Upcoming Events

Dublin | Politics / Elections

no events match your query!

New Events

Dublin

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Why Do 1,000 Refugees Get Free Wimbledon Tickets While Long Suffering Locals Get None? Mon Jun 30, 2025 19:37 | Jo-Anne Nadler
As Wimbledon gets underway, its SW19 neighbours have to put up with a lot, from encroaching development to security checks to get home. Yet, unlike 1,000 refugees, they're shut out from the tennis, says Jo-Anne Nadler.
The post Why Do 1,000 Refugees Get Free Wimbledon Tickets While Long Suffering Locals Get None? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Criminal Investigation Launched into Bob Vylan and Kneecap?s Glastonbury Performances as US Revokes ... Mon Jun 30, 2025 17:43 | Will Jones
Police have announced a criminal investigation into Bob Vylan and Kneecap's Glastonbury?performances as the Trump administration kills the punk duo's American tour by revoking their visa over antisemitic death chants.
The post Criminal Investigation Launched into Bob Vylan and Kneecap’s Glastonbury Performances as US Revokes Punk Group’s Visa Over Antisemitic Death Chants appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link What is the Purpose of Sydney Sweeney?s Bathwater? Mon Jun 30, 2025 15:30 | Chris Bullick
Unilever ? the company that once declared "brands without purpose have no future" ? has bought the Sydney Sweeney bathwater soap brand. Woke is dead, says Chris Bullick.
The post What is the Purpose of Sydney Sweeney’s Bathwater? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Chris Whitty Was Behind Covid Guidance That Triggered Care Homes Spread, FOI Emails Reveal Mon Jun 30, 2025 13:01 | Will Jones
Professor Sir Chris Whitty?was responsible for government guidance that was believed to have triggered the spread of Covid into?care homes, the Telegraph has revealed.
The post Chris Whitty Was Behind Covid Guidance That Triggered Care Homes Spread, FOI Emails Reveal appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link An Inspector Calls ? and Then Tells You What to Think Mon Jun 30, 2025 11:00 | Jack Watson
Sixteen year-old Jack Watson confesses to lying about what he really thinks about socialism and climate change to get good grades in his GCSEs. If you criticise either, he says, you will be marked down.
The post An Inspector Calls ? and Then Tells You What to Think appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

The Election Candidates on Prime Time

category dublin | politics / elections | opinion/analysis author Wednesday October 08, 2014 17:50author by Paddy Hackettauthor email paraichackett at gmail dot com Report this post to the editors

The Socialist Party And The Socialist Workers Party like Capitalism!

The rhetoric by the Sinn Fein, the Anti Austerity Alliance and the People Before Profit Alliance featuring on RTE's Prime Time programme amounts to nothing but illusion. Their election candidates showed no understanding of the need for revolution. Their rhetoric suggested that capitalism can be managed or reformed to the benefit of the working class by effectively taxing the rich and not the working class. Indeed the entire show confined itself to suggestions as to how to reform capitalism in one way or another. In that way the participants sought to effectively defend the capitalist system. Essentially all contributors were essentially advocating bourgeois politics. If the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party were genuinely revolutionary they would have challenged RTE and its other contributors by advocating the need for revolution.



Capitalism cannot solve the problems of the working class.This why a social revolution is historically necessary.The working class must achieve communist revolution.No amount of tinkering with the system can convert it into a system that satisfies the class interests of the working class. Reformism can never serve the class interests of the working class.Consequently the realisation of radical demands to the benefit the working class is impossible under capitalism. The claim that a programme of such demands is realisable under capitalism is a utopian claim. It constitutes an idealisation of capitalism and thereby its defence. It,therefore, promotes the sowing or reinforcing of illusions in capitalism. If such a programme is realisable then the struggle for communism is unnecessary.

The reason the recent austerity offensive against the working class has been mounted in Ireland and elsewhere by the capitalist class is because capitalism cannot meet the class needs of the modern worker. The recent global recession was an objective, not a subjective, event.

This means that it was not caused by capitalist greed, a nasty government or any other such subjective factor. It was due to the objective characteristics of the capitalist economic system that it broke out. This being so it follows that capitalism as an inherently obsolescent system must be replaced by a new objective system --communism. It is only by this dramatic revolutionary transformation of objectivity that the needs of the masses can be met. The only way that the inevitable problems manifested by the recession can be solved within capitalism (provisionally) is by an attack on the working class through strategies involving austerity. Radical demands advanced by the radical left, if realisable, would only deepen recessionary conditions thereby rendering working class conditions even more severe. In that sense these radical demands, instead of benefiting the working class,would tend to worsen for the latter. This is because, as I have been arguing, capitalism cannot solve the problems of the working class.

Whats more the solutions to the problems of the working class cannot be solved within a nationalist framework.The solution,social revolution,is only achievable on a global basis beginning in the most advanced capitalist countries such as the U.S. Given this there can be no social revolution on the island of Ireland independently of Western Europe.

Even if the working class achieved concessions prior to the global recession, that broke out in 2007/8, they would have contributed to the emergence of the economic and financial upheaval itself. This, as I have been arguing,is because capitalism cannot solve the problems of the working class.

In view of this the rhetoric by the Sinn Fein, the Anti Austerity Alliance and the People Before Profit Alliance featuring on RTE's Prime Time programme amounts to nothing but illusion. Their election candidates showed no understanding of the need for revolution. Their rhetoric suggested that capitalism can be managed or reformed to the benefit of the working class by effectively taxing the rich and not the working class. Indeed the entire show confined itself to suggestions as to how to reform capitalism in one way or another. In that way the participants sought to effectively defend the capitalist system. Essentially all contributors were essentially advocating bourgeois politics. If the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party were genuinely revolutionary they would have challenged RTE and its other contributors by advocating the need for revolution.

Related Link: http://paddy-hackett.blogspot.com

 #   Title   Author   Date 
   communist revolutionary or agent of the right?     fred    Wed Oct 08, 2014 20:07 
   Behind the name     Asconi    Thu Oct 09, 2014 11:12 
   Reply to Fred     Paddy Hackett    Thu Oct 09, 2014 13:11 
   I didn't miss the point. I just think it's impractical fantasy     fred    Thu Oct 09, 2014 19:27 
   A Hasty Reply to Fred's Piece.     Paddy Hackett    Fri Oct 10, 2014 22:48 
   Paul Murphy Anti-Austerity Alliance wins seat in Dublin West by-election     info    Sat Oct 11, 2014 22:40 
   For Info     Paddy Hackett    Sun Oct 12, 2014 10:29 


Number of comments per page
  
 
© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy