socialist voice€¦ · for years unionism has taken comfort from a belief that the south’s...

Communist Party of IrelandPáirtí Cumannach na hÉireann

Partisan Patriotic InternationalistNumber 181 March 2020 €1.50www.commmunistpartyofirerland.ie

Page 2 Worried elitesPage 4 Connolly Youth

Page 4 FascismPage 6 Earth sytsem

Page 8 Climate change0 OPINION Trans rights

Page 10 Vampire capitalismPage 12 Imperialism

Page 12 Economic crisisPage 14 Poetry

Page 15 Henry Dent In MemoriamPage 16 Housing

Socialist Voice

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“Liberty, sir, liberty, is the Briton’sboast; and by all my coal mines inCornwall, I reverence its guardians.”—Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar ofWakefield (1766).

A platform to build onThe general election brought to the surface some ofthe issues and concerns of working people within thisstate writes Eugene McCartan P2

CLASS POLITICS

THE GENERAL ELECTION has broughtto the surface some of the issuesand concerns of working people

within this state. The problems of housing,rent, health, pension age and the capacityof working people to make ends meetmoved up the political agenda.

A decade or more of the most recenteconomic strategy of “austerity” hastaken a heavy toll on working people,their families and their communities.Forced austerity has always been a basicfeature of life under capitalism forworkers; we have always had to stand inline for health services, always waitingon the housing list or taking out life-controlling mortgages to get shelter. Thechildren of workers rarely went on tothird-level education.

While we have made advances,through hard struggles on all thoseissues, the last decade has been

particularly harsh on working people. Thenational ruling-class forces, in alliancewith the European Union, have beenengaged in a systematic dismantling ofthe gains won over the course of thetwentieth century by workers throughoutEurope.

If we look at the turn-out of 63 percent we see that just over 66 per centvoted for parties that could be describedas establishment parties—Fianna Fáil,Fine Gael, the Labour Party, and SocialDemocrats—while a little over 27 percent voted for Sinn Féin and the ultra-left, who could easily coalesce on a leftsocial-democratic programme. And if weadd the Green Party, which won 7 percent, that left-of-centre vote comes toabout 34 per cent—a significantplatform on which to build.

The election showed that a largenumber of workers want change in their

2 Socialist Voice March 2020

TOMMY MCKEARNEY

THAT THE AGENTS of imperialismand the ruling elite everywhereweaponise information is nothing

new. Two thousand years ago AugustusCaesar had supporters paint salaciousand damaging stories about hisenemies on the walls of Rome.

Technology has changed since then,but the underlying objective andmethods remain the same. The processis carried out using a two-trackapproach: distort the truth shamelesslybut convincingly, and where possibleprevent the other saying anything at all.

Evidence of this is all around us,from the bilge broadcast by Fox Newsto the sophisticated narrative spun byRTE and the BBC, including theirreporting of the American bombing of AlJazeera’s offices in Kabul and Baghdad,the imprisonment of Julian Assangeand Chelsea Manning, and, morelocally, the imposition of the old section31.

Pressure on those offering analternative or anti-imperialist outlook isrelentless. Google deleted the Youtubeaccount of the British channel of Iran’sPress TV in January following the

assassination of the Iranian generalQasem Suleimani. Meanwhile the USgovernment is seeking ways to closedown Telesur, the media network basedin Venezuela and supported by Cuba.

Unless any reader might think thatthe egregious lie is confined to Trumpand his spooks, reflect for a fewmoments on matters this side of theAtlantic. Last month the Independent(London) published an article by KeirStarmer under the breathtakingheading “Our radical socialist traditionmust remain at the heart of Labour.”¹This ostensibly left-wing sentiment waswritten by the man who bears mostresponsibility for forcing the LabourParty under Jeremy Corbyn toprevaricate on its Brexit policy, therebyfacilitating a massive Tory victory in thelast election.

This former director of publicprosecutions, head of the CrownProsecution Service for England andWales and pillar of the Britishestablishment has the brass-neckedeffrontery to pose as a radical socialistwhile winning the approval of everyright-wing commentator in Britain.

Not, indeed, that we are sparedsimilar machinations in Ireland. Since

Sinn Féin’s shock success in the recentgeneral election in the Republic,though, they have reached new heightsas pandemonium reigns throughout theestablishment on both sides of theborder.

For years unionism has takencomfort from a belief that the South’selectorate had little or no interest inreunification. There is no longer thesame certainty. However, an opinionpoll conducted by the University ofLiverpool and published conveniently inthe days after the election provided ameasure of reassurance for unionists.With only 29 per cent of Northernvoters supporting reunification,according to the survey, Jon Tonge,professor of politics at the university,was able to say that “the data offers anantidote to excitable recentcommentary concerning the imminenceof Irish unity.” The timing of the report’spublication was perhaps merely acoincidence, but, understandably, manyare sceptical.

Meanwhile south of the border everyreactionary element in the 26-Countystate has taken part in the Stop SinnFéin offensive. The hostile media wereunsparing in their vitriol, one right-wing

Election

Consternation among the elite

For years unionism has taken comfort from a belief that the South’s electoratehad little or no interest in reunification.

Socialist Voice March 2020 3

hack going so far as to claim that“24.5% of the electorate voted for theIrish equivalent of the Monster RavingLoony Party.”² It’s hardly necessary tomake a comprehensive list of themainstream media contributors to thisbrouhaha; but special mention has tobe given to the intervention of theGarda commissioner, Drew Harris.

With exquisite political timing, theformer RUC officer made a speechclaiming that the Provisional IRA’s ArmyCouncil is Sinn Féin’s governingauthority. If the commissioner is soworried about this he might share hisconcerns with his colleagues north ofthe border. The chief constable of thePSNI, Simon Byrne, was happy recentlyto employ the services of Sinn Féin’svice-president, Michelle O’Neill, and hercolleague Gerry Kelly during a recruitingdrive for the force.

In reality, Harris must know that,even if the Army Council still existed inits old military form, no group of sevenpersons could exercise control overthirty-seven popularly electedmembers of the Dáil. But fear of asecret army was never really the issuehere. Raising the spectre of subversionis the political equivalent of thecardsharp distracting punters as heperforms the three-card trick. Whileattention is focused on a non-existentterror threat, the issues that won Sinn

Féin a large slice of the vote are beingplayed down

Make no mistake, it is the issuesrather than Mary Lou McDonald’s partythat are causing such consternationamong the wealthy ruling elite and theirfollowers. If a programme attempting toaddress inequalities and deficiencies insociety gains momentum among thepublic it would threaten the privilegedcohort benefiting from neo-liberalausterity.

This group is growing increasinglynervous, and therefore aggressive, asthe global economy is threatened withat best a slowdown, if not outrightrecession, exacerbated by the onset ofthe COVID-19 epidemic.

It’s important, therefore, not to letthe situation descend into a war ofwords centred on Sinn Féin. Doing sowould merely allow right-wing apologiststo shift the narrative away from thereality of biting hardship and inequalityand towards nebulous arguments thatwill never be resolved—because thosedissembling have a vested interest inaltering the narrative.

In this respect the Right2Changeunions have made a positivecontribution with a statement issuedlast month.³ While not being dismissiveor disrespectful of the part played bySinn Féin in making progressivedemands, spokespersons for the four

unions involved emphasised the needfor action on the issues. Brendan Ogleof Unite identified these clearly as“housing, health, education, publicservices and long-overdueimprovements in workers’ rights,”adding that if such a programmecannot be implemented at present“then it needs to be developed toensure a brighter future.”

