Paddy Hackett

An Outline Of A Model Of The Capitalist Industrial Cycle

2012-01-22T14:19:00.000Z

The Capitalist Crisis

The capitalist economic system is a cyclical system of interrupted reproduction of wealth. It is this cyclical interruption that is known as the economic crisis or depression. Consequently invested constant and variable capital is significantly reduced. There thereby follows a significant decline in the scale of the reproduction of wealth and thereby the consumption of wealth by humanity. The result is increased poverty.

Capitalist crises tend to have an inherently cyclical character entailing the indefinite sequential expansion and contraction of the reproduction of capital. The capitalist economic cycle involves sequential phases that regularly repeat themselves. This is the necessary and contradictory form by which capitalism regulates itself indefinitely. It is a form of regulation that is inherently unstable tending to generate political crises, wars and even social revolution. Consequently the sustained existence of capitalism cannot be guaranteed.

Typical crises have a unique form peculiar to capitalist society. Under capitalism the material destruction of the elements of production occur not as the cause but as the result of the cyclical crisis. It is not because fewer workers are engaged in production that a crisis breaks out. Instead the opposite is the case: Fewer workers are engaged in production as a result of the break-out of a crisis. What appears to be the case is not the case. Reality is reversed. A capitalist crisis is a crisis of overproduction of exchange-values in the form of capital. On the market commodities fail to find buyers thereby rendering these commodities unsalable. Full employment is the exception rather than the rule under capitalism. At best full employment tends to have a cyclical character. Capitalist crises tend to have a generalised global character.

The intrinsic contradiction of the commodity, the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value, is externalised in the form of the splitting of the commodity into the commodity itself and money. The split creates the general possibility of capitalist crises. This contradiction means that to appropriate use-values one has to be able to buy them. To buy or sell one has to be a buyer or seller. Individuals exist, then, in the form of a buyer or a seller. They need only exist in this narrow abstract form. Power resides in one’s existence in the context of the constraining narrow abstract forms of buyer or seller. This circulation process plays a role in determining the character of the working class and the capitalist class. Consequently individuals are reified as the personifications of buying, selling and consumption. Consequently success is circumscribed by the constraints of the reified forms of buyer, seller and consumer. The worker as seller of labour power is only conceived from within that narrow form. This is why s/he is so summarily disregarded by the ruling class. His/her more humanist nature is thereby precluded, except marginally, from conceptions based on this socio-economic. One’s commercial value or status is significant not one's kindness, say, towards others. Consequently one is celebrated as a musician or artist because of one’s commercial success but not for one’s virtuosity and creativity. Since the worker’s existence is exclusively grounded in this constrained form, seller of labour power, his/her existence concerning every aspect of his/her being is conditioned by this narrow reified form. In past societies this was not necessarily the basis of economy. The separation between the commodity and its money equivalent facilitates the emergence of the systems of trade, credit and eventually capitalism. Accordingly these systems of reification conditioned the development of social being in such a way that they indelibly inscribe themselves on existing human conduct.

The Process of Circulation of Capital

The existence of circulation and thereby circulation time means that there is a time interval between sale and purchase or selling and buying. Circulation or the process of exchange rather than ensuring that every sale matches every purchase excludes any guarantee of the existence of such a condition. Circulation renders Say’s Law (supply creates its own demand) impossible. It prevents any guarantee that sales must match every purchase. In short there is an element of inevitable contingency featuring in the exchange process. It is this peculiar reification of human relations (circulation) that creates these conditions --the possibility of crises.

The circulation process is an inherently contradictory process. It is the necessary social form, albeit reified, by which commodities are distributed. It never guarantees that this distribution and realisation of exchange values will take place. There is thereby, as intimated, an element of contingency entailed in this process of reification. It is a contradiction that entails the existence of both necessity and contingency. This means the process of reproduction of both exchange value and thereby wealth can never be guaranteed under capitalism. This renders the general process of reproduction itself contingent. It is subject to chance even perhaps permeated by chance. Consequently the future can never be predicted with any certainty or accuracy. This being so capitalism can never be depended upon to reproduce wealth or to reproduce the present and thereby the future. This is why it must be dispensed with. The capitalist circulation process is both a combination of necessity and contingency. Without chance there can be no novelty, change nor development. However with chance there is the danger of the opposite occurring -loss.

Many agents active on behalf of the bourgeoisie in times of crisis are forever endeavouring to enhance or improve the circulation system. They hope to render the circulation process more rational and streamlined in such a way that as a mode of realisation and distribution it cannot hinder the flow of commodities and capital through the system. But this illusion entertained by these ideologues indicates their inability to comprehend the nature of capitalism and its circulation process in particular. They are under the illusion that it is the task to restructure the circulation process in such a way that Say’s Law can freely assert itself and thereby create economic freedom. Depending on their political allegiances some are of the view that circulation needs to be cleaned out by eliminating “the debris” (such as oversized banks and excessive regulation) fouling up the circulation sphere. For them the problem is the lack of authentically free markets. For them markets are over-regulated.

On the other side the circulation process or the market is too free. It needs much more regulation and interventionism to guarantee that it operates harmoniously serving the interests of the public.

But both sides effectively support the market, in one way or another, believing it to be a necessary social form of regulation. This means that both sides support capitalism. But today’s massive over-accumulation of debt is evidence that market relations (the circulation process), in whatever form, cannot form a central part of the solution. Neither can they see that the core problem lies much deeper --deep within the heart of the production process itself. The source of the problem is the contradiction that exists within the capitalist process of production itself. This process either has to be abolished (communism) or cyclically transformed under the freely operating industrial cycle.

Say’s Law

Vulgar economics argued that the total value of commodities is equal to the total incomes of the various classes of society. From this it is concluded that the total production of commodities is at the same time the production of the incomes needed to absorb these commodities. Hence arose the law of markets called Say's Law. This law excludes the possibility of general overproduction. At most it allows for the existence of partial overproduction, overproduction in some sectors alongside underproduction in others. This, it is claimed, is caused by the unbalanced distribution of the "factors of production" within the economy. The mistake of the law of the markets arises from neglect of the time-factor. It assumes a static system instead of a dynamic one. STOPPP

During intervals between sale and purchase the prices of commodities can vary, in either direction, thereby creating a surplus of incomes or a surplus of commodities without the corresponding change in the money form on the market. Furthermore the incomes distributed during a certain period of time will not necessarily be used to buy commodities during this period. Only the incomes of wage-earners tend to be immediately and entirely spent. Capitalists are under no obligation to invest all these exchange- values immediately thereby using them as purchasing power to acquire goods. With falling profitability many capitalists tend to postpone such expenditure. The hoarding of incomes, non-productive saving, may thus give rise to a surplus of income which corresponds to an overproduction of certain commodities. This, in turn, brings about an initial reduction in employment which may lead to overproduction spreading throughout other parts of the economy leading to a further decline in employment. In this way the vicious spiral progresses.

Disturbances may arise from the injection of money into the circulation process. Within the production process fixed capital is gradually written off over a number of years and then all at once replaced by the expenditure of the accumulated depreciation funds. In a smoothly working system, the annual fixed capital replacements are equal to the annual depreciation allowances. If the age-composition of existing machinery is unequal or if business conditions suggest a speeding up or postponement of renewals, orders for replacements will exceed depreciation allowances in some years and fall short of them in others years. This discontinuity in the expenditure of depreciation allowances for capital replacements disturbs the smooth course of the circulation process. This is responsible for fluctuations in employment and thereby profit. The accumulation of depreciation funds is a sale without a purchase, as is any saving, while any investment is a purchase without sale.

Indeed interruptions, delays in sale or purchase, are the necessary contradictory nature of the circulation process. This form is a necessary condition for the realisation of capital accumulation. Consequently circulation is both a form of motion and non-motion.

Say’s Law would only tend to hold under conditions resembling universal simple commodity production. However such an economic system is an impossibility. A society exclusively producing mere use-values, not values, cannot create overproduction. Increases in the organic composition of capital leading to a consequent downward tendency of the general rate of profit form the general laws of development of the capitalist mode of production. The capitalist mode of production thus acquires its characteristic rhythm of development. This rhythm proceeds in the form of cyclical alternate contractions and expansions.

During the crisis phase the commodity split into itself and money is stretched to the utmost leading inevitably to slump. The long-term tendency of the general rate of profit to fall does not assert itself in a linear form. Instead it asserts itself in a cyclical form. The stages of a classical cyclic model of capitalism are as follows:

Economic Recovery

Under conditions of the over-production of capital under-utilisation of existing production capacity leads to stock elimination. Consequently the demand for goods tends to exceed supply. Prices and profits eventually start to rise again. Some factories (probably under new ownership) which have been closed open again. Others operating below capacity eventually increase their operations to full capacity. This encourages capitalists to increase investments. This is because, when demand exceeds supply, less social labour is crystallised in commodities present than socially necessary. This implies that the total value of these goods easily finds its universal equivalent on the market. The factories operating at higher productivity levels, higher than the average, realise super-profits. Less productive enterprises, still surviving after the crisis, realise the average (normal) profit. The circulation time of commodities is reduced. Gaps between selling and buying grow increasingly shorter.

The orders for equipment from the consumer goods sector make possible recovery in several capital goods sectors. Recovery reduces unemployment and increases purchasing power which stimulates a new wave of investment.

Capital goods production is much less elastic than that of consumer goods. When recovery is well underway an interval appears between the order for additional constant capital and its delivery. During the interval there is a relatively big demand within Department Two for the commodities from Department One that are already available on the market. The prices of these goods will rise faster than the prices of consumer goods. This produces different rates of profit in the two sectors. The disproportion in the two sectors is shifted to prices and profit. Wages tend not to rise at the beginning of recovery owing to pressure from the industrial reserve army of the unemployed on the labour market. Factories not working to full capacity re-engage workers without any plant change. This tends to lead to a lowering of the organic composition of capital thereby increasing the rate of profit.

The expansion of production is slow at first. The demand for constant capital in the form of new plant and technology remains at a level lower that the supply which implies that the rate of interest remains very low. The coincidence of a low rate of interest with a rising rate of entrepreneurial profit leads to a general tendency by entrepreneurs to renew fixed capital. Investment in new plant cannot be generally undertaken incrementally. Assuming a constant rate of increase in output an individual firm cannot alter its fixed capital at a parallel constant rate.

Boom

Much of the available capital flows into production in order to take advantage of the increase in the average rate of profit. Investments rapidly increase. New enterprises are set up and old ones modernised. The newly launched enterprises raise the average level of productivity. So long as supply is exceeded by demand prices continue to rise and the average rate of profit remains high. The most modern enterprises realise substantial super-profits which stimulate fresh investment and develop credit, speculation etc.

The disequilibrium between rates of profit in the two sectors is now transformed into a disproportion between the rate of increase of their production. The capital goods sector experiences a burst of frenzied activity. It causes an increase in demand for consumer goods and even leads to shortages. Given that demand exceeds supply prices are higher so that the more productive firms earn super-profits. The rate of interest begins to rise. Eventually profit is maximised and aggregate effective demand is met. The cycle reaches its first critical point. One would expect falling demand to lead to a corresponding contraction in production. Such rationalism is impossible because of the inherent contradictory nature of capitalism. We see here how capitalism’s character obstructs the development of rationalism. In fact its anarchic nature promotes irrationalism. This helps explain why irrationalist ideology and religion is still prevalent.

A contraction of production leads to an increase in depreciation charges thereby raising costs. Capitalists try to overcome this problem by intensifying the use of the production apparatus and increasing the intensity of labour. An increase in the mass of surplus value is needed to offset the lowering of the general rate of profit. This implies increased productivity by means of technological progress.

Capitalists cannot know when equilibrium has been reached. Complications such as the publicly unaccountable existence of hidden inventories in the hands of speculators thwart access to such knowledge. Over and above all this, although not unrelated to it, markets don’t feel the effects of maximum productivity until months after that stage has been reached. Production therefore continues to increase. Due to credit expansion this goes on even longer. But ultimately there is a limit to credit expansion. Then banks stop lending money.

Put simply overproduction of capital and thereby commodities is not felt by the markets until months after that stage has been reached. Production persists even after the stage of overproduction has been reached. Credit relations accentuate this situation. Retailers and the firms in intermediate stages of production have to replenish stocks exhausted due to the depression. Sales increases encourage industrialists to undertake further production which may coincide with stagnation or even slight shrinkage of ultimate consumption. Even when final consumption has been reached factories continue to produce and retailers continue to stock up

Overproduction

As more and more commodities are hurled onto the market the relations between supply and demand change. Some of the commodities produced under the least favourable productivity conditions contain labour time which is wasted from the social standpoint. These commodities have become unsaleable at prevailing prices of production. Thanks to the expansion of the credit system these unproductive factories go on producing for a certain period. This is reflected in the accumulation of stocks, the lengthening of the circulation time of commodities and the widening of the gap between supply and demand. At a certain moment it becomes impossible to bridge the gap with credit. Prices and profits collapse. Many capitalists are ruined and the enterprises that work at too low a level of productivity are crowded out.

The disequilibrium between Department One, the capital goods sector, and Department Two, the consumer goods sector, first shows itself in the sphere of prices and the rate of profit thus spreads more and more into the spheres of production. The total amount of purchasing power for consumers' goods does not increase any further or at least very little. But production still continues to increase. Stocks first grow at the final stage (retail trade) then at the wholesale stage and finally in the industrial enterprises themselves. As this increase in stocks grows the entrepreneurs resist any immediate price falls which would mean a lowering in total stock value --a serious loss. Circulation credit is increasingly sought from banks. The banks themselves would have already extended substantially to enterprises in this sector. They put off as long as possible any credit refusal. This is because this would bring about the bankruptcy of these enterprises and so the entire loss of the capital already advanced in loan form. In the case of Ireland the fact that the banks were forced to stop lending to businesses meant that they lost much of the money capital lent to them. This increased the losses of the bank and thereby created the situation they sought to avoid. This leads to credit inflation leading to speculation and swindling. This tension on the money market and the finance market comes just before the reversal of the conjuncture and is marked by a sharp rise in interest rates.

Now obliged to put off their investment projects many enterprises use this capital to meet added circulation costs. (Some may even create hedge funds to conceal their debts so that their enterprises continue to appear to operate at profit ). The orders for capital goods thus increasingly fall. Production starts falling off in the consumer industry. The capital goods sector follows it in a vicious downward spiral.

The rhythm of production in the capital goods sector is governed by the expansion and contraction of production in the consumer goods sector. The capital sector uses borrowed money much more than the consumer sector. This is because of the higher rate of profit in this heavy industry sector. Rises in interest rates hits them harder. Emptying of their order books means falling consumer demand and rising stocks and falling profits due to rising wages and costs.

Demand for circulation credit accumulates. But the supply of money capital declines because the difference between the rate of profit and interest increasingly disappears. Enterprises short on money capital draw out their bank deposits and sell off their property, securities, shares and bonds. This brings about falls on the stock exchange and other financial markets. A snowball effect sets in. The massive burgeoning of derivatives, especially devices such as credit derivatives more than add to this problem. Banks refuse credit leading to increased bankruptcies debtors dragging down creditors. Soon an avalanche sets in. Investors are forced to sell stock at any price. This is the cyclical character of the capitalist economy.

Crisis

The fall in prices means that only the enterprises working under the most favourable conditions of productivity survive. Firms with super-profits now have to be satisfied with average rates of profit. A lower level of average profit is attained. This corresponds to the new organic composition of capital. The bankruptcy and closure of many factories means large-scale destruction of machinery and thereby fixed capital. The total capital of society is reduced through the devalorisation and destruction of capital. This smaller amount of capital is now more profitable than the previous amount of capital. Indeed it was the previous oversized capital that was the cause of the crisis.

The cyclical movement of capital is thus nothing but the mechanism through which the general rate of profit asserts itself. The latter regulates the reproduction of capital and thereby its development and decline. The tendency of the rate of profit to fall forces the adaptation of the amount of labour which is socially necessary, the individual value of commodities, to their socially determined value. Because capitalist production is not a consciously planned and organised process these adjustments take place a posteriori. For this reason the regulatory process necessitate violent shocks involving the destruction of enormous quantities of values and created wealth. Over and above all this it causes damage and destruction of thousands of lives.

The Depression

It takes time for stocks to be disposed of which means there is no change in unemployment. Many firms have had to use funds normally made use of for the renewal of fixed capital for other purposes. Consequently the activity of enterprises in the capital goods sector is much reduced. The consumer goods sector does not decline as much as the capital goods sector. Even the unemployed have to eat. Perishable goods cannot be put off to another time. Workers’ wages don’t fall as much as the fall in prices which helps keep up the sale of perishable goods. The demand for semi-durable goods does not collapse as much as those of durable consumer goods. Yet durable consumer goods sell more easily than capital goods. In the depression the disproportion between the two sectors will spread to the sphere of prices and profits.

The Return Of Economic Recovery

While the depression lasts industrial activity remains at an abnormally low level. However it never absolutely collapses. There is always some industrial activity. When the rate of profit is very low no reduction in the rate of interest will make any difference to a revival of investment. But the very logic of the stagnation creates the elements of recovery. The contradiction of capitalist stagnation contains the conditions of recovery, As stocks are disposed of thanks to the collapse in production the consumer sector is able to slightly increase its activity. The prices of these goods find a floor that tends to steady things. It is enough for these enterprises to remain stable for a certain period for these enterprises to start re-equipping. Everything encourages this. The price of raw materials and means of equipment are very low.

Funds at first hoarded make their way back to the banks. There is a reduction in the demand for money capital because of the absence of investment activity which is why interest rates are low. The low rate of profit which produces recession compels enterprises to introduce new methods of production. Costs of production falls make possible an increase in the profit rate. Investment thereby begins in the consumer goods sector.

State Education Versus Private Education

2012-01-12T13:47:00.000Z

Kieran Allen and David Quinn featured on the Pat Kenny show on RTE, Radio One, on 11/1/2012 in relation to the issue of state and private education in the Irish Republic. Kieran,on this show, essentially suggested that education, as provided by state schools, is inferior to that of private schools. Yet ironically he nominally expresses support for state education over private education.

Contrary to Kieran it is questionable as to whether private education, at secondary level, is superior to that of state education. As Pat Kenny indicated the character of the catchment area is of decisive importance concerning quality of education.Kieran argued, on the show,for meritocracy in relation to the 3rd level postgraduate area. Again Pat aptly pointed out that there is a relationship between merit and economic and social privilege. Meritocracy,then, does not,as Kieran intimates,transcend class relations.

The problem with Kieran Allen is that he wants to have his cake and eat it.He is a prominent member of a Trotskyist organisation,the Socialist Workers Partey who claims to be a Marxist. Yet his arguments on radio and television are that of a left liberal(or left Labour Party member). He is forever offering solutions that can make capitalist society more efficient.He wants to save capitalism not overturn it.

Concerning second level education he argues that state education under capitalism is the desired form of education. He never suggests that all education supported by the state is inherently oppressive and designed to mould its "students" into agents of capitalism --bourgeois education. Neither does he see that 3rd level education is bourgeois and thereby reactionary too.

Communists oppose bourgeois education in all its diverse forms. Indeed communists can set up private forms of education which play a revolutionary role in worker education. So even his preference for public education does not hold. Indeed the SWP is a private institution as is its teach-ins (summer schools etc).

It is time for Kieran and other spokespeople for the SWP to publicly out themselves as left liberals. Both the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party are going the way of Pat Rabitte and Pronsias de Rossa.

Kieran Allen's purpose is to fool the working class into supporting him (and his party) under the illusion that he is a Marxist --dare I say Communist.

Is Constantin Gurdgiev Ireland's Economic Rasputin?

2011-11-13T01:59:00.000Z

The following comments by Constantin Gurdgiev, leading figure of the right, is taken from his blog:

"To summarize, there is no hope of growing out of the debt crisis we face when the expected growth this economy can achieve in the next decade or so is roughly ten times smaller than the debt repayments we have to finance for the combined public and private non-financial debt. Once we rule out sovereign debt restructuring, the only solution to our crisis will require reducing the private sector debt overhang."

Within the framework of capitalism growth is the only solution to Irish economic recovery. This growth has a global character. But the economy of the Irish Republic cannot grow independently of world growth. As capitalist economic growth such growth is exclusively derived from the profitability of industrial capital and cannot be sustained on a platform of expanding debt. This means that only stronger capitals can sustain economic growth. Weaker capitals have to be eliminated. The latter are largely enterprises that have been sustained by debt --bubble companies. Under these conditions the productivity of industrial capital must be enormously increased. Under such conditions total surplus value compensates for the tendency of the general rate of profit to fall. Big increases in the intensity of labour is another must. State spending must be minimised. The outcome is a shrunken world economy with a much more impoverished working class. This is the only kind of capitalist economic recovery possible today. It is a reovery that is unacceptable to the working class. But it is capitalism's nature to maximise profit not to serve the interests of the working class. Successful capitalism is capitalism that advances the interests of the capitalist class. Benefits accruing to the working class under capitalism are, at most, merely the means to guarantee profitability. If the forgoing prescriptions are not realised then civilisation will either collapse into chaos or else a global social revolution will happen whereby capitalism is replaced by communism.

By contrast Gurdgiev's programme is a call for an idealist utopia that has no basis in history. He couches his programme in fancy "economeese" in order to fool the working class. It is merely a programme to disarm the working class thereby rendering it vulnerable to a defeat leading to its subjection to the kind of naked capitalism indicated above. State spending and bank capital don't produce value nor surplus value. Value and surplus value are created from within the production process. Consequently the slimming down of state spending can at most reduce the volume of value being "wasted". But the state cannot, however trim it becomes, create value. Neither are banks value producers. They can only, at most, more efficiently guarantee and assist in the circulation and realisation of exchange value and ultimately the accumulation of capital.

The only real alternative for the working class is communism. Under communist society the law of value and the other related social laws of capitalism will have been abolished. Consequently profitability is no longer the driving force, and limit, to the expansion of wealth.

Gurdgiev is mistaken when he claims that massive slashing of state spending together with the creation of an effective banking system largely constitutes the platform from which recovery can take off. He omits the ultimate source of the problem --the capitalist production process.The lack of productivity within the process of production is the principal cause of the sustained capitalist crisis. There must be a transformation of the technological basis of production entailing large increases in the rate of exploitation of labour power if recovery, albeit only temporarily, is to establish itself. But enormous technological development is not something that can be developed at will. Technological change (and thereby large productivity increases) cannot be introduced to the labour process at will. Consequently adequate productivity of labour increases are highly unlikely although not impossible. This being so it is highly unlikely that authentic economic recovery can be achieved.

Gurdgiev argues that public service spending must be savagely cut. Along with this he calls for radical reform of the public service and indeed the capitalist political system itself. The implication of this programme of his is that a massive cut in public service expenditure together with a radical transformation of the public sector together with the political system can result in a society that serves the interests of the Irish citizenry. He suggests too that the Irish banking system must be radically reformed. He attacks any attempts to increase taxation. He claims that the latter only dampen down effective demand or consumption. The foreging prescriptions form part of Gurdgiev's idealist utopian programme. It is idealist because it is not grounded in the process of production which must constitute the materialst basis of any valid programme. His prescriptions apply to circulation and not production. The former cannot create value which is the way out of the contradiction. In so far as he makes references to the labour process it is only on the unestablished assumption that if the Irish economy follows his instructions global production will have picked up in such a way that the Irish economy will be able to benefit from this change. Given the global situation this assumption cannot be made especially when a massive spike in productivity is the requirement if there is to be recovery.

The Irish economic crisis is a manifestation of the global crisis that has beset contemporary capitalism. The recent property bubble is an expression of the world economic crisis. To identify the crisis being suffered in Ireland as nationalist is to misunderstand the entire character of capitalism. The recent role played by the Irish banks in contributing to the property bubble was also an extension of the global crisis. Many commentators, from both right and left, position the source of the the problem hitting Ireland in reverse order. They mistakenly posit how the crisis appears as the cause of the crisis.

Gurdgiev argues that that there must be a massive reduction in state spending on a scale that makes past and present governments' reductions look lilliputian. He shows here his failure to understand the nature and function of state spending under capitalism. He is unable to grasp that state spending has been undertaken to shore up capitalism and to pacify both the working class and middle class. Contrary to his thinking the state was not established and expanded as part of a formal rationalism originating originating in the European Enlightenment. The capitalist economic system is incapable of providing permanent full employment and enhanced living standards for the masses. Consequently the state steps in to fill the gap. This political intervention forms part of a necessary strategy to discourage the working class from challenging capitalism. The upshot is a burgeoning debt sustained social democracy.

