This Site Will Soon Be Hosted at anti-em... Sun Sep 22, 2024 17:24 | Anti-Empire
Ukraine Shoots Down F-16 With Patriot, A... Sat Aug 31, 2024 11:53 | Anti-Empire
Surprise Offensive Puts 300 km² of Russ... Fri Aug 09, 2024 08:44 | Marko Marjanović
The Wholesome Photo of the Month Thu May 09, 2024 11:01 | Anti-Empire
In 3 War Years Russia Will Have Spent $3... Thu May 09, 2024 02:17 | Anti-Empire Anti-Empire >>
A bird's eye view of the vineyard
Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb
The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog. We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).
What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are
Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader 2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of
The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by The Saker >>
Massive Electricity Price Rises Expected as National Grid Confirms Gas is the Only Back-Up for Inter... Thu Oct 03, 2024 09:00 | Chris Morrison Massive electricity price rises are expected as National Grid confirms that gas is the only planned back-up for intermittent renewable energy, placing Britain at the mercy of global price spikes, says Chris Morrison.
The post Massive Electricity Price Rises Expected as National Grid Confirms Gas is the Only Back-Up for Intermittent Renewables appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
In Episode 16 of the Sceptic: Charlotte Gill on Labour?s Love for Hope Not Hate, Freddie Attenboroug... Thu Oct 03, 2024 07:00 | Richard Eldred In episode 16 of the sceptic: Charlotte Gill on Labour's links to Hope Not Hate, Freddie Attenborough on the free speech fightback in Ireland, David Turver on Ed Miliband's green cronyism and more.
The post In Episode 16 of the Sceptic: Charlotte Gill on Labour?s Love for Hope Not Hate, Freddie Attenborough on the Irish Free Speech Fightback and David Turver on Ed Miliband?s Green Cronyism appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
News Round-Up Thu Oct 03, 2024 00:44 | Richard Eldred A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Keir Starmer Pays Back £6,000 to Cover Cost of Taylor Swift Tickets and Clothing for Wife ? as Top D... Wed Oct 02, 2024 19:45 | Will Jones Keir Starmer has paid back more than £6,000 worth of gifts ? including Taylor Swift tickets and clothes for his wife ? as donor Lord Alli is probed by the Parliamentary watchdog for "non-registration of interests".
The post Keir Starmer Pays Back £6,000 to Cover Cost of Taylor Swift Tickets and Clothing for Wife ? as Top Donor Lord Alli is Probed by House of Lords Watchdog appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Starmer?s Greatest Achievement To Date Wed Oct 02, 2024 17:52 | James Alexander What's Keir Starmer's greatest achievement to date? Well, it's not exactly a crowded field, says Prof James Alexander, but coining the phrase "Heineken phrase" would get his vote. Probably.
The post Starmer’s Greatest Achievement To Date appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Voltaire, International Newsletter N°101 Mon Sep 30, 2024 05:29 | en
Voltaire, international news 2023 Sun Sep 29, 2024 15:20 | en
Is the proposed ceasefire in Lebanon US-French or Israeli? Fri Sep 27, 2024 15:36 | en
Cognitive warfare in the West, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Sep 24, 2024 06:56 | en
Russia arms Ansar Allah against Israel in response to U.S. arming of Ukraine Fri Sep 20, 2024 11:41 | en Voltaire Network >>
|
Right2Change: The Theft of the Commons
national |
bin tax / household tax / water tax |
opinion/analysis
Wednesday February 17, 2016 23:17 by right2water - Right2Change
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.’ An affirmation that should, by now, be familiar to most of us. Given Connolly’s input into what became the Proclamation of the Republic, argues the labour historian John Callow, this passage ‘could be taken as legally enshrining the nationalisation, and common ownership, of industry and the land’. Democratic control of the island’s resources and indeed all aspects of the economy was a central tenet of Connolly’s political thought, and has featured prominently in the efforts of his followers to transform society for the benefit of the majority.
Other political forces, such as the Fianna Fáil governments of the early 1930s or indeed the contemporary proponents of populist nationalism, have not been above using the principle of Irish ownership as a rhetorical tool to appeal to all sections of the population. But as the abhorrent treatment of Dunnes Stores workers starkly demonstrates, this limited objective does not in itself constitute the making of a more democratic and equal society. Connolly made this point repeatedly, not least in the weeks leading up to the Easter Rising: ‘We are out for Ireland for the Irish. But who are the Irish? Not the rack-renting, slum-owning landlord; not the sweating, profit-grinding capitalist; not the sleek and oily lawyer; not the prostitute pressman – the hired liars of the enemy. Not these are the Irish upon whom the future depends. Not these, but the Irish working class, the only secure foundation upon which a free nation can be reared.’
For the greater part of its existence, the economy of the southern Irish state has been designed to benefit the class of people so despised by Connolly. At various points in Irish history, native policy makers have privileged ranchers, commercial banking interests, multinational corporations and those engaged in FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) activities over the needs of the broader population. As early as the 1950s, with the opening up of the economy to free trade and FDI, government ministers had begun to establish Ireland’s ‘open for business’ credentials with a giveaway of oil and gas exploration rights worth £ millions. Henceforth, the two civil war parties would create between them the architecture of an economy based on speculation, while the middle-men continued receiving huge fees for services rendered to multinationals.
Neoliberalism – as those living in Thatcher’s Britain or Reagan’s US understood and experienced it – took longer to reach Ireland, but by the time it did it was pushing at an open door. From the late 1980s onwards, the Irish economy began to replicate the features of global neoliberalism – low taxes, a weakened labour movement, financialisation, and commercial property speculation – while somehow retaining the structures that benefited its strong middleman class. Indeed, it was in 1989 that the Fianna Fáil Minister for Energy Ray Burke reduced the reduced the state’s 50% share in its offshore oil and gas to zero and abolished royalties completely.
The characteristics of the neoliberal turn are well known to us, but it is privatisation that best encapsulates its grasping nature. Privatisation is not efficient, it’s not clever and it doesn’t deliver. It’s simply a massive wealth grab, a project increasing in scope and intensity across the globe with annual revenues reaching the hundreds of billions. As we have reduced progressive and wealth taxes, and as public finances have collapsed, new infrastructural investment has increasingly taken the form of installing private tollbooths over the economy’s most critical access points such as roads, public transportation, communications, energy, healthcare, education and, of course, clean water. It represents the final theft of the commons and allows private interests to control our most important public assets. Privatisation is the backbone of the neoliberal project and shows the true nature of the free market, monopolies owned by the few. That’s not democracy, it’s an economic tyranny.
Having formed a key component of the project that led to the biggest capitalist crisis in living memory, privatisation is now proposed as part of the solution. Embedded in TTIP, EU treaties and the programmes of national governments are a set of policies that lead inexorably to the privatisation of everything that remains in common ownership. In the twenty-six counties, this involves the sale of profitable state assets, the defunding and creeping privatisation of a two-tier healthcare system, and the transformation of Irish Water into a commercial entity.
Contained within the Right2Change Policy Principles for a Progressive Irish Government is a rejection of privatisation, wholesale opposition to TTIP and a number of measures aimed at (re-)establishing democratic control over ‘surrendered natural resources’ and crucial parts of the economy. Realisation of these proposals would go some way towards reversing the drift to a market society, deepening economic democracy both in places where it can already be found and where it has not existed. Achieving and sustaining this kind of radical change will require victory on the political front and a fundamental transformation in the balance of class power.
Written by Stevie Nolan and Sean Byers, Trademark Belfast
|