Dear readers,
ACA’s The Underground is closing down.
After 1 year of the online format we’re calling it a day. Finding support and contributors for TU has not been successful and rather than continue with 1 post a month it’s better we finish here and now after 1 year.
Thank you to all those who contributed to the blog.
Anton will continue to write over at MarxsRazor
Leon will continue to write over at Leon J Williams
Many thanks,
Leon
The Universality of Marx By Loren Goldner
A comrade has drawn my attention to the following piece, which is an excellent critique of ‘identity’ politics – a problem, even in the 1980’s, when this piece (in part, a review of ‘Eurocentrism ‘, book by the Egyptian Marxist Samir Amin) was written. Matters are, of course, much worse now
(The following article originally appeared in New Politics , 1989)
The Universality of Marx
By Loren Goldner
A strange anomaly dominates the current social, political and cultural climate. World capitalism has for over fifteen years been sinking into its worst systemic crisis since the 1930’s, and one which in its biospheric dimensions is much worse than the 1930’s. At the same time, the social stratum which calls itself the left in Europe and the U.S. is in full retreat. In many advanced capitalist countries, and particularly in the U.S., that stratum increasingly suspects the world outlook of Karl…
View original post 3,557 more words
By Barry Mellows
In Ireland the Free State and British Government have a special interest that is to protect Partition; to do so and to protect their interests they have placed us all in human gutter’s that they build, manipulate and maintain to sustain their imperialist and capitalist interests. They infect our environs with poverty, deprivation and the consequential social illnesses to keep us there.
They create the context whereby poor choices and hopelessness prevail and yet condemn and castigate us in their media for falling victim to their intent, their justice systems pursue us relentlessly, their courts harangue and pillory us, their prisons teach us vengeance, the addictions and abuse they foster among us chain us to despair – they set us apart among ourselves and separate us in to sections – the have a special administrative section governed by their special police, the drug dealers, gangsters, informers and agents those who live among us on their wages, in their esteem employed to massacre our dreams while murdering our children and all of this while simultaneously they criminalize all of us equally, frowning upon us, dehumanizing us as equally disgusting, forcing us to believe we are less, we are less than them. As humans we are less, and have less entitlement to Human rights than other Humans.
Republican Socialists are the guardians of our rights where we dwell, the aspiration is to eradicate the gutters imposed upon us, empowerment, to smash them, but while held here in these cruelly imposed gutters, Republican Socialists protect our rights and inspire our responsibilities.
We do not wish to vacate the gutters they have placed us in all that will achieve is a placement for their next victim, we wish to destroy them, not one can leave without the other, if one rises and leaves, all it can ever be is a betrayal of the rest left behind, one must be enlightened to rise, and on rising must take the others hand and on enlightening them take the other onward to victory.
We will not engage their media portrayal of who we are expected to be, or allow their police and courts condemn our children to adulthood dehumanized, we will reject their cosmetic culture and ethics to kill our principles, we will seize their media and present to them ourselves and the aspirations they hoped to kill with apathy and we will not condemn their victims to more disdain but instead we will stand alongside them and protect them, we will show them fraternity and love and we will elect that administrative section the one that contains their Drug dealers and abusers and we will chase it from our midsts as we rise as one people and smash their imperialist hell and we will build a Socialist Republic, We will.
By Jim Hargreaves
If we are to build a kautskyian mass party, we would obviously need members and the support of the proletariat. So, how do we obtain this? Agitation: agitate inside your union for a rank and file workers union, rather than the bureaucratic, class collaborationist organisation that the majority of unions are today; agitate in your workplace for strikes; agitate on the streets by handing out leaflets and papers; agitate online by making your own site or on Facebook.
By doing this, it will:
A) increase class consciousness
B) lead to others joining you in your agitation
C) increase the numbers of the party, therefore giving it more power, thus giving it more influence in unions, which will give it more influence among the working class as a whole.
With each strike the proletariat will grow in confidence, leading to more strikes and demonstrations, which will boost its confidence even more! We need to agitate for independent working class organisations, not just ones set up by one of the many ‘communist’ parties; we need to agitate for committees to be formed- people’s councils; we need to agitate for the workers running their own factories, and their own lives without the bourgeois state moralistically regulating what we can and can’t do. We need to agitate for freedom and for the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat.
What needs to be formed is something similar to the soviets which were formed in Russia- democratic, independent working class organisation which are suitable of superseding the bourgeois state apparatus.
Our demands are simple: we want those who work to receive the full fruits of their labour; we want to do away with bosses, policemen, soldiers and bureaucrats; we want to run our own lives. We can only do this by overthrowing the bourgeois state and replacing it with the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat.
I am not an academic and I am not a writer and don’t claim to be. I am a political activist in prison. Through three years of absence from political activity I felt like I needed to do something. And the only thing I can do is try and write. I don’t have any access to proper documents and statistics that would be needed to write a proper critique of capitalism. So I have made the most out of what little I could get my hands on. I got all the information from newspapers, magazines, booklets and some books.
1. Capitalism
Capitalism is based on profit. Creating profit is the sole motive of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system, involving the production of goods and services sold to a wide range of consumers.
“We live under the domination of capitalist production, in which a large, ever-increasing class of owns the means of production- the tools, machines and means of subsistence- in return for wages” – Frederick Engels
Those who own capital and who are trying to create profit forum a ruling class while the rest of the population make up a class of waged workers.