He hits the nail on the head here byconcentrating on the importance of theprogramme to be implemented and, ifit’s not possible to do so now, that wepersist until we succeed. It is vital,therefore, that we are not diverted bythose peddling misinformation onbehalf of capital and the empire.

As always, there is a world to bewon if we keep our eye on the realobjective. H

1 Keith Starmer, “Our radical socialisttradition must remain at the heart ofLabour,” Independent (London), 22February 2020 (athttps://bit.ly/2Vgjtki).2 Ian O’Doherty, “Sinn Féin: A partyof crackpots?” Spiked, 24 February2020 (https://www.spiked-online.com/).3 Right2Change, “Right2Changeunions call for an historic left ledGovernment for change,” athttps://bit.ly/2Vf2RJL).

real material conditions, that is, to theendless struggle to keep a roof over theirheads, to get medical attention whenthey need it, to have sufficient wages tocover what they need to buy, to havesecurity in old age—not a lot to ask forbut something that those who control ourlives are determined to prevent us having.Their priority is to make profits, out ofevery aspect of human need. To do thisthey need to keep costs down—that is,to pay workers less and make them workharder, and make their existence asprecarious as possible, to make themvulnerable to those pressures.

Sinn Féin did not create the shiftto the left among working people: ithas become the temporary vehiclefor the expression of those deepfrustrations and unfulfilledaspirations.

The change in how people voted

shows their demand for a leftgovernment, with people-centredeconomic and social policies. Thegrowing left vote is the product of a longperiod of low-level resistance by workingpeople, including opposition to servicecharges and water charges, resistance tohealth cuts, and the repeal of outdatedsocial legislation on such issues asdivorce, abortion, sexuality, etc.

At first the ultra-left benefited fromsome of these struggles, but thanks totheir infantile approach to politics andthe abuse of democratic struggles theyhave gradually lost it.

Working people have clearly lent SinnFéin their votes, both in an act ofdefiance to the establishment and alsowanting something done about theirliving conditions, seeing a left social-democratic economic and social agendaas articulated by Sinn Féin as meeting

those needs.Sinn Féin’s programme, as they

themselves proudly boast, is costed andwell within the fiscal straitjacket of theEuropean Union. Many of the economichardships experienced by working peopleboth here in this state and in the EU areexperienced because of this fiscalstraitjacket.

The challenge now is to build on thisemerging class-consciousness and tosharpen the struggle on a range of vitalquestions. How do we build andstrengthen workers’ organisations?—building class resistance outside theelectoral arena, building and developingpeople’s understanding that this systemcannot provide what they need, or adecent, healthy life.

The election result is only theecho of the battle, not the battleitself. H

CONNOLLY YOUTH MOVEMENT


How canwe defeatfascism?

GRAHAM HARRINGTON

THE COMMUNIST Internationaldefined fascism as “the openterroristic dictatorship of the most

reactionary, most chauvinistic and mostimperialist elements of finance capital.”

Fascism arose from capitalism’s needto solve the crises it itself created, at atime when the Soviet Union and thecommunist movement presented a realthreat to the capitalist system’sexistence. It was a replacement of statepower by the moneyed interests thattook to eliminating the communists andthen the other working-class movementsthrough the use of open terrorism,without the need for bourgeois legality.

Fascism was not just a Europeanphenomenon: it has a presencewherever capitalism exists. In LatinAmerica, “Operation Condor” was a US-sponsored scheme in the 1970s thatpropped up fascist dictatorships in theregion, with the assassination of leftistsin Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and othercountries, making it safe for American

investment. More recently, fascist groupswere used in Ukraine, Syria and Libya tocarry out the work of imperialistinterests.

If fascism has a clear class basis,it follows that anti-fascism must also.

If fascism is intent on representingthe ruling class and imperialism andusing racism etc., it follows that anti-fascism must align itself with the workingclass, with progressive sections of otherclasses in certain contexts and anti-imperialism, and stand by all thoseoppressed groups under threat.

With this in mind, we must askcertain questions. Is Donald Trump afascist? Are Nigel Farage and PeterCasey fascists? Is the ethno-state ofIsrael fascist? Is the local man down thepub annoyed at immigration a fascist?

These questions can only beanswered if they are approached in thecorrect way, not with a knee-jerkresponse.

Anti-fascism must be as constructiveof an alternative as it is anything else. Itshould not become a convenient excuse

ConnollyYouthcelebrates50 years

“The Irish people have never beenprepared to accept passively eitherdomination from abroad orrepression at home. Masters Northand South are faced with a risenpeople. A new generation hasgrown up. An extrovert, aggressivegeneration, a questioninggeneration, thrusting at the bondsof the existing order.”

Manifesto of the first all-Irelandcongress of the Connolly YouthMovement, 1970.

IN 2015 DELEGATES from two Irishcities made their way to East EssexStreet in Dublin to conduct the

Connolly Youth Movement’s annualcongress. In 2018, delegates fromthree cities convened on Cork for thesame purpose. In 2020, delegates, forthe first time from branchesestablished in six different cities, willcongregate in Belfast for a weekend ofcamaraderie, discussion, and theformulation of policies and tactics ofyouth resistance to capitalism.

The political journey of the ConnollyYouth Movement over the last decade

has been astonishing, and allindications suggest that the best is stillahead, as rising levels of class-consciousness in Ireland areconverging into a historicallyunprecedented threat to the politicalestablishment.

There will be many differentsubjects for the congress participantsto reflect on as we begin a new decadeof struggle; but many of the problemsand challenges facing the organisationare the kind of difficulties that are goodto have: how to utilise the upsurge inmembership and activity and translateit into effective action, how to buildgood cadreship, and how to place classstruggle at the heart of a generation’srejection of traditional politics.

As these questions are teased outthrough debates and workshops, a newlink is being forged in an Irishcommunist movement fastapproaching its centenary. Thecongress will feature a commemorativetalk on the life of Madge Davison, theCYM’s first all-Ireland general secretary,and a guided tour of Belfast.

The movement’s goal has shiftedfrom establishing its profile to

The political journey of the Connolly Youth Movement over the last decade has been astonishing, and all indications suggest that the best is still ahead


for liberal play-acting in make-beliefculture wars which the left seems intenton making worse. Some sections of theleft almost seem, out of their ultra-leftistdefeatism, to see working-class peopleas essentially prone to racism andchauvinistic attitudes, putting their beliefinstead in the liberal middle-class strata.

Where it is applied, fascism takessociety backwards. In the areas ofEurope that were occupied by the Nazis,slavery and feudalism made a return, forthe first time in centuries. In Ireland, it isnot unnoticed that the far right haveusually been tied to British imperialism inone way or another, from the Blueshirtsto their successors today.

Phil Piratin, a British communist MPin the 1940s, describes in his book OurFlag Stays Red some of the tactics usedagainst fascists by communists in the1930s. Communists would infiltratethemselves into British Union of Fascistscircles and try to carry out propagandawork to sow disillusionment among theirranks. In some cases, when noted Britishfascists were facing eviction and,

predictably, their movement gave themno support, communists would make apoint of standing with them. Piratindescribes how these former fascistswould then rip up their British Union ofFascists membership card in disgust.

