Geography Archives: Ireland

  • The Socialist Alternative to IMF/EU Diktats

      The capitalist media say that there is no alternative to the thrust of the economic policies being advanced by the government, the EU and the IMF.  This is completely untrue.  There is an alternative — a socialist alternative. Shut Down Anglo Irish Bank The bailout of Anglo Irish Bank is set to cost the […]

  • A New Proclamation

    Poblacht na h Éireann™ The Temporary Government To the people of Anglo-Ireland™ IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of Mammon and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of subservience, we declare the name of this country to be Anglo-Ireland™, and through us, Anglo-Ireland™ summons her children to aid her banks […]

  • European Authorities Pushing Ireland Down the Wrong Track

    As another one of the so-called “PIIGS” countries is being led to the slaughterhouse, it is worth asking whether all the carnage advocated by the European authorities is really necessary.  Ireland is in its third year of recession and income per person has already declined by more than 20 percent since 2007.  Unemployment has more […]

  • Where’s the Growth Supposed to Come From?

    Have governments everywhere simply lost their marbles?  Not much emerged from the Seoul G-20 Summit — and definitely not anything really desirable in the form of coordinated Global Keynesian policies (of the kind that Matías Vernengo has advocated in the TripleCrisis blog).  But then, quite frankly, not much was really expected to come out, given […]

  • G-20 Barking Up the Wrong Tree

    If the G-20 is going to be nothing more than a talking shop on economic issues, they ought to at least talk about the economic problems that really matter, and the ones that they can do something about.  Not that currency values don’t matter — they are actually very important.  And it is interesting to […]

  • A Modest Proposal for Overcoming the Euro Crisis

    It is now abundantly clear that each and every response by the eurozone (EZ) to the galloping sovereign debt crisis has been consistently underwhelming.  This includes the joint EZ-IMF operation, back in May, to “rescue” Greece and, in short order, the quite remarkable overnight formation of a so-called “special vehicle” (officially the European Financial Stability […]

  • The IMF and Economic Recovery: Is Fund Policy Contributing to Downside Risks?

    Introduction The IMF’s most recent World Economic Outlook (WEO) projects world economic growth will slow, from 4.8 percent in 2010 to 4.2 percent next year.  Throughout the report, there are numerous concerns expressed about the “fragility” of the global economic recovery.  The Acting Chair of the Executive Board states that “[t]he recovery is losing momentum […]

  • French Protesters Have It Right: No Need to Raise Retirement Age

    The demonstrations that have rocked France this past week highlight some of its differences from the United States.  This photo, for example, shows the difference between rioting in baseball-playing versus soccer-playing countries.  In the U.S., we would pick up the tear gas canister and THROW it — rather than kick it — back at the […]

  • First as History, Then as Farce: The Euro Crisis Revisited

    When the Crash of 2008 hit Wall Street, European capitalism was thrown into disarray.  With the demise of the export-absorbing monster that was the US consumer market, what in 2003 Joseph Halevi and I called “The Global Minotaur” (see Monthly Review, Vol. 55), Europe not only lost a critical source of aggregate demand but also […]

  • The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis This Time

    Paper prepared for the American Sociological Association Meetings in Atlanta, August 16th, 2010. There are many explanations for the crisis of capital that began in 2007.  But the one thing missing is an understanding of “systemic risks.”  I was alerted to this when Her Majesty the Queen visited the London School of Economics and asked […]

  • Loyalism and Mau Mau

      Daniel Branch.  Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.  xx + 250 pp.  $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-11382-3; $24.99 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-13090-5. The two related themes in Kenya’s history that have drawn the most debate and interpretations are land and the Mau Mau war.  Daniel Branch’s study […]

  • Strand

      Rouzbeh Rashidi, born in Tehran in 1980, is an independent Iranian filmmaker.  He has been making films since 2000 when he founded the Experimental Film Society in Tehran, devoted to avant-garde, experimental, and low-budget filmmaking.  He is currently based in Dublin.  Strand (Iran-Ireland: Experimental Film Society, 2009) was shot in Iran in 2008.  For […]

  • Economic Recovery for the Few

    Where is this elusive recovery?  The banks, some say, have “recovered.”  Yet they remain dependent on Washington, they do not make the loans needed for a general recovery, and many medium and small banks keep collapsing.  The stock market shows no recovery.  The Dow index was 14,000 in late 2007 when capitalism hit the fan, […]

  • Iceland after the Fall

      Financial crises and uncertainty go hand in hand; some make sacrifices and others plan on having to.  But how many countries stricken by the global crisis actually feel existentially threatened? Iceland does.  Since the start of the kreppa (“catastrophe” in Icelandic) in the fall of 2008, the small island nation of 320,000 has had […]

  • Alternatives to Fiscal Austerity in Spain

    Executive Summary: This paper looks at the planned austerity measures in Spain, the rationale for the spending cuts and tax increases, likely outcomes for future debt-to-GDP ratios, and the probable results of alternative policies. It is widely believed that Spain got into trouble because of the over-expansion of government spending.  However, during the economic expansion […]

  • Productivity Is Up, So Why Cut Social Programs?

      Paul Jay: So, first of all, your take on what the G-20 decided, this idea of cuts in Europe and North America and maybe some expansion in China.  And is there some alternative to this? Robert Pollin: Well, the notion of imposing austerity at a moment when we may — may — be slowly […]

  • End Times with Slavoj Žižek

      Slavoj Žižek.  Living in the End Times.  Verso, 2010. Reading Žižek has always been as challenging as it is enjoyable, an experience of pleasure and pain that seems at times an intellectual correlate to the operation of objet petit a (little object a).  The concept of objet petit a has been a constant in […]

  • Exploiting “Crisis” to Crush Labor

    One thing should be made clear about the situation in the Eurozone economies that is not clear at all if we rely on most of the news reports.  This is not a situation where countries face a “dilemma” because they have overspent and piled up too much public debt.  They do not face “tough choices” […]

  • Eurozone Crisis: Beggar Thyself and Thy Neighbour

    Excerpt: The mechanisms of crisis Gains for German capital, losses for German workers and periphery i. Monetary union has imposed fiscal rigidity, removed monetary independence, and forced economic adjustment through the labour market.  Workers have lost share of output relative to capital in Germany and peripheral countries. ii. The German economy has performed poorly, with […]

  • United against Us, Divided among Themselves: Toronto and European Assault on Living Standards

      Martin Wolf described it as “a bloodbath.”  The Financial Times editorial called it a “chilling read.”  Britain’s budget is one of austerity, the likes of which has not been seen in generations.  A 25 per cent cut in public spending; a quarter of a million or more public sector jobs to be slashed.  It […]