The capitalist class or bourgeoisie, own the means of production (factories, machines, etc) and distribution (shops, banks, etc). Workers work for them to earn a wage. The capitalist needs the worker, the work needs the capitalist. Although capitalist and worker are dependent on each other, the dependency is highly unbalanced. The relationship between the capitalist and worker is an exploitative one, since the worker has little or no control over their labour and employers are able to generate profit by appropriating the product of the workers labour.
“Wages are the sum of money paid by the capitalist for a particular labour time or for a particular output of labours….
Labour power is therefore, a commodity which its possessor, the wage worker sells to capital. Why does he sell? In order to live.”
In order for people to live they have to work. If they don’t, they will have no money. The capitalist needs workers to work on whatever it may be the capitalist wants built or produced. Whatever is built or produced, the capitalist will sell the product for the sole purpose of making a profit. The capitalist will pay the worker a wage for the workers labour. The capitalist in a sense buys the workers labour off him. If the worker works in a factory making doors, he may get £500 a week from his employer for his “labour-time” for the weeks work. In that week the worker may have made 50 doors. The capitalist sells the doors for £300 each. The capitalist has received £15,000 for the doors. He then has to pay the worker £500 for the workers “labour-time”. The capitalist then has to pay out a £5000 for wood, materials and wear and tear of machines and tools. The capitalist is left with £9,500 profit. This profit is called “surplus value”. It cost £5000 for the materials to make the doors, so there was £10,000 worth of “labour-time” put into making the doors. But the worker only got £500 for working the week. £500 would only be a few hours “labour-time”. So why did the worker only get £500 for working for the week? Because the capitalist owns the factory and the tools and materials. The capitalist profits because he owns the means of production.
Capitalists have to compete with each other to sell their products. In order to survive they have to provide products cheaply and efficiently as possible. They do this by buying materials and labour as cheap as possible. In some cases they may go to a poor country and set up their business. The capitalist will make more of a profit setting up a factory in India, than he would by setting up in Ireland. Big capitalist companies and corporations like Nike, Coca Cola, etc do this.
Capitalism can also create racism. For example in Ireland during the “Celtic Tiger” years, there were a lot of immigrants coming into the country trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. Capitalists took advantage of these immigrants. They were getting paid low wages and working long hours. The immigrants didn’t have a choice. For them it was starve or work. Some immigrants were getting hired over Irish workers, because of this. This is one of the ways how bosses and capitalists can keep workers wages low and keep them low. This is how people end up living in poverty or become at risk of living in poverty. The bosses and capitalists try their best to keep wages low as possible while at the same time trying to get as much work as possible from the worker.
2. Imperialism
As capitalism has developed over the last three hundred years, free competition, which is a major factor of capitalism, makes production more concentrated and this leads to “monopoly capitalism”. This means that fewer capitalists have taken more of the market in which the product is sold. One example of this is supermarket chains like Spar. There use to be small corners shops in every town in Ireland, now the small family owned shops have to close down because the new supermarkets like Spar or Tesco get most of the customers because the supermarkets sell more products and sell products at a lower price. Another example is, let’s say fifty years ago there were one hundred companies selling a certain product. As time goes on some of the companies will develop the product cheaper than some of the other companies, and because the companies make the product cheaper they will knock the other companies out of the market and get more of a profit since there product sold more, because it is produced cheaper and more efficiently.
Capitalism at its highest form is called “imperialism”. This type of capitalism involves massive companies, corporations and banks. Some have so much wealth and power they can influence countries. For example the Shell Company has taken over oil and gas fields in different countries all over the globe including Ireland. The profit that is created from the selling of the oil and gas is kept by the Shell Company, instead of the country where the oil and gas came from.
Another example of imperialism is the I.M.F. The I.M.F gives loans to some countries knowing perfectly well that the country won’t be able to pay the loan back to the I.M.F. So then the country has to sell off its assets and resources so it can pay the I.M.F back. In the Free State of Ireland the E.U and I.M.F have given loans to the government. The government is not using the loans to help the people of the Free State, but is using the loans to pay European banks back debts that the banks of the Free State own. This debt is private debt, not public debt. This means private individuals created the debt and not the people of the Free State. So why is the government paying back a debt that the public of the Free State did not create? I will try to answer this question later on.
As part of conditions the EU and IMF gave to the Free State government for the loan, the government had to cut public wages, social benefits, education and health care. The government are “considering the potential for asset disposals in the public sector, including commercial state bodies in view of the indebtedness of the state”. The Government is considering the sale of state owned companies. All of these state owned companies are critical and profitable to the people of the Free State. The money that is created by these state owned company’s goes back into the country. Public services have been cut, housing, social welfare, education and health care. Taxes have increased. All of this is because the I.M.F and E.U. dictated it. The Free State is living in an I.M.F and E.U. dictatorship. The I.M.F and E.U tell the Government if they don’t make these cuts they will not give the government loans.
This has been happing to countries all over the word. Ireland has still not seen the worst of it yet. Imperialism is the reason why there are famines in Africa and it is the reason why African countries are so poor. Africa is a poor content, not because there is no wealth but because of imperialism, different banks, corporations and companies suck all the wealth out for themselves like a vampire. What happened recently in South Africa, workers protesting for better pay got murdered by the police. Who owned the mine where the protests were happing? It is owned by a British company. This is another example of how imperialism works. Set up a company and pay the workers pittance and take all the wealth generated from the natural resources out of the country. Imperialism takes all resources and raw materials out of countries.