Could we imagine taking similaractions today, essentially calling the bluffof the far right that it represents workingpeople’s interests? During the watercharges movement we were engagingwith all sorts of working-class activists.The CPI pressed the position that thestruggle was about privatisation, givingthe people’s anger a class grounding.This took the campaign from being, in itsearlier stages, about tax to one centredon ownership and class power, in theprocess isolating the small number ofconfusers who wished to manipulatepublic anger for their own narrowinterests.

The same can be said for the angertoday at the housing crisis. Workingpeople are justifiably angered by thestate’s support for landlords anddevelopers over that of the people,

though this often expresses itself againstimmigrants and refugees. This is adeliberate policy. How else can weexplain Leo Varadkar and others tweetingimages of themselves welcoming Syrianrefugees, as if they cared about theirwell-being? If they really cared aboutrefugees they would stop the use ofShannon Airport by those who arecreating the refugees in the first place.

The response of the left has been totry to fight a defensive battle, tackling themyths of immigrants and refugeesgetting houses and cars along witheverything else. While of course this typeof work is needed, to an extent, it doesnot on its own challenge fascism, or theability of the far right to further sowdivision. There is a pressing need for theleft to organise workers and, in theprocess, seeing what we can learn asmuch as what we can teach.

On the housing issue, for example,the winning of universal public housingfor all workers will render the whole issueof racism moot, far more than anyshouting of “racist” can do. H

becoming one of the main politicalinstitutions of the Irish working class.These goals are ambitious, but thecentral role of the CYM in society is toserve to school activists in practice, toprepare cadres for the responsibilitiesof serving and organising theircommunities. This feeling ofresponsibility differentiates the CYMfrom other youth organisations, whichwork on the basis of being an adjunctto electoral politics or debatingsocieties; the CYM’s point, and thepoint of all communists, is to changethe world. It emanates from a livedexperience that is shared betweenyoung people all over the country, thatthe time for waiting for incrementalimprovements is over and that changeneeds to be substantial andimmediate.

As socialist politics face theconstant risk of being watered down orre-adjusted to fit the demands of thehegemonic totality of capitalism, morethan ever a red youth is desperatelyneeded to point out the shortcomingsof the politics that social democracy,liberalism and conservatism areoffering young people in this period,

where everything is being reimagined:what it means to be Irish, what itmeans to be republican, what it meansto be a socialist.

A rupture with the establishedorthodoxy of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáilhas opened, and it is up to the cadresof the CYM to shape the future that willsucceed it, to ensure that we have thetheoretical tools for building a nationwe can be proud of.

This constant reworking of theseboundaries is occurring in concert withre-emerging prisms of social criticismof capitalism as young people areseeing the failure of capitalism inIreland to facilitate language revivaland environmental protection. Theresult is a country in suspendedanimation, and thousands of youngpeople’s lives suspended along with it.

The red lines that were set by neo-liberal parties in the new consensusafter 1991 have resulted in adisastrous crisis that touches uponevery aspect of the lives of youngpeople in Ireland. The laissez-faireapproach of wealth as the primarypolicy-maker has produced a societywhere every social good is scrutinised,

weighed and dissected for itsprofitability and worth, from mentalhealth to accommodation, to language,to education, to democracy and tradeunion rights. Everything that is intrinsicto the potential of young workers andstudents is derided as useless, uselessif it does not serve capital.

The will is now there to cross thesered lines and to live in a country that ismoving in a direction that gives voiceto the voiceless and effect to all thedeferred and misdirected hopes of thepeople of this country.

The next ten years will be crucial inshaping this direction, and as congressparticipants formulate a renewedprogramme this year the words fromthe documentary Rocky Road to Dublin(1968) will be foremost in their mind:“What do you do with your revolutiononce you’ve got it?” Coming togetherto share in building the coherence ofthat vision for a new Ireland is theenergising and encouraging outcome ofthe CYM’s national discussions. Goingforward, our determination willcontinue to be tinged with hope for thefuture as we enter what we demandwill be the red decade. H

ENVIRONMENT


EOGHAN O’NEILL

IN NATURE, many complex processesmust occur to guarantee thesustainability of life. The earth itself is

a system of interaction between thephysical, chemical and biologicalprocesses that take place within it.

Within the Earth System, whichconsists of the land, seas, atmosphere,and poles, we find many natural cyclesoccurring, such as the carbon cycle,water cycle, nitrogen, phosphorus andsulphur cycles, and many others.

All these cycles and processes haveallowed life on earth to flourish forbillions of years; and human life hasbeen part of that story for roughly150,000–200,000 years. It is only inthe last 10,000 years or so, since astable-climate epoch known as theHolocene, when average fluctuations intemperature remained within 1 degree,allowed for settled agricultural

communities to develop, thrive andmultiply to the level of humandevelopment we have today.

Humans have always had an impacton their surroundings; but that is true ofall life, as life is part of, not detached

from, the Earth System. However, it wasonly since the Industrial Revolution,beginning about 1750, that we began towitness the impact of human activityaffecting the global system rather thanjust being localised. The rise of industryis interlinked with the rise anddevelopment of the capitalist system.

Over the past couple of decadesthere has been what Ian Angus, authorof Facing the Anthropocene (and guestspeaker for this year’s ConnollyMemorial Lecture in May), refers to asa revolution in science—that is, thedevelopment of Earth System science,where the sum of all the parts withinthe system, which individually havebeen studied over the centuries, havebeen combined to a point where wenow have a fuller understanding of theinteractivity, interconnectedness andinterdependence of the natural cyclesand processes on the planet.

What Earth System scientists also

conclude is that life and humandevelopment have an effect on thenatural cycles—water, carbon, etc.—andthat our own social and economicsystems are “embedded” in the system.What they have also concluded is that,

“in many cases, the human systems arenow the main drivers of change in theEarth system.”

So human activity is not just havingan impact on climate change but is infact creating a global change in“atmospheric circulation, oceancirculation, the carbon cycle, thenitrogen cycle, the water cycle andother cycles, sea-ice changes, sea-levelchanges, food webs, biological diversity,pollution, health, fish stocks, andmore.” This global change has adverseeffects on the Earth System,threatening the sustainability ofcivilisation as we know it.

This has led those in the field ofEarth System science, headed by theInternational Geosphere-BiosphereProgramme, to make the formalrecommendation in 2000 that we haveleft the Holocene epoch and haveentered a new epoch—theAnthropocene: the period during whichhuman activity has been the dominantinfluence on the Earth System. Theystate that “the magnitude, spatialscale, and pace of human-inducedchange are unprecedented in humanhistory and perhaps in the history of theEarth. The Earth system is nowoperating in a ‘no-analogue state’.” Wecannot compare it with previous times,

because it is unlike anything that hasgone before.

There has been debate about whenthe Anthropocene epoch began (thebirth of agricultural societies or theIndustrial Revolution, for example).

The Earth System andthe capitalist systemare incompatible

. . . a consensus has been found, thanks to the research conducted by EarthSystem scientists, that the period from 1950 onwards really encapsulates thebeginning of the Anthropocene epoch.


However, a consensus has been found,thanks to the research conducted byEarth System scientists, that the periodfrom 1950 onwards really encapsulatesthe beginning of the Anthropoceneepoch.

