Options
are starting to run out for the Irish ruling class, already this week
they have deployed Jedward, Jack Charlton and the British Queen, while
Obama is waiting in the wings. Sooner
or later Bono and Geldof will appear and then it’ll be back to normal,
maybe they’ll even take the seals off the post boxes. Normal of course
is the IMF/EU, the Croke Park agreement and trying to reduce the
interest rates on the bailout.
Options
are starting to run out for the Irish ruling class, already this week
they have deployed Jedward, Jack Charlton and the British Queen, while
Obama is waiting in the wings. Sooner
or later Bono and Geldof will appear and then it’ll be back to normal,
maybe they’ll even take the seals off the post boxes. Normal of course
is the IMF/EU, the Croke Park agreement and trying to reduce the
interest rates on the bailout.
It’ll take a little bit more than a media circus to deal with the crisis in the economy. Although
€30 million might appear to some people at Leinster House as good value
if it takes workers eyes off the mess that the state is in. As the
Queen departed in her luminous green dress the review into Joint Labour
Committees and Registered Employment Agreements was published and the
crisis in the eurozone reared its head again.
While the JLC and REA
review is couched in fairly careful language it’s obvious that the
bosses are after tearing up the agreements as RTÉ commented:
“However, the review of Joint
Labour Committees and Registered Employment Agreements, carried out by
Labour Court Chairman Kevin Duffy and UCD Professor of Economics Frank
Walsh, says the system needs a radical overhaul to make it fairer and
more responsive to changing economic circumstances.
Employers have argued that the
system of sectoral agreements hampers competitiveness and job creation,
and is unaffordable in the current economic crisis.”
So far from a new period of peace and
harmony breaking out, with Sinn Féin and Orange Order representatives
shaking hands with the Queen at various tourist traps across the land,
it looks like the bosses are preparing for fresh assaults on working
people. That is the nature of the current period in Ireland and
internationally for that matter as the reports from Spain demonstrate.
Every time the government and the ruling class attempt to create some
sort of equilibrium the contradiction is that their actions merely serve
to undermine the status quo.
That was the lesson of the FF/Green
coalition, and there is no reason to suspect that the new FG/Labour
coalition will fare any better. Capitalism is fatally flawed as an
economic and political system encompassing the whole world and dragging
all working people throughout the world down with it.
But Ireland’s
position is especially weak. The scale of the crisis in the eurozone
represents a Sword of Damocles hanging over the state as the British Guardian newspaper remarked yesterday:
“The
International Monetary Fund has warned that Ireland’s rescue plans could
be blown off course as markets lose confidence in the eurozone’s
indebted nations and drive up borrowing costs.
Without a
comprehensive rescue plan covering the eurozone, Ireland could be
blocked from borrowing on the international money markets until at least
2013, leading to a prolonged period of public spending cuts and lower
growth, the Washington-based organisation said.
"Slower
growth, and higher unemployment, further ratings downgrades and
developments in other euro area countries have contributed to a rise in
bond spreads that hinders Ireland’s prospects to regain market access on
affordable terms in the near future," it said.”
The explanation
for this is quite clear; you can’t control what you don’t own. As long
as the financial system is dominated by speculators and big capitalist
institutions there is no prospect of planning in the long term. In an
economic boom the contradictions of the world financial markets are
masked by the general development of the world economy. This is what
lies behind the policy of “convergence” that was much touted when the
euro was being developed. But in a slump all bets are off, the economies
drift apart and the speculators pounce on the weakest countries and
demand their pound of flesh.
Ireland can’t
solve its problems on the basis of capitalism, neither can any of the
countries in the eurozone or in the world for that matter. Promoting
feudal relics like HM Queen won’t solve anything in the long run either.
The only way out of this crisis and the only way to ensure a harmonious
development of society on a world scale is through the overthrow of
capitalism and the ditching of all the parasites, be they bankers,
speculators, capitalists or royalty.