It happens in South America, Africa, middle east, it happens all over the world. The reason there is so much wealth in the US, Britain and some European countries is because the rest of the world is poor. This does not mean that everyone in these countries is rich. Only a fraction of the population of these countries is rich. With the recent and ongoing revolutions in the Middle East, you can be sure the US; British, European imperialism will be licking their lips, hoping that the new governments will be foolish enough to accept “help” from them. The imperialists call this “help”, “finical aid”.
“Global capitalism today is barbarism for huge sections of humanity, condemned to hunger, homelessness, perpetual war, and occupation. But the other side of globalization, the struggle for social justice, can also be seen: in the rebellion against neo-liberalism in Latin America; in the mass May Day protests of immigrant workers in cities across the United States; in the continuing Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation; in the growing anti war sentiment of US soldiers who return “home to find need and misery while billions are heaped up in the hands of a few capitalists.” And this is Luxemborg’s most important lesson for today: “In this moment lunacy and war orgies, only the resolute will to struggle of the working masses, their capacity and readiness for powerful mass actions, can maintain world peace and push away the menacing world conflagration.” – Helen Scott
3. War
War is an indispensable feature of capitalist development. The US, Britain and some EU countries owe the rise of their capitalist development to wars, economic and military.
“As long as there were countries marked by internal political division or economic isolation that had to be destroyed, militarism played a revolutionary role, considered from the view of capitalism”. –Rosa Luxemburg
All modern wars have been fought only for finical gain. In Libya the resent revolution there was fought by the Libyan people for genuine reasons, but the British and French states helped the rebels not because they felt sorry for the people of Libya. They helped the rebels with military aid, Special Forces units and air support because Libya has lots of oil fields.
Since the overthrow of Gadaffi’s regime the N.A.T.O imperialist backed militias are largely out of control robbing, murdering and torturing people. There are 8,000 people still missing and 8,000 government supporters are in prison run by militias, many have been murdered.
“On 2 March the UN International Commission of inquiry on Libya published its second report. There is no mention of the former Libya government planning to massacre civilians, no evidence of ‘what may amount to crimes against humanity’, used by N.A.T.O to justify its attack”.
IN Syria it is the imperialist strategy to destabilise the government and replace it with the Syrian National Council and Free Syrian Army. For the Syrian people this means enforced poverty and Deepening sectarian division. The Free Syrian Army is sponsored by the US, British and French imperialists. US, British and French special forces have been deployed to train and arm the Free Syrian Army with high-tech arms and equipment.
“No more than 30 per cent of the people are involved in the resistance. The other 70 per cent, if not actually with the regime, are silent, because it is not convincing to them, and especially after what happened in Iraq and Libya. These people want reforms, but not at any price. Fighting on the side of imperialism is not how the Syrian people will free themselves from bourgeois oppression of the Ba’athist government.”
The only thing stopping a full scale invasion in Syria from imperialism is Russia and China.
There is Al Qaeda affiliated groups fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army and they are also being armed by the imperialist countries. It is an old tactic used by imperialist countries. It was a tactic used in Vietnam, the US armed South Vietnam. When South Vietnamese could not stop the communist guerrillas the US actually invaded the country. The US also armed Afghan fighters in the war against the Soviets. From the second half of the 20th century to now, the imperialist countries has armed, trained and gave financial support to lots of “terrorist” organizations for the soul reason of destroying regimes that don’t suit them. This is the way most wars are fought in modern times. Instead of countries invading other countries, now imperialist countries will try to ether bankrupt countries through the use of loans or if that fails they will finance groups in the countries so the groups can take power. All this so the imperialist country can have influence and take the resources and wealth from the country. But if an imperialist country actual invades another country, when the imperialist army has taken over they will set up a government, the government will consist of people from the invaded country. This government would be set up to administer the regime that will put the imperialist country’s wants first and not their own actual country. This has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Our peoples suffer the painful pressure of foreign bases established on their territories, or they have to carry the heavy burdens of foreign debts of incredible size. The story of these throwbacks is well known to all of us. Puppet governments weakened by long struggles for liberation or the operation of the laws of the capitalist market have allowed treaties that threaten our internal stability and jeopardize our future. Now is the time to throw off, the yoke, to force renegotiation of oppression foreign debts, and to force the imperialists to abandon their bases of aggression” -Che Guevara
5. The State
The state is an organization of the ruling class. The ruling class keeps power over the other classes with the use of the state. The state keeps order with the use of police, courts, prisons, prison officers and army. The ruling class claims that it holds society together with its position by putting across that it does not rule as a class, but is the defender of the common good. But in reality the general interest of the state is the intervention in social life and control over society. In the north and south of Ireland there are two parliaments. These parliaments are set up to give the impression of democracy. Lenin explains best the reason for parliaments.
“To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and oppress the people through parliament-this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary – constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics”
People may be able to vote for whoever they want that is running in an election, but whatever party wins power of government will put the interests of the bourgeoisie before the other classes. In the Free State this has been proven, with all the different budget cuts in social welfare, education, health care, and housing. All the cuts hit the most vulnerable in society. The bourgeoisie has not been hit at all, while everyone else suffers, the people that all ready suffer the most, have to suffer more. And for what reason? So the rich stay rich. This has happened in most European states.
The idea of parliament in the state is for parliament to hold the interests of the whole society equally. But what parliament in a capitalist society does is puts the interests of capital first. In the society in which we live the institute of parliament is democratic in form, it is in reality an instrument of the ruling class.
