitalist" movement by integrating them into
capitalist society. However along with the economic benefits of the social
welfarism they proved enough to pacify the bulk of popular opposition. This
happened time and time again as if it bore law like qualities. This absorption
(defeat) of proletarian opposition assumed a variety of forms. Sections of its
leadership turned into the very "thing" against which it had been
mounting opposition –the bourgeoisie. Another form was the meeting of its
demands in an eviscerated form --expurgated of their substance. The countercultural
movement that began in the 1960s is a classic example of this. There were, and
are, others such as women’s' rights, black civil rights and gay rights movements.
The counterculture involved opposition to many contemporary aspects of
capitalism including U.S. military engagement in Vietnam. Eventually capitalism
managed to undermine this and other movements by conceding to many of its
demands superficially. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Western Capitalism has assumed its current
form as a means of preventing popular opposition from mounting an effective
challenge against it. This was achieved by the transformation of sections of
working class leadership into bourgeois institutional forms while superficially
meeting the popular opposition's demands in a formal way. Initially the
opposition appeared to have a more authentically subversive form. Its social
welfare policy is a device to keep the working class down while posing as an
emancipatory agent. Capitalism in presenting itself as the pioneer of freedom,
reason and justice is, essentially, it’s very opposite. This renders it
increasingly more difficult to convincingly expose the system and mobilise
popular support for communism.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">However
given the acutely contradictory character of this strategy it has been
increasingly bumping up against capitalism's objective limits --the growing
tendency of the general rate of profit to fall. The financial and economic
crash in 2008 is an acute expression of this growing tendency. Its aftermath
has led to inroads having to be made on living standards and conditions of the
working class. As the contradictions and objective limits of this historic
strategy become increasingly acute social protective measures will have to be
atrophied if chaos or social revolution are not to ensue. This socio-economic
liberal strategy has become, let me say, too costly. Conditions have been
reaching the stage whereby all round cutbacks are becoming increasingly
necessary if capitalism is to sustain itself. Capitalism now faces a structural
as opposed to a conjunctural crisis. However there is no guarantee that the
capitalist class can successfully free itself from its social welfare character
in order to avoid revolution.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Under modern capitalism human needs
are met in a trivial, unbalanced formal way. These needs are presented as a
common popular good conveying the impression that all people are essentially
the same and desire the same thing --the market as abstract equaliser. It is,
in one form or another, believed to be the sole form by which human needs today
can be satisfied. Our behaviour then is conceived as identical for every member
of the human species. Behaviour "can be recorded on some central data
base." Consequently all humans "have to do to understand how they should
behave is to log onto this data base. Given this, human individuals have no
hope "of experiencing individual needs, creativity, adventure and
innovation." It is this that constitutes the qualitative and significant
gap obtaining between any form of capitalism and communist society. It is this
gap that cannot be filled no matter what social appearances capitalism throws
up. It is intended as a device to deceive and prevent the abolition of
capitalism. It is an illusion that envelopes the Western masses. Whereas individual
needs are an end in themselves. It is this that only communist society can
fulfill. Capitalist success in creating popular satisfaction with such an
arrangement is a clear indication that the masses have been pacified and
thereby turned into a subject populace. Under such conditions it can never
mount a challenge to capitalism. Consequently under these conditions a
communist movement can never exist.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The End<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<h2>
</h2>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17162707254939459655noreply@blogger.com