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.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
A British General Election
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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)
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
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.)
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.)
Saturday, May 22, 2010
The working class and Habermas
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.
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.
Monday, May 10, 2010
European Central Bank and the Irish Economy
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
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
Saturday, May 8, 2010
A Review of Anthony Cronin’s As Dead As Doornails
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?
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?
Friday, March 26, 2010
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
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.
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.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The materialist conception of science
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Underconsumptionism, Kieran Allen and the SWP
"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
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
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Can Ireland have a successful communist revolution?
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Does the Irish working class have the leadership it deserves?
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
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
Friday, October 9, 2009
Attack the state not its workers!
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
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
Monday, October 5, 2009
Communism and the nationalisation of Irish banks
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
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
Friday, September 4, 2009
NAMA or Nationalisation
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
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
Thursday, August 20, 2009
David McWilliams and Money
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
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?
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
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
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Is "The Irish Economic Crash" Good?
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