In times of revolution, when the ruling class thinks it is going to lose power of the state they will adopt extra means of defence. In Chile in the early 1970s a coalition of socialists and communists fought for political power in an election and Salvador Allende the leader of the coalition won presidency. The coalition tried to implement a program of nothing less than the abolition of monopoly capitalism and imperialism in Chile. The coalition was democratically voted by the people. The bourgeoisie and US imperialism was not happy with this situation, so with the help of US imperialism the Chilean bourgeoisie over-throw the government and set up a dictatorship.
In the North of Ireland the British used Loyalist and SAS death squads to keep power. The British used them to assonate political activists and murder innocent people. They purposely murder innocent people so it would sicken the population and turn them against war. This tactic worked. And by assassinating key political activists the political movements fell apart. And by the murder of innocent people it put pressure on the movements. It led to the fragmented movements to give up.
This proves that the ruling class will resort to any means to keep power. Even the murder of innocent people. The history of Ireland proves this, because the history of Ireland is drenched in the blood of its people.
In the Free State the police can arrest and hold someone for 48 hours questioning before they ether release, charge or bring before the special criminal court. The special criminal court is a non jury court with three judges. And a person can be convicted of IRA membership without the police actually having evidence, once the superintendent believes the person is a member of an illegal organization. And in the case of a person charged with another type of offence it is deemed ok for the police to falsify evidence or make false statements because even if the police are caught out in court by the defendants lawyer the judge can chose whether to take it into account, but in most cases the judge does not take it into account. If this happened in another court the case would be thrown out and there could be some type of criminal investigation into police and court corruption. The Free State government broth these laws out for the soul porpoise to protect British imperialism.
“The state is an organ of class domination, an organ of the oppression of one class by another….”
In many countries all over the world, over the last sixty years there have been many revolutions and national liberation struggles. Most of these struggles were against ether US or British imperialism. The British and the US have perfected the use of paramilitary death squads. They have been used to deadly effect in South America, Africa and across Europe. They were even used in the US. The Black Panther Party was organized to defend and help the African-American community. The US government was threatened by the African-American community trying to organise themselves in a revolutionary movement. The FBI (another state agency) was sent in to smash the movement. Death squads were also used to assassinate activists. Many of the BPP were killed or imprisoned for alleged crimes. The BPP were fighting for basic human rights, employment, decent houses, decent education, free health care, an end to police brutality, food, clothing and justice.
There is no reforming the corrupt bourgeois state. The only answer is to create a new system, where it puts people first and not the creation of wealth. This system is called socialism and the only way to reach this goal is through proletarian revolution. But this revolution will have to be permanent, until the people of the world are liberated from exploitation and oppression.
“how close and bright would the future appear if two, three, many Vietnams flowered on the face of the globe, with their quota of death and their immense tragedies, with their daily heroism, with their repeated blows against imperialism, forcing it to disperse its forces under the lash of the growing hatred of the peoples of the world.
And if we were all capable of uniting in order to give our blows greater solidity and certainty, so that the aid of all kinds to the peoples in struggle was even more effective – how great the future would be, and how near!
If we, on a small point on the map of the world, fulfil our duty and place at the disposal of the struggle whatever little we are able to give – our lives, our sacrifice – it can happen that one of these days we will draw our last breath on a bit of earth not our own, yet already ours, watered with our blood. Let it be known that we have measured the scope of our acts and that we consider ourselves no more than a part of the great army of the proletariat. But we feel proud at having learned from the Cuban revolution and from its great main leader the great lesson to be drawn from its position in this part of the world: “Of what difference are the dangers to a manor a man or a people, or the sacrifices they make, when what is at stake is the destiny of humanity?”
Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism and a call for the unity of the peoples against the great enemy of the human race: the United States of North America.
Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear, if another hand reaches out to take up our arms, and other men come forward to join in our funeral dirge with the rattling of machine guns and with new cries of battle and victory”.
-Che Guevara
6. Poverty in the Free State.
Poverty is created as a direct result of the inequality that is generated from capitalism.
“People are living in poverty if their income and resources (material cultural and social) are so inadequate as to preclude them from having a standard of living which is regarded as acceptable by Irish society generally. As a result of inadequate income and other resources people may be excluded and marginalised from participating in activities which are considered the norm for other people in society”
This is the Free State Governments definition of poverty in its “National Action Plan for social Inclusion”.
The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of the word poverty; “being poor”.
Poverty can become a reality for people who don’t have enough money to do the things that most people in Ireland take for granted. Poverty can be when you don’t have enough money to feed your family, or you can’t cloth yourself or your kids, heat the house, or can’t pay the bills.
Poverty is more than not having the money to buy material things. It can be also mean that you don’t have the money for social activities.
Who is affected by Poverty?
Poverty in the Free State is measured by the Central Statistics Office.
There are two measurements, consistent poverty and at risk of poverty.
Poverty in Ireland 2009
Consistent Poverty 5.5% 233,192 people
At Risk of Poverty 14.1% 579,819 people
In the Free State at risk of poverty or income poverty, means having an income that is below 60% of the mid-point on the scale of income. In 2009, that was an income of below 231.20 euro’s a week for an adult.
Consistent Poverty means having an income below 60% of the mid-point on the scale of incomes in Ireland and also experiencing enforced deprivation. This means not being able to afford basic necessities such as new cloths, no money to buy food or being able to pay the bills.
