Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Over two issues of Socialist Voice (January and March 2018) there were two articles that explained the capitalist illusion that perpetuates the class division in society. A great deception has allowed a tiny minority of the world’s population to own and control the vast majority of wealth that is created, […]
“Universal basic income” is being suggested by many on the left, as well as the right, as a solution to world inequality and poverty. It’s been doing the rounds for a number of years now as a way of creating a fairer and more equal society. It has been tested […]
The centralisation and concentration of both capital and power means that corporations can withstand scandals and continue to retain the support of both the state and shareholders. It takes something really massive and rare for an Arthur Andersen, Enron or Lehman Brothers to happen. Here are a few recent scandals […]
The January issue of Socialist Voice had an article by me entitled “The wage system and the capitalist illusion.” A worker being told they are getting their equivalent wage relating to their work is being held captive by an illusion that in reality leads to a non-equivalent exchange, which is […]
Marx’s theories are the key to understanding the Irish housing crisis. It may seem that the situation we find ourselves in is a uniquely modern one, but nothing could be further from the truth. What has happened is a gradual shift from battles at the “point of production” (where value […]
■ See “Understanding land value tax” by Eoghan O’Neill, Socialist Voice, January 2018, p. 10 I do not think it is correct to suggest that land is finite but can be reused. We have seen in Chernobyl that land will not be reusable in any human lifetime; it is useless for […]
A growing international tendency that should concern political activists is the rightward turn of working-class voters. In the United States, workers’ support determined the election of the ultra-rightist Donald Trump, presenting himself as fighting neo-liberalism and the globalisation policies of the ruling Democratic Party, seen as driving American industry overseas. […]
Next January the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum will mark the centenary of the first Dáil Éireann and the publication of one of modern Ireland’s landmark documents, the Democratic Programme. The forum will celebrate the occasion with a conference in Liberty Hall, Dublin. While it is important that seminal events […]
The crisis in health services is Europe-wide. The pace of market-driven health “reform” has speeded up since capitalism’s 2008 crash as neo- liberal governments—with both conservative and social democratic labels—have imposed the costs of saving the banks on working people. Public health services, with their massive property holdings, substantial staff […]
With the mainstream of the Democratic Party in the United States beginning to get behind Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” policy, it brings a sharp focus to how this sort of policy is financed. That such a policy could be gaining traction in the United States, especially in its current […]
It is constantly repeated in the pro-boss media that the Irish economy is in recovery, and that this is in full swing throughout the European Union. One has to ask the serious question: A recovery for whom, and at what price? They repeat the mantra that unemployment levels are coming […]
In the early 1950s American companies wanted to invest in Ireland so that they could expand into the European market; and Irish corporation tax policy was adapted for them. In 1956 export profits tax relief was introduced. Exports of manufactured goods were zero-rated (no tax); so American companies that exported […]
Ideology has dominated the Irish housing sector since the outset. There is no period in history, even during times of relatively robust state house-building, that could be said to have had a stable or working housing system. From tenements to failed housing experiments to bubbles, the Irish story of housing […]
An introduction After hearing the minister for housing, Eoghan Murphy, declare the Government’s response to the housing crisis—namely changing planning regulations and restrictions for developments and the clear impact it would actually have—it reminded me of a small pamphlet that I picked up in Connolly Books back in 2008, Land […]
Has the wage system hidden the class nature of our society, where one section—the capitalist class, the owners of finance and industry—exploit working people, the wealth-producers? It is this class that enforces the wage system, as they are the paymasters at the end of the day. Working people enter into […]
We cannot ignore the recent election result in Germany. What happens in the most powerful and influential state in Europe west of Russia must interest us all, as inevitably it will have an impact in Ireland and elsewhere. Moreover, while the electoral success of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AFD) […]