The reason for this is theaccelerated pace at which productionand consumption, the “socio-economictrends,” have developed, with theirimpact on the natural cycles andprocesses within the Earth System. Thisperiod from 1950 to the present isknown as the Great Acceleration, asillustrated in the two diagrams here.

It would be wrong to reach theconclusion that what has transpired is

to be blamed on the entire humanrace, that it is in our nature, as aspecies, to act in a destructive waytowards all life on the planet. It wouldalso be false to conclude that theacceleration that has taken place isdue to population growth, that there

are too many people living on theplanet.

To counter the second conclusionfirst: the consumption of energy, food,water and other basic needs and thedemand for a range of goods andservices is vastly higher in the moreaffluent regions of the developedcountries of the global north than ofthose living in the underdevelopedcountries of the global south. So toblame climate change and globalchange on everyone equally, or even toblame it on the countries with highpopulation growth, generally those inthe global south, is to totally obscurethe reality of uneven development and

consumption. Clearly it is the advancedcapitalist countries that have put theirfoot on the pedal.

Global change is not just a numbersgame. There are enough resources tomeet the basic needs of the 7 billionpeople living on this planet; what is

totally skewed is how resources andwealth are employed and distributed,how those who own and control them

For life to flourish there must existan exchange of equivalents, a balanceof use and waste, where each usecreates waste and where waste in onesystem creates use in another.Everything in our planet is formed bythe balance of individual systems,incorporated in the Earth System,which has created the conditions for astable earth, allowing humankind toexpand their horizons.

Each system is cyclical in nature. Ifit were not so, the evolutionaryprocesses that have taken place overthe lifespan of the earth would not havebeen able to develop as they have.

Capitalism and the capitalist systemrun counter to the natural cycles of theplanet. Its nature is in the form of aspiral. What this means in essence isthat the capitalist system, within whichthe majority of the inhabitants of theearth exist, exhibits a use and a wastefunction without completing the cycle.The system makes use of resourceswithout an equivalent use andreplenishing of its waste product;therefore it produces a non-equivalenceof exchange, an imbalance.

Capitalism functions in the form ofM < M , where capital investment (M)must be less than what it gets in returnfor that investment (M ). The differencebetween M and M is profit.

Profit, in commodity production (C),is the extraction of surplus value fromlabour power, paying labour less thanthe value of what labour produces. Infinance monopoly capitalism (M–M ),commodity production doesn’t need totake place. It is based on speculation ofassets. However, without a commodityproduction base (M–C–M ), without thesuper-exploitation of workers in theglobal south, finance, investments andspeculative economies would not beable to function and dominate as theydo.

So, in the instances where M =M (nil profits or break-even) and M> M (a loss), capitalists and thecapitalist system will find themselvesin a state of crisis.

Continued overleaf

EARTH


Out of the green fields of southern England, in thesame century in which Shakespeare penned hispastoral comedies and the Tudors initiated a newphase of Ireland’s conquest, a novel form ofeconomics arose. A terrible force, only nascent, longsince held at bay by previous societies, brought a newmotive and logic to land-ownership and production thatwould shortly transform England and, within a couplecenturies, the entire planet.

The origins of the climate crisis

Continued

Capitalism’s main function is toproduce profit for the owners ofcapital. In this sense, capitalism andcapitalists see themselves asremoved from the Earth System,because their function is tocontinually accumulate profit. Wherethis is not possible, capitalism entersa state of crisis, which extends into acrisis for working people, with joblosses, austerity measures, and allthe rest.

For capitalism to be in the M < Mstate it must continually seek to exploitboth human and natural resources inits quest to accumulate profit.Therefore it is necessary to externaliseenvironmental costs and to employeven more exploitative labour practices.We have witnessed this phenomenon,especially over the last forty years, withoutsourcing and foreign directinvestment moving to the global south,where labour and environmental laws,protections and practices are lessstringent, or non-existent. They usetheir strength, their influence, theirmilitary, their demands on thesecountries. The development ofcapitalism, of finance and welfareeconomies since the 1950s, directlyrelates to the Great Acceleration.

Capitalism is not a system based oncycling and recycling, a balancedsystem, and can never be formed tofunction that way, because its nature isto spiral, to accumulate more than itbegan with, to use up more and moreresources so as to generate greatergrowth, greater profits.

Because of its nature, and based onthe large amount of evidence availableon climate and global change,capitalism has spiralled out of control.Quite simply, the Earth System and thecapitalist system are incompatible. Onemust go. H

Resources and diagramsInternational Geosphere-BiosphereProgramme, athttps://tinyurl.com/mteep42.Ian Angus, Facing the Anthropocene:Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of theEarth System (New York: MonthlyReview Press, 2016)

Detail from An Iro

n Forge (1772) Joseph W

right of D

erby W

iki

The total domination of finance capital, followed by its expansion across the earth’ssurface, has brought about unbridled environmental destruction.


JOE FLEMINGThe essential distinction was thedomination of market economics.Before this economic revolution theprice of land had been governed bycustom, rents being fixed often forcenturies without alteration.Landlords began to judge theirproperty’s value not by customarytenure but by the potential economicoutput of the land: how much profitcould be made from it. Maximumexploitation became an economicnecessity; the propertied who did notadhere to this soon found themselvespropertyless.

The mother and father of wealth—nature and human labour—came to beviewed solely as a means of producingeconomic value, with concern for theirwell-being and longevity featuring rarelyin account books.

All other forms of property andrelations with the land that did not followmarket logic—common land, customaryrights, peasant holdings—wereeliminated before the all-encompassing,ever-expanding profit motive. Thepeasantry (and small-scale farmers)were violently removed from their land inorder to produce profitable crops oranimals—look only to India, Senegal,Sudan or Colombia to see this processin real time.

This now dominant class, havingseized the means of production (lands,resources, machinery, labour, etc.) fromthe majority, invested not to produce aparticular need or want but toaccumulate greater value for theircapital. It was the onset of thesecapitalist social relations thatfundamentally broke, what Marx calledthe metabolic rift between humanity andnature: the give-and-take connectionthat humanity was reared on.

The destruction of this link has onlydeepened with continued capitalistexpansion. Inevitably, our relationshipwith the earth has become entirelyparasitic and destructive.

If this system had remained anEnglish or even a Europeanphenomenon there would be no fear ofenvironmental breakdown; but this isantithetical to capitalism’s fundamentalnature. The need to expand hasbrought its destructive logic to thewhole planet.

Imperialism is capitalism’sinternational manifestation. England’scenturies-long conquest of Irelandtransformed and intensified concurrentlywith the development of Englishcapitalism. Within a century, traditionalIrish society had been virtually wiped out.

This process has taken place on everycontinent on the globe, violently renderingthe majority of the world’s peopleseconomically tied to and dependent onthe imperial core.

Following the onset of modernmonopoly capitalism in the latenineteenth century, with increaseddomination by finance capital,imperialism intensified. As one indicationof this seismic transformation, fromowning 10 per cent of Africa in 1876,Europe suddenly owned 90 per cent ofthe continent by 1900. An entirecontinent was violently rendered adependency of Europe, the profits ofimperialists now the society’s motiveforce, replacing the primarily peasant-based economies of before.

The degradation and ruin done to thecontinent and its people by imperialism,alongside most of Asia and Latin America,was, and is, disastrous—for both peopleand the planet. The global masses havebeen dispossessed of their connection toand ownership of the soil and forced intoobedience to international capital andprofiteering in order to survive.

