Hard left

coolemon

mariaalice wrote: »

Genuine question what do the hard left in Irish politics want too happen

I know all the usual stereotype of tax the rich etc but that's just a stereotype and there has to be more to it that that, or are they just a collection of protesters with no real policies.

To answer as a "hard leftist".

The "hard leftists" aim is to eliminate capitalism. That is, the system which contains inherently the production of surplus value, and of the consequent social class structure which forms to control and distribute that surplus. Within this system there is an inherent and perpetual class conflict between capital and labour.

It is within this context that the "hard-leftist" is placed.

While not having any sort of complete alternative to capitalism, the hard leftist is engaging in a process of change and conflict. The hard-leftist will take the side of labour in all struggles in order to bring forth the inherent (and often masked) social class conflict.

Through this process and conflict the hard leftist believes the alternative social system can emerge, that is, through the eventual elimination of the inherent class conflict and logic inherent within capitalism.

At the moment, the "hard left" are in a weak position. The WSM have barely if at all partaken in anti-water charge activities due to "internal restructuring". This despite all the claims of anarchist this and anarchist that. Anarchists are a weak force and have had little to do with anything at the moment.

hatrickpatrick

BoatMad wrote: »

You want to bring back the gold standard or the Bretton Woods agreement, you might like to re-read your financial history. Infact it was only the ability of a fiat currency to print money , that actually saved the worlds economy this time. ( a fact the ECB should be woken up to).

You're making quite a leap there, I never in any way said I supported a return to the gold standard or the Bretton Woods. I want a new system entirely.

sorry, you really can't be that mis-informed. Until the gov started to get massive windfall profits from stamp duty and other property related income, we did not actually run a budget surplus.

Again, I have never claimed we did.

Once the property bubble burst, the taxation system was exposed as simply not being able to fund the countries needs. Hence the need for all these new taxes.

Our monetary system allows bubbles to develop in this manner and requires interest based borrowing. Without these factors, crashes wouldn't happen nearly as often and wouldn't cause nearly as much damage as they do.

In itself we could have carried on , borrowing to close the deficit, as the state had pristine monetary ratings, but once we instituted a bank guarantee for sums 8 times in excess of the state financial ability, we bankrupted yourselves.

Again, if we reformed the banking system from the bottom up, things like bank guarantees would be entirely unnecessary.

( Just like many property developers, were personally bankrupted, because they had rather foolishly signed personal guarantees for multiples of their personal nett worth)

I think to be fair, you're giving good answers but you're failing to understand that I'm not talking about surface reform, I'm talking about an overhaul that goes right down to the root of what a currency is, how it operates, how it is generated, and how it is governed. Not merely reforms which change how the current fundamentals behave - change of the fundamentals themselves.

To give you an analogy, what you're describing is akin to replacing a damaged key on a piano, or tuning its strings, or polishing its surface. What I'm proposing is that we throw the piano away and give drums a try. Or guitars, or trumpets, or triangles, or whatever.

Make sense?

Nino Brown

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

End the system of debt based monetary circulation, particularly the fractional reserve system and the system of money generation by loan interest, which ensures that at any given time more money is owed back to banks than is actually owned privately by citizens. The current system is completely moronic, and in my view the only reason it still exists is because not enough people realize how it works fundamentally - no money comes into existence without debt already attached to it, and because of interest, that debt is already more than the amount of money which has just been created. This is quite frankly insane. Couple that with the fractional reserve system and you'll realize that the entire monetary system we have is literally built on a foundation of sand. It makes absolutely no sense, and as I say in my view we only use it because most people fairly assume that something so universal is built on sound mathematical principles. It isn't. It just takes a colossal f*ckup like 2008 to expose this before the game of musical chairs resumes.

You are absolutely right, but do you realize what it would mean to end this financial system?, it would require a monumental drop in living standards. No nation in their right mind is going to end fractional reserve banking voluntarily. When it does end, and it will, but not voluntarily, it will be horrific for everyone in the world for quite a while.
I agree with your sentiment on the monetary system, but Ireland don't have the influence to change it even if we wanted to. It's best for everybody to ride it out until the ends, and have contingencies for when it does.

For Forks Sake

coolemon wrote: »

Left organisations in Ireland from what I know:
.

Can you imagine that lot trying to formulate a programme for government.....

padd b1975

thomur wrote: »

Eh, I think the government were voted in by the electorate.

