Negotiation means dilution and this occurs all the time. It is possible that tweaks and quick fixes will be offered to the more chronic problems facing Ireland and working class people will temporarily get more breathing room.
Basic functions of a state, such as public investment, have been restricted to an unprecedented degree. Karl Marx saw that national debt is the means by which the modern state is sold to the capitalist class, determining which section of that class will be in control.
The islanders never really pick what they want to wear, Manchester-based Boohoo billionaires select it for them. The Kamani family trap islanders into fashion contracts before even starting the show.
Fritz Lang’s 1926 silent era sci-fi masterpiece, Metropolis, depicts downtrodden workers rising up against billionaire industrialists. It opens with; ‘The year is 2026, a Dickensian “best of times, worst of times,” total oppression and manipulation of the masses is wielded by the unquestionable power of the few.’
The state intervention required to avoid a complete climate catastrophe, such as enforcing reduced energy consumption, the rejection of the fossil fuel industry and better management of natural resources, are all fundamentally incompatible with laissez faire, free market principles.
If we oppose the destruction of the Amazon, how can we support an institution like the EU, that is able to encourage it’s destruction whilst giving the impression that it is eco-friendly. This will only continue the narrative that China, India or the global south are massive polluters and need to become more green like Europe. We are simply exporting the climate guilt of European people and placing it upon post-colonial nations.
Does our environmental salvation come in the form of one child policies, the end of famine relief or our own coerced sterilisation?
Only by rejecting liberalism and basing our understanding on historical materialism and the experience of the masses (and manifesting this in concrete organisational forms) can Varadkar’s ludicrous carbon tax give way to the democratic ownership of the economy.
We need a change of system. A system not based on the pursuit of profit but an economy organised on the basis of sustainability and the needs of the population.
Billions from Koch Brothers & ExxonMobil – Corporations behind climate change denial.
The racist history of the ‘over-population’ myth; One Child Policy, Racial Hygiene, David Attenborough, & Marvel’s Thanos.
Europe is the Final Nail for Irish Farmers: ‘Capitalists in South America will only have more reason to rape the Amazon to increase their output’.
Dialectics of Climate Science – Liberalism vs Marxism