The current crisis moment, this fataljuncture in the history of humanity, wasevidently many centuries in the making,yet the specificity of the current historicepoch—capitalism’s current stage ofdevelopment—cannot be ignored. Thetotal domination of finance capital hasstretched capitalism’s contradictions totheir limits, leading to an even morefrenzied quest for avenues of capitalinvestment and maximum returns.

This took place concurrently with thefall of socialism in much of Asia andEurope, devastating the planet’sdelicate environment. Vast swathes ofthe earth that were centrally plannedwere thrust into the anarchy of theglobal capitalist economy, economiesrun in the interests of people giving wayto neo-colonial economies run in theinterests of the financial elite. Naturalresources were brutally exploited tofeed capital accumulation—such as thevast forests of Russia, conserved and

even expanded under the Soviet Union.This drastic decline in workers’ powersaw global capital brutally reassert itspower, stripping hard-wonenvironmental protections.

The total domination of financecapital, followed by its expansion acrossthe earth’s surface, has brought aboutunbridled environmental destruction. Eventhe capitalist class now openly acceptsthat human extinction is inevitable, giventhe present course. But even in the faceof this immediate threat of exterminationby means of an overheated earth, theviolent forces of capital and its ideology,liberalism, keep much of the working classfrom seizing power for itself and endingour death spiral.

Anything except capitalaccumulation is blamed:overpopulation, the consumption ofmeat, industrialisation by formercolonised countries—the problem iseither individualised or put on themasses of the global south. Theextraordinarily few corporationsproducing the vast majority of carbonemissions are ignored.

Unless humanity does away with thearbitrary domination of capital, and itsendless need to expand and wreakdestruction, our survival beyond thenext generation or two is doubtful. H

Sources and further reading (all available on line)John Bellamy Foster, “Late Sovietecology and the planetary crisis,”Monthly Review, June 2015.John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark,“The paradox of wealth: Capitalismand ecological destruction,” MonthlyReview, November 2009.V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The HighestStage of Capitalism.Fred Magdoff, “Twenty-first-centuryland grabs: Accumulation byagricultural dispossession,” MonthlyReview, November 2013.Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, chap. 15 (§10), p. 26–31.Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds:Rational Fascism and the Overthrow ofCommunism (San Francisco: CityLights, 2001), chaps. 6, 7, 9.Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin ofCapitalism: A Longer View (Londonand New York: Verso, 2002), chaps.5–7.

OPINION


FAYE SARSFIELD

Why does supporting trans liberationattack rather than defend genderroles and stereotypes? As Marxistswe must provide a materialistunderstanding of trans people tounderstand how to fight against ourpatriarchal society.

Trans liberation as class struggleFirst, we should examine what the conditions of transpeople are today. In 2013 the Transgender EqualityNetwork Ireland (TENI) published a report claimingthat 81 per cent of trans people have thought aboutor attempted suicide before transitioning. In additionto this, we see that health services for trans peopleare completely inadequate. Trans people often waitfor months to even get in front of an endocrinologist.

This situation seems to be arguably as bad or worsein the north, with an average waiting time of 166 weeksin Belfast. As a result of these dire circumstances, manytrans people opt to self-medicating by buying hormoneson line without any medical supervision or evenregulation from questionable web sites. Given that theprice of drugs on line is so high, a significant number ofworking-class trans people simply go without, and areunable to transition because of the sheer cost.

Thus there are a significant number of the transpopulation who are not visible as trans people. This hadled to the myth that trans people are middle and upper-class college kids that spent too much time on Tumblrand then decided that they are non-binary. In actuality,trans people, just like all people, exist as marginalisedmembers of the working class, as well as people likeCaitlyn Jenner, who will vote, act and do whatever ittakes to defend their own class position. We mustconclude that transgender liberation is a class issue,just as much as combating imperialism and patriarchyare.

Don’t trans rights neglect biological sex as amaterialist reality?We must understand that there is no such thing as awoman’s brain, a man’s body, nor any essentialcharacteristics of gender. Misogyny has developedhistorically as a means to divide labour and subjugatewomen and those perceived to be women to the willof patriarchy. Gender is an extremely nebulous term,and it is difficult to come up with any specificdefinitions as to what it relies upon.

If it is simply about giving birth or having a penis,then is an infertile man or an intersex woman not a man

or a woman? Or is this about the perception of one’smasculinity or femininity? I think it is also unreasonableto claim that a woman is simply an adult human female,because this leaves out trans women who were assignedmale at birth but experience misogyny just as much ascis women do.

In fact transmisogyny affects cis people just as muchas trans people. A cis woman in Florida was not seen asfemale enough and was sent to an all-male prison forten hours. I would argue that the most useful definitionof gender is one that gives priority to the safety ofwomen, trans and cis. Given that trans womenexperience violence at the hands of patriarchy, surelythis is enough reason for them to be able to usewomen’s spaces.

Women-only spaces are specifically for womenbecause they need to have a space to protectthemselves from men in our patriarchal society.

The withering away of genderI am both a Marxist and a trans woman. My lifeexperience has led me to consider the followingmetaphor: If we must use the dictatorship of theproletariat to overcome the class antagonism, inorder to build a stateless society, surely the samecould apply to gender?

There is a specific reason people identify as transand not as non-binary. Our gender society still hasspecific social markers and habits that cause one set ofexpressions to be gendered as feminine and others asmasculine. However, I believe as a Marxist and feministthat the end goal of our politics ought to be the creationof a stateless, classless and perhaps genderless society.

Yet, just as we critique the anarchists formisunderstanding how class relations operate and theneed for a workers’ state, I feel that there are oftensocialists who expect trans people to reject gender rolesbut not allow us to identify and enjoy the dignity of thegender we identify as.

Therefore I want to propose the withering away ofgender, along with the withering away of the state. I onlymean as a philosophical metaphor, rather than a newtheory of gender that we must follow. Having said that,just as with class antagonism, once we have overcomegender by allowing all people to take control of theirbodies and identities at the expense of our patriarchalcapitalist society, the need for a distinction betweengenders will become purely academic.

While I am a gender abolitionist, I see this witheringaway of gender, being fulfilled by the reconfigurations ofthe economic conditions that prevent trans people fromself-actualising

Economic conditions prevent us from transitioning orcause people to scapegoat us and allow us to be thevictims of discrimination, ostracisation, and violence. H

Why communists support trans rights

A transfusion of 1 litre of fresh and youthful blood in an Ambrosia centre will setyou back $8,000; 2 litres gets you a discounted rate of $12,000.


VampirecapitalismLAURA DUGGAN

IT’S HARD NOT To believe the end is nigh when the buyingand selling of blood turns out to be one of America’sbooming industries.The life-saving act of blood donation in Ireland operates on

a voluntary basis, besides the odd celebratory pin, and peopleare expected to give out of the goodness of their heart. Ofcourse with capitalists being hell-bent on lifting the plot fromevery dystopian film and making them into everyday realityone shouldn’t be surprised that blood is now a growing,privatised and lucrative business in some parts of the world.

A particularly egregious example of this bloodsucking trendis the return of Peter Thiel’s anti-aging company Ambrosia(a.k.a. Ivy Plasma). Thiel is another Silicon Valley billionaire,Trump supporter, and bankrupter of Gawker, and has hopes ofbeing the first immortal. His company, according to its ownweb site, “offer[s] infusions of young blood from donors ages16 to 25 . . . [leading to] improvements in biomarkers relatedto Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, inflammation, and stem cellsafter a single treatment with young blood . . . You must be atleast 30 years old to receive this treatment.”