Some people are at a higher risk of poverty: lone parents, the unemployed, people with disabilities and older people. These people have to survive from social welfare payments.
At risk of Consistent
Poverty Poverty
Total Population 14.1% 5.5%
Lone parents 35.5% 16.6%
Unemployed 24.8% 11.5%
Ill or Disabled people 21.7% 8.8%
Children (0-17) 18.6% 8.7%
Older people (65-74) 8.9% 1.3%
Older people (75+) 16.6% 0.9%
(These were in 2009, the percentages has got bigger since then)
Lone Parents
Lone Parents are an over whelming female category. On average they are among the poorest group in contemporary society.
Unemployed
More and more people becoming unemployed because of the grave economic situation. Building sites, Factory’s, Shops, etc are closing down making people become unemployed. And lots of civil Servants are becoming unemployed because of the savage budget cuts in public services.
Older people
When a person stops paid work because of retirement it results in a loss of income that many cause a significant drop in an older person’s standard of living. The ability to build up a personal pension during working life is one of the key determinants of income inequality between pensioners.
There are also households where both parents work. But the money they earn goes to pay the mortgage, bank loans and bills.47% of householders, more than 1.5 million people and left with 100 euro’s or less at the end of each month after paying essential bills.
Results of poverty
• Mental illness (including drugs and alcohol addiction)
• Life expectancy and infant mortality
• Obesity
• Children’s educational performance
• Teenage births
• Crime
• Imprisonment rates
Poverty generated from inequality is connected with life expectancy, poor self-reported health, A.I.D.s and depression.
Children that live in poverty are more at risk to mental illness, than children who don’t live in poverty. Some children will be severely depressed, suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder and some will have an eating disorder.
And for adults living in poverty will have more of chance of suffering from a mental illness. Some will have suffered from a neurotic disorder a psychotic disorder, or addicted to alcohol or drugs.
“So why do more people tend to have mental health problems if they live in poverty? The society that we live in places a high value on acquiring money and possessions, looking good in the eyes of others and wanting to be famous. These kinds of values place us at higher risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorders”.
People that live in poverty will have a lower life expectancy than people that don’t live in poverty. People who live in poverty will have a higher chance of becoming obese because they don’t have the money to buy proper healthy food, they are more inclined to buy more junk food because it is cheaper and you can feed more people with it.
Crime is a social phenomenon caused by poverty. Most prisoners in Free State Jails were living in poverty or were at risk of living in poverty. A study of social background of prisoners in Mountjoy Prison found that “56% of prisoners came from districts in Dublin characterised by high levels of economic deprivation. 80% of these in the study had left school before the age of 16 and there were high levels of exposure to adversity including low parental employment and personal employment, and high levels of personal heroin use. The numbers of people appearing before the district Court who receive custodial sentences is very highly linked to areas of deprivation”.
Social Exclusion
Social exclusion refers to ways in which individuals may become cut off from involvement in the wider society. For instance, people who live in dilapidated housing estates, flats, apartments, with poor schools and few employment opportunities in the area, may effectively be denied opportunities for self improvement that most people in society have.
There are instances in which individuals are excluded through decisions which lie outside their own control. Banks might refuse to grant a current account or credit cards to individuals living in a certain postal code area. Insurance companies might reject an application for a policy on the basis of an applicant’s personal history. An employee made redundant later in life may be refused further jobs on the basis of his or her age, where that live, and criminal record.
Types of social exclusion:
• Labour market exclusion Working provides an income.
• Service exclusion
Lack of access to basic services in the home, such as power and water, for example transport, shops, financial services and education.
Why there is poverty
“The gap between Irelands rich and poor is at its greatest in 30 years and is continued to widen. A policy briefing by social Justice Ireland shows that the income of Ireland’s poorest households fell by over 18% in a single year, which the income of the richest rose by 4%.
The report suggests that the top 10% of the population receives almost 14 times more disposable income. In comparison, the poorest is experiencing the worst income distribution over the past 30 years.”
The above quote was on Teletext on the 16 July 2012
“The problem in rich countries are not caused by the society not being rich enough (or even by being too rich) but by the scale of material differences between people within each society being too big. What matters is where we stand in relation to others in our own society.”
-The Spirit Level, Why Equality is better for everyone. By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
“The evidence shows that reducing inequality is the best way of improving the quality of the social environment, and so the real quality of life, for all of us.”
-The Spirit Level, Why Equality is better for everyone.
By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
There is an elite at the top of society who are staying rich even though the state is in a massive recession and some of them are getting richer.
In 2009 alone in the Free State the number of rich people grew by 10%, with an additional 1,800 Irish people becoming millionaires. The number of millionaires in the Free State increased from 16,300 in 2008 to 18,100.
Not all of this elite class are business men, bankers or developers. There are some millionaire civil servants these are secretaries general of the 16 different Government Departments.
“While all Secretaries General took a voluntary pay cut of an average of 14,000 euro’s late last year as part of a salary cap of 200,00euros, they still earn more than five times the average industrial wage.”
-This quote was taken from the Irish Daily Star
The politicians in Leinster house and in the Seanaid are part of the elite class. They also get paid in the 100,000s Euro’s plus expenses every year.
Mean while there are more and more people falling under the poverty line. There is up to 5000 people sleeping rough, there are 100,000 families on housing waiting list but yet there is 350,000 empty properties scattered around the country.