Capitalism in the West sought to overcome this problem by increasing state spending. This led to, among othe things, improvements in the infrastructure together with improved working and living conditions. However state enlargement could only be provided chiefly by deductions from total surplus value while leaving less exchange value available for private capital formation. Clearly the reduction of surplus value accruing directly to industrial capitalism is correspondingly less. This shortfall could be compensated for by increasing the productivity of labour and thereby the exploitation of labour power. The result of increased productivity is a massive transformation in technology.

Now the conditions that enabled this process to occur were massive state spending on infrastructure and state iniated industry. The capitalist class were not in a position, for reasons which I shant go into now, to engage in such undertakings at the time. The basis for these developments, as alluded to above, were the following. The victory of one group of monopoly capitalists over another as a result of the two world wars along with economic depression from 1929 to 1939. Defeats suffered by the world working class in France, Spain, Britain and elsewhere. These changes helped bring about a large scale recovery in the general rate of profit. This was due to the destruction and devalorisation of capital.eant the continued burgeoning of state expenditure eventually culminating in empires of debt. This development enabled many weak entrepreneurs to stay in business. The debt empires sustained a burgeoning demand for commodities --the mass consumer society. Because of the growth and perpetuation of weaker capitals and the increasing debt, total surplus value increasingly failed to compensate for the falling rate of profit. The gap continually widened forcing the system to create even further debt. This helps explain thecauses underlying recent financial crises such as the Asian, Russian and Mexican crises. Now these crises were "artificiallly" resolved by futher debt expansion. But this was no real solution and merely kicked judgement day into the future. The situation has now reached such an enormous size that capitalism can no longer offer debt based solutions to economic disturbances. The problem is not a European problem but a world problem.

Gurdgiev never makes clear the philosophy that underlies his nationalist model for Irish economic recovery. His philosophy is based on extreme right wing assumptions. It is these that really need to be expounded by Gurdgiev in order to render his conception of economics more intelligible. Another problem is his use of obscurantist language both in his writing and his public utterancesn --highly jargonised language.(Not meaning to offend personal sensibility. His mode of speaking renders it more difficult to comprehend what his verbalisations). There is no need for much of what he writes to be enveloped within a vast cloud of jargon. Its effect is to lend his outpourings an all knowing mystique.
It is highly unlikely that bourgeois representative democratic institutions are capable of bringing about capitalist economic recovery given the scale of the sustained attack that must be mounted by the bourgeoisie against the working class. It is very likely that naked bourgeois dictatorship may become the order of the day. Even now such tendencies have been surfacing. We see this in relation to the conduct of Merkel and Sarkhozy with regard to Greece. Just as the capitalist economy has been reaching its limits so too may its representative democracy.

Can the current economic crisis save captialism?

2011-10-12T12:40:00.000+01:00

The Euro Crisis

The Euro crisis is a manifestation of the current global crisis. The latter is a crisis of profitability generated by the over-production of capital with respect to the existing rate of surplus value. The Euro crisis, a form of over-accumulation of debt by Eurozone countries, is a product of this profitability crisis. The profitability crisis, a manifestation of the law of the tendency of the general rate of profit to fall, is capitalism's periodic way of solving its fundamental problems.This law is the regulator of capitalist development. Without it capitalism would have collapsed long ago and ceased to exist. The law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is the central force that maintains capitalism in business. Ironically the bourgeoisie have sought to suppress and even eliminate it. Commentators like Constantin Gurdgiev claim that excess debt is the cause of the problem. Constantin claims that if total debt burden is reduced significantly then economic growth will recover. He, in effect, views excess debt as the source of the problem. He fails to see that excess debt rather than being the source of the problem is a manifestation of the crisis.There is excessive debt accumulation within the world capitalist system. This debt is excessive with respect to the the amount of surplus value being produced. Insufficient surplus value is being produced to allow for the excess debt dissolution. This accumulation of debt instead of promoting the development of the production process is in fact hindering it. Consequently if capitalism is not to self-destruct it must expunge this excess debt by means of enormous technological change. Growing investor distrust in the surplus debt based financial system is a symptom of this. Bear markets and trading volatility are some of the results of this. The over-accumulation of debt distorts and further obscures the real character of capitalism.

In other words the over-production of capital is producing a corresponding over-production of debt. At "the height" of this crisis, 2008, there was an overproduction of capital in the form of an overproduction of commodities (stockpiles of houses, household commodities, cars etc.) together with debt stockpiles. The over-production of debt is a device used by the capitalist class to obstruct the operation of the law of value in the form of the law of the tendency of the general rate of profit to fall. Up to a point debt creation acts as a counter-tendency to this law. The ruling class ironically attempt to prevent capitalism from regulating itself through periodic crises. But it turns into its opposite becoming increasingly an obstcle to the development of capitalism. The contradictions of capitalism now become so antagonistic that the debt mountain constitutes the polar opposite to the law of value. This expresses itself in the form of economic and even political crises. There are only two solutions to this contradiction: A reconstituted capitalism or social revolution.

To resolve the debt problem the rate of surplus value must be increased to such a degree that the amount of surplus value produced is large enough to allow this debt to be wiped out. To achieve this gargantuan task there has ultimately to be enormous technological change entailing a huge spike in the productivity of labour and consequently in the rate of surplus value. Such a revolution entails the meltdown of the production process. This means that "bubble" businesses dissolve leading to the centralisation of capital on an unprecedented scale. Successful capitalist producers are the entrepreneurs who introduce technological advances into the labour process in order in order to make themselves more competitive. This transformation from within capitalism must squeeze excess debt out of the system by eliminating the weaker capitalist enterprises including financial institutions that have, what I might call, a quasi-parasitic character. They are a past and present product of the "financialisation" of the growing contradictory nature of capitalist production. Many of these companies were sustainable because of continuous life-support from excessive credit expansion.

There must be increases in the worker's workload together with large scale cutbacks in public spending. Indeed the cutbacks in public spending are an added device by which many of the weaker businesses are forced out of the market. This,in itself, helps increase the technical composition of capital and thereby the organic composition.The result is an increase in the rate of surplus value and thereby the total surplus value produced.

It is the law of the tendency of the general rate of profit to fall that constitutes the principal underlying dynamic. It tends to effect a revolution in the forces of production. Competition is not the cause of changes in the conditions of production. Competition is the form by which the law of value asserts itself.

The problem is that the bourgeoisie have been endeavouring to neutralise the fall in total surplus value by the excessive expansion of debt. In this way it has succeedeed in sustaining businesses that would either have gone to the wall or never existed. This hinders the development of the forces of production by retarding the development of technology. Competition is the principal form by which this adjustement is achieved. By drowning the economy in debt competition is modified --even neutralised. This "artificial" neutralisation retards the capitalist competitive dynamic that leads to the further development of the productive forces. Consequently a caulron of inflationary bubbles are generated rendering prices higher than they would otherwise be.

The ultimate consequence of the oversupply of debt is a interruption of the organic composition of capital. As debt accumulates and total surplus value production is held back a situation is reached whereby the conditions for dissolving the accumulating debt is diminished. The upshot is a growing debt mountain only dissolvable by the most radical means. The capitalist class is facing precisely this situation now. Consequently the solution to the debt crisis is not simply a matter of manipulating excess debt through it redistribution and restructuring.

Currently the debt problem is being tackled by manipulating the circulation process as opposed to the production process. This mistakenly suggests that the source of the problem is located in the circulation sphere. Movements are afoot to restructure banking and the financial system generally. Banks, interest rates, some money forms, money printing and taxes are forms that function within the circulation process of capital. They have nothing directly to do with the regulation of the global process of production. The relationship between circulation and production is of a reified nature. Furthermore under conditions of debt mountains production and circulation tend to become increasingly divorced from each other. This brings about an unexpected interruption in the process of reproduction of capital. The result: economic and political crises.

The circulation of debt cannot solve capitalist crises. This is because the problem is located within the heart of capitalism itself -the process of production. Consequently the source of the solution is contained within the production process. The illusion that the crisis can be solved by the circulation of debt just means that the solution is mistakenly seen to be located within the process of circulation as opposed to the process of production. But the circulation process is the form by which exchange-value in the form of capital is circulated. Plans to solve the euro crisis through tinkering with the circulation process are doomed to failure because circulation in contrast to production cannot generate value. Playing about with debt within the process of circulation can add nothing to value since, as I indicated, value cannot be generated by the circulation of capital.

Most political interests, including much of mainstream marxism leninism, advocate solutions from within the circulation process. Much of mainstream marxism calls for increased public spending as a way of inflating demand and thereby dissolving the crisis. But this fetishisation of spending, an under-consumptionist economic philosophy, is a utopian demand. It mistakenly suggests that capitalism can be saved from itself by increased spending. This means that no capitalist crisis is ever possible since increases in demand through increased public spending can sort the problem out. This notion is a Keynesian prescription. Ironically this then means that capitalism is not obsolescent since there are no destructive tendencies within it. Such utopian reformism by much of marxism-leninism constitutes an abject apology for capitalism. Much of mainstream marxism and bourgeois politics share a fundamental commonality: serving the interests of capitalism.

These marxist-leninist apologists for capitalism fail to explain where all this increased public spending is to come from. It cannot be just sucked out of the thumb of Zeus. Arbitrarily increased public spending can only mean the use of debt to get rid of debt. This misconception highlightsprecisely why capitalism is besieged by debt crisis. This form of marxism-leninism is nothing less than a form of mysticism involving a superstitious belief in the capitalist state.

It is this very remedy that has been the source of the problem --eliminating the debt crisis by further attempting to increase and redistribute debt. The advocacy of such false solutions highlights an essential ignorance of the nature of capitalist relations. Even if these conditions are realised by the bourgeoisie global economic crises will eventually break out again. Capitalism, especially in its later stages, has an inherent tendency to periodically produce economic crises.

Ultimately capitalist economic crises can only be permanently eliminated by the replacement of capitalism with communism. This entails the abolition of the production process as a valorisation process. Consequently the law of value, a socio-historical law, ceases to exist. In the final analysis communist (not Stalinist) society is the only authentic solution to the problem of economic crises.

Printing money, currency devaluation, changing interest rates, debt accumulation and public works involve tinkering with circulation.Manipulating the circulation of capital constitutes a superficial remedy that,in the long run, solve nothing while making things worse. The appearances of capitalism (such as the circulation of capital) are mistaken for its essence. The market disguises the real nature of capitalism.

Bourgeois experts inform us that the debt crisis can be solved if we use this or that method. Yet none of these offerings directly locate the source of the problem -the production of commodity capital itself. There are almost as many economists as there are proposed bourgeois solutions. Proposed solutions can include fiscal change; monetary reform; banking reform and budgetary change. The current capitalist slow-down is a result not of the inaccessibility of credit but of the falling rate of profit. It is the falling rate of profit that has led to the drying up of credit. The lack of banking activity is not the cause of the crisis.Instead it is the crisis that is the cause of banking activity. The result of the problem is ironically viewed by its apologists as its cause.

Finally given that the source of the contradiction lies within the capitalist production process it is nevertheless the case that modifications to aspects of the circulation can play a subordinate role in the solution to the problem of declining profitability. However the solution is principally found within valorisation itself.

The Production Process Is The Key

2011-07-13T19:42:00.001+01:00

Given the state of world capitalism today especially in the immediate wake of the recent world economic and financial depression the current situation is as follows.

There exist only two solutions to the capitalist crisis. The capitalist solution or the communist solution.

The capitalist solution constitutes a drastioc anti-working class solution. Even at that it will not serve as a permanent solution. But it is the only solution available within capitalism if it is not to experience growing and periodic problems of the sort it experienced recently.

Since the source of the problem exists within the production process it is there that the solution will be found. This means that the labour process will have to be revolutionisied if a capitalist solution is to be realised.

This solution involves the enormous and unprecedented upgrading of the productive power of society. In this way the technical composition of capital will have been increased to such a degree that it will lead to an increase in the organic composition of capital. In that way the rate of surplus value will have increased to such a degree that the total surplus value produced will more than compensate for the the falling rate of profit.

Such an enormous development in the forces of production will lead to a radical reconfiguration of capital. Weaker capitals will generally have been wiped out on a par with the K-T extinction. Much larger, more concentrated and centralised capital will predominate. The working class will suffer increased workload and will be more disciplined.

Organisationally and politically it will be much weaker than it even was. In this way the source of the capitalist crisis, its process of production, will have been revolutionised in such a way as to have eliminated the crisis for the time being. Furthermore the struggle that led to this transformation within the labour process will have resulted in a general and devastating defeat for the working class. This will be manifested in a fall in working conditions and living standards. It will have meant severe cutbacks in social spending on health, education and the other welfare benefits that the working class has, in the West, taken for granted. In short it will be living in a new era. The character and culture of the working class will have changed drastically.

In contrast much of the radical Left falsely posit the source of the current capitalist contradictions as existing within the process of circulation of capital. This is why they persistently confine themselves to solutions that are grounded in the process of circulation of capital. They focus on money, credit, spending, taxation and commodities. Each one of these forgoing forms are necessarily confined to the sphere of circulation. Consequently they cannot provide the key to the solution of the the current world capitalist crises.

It does not understand that the central contradiction of capitalism is located within the process of production.

The the production process is a dual process. It is a labour process and a valorisation process. We must disconnect the valorisation process from the labour process. This entails the abolition of valorisation. The production process, then, is transformed into a unitary process that simply produces use-values and not exchange values in the form of commodities. Use-values are now just products and no longer commodities. Only communism can effect this change.

Generally debate surrounding the solution to Ireland's economic and financial problems centre around issues such as bailouts, bondholders, deficits and debt forgiveness. These are notions stuck within the process of circulation of capital. Consequently they can never provide the key to the solution of the problem either for capitalists or workers. Thereby debate must assume a qualitatively different form.

Gurdgiev and Lucey misunderstand Euro Debt Crisis

2011-07-11T18:35:00.001+01:00

Much of the radical Left/Right falsely posit the source of the current
capitalist contradictions as existing within the process of circulation of
capital. This is why they persistently confine themselves to solutions that
are grounded in the process of circulation of capital. They focus on money,
credit, spending, taxation and commodities. Each one of these forgoing
forms are necessarily confined to the sphere of circulation. Consequently
they cannot provide the key to the solution of the Euro crisis let alone the
Current world capitalist crises. Much of the the radical Left/Right are the present day King Canutes. The crisis of capitalism is the crisis of the radical Left. It is also a crisis of consciousness, organisation and leadership within the (if today I can suggest such a phenomenon) working class movement.

The Euro crisis, today, has found its extreme expression, economically and
politically, in Greece. The Greek social system is enormously indebted to
such a degree, that it cannot sell government bonds to acquire credit with which to meet the cost of running the state. Consequently the Greek ruling class is being forced to seek loans from the EU under extremely strict conditions that will, in the short term at least, further hinder growth. These austere conditions involve enormous privatisation of state companies and large cut-backs in state spending. Much of this austerity package will entail job losses, diminished incomes and reduced welfare benefits. Even this forthcoming Euro loan will not go near getting Greece out of its financial and economic problems. At most it may merely temporarily alleviate the financial problem. This punctuated policy amounts to death by a thousand cuts.

Some commentators mistakenly argue, Constantin Gurdgiev and Brian Lucey,
that the better approach is a comprehensive deal now that sorts out Greece's
problems once and for all.This, they claim, must involve debt forgiveness
and presumably economic restructuring. They argue that a piecemeal approach
can only but prolong the crisis leading in the future to an even more devastating situation. This, they claim, can only intensify the problem thereby rendering the collapse of the Euro more likely. This event will have widespread ramifications.

The EU tops, and their subalterns, argue that their punctuated policy is the best policy in the circumstances. By staging financial help to Greece accompanied by the imposition of belt-tightening it appears that the EU hopes to protect the Euro.The overall fear among the European bourgeoisie is the collapse of the Euro and the ensuing fallout. Neither policy can solve the crisis. The Euro crisis is the result of a much deeper dynamic.

The problem has its source in the failure of capitalism to produce sufficient absolute surplus value to compensate for the falling general rate of profit --the regulator of the capitalist economic system. Resisting this ongoing falling volume of surplus value will not be sorted out by throwing more debt (paper) at the problem. At most this just postpones the crisis leading consequently to an even more devastating crash.

The solution has to be the production of more surplus value. This economic problem is lodged within the production process --not in the circulation process. This means that transformation must take place within the process
of production.Consequently this leaves only two options open. The capitalist solution: A massive development and investment of technology on an unprecedented scale leading to an enormous increase in the rate of surplus
value and thereby a corresponding enormous increase the volume of total
surplus value produced.

The communist solution: A revolutionary transformation of the production
process involving the abolition of capital and thereby the valorisation process. Under these conditions the production process will exist to serve the needs of the people. It is then no more than the production of use-values --profitability is longer the driving force.

Throwing more debt, in the short or long run, at the problem will not solve the problem. This is precisely because the source of the problem does not lie within the process of circulation of capital (i.e. money and credit ). It is contained within the production process.

Alienation and the Materialist Conceptioan of History

2011-06-19T18:41:00.002+01:00

Marx by producing the materialist conception of history was also producing the materialist conception of alienation. The materialist conception of history is the only genuine, comprehensive and consistent materialism. It laid the basis for identifying the real nature of capitalist alienation together with the historical process that dissolves it. Hegel never succeeded in finding the limits preventing humanity from transcending its alienation. Hegel shares this fundamental inability to understand both the nature of alienation and the means whereby it can be abolished with the Young Hegelians; Feuerbach; the philosophical materialism of the Enlightenment and the Classical School of Political Economy.
Despite individual differences obtaining between them they are bound by a common metaphysical limitation. Marx overcame these socio-ontological limitations in the form of the materialist conception of history which is inseparably grounded in revolutionary material praxis. The seeds of the materialist conception of Marx are located in his 1844 Manuscripts. Here the concept of social relations of production| “had its first and decisive elaboration.” Marx’s new and revolutionary materialism constitutes a radical break with the metaphysical materialism of Feuerbach and the Enlightenment. The materialist conception has a dual nature as both social ontology and methodology.

Hegel was the first modern philosopher to explicitly and systematically present the problem of alienation as a central socio-ontological question for philosophy. By placing the ontology of man’s social being at the centre of the philosophical stage the entire character of philosophy was revolutionised. This is to call into question the very existence of philosophy as the medium for a solution. After Hegel further solutions to the problem of man’s alienation were sought both by the Young Hegelians and Feuerbach. But all these thinkers were the prisoners of idealism since each in his own way, understood the problem as one to be solved ideologically and not historically thereby entailing praxis. By thus confining solutions to the ideological sphere reform, not revolution, was their moderate programme. Such ideological prescriptions amounted to a denial that alienation is a necessary feature of capital requiring the surgical process of revolution for its elimination and instead assumed that alienated society can be liberated from alienation. Correct philosophy, not social revolution, was their prescription.

The philosophical materialism of the European Enlightenment bore an idealist character. This limited it as a basis for explaining alienated existence. Attempts to represent Marx’s materialism as merely a development of traditional materialism is to imprison his conception within metaphysical limits thereby turning it into another variant of ideology. French naturalist materialism, notwithstanding its revolutionary characteristics, was essentially a disguised form of idealism that never succeeded in systematically concerning itself with the real concrete facts and instead got enveloped in the dense fog of ideology.
Metaphysical materialism conceives the rational as standing in an external relation to men, determining and regulating human existence. “For the Enlightenment, reason was the ultimate principle of the being and becoming of nature and society. The task of philosophy is to discover and elaborate this principle, so that society will correspond to the eternal and unchanging laws of nature (Lukacs: Hegel; p. 35).” By thus misconceiving the meaning of nature, French materialism was positing a notion as determinant of society instead of concrete social forces. This is tantamount to claiming that conceptual abstractions determine human existence which is to assume that man is nothing but an idea. In this way the factor of consciousness is regarded as the specific characteristic of men. “It follows that analysis cannot engage with a real object, but only with an ideal objectivity. The relation between the theory and its object contracts, due to the ideal character of the latter, into a mere relation of idea to idea, an internal monologue within thought itself. The object of analysis thus slips through our fingers; it is, as Lenin pointed out, impossible for us to undertake any study of the facts, of social processes, precisely because we are no longer confronting a society, a real object, but only the idea of society, society in general. (Colletti: From Rousseau to Lenin; p. 3)”.

These rational laws of economics are endowed with a reality which transcends history and are construed as having an existence not confined to a specific concrete economic system. In this way these abstract historical laws are conceived as absolute abstractions which is to misapprehend their specific nature. Construed as such their meaning is misunderstood and consequently instead of their being recognised as real specific economic laws of history with limited scope they are dissolved into abstractions of the mind. This reduces political economy to ideology. This is how Pilling can make the following observation:

"... Marx was to centre his entire critique of political economy on what he considered its decisive weakness –its tendency to view society ahistorically, or, more specifically, its inclination to treat capitalist economy as one working directly in accordance with the laws of nature. All Marx’s detailed criticisms of political economy’s categories of value, money, capital etc., which fill the pages of Capital and even more so of Theories of Surplus Value, rest finally upon this, his basic criticism." (ibid., Pilling; p. 10)

Marx by centring his attention on classical economy’s ahistoricism, its metaphysical nature, was able to reveal its inability to demonstrate the historical and transitory nature of capitalist society and the need to go beyond it in the form of socialist society. By this means he indicated the classical economy’s inability to concern itself with a real concrete object, a particular society, and instead concentrate on consciousness. Consequently Marx ends up by going beyond these economists by producing his revolutionary new analysis of both political economy and the capitalist economic system. Through the medium of such analysis the conditions (or programme) for the elimination of alienation are being outlined. The condition for Marx’s transcending the ideology of the classical economists with his new powerful tool of the materialist conception of history is being outlined. Classical economy by contrast was rooted in a naturalist materialism the origin of which can be traced back to Locke. This materialism naturalises social phenomena by subjecting them to the Midas touch. Social phenomena are thereupon posited as the immediately given of empiricism. Consequently there is no need to trace the mediating links that connect economic phenomena to their corresponding essence since under materialist empiricism phenomena are conceived as immediately identical with their essence. This explains how Ricardo immediately identified value with price failing to comprehend that the phenomena, price, by its very nature, deviates from value.

Marx, on the other hand, proceeded in the opposite direction: Like the materialists he accepted the argument that all phenomena including social phenomena were natural. This is to say that they were grounded in nature. But he did not stop at that since he went one step ahead thereupon revolutionising the entire character of materialism by ‘socialising’ all phenomena whether natural or social. In this way nature was conceived as a social category So all phenomena are natural and social. By this means Marx’s materialist conception subordinates the natural to the social; natural objects are situated within a social context. The outcome is that no phenomena can be conceived independently of society. Since phenomena must be conceived from a social standpoint it follows that to preserve facticity they must be investigated from the context of a particular society i.e. particular social relations. To acknowledge that all phenomena are social i.e. are socially constituted means to grasp the nature of their sociality if they are to be made intelligible. And this obviously entails apprehending how they are socially constituted. But this is to seek to apprehend how they are ‘manufactured’. This means going beyond their ‘thereness’ as empirically given and tracing their historical nature. And thus we have the materialist conception of history. Thereupon the materialist conception, as method, destroys with one blow the reductive analysis of materialist empiricism and thereby the method of Ricardo.
It was the materialist conception of history, a new conception of materialism that formed the basis of a correct theory of alienation. Marx’s materialist conception went beyond philosophical materialism by broadening the foundation on which materialism had been constructed to include such objective constituents as the objects of nature; the material activity of labour; manufactured objects; social relations of production. This is a materialism that put man at the centre while nature was now only significant within social dimensions. No longer could abstractions be posited as determinants of human existence: the process of consciousness is no longer mistaken as the real concrete process. Instead men are conceived as engaged in a socially mediated dialogue with nature involving the use of man-made use values. In this way concrete men are explained from themselves, from their foundation without any recourse to any metaphysical principles. Man is the source of man; man is free. Marx’s materialism is not simply ontological in character and that it is also a methodology. It is a method by which the nature of capitalism and alienation is conceived.

This piece was written many years ago by me. My conception has shifted since then. However I still think that the piece still retains interest.

The May 2011 Royal Visit to Ireland

2011-05-25T12:41:00.000+01:00

The recent official visit by the British Queen to the Republic of Ireland led to many temporary restrictions on the freedom of Irish workers and the loss of income to many of them due to the disruption it caused in Dublin and other places in Ireland.
Among other things it intensified alienation by the exclusion of the vast majority of citizenry from the various public events staged in Ireland for the British Queen. Only a small elite can be be trusted, in such contexts, by the Irish state.

The royal visit demonstrates the anti-democratic nature of contemporary society. The royalist events in Ireland are a way of informing the worker of his place in class society. Despite the existence of the vote we are being reminded that some people are worth more than others. This is the real value system that formal democracy hides from us.

Then there were the funds spent on the visit. Such funds are a product of the exploitation of the labour power of the worker. The Irish worker sweats to pay for this recent extravagance.