A transfusion of 1 litre of fresh and youthful blood in anAmbrosia centre will set you back $8,000; 2 litres gets you adiscounted rate of $12,000. You can get further reductions ifyou merely want the blood and are willing to organise yourown transfusion.

Moving away from a billionaire’s pipe dream, a fewenormous bloodthirsty American companies, such as Grifolsand CSL, supply 70 per cent of the world’s plasma, mainlybecause most other countries have banned the practice, onethical and medical grounds.

In contrast to the money made on this plasma, the pricesfor plasma donation set by the blood-collection companiescan appear chaotic or arbitrary at first. For example, the firstfive times a person sells their blood they may receive $75; foreach sale after that they stand to earn between $20 and$50.

The companies are fully aware that people who continueto sell blood past the premium prices are desperate.Desperate means easier to exploit; and these donors can bepressured into selling for $30 this time in order to get closerto the $50 sale next time. Many of these blood-collectioncentres are enormous, with multiple rows of dozens ofmachines working away. It’s all very reminiscent of a batteryfarm.

These same desperate donors are allowed to donatetwice per week (104 times per year), provided they aren’tanaemic or dehydrated. To put this in perspective, Irelandallows blood donation once every 90 days, platelet donationonce every 28 days, for the safety of the donors. This twice-a-week blood donation, however, is another source ofincome that many American working poor have become

reliant on; and of course the hidden costs can be high.Losing two donations’ worth of plasma a week has

serious health consequences. About 70 per cent of regularAmerican donors experience health complications. Donorshave a lower protein count in their blood, putting them atgreater risk of infections and of liver and kidney disorders.Many regulars suffer from near-permanent fatigue and areborderline anaemic—disorders and illnesses that thesesame donors can’t afford to treat or avoid by ceasingdonations, donations that are then used to treat and ensurethe health and well-being of those who can afford medicaltreatment.

A warning issued by the US Food and DrugAdministration in February 2019 forced Ambrosia totemporarily shut its doors, only to reopen in November thesame year. Needless to say, the treatments are based onpseudo-science and have been dogged by controversy,including one patient dying as a possible result of the anti-aging transfusion.

This shouldn’t be the scandal, though: the logical endpoint of Thiel’s dystopian world vision would be an economyin which the wealthy subsist on the blood of the poor—literally vampire capitalism H

ECONOMY


EOIN MACDERMOTT

OVER THE PAST two months we’vebeen reminded constantly aboutthe supposed health of our

economy. Unfortunately, things are notas healthy as cherry-picked statisticsmight suggest—as anybody looking for ahospital bed or a home can clearly see.

We’re highly vulnerable as a small,open economy to the vagaries ofinternational capital, particularly toproblems in the United States. As the2008 crisis has shown us, issues in thecore soon spread to the periphery, andthe bursting of bubbles in the UnitedStates soon becomes a global issue thataffects us all. For this reason it’s worthassessing a number of currentweaknesses in the US economy.Pensions, corporate debt,and equity bubbles

Each downturn has its origins in the“solutions” to the last; and the onethat looms before us is no different.Quantitative easing (QE), whichinvolved central banks creating trillionsof dollars through the purchase ofprivate bonds and financial assets,was supposed to encourage lendingand investment. In one respect itworked. Corporate debt has bloomedto unforeseen levels, thoughproductive investment has failed toincrease in tandem, a phenomenonwe also see closer to home in the EU.

It was assumed that a blockage inthe circuit of capital, M–C … P … C –Mrested with M, indicating that theproblem lay in a shortage of moneycapital. But the problem lies rather inthe movement from C to P, indicating acrisis of confidence in the capitalist classabout throwing their capital into the

process of production.With declining rates of profit and

deep uncertainty, there is little incentivefor the capitalist class to risk whatcapital they have now if they are notcertain to recoup it later. We seeindications of this as the velocity ofmoney (M2) has collapsed, indicatingthat money is being hoarded rather thanused productively.

Who bought the corporate debt, andwhat did corporations do with it if notemploy it in the process of production?The purchasers have largely been centralbanks through QE and pension funds,the latter desperate to buy revenue-generating assets, even if their quality ishighly dubious. Money raised throughthe issuing of corporate debt has largelybeen used to buy back shares, inflatingthe value of stocks, to the delight ofthose who earn their living from

The crisis of late imperialism NICOLA LAWLOR

UNDERSTANDING IMPERIALISM Isvital to our understanding of theworld today, enabling us to chart a

path forward to tackle the environmentalcrisis and to move humanity towards asystem of equality and commonownership—socialism.

Unfortunately, many on the left eitherreject the existence of imperialism infavour of a mechanical understanding ofa capitalism of a different era or reduceimperialism to the military invasions andoccupations of certain states or areas.Both views are incorrect.

While capitalism is the system, theprocess by which capital reproducesitself (M–C–M and M–M ), imperialismis the entirety of power structures

globally—political, economic, social,cultural, military—that underpinaccumulation on a worldwide scale andthat have divided the world into a centreand a periphery, north and south.

Our understanding of imperialism asa historical stage of capitalism, theconcrete manifestation of capitalism atthis point in history, goes back to thework of a number of theorists at thebeginning of the twentieth century, whenthis stage of capitalism was burstingforth, including Hobson, Lenin,Luxemburg, Hilferding, and Bukharin, toname a few.

Marxist theorists, in the tradition ofthose early critiques of imperialism, arenow discussing and defining the presentperiod as “late imperialism,” whereglobal monopolies govern a world

system that is crisis-ridden as a result ofthe very processes of concentration andcentralisation that led to thesemonopolies.

Samir Amin points to a triad ofimperialist centres—North America,Europe, and Japan—as being the core.The features of late imperialism arestagnation, globalised production, labourarbitrage, financialisation, permanentglobal unemployment, permanentmilitary expenditure and war, andprivatisation.

These features give rise to a numberof crises or rifts, which are irreconcilable:(1) economic(2) the state and democracy(3) ideological(4) environmental.

The degree of concentration of

Signs of the next economic crisis

The concentration of wealth has caused the decay of democracy in western statesand corrupted democracy in the periphery.


economic power has ultimately causedstagnation in the system, resulting inconstant bubbles, bursts, and crises ofoverproduction. The concentration ofwealth has caused the decay ofdemocracy in western states andcorrupted democracy in the periphery.Democracy is no longer the chosen pathof rule for capital as states becomeincreasingly authoritarian, leaving only ademocratic façade.

Capital is increasingly turning tonationalist and neo-fascist organisationsto govern politically for it, asideologically it has little to offer, otherthan reactionary demagoguery, in thecontext of high levels of inequality,poverty, and permanent unemploymentglobally.

The final, but most important,element of the crisis of late imperialismis the environmental rift betweencapitalism and nature. Given thenecessity by global monopolies toexploit nature for profit, there is noquestion but that imperialism will not beable to continue and preventenvironmental catastrophe. It is one orthe other; and incorporating radicalecology in anti-imperialist strategy isvital for the fight for socialism.

