Vincent Browne versus SWP

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adams and the Peace Processs

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Common Sense Knowledge and Natural Science

Common Sense and Natural Science


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

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

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


Nature, Society and Meaning

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

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


Kantian Transcendentalism

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

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


Hermeneutics

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

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

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


Social Relations and Agency

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

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


Hypothesis Testing

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

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

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


The Antinomy between subject and object

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

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


Conclusion

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

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

Sherlock Holmes and Colonialism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is human knowledge?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bertie Bubble

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Underconsumptionism of Molyneux and Taft

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

McWilliams is a Utopian Underconsumptionist!

Underconsumptionism is rife within the working class

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

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

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

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

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

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

Darwin, Marx and Nietzsche

Humanity is the product of evolution through natural selection.

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

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

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

The Radical Left wants to help capitalism.

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

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

Paddy Hackett

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

Has Sinn Fein morphed into the Workers' Party?

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

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

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

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

Is There A Difference Between Left And Right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Irish Economy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A British General Election

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.