Yep, and can be voted out the same way!

jungle_hostage

MightyMandarin wrote: »

There's no perfect country in the world, never has been, and never will be. But I think that the best examples of capitalist societies which are also fair, are Scandinavian societies. Sweden and Finland consistently have good growth, employment levels and GDP figures. At the same time they have some of the best education, health and welfare systems in the world. The only way this can be funded is through high taxes, something which the 'far-left' in this country would protest day and night over if it was implemented. Rather than implementing these crazy 'millionaire's tax', which only serves to deter entrepreneurship and hard work, a general rise in taxes is the only clear way we can ensure services in the country are improved and a better balance is struck in society. SF and the rest like to think that lowering taxes and raising spending is sustainable, maybe if any of them could use a calculator they would have a reasonable argument.

those on low wages in sweeden etc pay far more tax than those on low wages in ireland

the hard left in ireland appear to like the scandanavian system only with no one who earns less than 30 k per anum paying for anything

which in effect means the hard left in ireland dont want the scandanavian system at all

BoatMad

End the system of debt based monetary circulation, particularly the fractional reserve system and the system of money generation by loan interest, which ensures that at any given time more money is owed back to banks than is actually owned privately by citizens. The current system is completely moronic, and in my view the only reason it still exists is because not enough people realize how it works fundamentally - no money comes into existence without debt already attached to it, and because of interest, that debt is already more than the amount of money which has just been created. This is quite frankly insane. Couple that with the fractional reserve system and you'll realize that the entire monetary system we have is literally built on a foundation of sand.

What you are advocating, is a return to the gold standard. That system manifestly failed to handle downturns and was a key reason behind the 1929 crash.

The fractional reserve system is a key component in allowing fiscal authorities control the amount of money in the system. That system was use very effectively by the US , which shook off the effects on a banking crisis very quickly. IN Europe, the ECB is "half wedded" to a pseudo gold standard ( called the euro) by Germanys insistence in maintaining a rock solid currency. IN that respect the ECB could not effectively increase the money supply and bail out the euro financial system, instead that system had to , at Germanys insistence, cut and deflate its way out of trouble, That way isnt working well.!!!

The issue at question in Europe isdirectly because the idea of a fiat currency and flexibility in money supply was specifically designed out of the euro, just like the gold standard before it.

BoatMad

jungle_hostage wrote: »

those on low wages in sweeden etc pay far more tax than those on low wages in ireland

the hard left in ireland appear to like the scandanavian system only with no one who earns less than 30 k per anum paying for anything

which in effect means the hard left in ireland dont want the scandanavian system at all

not to mention that the scandavians are trying to reduce the effect of the state and its taxes and cut their health and other benefits systems. They couldn't make it pay either,


You might look at the relative sizes of populations, as well Ireland will always struggle to have a sufficient tax base.

BoatMad

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

You're making quite a leap there, I never in any way said I supported a return to the gold standard or the Bretton Woods. I want a new system entirely.




Again, I have never claimed we did.

You can either have fixed value backed currencies or fiat ones. Unless you intend to start bartering your daughter for milk or something.

Our monetary system allows bubbles to develop in this manner and requires interest based borrowing. Without these factors, crashes wouldn't happen nearly as often and wouldn't cause nearly as much damage as they do.

No , see Canada, but the fact is that crashes are the way the system resolves problems.

Again, if we reformed the banking system from the bottom up, things like bank guarantees would be entirely unnecessary.

" what reforms" where in the world is this a working functioning system

I think to be fair, you're giving good answers but you're failing to understand that I'm not talking about surface reform, I'm talking about an overhaul that goes right down to the root of what a currency is, how it operates, how it is generated, and how it is governed. Not merely reforms which change how the current fundamentals behave - change of the fundamentals themselves.

which we in Ireland are going to bring in unilaterally ????

To give you an analogy, what you're describing is akin to replacing a damaged key on a piano, or tuning its strings, or polishing its surface. What I'm proposing is that we throw the piano away and give drums a try. Or guitars, or trumpets, or triangles, or whatever.

Make sense?

in a land populated by make believe characters, yes.

It a bit like saying, lets abandon wheels, and lets use a "new" and wonderful means of rolling goods around. the rest of us stand around wondering WTF is he smoking.

