"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
I hear it every day. ‘’They want everything for nothing’’, ‘’Ah sure how can ya run a country with them socialists in charge’’, ‘’where d'ya think the money will come from?’’. It’s the running rhetoric from Right wingers, Fianna Gaeler’s and even Sinn Feiners who don’t seem to comprehend the idea that their own party claims to be democratic socialist as well as republican.
The same crowd that screams from the rafters of the so-called dangers of socialism are the same that go the ballot box every local, national and European election to vote in the same parties that financially crippled the country into submission of the EU, allowed for the most severe cuts in decades, and created the highest unemployment rate since the 1980’s. All under the beautiful, free, and liberal capitalist system we still have today, and continue being the self mutilating masochists coming back for more, more, more.
In the age of Jordon Peterson’s utopian individualistic society where we must clean our room, be accounted for, and take full responsibility for our actions, the left is becoming more and more irrelevant. Young white men who crave responsibility, who want to be that guy that people turn to when in trouble, are seeing the right as a viable tribe to belong to. The left is losing small to moderate business owners as well as the working class themselves. Socialists and republicans alike have a major opportunity to turn this around and become the leaders in the communities and in doing so, leading by example in what it truly means to be responsible for yourself, your family and your community.
We must change our language from a movement of solely blaming and victimisation to one of ownership, empowerment, responsibility, and leadership. A movement of socialists and republicans where people look to us and say they are the ones who get things done and never hold back. We can no longer be the few voices in the chamber giving out about every issue going while we ourselves are not providing the alternative. We can no longer be those on the echelon of politics but rather front row centre because we got up and placed ourselves there without permission or asking nicely. We can literally use the very language the right are using and turn it round to our advantage by doing what Peterson coined ‘’pick up the heaviest responsibility you can think of and carry it’’. And what else but being responsible for a 32 county socialist republic is heavier?
In the age of Jordon Peterson’s utopian individualistic society where we must clean our room, be accounted for, and take full responsibility for our actions, the left is becoming more and more irrelevant. Young white men who crave responsibility, who want to be that guy that people turn to when in trouble, are seeing the right as a viable tribe to belong to. The left is losing small to moderate business owners as well as the working class themselves. Socialists and republicans alike have a major opportunity to turn this around and become the leaders in the communities and in doing so, leading by example in what it truly means to be responsible for yourself, your family and your community.
We must change our language from a movement of solely blaming and victimisation to one of ownership, empowerment, responsibility, and leadership. A movement of socialists and republicans where people look to us and say they are the ones who get things done and never hold back. We can no longer be the few voices in the chamber giving out about every issue going while we ourselves are not providing the alternative. We can no longer be those on the echelon of politics but rather front row centre because we got up and placed ourselves there without permission or asking nicely. We can literally use the very language the right are using and turn it round to our advantage by doing what Peterson coined ‘’pick up the heaviest responsibility you can think of and carry it’’. And what else but being responsible for a 32 county socialist republic is heavier?
We need to call out those that need to be called out. Those who the left use to try and get one up on the establishment. Those who simply do not contribute to society, who cause anti-social behaviour in our communities and who involve themselves in crime and yes even the illegal dumpers. Just because the right say it, it doesn’t mean the left can’t use it. We should walk away from the rhetoric of ‘’its the environment they grew up in’’, ‘’it’s because they are poor and know no better’’. These phrases have been thrown around so much they have lost all meaning.
Surely we can leave it up the church, the all knowing, all loving church that our Fianna Gaelers grovel over, to forgive and care for the dredges of society and turn them into good Christians? For far too long we have seen TD’s, MLA’s etc, demonise and brand all working class people in one box. If you live in a council house and work, you're just the same as your next door neighbour dealing drugs and never working a day in their life. Socialists and Republicans have the opportunity to claim back their communities by owning the responsibility of their communities and no longer putting up with a few bad apples ruining it for everyone. Nine times out of ten, those who justify the disruptive behaviour of others do not even live in working class area or affected by such behaviour. This may seem too far or not relevant to some, but it should be noted that we have lost so many people through this way of thinking to the right and liberals.