It has been said repeatedly in the Irish capitalist mass media that Elizabeth is a great lady "for her age" (ageism again) and that she exhibited great strength and dignity. So what! Such personal attributes have nothing,as such, to do with her royal status. There was also the view that she paid homage to Irish culture, politics and the dead patriots executed by British imperialism. But this is just an imperialist ploy to win the hearts and minds of the Irish masses --to control them. It is intended to fool and cajole the Irish working class into accepting British oppresssion.

But none of this pomp and cermony can mean anything substantive in terms of the improvement of the conditions of the Irish and British working class. What does it matter should Queen Elizabeth show respect for such patriots killed in their struggle against British imperialism many years ago? What matters is the historical significance of the events themselves.In fact Elizabeth, as head of the British state, is using the very anti-imperialist deeds of these Irish insurrectionists to promote the class interests of British imperialism (the very imperialism it was combatting) by winning the popular support of the Irish populace. There is no way this class or indeed the British working class.

The craven indigenous bourgeoisie are happy with any such development because the pacification of the Irish and British working class can only but enhanceits class interests. Because the visit leads to increased stability between Ireland and Britain the conditions for improved commercial relations may be enhanced. At a time of acute international economic crises in the West this development can only but be helpful to Irish, UK and US capitalism.

The official visit made by Barack Obama, President of the USA, has the same character, (with modifications) as that of the British Queen's official visit. Obama is probably hoping to pick up some votes by making the visit while the royal family is hoping to use the visit to justify its existence in the face of republican opposition.

The Irish capitalist class were all for it too. They dont mind paying homage to a relic of the Middle Ages if there are goodies in it for them. Especially today during downturn. Anything that leads to greater cooperation in the interests of profit is hailed. And as for betraying the dead patriots well that was done a long time ago.

There is a big lesson to be drawn from these visits by the political representatives of imperialist states. The popular support for the visits was much greater than the popular opposition shown against the substantial cutbacks in the living standards of the working class. The turnout for Obama at College Green was much greater than any rallies against the cutbacks in living standards. Lets face it we have, at present, in Ireland a passive and conservative working class. At the moment the capitalist class have little to worry about when it comes to the Irish working class.

John McGahren

2011-05-16T00:29:00.000+01:00

Hi

It appears to me that in John McGahren's last novel flounders mid way through. Consequently the character of the novel shifts somewhat to lend it an extended life. This is why the character of Robert Booth is introduced. He is meeley inserted into the book to allow it to have an end as well as a beginning. Around the same time the character of Joe Ruttledge changes. He becomes more talkative and decisive.The relationship between the Joe and Kate is rather curious. Little conversation seems to take place between them. You would wonder why they are together at all.

This is a flaw in the book.

Vincent Browne versus SWP

2011-05-11T09:06:00.002+01:00

Below are some written comments of mine on a piece published on the SWP.ie website. It is called, Reply to Vincent Browne attack on left. It was published on 8th May 2011. Its position is so crassly reactionary that I felt obliged to promptly draft a hasty response to it.‎10 ‎May ‎2011

SWP: The Left has no difficulty with the latter point and indeed goes further. In common with Vincent Browne, we favour higher rates of taxes on incomes over €80,000 as a means of re-distribution. More broadly, we favour progressive taxes rather than regressive indirect taxes which hit the poor disproportionately.

Hackett: "...hit the poor disproportionately." The Socialist Workers Party call themselves marxist (at least they did in the past) and yet ironically they support progressive taxation. Even progressive taxation adversely hits the working class. The poor! The SWP dont even pretend to seriously represent the interests of the working class anymore. Like Father Mc Verygood they represent the interests of the poor. Perhaps the SWP dont understand that sections of the working class can be quite cultured and affluent. Workers dont just live in Ballyfermot. They can live in Foxrock and Templelogue too.

SWP: But why focus solely on income? Why not get to the root of the problem of inequality by also taxing wealth and capital? And why focus just on Irish incomes rather than on wealth generated in Ireland?

Take a simple paradox. In 2008, at the start of the crisis the shortfall in government spending was €11.5 billion. But after three years of ‘deficit reduction’ it has actually increased to more than €18 billion. Why should this be so?

Hackett: The state deficit is caused by falling profitability and not by falls in spending. Spending is, in a sense, a function of profitability. The greater the profit the greater the spending. Spending on capital and consumer goods. The reason for the recent dramatic deficits in the Irish Republic is because of falling profitability which is reflected in falling spending.

SWP: First, ironically, government cuts. The more the government cuts its spending, the less money there is to go around and so there is less work and less taxes raised. If, for example, you cut the wages of public sector workers, fewer people will use barbers or restaurants and so are fewer people employed in these outlets. The problem for ‘deficit hawks’, therefore, is that instead of solving the capitalist crisis, they often make it worse.

Hackett: The question of government spending cuts is not an independent variable. State spending is again a product of profitability. The greater is total profit the more the capitalist state can spend. As profit falls state spending is objectively constrained. The Irish government cut spending and increased taxation because of falling profits. Had the Irish state continued to spend and tax at the levels that existed before the economic collapse the deficit would have grown even greater bringing the Irish economy into an even worse situation. Reduced state spending and increased taxation, at most, leads to a redistribution of profit. It does not necessarily bring about a fall in the amount of money spent. It merely brings about a change in the way that money is spent. If the economy is shrinking as a function of falling profitability then it is necessary for the capitalist state to correspondingly cut back on unproductive spending in order to seek to slow down the falling rate of profit. Marx made this point very clear in his work on the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. By slowing the rate at which profit falls then a corresponding fall in capital investment tends to take place. In that way the rate of falling unemployment tends to be slowed down somewhat.

Neither can a government (much less a governement representing a minuscule economy such as the economy of the Irish Republic) simply increase spending at will to supposedly prevent an economic depression. To do so just results in galloping inflation. But the Irish government could not even do that because it no longer even owns its own currency. We are forced to use a foreign currency called the Euro. The SWP and the Socialist Party rant on about the launching of public works as forming a key ingredient in the national solution to the economic crisis. However significant public works require large quantities capital. Given that the Irish economy has been suffering from steadily falling profitability there does not exist the profit necessary to provide the necessary capital for such works. Taxing Irish and foreign capitalists to pay for such public investment merely reduces their already falling profits --the fountainhead of the economic crisis. So calling for major public works, even a la Trotsky, makes no sense.

SWP: Third, and this is the crucial point, Ireland is currently experiencing an investment strike by the Irish capitalist class. Capital is the life blood of the current economy and its flow is driven by a desire for profit. When owners of capital decide not to invest, the whole economy seizes up.

Hackett: To claim that there is "an investment strike" inflicting the Irish economy is to misunderstand the very nature of capitalism. Capitalists can only exist by the expansion of capital through the productive investment of its profit as capital. This is the dynamic underlying capitalist investment. It is this dialectical dynamic that drives the capitalist economic system. Now capitalism cannot, even if it wants to, subjectively refuse to invest in industrial capital. To do that is to undermine its very existence.

There is no evidence to support the absurd SWP claim that the Irish capitalist class is gone on strike. Irish capitalism has nothing to gain by such egregious behaviour. Many substantial Irish capitalists, are going to the wall because of the absence of capital investment in Ireland. And there will probably be more such collisions. It makes no sense to suggest that prominent capitalists, some of whom are celeb business people, would deliberately commit commercial suicide. If capitalists are not investing in the Irish economy to the degree that they were it is because of the unavoidable diminution in profit available in Ireland. To maintain and even increase their capital they are compelled to instead invest in China or wherever. They will send their capital anywhere that currently returns a profit under relatively secure conditions. These conditions dont exist, as they did, in Ireland. Fugitive capital will only tend to return to the Irish Republic as indigenous profitability conditions show improvement. In other words when the Irish economic system hits bottom and can then take off then investment will begin to recover. Whether that actually happens in the forseeable future in another matter.

SWP: Some capital has been wiped out in the crash – but not all of it. Figures from the Central Statistics Office indicate that private savings for 2009 amount to €37 billion. (This figure is based on gross saving minus the public sector deficit) ‘Savings’, however, is not simply composed of the extra money PAYE workers have in bank accounts – mainly it includes the additional income accruing to the rich. In addition, there has been a huge capital flight. In 2010, €100 billion was withdrawn from Irish banks and 73% of those withdrawals came from corporations.

So the rich have plenty of money – but they have chosen to stage an investment strike. Their aim is to re-configure Ireland as a low-wage tax haven and only AFTER that has occurred, might they re-start the engine of capitalist accumulation.

Hackett: The above SWP conspiracy theory is so obviously naive and threadbare. If the Irish capitalist class was staging an investment strike then why would it stage one now? Why would it stage one at a time when the economy was said to have been undergoing unprecedented expansion? The motive for an investment strike makes little sense since capitalism generally seeks to perenially keep the price of labour power down so that it can sustain maximum profit. Why would a low wage economy be something capitalism would seek for Ireland now than say at other times? Marx has shown in his work, Capital, that the accelerated accumulation of capital is not the result of subjective factors such as the decisions of the capitalist class. It is an objective process driven by the prevailing objective conditions --profit conditions. The accumulation process is independent of the intentions of the Irish capitalist class.

SWP: Irish society will not be going back to a Celtic Tiger-style normality because the economic model of development based on low corporation taxes and de-regulation has run its course. We shall either live in a society that is permanently ravaged by emigration and poverty – or we can re-organise the economy on socialist lines where control over accumulated resources is in the hands of the majority and subject to the needs of society as a whole.

Hackett: The above piece contradicts Kieran Allen's claim, a leading figure in the SWP, that there has been a "corporate takeover of Ireland". In his book The Corpoate Takeover of Ireland he claims that "the corporations also wants a state that reduces overall taxation." In his book he never, as I understand it, argued that the then "economic model of development based on low corporation taxes and de-regulation had run its course." In fact he seemed to be suggesting the very opposite. If "the Irish capitalist class" have mounted an investment strike in Ireland, as the SWP claim, while multinational corporate investment appear to be faring relatively well in Ireland then surely there is a conflict between indigenous capital and global corporations from abroad. This apparent dichotomy between the two forms of capital must mean that there has been no "corporate takeover of Ireland" with the help of Irish foreign policy and the indigenous bourgeoisie or certainly significant sections of it?

SWP: However, the Left advocates a more radical approach. It is to get to the root of the issue by increasingly taking control over capital and depriving the wealthy of their ability to sabotage the economy.

Hackett: To call for the need "to increasingly take control over capital" amounts to no better than an oxymoron. Capital by its very nature denotes the absence of popular control. It is a reified social relation of production. By virtue of that very fact, expounded by Marx, it is not possible to exert popular support over capital. However I take it that by increasingly taking control over capital the SWP are advocating, in a disguised way, some version of reformism. Nowhere in the world has capitalism been reformed out of existence. Nor can it be. The SWP apparently claims to be Marxist, indeed a Trotskyist organisation, yet it has been stridently and publicly espousing reformist politics. For it a nationalist capitalist solution, and not world social revolution, is the answer.

Its leadership has been publicly espousing a national solution to the Irish economic crisis. A minuscule capitalist economy, such as is the Irish one, certainly cannot realise a reformist programme. An Irish workers' republic in which the wealth is owned and controlled by the state or even by "the people" would be crushed in no time by ambient imperialism. The solution to the economic crisis afflicting Ireland is only possible on the basis of a European revolution spreading out from core countries such as France, Germany or Britain. Given the international character of capitalism the solution has to be international --world revolution.

The SWP and the Socialist Party publicly maintain that there is an Irish solution to Irish economic crises. These false pronouncements are nothing but attempts to fool and mislead the working class. The probable outcome of parties such as the SP and the SWP gaining significant influence over the working class is significant sustained deep-seated economic and political instability involving enormous popular pain and suffering. However there is also, on the other hand, the distinct liklihood that parties, such as the SP and SWP, will instead opportunistically capitulate to capitalism a la Rabbitte and de Rossa should their electoral strength grow. This is on the assumption that a revolutionary communist movement fails to emerge and grow into a competing force culminating in social revolution. Communism means European and world social revolution together with the elimination of the state in all its diverse oppresssive forms.

And yes, then, in a perverse way, I do think Vincent Browne has a point. In the short term there is no way out other than, more or less, what is being officially advocated by the establishment i.e. outside of revolution. At present neither Ireland nor Western Europe have the popular culture nor organised forms to develop social revolution into communism. In the absence of these conditions Europe can secure no other than the model of a chaotic present day Iraq on a European scale --nihilism. This is why the building of a communist movement is such a necessity.
Ah sure I think I'll read McCarthy's novel 'The Road' again!

Adams and the Peace Processs

2011-05-04T23:17:00.000+01:00

A response to Gerry Adam's article published in the Irish Times on 12-2-96

It was the absence of negotiations and the consequent failure to address and resolve the causes of conflict which made the re-occurrence of conflict inevitable.

The absence of negotiations are not what make the re-occurrence of conflict inevitable. What make the re-occurrence of conflict possible is the deep-seated contradictions inherent in six county society and indeed in Irish capitalist society as a whole. To suggest the absence of negotiations as cause is to mistakenly confine to surface phenomena the cause of conflict. Again negotiations don’t necessarily resolve the causes of conflict. It is the struggle between social classes that can lead to the resolution of conflict. Furthermore it is simplistic to suggest that the ending of the ceasefire meant a re-occurrence of the conflict. Even during the so called Provo ceasefire conflict continues under other forms. Furthermore the character of negotiations is no more than a reflection of the relationship of power between the classes. Gerry Adams, not recognizing this fact, fetishes negotiations.

The people of this island do have the ability to come to an agreed and democratic accommodation. The vehicle for this is democratic and inclusive dialogue and negotiations.

If the people of Ireland do have this ability then this is tantamount to falsely claiming that the struggle for national self-determination of the Irish people is superfluous since discursive activity can be substituted for this struggle. The only thing that has significance is dialogue; all else is meaningless. This is postmodernism at its most cynical. Language substitutes itself for reality. Adams fails to understand that the character of specific dialogue reflects the asymmetrical power relations that underpin it. Words on their own are meaningless. The success of a political interest participating in dialogue is a function of both its political power and the character of its relationship with the relevant different political powers. It is not a function of its debating skills. If the Provos had no political power the Irish, British and American bourgeois governments would not have given it anything like the attention it has received.

The IRA cessation was, itself, the culmination of a long process of dialogue within Irish nationalist opinion aimed at identifying a method of resolving the conflict and building a lasting political settlement.

Again for Adams dialogue produced the IRA ceasfire. Words take on the power of concrete struggle. The armed struggle of the IRA generated dialogue, words, and these words in turn generated the IRA ceasefire. Adam’s mystifies the power of words. He is the prisoner of words and images. Consequently his world is one of fantasy; an Irish Don Quixote. The real situation is that the Provos ceased their armed struggle because of concrete political considerations and not because of mere dialogue.

The very fact that the IRA found it necessary to end the ceasefire is proof of the limitations of dialogue, of language. The IRA bombing in the London docklands has already generated a modification in the political situation in a way that dialogue could not. Indeed the only reason that Sinn Fein have been allowed to even talk with the Irish government is because of the political significance of their armed campaign. If the IRA had not waged their campaign then no dialogue would have taken place. Therefore it was not, as Adams believes, language that led to language. The gun compelled the bourgeoisie to enter into talks with the Provos. The problem is that the guns of the IRA are not proving powerful enough to achieve an independent 32 county republic.

The Irish Government of that time, Sinn Fein, the SDLP and key elements of Irish America were all agreed that inclusive negotiation, without preconditions or vetoes, is the only way to resolve the conflict and secure a lasting peace. It was agreed that peace could be achieved only by replacing the failed political structures with a new political arrangement on the island, based on democratic principles of agreement and consent.

If the only way to resolve the conflict is through "inclusive negotiation" then why has it not been achieved? If a settlement, as Gerry Adams believes, is simply a matter of the different parties sitting around a table to talk then there can be no reason why all the parties would object to this. However because it is far from as simple as this the parties have not engaged in this inter-communicative exercise. It has not been achieved because words have their limits and are not as Adams believes the essence of social being. The armed conflict reflects class interests which are concrete material interests. A resolution cannot then be a simple matter of discursive reason; of the application of reason to a socio-historical problem. A problem of this kind can only be resolved through politics which entails class struggle. Social conflicts never have and never will be solved by means of discursive activity.

There was an intensive and unprecedented dialogue within Irish nationalist opinion in its broadest sense, a dialogue which required courage, imagination and a new approach on all sides, not least on the part of the then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, and the SDLP leader, John Hume, who, despite intense opposition, turned their backs on the failed policies of isolation and took the risk required in the building of the Irish peace process.

Whether the dialogue "required courage, imagination and a new approach" is irrelevant. Of relevance, however, is that Reynolds, Spring and Hume were simply serving their own class interests by engaging in such dialogue. They "turned their backs on the failed policies of isolation" simply because they had found another and perhaps more effective strategy to either crush, encourage the Provos to surrender or accept a compromise. Sections of the Irish bourgeoisie had changed their strategy in an attempt to further stabilise bourgeois conditions on the island. But it must be remembered that it may be "the failed policies of isolation" that played a strategic role in generating the kind of Provo leadership that is prepared to fall for what maybe a new strategy of sections of the bourgeoise.

With a clear commitment by all the major Irish nationalist parties proactively to pursue a new, negotiated and democratic political arrangement, and a public commitment by the British government to convene with the Irish Government the necessary peace talks to achieve this agreement, the Sinn Fein leadership gave an assessment to the IRA leadership of the prospects for a lasting political settlement. It was on the basis of clearly-stated commitments and agreements that the IRA announced a complete cessation of military operations on August 31st, 1994.

The above remarks suggest that the present Sinn Fein leadership accepted the word of its enemy, an enemy it had been struggling against for over twenty five years. Adams does not understand that these manoeuvres by London may have formed part of a political strategy to defeat the Provos. Adams now wants to criticize the British government because the Adamites may have made the significant political mistake of naively taking their enemy at his word. However there are those who would suggest a more sinister reason for their apparent political innocence.

In the 18 months of the IRA cessation, the British government stalled the commencement of all-party peace talks time and time again. The unilateral dumping of the Mitchell report, and the introduction of a unionist proposal for a six-county election, placed an unbearable strain on the peace process. Sinn Fein warned repeatedly of the dangers. Our warnings were treated as threats when they were intended to alert those responsible that the peace process needed to be consolidated and built upon.

Again all this simply proves that words are not a substitute for concrete reality. If it is only a matter of rational dialogue then there is no reason why Unionism, London and Dublin cannot sit around the table with the Provos to arrive at a solution. This has not happened because social problems in the six count state Ireland cannot be reduced to mere words.

The stalling, the negativity, the introduction of new preconditions was steadily undermining the position of those, myself included, who had argued that a viable peaceful way forward could be constructed.

The above remarks mean that Adams admits that his position has been undermined which can only mean that the Adamites may have played a vital part in the Provos suffering a defeat at the hands of the Tory government. Adams does not understand that this may be just what London intended as part of a possible strategy to split the Provos and make its defeat easier. This may then mean that the Adamites are John Major’s best allies.

Against this background and with consternation I, and those who had worked to put this peace process together, watched as Private Lee Clegg was released and then promoted, as David Trimble and Ian Paisley marched through the nationalist community in Garvaghy Road, as Irish prisoners were mistreated in English jails, as plastic bullets were fired at peaceful demonstrators, as nationalist homes continued to be wrecked in RUC raids. And, most fundamentally, we pointed out, with a growing sense of desperation, that there could be no negotiated peace without peace negotiations; that without peace talks there was no peace process.

Adams may be surprised to know that there is nothing new in this. This is the kind of conduct British imperialism has engaged over many years. More surprising might have been the discontinuation of this conduct by the British state. Given British imperialism’s enduringly oppressive role in Ireland it is ironical that the Adams’ leadership naively believed British imperialism’s promises. Then when the British bourgeoisie fails to meet these promises it engages in posturing that suggests surprise. Such a naive belief in British imperialism’s good intentions mistakenly suggests that imperialism can play a non-oppressive neutral role and that it is not inherently oppressive. The politics of the present Provo leadership, the Adamites, also paints American imperialism in bright colours by depicting the Clinton administration as facilitator of the struggle for Irish national self-determination. In this way it promotes the view that British and American imperialism are progressive and not essentially oppressive of other peoples. Essentially then the Adams leadership is pro-imperialist.

Attempts to isolate Sinn Fein failed in the past. The Taoiseach knows that our party is committed to dialogue, that we are not involved in armed actions and that we have a democratic mandate.

Adams declares that Sinn Fein is "committed to dialogue". This is a truism of no political significance. Many political organizations, including fascist ones, are committed to dialogue. But they are committed to many other things too. It has been known for many years that Sinn Fein have always been committed to dialogue. It has always been known that Sinn Fein, as such, are not involved in armed actions. However Sinn Fein has been under the control of the IRA leadership and the latter has been engaged in armed action. Sinn Fein has enduringly supported the armed struggle of the IRA and has been its political arm. There is also dual membership of both organizations. The only reason Sinn Fein have received more than generous media and political attention is because of this relationship to the IRA. It may also be because the Adams leadership is in the process of betraying what was the original political aim of the Provos. There is no other reason why the bourgeoisie now treat as royalty the leadership of an organization that it has so persistently sought to suppress, sometimes with great savagery, over many years.

What of those whom we represent? Are they to be discriminated against by the Irish Government in a crude attempt by that government to pressurise an organisation for which Sinn Fein and our electorate have no responsibility or control? The Taoiseach also knows that I have honoured every commitment I made. He knew how fragile the peace process was. All of us have to reflect on our stewardship of the peace process. Mr Bruton must reflect, as I must, on the lessons of the last 18 months.

Sinn Fein have a responsibility for the existence of the IRA by their failure to seriously criticise it and by their general political support for the actions of the IRA.

One thing is clear. It is not possible to make peace in Ireland unless the British government wants to make peace also. It is also very important that the Taoiseach's unilateral decision to refuse to accord Sinn Fein our democratic rights is set aside so that we can all find ways through dialogue to rescue the peace process.

This is tantamount to claiming that there cannot be a successful struggle for national self-determination by the Irish people. Political conditions in Ireland depend, according to Gerry Adams, on whether "the British government wants to make peace". No longer is it a problem of the Irish masses defeating British imperialism and thereby forcing its troops out of Ireland. Instead the masses simply wait until British imperialism wants to take its troops out of Ireland.

Contrary to what Adam claims the struggle for national self-determination of the Irish people can only achieve success through the establishment of a workers’ republic or a federation of workers’ republics supported by sections of the petit bourgeoisie. Such a workers’ republic or federation of workers’ republics can only be consolidated through the establishment of a federation of workers’ republics on both the islands of Ireland and Britain.

Common Sense Knowledge and Natural Science

2011-04-27T17:13:00.000+01:00

Common Sense and Natural Science

The common sense beliefs of people mean that they experience things as
existing independently of themselves as individuals. What we call
commonsense belief is based on instinct and not upon a philosophical
argument that can be logically proven. This means that tables, chairs, rocks
etc. are believed to have an existence independently of humanity. This is
the instinctive knowledge that defines humanity. Instinctive knowledge is
otherwise known as common sense knowledge or folk knowledge. Yet folk
knowledge qualifies as valid knowledge. It is an instinctive form of
knowledge embedded in the human brain since the emergence of Stone Age Homo
sapiens sapiens. It forms the basis for the emergence of the physical
sciences.

Now this common sense knowledge, in a sense, serves humanity well in its
quotidian struggle for existence. On the basis of these instinctual beliefs
people, according to Bertrand Russell, transform knowledge by acquaintance
into knowledge by description. Knowledge by description is, ipso facto,
social knowledge or shared knowledge. Because it necessarily transcends the
person’s private knowledge it is thereby social or public knowledge. It is
thereby shared public knowledge that is communicatively accessible.
Scientific inquiry is a more systematic form of public knowledge.

Common sense knowledge forms part of the knowledge necessary for the
struggle for survival of the human species – primarily the securing of food
and shelter. This knowledge is inherently grounded in certain forms of
action such as the use of technology in the control and manipulation of
nature. This is the original basis of the natural sciences. Socially
conscious labour is a central feature of praxis.

Nature, Society and Meaning

Humans actively engage with nature in the context of meaningful social
relations of production. They do not just investigate the physical world per
se. The physical world is scientifically investigated in the context of
meaningful social relations --however intangible the latter may be. This
being so we can claim, then, that all scientific inquiry is ultimately
meaningful. Subjecting phenomena to scientific inquiry is not necessarily to
reify and instrumentalise them, as Critical Theory (and some mainstream
Marxists) mistakenly claims, since meaning is still an integral aspect of
the entire unified process of praxis. Humanity engages in scientific
activity as part of conscious social struggle with nature which forms a
significant part of historical development. Meaning underlies all physical
and scientific action with respect to nature. It is the societal aspect of
scientific knowledge that renders it meaningful. Thereupon it cannot be said
that natural phenomena such as atomic and subatomic particles are
meaningless. Nature and history form part of an integral meaningful life
process.