If there are a tiny percentage of people getting richer why then is there a large percentage of people getting poorer?
It’s not because there is not enough wealth in the country, it’s because of the way the wealth is distributed.
All of the budget cuts so far have only hit the average person. Most people’s weekly wage has got smaller; there are schools and hospitals getting closed. Social welfare has been cut this includes old people, children, unemployed, the sick, single parent families.
7. The Cure for Capitalism
Since capitalism is a system the only cure is to create a new system, and that system is socialism. Socialism is a political and economic system. The socialist system is based on collective ownership of the means of production and distribution. This means the economy will be socially owned and controlled democratically in order to meet the needs of all people. Socialism abolishes capitalism and labour as a commodity. The wealth that is created in society will be spread out more evenly. Instead of a minority owning the wealth, it will be put into the use of human need. There will be no exploitation of workers because there will be no bourgeoisie or capitalist class, all classes will be abolished “the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible”. They will be abolished because the workers will be in control of the means of production and distribution. The Capitalist class will be suppressed by the proletariat; since the bourgeoisie uses the state to keep power the proletariat will take state power from the bourgeoisie and use it to suppress the bourgeoisie. The only way this can happen is through a proletarian revolution.
To free themselves from exploitation and oppression the people must overthrow the bourgeoisie. The people need to take over the state and turn the means of production and distribution into state property. By the fact that the workers have taken state power and political power, the old bourgeois state is now a workers state. Since the means of production and distribution have been taken off the bourgeoisie and controlled by the workers state, the wealth that is produced from the workers and the means of production and distribution will be spread out more evenly over society. For example the wealth could go towards things like healthcare, housing, education and many other things that will make life better for everyone and not just a minority.
Just because a state is a workers state does not mean that it is a socialist state. There needs to be true democracy, “proletarian democracy” also, to make the state socialist. This type of democracy includes everyone. Everyone can take active participation in all the political and social processes if they wish. “Socialism guaranties all citizens the basic rights and freedom of organization, speech, thought, press, movement, residence, conscience and religion, full trade union rights for all workers including the right to strike and one person one vote in free and democratic elections”.
By Jim Hargreaves
One hundred years ago the Irish Citizen Army was founded in response to the brutality of strikebreaking in Ireland, which was mainly done by the Dublin Metropolitan Police. It’s aim was to defend strikers and workers from the barbaric attacks of the police.
One of the co-founders of the ICA was a man called James Connolly.
By 1915, Britain had as much control of Ireland as it did over England. Home rule was suspended until the end of the war, and Connolly’s paper ‘The Workers’ Republic was shut down by the authorities in Dublin castle.
James Connolly was appointed acting General Secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. By now, Connolly had become very militant. He paraded units of the Irish Citizens Army in Dublin, but such displays made those who had left the Irish Volunteers and gone to the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) very anxious, as they were planning to start an uprising. They felt that such displays would attract the attention of the authorities, which would crush the uprising before it even began. In an effort to bring Connolly on board and to tame his more wild displays of militancy, the IRB took him into their confidence. Connolly was told about the planned rebellion for Easter 1916. After this, Connolly took an active part in the preparations and he was appointed Military Commander of the Republican Forces in Dublin, which encompassed the Irish Citizens Army.
When the uprising started on Monday 24th April, James Connolly was one of the seven signatories to the Proclamation. Connolly was in command of the General Post Office during the rebellion – the rebels headquarters. He was severely wounded during the fighting and was arrested once the rebels had surrendered. After the surrender, Connolly stated this:
“Don’t worry. Those of us that signed the proclamation will be shot. But the rest of you will be set free.”
He was court-martialled in a military hospital in Dublin. Charged with treason, there was no doubt as to what the verdict and punishment would be.
At his court martial, Connolly made the following statement:
“We want to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic. ”
“We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British government has been asking them to die, to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe. I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest it with their lives if need be”
James Connolly was sentenced to death. Some of the employers with whom he had battled in the ‘Great Lock-Out’ of 1913, called on the British government to execute Connolly.
On May 12th,1916, Connolly was shot by firing squad. He had been taken by military ambulance to Kilmainham Prison, carried on a stretcher to a courtyard in the prison, tied to a chair and shot. With the other executed rebels, his body was put into a mass grave with no coffin. All the executions of the rebels angered many Irish people who had shown little support for the rebels during the rebellion. However, it was the circumstances of Connolly’s execution that created the most anger.
Connolly was among the few European members of the Second International who opposed, outright, World War I. This put him at odds with most of the socialist leaders of Europe, most of whom betrayed the working class by condoning an imperialist land-grab which pitted proletarian against proletarian.
By Anton
Communists should not oppose terrorism on moral grounds, as communism has no place for bourgeois moralism- essentially, the ends justify the means, as long as there is something to justify the end. What matters is whether an action will advance the class interests of the proletariat; we should support strikes, walkouts, struggle in parliament for concessions, the passing of bills and acts that increase the living standards of proletarians, etcetera. So, what we communists must ask ourselves is whether individual terrorism will serve proletarian class interests. The killing of a capitalist, or the shooting of a policeman will not further proletarian class interest, it will do the opposite, in fact- it will be used as an excuse for repression.
Only an organised working class can send a representative into parliament to gain concessions from the bourgeoisie and strengthen the political power of the proletariat. However, in order to murder a prominent government member you do not require the backing of an organised working class- anyone can make explosives and acquire a Glock.