Ultimately, these points of crisis arewhat call into question the system’s

ability to reproduce itself for thatprocess of M–C–M and M–M tooperate uninterrupted and to managedisconnect within structures. But whatis lacking is the agency for turning thesecrises into a revolutionary movement;what is lacking is a conscious anti-imperialist internationalist globalmovement, led primarily by the workingclass but including peasants,agricultural labour, intellectuals,students, and oppressed peoples.

Before Amin died he made a call forthis.Constructing a transnational allianceof workers and oppressed peoples ofthe entire world has to be the mainobjective of the struggle to counteractthe spread of contemporaryimperialist capitalism . . . Nothingdecisive will affect the attachment ofthe peoples of the triad to theirimperialist option, especially in Europe. . . The most probable outcome willbe a remake of the twentieth century:advances made exclusively in some ofthe peripheries of the system. Butthese advances will remain fragile, ashave those of the past, and for thesame reason—the permanent warfarewaged against them by the imperialistpower centers, the success of whichis greatly due to their own limits and

deviations . . . This constructioncannot be a remake of theInternationals of the past—theSecond, the Third, or the Fourth. Ithas to be founded on other and newprinciples: an alliance of all workingpeoples of the world and not onlythose qualified as representatives ofthe proletariat (recognizing also thatthis definition is itself matter ofdebate), including all wage earners ofthe services, peasants, farmers, andthe peoples oppressed by moderncapitalism. The construction mustalso be based on the recognition andrespect of diversity, whether ofparties, trade unions, or other popularorganizations in struggle,guaranteeing their real independence.Amin saw progress as stemming

primarily from the peripheral countriesand peoples in struggle againstimperialism—and the role ofprogressives in the core countries to bean anti-imperialist support for thesestruggle and the weakening of coreimperialism.

He called for a new International.Right up to his death Amin developedand advanced Marxist analysis, and alsochallenged us to conceive of how we winsocialism, how we make revolution. Thiscall is worth serious consideration. H

ownership rather than labour.So, once again, the stock market

soars while normal people suffer.Usually there is a significant

correlation between the increase inshare price and an increase in the valueof a corporation. As a corporationbecomes more profitable the sharevalue increases, as stock-owners expecthigher returns. The link between valueand growth in stock price has neverbeen weaker, with share prices climbingto exalted heights as underlyingvaluations fail to match—the drivingfactors being share buybacks, recent taxcuts, and bubbles in momentum stocksby pension funds forced to seek highreturns because of low interest rates.None of these are sustainable.

This lays the foundation for a crisis inthe pension system and the stockmarket of catastrophic proportions, acrisis that may be significantly worsethan the last. Workers are, for all intentsand purposes, lending their pensions to

the capitalist class, who use the moneyto inflate the value of their assets—andhave no intention of paying those loansback when the scheme inevitablycollapses.

Far from stability, we’re teetering onthe edge of a very dangerous precipice.

How will it affect ordinary people?Predicting the exact time and date ofan economic crisis is a waste of time.That doesn’t mean that we can’tobserve the weaknesses in thecapitalist system that are most likelyto bring us to the next crisis. Like aship with numerous breaches andhasty repairs to its hull, we are able toidentify the most likely points of failureeven if we don’t know the exactmoment when a breach will beopened. When the hull starts groaningand small leaks spring, we should takenote.

As the last crisis has shown us, theinterests of the capitalist class are

protected while ordinary people areforced to carry the burden of saving asystem that works against theirinterests.

The establishment will offer the sameineffective “solutions” to the next crisisas it did for the last: more austerity, asordinary people are swindled out of theirpensions and forced to endure cuts tovital public services—none of which willsolve the underlying problem of adiminishing rate of profit inherent in thecapitalist mode of production.

Yet there is an alternative. Ratherthan leaving the process of productionto the whims of a class hell-bent onaccumulating capital, regardless of thesocial and environmental impact, wecan and must organise our system ofproduction around human needs.

The only way to prevent thisdestructive cycle continuing is to breakit, with demands for a democratic,rational economy that plans for, andmeets, the needs of the majority. H

JENNY FARRELL

THE MOST famous, fabled and fêtedIrish filí (poets) are male. Thereasons lie clearly in patriarchal

class society. All the more reason for usto seek out the female representativesof a skill that in the old Irish days wasassociated with prophesying or “seeing,”in fact the Irish word file derives fromjust this meaning.

The oldest piece of writing that hascome down to us, albeit through thelens of Early Christian monks, celebratespowerful women, including just such aprophetess-poet, Fedelm. Thisprofession was largely oral, initially in apre-literate society, and survived for along time in storytelling and so on.Some types of poetic expression werethe reserve predominantly of women.Most notably among these, perhaps, isa caoineadh or lament. Eibhlín Dhubh NíChonaill’s “Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire,”(Lament for Art Ó Laoghaire), spoken in1773, is one of the greatest laments inIrish literature.

In this lament Eibhlín Dhubhdescribes the circumstances surroundingthe murder of her husband, Art, inCarraig an Ime, Co. Cork, at the behestof a planter, Abraham Morris.

At the same time the lament speakson behalf of the oppressed Catholicpopulation of Ireland, suffering undercolonial rule. Specifically, this is aboutthe rebellion against the Penal Laws,which prohibited, among other things,education for Catholic children, andrestricting the right to property—forexample owning a horse worth morethan five pounds.

Morris outlawed Art Ó Laoghaire forrefusing to sell him for five pounds ahorse that Art had brought back from hisservice in the Austro-Hungarian army. Hedecreed that Ó Laoghaire couldconsequently be shot on sight.

Art and Eibhlín came from importantIrish families. The earls had fled fromIreland to the European continent,consolidating the complete collapse of

the old order. Part of the survivingCatholic nobility, Art was educated onthe Continent, and served as a hussar.

The Lament is divided into five parts.The first part was probably spoken byEibhlín over the body of her husband inCarraig an Ime, beginning with a shortaccount of how the lovers met, eloped,and married.

My steadfast love!When I saw you one dayby the market-house gablemy eye gave a lookmy heart shone outI fled with you farfrom friends and homeEibhlín repeatedly addresses Art as

friend and partner, as an equal. Hereshe describes the awe and fear that Artinstilled in the English by his imposingfigure and defying the Penal Laws. Hecarried a valuable sword, wore splendidclothes, and rode his white-faced steed.

My steadfast friend!it comes to my mindthat fine Spring dayhow well your hat lookedwith the drawn gold band,the sword silver-hiltedyour fine brave hand. . .You were set to rideyour slim white-faced steedand Saxons saluteddown to the ground,not from good willbut by dint of fear—though you died at their hands,my soul’s beloved . . .She also evokes their happy home

life and Art’s love for his sons.Then she speaks of the moment

when Art’s death became clear to her,when his horse returned riderless totheir homestead. Eibhlín’s determinationand courage increases, and she leapsinto the saddle and gallops to the scene,where she finds Art’s lifeless body:

to find you there deadby a low furze-bushwith no Pope or bishopor clergy or priestto read a psalm over you

but a spent old womanwho spread her cloak cornerwhere your blood streamed from you,and I didn’t stop to clean itbut drank it from my palms.No-one is present, other than this

old Mother Ireland. Her identity isevident in that she uses a traditionalcloak. It is also significant that noCatholic clergy were present. Eibhlín isleft alone with this woman.