However history and nature are related to causal relations and regularities.
Atoms don’t have intentions and thought processes whereas people do.
Arguably they may have such cerebral properties when they are combined
together under specific configurations. Consequently the actions of people
are not simply circumscribed by regularity and the natural laws. Their
actions are largely caused by motivation based in purpose. The actions of
people then are a complex product of natural laws, social laws and
individual purpose.

Kantian Transcendentalism

Kant’s transcendental approach to questions of knowledge involves
investigation of the epistemological conditions that must be in place in
order to render knowledge secure. What is that makes it possible for a human
being to have knowledge of the world? Kant’s answer appealed to the way in
which the human mind processes the experiences that it receives from the
senses. Kant saw the emergence of knowledge as something that appeared in a
pure unadulterated way independently of concrete reality – a philosophical
phenomenon. By contrast the more historical (or perhaps
‘quasi-transcendental’) approach looks to the development of humanity as a
biological and cultural species driven by revolutionary praxis.

As I have heretofore indicated knowledge cannot be characterised, as Kant
mistakenly believed, as an unfiltered epistemological process. It (non
transcendentally) emerged out of concrete struggle which gave it, especially
in the initial stages, an adulterated form. Science is not a Fichtean-like
pure activity metaphysically divorced from the venal praxis of the great
unwashed masses. Rather it has its roots in the practices of industrial
workers, craftsmen and farm workers and in the practice of anybody who
solves everyday practical problems in the context of the exchange process.
The sciences are thus a distilled and disciplined aspect of the everyday
capacity that humans have for engaging in consciously social labour.

Hermeneutics

There is an hermeneutical dimension to historiography. This is because it
endeavours to make sense of use values, architecture, artefacts, texts,
institutions, social residues and social relations that orevious generations
bequeathedd to us. The methods of the natural sciences are of no direct use
to historiography. Social and historical events are also quite different
sorts of objects than those studied by the natural scientist. The natural
scientist does not ask what an atom means and what motivation it might have.
The natural scientist simply confines her/himself to pursuing the causal
relationships in which the atom is involved.

But the hermeneutics exercised by historians on objects such as books,
institutions documents and architecture consists of the physical world which
is subject to the same laws of nature. Books and other use values is a
product of the human social struggle to survive and develop. However this
struggle is paradoxically undertaken on the basis of a physical or natural
environment. This struggle is influenced, even determined, by the
regularities and properties of the physical world. For example success in
understanding the historic significance of specific buildings and other
artefacts is partly due to the ability of nature to influence buildings and
books. The degree of human success in socially and consciously struggling
with nature will demonstrate this in relation to the kind of architecture or
use-values made available. Indeed, as Foucault might argue, many
architectural constructions are incarnations of ideology. Ideology is
hardwired into them. This is what lends them their inherent hegemonic
character. Generally these functioning buildings cannot be liberated from
their oppressive character. Oppressive social relations are inscribed in
them. Artefacts, under analysis, manifest the kind of past social relations
obtaining then. We can undertake an hermeneutical exercise on such objects
precisely because it is conscious social struggle with nature that led to
the production of these artefacts. The intricacies of this struggle
generated production. The struggle implies both the discovery and
manipulation of natural laws; the social relations under which these laws
are manipulated together with the consciousness involved in this intricate
process. Each factor in the process has a bearing on what is produced and
how it is produced and to what degree. Without the production process
interpretation and understanding are impossible. The process of production
is then the basis for the materialist conception of history. It is the basis
for interpretation and understanding. It is the basis too for the discovery
of the laws of nature and for the physical sciences. The human production
process is the basis for the existence of human history. It produces
history. This history leaves behind diverse residues from the past. These
take the form of architectural objects, records, documents and diverse
texts, use-values from the past. But we must also include residual social
relations of production and institutions from the past. To understand
history we must interpret these things primarily on the basis or within the
framework of the capitalist production process. Because this has a certain
configuration we produce our understanding of history within specific
parameters. These limits prevent us from fictionalising or fantasising the
past.

History must then follow certain structures or forms that correspond with
the specific nature of the contemporary production process. The
understanding of history then is determined by the contemporary production
process or mode of production and secondly past residual production
processes or modes of production. Both poles determine our interpretation of
history. But the outcome of the study of history cannot have a speculative
character or predetermined result since the things (and by things here I
include social production relations and institutions) of history are primary
evidence in the historical process and prescribe our capacity to understand
history. We cannot understand history without evidence. These things (this
evidence) are of critical significance in our endeavour to provide a correct
understanding of history. It is these things (evidence) that make all the
difference. Because the things (evidence) discovered in the West are
significantly different from the historical things (evidence) accessible in
the East we get different respective histories. And this is despite the fact
that the production process is the source of history. In short there is an
indispensable empirical character to the understanding of history.

Social Relations and Agency

Social science is based on the process of production. To understand social
relations and the human agency lodged in them we must understand them within
the context of the production process. The character of the production
process determines the character of the existing structure of social
relations and their human agents. Consequently to understand the existing
social relations and its corresponding agents we must understand the nature
of the mode of production. To achieve this we must analyze the use values,
architecture and the things that are involved with human agency. This
constitutes a form of reverse engineering. The creation of use-values by
concrete human labour within society entails the endowment of nature with
meaning. This signifies that nature is meaningful for human agency. This
suggests that we cannot validly claim that nature, sub-atomic particles etc
are meaningless. Divested of meaning there would be no motive to acquire
knowledge of nature. Indeed the scientific study of the building blocks of
nature such as sub-atomic and atomic particles are meaningless in the
absence of a meaningful physical nature. It follows that if physical science
is meaningless then it is unknowable and thereby nihilistic. All meaning
relates to human beings. Consequently nature must have meaning. If it was
divested of meaning we would not endeavour to acquire knowledge of nature
and then there would be no natural science.

We must examine too the specific institutions that contemporary society
produces. By studying these things within the context of the production
process we arrive at a model of the social relations and their agents. The
process of production produces these things including social relations.
Again it is production that determines the character of these social things
that explain contemporary society. These things are the evidence by which
understanding is sustained. The understanding of contemporary social being
is not predetermined in some overly deterministic fashion without the
requirement of evidence. Things that exist or are produced convey to us the
character of society. Evidence is critical here. Results must be supported
by evidence or facts.

Hypothesis Testing

The hypothesis that communists advance is that humans act on nature in a
socially conscious (purposive) mediated way. This communist hypothesis has
been repeatedly tested against the facts. Yet no relevant facts have ever
falsified it. Given this it can be regarded as a secure theory. It is a
hypothesis that is highly testable and never been falsified. Thereby
identifying it as a law of social science is valid. I call it the
fundamental principal of communism. It is a simple, coherent and credible
hypothesis. Nothing is certain. There are just degrees of probability in
science.

The physical sciences have their context in humanity’s socially mediated
conscious action on nature. As already intimated knowledge of the natural
laws is a product of this process –the capitalist production process. The
natural sciences then are a product of the production process. This means
that the natural sciences cannot exist independently from the social
relations and thereby the social sciences. They are mediated by these
relations. The character of a society is a reflection, in a sense, of the
character of its inquiry into nature or its claims about nature. By studying
the claims about nature or natural science we can reconstruct the nature of
the capitalist production process and the society that produced it. The
aforementioned is known as reverse engineering. The claims made concerning
nature today have acquired the form of scientific knowledge. This
epistemological form has a specific character, labelled scientific,
determined by the character of the production process and society.

The critical emancipatory capacity of certain intellectual forms have their
roots embedded in common sense knowledge. When humans act consciously in a
socially mediated way on nature in their production of use values they
inevitably reflect critically upon this process. In their reflections they
may discover errors, defects and inefficiencies. As a result of this
reflective activity they can affect a more advanced way of progressing. This
more advanced way of progressing is proof of its correctness. Similarly in
reflections on the nature of society humans also reflect on its
contradictions and draw conclusions as to how these limits can be
historically transcended thereby yielding self-emancipation from the social
shackles of reality. The critical capacity, a legacy from the Stone Age, is
hardwired into our brains. It is inextricably lodged in our socially
mediated link to nature. It is what makes us Homo sapiens sapiens.

The Antinomy between subject and object

In this short critique I seek to overcome, in a sense, the antinomy between
subject and object. My piece encompassed the objective aspect of reality by
recognising the important role of nature together with its natural
scientific investigation. The subjective plane involves focusing on human
agency and meaning. Now I discussed nature and society in such a way as to
transcend the antinomy that is irreconcilably posited between the two. In
the past logical positivism focused on knowledge qua knowledge of the
objective world. It thereby focused on the physical sciences. Consequently
structures such as causality were more its concern. Matters such as morality
and meaning transcended its epistemological dimensions.

Cartesian philosophy focuses on subjectivity. Consequently it discusses such
matters as meaning and morality. This renders it impossible to make sense of
reality since there obtained an irreconcilable antinomy between these two
fundamental ontological aspects of reality. This renders accounts of both
the physical sciences and social sciences very incomplete and contradictory.
Hegel unsuccessfully sought to transcend this ontological contradiction
while Marx largely succeeded.

Conclusion

The brief critique is not based on claims to my having any privileged access
to reality:

“However it is based on seeking to arrive at a reasoned picture of what
there really is. The philosopher is not a god surveying and assessing human
activities and checking them off against some absolute standard of existence
and truth. The philosopher remains a human being. His only activities,
including philosophical ones, are human activities and the comparisons and
assessments he makes are bound by this fact. Philosophy differs from other
human activities not by presuming a grasp of standards higher than those
implicit in non-philosophical activities, but only in the way philosophers
reflect consciously on the standards implicit in other activities and effect
comparisons between them. The fact that we can only get at reality through
the sort of things we are inclined to say and think about it mean that part
of the work of philosophy involves examining whether a given area of
discourse --such as physics, religion, history or astrology – meets certain
minimum standards of coherence, clarity and credibility.” (Anthony O Hear, What Philosophy Is, pp 13-14).

Sherlock Holmes and Colonialism

2011-04-13T17:04:00.001+01:00

Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Hound of the Baskervilles is a somewhat entertaining novel. However there is more to it than meets the eye. In many ways it may form part of the debate over the relationship between science and daily life. Ironically it may be a philosophical novel.

The author applies natural scientific methodology to the business of solving crime. Although he may have stretched this methodology to such an extent that he may have successfully lent the novel a slightly comic character he still conveys the importance of science in the solving of problems outside the strictly scientific area. In this way his novel is a refutation of those who argue that natural scientific inquiry cannot apply to areas that stand outside the inferences displayed in this novel in our daily existence. As The Hound shows the activity of science and daily life are not necessarily that distant from each other. Indeed science grew out of the daily activity of people in the maintenance and development of their struggle for existence.

Clearly Arthur Conan Doyle has been heavily influenced by the Gothic genre of Edgar Allen Poe. There is in Conan Doyle’s novel a curious yet ambiguous relationship between the scientific and the supernatural. Some of the characters in the novel are of the view that the cause of the deaths in the novel have their source in the supernatural or mystical. While Sherlock Holmes does not disagree he still rigidly adheres to his customary logical methods based on the facts. Clearly Sherlock Holmes prefers to exhaust the quasi-scientific before being forced to resort to the supernatural dimension for an explanation. This is an approach that makes sense. It is one that would tend to be used by contemporary science. In The Hound what seemed to be caused by the supernatural is instead caused by natural conditions.

Now The Hound, as I already indicated, has a distinctly Gothic quality. The Gothic atmosphere adds a more mysterious character to the story. The author introduces the Gothic at a time when he was, apparently, showing a concern for the occult.

In Conan Doyle’s novel the Devonshire moor, featuring in the book, takes on a pervading mysterious presence of its own. Virtually a pantheistic quality. It is as if the moor and its weather has a being of its own that pervades the diverse aspects linked to the moor investing them with mystery -- the hound, and the residences situated near it. The city is contrasted against the moor. The former is viewed as rational and comprehensible (colonised) while the latter is viewed as irrational and incomprehensible (uncolonised and free). It is as if there is an enduring struggle between the irrational and the rational. Even so the frontline distinguishing rationality from its opposite seems, in this novel, to be fluid –even ambiguous. Even individuals, such as Watson, seeking a rational comprehension of events find the apparently irrational too much for them. Sherlock Holmes’s clear outline of events shows that the particular succession of events has a perfectly rational character. It transpires that the moor and everything associated with it is natural and rational. This leaves the reader to conclude that all reality may in general be capable of explanation from within a rationalist perspective.

This novel portrays a world consisting of tension or even conflict between the rational and the irrational or the natural and the supernatural. However it is painted by Conan Doyle as a false conflict based largely on ignorance. Yet The Hound of the Baskervilles may convey to the reader that belief in the supernatural renders reality more mysterious and thereby exciting and interesting. In a sense there is an underlying philosophical theme at work in the novel as to the meaning of being. However it is presented in a more metaphorical form – art.

The portrayal of the prehistoric architecture and its people in a mystical context adds further to the atmospherics of the novel. Yet again there is the suggestion that the prehistoric people who dwelled on the original sites had a richer and more mysterious relationship to the moor and nature generally. They represented freedom and were liberated from the alienation of the controlled city. In the novel the cultural distance between us and them is presented as vast. Yet through the novel the author may be suspected of hinting that the moor is seeking to convey to the reader the mystical nature of these prehistoric ancestors as a means of establishing a relationship with the mystical past and the modern present. This would tie in with Conan Doyle’s apparent interest in the occult around this time.

It may be that Arthur Conan Doyle in his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, in this novel, is seeking to show that there is more to life than mere science and the deployment of the scientific method to solve crimes. When Sherlock is not employing the scientific method it is as if there is nothing else for him to do that makes life meaningful. This is why he sometimes engages in trivial pursuits. After scientific inquiry there is just trivia. His use of morphine to obliterate ennui is a further example of this. The Hound Of The Baskervilles may be hinting that the mystical invests life with meaning and thereby excitement. Sherlock Holmes has become prisoner of his own logic. Outside of the world of logic Sherlock’s life is meaningless. Turning reality or problems into logic renders reality outside of this exercise meaningless. In other words a rationalised world is a world without meaning. It is a world without any motivating factors thereby generating stasis. This exposes the limited and unbalanced nature of the Holmsian version of reason. It is a narrow form of reason that requires irrationalism to maintain itself and its expansionism. It is an artistic expression of 19th century British colonialism.

What is human knowledge?

2011-01-25T20:12:00.001Z

Human knowledge is founded on instinctive belief. It is this common sense belief that leads us to believe in an independent external world. This belief creates no difficulty for us. Neither have we any good reason to reject it since it simplifies and systematizes our experiences. Every principle of simplicity indicates that there are objects other than ourselves and our sense-data. They don’t depend on our continued perception of them. We start with what we can be certain of --our immediate experiences. We may doubt the table’s physical experience but not the sense-data that lead us to think there is one. There are grounds for thinking that these do indicate the existence of physical objects.

We have no reason for accepting the view that life is a dream. This is because life as dream is more complicated than the common-sense one of external objects as source of our sensations. Intuitive knowledge is the basis of our knowledge of truths. Intuitive knowledge are beliefs for which we cannot give reasons. They are blindingly evident general principles such as the inductive principle and general logical principles. We know them instinctively or intuitively. These primitive intuitions are a product of the evolution through natural selection of the Stone Age human brain. The genetic make-up of the human brain hardwires this bundle of intuitions in us

There are two forms of knowledge. Knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Knowledge by acquaintance involves our direct awareness of things while knowledge by description is a derivative form of knowledge based in instinct. It concerns truths about things. We are acquainted with sense-data and memory. Sense-data is that which is given by the senses such as colours and sounds.

There is also acquaintance through introspection. For example we are not directly acquainted with the table as a physical object. However our knowledge of it as a physical object is connected to our acquaintance with the sense-data that makes up its appearance. On the basis of our acquaintance with these we can formulate a description of the table or other objects which applies to only one object. Description makes it possible to go beyond private experience giving us knowledge of things we have not experienced. It also creates and develops a community of knowledge. Our acquaintance with sense-data enables us to infer the existence of physical objects and the external world. This is how we transcend our own private experience while establishing communal relations.

To draw the relevant inferences there must exist general laws and principles. We rely on the principle of induction for predicting future events. The inductive principle enables us to extend our knowledge beyond the extremely limited sphere of our private experiences. General scientific principles depend on the inductive principle. Logical principles such as the Laws of Thought have to be accepted for any argument or proof to be possible. Again this constitutes one of the epistemic conditions for transcending private experience and establishing community. Since knowledge is a priori it can be known independently of experience. Mathematical and logical principles are examples of it. Experience cannot prove that mathematical and logical principles are true. Yet it is experience that elicits a priori knowledge through particular experiences. Through experience we become aware of these general principles. All applications of a priori general propositions involve an empirical element. Human knowledge is a combination of the empirical and the a priori. It is this combination that creates the conditions for communal knowledge that transcends private knowledge.

In my view much of mainstream Marxism tends to ignore this combination and over-emphasise the experiential aspect of knowledge lending itself to some form of crude empiricism.

Much of the above was inspired by the analytical philosopher, Bertrand Russell. Much of his philosophy has been of enormous significance. Even to this day much of his philosophy is still underestimated. It was eclipsed, in varying degreest, by younger philosophers and by some of his peers such as Wittgenstein and probably Carnap. And In Ireland mainstream Marxism is more influenced by continental philosophy than it is by analytical philosophy. Given that without modern symbolic logic, a product of analytical philosophy, there would have been no large scale computer technology in existence today we see its significance. The same cannot be said for the non-analytical philosophy continental philosophy.

The Bertie Bubble

2010-12-18T00:59:00.001Z

Concerning the “deal between the Irish Government and the ECB/EU/IMF troika” Constantin Gurdgiev argues in the Sunday Independent, December 5th 2010, that far “from providing a resolution to Ireland’s financial and fiscal crises, it made the restructuring of our banks’ debt inevitable, no matter what the conditions underlying the deal says.” Gurdgiev has been one of the those analysts stridently calling for a large and significant part of the total surplus value owed by the Irish state and banks to be transferred abroad. There appear to be three kinds of economic commentator occupying the public stage in Ireland at the moment.
The first kind might fit into the neo-liberal group: They are of the view that the total exchange value foisted onto the state, and thereby the working class, is on such a scale that it may prevent the Irish Republic’s economy from recovering from the adverse effects of global economic downswing. Such a situation, many of them would hold, can but lead to political instability and even class warfare. These bourgeois intellectuals see the writing on the wall. They realise the dangers for capital regarding the character of the so called bail out. The vast amount of exchange value that must be extracted from the Irish economy now and into the future will leave little or no capital to maintain and extend the reproduction of capital in the country itself. The effect of this massive transfer of its wealth abroad will transform the country into an economic and social wasteland. Consequently European capital may be forced to tolerate an Irish default. However because of the belated nature of this default there are is a greater probability that the default will do more economic harm than a controlled and regulated default undertaken now. Constantin Gurdgiev, Jim Power and Brian Lucey.

This group overstates the power of the Irish government to radically renegotiate a deal with the troika. The Irish economy is too minuscule and dependent on imperialism to be in a position to determine how it deals with the economic crisis that it has been enduring. If it were as strong as this group suggests then there would never have been a crisis in the first place.

The second type of economic commentator essentially goes along with the Irish government. It bases its economics on the Micawber Principle. These doughty ideologues are claiming that the economy should be able to recover from the huge debt burden being imposed on it. They don’t see any possibility of renegotiating the deal done with the international troika. Underlying their claims is the assumption that the expansion of the valorisation process will increase to and beyond the minimum rate necessary to make repayment possible. This suggests that the reproduction process will start to produce exchange value on a scale that allows Ireland to both produce enough surplus value to maintain and increase the accumulation of capital and leave surplus value over for distribution towards welfare and debt obligations. Ironically there is no evidence to support this Quixotic prediction.

This second group of bourgeois analysts based in Ireland are, largely speaking, the very group that mistakenly claimed that the Irish economy was in for, at worst, a soft-landing in the aftermath of the Bertie Bubble. These are commentators such as Brendan Keenan from the Irish Independent and John Fitzgerald from the ESRI.

Then there is the third type. They are of the view that the Irish government are not compelled to lie on the procrustean bed offered by the international troika. However they mistakenly believe that the state can and should engage in more spending rather than less. They say that more spending will stimulate the Irish economy and bring about recovery. This group are the infamous Underconsumptionists. For them economic crisis are caused by deflated demand. What they don’t understand is that by its very nature demand is always deflated under capitalism. This is why there has always been poverty under capitalism. If the solution were as simple as one of increasing demand then there would never have to be economic crises under capitalism. Once demand was artificially increased to a sufficient degree the entire population, generally speaking, would be made affluent. Indeed the years of the Bertie Bubble were, in a sense, just that. Demand was “artificially” increased leading to the Bertie Bubble. People like Michael Taft, Kieran Allen and Joe Higgins are exponents of Underconsumptionism. They patriotically wish to save Irish capitalism from destruction by a programme of public investment

The real future is that the Irish Republic will be forced into default or else be turned into an economic wasteland. The latter scenario may lead to the further centralisation and concentration of European capital to the advantage of its core imperialist economies. Now European imperialism has less need of bombs and guns. It can destroy and colonise a country by subjecting it to financial attack. Hopefully in the meantime the European working class, becoming class conscious, will have mounted a struggle to seize power from the hands of the European bourgeoisiie.

The Underconsumptionism of Molyneux and Taft

2010-11-18T13:45:00.000Z

Below is a response to an article written by John Molyneux who is a leading member of the British Socialist Workers Party. It was published on the swp.ie website on October 10th 2010.

My piece endeavours to show that there is no essential difference between the politics of John Molyneux and Michael Taft from the Labour Party. Both view the current Irish economic situation from a utopian underconsumptionist reformist perspective as a means of containing the workers through deception.
Michael Taft and the SWP have been both promoting the patriotic defence of the Irish capitalist economy by calling for more state spending in order to save capitalism. They form part of a broad alliance extending from elements within the media (David McWilliams), much of the trade union leadership, Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (Ireland). Indeed virtually the entire “left” leadership of the Irish working class are calling for increased state spending. What chance has the Irish working class in the face of a leadership that waves this exclusively bourgeois programme in its face. With the exception of the odd isolated voice there is no revolutionary alternative being offered in Ireland.

“..., Keynes (and Taft) only grasps one aspect of the crisis of capitalism, namely the problem of over-production, or ‘lack of effective demand’ (which Marx, incidentally, had analysed as early as The Communist Manifesto of 1848) and not the problem of the ‘falling rate of profit’.”

But the above remarks of Molyneux indicate his identification of overproduction with ‘lack of effective demand’. This is an indication that he does not understand the nature of the law of the tendency of the general rate of profit to fall. This law creates a tendency within capitalism to periodically overproduce capital and commodities. The problem then centres around overproduction and not ‘lack of effective demand’ or underconsumptionism. In this respect there is no difference betweenTaft and Molyneux.

“In Capital Vol. 3 Marx shows that capitalism, a system based on production for profit, nonetheless generates a tendency for the rate of profit to fall. This is because all profits derive from the ‘surplus value’ extracted from labour (‘surplus value’ is the technical term used by Marx to refer to the gap between the wages paid to workers and the value of what they produce).However, each individual capitalist tries to increase their share of the total profits in society by investing more and more in labour-saving machinery. This has the effect of reducing labour as a proportion of total outlay and thus reducing the overall rate of profit (the proportion of profit to total investment). When the rate of profit falls capitalists become reluctant to invest.”

Again Molyneux demonstrates in the above piece his inability to grasp the nature of Marx’s Capital. The falling rate of profit is not, as he claims, the problem. The problem emerges when capital fails to generate enough total surplus value to compensate for the fall in the rate of profit.

“Keynes’s ideas were generally not accepted in the thirties (though Roosevelt’s New Deal in America could be seen as a kind of partial, and not very successful, Keynesianism) and the Depression was only brought to an end by the Second World War which ‘stimulated’ economy activity and ‘restored full employment’ by slaughtering 50 million people.”

The above remark of Molyneux’s suggests that the slaughtering of 50 million people was the underlying cause of post-economic recovery and full employment. According to this crazy logic the solution, then, to the current Irish economic downturn is the decimation of the Irish people.