As a socialist, I don’t want anyone using the socialist republic as something to exploit or scab off because put simply, in a socialist republic, the individual’s needs and societies needs will be met. Under Capitalism today, this is not happening to the fullest. We see thousands homeless, hundreds of thousands on hospital waiting lists, continuing immigration, lack of opportunity and employment. A socialist republic offers free health care, education, affordable housing, progressive taxation, childcare, nationalisation of water and other essential bodies. These are the fundamentals of what a socialist Ireland will look like and through this socialist Ireland, every single citizen will be held responsible for their actions or lack of actions. If you are to be given the opportunity of free education to get yourself a degree and a good job, if you don’t have to worry about paying for hospital bills and if your able to afford your own house or be given suitable social housing, if your childcare is covered, if you can be given the chance to get a decent job for a decent wage, then what excuses would you have? Even the most trendiest of lefties would call you out. However, We cannot create this society while under a capitalist system. Therefore, the alternative is Socialism. The left can present this alternative instead of falling into the cliché angry socialist. This works two fold. We create a new way of presenting our views while exposing the failure of the capitalist liberal system.
How the hell are we suppose to pay for this? Well, we pay for it. This is just a fact of life. If we want to live in a fair and equal society, then we have to pull our weight and put in what we can. This is something that is vitally important for the left to bring up and unashamedly call for. We have to be brave with this and let people know what three to five percent more tax means to the taxpayer. This may be counter productive however. We see people go to them ballot boxes voting the same crowd in who has raised their property tax, sent their children abroad and took their homes away.
The same goes for corporations and big business. Corporation tax should be raised two percent while big business pay five percent more. What the people get in return is a health care and education working for them, a house that they can afford and not work all their lives for, and the opportunity to see where their contribution is going.
Socialists and republicans must go back to the economic principle of socialism because that is what people will listen to and that is what people understand. A mother in Carrickfergus struggling to make ends meet does not care about the struggle of the Kurds. The young nineteen year in Mayo looking for a job doesn’t care if the green beans he’s buying in Tesco are Made in Israel. Although these issues are important to us, they don’t mean a thing when the boot of capitalism is pressing down on your neck.
So, let socialists and republican take common sense as a pillar towards building the left. Let us take the risk of calling a spade a spade and let us not be bound by protest and trendy slogans as the only means. Let us be productive, empowered, and responsible. Sure what have we to lose but our chains.
As a socialist, I don’t want anyone using the socialist republic as something to exploit or scab off because put simply, in a socialist republic, the individual’s needs and societies needs will be met. Under Capitalism today, this is not happening to the fullest. We see thousands homeless, hundreds of thousands on hospital waiting lists, continuing immigration, lack of opportunity and employment. A socialist republic offers free health care, education, affordable housing, progressive taxation, childcare, nationalisation of water and other essential bodies. These are the fundamentals of what a socialist Ireland will look like and through this socialist Ireland, every single citizen will be held responsible for their actions or lack of actions. If you are to be given the opportunity of free education to get yourself a degree and a good job, if you don’t have to worry about paying for hospital bills and if your able to afford your own house or be given suitable social housing, if your childcare is covered, if you can be given the chance to get a decent job for a decent wage, then what excuses would you have? Even the most trendiest of lefties would call you out. However, We cannot create this society while under a capitalist system. Therefore, the alternative is Socialism. The left can present this alternative instead of falling into the cliché angry socialist. This works two fold. We create a new way of presenting our views while exposing the failure of the capitalist liberal system.