MightyMandarin

jungle_hostage wrote: »

those on low wages in sweeden etc pay far more tax than those on low wages in ireland

the hard left in ireland appear to like the scandanavian system only with no one who earns less than 30 k per anum paying for anything

which in effect means the hard left in ireland dont want the scandanavian system at all

And that is how you measure their blind stupidity. I've heard plenty of complaints about our health system in the past decade, and more often than not the Left, like to cite the Dutch system as an ideal model, because everyone is covered, the system is efficient and they actually pay less fees than us. However, they almost always fail to cite the fact that in Holland the vast majority of people pay 42%+ tax on their entire income, as well as plenty of other household charges, property taxes and water rates.

It's wonderful to look at the benefits of other systems and the nice things they have, but I have never heard a 'Left politician' claim we need to charge higher taxes in order to help more people, because if they did, they'd be the ones pelted with water balloons and trapped in their cars.

jungle_hostage

BoatMad wrote: »

not to mention that the scandavians are trying to reduce the effect of the state and its taxes and cut their health and other benefits systems. They couldn't make it pay either,


You might look at the relative sizes of populations, as well Ireland will always struggle to have a sufficient tax base.

im not a fan of the scandanavian system , im just pointing out the flaws in the irish lefts referal to that system , they want to cherry pick the bits they like

jungle_hostage

MightyMandarin wrote: »

And that is how you measure their blind stupidity. I've heard plenty of complaints about our health system in the past decade, and more often than not the Left, like to cite the Dutch system as an ideal model, because everyone is covered, the system is efficient and they actually pay less fees than us. However, they almost always fail to cite the fact that in Holland the vast majority of people pay 42%+ tax on their entire income, as well as plenty of other household charges, property taxes and water rates.

It's wonderful to look at the benefits of other systems and the nice things they have, but I have never heard a 'Left politician' claim we need to charge higher taxes in order to help more people, because if they did, they'd be the ones pelted with water balloons and trapped in their cars.

have you ever listened to the so called " health analyst " which RTE wheel out on drive time on a regular basis , sarah burke is here name

in the five years ive heard her comment on the health service , never once have i heard her suggest that anyone working there is surplus to requirements or that anyone is overpaid

most commentary in this country about the health service is at best hand wringing

BoatMad

Irelands has a relatively small population, it has a narrow tax base, yet it attempts to run systems designed for far greater tax takes then ours.

In my view probably the best health system is a toss up between the UK or the French, both of which ,in countries with far wider tax bases are struggling to pay for their systems.

it cant be done without removing even more income from ordinary people.

RubyRoss

Dickie10 wrote: »

Sean Quinn is a most admirable man, the employment he gave to the poor region of the north west was nothing short of a miracle and to do it all through pure hard work and good business acumen without any state help. id like to see some of these water meter protesters get themselves off the dole and do that, some chance.

You seriously need to rethink your ‘honest to goodness’ I’m a teacher-farmer values.

Sean Quinn squandered his money by taking a gamble on a dodgy bank and lost. So, he blames the bank. (Do you have similar sympathy for people who blow their earnings in a betting shop and then blame the betting shop?) Apart from funnelling money into his family’s bank accounts, Quinn took money from his own insurance company leaving the Irish state to prop it up at the cost of over E700 million.

But never mind that, keep teaching your pupils that Quinn is the true Irish hero and that the 100,000 people who marched against water charges are just people who can’t ‘get themselves off the dole’…When the next generation grows up with the same crooked dealings undermining the country, at least you’ll know how it happened.

KomradeBishop

MightyMandarin wrote: »

SF and the rest like to think that lowering taxes and raising spending is sustainable, maybe if any of them could use a calculator they would have a reasonable argument.

At a European level, with proper joint agreement by member states, this can be perfectly sustainable - up until the point of full-employment/inflation-hitting-targets (that's when the budget would have to be balanced).
This can be done sustainably at a local level too, without European help, but not with the Euro (we don't have to ditch the Euro to do it either though).

Economics is not as simple as having balanced budgets.

KomradeBishop

wprathead wrote: »

Their health policies leave alot to be desired:
:rolleyes:

Hmm...good spot; a lot of these smaller parties, do tend to associate with crackpots supporting anti-fluoridation and similar woo.

BoatMad

RubyRoss wrote: »

You seriously need to rethink your ‘honest to goodness’ I’m a teacher-farmer values.

Sean Quinn squandered his money by taking a gamble on a dodgy bank and lost. So, he blames the bank. (Do you have similar sympathy for people who blow their earnings in a betting shop and then blame the betting shop?) Apart from funnelling money into his family’s bank accounts, Quinn took money from his own insurance company leaving the Irish state to prop it up at the cost of over E700 million.

