Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Prison abolitionism is often viewed as a utopian idea, but when we examine the root causes of crime, and the victims of the legal system, it’s clear that if abolitionism is utopianism we are living in a dystopia. When a particularly heinous crime is committed it is the typical reaction […]
Weakening of the structure of capitalism in Ireland Two recent articles in Socialist Voice – “On the need for a focal point,” parts 1 and 2 – attempted to deal with the importance of directed, planned and conscious interventions in the class struggle. The articles put forward a framework for […]
The list of groups in Ireland, even today, that campaign, pressure, expose, support or oppose an endless list of issues is mind-boggling. In a lot of cases it is an industry grant-aided by the state – the so-called “third sector” of society. Community groups, social groups, pressure groups, protest movements, […]
The constant growth of capitalism, fuelled by exploitation, has resulted in an energy crisis in the European Union. Oil prices have risen by 60 per cent this year, while natural gas has risen by 500 per cent, and coal prices in China are at a record. The increase in gas […]
The housing crisis has laid bare the ruthless nature of capitalism, its parasitic and exploitative nature. There is simply no lengths it will not go to to secure its interests, to secure profits and the further accumulation of capital. But the housing crisis has exposed not only the real nature […]
The “epic” battle being waged—or rather being reported on in the corporate entertainment press—is between streamers and cinemas, or between various streamers. However, this is a battle now being fought not just in the United States—Netflix is already losing American subscribers to its rivals Disney+ and HBO Max—but throughout the […]
While always having access to the coercive arms of the state, capitalists prefer to adopt less abrasive, more PR-savvy methods when possible. This is where Kelly and the Teneos of this world come in.
Fianna Fáil, at 5 per cent, had a record low share of the vote in the recent by-election. The response of their director of elections, Jim O’Callaghan, was, “We must do better on housing.” This is their strategy: lead people to believe that this was a wake-up call, leading to […]
In Ireland, just like elsewhere, our movement stands in front of a seemingly impenetrable wall: the great wall of capital. The unfortunate reality is that we are even further from tearing it down than we were a hundred years ago, when the last revolutionary high point of Irish history was […]
The announcement on Sunday 18 April 2021 by a group of twelve “elite” football clubs in England, Spain and Italy—Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan—that they intend to set up a European Super League brought widespread […]
“Our cities can never be made really habitable or worthy of an enlightened people while the habitations of its citizens remain the property of private individuals. To permanently remedy the evils of city life the citizens must own their city.” (James Connolly, Workers’ Republic, 18 November 1899) “The so-called housing shortage, which […]
T. S. Elliott wrote in “Choruses from ‘The Rock’” (1934): Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? We have all the knowledge and information about climate change, but the capitalist system doesn’t allow us to act with wisdom. As a […]
The article by Alan Farrell in the March issue under the heading “In defence of China” raises some extremely important questions but offers answers that are unsustainable. The writer asks three questions to represent the concerns expressed by many people, and proceeds to answer them. But the questions themselves are […]
Ireland’s mental health crisis was already in a bad way before covid; now it’s getting even worse. Covid has not caused the crisis, it has only made it even more serious.
As quarantine conditions worsen, it’s becoming more apparent that isolation and alienation are a serious danger to human beings. Yet alienation is a central component of capitalism as a system.
At the end of 2020 the water “futures” of California, the largest state in the United States in population and economy, were floated on Wall Street for the first time, under the banner of Nasdaq Veles California Water Index.1 It was the first flotation of its kind, offering potential investors the opportunity to hedge against the future availability of water in California: in simple terms, to get rich from the scarcity of the most important substance for all human, animal and plant life to survive.
You don’t need to have an ideological position to recognise that capitalism is rotten to the core. It is a massive lie from start to finish; but, like any lie that is repeated time and time again, the lies become “truth.”
Whether you are in the middle of a supermarket or the middle of a war, you are surrounded by a cushion of lies, designed to both confuse you and comfort you and always aimed to make you believe that you have no power.