How the hell are we suppose to pay for this? Well, we pay for it. This is just a fact of life. If we want to live in a fair and equal society, then we have to pull our weight and put in what we can. This is something that is vitally important for the left to bring up and unashamedly call for. We have to be brave with this and let people know what three to five percent more tax means to the taxpayer. This may be counter productive however. We see people go to them ballot boxes voting the same crowd in who has raised their property tax, sent their children abroad and took their homes away.
The same goes for corporations and big business. Corporation tax should be raised two percent while big business pay five percent more. What the people get in return is a health care and education working for them, a house that they can afford and not work all their lives for, and the opportunity to see where their contribution is going.
Socialists and republicans must go back to the economic principle of socialism because that is what people will listen to and that is what people understand. A mother in Carrickfergus struggling to make ends meet does not care about the struggle of the Kurds. The young nineteen year in Mayo looking for a job doesn’t care if the green beans he’s buying in Tesco are Made in Israel. Although these issues are important to us, they don’t mean a thing when the boot of capitalism is pressing down on your neck.
So, let socialists and republican take common sense as a pillar towards building the left. Let us take the risk of calling a spade a spade and let us not be bound by protest and trendy slogans as the only means. Let us be productive, empowered, and responsible. Sure what have we to lose but our chains.
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| Finnian O Domhnaill is a Donegal political and community activist. |
Finnian
ReplyDeleteA very good article, interesting indeed. I noticed your People Before Profit T Shirt, my understanding is this is essentially the Socialist Workers Party? Dublin TD Richard Boyd Barret, a very good and able TD, is an SWP member I believe? If he is not he certainly was. For years the SWP told us "there is no parliamentary road to socialism" a theory I still subscribe to. I was once a member of the SWP myself, but soon realised what I was looking at was in real terms a radical left of labour party. If there "is no parliamentary road to socialism" what are SWP members doing in Dail Eireann?
The first question for socialism is who, or which class owns the means of production, distribution and exchange, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat? Under the present system it is the former, the middle-class the industrialists and technocrats, the minority class. Under socialism the means of production would be under workibg-class, proletariat, control and ownership. Goods and services would be produced on a need not greed basis and peoples jobs whould no longer be dependent on a few mega rich people making profits. Not only profits but profits on profits year on year. This means if a company makes a little less one year than they did in the previous twelve months, they put it down as a loss and people lose their jobs. This is rubbish, making slightly less than the preceding twelve months does not mean making no profit at all! Goods should be produced on a not for profit basis with all excess value being put back into society, health, education, housing and developing even further the means of production for the common good.
Such a system, socialism, cannot be achieved through entryism into parliament, any parliament from Dail Eireann to Westminster to the Bundestag. Parliaments, as Karl Marx put it, echoed by James Connolly, are mere "committees" to run the affairs of the wealthy. Bourgeois democracy, a far cry from the real thing, uses parliament to con populations into believing they have a real say in things and how society is governed, they have not!
That then brings us on to the economy. Under capitalism the so-called "free market" based very much on Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations is the order of the day. Parliament cannot change that. There is nothing "free" about it, except the freedom to sack workers if profits are down. The market dictates prices, the "invisible hand" to quote Smith, and if goods no longer command a high price and cannot be sold cheaply at a profit hundreds of workers are thrown out of work. This often results in marital breakdown, homelessness and, in some cases, alcoholism and drug addiction. Socialism in its true form would put pay to all these evils, after all workers are not going to sack themselves!
The bourgeoisie also control the media, and through this media constantly tell us how socialism can't work. They tell us how we would all become victims of the "serville state" which is, of course rubbish. To quote James Connolly;'under socialism, states, territories or provinces will exist only as geographical expressions, and have no existence as sources of governmental power, though they may be seats of administrative bodies.'
This in a very brief narrative is my reasoning as to why parliamentary socialism cannot work. Jeremy Corbyn, having come close in the 2017 election found out the power of the state and media, even within his own party. He was repeatedly stabbed in the back by the likes of Stephen Kinnock, Hillary Ben - his father would turn in his grave - and other right-wingers in the labour party, an example as to why broad church parties ultimately are doomed. Michael Foot back in 83 suffered similarly. Perhaps a PBP, SF coalition in the twenty-six counties would find out, as did Harold Wilson in 64, that they would have to "trim" meaning butcher their policies!!