It was the massive defeats suffered by the working class from, let us say, 1914 onwards, the enormous destruction/devalorisation of capital caused by world war and the stimulus provided to the US economy by the Second World War itself that provided the basis for post-war economic recovery lasting intol the early seventies. The post-war mixed economy was introduced to placate the western working class. In that way capitalism hoped to create a pacific working class that would not threaten a capitalist system that had been shaken to an unprecedented degree by both economic and political events.

“When a Keynesian economist like Michael Taft, Political & Economic Researcher with Unite union, says: “Expand demand – more spending, not less, is what the economy needs to maintain and expand business activity... You can’t cut-and-tax your way out of a recession – you spend”, it is a breath of fresh air compared to Cowen and Lenihan’s cuts.”

Further evidence of the underconsumptionist ideology that Molyneux shares with Taft is the following quotation from his piece. The only distinction is that he does not think that Taft is radical enough in his demand raising action programme:

“And when Taft demands, ‘A flat-rate base pay increase between €25 and €30 per week,’ and says “Re-introduce pay-related unemployment benefit’ [quotations from his article of November 2008 Towards a New Economic Narrative] the workers’ movement should certainly agree.

Unfortunately neither Keynes analysis nor Taft’s proposals go nearly far enough to solve the crisis or point a way forward for the working class. The problem with Michael Taft’s understanding is not one of his proposals not going “nearly far enough to solve the crisis or point a way forward for the working class.”

The above piece shows too, which is not unrelated to Molyneux’s radical underconsumptionism, that for both of them the problem is merely one of quantity as opposed to quality (not going “nearly far enough”). Michael Taft’s proposals suggest that the problem is merely a distributive one. To sort the problem out, all that is needed, for Taft, is a change in income distribution in favour of the working class and its lumpen edges. In other words a revolutionary change in the character of society is not necessary merely a radical adjustment within the capitalist mode of production.

“You can’t cut-and-tax your way out of a recession – you spend.”

But the capitalist class can just do that. As John Molyneux in his piece observes “Whenever there is a serious economic crisis, as there obviously is at the moment, ... the ruling class responds, as it always does, with vicious cuts and mass unemployment...” This is because it is the only course open to the bourgeoisie. It does not engage in such an offensive out of malevolence. Indeed such an offensive poses risks for the ruling class itself. When profitability falls dramatically leading to a serious international economic crisis. To restore profitability and create the conditions for real recovery the general rate of profit must be restored by means of devalorisation of capital (including constant and variable capital), destruction of capital and an increase in the rate of surplus value. The latter, the rate of exploitation, must increase to such a degree that total surplus value produced compensates for the insufficient rise in the general rate of profit. This means that the technical composition of capital must increase significantly leading to big increases in the productivity of labour power. Tied in with this is the need for significant increases in the centralisation and concentration of capital. So the capitalist state’s offensive against the working class also involves a reconfiguration of capital itself whereby weaker capitals go to the wall. The result is a leaner meaner capitalist social system with numerically (proportionally speaking) less but bigger capitals. This is why it so absurd to hear puny shows like Frontline and Prime Time run programmes that discuss the issue of these bad Irish banks that will not give loans to poor Irish businesses. The reason these loans are not advanced to them is largely because they are weak and thereby unreliable investments. These bubble businesses need to be crowded out so as to open up space for the more powerful businesses to expand capital. You don’t solve an economic problem by artificially increasing demand to save these businesses when it is these very bubble businesses with their bubble jobs that are, in a sense, the source of the profitability problem.

Indeed the very problem facing the Irish economy is the fact that the banks supported by the Irish state have been providing, in a sense, enormous artificial stimulus to the economy. This is what led to the burgeoning of bubble businesses in one form or another. The Irish state was spending in a most generous way. Yet Taft and Molyneux want a continuation of Ahern’s generosity by other means. Yet he has been be among the first to attack that very government liberalism –and that of former finance minister McCreevy. Right now the state is doing precisely what Taft seeks spending beyond its means. This in itself is a form of economic stimulus that Taft advocates. And John Molyneux wants this too.

The Irish state does not have as its function the well being of the working class. It exists to serve the interests of capitalism. And capital is not immediately concerned over issues such as unemployment, the living standards and well being of the working class. It exists solely to serve the interests of the ruling class. If it can do this under conditions in which the working class have a standard of living that is very low There is really social force concerned with the living standards of the working class and that is the working class. So John is right when he says: “First it must be understood that when Taft says ‘We’ should expand, there is no ‘We’.”

Cutting taxes imposed on the working class and increasing state spending by a capitalist state cannot serve as a proletarian solution to the present economic crisis (heading towards a political crisis too). At best it can only amount to a capitalist solution. Yet the Left insists on making such patriotic calls to rescue capitalism. Revolutionaries are not in the business of rescuing capitalism. Their business is the destruction of capital along with its state. Apart from this their bourgeois action programmes are no more than mere attempts to engage in populism in the hope that they can win votes at the hustings and thereby ultimately become a new capitalist government. But an underconsumptionist programme that includes increased public and private spending is not a solution to the problem either from a left or right perspective. Underconsumption is not the cause of the crisis and has never been. The economic crisis is a crisis of the over-production of capital. Under capitalism commodities are not produced simply to provide use-values. They are primarily produced to increase surplus value. Use-value production is merely a medium for the production of surplus value in the form of profit. When the capitalist production of use-values increasingly fails to produce and realise surplus value as profit then it correspondingly discontinues its use-value production. This leads to the existence of unsalable commodities such as houses and other properties along with household goods. These use-values loose their value as commodities. In effect they cease to be commodities or forms of capital. The greater the fall in the general rate of profit the greater is the over-accumulation of capital in the form of commodities.

Declining economic activity persists until the conditions for profitable production are restored. This happens under conditions in which capital has been both destroyed and significantly devalued. The price of labour power will have fallen too –even below its old value. Capital will by then have become more centralised and concentrated. Under these conditions there is a takeoff will tend to take place. However there is no guarantee of this. It depends on a number of factors including the character of the political situation –whether or not an acute political crisis obtains. It is only under these circumstances that the state can effectively provide economic stimulus leading to a takeoff. However to launch an economic stimulus prematurely can only compound problems either in the short or long run making economic conditions ultimately even worse. People like Michael Taft and John Molyneux are guilty of making premature calls for government induced stimulus. Do they think the Fianna Fail government want to get up people’s backs by increasing taxes and cutting spending? Such measures neither please the working class, the middle class nor even some of the weakest sections of the capitalist class. The current government is serving the class interests of the bourgeoisie by adopting tax raising/cost cutting measures because they have no choice. This is what capital, in general, requires if capital is to recover. This is how the economic crisis acquires an increasingly political character. This too is why the principal bourgeois parties don’t substantively differ with the government as to what needs to be done. Sinn Fein, The Socialist Party and the SWP can call for as much spending as they like because they stand little chance of becoming the next government.

“This is why, going beyond anything Keynes would have proposed, we need demands that challenge capitalist control of the economy such as demands for one publicly-owned bank which serves the people, and for seizing the assets of the rich. Ultimately we need a workers’ movement to take control of the government and the state, that is, we need socialism.”

The comments above contain a paradox. To seize the assets of the rich (presumably this is Molyneux’s euphemism for capitalist class) the capitalist state must be destroyed by the working class. There cannot exist a capitalist free society alongside an Irish capitalist state whether apparently controlled by the workers’ movement or not. It is a contradiction. The indigenous state must be eliminated and replaced by the organised and democratic workers power. But the biggest problem is that a such a form of political power is not possible under world capitalism. A relatively powerless country such as that of Ireland would prove too weak to defend itself against world capitalism. A capitalist free Ireland would be encircled by imperialism. Consequently it would not be too long before the power of the indigenous working class would ignominiously collapse. The likely bloodbath entailed would not make the effort worth it. Revolution has to break out first in imperialist countries such as the US, West European countries such as France or Germany. From these powerful centres it spreads to weak countries such as Ireland. Notwithstanding the utopian contradictory claim that ”ultimately we need a workers’ movement to take control of the government and the state” Molyneux, as we above, still advocates an interim underconsumptionist programme.

Given that revolution cannot be consolidated in Ireland communists must be all the more internationalist in their perspective and politics. They must have transcended narrow nationalism substituting it with internationalism. Those that seek an Irish revolution are essentially seeking to achieve 19th century national self determination under the guise of being communists. Their nationalism is a form of Stalinism that can only but arrest the world revolution. They misrepresent the nature of both capitalism and revolution. In the light of this there is no place for the official programme of the SWP and the Socialist Party in Ireland.

“If public spending, wages and employment are increased, as the Keynesians and socialists both want, the capitalists will likely respond with an investment strike which, if they are left in control, will again plunge the system into crisis and throw workers on the dole.

On the one hand avoiding the need for the massive cuts and job losses being imposed by the likes of Fianna Fail or the British Tories, and on the other avoiding the need for major working class struggle or – God forbid! – revolution. Keynes also appeals to some quite radical people who either think his ideas were more radical than they really were or simply doubt the possibility of a real anti- capitalist struggle.”

The above comments of John Molyneux’s make sense. Taft advocates Keynesian policies as a means of diverting the Irish working class away from major struggles against capitalism. As a bourgeois ideologue he see underconsumptionist ideology as a device for containing struggle and saving capitalism by deceiving the working class.

“This was because, it was claimed, the laws of the market, left to themselves, would produce the best possible allocation of resources and indeed make any prolonged period of mass unemployment or recession impossible. Government intervention in the economy was not only unnecessary, but positively harmful as it would upset the spontaneous and inevitable restoration of balance and equilibrium.”

But, in a sense, the neo-liberal remedy outlined by John Molyneux above is correct. Keynesian type spending today can only store up the very economic and financial problem that devastatingly manifested itself in the West over the last two or so years. Increasing interventionism by imperialist states to mitigate recession and maintain equilibrium since the early seventies have ironically led to the very economic difficulties that are becoming increasingly unavoidable. Increasingly it is becoming impossible to continue this interventionism because it is rendering future problems even more acute. Because the capitalist class fears the mass popular mobilisation of the world’s working class that it is reluctant to engage in any full frontal attack on the working class. An attempt to radically reconfigure capitalism is full of danger –even dangers from elements within the bourgeoisie itself leading to splits within it.

“What was required was to increase, not cut, public spending so as to raise the purchasing power of the population (what economists call ‘effective demand’) and thus stimulate demand for goods which would in turn generate more production and more employment in an ongoing upward spiral (a ‘virtuous’, as opposed to a ‘vicious’ circle).”

To the objection, heard then as now, that such an increase could not be afforded, Keynes argued that governments should run a deficit i.e. borrow so as to spend above their income for a period, on the assumption that as the economy expanded so the government’s income from taxation would increase and the deficit would be eliminated.”

In the aftermath of the war governments did largely follow the policy referred to above. But rather than reinforcing stability it led to hyperinflation and stagnation.

There are only two solution to the current international economic crisis: social revolution or reconfiguration of capitalism at the expense of the working class. The latter will entail the a defeated and demoralised working class forced to work for wages less than the value of labour under conditions that are much worse than they have been. There can be no solution, contrary to Taft, in which the price of labour power of living and conditions of work improve within capitalism.

Both Michael Taft and John Molyneux are prisoners of an underconsumptionist reformist ideology designed to disarm the working class. The chief distinction between them is that the latter presents a more radical underconsumptionist programme with utopian rhetoric opportunistically tacked on to it. Both programmes are designed to diarm the working class in the face of an onslaught by the bourgeoisie.

McWilliams is a Utopian Underconsumptionist!

2010-10-20T16:11:00.002+01:00

Underconsumptionism is rife within the working class

"Why not freeze all mortgage payments for two years? Nobody makes any
payment on their mortgage until November 2012. If we assume a conservative
multiplier of only 1.4, Ireland would get € 20 bn worth of stimulus without
upsetting our EU leaders rules at all."
David Mc Williams

In a piece published in The Irish Independent, 20th October 2010, David
McWilliams wrote:

"Why not freeze all mortgage payments for two years? Nobody makes any
payment on their mortgage until November 2012. If we assume a conservative
multiplier of only 1.4, Ireland would get € 20 bn worth of stimulus without
upsetting our EU leaders rules at all."

This is an absurd and utopian suggestion. There is already a de facto freeze
on mortgage payments in the form of mortgage payments failing to paid. Yet
this failure is not assisting the expansion of the Irish economy. This is
because the failure to make the payments is a symptom of the economic
crisis. Then there is the problem of many customers not willing to
participate in the freeze because they can, in a sense, afford to meet their
mortgage obligations. Then there are those borrowers who will struggle to
pay because they desire to eliminate this obligation, for a variety of
reasons, as soon as they can.

The other factor is that if a "freeze" is possible for two years then why
not have one for three or four years. Indeed why not freeze such payments
anytime the economy is facing difficulties. Then there is the question of
the bondholders. The failure to pay these bondholders would, using David's
logic, constitute a deduction from the alleged €20bn stimulus package.

David, like much of the Irish labour movement, is an underconsumptionist. He
sees a demand deficit as the cause of the economic crisis. Consequently he
mistakenly believes that if demand is increased, in one way or another, it
will lead to increased growth. But the problem is caused by the very
opposite: The overaccumulation of capital and thereby commodities, such as
houses and household goods, leads to businesses contracting or even going to
the wall and unemployment correspondingly rising. The source of the problem
is located within the process of production and not as, David and his
radical left allies mistakenly believe, in the process of circulation. David
seeks to rescue a system while the historical necessity is the overthrow of
the system.

Darwin, Marx and Nietzsche

2010-09-07T17:59:00.000+01:00

Humanity is the product of evolution through natural selection.

Our minds, egos, self-esteem, consciousness, belief in an afterlife, conscience, guilt etc are fictions created by our evolutionary development. As Nietzsche argued there is no such thing as mind, consciousness, the self. They are, in a sense, illusions created by evolution to produce what is known as humanity. Humanity minus these fictions would not be human. Humans cannot exist without the existence of these illusions. These fictions are necessary illusions manufactured by men.

The body and brain that we possess today are products of the Stone Age. These bodies and brains have hardly evolved since the Stone Age. Consequently they are, in a sense, unsuitable for modern conditions. This is why human beings can act in such irrational ways and why we have psychopaths and other individuals with serious malfunctioning problems. To simply attribute all human problems to capitalism is trite. Nature will be always inscribed on us. We can never escape the limitations imposed upon us by nature.

Humanity evolved these illusions as devices whereby we are more motivated to improve both ourselves and our surrounding conditions. For instance without a sense of self-esteem we would not feel important. Consequently we would not see any meaning in undertaking many activities. If we had never believed in an afterlife we would not found much meaning to life. Consequently there are many things we would not want to do. This is true of the other fundamental illusions that envelope us. Without them there would have been no incentive for the species that evolved into homo sapiens sapiens to socially develop. Consequently there would never have existed human civilization.
In a sense, then, there is a relationship between these three 19th century intellectual figures --Darwin, Marx and Nietzsche.

The Radical Left wants to help capitalism.

2010-08-21T17:49:00.002+01:00

Subscribers on this site fail to understand the elements of communist thought. They consider themselves left or radical left. Yet they continue to suggest to the Government and the working class how they have a better recipe as to how the Irish capitalist economy can be restored to a healthy state. But this is not the job of revolutionaries. It is not the job of revolutionaries to suggest how to improve or manage capitalism. People like Joe Higgins, Kieran Allen, Michael Taft et al constantly criticise the incompetent Irish government concerning the progress of the Irish economy. They suggest that it is this incompetence that has led to the fall in Irish economic growth. They fail to make clear that the capitalist economy is inherently contradictory and limited. It is this internal character of capitalism that has led to the global financial crisis --not greedy or morally depraved capitalists or even befuddled governments.

The SWM calls itself a marxist party yet it calls for increased state spending by the capitalist state as the way out of the crisis. For the SWM it is not social revolution that is the solution but increased spending.

Paddy Hackett

http://paddy-hackett.blogspot.com/

Has Sinn Fein morphed into the Workers' Party?

2010-08-07T14:22:00.000+01:00

Sinn Fein rejected the Workers' Party stagist theory involving the call for
a six county democratised state. Its view appeared to be that the six county
sectarian state was a form of institutionalised sectarianism that is
irreformable. Consequently this state had to be smashed as had the state
south of the border. These states were to be replaced by a 32 county
democratic socialist republic.

Given Sinn Fein's acceptance of the Good Friday Agreement it is clear that
the party has abandoned this position falling back on the position of the
Workers Party --the stagist democratised sectarian-free six county state.
The abandonment of this position was made in the absence of any real
discussion and debate. Instead the retreat was made by the backdoor --by
sleight of hand. Rejecting the Eire Nua Programme as drafted by the old O
Bradaigh/O Connell leadership formed a part of this process.

If, as the present Sinn Fein leadership now assume, the six county state is
reformable then the basis for an all-island Irish democratic socialist
republic dissolves. This means that the Long War, involving death, injury
and destruction was an aberration --the politics of illusion. So too was the
conflict between the Provo IRA and the Officials.

The working class, north and south of the border, should call for and
undertake a public inquiry into the real nature of this war as led by the Sinn
Fein/IRA. This people's inquiry must cover the dirty aspect of the war
which formed a decisive part of it.

Is There A Difference Between Left And Right?

2010-07-20T07:53:00.000+01:00

Essentially there is no real difference between the radical left and the
right in general.

The radical left call for more and more state spending as the means towards
the solution of the problems of the working class. In other words it calls
for the growing expansion of the capitalist state as the solution to social
problems. In other words the radical left wants a stronger more
all-embracing capitalist state. This is precisely the corporatism that
European fascism sought and largely achieved. Its references to a
non-capitalist society that they more than times than not call socialism.
They dont like to use the term communism, too strong. It also views
socialism as more a more ambiguous term that implies for them some form of
nanny state. But you cannot have a post-capitalist society that implies a
political state.

Today in the West the capitalist state has been in continuous growth. Even
the Irish state has been subsidising much of the working class through the
expansion in welfarism of one kind or another. It has subsidised capitalists
too through what is called "corporate dole". This takes many forms such as
the state creation of industrial estates, roads, grants, tax breaks etc.

One of the chief reasons the working class has failed to come in behind the
radical left in any significant way is because capitalism has stolen the
clothes of the left. It has been increasingly doling out diverse assistance
to the working class and so called lumpenproletariat.

What is needed is not a "bigger" radical left since it essentially supports
the capitalist state. Indeed to support the radical left is to support
capitalism. What is needed is a communist movement that challenges and
opposes both capitalism and its state. Instead of calling on Cowan to
increase state spending, as the Socialist Party and the SWP do, communists
call on the working class to destroy the state and capitalism.

Indeed the radical left is largely a left counter-revolutionary force whose
political function is the prevention of the working class from becoming
communist. As its popular support grows it correspondingly tends to shift
further to the right. This is what happened to the old Workers' Party as led
by figures such as Rabbitte and de Rossa. Much of this party was absorbed
into the right wing Labour Party. This same process may take place if
support for the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party grows.
Indeed there may be evidence of this process being already underway.
Figures like Joe Higgins and Kieran Allen then end up as respectable figures
of the right. It happend to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, in a sense,
too.

The Irish Economy

2010-06-08T20:01:00.002+01:00

It is being said that the Irish economy is performing excellently. We are informed of considerable economic growth and the unemployment has been falling.

However this improved economic performance is a result of international conditons rather than simple domestic conditons. The international economy is experiencing an upturn led by the US which was first to experience it.

These prosperous conditions are domestically based on a reduced and flexible waged economy. It has also been the product of the massive multiplier effect generated by the large doses of revneue poured into this country by the EU.

The buoyancy experienced at the fiscal level is a result of the reduced interest rates. Indeed it is an exercise in criminality that the government has not reduced income tax substantially in view of this development.

It is a sad reflection on the conditon of the labour movement that it has failed to force the government's hand in this regard.

This failure is due to the changing character of the composition of the working class or as it is fashionably called the recomposition of the working class. The core of the working class movement has atrophied which means that the tradtional source of labour militnace and resistance has been seriously weakened in this respect. Then there is a substantial fall off in union membership as new forms of enterprise open up that exclude the existence of unions.

On tip of that there is the growing indebtedness of the working class which makes it less nethusiastic about stirking work. There is also the sustained implementation of the corportatist strategy which entails the surrender of militnant action in return for corporatist agreements over wages and working conditons. In this way the militancy of the working class is bought off against concessions of one sort or another.

As wekll as this there the working class in Irealnd have suffered significant defeats of one sort or another: the Aer Lingus workers and some others. However it is true that there have been no major defeats. Perhaps the nearest thing to a major defeat was the failure of the anti-income tax marches.

The restructuring of working conditons and the recompositon of the working class have been major factors in the increased passivity of the working class.

It is not insignificant that in all the talk about the oppression of this or that oppressed group and the need for greater political correctness there is hardly andy discussion of the increasingly harsh workign conditions under which workers work.

A British General Election

2010-06-08T19:51:00.001+01:00

There has been very recently a general election in the UK in which the British Labour Party won an enormous majority in the House of Commons and now forms the current government there. In the Irish Republic an election will more than likely take place sometime in June of this year. Some reflection on the character of these elections is opportune:

The general elections are a fight for the floating vote. The election is generally fought and won over a minority of the electorate: the floating electorate. This element within the electorate tends to be fickle. It tends to vote this way or that for the most fickle of reasons such as the facial features of candidates or some such superficial characteristic. It is this element within the electorate to which the party political image industry has most impact. The image and showbiz characteristic of modern elections is, in a sense, a function of the need to win over this element within the electorate.

Since it is among the least political element of the voting electorate the floating electorate makes or breaks governments on the basis of secondary and superficial matters. This tends to give election campaigns a more superficial character.

The elections are won or loss in the marginal constituencies. And these marginals are won or loss on the basis of the how the floating vote turns. In short a small minority of the electorate, in a sense, dictate the kind of government and even society we are to have. It is to this minority that the official politicians direct most of their attention. This minority increasingly determines the character of politics during the campaign and the character of media coverage during it.

The floating vote appears to be increasing and is becoming a bigger element in elections for a number of reasons. The shift of the main parties to what is questionably called the centre is a factor in this. If there exists little difference between the principal political actors on the electoral stage then clearly their success at the polls will tend to be a product of secondary superficial factors such as image, style and personality. Since the differences between the contestants are marginal the contest tends to be grounded increasingly on marketing, on creating the illusion of real difference. As a result of this the election is fought and won on the basis of superficial issues. This means that election campaigns are increasingly trivialised so that debate turns around superficial and derivative matters while the fundamental issues tend to be increasingly submerged under a mountain of trivia such as Tony Blair’s football skills in relation to Kevin Keegan (the logic being that if you are good a football you are politically good). Instead of the election contributing to the increased politicisation of the populace the opposite dynamic takes place. Consequently politics tends to turn around superficial issues. People increasingly begin to think that superficial issues is the meaning of politics. As the fundamental issues retreat into the background superficial issues are, in a sense, transformed into their opposite, fundamental issues. On the other hand fundamental issues are turned into their opposite, superficial issues. This is why it almost considered Neanderthal and even kitsch to raise issues such as the need to eliminate market relations. Politics then turns into anti-politics. Politics looses becomes meaningless: the postmodernist’s dream (buckets of wee signifiers emancipated from signification!). What is called politics is no longer politics. Consequently the politicians elected into government are less and less politicians but theatrical figures from puppitry. As this trend develops the real politics increasingly takes place behind the backs of the people. The invisible figures in upper echelons of the state and certain other capitalist institutions makes the real politics.

Consequently the difference between the political parties continuously diminishes since they are constrained by the politics as prescribed by the invisible cliques such as the invisible administrators of the state and parastatal bodies such as the European Commission which are an expression of the objective necessities of world capitalism. The official politicians are the “frontmen” there to distract our attention while the significant activity takes place behind the world stage curtain.

In short the election campaigns rather than contributing towards increased politicisation forms part of a depoliticisation process: a retreat form the Enlightenment tradition.

The above are but tentative observations on general elections in Ireland, Gt. Britain and possibly elsewhere.

Humanism etc.

2010-06-08T19:43:00.002+01:00

KARL: Hello Andrew. I read your message with some interest.

ANDREW: The object and the subject are in dialectical unity.

KARL: There exist thousands of what may be called objects and subjects: rocks, beer cans, mountains, stars, artists, actors and transvestites. Which
subject and which object do you have in mind Andrew? It is only when
you have selected your particular pair that you can begin to outline the particular relation they may have to each other. However I have my doubts as to whether a dynamic relationship of dialectical pirouetting will emerge as a possible relationship between the pair. But then Andrew I am not a humanist.

ANDREW: Humanism is the essential epistemological frame through which a world made by humans for humans--a social relational ontology--is to be grasped.

