Dr. Conor McCabeUCD School of Social Justice

Over the last quarter of a century something fundamental seems to have changed in the way in which capitalism works.

The tendency since 1970 has been towards greater geographical mobility of capital.

Rather than being a modest helper to the capital accumulation process, [finance] gradually turned into a driving force.

Speculative finance became a kind of secondary engine for growth given the weakness in the primary engine, productive investment.

“Part of the reason people get less giddy about the Dow than they did five years ago is that they have learnt a bit about inequality.

what looks like a recovery, a rally or an increase in consumer confidence may just be the effect of elites passing money among themselves.“

Christopher Caldwell, FT 9 March 2013

One company – 200 employees

One employee– 200 companies

Irish Executives in the six lenders must have been rubbing their hands with glee as the State-sponsored €400 billion insurance policy covers commercial, institutional and interbank deposits, and investors who have bought some of their debt.

The State guarantee allows the six lenders to borrow more freely and more cheaply for short-term funding that had become scarce due to the global credit crunch.

Mr. Lenihan said on Tuesday that the increase on the cap on deposit guarantees up to €100,000 from €20,000 last month covered 97 per cent of customer deposits so the guarantee has clearly been included for the benefit of the banks rather than the savers…

“Denis Casey, chief executive of Irish Life and Permanent, said the guarantee would allow Permanent TSB and the other Irish banks covered to borrow more cheaply.

“The oxygen supply for Irish banks was being cut off and healthy banks were starting to gasp for breath. This guarantee turns on the oxygen supply.”

“Eurostat, the EU Commission’s data agency has calculated the cost of the banking crisis in each EU country. The following focuses on the cost to general government budgets. Ireland has really taken one for Team EU.”

A Really Really Special Case Requires a Really Really Special Solution

Michael Taft, 15 Jan 2013

“Capitalism exploits more work and production relations than just labour relations.”

The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society reproduces its families, citizens and workers.

‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society reproduces its families, citizens and workers.

It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.

‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society reproduces its families, citizens and workers.

It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.

As a concept social reproduction has been key to feminist social theory, because it challenges the usual distinctions that are made between productive and reproductive labour, or between the labour market and the home.

‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

Over the past thirty years, despite their being essential to human life, neoliberal restructuring across the world has privatised, eroded and demolished our shared resources, and ushered in a ‘crisis of social reproduction.’

‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

as a result of cuts to benefits and the social wage, women are also being forced out of the home and into (predominantly low paid) waged work, as families increasingly require more income to cover the basic cost of living.

[In the UK] Proposed benefit reform brutally promises to `encourage' mothers back to work through compulsory labour programmes; lone parents will be expected to be actively seeking work when their children are as young as five years old.

‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

The combined effects for working women of the removal of socially provided childcare (which should be seen as part of the social wage),

the diminishing availability of work that pays an adequate wage,

and the increase in their responsibilities for unpaid care work,

tend to push women into informal labour markets, including sex work, that are unregulated, and in which workers face high levels of exploitation and, often, violence.

‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)