A strike, even of modest size, has social consequences: strengthening of the workers’ self-confidence, growth of the trade union, and not infrequently even an improvement in productive technology. The murder of a factory owner produces effects of a police nature only, or a change of proprietors devoid of any social significance. Whether a terrorist attempt, even a ‘successful’ one throws the ruling class into confusion depends on the concrete political circumstances. In any case the confusion can only be shortlived; the capitalist state does not base itself on government ministers and cannot be eliminated with them. The classes it serves will always find new people; the mechanism remains intact and continues to function.
But the disarray introduced into the ranks of the working masses themselves by a terrorist attempt is much deeper. If it is enough to arm oneself with a pistol in order to achieve one’s goal, why the efforts of the class struggle? If a thimbleful of gunpowder and a little chunk of lead is enough to shoot the enemy through the neck, what need is there for a class organisation? If it makes sense to terrify highly placed personages with the roar of explosions, where is the need for the party? Why meetings, mass agitation and elections if one can so easily take aim at the ministerial bench from the gallery of parliament?
Lev Trotski
I quoted Trotski because otherwise I would be simply rewording what he wrote and passing it off as my own.
In our eyes, individual terror should be opposed precisely because it belittles the role of the proletariat in its own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission. The anarchists can argue all they want for their ‘propaganda of the deed’, but it is clear that this reduces class consciousness and only serves to stagnate the working class movement. The official or minister will be replaced and life will, once again, return to ‘normality’. The only thing that changes in the capitalist system is that police repression becomes more savage and brutal.
Terrorist cells can be crushed, the proletariat cannot- it is needed by the bourgeoise. As I said before: we shouldn’t morally oppose terrorism- we shouldn’t morally oppose anything when we are fighting against a class that is willing to plunge thousands into the hell of war for land or resources, against a system in which 10,000,000 die in each year. The account we have to settle with the capitalists is not one that can be solved through a few assassinations- it can only be solved by smashing their system and state, and oppressing them as they have done to us for such a long time. The difference is the bourgeoisie needs the proletariat, but the proletariat does not need the bourgeoisie- the proletariat would be better off without the bourgeoise.
The repression that the proletariat inflicts on the bourgeoise will not similar to what they have inflicted upon us. It will be swift, it will be brutal, and it will only serve to advance proletarian class interests and the abolition of classes.
By Reece Lawton
I will be making extensive use of Lenin’s work ‘The State and Revolution’, as it is one of the best works concerning the nature of the state.
To all libertarians, right or left wing, the state is an evil, as it is authority. What’s more, it is not just authority: it is the supreme authority. The state has ‘special bodies of armed men’ (as Lenin put it) at its disposal, to enforce obedience. The state, above all else, limits liberty, so it must be abolished once and for all, in one fell swoop. In this text, I hope to explain what the state is, and what socialists must do following the socialist revolution. This text is also an attack against all of the ideologies that claim to be libertarian, and to expose them as idealistic.
The State
The state is a tool of the ruling class to oppress the other classes. In capitalism, there are two main classes: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie (well, there is the petit bourgeoisie, but they’re irrelevant and their numbers are shrinking). The bourgeoisie uses the state and it’s instruments (police, army, etcetera) to oppress and exploit the proletariat; the bourgeoisie is the ruling class, the proletariat is the exploited class. The interests of the supra classes conflict- the bourgeoisie wants to exploit the proletariat as much as possible, whereas the proletariat’s interests are to seize the means of production for itself, abolish the bourgeois state and become the ruling class, thus ending it’s exploitation.
What’s stopping the proletariat from seizing power? First and foremost, class consciousness, but let’s say that every proletarian was aware that they would be better off without the bourgeoisie, and that they were willing to revolt against their bourgeois masters. The main obstacle then would be the state. The police, the army, the air force, drones, missiles, etcetera. The state is a tool for one class to oppress and exploit another-
“A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power.” (Lenin).
“The ancient and feudal states were organs for the exploitation of the slaves and serfs; likewise, “the modern representative state is an instrument of exploitation of wage-labor by capital.” (Kautsky)
Anarcho-Capitalists:
Anarcho-capitalists advocate the abolishment of the state, but insist on keeping capitalism (try to suppress your laughter!). The state no longer exists, people get to keep what they earn and no person has to pay taxes ever again! It’s a capitalists dream!
Or is it?
If this is the best form of capitalism, why have the capitlaists not abolished the state and built up monopolies? Imagine the aforementioned situation of there being no state, but capitalism still thrives.
Say there arises the situation where international trade is wanted. Quickly they discover that a group is needed which will represents the national trade-interrests and will ensure a trade-advantage for it’s members.
Libertarians will say that there is nothing wrong with that. Still, it is the first step towards a new state!
The trade-organisation won’t work for free in a capitalist world and so they will begin to demand pay.
Contribution will be asked with it’s members, what will mean that non-members will receive no benefit. We then stand at a situation where benefitted collegue’s are providing unfair competition.
Again, Libertarians will argue that it is not unfair and that traders and entrepeneurs are free to join the organisation.
So, the non-members are more or less forced to become a member, if they want to stay in business. Once a member, they too will have to pay contribution-fee’s, which will rise and rise because it is cheaper to represent a smaller group, than it is representing a larger group. The represeting organisation will have to grow to be able to cope with the ever growing expectations of it’s members.