KARL: As I have already indicated humanism is a philosophy that deifies humanity, attributing to it transcendental absolute powers: powers that transcend history. In the above remarks you provide evidence of the validity of this definition when you make the false claim that "a world made by humans for humans" exists. The point is that there has been no world made by humans. The ability of human beings to create a world is the ability of Hegelian gods. Human beings are by nature limited beings which is why they cannot escape history. A being that is absolute, such as god, is history free. It is transcendental and therefore an abstract hypothesis.

Again you posit an abstract philosophy, humanism, as the
necessary and universal form by which we understand and experience
reality. In this way you posit abstract transhistorical notions as
the necessary conceptual forms by which we can understand history.
This being so the nature of capitalist society can be analysed and
valildly expressed by means of transhistorical categories. If transcendental concepts and categories are the necessary transcendental forms by which a specific society, capitalism, can be adequately analysed and descrtibed
then it follows that this society is a correspondingly absolute society that transcends all historicity. This being the possibility of social revolution is a no no.

ANDREW: Humans beings create god and stick it in
the sky. To it they give all their goodness, all their love, all their
power of creation, all their forgiveness, all their law; and for
themselves, humans leave only an evil, sinful, hateful, wretched, weak,
*created* shell. Eventually they forget they created this god. They have
rendered themselves powerless before their own creation! Should we, in
Marxism, similarly deny the human agency that built the structures that we
now struggle under? Is this not self-defeating? Those structures that rule
us, like the faith some give false idols, rule us in large measure because
we legitimate them, and this legitimation is born in the separation of
subject and object--alienation. To recognize the power of our own
self-creativity, and of the collective power that created the structures
that now ensnare us, is to realize those structures are, in fact, not
legitimate, not void of human agency, they are the alienated structures of
our own alienation. And this recognition is crucial in the step toward
cultivating mass revolutionary consciousness.

KARL: This, in many ways, constitutes the kernal of your humanist philosophy. Human beings invest god with absolute creativity. Yet it is they that create that god and attribute to it this absolute creativity. For humanism, Feuerbach and you the task is to return these absolute attributes to humanity or "man". The task is the transformation of a limited humanity into a humanity all-powerful and all creative: the deification of humanity. This is you religious mission. Humanity is no longer a limited historical form of being but is instead the universal absolute being: the Hegelian Geist.

For you social revolution is no longer the decisive historical necessity. Instead we simply need to, as you claim, "recognize the power of our own self-creativity". No longer is revolutionary practical activity (entailing a somatic dimension) decisive. The decisive condition for redemtion is to "RECOGNIZE" our absolute power. We must all become bona fide humanists: join the one true churc. Noetic action is all that is now required. There is now no need to change society instead we merely have to think (fantasise) the change, to critique and all is heaven. This is idealism as stand-up comedy. Incidentally it was essentially the conception of Bruno and Edgar Bauer about whom Marx had no few things to say. Needless to say it was Fueuerbach's too.

ANDREW: You purge Marx completely of idealism. Marx did not deny the power of ideas, or the ability to see patterns in world history. Yes, of course,
his theory was the product of his epoch; this follows from the tenets of
historical materialist method. However, within this method lies the key
out of the trap of historicity; for Marx, by creating a method which could
subject itself, as a historical category, to its own internal logic of
critique, constructed a method that could be transformed through each
subsequent sociohistorical ordering.

KARL: History is not, as you claim, a "trap" but the form by which society develops. Marxism does not seek to escape from history, as you again claim, but to contribute to its development. Again you suggest, as I indicated in my previous posting, that marxism as critique transcends history. This being so marxism is now liberated from history to be turned into a transcendental, transhisotrical theory. This is but a shabby and vain attempt to reduce marxism to humanism.

In conclusion I want to make it clear that the criticism contained in my last posting still stands unchallenged by you. Your current response rather than presenting itself as a challenge amounts to little more than a slight defensive shift in ground poorly concealed behind a smokescreen of wordy obfuscations.

Incidentally I am not nor ever was an Althusserian.

The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement

2010-06-08T19:23:00.000+01:00

Given the sectarian character of the six county capitalist state in th enorth of Ireland it is clear that full civil rights cannot be achieved without the dynamic of the industrial working class. Given conditions as they existed in 1968 it was just as clear then that the industrial working class would not be available to provide the necessary dynamic that would make full civil rights achievable. In short the industrial working class lacked the necessary class consciousness and corresponding political character to offer itself as this dynamic.

To organise a civil rights campaign, under these circumstances, constituted a utopian venture designed to delude the Catholic masses and thereby obstruct the development of their political consciousness. The civil rights campaign was a form by which the development of the unity of the six county working class was to be obstructed. In this way the leadership of that campaign promoted a submerged sectarian agenda. Given the inability of this campaign to achieve civil rights in the absence of the support of the industrial working class the achievement of civil rights within the context of the six county state was impossible. As I intimated the civil rights leadership was petty bourgeois, utopian and sectarian in its politics. The unfolding of events verifies the correctness of this thesis.

Given the inability of the civil rights movement to achieve civil rights when confronted by the full resources of the sectarian capitalist state supported by the unionist and loyalist para- and extra- statal forces the only options left open was abject retreat or the development of the civl rights movement into the national struggle. The latter was the course taken. Consequently the leadership of the mass upsurge of the Catholic masses was taken over by the PIRA. The very fluid situation among the Catholic masses led to the replacement of one leadership by another --the civil rights leadership by the PIRA.

Since the civil rights leadership was verified by history as politically bankrupt it was replaced by a different leadership --the IRA. Given the failure of the industrial working class (predominantly Protestant) in the six counties to support civil rights the only other alternative was to broaden and deepen the struggle to a new level thereby transforming the civil rights movement into the national struggle. In this way it was hoped that the dynamic underlying the national struggle would serve as a substitute for the absent industrial working class. This was an admission that the Catholic masses were not immanently powerful enough to force through civil rights. The development of the civil rights struggle into the national struggle was an expression of the inherent weakness of the Catholic masses and the necessity of the industrial working as the driving force for any such struggle. The existence of the national struggle constituted a further turning away from the industrial working class by the leadership of the Catholic masses. Such a further shift away from the industrial working class constituted a programme for increased polarisation between Catholic and Protestant worker. Instead of taking the Catholic section of the working class towards the Protestant section of the working class thereby forging a revolutionary unity of the six county working class the former’s leadership lead it in the opposite direction thereby promoting sectarianism and guaranteeing that civil rights and the needs of the Catholic masses were never going to be met.

The national struggle was to prove essentially just as weak as the civil rights struggle. The national struggle proved inherently weak because again the industrial working class was absent as its driving force. Consequently, in so far as it can justifiably be deemed a national struggle, it assumed the form of a narrow petty bourgeois movement generating all kinds of stratagems, gimmicks etc as substitutes for the central and necessary dynamic --the industrial working class north and south. Because of its inherent weakness and the inherent weakness of the Catholic masses as a driving force the struggle assumed an elitist character in the form of a guerrilla force that was essentially private in character and independent of the masses.

It is the inherent weakness of the national struggle that also explains its leadership’s desire to ally itself with this and that petty bourgeois and even bourgeois force including the southern government and the Roman Catholic Church. It is this weakness that explains its crass opportunism and the confidence of the Unionist forces.

Indeed as the so called current peace process shows Sinn Fein is even prepared to ally itself with imperialism in the form of Washington and London. Over twenty five years on we are witnessing the truth of this in the present leadership of the struggle --its betrayal of its very own programme through its abject capitulation to the British and Irish bourgeoisie.

In the development of revolutionary politics there is never any substitute for the industrial working class as the agent of social revolution. There can only be one revolutionary vanguard --there are no shortcuts. Endless seeking of new vanguards -the Catholic masses in the north; the student movement etc can never- is a reactionary policy that betrays the class interests of the working class.

The Presidential Election 1997

2010-06-08T19:07:00.001+01:00

The presidential race has had a decidedly political character.

The contest has been primarily between the Fianna Fail and the Fine Gael candidates. It has been reduced to a contest between two forms of bourgeois nationalism. The nationalism that places greater rhetorical emphasis on the aspiration of achieving the 32 county republic and the nationalism that supports the continuation of the thirty two county republic with improved relations between the 26 and the 6 county states. The former demonstrates a greater interest in the concerns of the Catholic population in the north. Essentially there obtains only a marginal difference between the two parties. The former laying greater emphasis on republican rhetoric and the latter less. Both are essentially happy with the status quo.

Consequently the debate has been a false one. It has been a debate centred around language or rhetoric and posturing. Even at that the former party has presented this presentation in a rather craven suppresses way. It lacks even the confidence to present its token republicanism in an explicit form. This is how little confidence it has in its own images.

Indeed in many ways its politics on the surface are that of posturing, images, hints and innuendo. In this way FF presents itself as a multifaceted populist organisation: all things to all people. In this way republican minded voters are seduced into voting for it. Less republican minded voters, on the other hand, are seduced into voting for it because of their belief that it is only mildly and thereby sufficiently and harmlessly republican.

FG, on the other hand, wants to present themselves as the party of the high moral ground. The party that express a moral disdain for anything tainted with Provoism and intolerance towards the bigoted unionists. They want to present themselves as the party that is most understanding and accommodating to unionism. The people with whom unionists can best do business. The party that can be nationalist and yet unionist at the same time. The party of the two sides. In this way they present themselves as the party that can best achieve political and institutional reconciliation of nationalism and unionism.

FG wants to present itself as the good guy. The party of the high moral ground, the party free from corruption. Conversely they seek to present FF as the amoral and corrupt party that is not concerned with the complexities of the national question.

However the point is that there is essentially no difference between the two political parties. They are both bourgeois parties that accept partition. They are each free from the high moral ground. The differences being presented to us then are one's of perception rather than policy. Difference of image, rhetoric and style.

Essentially on the national question, economics, social issues and security there no difference between them. Consequently to make themselves electable they must artificially manufacture surface differences. This is analogous to brand difference.

Both parties, in terms of their immediate interests, are merely concerned with securing political power as a means of gaining a greater share of the booty. Capitalism is essentially indifferent as to which of the parties take power. The primary function for capital is that of deceiving the public by creating the illusion of choice: a limited or false choice. As well as that the competition of the two parties keeps them, in some ways, on their toes. It makes it harder for them when in power to become so corrupt and authoritarian that the masses loose confidence in them. It also means that it anyone of the parties makes a mess of things there is in existence a government in exile waiting to step into its place. This then serves to protect the system and guarantee capital's continued existence.

The individual parties have to justify their existence by manufacturing false differences, surface difference that is not real difference at all.

In the presidential election FG led by John Bruton devised a presidential strategy designed to put Mary Banotti in the Park. The strategy was to "taint" or expose FF's candidate Mary MacAleese as a crypto terrorist. Bruton's remarks on Adam's support for McAleese formed part of this ground plan. The leaks that followed formed further links in the plan together with Banotti's xenophobic remarks about her which she latter retracted because of their conter-productive nature. They hoped that the alliance that existed between FG and elements within the media and commentators would assist in the implementation or development of this strategy. It, among other things, entailed a grandiose smear campaign against MacAleese.

In addition it entailed part of an attempt to expose McAleese as fraudulent in her claim to be similar to Robinson by exposing her nationalism and social conservatism which she sought to conceal. It was her attempt to play down her nationalism that made it easier for Bruton to launch his strategy. McAleese's strategy of presenting her as a figure of the centre made her more vulnerable to this type of strategy. It was Bruton's purpose to discredit her as a figure of the centre by establishing the perception of her as friend and supporter of Gerry Adams.

By means of this strategy Bruton and his allies hoped to polarise the political situation whereby the anti-McAleese voter would rally in behind the Banotti Presidential candidate abandoning the Nelly and Rote candidates. It may have succeeded in doing this in some measure. However not enough to overcome the hardening of FF support around the FF candidate. It, in a sense, succeeded in polarising the political situation over the presidential campaign. However it was McAleese that benefited mainly form the strategy. Bruton and his allies turned out to be McAleese best supporter.

As it turned out the entire exercise backfired. If anything the smear campaign by both Bruton and his allies in the media supported by DL and the Labour Party failed miserably may have even increased her popularity.

The significance of the anti-McAleese strategy was the massive way in which McAleese's relationship to nationalist politics and ideology was over-exaggerated and whipped up into virtual hysteria. There existed a broad front that extended right across the spectrum into the print and broadcasting media. What this event exposed was the less than innocent role of the media in influencing politics and public opinion. The so called neutral print media's objective commentators exposed their real narrow political character in the significant role they played in creating an environment hostile to the McAleese campaign. However the electorate bought none of it. This is an example of where the mass media was unsuccessful in whipping up a popular frenzy.

Having failed with this strategy there was a half baked strategy to smear McAleese as a socially conservative candidate. This has not been too successful because of the demoralisation ripping through the other camps.

Yet, as I have already said, the divisions generated over the presidential campaign is a phoney campaign since there is little essential difference between the tow candidates of the two leading political parties. And even if there are differences they will count for hardly anything within the extreme political constraints imposed by the office of the Presidency.

Ultimately the politics infusing the presidential race are a development of the political struggle between FG and FF. FG have as their strategy the ousting of the Ahern government as a means by which they can return to power either in or out of coalition. They hope to achieve this by means of the strategy of discrediting the Ahern government. By discrediting the government they hope to increase tension between the coalition partners while also encouraging tension within both parties. In this way they hope to split open the current government and at the same time weaken the coalition partners. In that way they hope to create the political conditions that will eventually make possible a FG government. In that way the mould will be broken and a new political landscape created whereby FG hope to achieve their kind of modern Ireland.

(This waw written many years ago)

Lenin

2010-06-08T18:55:00.001+01:00

The problem with the Russian revolution was just that: The fact that Lenin
was in a minority on the issue of whether to seize state power or not. This
encapsulates the very problem of the European revolution. Its very weakness.
The Russian revolution was an expression of the very weakness of the
European revolution. The events that followed including the collapse of the
Soviet Union are testimony to this.

That Lenin was bitterly opposed on this issue by the Central Committee is
not so much a testimony to Lenin's greatness, as many in their desire to
promote the cult of the individual suggest, but to the very weakness and
ambiguity of the European and specifically the Russian Revolution. The very
fact that Lenin was so bitterly opposed indicated how ideologically and
politically unprepared the Marxist movement in Russia was for social
revolution especially as leader not just of revolution in Russia but of
revolution in Europe. This ideological, political and organizational
weakness, in a sense, reflected how unsuitable the character of the
objective conditions obtaining in Russia itself were for a proletarian
revolution. The Bolshevik revolution was an expression of both the success
and failure of the European revolution.

This precisely supports my argument for the need to reconstruct Marxism
drawing lessons from both the mistakes and achievements of the previous
Marxist movement. The point is the working class do not want another
Russian revolution which was an expression of the failure of the European
revolution. It is only by building a powerful and richly cultured Marxist
movement that we can promote the conditions for an all-rounded social
revolution taking place in Europe. This is why we must revisit the past by
examining the texts of Marx which are a manifestation of the theory and
practice of the revolutionary movement obtaining then. This is why a Marxist
study circle is so important.

The significant fact was not Lenin's ability to recognize the need for the
Bolsheviks to seize power and to persist with this demand despite
overwhelming opposition. The significant fact is that he was overwhelmingly
and bitterly opposed by most of the Central Committee. What was significant
is not that he won the leadership over to his way of thinking but that they
had to be won over.

(The piece above was written many years ago. I have since then experienced futher development in my thought.)

The working class and Habermas

2010-05-22T07:27:00.001+01:00

The proletariat provides the socio-ontological conditions for emancipation from ideology and exploitation. This is based on the proletariat’s unique relationship to the production process as source of wealth, value and capital–the very material basis for the existence of capitalist society. This peculiar oppression of the proletariat is what gives it its truth conditioning property. Given this Jurgen Habermas mistakenly attributes this emancipating property to language or what he calls communicative action. This constitutes an idealist anti-working class stance typical of the Frankfurt critical theorists. Habermas’ centring of language in the form of communicative interaction is not as he would claim the discovery and establishment of the authentic basis for liberation from oppression. Habermas in line with Frankfurt critical theory has dismissed the working class as agent of revolution. He has employed the category or concept of communication as the conceptual means of marginalising the working class. This had the effect of conceptually undermining the concept of the working class from within its own theoretical problematic. Habermas’ ideology is intended to conceptually underpin the strategy of marginalising the working class movement. Indeed it has, in a sense, formed part of a coordinated attempt to conceptually and politically gut the working class. And to a large extent he has been successful in promoting this cause. Habermas’ theory of communicative action abstracts from the class question. It suggests that successful resistance to capitalist oppression is conceptually and socially independent of the working class. It suggests that resistance can be organised on a cross-class basis – liberal movements. No longer can there be what might be called a proletarian problematic or proletarian centred theoretical framework by which society, history and change is rendered intelligible. He centres communicative action at the heart of liberation from oppression.

The proletariat is embedded within reification. Reification by producing the proletariat within it produces within itself the source of truth, knowledge and social revolution and thereby its own demise. Reification is ultimately based on nature or matter. It is the latter that leads to natural science, together with its methodology, and then social science and sociology. An examination of Comte’s work provides evidence of this. In a sense, then, reification produces its own antithesis in the form of the modern working class --conditions that lead to the critique of political economy in the form, among other things, of Marx’s Capital. Marx’s work is a critique of reification as economics and is thereby the proletariat’s critique. Reification produces the source of both critique and its own dissolution. This process produces within itself the working class, the material source of the communist movement, and the theory of the working class. The working class, the bourgeoisie’s polar opposite, is the fountainhead of ideologically free consciousness –revolutionary class consciousness. The source of truth is the working class and the source of deception is the capitalist class. However the latter is the spawning ground of the ruling ideas –the ideas of the ruling class. Under capitalism humanity is reified by its bifurcation into the capitalist class and the working class. Habermas seeks to dissolve Marx and communism by replacing anti-reification in the form of the communist working class with reified communicative action. For Habermas distorted communicative action has within it a liberationist quality. This means that bourgeois ideology is convertible into liberation theory. Ideology does not have to be combated and dissolved. Communication, discourse or dialogue forms the basis for forming alliances with outright reactionary elements such as the Roman Catholic pope. Communicative action is now to be substituted for class struggle. Social reconciliation is realisable through conversations with the enemy to arrive at consensus. Instead of combating fascists “we” talk with them. Habermas argues that reason in its instrumental form is a form of ideology. This means that ideology, for Habermas, is a form of reason and thereby not irrational. For Habermas then ideology is not authentic ideology. It contains within itself the opposite of ideology –reason. It merely requires to be reconstructed or subjected to revision.

The source of ideology is the ruling class otherwise known as the capitalist class. Truth, on the other hand, has its source in the working class the polar opposite to the capitalist class. This perspective is what gives ideas their material basis. One form is grounded in the oppressor while the other is grounded in the oppressed. The ideas based in the working class are a form of class-consciousness. Consequently the working class is the fountainhead of revolutionary change. Diverse conceptual frameworks overlap and compete with each other within the working class movement. However the conditions for communist theory, ultimately winning out, are that the working class provides the necessary and only basis for the one conceptual framework –the communist problematic. Specific social conditions render the assimilation of communism within the working class movement more favourable than other conditions. The acceptance of the communist problematic by the working class is a complex matter and thereby not inevitably subject to prediction. However new facts can lead to a conceptual shift. This is because new facts may not make sense under the current conceptual framework. Changes are up to a point forced by the facts --by the evidence. In this sense conceptual claims do seem vulnerable to factual proof and disproof. New facts may make workers change their minds about what it makes sense for them to say about the facts. For example today’s serious changing economic conditions (or facts) may lead to a conceptual change in the consciousness of the world’s working class. Theoretical understanding involves in some measure conceptual innovation. A revolutionary confined to the vocabulary of Aristotle or Adam Smith would not be able to generate a vocabulary adequate to the description of social life as we know it.

Workers engaged in the struggle for existence under capitalism do not initially analyse and explain their own behaviour. Consequently it is the communist intelligentsia who spend their time thinking about the valorisation process and the law of the tendency of the general rate of profit to fall. The communist theoretical framework which incorporates a certain vocabulary is quite indispensable. The theoretical framework involves abstracting from the concrete detail of what everyday life looks like to the participants and instead conceptually organises their world in quite other terms than theirs. Such a process is quite essential to the communist problematic. The indispensable condition is that the account given by communists should be based on or rooted in that of the proletarian actors themselves. The conceptual system of revolutionary theory is grounded in the conditions and experience of the working class. There can be no logical objection to concepts like that of exchange value, the rate of exploitation and the fetishism of commodities. Such concepts get their meaning from the activity and experience of the workers. In the same way the communist theoretical framework gets its meaning from the day to day life of the workers. This theory is socially bound. It is socially bounded by the experience of the working class. This means that this theory cannot be understood by capitalists and their agents such as their ideologues. The inability of capitalists and their retinue to understand communist theory is not an empirical but a conceptual issue. It is conceptual because the class interest of the working class on which this conceptual paradigm is based is the polar opposite to the class interests of the capitalist class from which an opposing conceptual paradigm is constructed. Proletarian theory transcends the limits of the experience of the capitalist class.

European Central Bank and the Irish Economy

2010-05-10T12:25:00.004+01:00

The ECB’s policy of low inflation by keeping interest rates low made easy credit readily available. Germany, as David McWilliams has repeatedly indicated, in these circumstances injected unprecedented amounts of credit into the Irish Republic inflating the economy into, what bourgeois ideologues call, external diseconomies of scale, leading to a property bubble.

It is too easy to simply place the blame on the shoulders of the banks and property developers. Such criticisms are a form of simple minded nationalism. The acute economic and financial problems currently besetting Ireland are a product of world capitalism and not of a handful of puny Irish banks and developers.

Paddy Hackett

A Review of Anthony Cronin’s As Dead As Doornails

2010-05-08T20:30:00.000+01:00

Brendan Behan, Paddy Kavanagh and Brian O' Nolan.
A Review of Anthony Cronin’s As Dead As Doornails
By Paddy Hackett

As Dead As Doornails is an interesting book on the subject of literary life in Dublin during the 40s and 50s particularly in relation to Anthony’s experience of Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh and Brian 0’Nolan. It is a gray work from which springs the comic and the absurd. For, in a way, the trio of writers above are inherently comic and absurd. Cronin’s book, in many ways, ought perhaps be presented as a model for works from this genre.
In his chronology Cronin displays a unique literary style. He seems to make it an aim of the book the use of language in a way that has a certain originality. Consequently his vocabulary has an unusual character unique to Anthony. Individual words frequently shine out like jewels from the pages of this book of his. But you see this too when he has contributed to discussion on radio broadcasts. Indeed Tom McGurk’s interview with him displayed these same qualities. It is a pleasure to listen to Anthony Cronin even if you don’t agree with his underlying philosophy or politics.
In his book Anthony Cronin outlines the individual character of three figures that have loomed large in modern Irish literature. His outline is realistic and unsentimental. He refused to glamorise them. Yet the comic character of their lives shines through rendering the chronology more colourful. In the book they come across as damaged and deeply troubled individuals with many limitations. Each one of them has a problem with the drink and in their ability to relate to other people. Their personalities are riddled through with contradiction. They do not even get along with each other and even end up physically attacking each other. Yet it was these very limited and damaged individuals that have been the source of Irish artistic beauty. It is sad... But in a sense this is just where art has its source –in pain, damage and turmoil. If Ireland were a happy place then art could not exist there ( the passion of Christ). Art can only exist under conditions of pain. Nor is art meant to make us happy. True artists cannot be happy people.
The conditions under which these artists emerged are aptly described by Cronin as bleak and oppressive. This was the economically backward Ireland of the forties and fifties. There was much turmoil and poverty among the masses. Pain and suffering were endemic in this oppressive Church ridden society. Yet these again were the very conditions that made possible the blossoming of Irish literature, of beauty, in the form of the work of these tragi-comic trio. Like Behan, Kavanagh and Myles the society from which they popped up was also damaged and limited. And that damage and limitation never really went away. Contemporary condition in the aftermath of the economic bubble in Ireland are evidence of this.
In a sense then limitation is what makes Irish art possible. Now many of the so-called Irish artists seek to present themselves as well balanced rounded people that constitute the successes of Irish society –part of the Irish glitterati. But are they artists?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2010-03-26T11:37:00.005Z

I watched the video version of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button some weeks ago.
As a movie it is moderately entertaining and visually impressive but certainly not encaptivating. It is of excessively long duration. However much of it, even allowing for poetic licence, is implausible.