It is a desolate picture of the state ofthe country and its forgotten loyalties.Remarkably, in all this lament there is nohope for life after death; one might evensay that the absent clergy at the scenehave disqualified it from a role in theliberation of the country. Eibhlín can onlyrely on herself alone—supported by oldMother Ireland.

In the second part, a disputebetween Art’s sister and Eibhlín takesplace, in which her sister-in-law accusesEibhlín of having been in bed when shecame to the farm from Cork. This maywell be a commentary on the discordbetween the two noble families and, in awider context, on the disintegration ofthe vanishing Gaelic order.

As the body is prepared for burial,Eibhlín utters her curse on Morris.

Ruin and bad cess to you,ugly traitor Morris,who took the man of my houseand father of my young ones—a pair walking the houseand the third in my womb,and I doubt that I’ll bear it.Then, images from nature suggest

that Art was the true ruler of the country,even if the population has forgotten this.

Take the narrow road eastwardwhere the bushes bend before youand the stream will narrow for youand men and women will bowif they have their proper manners—as I doubt they have at present

. . .Into every part of this lament is

written Eibhlín’s resistance againstforeign rule and the oppression of herpeople. This connects her very closelywith Art.

POETRY

A grieving woman resolves to liberate Ireland


Some types of poetic expression were the reserve predominantly of women.Most notably among these, perhaps, is a caoineadh or lament.

Returning to the murder, Eibhlínexplains her resolve to avenge it. Shewill use every avenue to obtain justice:She will sell her belongings:

but I’ll spend it on the law;that I’ll go across the oceanto argue with the King,and if he won’t pay attentionthat I’ll come back againto the black-blooded savagethat took my treasure.If the legal paths fail, Eibhlín is

ready to avenge Art herself, the manwho represented Ireland’s Gaelicorder. Increasingly, Eibhlín develops

into the independent woman who willdetermine her life and, by implication,stand up for her people.

In the last, fifth part Eibhlín’s grainand livestock are thriving despite hergreat grief. She has taken up Art’slegacy. She will run the farm, raise thechildren, and avenge Art. Contrary tothe expectations in seventeenth andeighteenth-century aisling poetry, inwhich a female figure awaits a malesaviour, Eibhlín takes this fate into herown hands, following in the traditionof the strong Gaelic women, and willfree Ireland from foreign rule.H


A huge loss

Henry Dent (1956–2019)

Comrades have been saddened bythe death of Henry Dent, a formersecretary of Dublin District CPI.

For many years Henry was a frequentand characteristic participant on Dublinmarches and demonstrations for everyprogressive cause. He also staffedConnolly Books in a voluntary capacityfrom time to time.

Henry, along with his comradeRosanna Flynn, was the mainstay ofResidents Against Racism. In thatcapacity he worked tirelessly and quietlyto assist individuals in claiming their rightto refugee status or to avoid deportation.He accompanied people to court,assisted with form-filling, and organisedreliable legal assistance.

Following Henry’s death ResidentsAgainst Racism held an evening oftribute in the Teachers’ Club in Dublin,which was attended by a number ofimmigrants who would not be livinglegally in Ireland were it not for his work.Other individuals were grateful to him forhis quiet advice in dealing with personal,family or social difficulties that theyexperienced arising from their sexuality.

Compassion was at the heart ofeverything Henry did. He loved peopleand animals, life and nature. He was avegan from a time when most of us didnot know what that meant, and wouldnot even take necessary medicine if hesuspected the producers hadexperimented on animals.

Fágann a bhás líon mór daoine faoibhrón.M. Mac A.

HOUSING


GRAHAM HARRINGTON

Eoin Ó Broin, Home: Why PublicHousing Is the Answer (Dublin: Merrion Press, 2020).

MUCH LIKE its author, Sinn Féin’sspokesperson on housing, Homeis a very nice and pleasant book.

However, given the context of an ever-increasing homelessness crisis, it fallsshort of providing a truly transformativesolution to the housing andhomelessness crises.

While it is well written andresearched, its weakness is itsconclusions, as they do not seem tocome from a thorough understanding ofthe capitalist system and the realities ofhousing policy in a capitalist state.

The treatment of housing policyhistorically does not provide for muchdisagreement. Ó Broin contends that thenew Free State embarked on more orless the same type of housing policy ashad existed under British rule , favouringhome ownership rather than any state-led investment in public housing. It isexplained, correctly, that it was theinflexibility on this policy, and not somegenetic trait of the Irish people to favourhome ownership, that explains the lackof public housing in comparison with

other countries. We might add that thiswas an inevitable consequence of thecounter-revolution of 1922–23.

The author admits that he lacks theability to include an analysis of thehousing situation in the north of Ireland,and as a result the book deals only withthe twenty-six counties, andunfortunately it shows. The preference inthe book for “public housing” with theinvolvement of so-called approvedhousing bodies (AHBs), which includethe likes of NGOs and charities, doesn’ttake into account the realities of howthat policy has been used by the Britishgovernment in the north of Ireland,where the AHBs have been different onlyin form, but not in content, from anylandlord, requiring a profit to run andneeding capital to make investments, notto mention not having any accountabilityto the tenants themselves.

Ó Broin favours a system that canonly be described as eclectic, trying tobring together all the best parts ofeverything in a neat policy. Class struggleis rarely, if ever, that simple,unfortunately. The proposal to buildupwards of 100,000 homes might godown well as an election slogan, but as ademand that creates a housing policythat would eradicate the scourge ofhomelessness for ever it falls short, forthe simple reason that it is simply atweaking of the “fiscal space” afforded toany capitalist government. It is stillplaying within the confines set by neo-liberalism.

The book does not take into accountthe massive vacant housing stock, wellabove of 200,000 vacant properties,which could be used to house not onlythe homeless but all those on thehousing waiting-lists. Of course in acapitalist system this would not beallowed happen without being a result ofintense political struggle.

Building homes, even if they arepublicly owned, in an effort to manipulatethe logic of supply and demand can onlyprovide a short-term fix, not a long-termsolution. People do not need homes infive years’ time or however long it takesto build: they need them now.

A long-term solution can only be the

complete removing of the private sector,the landlords and developers, fromhousing provision. While Ó Broin favourstraining courses for landlords, and effortsby the state to put manners on the worstof them, this simply will not work inreality. The 20 per cent of landlords thatare large transnational corporations,such as I-RES REIT, the largest landlordin the state, are the monopoly capitalistsin the housing industry. They are theones who make the policy. The fact thatmost apartments being built now arebeing sold to large groups such as theAmerican investment group Heitman,which then leases them for rent, onlyshows that this is a system that isworking very well.

Ó Broin’s belief in the cost-rentalmodel is another cause for concern,given the reality of the St Michael’sEstate project, where rents werepractically the same, as the CPI said atthe time. This type of “alternative” onlyworks to let the state and employers offthe hook when it comes to such issuesas low pay, with workers and theirfamilies still bearing the burden ofcapitalism’s problems.

In a system of universal publichousing, financed by progressive rentslinked to income, housing would be aservice provided by society, not by theprivate sector. As much as this wouldconflict with the EU, that’s notnecessarily a bad thing.

Overall, Home is a decent read,but those looking for more shouldn’tput away their copies of SocialistVoice just yet. H

Universal public housing is the only way

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Building homes, even if they are publicly owned, in aneffort to manipulate the logic of supply and demand canonly provide a short-term fix, not a long-term solution.

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