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The Irish Bubble

category national | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis author Friday December 17, 2010 10:22author by Paddy Hackettauthor email maxanger at live dot ie Report this post to the editors

Concerning the “deal between the Irish Government and the ECB/EU/IMF troika” Constantin Gurdgiev argues in the Sunday Independent, December 5th 2010, that far “from providing a resolution to Ireland’s financial and fiscal crises, it made the restructuring of our banks’ debt inevitable,

Concerning the “deal between the Irish Government and the ECB/EU/IMF troika” Constantin Gurdgiev argues in the Sunday Independent, December 5th 2010, that far “from providing a resolution to Ireland’s financial and fiscal crises, it made the restructuring of our banks’ debt inevitable, no matter what the conditions underlying the deal says.” Gurdgiev has been one of the those analysts stridently calling for a large and significant part of the total surplus value owed by the Irish state and banks to be transferred abroad. There appear to be at at least three kinds of economic commentator occupying the public stage in Ireland at the moment.

The first kind might fit into the neo-liberal group: They are of the view that the total exchange value foisted onto the state, and thereby the working class, is on such a scale that it may prevent the Irish Republic’s economy from recovering from the adverse effects of global economic downswing. Such a situation, many of them would hold, can but lead to political instability and even class warfare. These bourgeois intellectuals see the writing on the wall. They realise the dangers for capital regarding the character of the so called bail out. The vast amount of exchange value that must be extracted from the Irish economy now and into the future will leave little or no capital to maintain and extend the reproduction of capital in the country itself. The effect of this massive transfer of its wealth abroad will transform the country into an economic and social wasteland. Consequently European capital may be forced to tolerate an Irish default. However because of the belated nature of this default there are is a greater probability that the default will do more economic harm than a controlled and regulated default undertaken now. Constantin Gurdgiev, Jim Power and Brian Lucey.
This group overstates the power of the Irish government to radically renegotiate a deal with the troika. The Irish economy is too minuscule and dependent on imperialism to be in a position to determine how it deals with the economic crisis that it has been enduring. If it were as strong as this group suggests then there would never have been a crisis in the first place.

The second type of economic commentator essentially goes along with the Irish government. It bases its economics on the Micawber Principle. These doughty ideologues are claiming that the economy should be able to recover from the huge debt burden being imposed on it. They don’t see any possibility of renegotiating the deal done with the international troika. Underlying their claims is the assumption that the expansion of the valorisation process will increase to and beyond the minimum rate necessary to make repayment possible. This suggests that the reproduction process will start to produce exchange value on a scale that allows Ireland to both produce enough surplus value to maintain and increase the accumulation of capital and leave surplus value over for distribution towards welfare and debt obligations. Ironically there is no evidence to support this Quixotic prediction.

This second group of bourgeois analysts based in Ireland are, largely speaking, the very group that mistakenly claimed that the Irish economy was in for, at worst, a soft-landing in the aftermath of the Bertie Bubble. These are commentators such as Brendan Keenan from the Irish Independent and John Fitzgerald from the ESRI.

Then there is the third type. They are of the view that the Irish government are not compelled to lie on the procrustean bed offered by the international troika. However they mistakenly believe that the state can and should engage in more spending rather than less. They say that more spending will stimulate the Irish economy and bring about recovery. This group are the infamous Underconsumptionists. For them economic crisis are caused by deflated demand. What they don’t understand is that by its very nature demand is always deflated under capitalism. This is why there has always been poverty under capitalism. If the solution were as simple as one of increasing demand then there would never have to be economic crises under capitalism. Once demand was artificially increased to a sufficient degree the entire population, generally speaking, would be made affluent. Indeed the years of the Bertie Bubble were, in a sense, just that. Demand was “artificially” increased leading to the Bertie Bubble. People like Michael Taft, Kieran Allen and Joe Higgins are exponents of Underconsumptionism. They patriotically wish to save Irish capitalism from destruction by a programme of public investment.

The real future is that the Irish Republic will be forced into default or else be turned into an economic wasteland. The latter scenario may lead to the further centralisation and concentration of European capital to the advantage of its core imperialist economies. Now European imperialism has less need of bombs and guns. It can destroy and colonise a country by subjecting it to financial attack. Hopefully in the meantime the European working class, becoming class conscious, will have mounted a struggle to seize power from the hands of the European bourgeoisie.

Related Link: http://paddy-hackett.blogspot.com/
author by Blazes Boylanpublication date Mon Dec 20, 2010 08:10author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I'm not sure how bourgeois I am, by your standards, but the system will have to to print money or we will default.

The hot news this Monday morning is that the ECB doesn't like the Banks Bill. How could that happen? It is published, it passes thru both houses of the Dail, McAleese considers referring it to the supreme court, and then - days later! - the ECB says it has "serious concerns" about it.

Related Link: http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1220/ecb-business.html
author by Mrs Bloompublication date Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:42author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Hi Blazes

Printing money and defaulting mean, give or take, the same thing.

author by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite partypublication date Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:47author address author phone Report this post to the editors

never mind the re-brand. Thats a bit like spending 7mn to give the ESB a makeover rename to get it more market-ready, just the first tranche in the evisceration.

They 'have serious concerns' that democratic accountability might interfere with the 'efficient workings of the market'.The ECB will serve the reich's project, which meshes currently with the Project for an American Century and under the NATO/UN brolly is consolidating the Euro/US imperial grip on the planet and its resources(who was it again, warned of the coming 'resource wars of the twenty-first century?'),pole to pole.

Back at the ranch, and McAleese convening the Council of State to consult on the constitutional ramifications:

Given that Brian Cowen was appointed by the tribunal-posse dodger Bertie when the kitchen started to fill with smoke, and that the government has a rating comparable to the thermometer readings at midnight in Birr, surely if she was covering her responsibility to PRESIDE over the democratic workings of our institutions, she should have called this council to consider the necessity for a general election BEFORE the recent budget, given the long-term consequences?Cowen&FFInc HAVE NO FUCKING MANDATE for this stitch-up. We're being ECB/IMFed on fast-track.

Banks will scratch banks' backs. Till they get the chance to swallow each other profitably.
Its the subversion of our corrupted representatives we need to rectify if we are to have other than cosmetic regulation of the 'invisible hand' of sub-prime bondage.
But, Paddy being Paddy, we'll probably buy the cosmetics. It seems, like kerrygold, to be 'part of what we are'. Sub-Prime patsies.

author by Blazes Bpublication date Mon Dec 20, 2010 22:56author address author phone Report this post to the editors

She is the appointee of the political class, last time around, and no doubt wants to leave smelling of roses. This little drama will be the visible test of how unsovereign the state has become; no room for PR / spin / optics this time.

 
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