Then we arive at the inevitable point where the members discover that not only they, but also the civilians benefit of the organisations actions. Now two things can happen, since the members will want to get back the costs of the contributions through the civilians. They will they raise prices (an obscure version of taxes), or they all will decide to directly charge the civilians. In other words, taxes.
And so we arive at the current situation where all civilians and traders/entrepeneurs are forced to pay a representing group. What has actually changed? Terminology. “Taxes” becomes “contribution” and “the state” becomes “the representation” or “the organisation”.
So Libertarian ideas revolving around their version of a free market are a paradoxal idea and will never work.
Now that we have exposed right wing libertarianism as the moronic ‘theory’ that it is, we shall move onto left wing libertarianism (or anarchism).
Anarchism
The anarchists propose the State’s immediate abolishment, overnight; we Marxists counter propose that such idealism is pragmatically impossible, because the proletariat would need to crush the bourgeois resistance through a mechanism, and that is the state. Only a fool would say that the bourgeosie would not try to regain its power, and only a fool would say that we do not need an army to defeat the reaction! Anarchists present Makhno and his peasant army as a shining example of how anarchism can defeat the counter revolution, but upon analysing Makhno’s anarchism falls apart. Makhno’s army was a tool to oppress the bourgeoisie, was it not? And the councils set up under Makhno served the peasantry, a class, in it’s conquest against the bourgeoisie! I say that this constitutes a state, and also that Makhno is a reactionary. Why? Makhno’s army was not made up of proletarians and oppressed peasants like the red army was- Makhno’s army was made up of Kulaks, who owned horses and had been exploiting peasants for centuries! Upon analysis, Makhno is revealed to be a petit bourgeois nationalist.
Were the State immediately abolished, without the “conditions leading to the arising of the State” being abolished as well, a new State would appear, and the socialist revolution would have been for naught.
What should we do?
In the event of a socialist revolution the proletariat through the dictatorship of the proletariat must establish a proletarian State (per the 1871 Paris Commune model), then suppress the dissenting bourgeoisie. The proletariat must use the state ruthlessly to suppress the reaction, crushing all dissent towards the new rule of the proletariat. For the proletariat, this state will be one of democracy. Soviets and workers councils will take the places of parliament and bosses- i.e. the proletariat will have total political and economical control.
“This shows more clearly than anything else the turn from bourgeois to proletarian democracy, from the democracy of the oppressors to that of the oppressed classes, from the state as a “special force” for the suppression of a particular class to the suppression of the oppressors by the general force of the majority of the people–the workers and the peasants.” (Lenin)
For the bourgeoisie this new state must be one of terror, which they live in fear in of, it must be the most brutal state to have ever existed. The proletariat must create bodies of armed men for the sole purpose of expropriating and crushing the bourgeoise, until they are no longer a class, that is to say, there are no more bourgeois.
In achieving the withering away of the State as its institutions begin to “lose their political character”. Once the proletariat has no bourgeois left to oppress, the state becomes a burden, and the proletariat abolishes itself as a class, thus propelling humanity into communism, ending the class antagonisms and the state, giving people complete liberty and equality to live how one wants.
“The proletariat seizes from state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with. But thereby it abolishes itself as the proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, and abolishes also the state as state. Society thus far, operating amid class antagonisms, needed the state, that is, an organization of the particular exploiting class, for the maintenance of its external conditions of production, and, therefore, especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited class in the conditions of oppression determined by the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom or bondage, wage-labor). The state was the official representative of society as a whole, its concentration in a visible corporation. But it was this only insofar as it was the state of that class which itself represented, for its own time, society as a whole: in ancient times, the state of slave-owning citizens; in the Middle Ages, of the feudal nobility; in our own time, of the bourgeoisie. When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection, as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon the present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from this struggle, are removed, nothing more remains to be held in subjection — nothing necessitating a special coercive force, a state. The first act by which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — is also its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies down of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished’. It withers away. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase ‘a free people’s state’, both as to its justifiable use for a long time from an agitational point of view, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the so-called anarchists’ demand that the state be abolished overnight.” (Herr Eugen Duhring’s Revolution in Science [Anti-Duhring], pp.301-03, third German edition.)
Edit: To be frank, this is poor. There are some parts where I should have written a lot more, and other parts where I resorted to straw men. I plan to update it later.
This finally happened after the SPD voted for war credits in 1914, those who opposed split and formed the sparticists. The SPD was once a party that collaborated with Karl Marx on frequent occasions. As a side note, one of the key members- wilhelm liebknecht (not to be confused with his son Karl) and Karl Marx once went on a drunken rampage through London…
Anyways, here you can see Rosa Luxemburg and August Bebel, an indication of the revolutionary current of the party:
Friedrich Ebert became leader of the SPD following the death of August Bebel (standing to the left of Luxemburg) in 1913. Ebert supported the German war effort and the imprisonment of anti-war socialists including his former teacher, Luxemburg. Ebert became German Chancellor on 9 November 1918 during the German Revolution and was voted first President of the German Republic by the National Assembly at Weimar on 11 February 1919, a post which he held until his death on 28 February 1925. As Chancellor, Ebert was responsible for the crushing of the ‘Spartacist Rising’ in January 1919, which culminated in the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Although he did not publicly endorse the murders, Ebert was considered responsible by the Communists and other left-wingers.
We should take note of how revolutionary parties can turn opportunist and reformist. The betrayal of the Ebert and the SPD can never be forgotten…
Death to reformism!
ACA The Underground 