Regina Doherty’s latest proposals are designed to further undermine the state retirement system as it now stands. In effect the minister, and the bourgeois commentators, regard anything with the word “state” as being tainted and bad.
Political Economy
The face of monopoly capitalism
Amazon is Europe’s largest internet retailer, with a turnover twice that of its twenty largest competitors. In 2017 its chief executive earned $2.16 million per hour, while Amazon workers receive the statutory minimum wage, which in the EU varies between €1.42 and €11.27 per hour. In 2018 the company generated […]
Clothing and super-exploitation
At the end of May 2019 a study published by the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University drew attention to the demeaning conditions in the global clothing industry. The report shows how monopoly capitalism (imperialism) exploits countries, both large and small, that try to develop […]
Identity and class
There is no truly universal experience of the world. It is deeply influenced by how we have been taught to orient ourselves in that world, which then predicts how we interact with it. Language is one such example. Monoglot English-speakers break their day down into time slots and scheduled intervals; […]
The capitalist illusion and technological innovation
What happens to labour when the ratio of jobs being created is dwarfed by the number of people entering the labour force? The futurists look to an existence where automation and artificial intelligence—as opposed to just machines and robots—in a multitude of disciplines, such as complex medical diagnosis and autonomous […]
The capitalist illusion and the independent state (part 2)
Part 2 ■ Part 1 of this article was published in February. All the wealth created by labour in the production process is appropriated by capital, only appearing in its money form in the exchange process, with a portion of the proceeds then being redistributed back to labour through the […]
The capitalist illusion and the independent state (part 1)
In this series on the Capitalist Illusion I have tried to expose as clearly and plainly as possible the exploitative class nature of the capitalist system at the level of both the individual worker and internationally. The next task is to clearly understand how all this is facilitated within borders, […]
Universal basic income and the end of “democratic capitalism”
In much of the Western world the period immediately following the Second World War saw major changes in the nature of capitalist economic management and planning. In response to the threats of renewed economic depression and of socialism (from both within and without), several of the major capitalist states expanded […]
The growing debt crisis
Global debt is now becoming a major factor in the instability of the system of capitalism. Figures show that in the second quarter of 2018 global debt reached a new record, rising to $260,000 billion. Of this total, 61 per cent—$160 trillion—is private debt of the non-financial sector, while 23 […]
The political power of central banks
The dominant ideological story of central banks is that removing them from the control of governments depoliticised them and made them neutral, “scientific” actors in the economy. The argument goes that, as economics developed into a science, with the primary aim of keeping inflation low, making central banks independent allowed […]
Manipulation and the role of social media
Social media and Google serve three strategic purposes for the US government. Firstly, they allow the United States to conduct espionage; secondly, they facilitate the spread of disinformation; and thirdly, they serve as conduits for the transmission of social contagions.
The Rights of Man
Thomas Paine’s famous work Rights of Man was published in 1791. It was written as a reply to Reflections on the Revolution in France by the Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke. Burke’s book was an attack on the principles of the French Revolution, written by a representative of the ruling class […]