Essentially the film is about time.Its key theme is the ageing process and the way this process is a real concrete influence on the lives of people. The film drew our attention to age and the relationship between the different generations. In this way it somewhat challenges our minds concerning the matter of age and even ageism. Notwithstanding the ageism that exists in today’s world the film brings out the hard fact that age does, in a sense, get in the way. It does this by showing how Benjamin’s physical evolution from a man into a boy and later a baby cannot be a “proper” father to his child –nor "proper" lover to his female partner. Again his birth in the form of an old man in the form of a new born baby obstructs his relationships with his peer group. The reversal of the aging process in Benjamin seriously and inevitably influences his relationships with other people. This is a fact that would obtain under all social conditions. And this is because age matters in the relationship between individuals from different generations whether under capitalism or communism. However under capitalism the age question is more pronounced. And ageism under capitalism is a real and oppressive issue.

Other than that there is little more that I can say about this film. Perhaps the short story, on which the movie is loosely based and which I have not read, is more comprehensive and interesting. Surprisingly I discovered that at least one film critic suggested that this movie resembles the Forest Gump movie --because, while watching it, I had drawn a similar conclusion.

The materialist conception of science

2010-02-13T12:28:00.004Z

With regard to the natural sciences it is humanity's universal interest in the technical control of nature that yields the meanings of statements made by these sciences. This cognitive interest establishes rules for the construction of these sciences' instrumental theories and for their critical testing. This is the cognitive interest that Jurgen Habermas discusses in some of his work. It is one (instrumental reason) of the three knowledge-constitutive interests that he claims exist.

The materialist assumption underlying the above conception is that humans, of necessity, act on nature in order to reproduce themselves through the provision of food, instruments of production and shelter. This is called human production. It shapes and determines the surrounding world of humanity thereby changing facts and creating new ones. This dialectical anthropological assumption is a transhistorical assumption. But human instrumental action on nature takes on different forms. These forms change over time thereby giving them a historic character. Accordingly these changes must lead to changes in the characteristics of instrumental reason --such as scientific revolutions.

This assumption provides the ontological foundation for the emergence and development of instrumental knowledge culminating in natural scientific knowledge. In other words ontology constitutes the source of epistemology. This ontological assumption precludes the justification of relativism and even empiricism.

If the scientific method is merely based on facts then it follows that these facts are experienced through a conceptual system. The system influences, if not determines, the facts perceived by humanity. This means that there obtains no criterion against which to evaluate and test these facts and their corresponding conceptual framework. Relativism is thereby facilitated. Under these conditions there can exist no truth nor knowledge. Everything is relative.

The materialist conception of science, referred to, blocks off relativistic and empiricist theories of knowledge. This materialist philosophy of science provides the natural sciences with a materialist anthropological foundation from which to render science and its development secure. It also supplies the dynamic for qualitative change in instrumental cognition by rooting it in a dialectical ontology --ontology in the form of an active historical anthropology.

The materialist philosophy of science does not constitute a denial of objective reality. The point is rather that what we know about nature is always ultimately defined by the cognitive interest in manipulating nature in order to materially sustain and develop our humanity. It is this materialist anthropological condition that informs natural scientific inquiry. In this domain our cognitive interest is fundamentally instrumental. Nature is conceived, even in the theoretical and pure sciences, in terms of our interest in controlling it. It is this that gives instrumental reason its inherent teleological character. This means, in the Kantian sense, that knowledge and theory are never pure.

The materialist conception renders the justificiation of an empiricist ontology, of an independently existing world of things, impossible. This thereby renders the correspondence theory of truth unjustifiable. This is a theory of truth in which every atom of knowledge must correspond with every atom of independently existing substance.

Now facts cannot exist independently of the observer. The facts observed are, as already indicated, determined by the conceptual system through which they are perceived. It is our universal cognitive interest in the technical control of nature that constitutes the conceptual framework by which facts are observed. This ontological context for epistemological relationships prevents the justification of the existence of a plethora of random disconnected scientific conceptual systems lacking any necessary linkage to each other. However this does not mean that just one absolute conceptual system will prevail. A series of different scientific conceptual systems may historically emerge that are necessarily linked to each other. Due to these historical and cognitive developments scientific revolutions may take place. But they cannot be, as with relativism, independent of each other in a discontinuous fashion. Their discontinuous appearance can only be justified on mystical grounds. They are still essentially based on the same cognitive interest. The diverse conceptual paradigms reflect the ontological development of this same essential cognitive interest.

Logical positivism, on the other hand, seeks to establish facts as absolute by assuming that there exists one absolute conceptual framework. I chose logical positivism because of its relative simplicity while, unlike older empiricism, it includes symbologic logic. It denies the existence of more than one conceptual system by claiming that scientific inquiry is the only valid and legitimate epistemological activity. Their opinion is that there is only one basic form of scientific inquiry and thereby one instrumental conceptual system. Other systems, non-scientific, are no more than mere nonsense. Such a philosophy of science can only but restrict human freedom and is therefore oppressive. This means that humanity does not matter and cannot count as serious in relation to identifying and analysing the facts. Consequently this allows logical positivism to disregard them. This means that we establish raw data by means of the perception of the senses. Out of these sense-data, through logical construction, scientific knowledge is produced. For positivism then, philosophy's job is to define, clarify and develop the structure and logic of the natural sciences.

The materialist conception of science and positivism fundamentally differ concerning the basis for the acquisition of scientific knowledge. Consequently there can be no common ground between them.

Underconsumptionism, Kieran Allen and the SWP

2009-11-17T18:03:00.003Z

"Myth 2: But the government has to borrow over €20 billion and so cutbacks are necessary. If we don’t take the ‘hard medicine’ now, it will be worse later.

The huge government deficit is a symptom but not the cause of the crisis. Before 2007, for example, there was no deficit as government revenue was €65.1 billion and spending was €64.6. The economic crash has wiped out many tax revenues. VAT rates have fallen; PAYE taxes are down, property taxes tumbled and more is being spent on social welfare payments. But the cutbacks have made matters worse. You can see this easily through simple figures.In October 2008, the government claimed that the budget deficit would rise to 6.5 percent of GDP and that cutbacks were needed. But in January 2009, the budget deficit had risen to 9.5 percent – and so more cuts were demanded in an April budget.Yet, after all these rounds of cutbacks, the budget deficit has now risen to 13 percent. In other words, all the sacrifices have been wasted because the debt is even higher.

The reason why this occurs is simple. If personal consumption is already depressed through unemployment and wage cuts, reductions in government spending only add to the slow down in the economy. There is even less money to go around and a spiral of economic depression sets in. So instead of digging a deeper hole, we need to embark on a jobs programme that puts people back to work"

The above argument was recently written by Kieran Allen and published by the SWP. It is based on underconsumptionist assumptions. The underconsumptionist ideology suggests that economic downturns are caused by a lack of demand. This means that the solution to the problem is increases in demand and thereby consumption. This,it is believed, increases demand which in turn leads to increased commodity production. Increased production means an increase, generally speaking, in the creation of value and thereby economic growth.

If this theory is correct it means that capitalism never need experience economic downturns. To prevent recessions all that is needed is continuous increases in demand (or consumption). If this theory is correct there is no need to abolish the law of value and create a communist society.

Falling demand during an economic downswing is caused by the overproduction of capital which manifests itself in the overproduction of commodities such as houses, building materials, household goods, cars etc. This overproduction is caused by falling profitability. Falling profitability is a product of the failure of capital to compensate for the fall in the general rate of profit by increasing the volume of surplus value. Capital can only overcome its crisis of overproduction by increasing the rate of surplus value through the devaluation and even destruction of capital while pushing the price of labour power below its value. This has to be done on a scale large enough to increase the general rate of profit so that there is growth in total surplus value. Success here means that as the general rate of profit rises profitability starts to rise. Under these new conditions production of commodities begins to increase. Recovery sets in and the cycle gets underway leading to recovery, boom and bust which ultimately takes things back to the overproduction of capital again. The problem is located within the capitalist production process and not in the circulation process as Kieran implies. In order to bring to an end economic crises the production process must be transformed. This means that the capitalist production process must be abolished and replaced by a process of production liberated from value relations.

In an economic crash, when profitability has fallen, artificially increasing demand cannot solve the problem. Printing more paper money as a means of increasing consumer demand abjectly fails in an economic downswing. The result is merely inflation. The more paper that is injected into the economy the more inflation rises. Rising inflation means that real demand has not increased.

On the other hand if the government can freely borrow money as a means of making up for the budget deficit then the upshot is that crashes are supefluous. If this argument is correct then the conclusion is that not excessive credit, but the lack of it, is the cause of the current crash in Ireland. Borrowing, credit, is now the panacea for all economic ills. This being so capital need no longer be concerned over both rising wages and costs. Class struggle is thereby rendered unnecessary and the objective conditions necessary for communism cease to exist.

Economic recessions are a product of the inherently limited and contradictory nature of capitalism. It is this limitation that renders borrowing at will impossible. Such borrowing was undertaken during the "Celtic Tiger" period. We see the results of that economic experiment today -- stockpiles of houses, building materials, furniture household goods, cars and a large reserve army of unemployed workers. Along with bank and factory closures this is evidence of the overproduction of capital that Marx discussed in his work on political economy.

Overall to argue, as Kieran Allen and the SWP do, that a programme of increased state spending is the solution to the national debt crisis is a misrepresentation of reality. It is a bourgeois argument that suggests that the Irish state is progressive. Kieran is suggesting that the state (that, according to him, has been taken over by the corporations) can sort out and even, based on the logic of his position, prevent the emergence of crises in the national debt. Demands made by the Socialist Workers Party calling for increased state spending are (bourgeois) nationalist demands. They are demands that obstruct the struggle for social revolution. Kieran does not seem to understand that it was that very thing, increased state spending, that played a key part in the emergence of the massive current budget deficit. How can what was a source of the problem form part of the solution? Within the framework of capitalism the only solution to the budget deficit and the economic crash, as a whole, is one that entails the devaluation of capital and the pushing of the price of labour power below its value (this must include the devaluation of labour power as variable capital too). Essentially this is the only solution available under capitalism. This is why the Irish government has beeen pursuing harsh anti-working class policies. It is not because it is an evil Party that enjoys engaging in economic sadism. These left wing parties, such as the SWP and the SP, claim that there are pro-working class solutions available to the Irish state within a capitalist paradigm. In making such reactionary claims they are merely attempting to fool the working class. There are only two solutions: a capitalist or a communist solution.
Paddy Hackett

Can Ireland have a successful communist revolution?

2009-11-11T23:00:00.002Z

It is not possible to achieve a communist society in Ireland through social revolution. This is because, if such a society were realized, it would be easily crushed by the imperialist states that surround it. A communist Ireland is sustainable only if communism has been realized in the UK and(or) Western Europe.

So any attempts to set up a revolutionary communist party in Ireland makes no sense. It is utopian to claim that in the Irish Republic the politics of social revolution are realisable and sustainable. Consequently soi disant Marxist groups such as the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party are misleading elements within the working class by claiming that a workers republic can be established and consolidated within the 26 counties of Ireland. The setting up of a workers' republic would, every bit as much an Irish communist society, be duly crushed by the forces of imperialism encircling it. This would almost certainly lead to great human suffering including the loss of many Irish lives. In the light of this James Connolly was equally utopian when he fought for a thirty two county Irish workers' republic at the beginning of the 20th century.

The conclusion is that the promotion of Marxist politics in Ireland is a utopian project that misleads the Irish working class filling it with false optimism. Communism can only be an option for the Irish working class within the context of European social revolution that eventually involves world revolution. Generally speaking communism can only be universal in character.

The most that communists in Ireland can do is create a communist organization of intellectuals that contributes to the development of communist theory. In a large country like the UK or France it makes more sense to struggle to build a communist political party within the context of building an international communist political party. The working class of a powerful country like Britain, France or the USA has a much better chance of launching a communist revolution than the weak Irish working class. Revolutions from these individual countries can serve as the basis for the successful launching of social revolution in Ireland. Generally social revolution can never begin in a small weak country such as the Irish Republic.

We now have a situation where people like Kieran Allen present themselves on radio and TV effectively clamouring for a state-capitalist solution to the problem of the Irish debt crisis. Yet the Socialist Workers Party, of which Kieran is a member, have perennially criticized the character of the former Soviet Union because of its alleged state capitalist character. A state capitalist solution is a tautology for a national solution. There is essentially no difference between this SWP position and the ambiguous position being held by ICTU bosses Jack O Connor and David Begg. Indeed there is no significant difference between the position of the SWP, the Socialist Party, the ICTU and the Fianna Fail party in relation to state indebtedness. All want a capitalist solution within a national, thereby bourgeois, framework. Differences between the different parties are rooted in mere modifications as to how wealth is to be distributed. Modifications in wealth distribution fails to render change in class relations. None of the above elements want a revolution in the character of the production process --a communist solution. This is because there cannot be a communist solution to the debt crisis except within an international framework. In short the Irish working class need the revolutionary mobilisation of the British, French and German working class if the debt crisis is to be solved through revolution. In a sense the Iris debt crisis is a problem for the entire European working class. Other than that a capitalist solution is the only solution possible. Kieran Allen and Joe Higgins mislead the Irish citizenry when they claim to have a "socialist" alternative to the policies of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Their differences only exist in a merely distributionist context. The nationalist policies of the SWP and the Socialist Party are not sustainable. Consequently the SWP and the Socialist Party are incapable of implementing bourgeois nationalist policies nor social revolution. The essential nature of their politics dooms them to political bankruptcy which is why their political character is inherently opportunist.

Does the Irish working class have the leadership it deserves?

2009-11-03T10:46:00.001Z

There is a big problem facing the Irish working class.It is an ideological and cultural problem.The consciousness and culture of the working class is persistently bourgeois. It sees the capitalist system as the natural society. Consequently it sees all economic and social problems as solvable within the framework of capitalism.It has been under the illusion that it can have an indefinite affluent existence under capitalism.It cannot see that most of the problems that beset the working class are a product of the inherent limits of capitalism. It thinks problems can be solved outside of the need to engage in class struggle.Indeed much of the class don't even see themselves as forming part of a class.

This is why it supports bourgeois parties such as the Fianna Fail party, the Fine Gael party and the Labour Party and their satellites such as the Green Party and others.The political and social consciousness of the Irish working class is effectively bourgeois. Irish capitalism has a bourgeois working class. This is why too the Irish,dare I say, proletariat have a trade union leadership that collaborates with the government and the state in general. Indeed the Irish state is a neo-corporate state in which the labour organisations are integrated into the state. Given the way in which developments are proceeding there is no need for fascism. The growing authoritarian neo-corporate Irish state fortified by the EU does the job well enough for capitalism. No need for fascism.

The Cowan government has successfully made cut backs in the living standards of the working class on an unprecedented scale. Yet there has been little resistance from the workers. A few squeaks here and there --nothing significant. About a year later the "organised working class" looks like its going to mount mass pressure on the government.And even this was of a rather limited character.The demands,being made by the leadership of the planned protests and strikes, had a distinctly reformist ring to them. It must be remembered too that much of the working class is not even "organised" in unions.This appalling is a product of disillusionment with these bureaucratised labour organisations that,much of the time, collaborate with whatever government happens to be in power. It is also a result of the lack of political class consciousness of much of the working class.This is partly a result of the relatively generous welfare benefits and assistance that has been provided by the state.It is intended as a sop that keeps the class quiescent.Many working class families contain one or two young adults that are availing of these hand-outs by the state. Many of them have been obtaining handouts through fraud that render many of them relatively comfortable.But then you have others who have worked hard and obtain few,if any,of these handouts. Clearly they cannot feel much class solidarity for the scammers (lumpen elements) who have little or no interest in working class politics.

Many workers see the Fianna Fail government as incompetent and unscrupless.But Brian Cowan has been showing quite some leadership. He has succeeded in pushing through massive cuts in the living standards of the working class and only meeting with very marginal resistance. Generally speaking "moaning" on the Joe Duffy show is about as far as the resistance has gone. The Joe Duffy show is the modern substitute for popular resistance.Indeed the Cowan government succeeded in demobilising mass protests that were to be mounted over six months ago. He is trying it again by engaging in current talks with the trade union leadership. Don't they just luv when Brian calls them in to talk with him. How they suck up to him.

In short there is really nothing positive that can be said about the working class in the Irish Republic. It is bourgeois,egoistic and even reactionary.It has little interest in subversive politics and never really questions anything.It is not even religious. It is in many ways just nothing.It exists, in a sense, from the shoulders down.Formal education is just seen as a matter of getting a good job.

It is because of the impoverished character of the Irish working class that the radical left in Ireland is correspondingly so weak and impovershied. It is almost all cut from the same cloth --little diversity.
Paddy Hackett

Attack the state not its workers!

2009-10-09T13:29:00.001+01:00

Attack the state not its workers!

The call from the agents of the bourgeoisie for further cuts in the pay of public employees as a means of solving the economic crisis on the grounds that they receive better pensions, pay and working conditions than the private sector is not valid.
The state extracts exchange value from the economy in the form of revenue through taxation. As revenue it is not capital but simply exchange value. It constitutes an unproductive deduction of value from the economy if it does not directly contribute to the creation of value. Now some of the tax revenue deducted from the economy is advanced by the state as capital. The state turns some of its revenue into capital by investing it in industry. In this way it makes a direct contribution to the production of surplus value. The part advanced as capital forms part of capitalism's valorisation process. This means that state capital is essentially no different from private capital. On the whole private capital has as its function the maximisation of surplus value.The special role that the state plays does not preclude the existence of state-run commodity producing companies. State run companies are driven by the profit motive too. They seek to produce surplus value at the expense of the working class. They use the exchange value obtained from taxation as capital to produce and sell commodities. This involves the state in the purchase of labour power for use in the production process. Surplus value is generated through the exploitation of labour power. In this way there is no essential difference between workers employed by the state who function as productive workers and the workers employed by private capital. Much of the labour power hired by the Irish state has been used in the valorisation process: CIE workers, ESB workers etc.

Much of the 'state's revenue is used to fund the standing army, the police the bureaucracy, social expenditure etc. While not directly participating in value creation, revenue used in this way supports the capitalist system and thereby the valorisation process. Revenue largely collected in the form of taxation by the state is required to pay for services that ultimately serve the interests of the capitalist class. The maintenance of transport in one way or another, the management of water and sewage, the education of the working class etc. Many of these services are necessary to provide the infrastructure necessary if capital is to function --if it is to sustain and develop itself. Workers need to be available and goods need to be transported and distributed. Otherwise the market for commodities, instead of expanding, contracts and even collapses. Apart from its oppressive role capitalist society would collapse if the state did not provide services, including social services, on the scale apppropriate to its needs. One of the contradictions of capital, as a private social form, is its inability to spontaneously provide public community outside the economic process itself. Hence the need for the political state.

State revenue that fails to contribute to the sustenance of capitalism such as excessive remuneration to the tops of the bureaucracy and other excess constitutes mere waste. It serves no useful purpose neither economically, ideologically nor culturally. Revenue that funds waste constitutes a useless deduction from the value created by a capitalist economy. It tends to put valorisation under greater pressure in the effort to counteract the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. It is in capitalism's ultimate interest to prevent the growth of waste. However it is not always easy to identify waste. Because of its contradictory nature capitalist social relations tend to produce waste --even inordinate amounts of it.

The public sector is very diverse in terms of pension, pay and conditions of work. To lump the public sector workers together on the basis that they all share these conditions is invalid. Public employees range from porters to electronic engineers, architects, departmental secretaries, judges and generals. As to be expected under capitalism the pay and conditions of work between these different categories of state employees is very different.

Neither can the private sector be reduced to one entity for the purpose of comparing pensions, pay and working conditions between the state and non state employees. The non-state sector is even more diverse. Private employees can be employed by different kinds of employers under diverse conditions. Some capitalist may be extremely large, other less large and then others very small.

To make a distinction between public sector employees and private sector employees in terms of job security, pay and conditions of work is not acceptable. It is not valid to conclude that state employees have better job security, pay and conditions of work than the latter. There are employees in the private sector with much better job security, pay and conditions of work than in the public sector --senior managers and professionals such as engineers and marketing people. Furthermore they are two qualitatively distinct spheres and cannot be validly compared with each other.

It is constantly been claimed across the bourgeois mass media that state employees have better pensions, pay and conditions of work. But this is an unsupported simplification. Within individual companies these conditions are diverse. Senior management are not employed on the same basis as other employees. Along with this some companies based in Ireland have beeen affected more adversely by the depression than others. Some, if not many, of these companies pay relatively higher wages and provide better conditions of work. This is because they are relatively very capital intensive. Many of their employees would have spent most if not all of their adult life working for such companies. These employees have better conditions than many public employees. Many of these differences are due to the power of the market. The law of value can determine how workers are treated by employers. Given the market conditions it can suit oligopolies to provide their workers with relatively better pay and conditions of work than are found elsewhere. The private sector is a diverse sector. It consists of diverse branches of production. Indeed as with public sector employees many private sector employees are non-productive workers too. It consists of strong and weak enterprises and big and small. Conditions concerning pensions, pay and conditions are correspondingly diverse. Many private employees have better pensions, pay and working conditions than many public employees. Just because many private employees have lost their jobs and suffered pay reductions does not mean that all private employees are suffering the same fate. Many parts of the private sector are still cushioned from the more acute effects of the economic crisis. Yet there is no campaign calling for further pay reductions against employees in these sectors. The populist campaign leveled against public sector employees is a campaign grounded in irrationalist reactionary ideology.

The working class is constantly being bombarded with bourgeois propaganda. It is told that the state is living way beyond its means in its day-to-day spending. Therefore, it is concluded, that the state has to cutback on expenditure to keep the Irish economy solvent. The conclusion drawn is that by cutting back on pay as opposed to services the services can be maintained. Public workers are to
be forced to pay for the economic crisis. Many state and non state employees live within the same family or household. In many of these cases the non-state employees suffering income falls may indirectly adversely affect the state employees belonging to the same family or household. The reverse situation is also true. It is said that there is no choice but to make public workers pay for for the state deficit. But apologists for capitalism are not calling on the super-paid higly affluent public/private employees annually earning hundreds of thousands of Euros to pay for it. This tactic represents the thin end of the wedge. It constitutes part of a sustained attack on the working class as a whole. The target is the defeat of the entire working class. It is hoped that this approach will deal such a blow to the more organized section of the working class that it will lead to the implosion of the working class thereby rendering a general assault on the entire working class much easier to achieve.

The call from the agents of the bourgeoisie for further cuts in the pay of public employees as a means of solving the economic crisis on the grounds that they receive better pensions, pay and working conditions than the private sector is not valid. As I have indicated the private cannot be compared with the public because like is not being compared with like.The private sector consists of diverse enterprises: large and small capitalists; small retail outlets; non-capitalist farmers; sub-contractors; landlords; celebs; publicans; trade unions charities; political parties and artists. Many of the aforementioned are non-capitalist entrprises. Furthermore the heterogeneity of conditions of employment within the state sector makes such generalizations concerning pay determination invalid.

The world capitalist crisis that has hit Ireland is a result of the inherent limited nature of the capitalist mode of production. Capitalism of necessity produces crises. The only way to put an end to such crises is by eliminating capitalism and replacing it with a communist society. There are only two options facing the Irish working class. One is a solution to the crisis at the expense of the working class. The other is a social revolution at the expense of the capitalist class. Compromise is an impossibility. The workers have no choice but to choose one or the other. This choice will determine the character of the Irish economy for years into the future.

Paddy Hackett

Communism and the nationalisation of Irish banks

2009-10-05T21:28:00.004+01:00

The nationalization of the banks of the economy of a country is basically a nationalist policy. Nationalism and the nationalization of the banks are one and the same. This is why the Eire Nua programme of Provisional Sinn Fein, if my memory serves me right, could happily call for the nationalization of the banks. It is not a revolutionary communist position.

Communists are internationalists and thereby support the socialization of the forces of production on a world basis. Consequently they don't support nationalist solutions to what are global problems. Nationalizing the banks is a policy that can be realised within the context of capitalism. It is not a communist policy. Bank nationalisation does not necessarily solve the problems of the working class. Banks may be nationalised and yet fail to meet the most basic and obvious needs of the working class. Nationalised banks can be just as ruthless and merciless in their relations with their working class clients as any private bank. There have been state companies that produce commodities yet fail miserably to show compassion towards the working class. This because, like all capitalist enterprises they are the subjects of the law of value.

Even with the nationalisation of the banking system the banks must still observe the laws of capitalism. Otherwise they go out of business. They cannot, simply because they are nationalised, transcend the law of value. Nationalised banking is sometimes the preferred policy of the bourgeoisie or at least sections of it. Even if nationalised banks are still involved with the money-form --with capital in the form of money. Likewise they they are subsumed under credit relations.The latter are inseparably based on the money relation.The money relation is based on the circulation of commodities and in particular the circulation of capital in the form of commodities. The circulation of commodity capital is in turn rooted in the valorisation process. This being so the banking system implies the capitalist reproduction process.