Caoimhin O'Muraile
Hi Caoimhin. Glad you liked tje article thank you. As you habe seen, Got the pic changed as I am no longer a member of PBP. I too realised that trendy slogan and shouting from a far doesnt really do much to help people and their community. I also realised the all PBP TDs, MLAs, councillors and even every member of their steering committee which effectively rums the party, are all in SWP. So, im essense, PBP will members will make a decision, then SWP will decide if its worthy or not. Not for me so I left. That was over 2 years ago now. Im an independent socialist republican political and community activist.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Glad you liked it. As you can see by the change of pic, im no longer in PBP. Thays an old one. Left ober 2 years ago as my views no longer aligned with the party. I found that all pbp tds councillors, mlas and even the steeering committee are all swp so its not really pbp. Their approach of protest after protest no longer appealed to me too.
ReplyDeleteFinn - can you sign off on these as Unknown causes confusion?
DeleteThanks Finnian, interesting read.
ReplyDeleteYour take, and Caoimhín's is still very much aspirational and to my mind mired in idealism. That's not to dismiss noble aspirations, more of a call for acknowledgement of their function including their inherent limitations.
Though I wouldn't want to go holidays with Petersen I do see merit in his work. In his 'Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief' he makes a fair fist at describing how the world actually works, rather than as you guys promulgate how it should or ought to work!
Essentially according to JP there's always an ongoing tension between chaos and order, a tension which will continuously manifest in political systems. The ideal is to have a system held in some sort of equilibrium by counter-balancing pulls.
Heny joy
DeleteI agree it does need more detailed work. I did mention that a rise in tax of 3 to 5 percent would be required as well a 2 percent rise in corporation tax and for business. Also, there wid be an immense need for a dail committee on a plan for universal nhs style healthcare. As regard to peterson, i like his biblical series but he said nothing new and said it himself whe. Quoting yung and nietzhte. Perhaps a more detailed artivle next time.
Hi Finn
ReplyDeleteThink about it, a few years ago Tony Cliff and the SWP Central Committee could have been unofficially controling debate in Dail Eireann.
I left SWP after a very short stunt, great debating society on Marxism but as for revolutionaries, non starters. I was in IRSP for a number of years and still consider myself a Socialist Republican and Marxist. The private economy must be changed to a command, or planned economy.
That will only come about through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and liberal democracy, but and this is vital, we must have a credible socialist alternative to replace it with. A system benefitting and belonging to the working-class and not the elite of any political party which, all too often, change their ideological stance, hoping nobody understood it in the first place, when in power. Joe Stalin springs to mind but there have been others, Eric Hoeneker in the old GDR, once an activist in the anti-Nazi movement.
Caoimhin O'Muraile
The water charges campaign showed great potential as a true ' from the ground up ' movement of ordinary people the length and breadth of the country. All political parties right across the spectrum ( even those with the socialist and republican tags ) joined forces and betrayed the people and got away with it ..... tough wee country when even the opposition will knife you ............... http://buncranatogether.com/home/2019/4/17/undeniable-proof-the-irish-people-were-sold-out-and-betrayed-by-r2w-unions-and-tds
ReplyDeleteEnda
ReplyDeleteThat is one example of parliamentary democracy is in fact nothing of the sort. It is a club to con the rest of us into believing we live in a democracy when, as you say, "when even the opposition will knife you." They are all their, in government or oppossition to govern the affairs of Irish capitalism, piss in the same bucket to sound crude. The Brits even go as far to call the opposition, "loyal opposition". A bit of a givaway!!
Caoimhin O'Muraile
https://www.thepensivequill.com/2020/01/voter-registration-equals-ruling-by.html
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