The Enough Campaign And The ULA

The 'Enough' campaign's recent #IrishRevolution July16th protest demonstration drew a crowd of between 400 to 1000 people (depending on who you ask) onto the streets of Dublin's city centre. The event didn't quite live up to its billing, but was an energetic and encouraging demonstration nonetheless, by groups opposed to the EU / IMF deal, and other issue specific groups. The Enough campaign was initiated by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) to try to create a broad opposition campaign against the EU / IMF deal, and to demand a referendum on that deal. Whilst this type of initiative is to be welcomed, I believe that its demands do not go far enough. I also believe that future campaigns ought to be initiated, developed and prepared for under the banner of the United Left Alliance (ULA). Unfortunately, the SWP don't agree with this, and prefer to push ahead with their own 'Enough' campaign.

This Is What Class War Looks Like

If you look up the definition of 'war' in the Oxford English Dictionary you will learn that it is "a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country." The famous military theoretician Carl Von Clausewitz notoriously described war as "the continuation of politics by other means." I have no doubt that at the forefront of Clausewitz’s mind was the form of war defined above by Oxford when he pronounced his aphorism, however I believe that his view of war can be just as perfectly applied to a form that does not include armed conflict, but instead relies on acts of economic aggression to achieve its aims. The war that I am speaking of is of course class war, and it is occurring all around us.

The Capitalist Way: Work Longer For Less

When I’m old and grey at 68, and my weary body can’t take any more of the working life, I will look back and curse the current Fine Gael / Labour government for having the shameless audacity to put me to work for three extra years before retirement.  The Social Welfare and Pensions Bill, 2011, was passed through the Dail on June 8^th by a massive 107  to 25 votes, in an instant doing away with years of hard fought struggle by the labour movement.  This bill will have huge repercussions for all workers, yet it hardly raised a whimper in the mainstream media.

A Critique of the IMF

Recent years have seen growing criticism of the International Monetary Fund. What are these criticisms and are they justified?

“It is important to note that IMF programmes are not designed to increase the welfare of the population. They are designed to bring the external payments account into balance.... The IMF is the ultimate guardian of the interests of capitalists and bankers doing international business” (Kari Polanyi Levitt, cited in Torrie, J. 1983, Introduction).

Ireland's Future. Lessons From History

Since early 2007, the world capitalist free-market economic system has been experiencing a systemic crisis.  A report circulated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2008 stated the crisis was caused by “global macro policies affecting liquidity and by a very poor regulatory framework that, far from acting as a second line of defence, actually contributed to the crisis” (Blundell-Wignall et al, 2008, p. 2).  As a small and open free-market based economy, Ireland was caught in the contagion from the unfolding crisis of world capitalism.  However, far from being an innocent victim of conditions in the world economy, the Irish state’s economic problems were the result of both international and domestic factors. 

The Seductive Folly of Power

So as the dust settles on the 2011 Irish general election and the formation of a new government of Fine Gael and Labour has been decided, both camps are claiming victory in the content of the programme for government.  A quick read over the document reveals that it has the print of a neo-liberal agenda all over it, yet the Labour Party seem intent on claiming it as a victory for their negotiators. However the reality is that Labour will be propping up a neo-liberal government just to get a sniff of power. So what does all this mean for the ordinary punter?