State banks under workers control is a paradox. Because of their very nature state banks can never be authentically under workers' control. It is like saying that capitalism can be under workers' control. If banks can be subjected to the democratic control of the working class then so too can capitalism. Then communism cannot be a historical necessity. Capital by its very nature precludes its subjection to the control of workers. Trotskyism, inspired by Trotsky's 1938 transitional programme, has made nationalisation under workers' control a important plank in its programme. The 1938 transitional programme attempts to go beyond the minimum/maximum programmatic framework. But the former is a flawed programme that merely reinforces confusion within the working class movement. There can be only be communist programmes. Communist programmes always make it clear that communism is the aim --not socialism. Communism necessarily entails a state-free classless society.

Communists can only logically promote communist social relations. Communists social relations by definition transcend the relations of capital: bank relations, money relations and of course value relations in general. Communist relations preclude the existence of banks and the exchange value they express. Communist relations constitute the antithesis to bank relations whether private or public. The former are directly visible relations while the later are relations of reification. Consequently commodities cannot exist under communism. Products cannot assume the form of commodities under communist relations. They are just products. Consequently money and banks are superfluous. Goods are produced and distributed according to the popular democratic decisions of the community.

Even some figures within Stalinism and Trotskyism are aware that any nationalisation of banks carried by the Irish government under current conditions is not nationalisation in the sense that Lenin and Trotsky would have meant. Some call it a phony nationalisation.Dan La Botz writing for Monthly Review says that

"Bank nationalizations in reality, however, have usually just been a stage in the boom-bust cycles of modern economies, a period when the state lends its strength to finance to see it through hard times, and once finance has recuperated, the state returns it to its private owners so they can continue to reap the benefits of wealth plus interest."

I shall end this piece with a quotation from Engels:

"But of late, since Bismarck went in for state ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious socialism has arisen, degenerating now, and again, into something of flunkeyism, that without more ado declares all state ownership, even of the Bismarckian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the state of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of socialism."

Paddy Hackett

NAMA or Nationalisation

2009-09-04T12:45:00.000+01:00

For the working class the debate over whether to nationalize Irish banks or support NAMA is a false debate. It is a debate that has been whipped up by the bourgeois media and a substantial component of the bourgeois political establishment together with sections of the radical left. Neither NAMA nor nationalisation can serve the class interests of the working class. Either policy is essentially bourgeois in character. Consequently the debate is really a debate within the bourgeoisie as to what option best suits its class interests. Much of the Irish Left support nationalization. Some with the qualification of nationalization under workers' control. But such qualifications make little difference to the essential nature of the policy of nationalization as a bourgeois policy. Under capitalism the workers can never control the banks. It is a contradiction to suggest that banks can be controlled by the working class. By definition workers can never nationalise the banks under workers' control. They can only annihilate them by destroying capitalism without which banks cannot exist.

The planned march for the month of September against NAMA is an attempt to organize the working class around the wrong issues --an issue from which the working class have nothing ultimately to gain. It is similar to organising a march against the Fianna Fail party and for the Fine Gael party. The left that promotes this march are playing the working class right into the hands of capitalism by rallying the workers around an issue that is about the class interests of the bourgeoisie and thereby against the class interests of workers. There is a strategy afoot by People before Profits and the Socialist Party to misdirect the working class into a struggle against itself. The prospective NAMA march is just this. Mass marches should have been held months ago against the income levy --admittedly there was the odd isolated protest in the absence of the general active support from the trade union leadership as a whole. The ICTU and other elements within the labour movement successfully obstructed attempts to organise a mass strike and demonstration. This was a decisive piece of treachery. It has seriously weakened the working class struggle. There need to be rallies and other forms of mass activity against the cut back in the living standards of the working class. A gigantic rally is needed to express popular opposition to the forthcoming slash and burn budget. Protests, rallies and strikes need to be linked into each other to create a continuum of struggle culminating in mass opposition to the forthcoming budget. Slogans expressing the class interests of the working class are needed.

If old age pensioners can "successfully" organize against the abolition of the free medical cards for OAPs swiftly then the labour organizations can surely organize at least as swiftly against the income levy and many other class issues. So far the Irish state and its bourgeoisie have had an easy run. There has been minimal resistance to the crassly anti-working class policies of Fianna Fail and the Greens. If anything the bourgeois left have been at most fertilising the conditions for alternate capitalist parties gaining power -Fine Gael and Labour et al.

Paddy Hackett

David McWilliams and Money

2009-08-20T12:08:00.004+01:00

Sunday, 9 December 2007
David McWilliams and Money
by Paddy Hackett

David McWilliams: Far from committing too much money to public projects, (as
much of the typically predictable commentary suggested this morning), he
didn't commit enough. He told us he was going to be ambitious, but he
bottled it (against his political instincts).

Yesterday was the day to tell the cautious mandarins of the Department of
Finance where to go. It was time to borrow heavily. This is particularly
logical given his view that the housing recession will not spill over into
the real economy in any worrying way. If that is the case, than now is the
best time to borrow to fund desperately needed new infrastructure...

Paddy Hackett: David has repeatedly made claims that the national economy of
the Irish Republic will suffer a hard landing yet he appears to be ironically
claiming in this current piece of his that the choices made by the Minister for
Finance can make a difference to the future state of the economy --hard or
soft landing.

It is questionable as to whether the Government should have taken up the
slack, as David would have it, by borrowing money on a significantly larger
scale to pour into the economy for capital projects. At the moment it is not
clear as to what the condition of the world economy is. Furthermore even if
this were clear the world economy (including here the Irish economy) may not
have progressed along its cycle sufficiently to render appropriate a very
large injection of funds into the national economy. Timing is of the utmost
importance here. If the economic downturn is far from bottoming out then a
mega injection of capital may not create the conditions for recovery. Then
too there are the constraints that the European Commission may impose
on the small Irish economy.

Generally it is just not clear as to what is the current condition of the
world economy particularly its more powerful components (the US). How then
can it be said what kind of interventionism is appropriate by the Irish
state? Given the uncertainities prevailing the present budget was probably
the best action the Irish bourgeois state could take as a means of coping
with the current economic contraction.

If it was a matter of throwing copious volumes of money at the problem of
economic downturns, recessions and depressions then it would follow
that they need never, in effect, exist anywhere in the capitalist world. But
this cannot be since the nature of economic downturn has a deeper and
more complex cause located in the contradictory nature of the valorisation
process of capital itself.

Overall the coalition government has probably done, budgetwise, as best
a job as they could concerning the immediate present in expressing the
interests of the capitalist class and capitalism itself.

Paddy Hackett

Should the Irish banks be nationalised?

2009-08-20T10:36:00.002+01:00

Many economic commentators call for the nationalization of Irish banks.
They claim that it will reduce costs to the state. It is suggested by some
commentators such as SIPTU's Manus O Riordan and Brian Lucey that Fianna
Fail's policy concerning the refusal to nationalise is ideologically driven.
This cannot be true especially given its history of past nationalisations
and its generally populist character. They miss a sigificant political
point. It is the Fianna Fail party's intention to maximise protection to the
developers and their allies, the Irish banks. This Fianna Fail hopes to
achieve by buying toxic assets at a higher price than is necessary. In this
way revenue will have been transferred from one section of the capitalist to
another --to the bankers and developers. The acute nature of the Irish
Republic's economic crisis is exposing the degree to which the existence of
the Fianna Fail party depended on the financial support of Irish property
developers. Fianna Fail cannot turn on the developers. To do so would be to
turn on itself. This, in a sense, is the basis for the Irish property bubble
and the Fianna Fail government's procrastination wirth regard to its
collapse.

It must be also remembered that not all Irish developers are going to
ultimately suffer from the property market collapse. Many of the weaker
property developers will be squeezed out to the advantage of the stronger
capitalist developers. In this way they can increase their profits. Indeed
the present depression is all about the need to squeeze weaker capitalists
out of the system to the advantage of bigger ones. If there is not a social
revolution then there will be a consolidation of finance capital at the
expense of weaker capitalists and the working class.

If there is not a global revolution the working class are in for a hard
time. This is why I have written that things, in the wake of the current
depression, are never going to be the same again. The working class, to
defend its class interests, must strengthen itself organisationally and
politically against the consolidation of capitalism. The worker is going to
be made pay for the billions that Washington, London, Paris etc., have
recently injected into the financial sector to help slow down and arrest the
downturn. But this massive unprecedented injection of funds into the system
is merely going to create a new "bubble" that leads to a new collapse.
Capitalism is afraid to let the depression go its full course to thereby
cleanse the system because of the potential threat from the working class.
Indeed capitalism has become so contradictory that even a very deep downturn
may not save it from deep stagnation. The cyclical downturn is now no longer
sufficient as it would have been in the 19th century. Now capitalism needs
cyclical inter-imperialist wars.

Paddy Hackett

Is "The Irish Economic Crash" Good?

2009-07-25T22:11:00.004+01:00

A review of "Ireland's Economic Crash"

Paddy Hackett

Kieran Allen's recently published book is called Ireland's Economic Crash. It
is a book cobbled together from a variety of sources. The book has a
sprinkling of tables and graphs to lend it an authority it does not have.
Indeed the question of the reliability and accuracy of bourgeois statistics
is not even raised in the book notwithstanding the fact that there is much
use made of them. For instance he claims that "today manufacturing
represents just 13 per cent of the Irish workforce.". (Ireland's Economic
Crash; page 37) Kieran's statistics are drawn from a bourgeois source. What
these bourgeois statistics cannot tell us is that although the manufacturing
sector constitutes 13 per cent of the work force it has a very high
technical and organic composition of capital. This means that its labour
power is very highly exploited which means its contribution to the
Republican economy cannot be simply based on the size of its labour force.
INTEL located in the Irish Republic is probably a classic example of such a
highly productive corporation,

The services sector uncritically referred to by Kieran in the book a
frequent number of times is a rather ambiguous bourgeois category. This is
because many of the services are commodity producing sectors while other are
not. This means that many of these services are engaged directly in the
valorisation process and thereby are direct sources of value. This means
that their status is no different to that of the manufacturing sector. There
are other more obvious problems with Kieran's use of statistics which I shan't
go into now. But, en passant, I understand that John Fitzgerald is Garret
Fitzgerald's nephew and not his son as Kieran suggests. (ibid. page 126)

The principal underlying assumption in Kieran Allen's book is that there has
been a corporate takeover of Ireland. This thesis is elaborated in a
previous book of Kieran's called The Corporate takeover of Ireland (Irish
Academic Press; 2007).

Kieran's understanding of the nature of the corporation dominated state
stems from a false instrumentalist and voluntarist theory of the state.
According to this theory of the state because the various lobbies and
committees are dominated by personnel from the corporate sector because it
has more economic power than other interest groups such as farming and trade
union interest groups. In that way the minority interests of the corporate
capitalists are promoted more by the state. This means that to be effective
against the minority interests of the corporate capitalists it is necessary
for a radical left wing government to be supported by a mass
extra-parliamentary movement. This movement, Kieran would claim, would
counter the economic power of the corporate dominated lobbyists, committees
and whatever else.

However it is not correct to suggest, as Kieran does, that there has been a
corporate takeover of the Irish state because parts of that state are
dominated, even if increasingly, by significant members of corporations and
their satraps. Even though not correct concerning other matters, Nicos
Poulantzas was correct when he argued that the state can be capitalist
without the capitalist class having to act as the ruling political class.
The real situation is that the state is capitalist by virtue of the fact
that the state can only act within certain limits determined by the
capitalist mode of production. The state can only function if it has power
to raise taxes and command material resources. So long as the material
reproduction of society is the capitalist mode of production, this power
ultimately depends on the success of capitalist accumulation. If the state
persistently acts against the interests of capital then sooner or later the
conditions of capital accumulation will be undermined and the economy thrown
into crisis. The state, then, would find it increasingly difficult to secure
the material resources it needs to function. Insofar as society is
structured by the capitalist mode of production, the state is always
determined, in the last instance, by the need to sustain capitalist
accumulation. Yet within such structural limits there is always a large
degree of relative autonomy for state policy and political action

Now if capital in the form of corporate capital is the leading and dominant
form of capital it will come as no surprise that the state is determined, in
the last instance, by the need to sustain corporate capital. Yet within
these corporate structural limits there is always a large degree of relative
autonomy for state policy and political action. This provides a space
whereby the state may or may not bear corporate dominated committees within
itself. The upshot is that whether a state contains or does not contain
corporate or non-corporate dominated bodies is not necessarily conclusive
evidence as to whether there has been a corporate takeover of the state. The
personnel engaged in aspects of the state will depend more on the specific
conditions prevailing at any particular time. This means that even in the
absence of any corporate personnel occupying any state agencies the state
itself may have undergone a corporate takeover. Kieran, then, cannot use
corporate personnel as the criterion as to whether political states are
corporate or not. In short his position shares a lot in common with the
theory of State Monopoly Capitalism according to which there is said to be
close personal relations between the monopolies and the members of the
apparatus of the state. The state and the monopolies, it is thereby claimed,
are fused into a single system.

But the larger and more powerful section of corporate capital in Ireland is
foreign. This means, for Kieran, that corporate Ireland has been taken over
by foreign corporate capital. It is a claim suggesting that corporate
capitalism is generally more oppressive on the working class than
non-corporate capitalism. There is then progressive and non-progressive
capitalism and the politics that goes with it. Clearly Kieran and the SWP
want to be on the side of the little man, "the little progressive capitalist".
This had been Sinn Fein's position too until they decided to make British
imperialism its paramour. The SWP are catching up on Sinn Fein.

This can only mean that the Fianna Fail led government no longer represent
the class interests of the non-corporate Irish bourgeoisie. This is because
it is not possible for a corporate state to exclusively represent the
interests of corporate capitalism while serving the interests of
non-corporate capital. Since this corporate state cannot by definition
represent the class interests of the Irish working class the conditions for
an alliance between the non-corporate capitalist class and working class now
exists. Such an alliance can only but be nationalist in character. But
nationalism and communism share nothing in common. This being so Ireland's
Economic Crash is a nationalist work sharing nothing in common with
communism.

When it comes to Kieran's use of Marx's work on political economy we are
subjected to conceptual and analytical distortion of Marx's thought. Kieran
claims that ".this is a systemic crisis which arose from a search for higher
rates of profit. Those pressures led to over-production and a speculative
wave of madness in the financial sector, so even if the system revives
again, the same pressures will re-emerge in the future." (ibid. page 157)

But the above is just not true. It is only when the total amount of surplus
value produced fails to compensate for the falling general rate of profit
that an economic crisis breaks out. This is of significance in relation to
outlining the character of the crisis. The falling rate of profit then does
not necessarily spell economic stagnation or crisis. Instead it means the
relentless drive of capitalism towards more and more accumulation of
capital. This is the hidden dynamic that leads to enormous economic
development. It is only when the amount of surplus value produced fails to
make up for the fall in the general rate of profit that the expanding
accumulation starts to breakdown. Incidentally Kieran in his book concludes
that the possible current crisis is unique because it hit's the core of the
global system. But all economic crisis hit the core of the global system. It
is just that that make them economic crises.

Then there is Kieran's under-consumptionist ideology. Underconsumptionism is
the ideology of reformist politics. It falsely suggests that capitalism is
potentially capable of serving the interests of the people.

"The more people loose their jobs, the less money there is to buy goods
produced by other workers. A government that actively intervened could
alleviate this suffering by stepping in where private businesses are
unwilling.The whole economy has entered a downward spiral because of the
cuts, levies and sackings." (ibid. pages 7 and 8)

"But the more they succeed, the more they reduce the buying power of workers
and feed into the problem of over-production. And when profit rates are only
partially restored, this can also lead to reluctance by capitalists to
invest in new plant and equipment. The slowing of investment then lead to
"excess savings" and this, too, feeds into the wider problem of reduced
markets for others" (ibid.page 97)

For him taking demand out of the economy by cutting wages further reinforces
economic decline. Now the logic of this false position is that if, on the
other hand, wages are increased sufficiently demand can be raised to such a
degree that they precludes the outbreak of recession. Underconsumptionism
and reformism are inseparably related to each other. Much of the leadership
of the current trade union movement in Ireland is underconsumptionist in its
conception of solutions to unemployment, economic crises or . So Kieran will
not be lost for company. Underconsumptionism suggests that capital can be
gradually reformed by incrementally increasing demand through wage increases
and expansion of social spending beneficial to the working class and "the
underclass". But capitalism cannot be reformed into a system that serves the
class interests of the working class. It is an historically limited
obsolescent social system that must be replaced by communist society if the
needs of humanity are to be minimally met.

It is asserted in his book that because of this falling rate of profit
capitalism must generate a bubble sequence as compensation: "As economic
performance has declined, the system has needed periodic bubbles to add
vitality and growth. From the 1990s onwards, these bubbles played an
increasingly important and disruptive role. There was a stock market bubble
and then a dot com bubble when absurd prices were paid for internet firms."
(ibid page 89)

But Kieran never shows how these bubbles are a product of falling profit
rates. To at least render his unfounded assertion plausible an outline as to
how they occur is required. "As economic performance has declined, the
system has needed periodic bubbles to add vitality and growth." Then if this
is the case capitalism has found a solution to its problems. There is
nothing for capitalism to do but produce continuous bubbles since these
buttress up the system. If these bubbles have been adding vitality and
growth then how can they inevitably burst. If, as Kieran is, an
underconsumptionist then increasing demand through state action should
indefinitely sustain non-collapsible bubbles. But then they are not bubbles.

Kieran informs us that neo-liberalism has failed. Indeed the title of one of
his chapter is called The failure of Neo-Liberalism. "Today this whole
edifice is in tatters, as neo-liberals recant and proclaim themselves
converts to regulation." (ibid. page 71) But one could as much say that
Keynesianism has failed or classicalism has failed. One could say too that
capitalism has failed because of the outbreak of depressions and even large
scale wars. But again this is to misunderstand the nature of the capitalist
system of reproduction. It is through the medium of periodic economic
depressions, and even wars, that capitalism perpetuates itself. Without
recessions or depressions there can be no economic development under
capitalism. Neo-liberalism is merely another form in the history of
capitalism irrespective of its existence as an imperialist ideology.
Capitalist production organised in the form of corporations is just another
aspect of capitalism's economic history. Neo-liberalism or globalisation
never meant the end of depressions. Indeed the present economic depression,
if there is no social revolution, will lead to the consolidation of
neo-liberalism. Those reformist ideologues repeatedly declaring that
neo-liberalism is at an end completely misrepresent the character of
contemporary events.

According to Kieran "it is no longer possible to draw a neat dividing line
between financial speculators and the wider capitalist class. The division
between finance capital and industrial capital broke down a long time ago
and now all corporations engage in 'financial engineering'." (p. 87)

Kieran is falsely suggesting in the above quoted comments that financial and
industrial capital are inseparably integrated with each other. If his claim
was correct then General Motors which has its own financial arm would not be
experiencing acute financial and sales problems. Indeed if finance and
industry were integrated into a unity there would have been no financial nor
general economic crisis.

Again his ignorance of Marx's Capital is demonstrated here. Within the
system as a whole there is a necessary distinction between industrial and
financial capital. Each form pays a distinctly different function within the
economic system. The former is located within the production process while
the latter is located in the circulation process. It is the very distinction
between these two forms within the general unity of the system that renders
economic crises possible.

Towards the end of the book we are presented with the 9-Step programme for
change. The wording may be apt to remind readers of AA's 12 -Step Programme
to alcoholic recovery. In this chapter Kieran wants to have his cake and eat
it. He wants to support revolution and yet support nine major demands that,
he indicates, are realisable under capitalism. If such an 9-Step Programme
is realisable under capitalism then the entire justification for communism
collapses. Either the class interests of the working class can be realised
under capitalism or not. They cannot as Kieran seems to believe sort of be
realisable under contemporary conditions.

Kieran's nine steps to reform is a nationalist opportunist plan. Given the
growing global nature of capitalism today a national plan cannot solve the
economic depression that has engulfed Ireland. The solution to the economic
crisis that has ripped through the Irish economy must be global in character
either from the perspective of capitalism or communism. It is not possible
to introduce a national plan, such as Kieran's, as a solution to Irish
economic problems. Given that the Irish economy is merely a minuscule
component of the world capitalist system radical solutions within a national
framework cannot be realised. There must be a global challenge to capital
from the world's working class. This means that workers in Ireland must
struggle for a united communist federation of England, Scotland, Wales and
Ireland as a platform for the global communist revolution. Despite the
fundamental weakness of the politics of Trotsky he was spot on when he made
the following remarks:

"The forces of production which capitalism has evolved have outgrown the
limits of nation and state. The national state, the present political form,
is too narrow for the exploitation of these productive forces. The natural
tendency of our economic system, therefore, is to seek to break through the
state boundaries. The whole globe, the land and the sea, the surface as well
as the anterior has become one economic workshop, the different parts of
which are inseparably connected with each other. This work was accomplished
by capitalism. But in accomplishing it the capitalist states were led to
struggle for the subjection of the world-embracing economic system to the
profit interests of the bourgeoisie of each country. What the politics of
imperialism has demonstrated more than anything else is that the old
national state was created in the revolutions and the wars of 1789-1815,
1848-1859, 1864-1866, and 1870 has outlived itself, and is now an
intolerable hindrance to economic development." (Leon Trotsky. The War and
the International ; Author's Preface vii)

Nation states promoted the development of capitalism in the past and
constituted the framework, in a sense, for the solution to economic and even
social problems. Today the nation state is an obsolescent political form
that reinforces economic problems while obstructing their solution. The
solution to the present general crisis of capitalism can only be solved
globally whether on the basis of capitalism or communism.

To finish: Kieran Allen's book exposes the opportunism of his politics and
that of the SWM of which he is a leading member. It is an obscurantist book
in which he likes to have things both ways. This allows him to be a winner
irrespective of what side wins. He advances a plan of action which he
suggests is realisable under capitalism while at the same time he seems to
mildly suggest that it may not be quite realisable under capitalism. He
claims that neoliberalism has failed while hinting that it has worked. His
aims are thereby rendered ambiguous which confuses workers rather than help
provide them with clarity. He follows the same approach in his economic
analysis. He claims at one moment that the falling rate of profit is the
cause of the crisis and then at another time hints that some other factor.
At another point he bellows out that a tiny minority of bankers, developers
builders and the Irish government are responsible for the latest crash while
he contradictorily hints that other factors may have played a role. Although
his book is a source of great confusion it is clear too that Kieran may
himself be the unfortunate victim of great confusion. In his book Kieran is
all over the place making it difficult to pin down what it is he is really
saying.

Paddy Hackett

Do taxpayers own tax revenue?

2009-06-08T19:56:00.001+01:00

Do taxpayers own the revenue from taxation
By Paddy Hackett

We are constantly bombarded with the sound byte -- "taxpayers money". This
contains the assumption that the revenue collected by the capitalist state
in the form of taxation is the money of taxpayers. This obviously implies
that the taxpayer in some way owns this money. In the first place the
taxpayer is a category that can include all classes since each of the social
classes pays taxes. This constitutes an attempt to suggest that there
obtains a deep unity between the classes. Assuming that this basis exists
then there is only a short way to go towards politically creating an all
class alliance.

But the point is that state revenue in the form of taxation is just
that --state revenue. It is revenue owned and controllled by the state. It
is not the revenue of the taxpayers. This is why the expression "taxpayers
money" is so misleading in the struggle against capitalism. It misrepresents
the class interests of the working class and seeks to subordinate those
interests to that of the capitalist class in an all class alliance. The
point is that taxation is extracted from the working class by the force of
the state. The working class have no choice in the matter within the context
of capitalism. The working class has only choice with the context of an
alternative --the alternative between capitalism and communism. This means
that the workers, to challenge this imposition of tax on it, must mount an
attack on the political state as part of an integral programme to attack and
detroy capitalism.

Paddy Hackett

Ireland and Economic Depression

2009-03-25T17:27:00.000Z

Ireland and Economic Depression
Paddy Hackett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Economic Depression and Fianna Fail

2009-03-25T16:57:00.000Z

Economic Depression and Fianna Fail
Paddy Hackett

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

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

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

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

Money Printing

2009-03-25T16:51:00.001Z

Money Pumping
Paddy Hackett

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

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

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

Little Confidence left in the Unions

2009-03-25T16:45:00.000Z

Little confidence left in the Unions
Paddy Hackett

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

The Colonisation of Sinn Fein/IRA

2009-03-25T16:34:00.000Z

The Colonisation of Sinn Fein/IRA
Paddy Hackett

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

Terrorism and Leftism

2009-03-25T16:26:00.000Z

Terrorism and Leftism
Paddy Hackett

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

The State and Capital

2009-03-25T16:17:00.000Z

The State and Capital
Paddy Hackett

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

Irish Economic Development and National Sel-Determination

2009-03-25T16:13:00.000Z

Irish Development and National Self-Determination
Paddy Hackett

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