But never mind that, keep teaching your pupils that Quinn is the true Irish hero and that the 100,000 people who marched against water charges are just people who can’t ‘get themselves off the dole’…When the next generation grows up with the same crooked dealings undermining the country, at least you’ll know how it happened.

Funnily and Im a capitalist, Id completely agree with you here, Sean Quinn took a risky gamble, with borrowed money , screwed up and lost everything , thats only right and proper. Risk capital must shoulder the risk as well as the gain. At least he did, even though he has repeatedly tried to circumvent the law by hiding his assets,

KomradeBishop

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

End the system of debt based monetary circulation, particularly the fractional reserve system and the system of money generation by loan interest, which ensures that at any given time more money is owed back to banks than is actually owned privately by citizens.
...

I agree with your wider views in the whole post there, just a small technical bit I disagree with:
Effectively, it's not even fractional reserve - reserve requirements are not actually a limit; good (but technical) article on it here:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2012/10/22/commodities/myth-money-multiplier

The takeaway point: Banks lend first, and shore-up reserves afterwards, and they go to the interbank market to shore-up reserves with other banks - but even if that fails, they can always go to the central bank, who will pretty much never refuse to shore-up a banks reserves

So, reserve requirements don't actually impose a limit; capital requirements (very different) do though.


Also, a wider topic, but paper-based i.e. fiat currency isn't a problem in any way; a currency backed by e.g. gold, doesn't make it any more 'real' - the majority of transactions happen as bits on computers nowadays anyway, so the vast majority of that gold would just be uselessly sitting in a vault.

KomradeBishop

Nino Brown wrote: »

You are absolutely right, but do you realize what it would mean to end this financial system?, it would require a monumental drop in living standards. No nation in their right mind is going to end fractional reserve banking voluntarily. When it does end, and it will, but not voluntarily, it will be horrific for everyone in the world for quite a while.
I agree with your sentiment on the monetary system, but Ireland don't have the influence to change it even if we wanted to. It's best for everybody to ride it out until the ends, and have contingencies for when it does.

It doesn't mean that at all - it just means that instead of 97% or so of all money, being created by banks when they make loans (debt-based money), you instead have some money created which is not debt-based (introduced to the economy through some means other than a loan).

You don't even have to end the current banking system to do this, you could just supplement it with money that is non-debt-based.

The controversy there is: How do you introduce non-debt-based money into the economy? The main way of doing that is through fiscal spending i.e. governments.


Europe as a whole could do this (except Europe is too dysfunctional to ever agree on any recovery policies), Ireland on its own can't while using the Euro, but Ireland on its own can do stuff similar to this, without using the Euro (don't even have to stop using the Euro either - can do it alongside).


People really should learn about how banks and the monetary system work - it's an incredibly important topic - have a quick read of just the first few sentences of this Bank of England report, for example:
www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q102.pdf

Most people are totally unaware of this stuff, yet it's very important that more people become informed on this topic.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

So, what exactly is "hard" left? Are we talking far left? Or just centrist left? And if the latter, what is "soft" left?

BoatMad wrote: »

not to mention that the scandavians are trying to reduce the effect of the state and its taxes and cut their health and other benefits systems. They couldn't make it pay either,


You might look at the relative sizes of populations, as well Ireland will always struggle to have a sufficient tax base.

Ireland has a comparable population all of the Scandanavian countries bar Sweden.

If you're going to look at Scandanavian models, though, you have to take into account quality of services though. Health, education, transport, sports facilities are far superior to what's avialable in Ireland. But I wouldn't call Scandanavia "hard" left in any case.

I've asked many times before: if you were guanateed much better services, would you be willing to pay more taxes?, and most people said yes.

BoatMad

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

So, what exactly is "hard" left? Are we talking far left? Or just centrist left? And if the latter, what is "soft" left?



Ireland has a comparable population all of the Scandanavian countries bar Sweden.

If you're going to look at Scandanavian models, though, you have to take into account quality of services though. Health, education, transport, sports facilities are far superior to what's avialable in Ireland. But I wouldn't call Scandanavia "hard" left in any case.

I've asked many times before: if you were guanateed much better services, would you be willing to pay more taxes?, and most people said yes.

I have worked in several scandavian countries over several years,

The tax burden is enormous, and a constant source of compliant. the public sector is over paid and excessive and job creation has stalled. There has been a steady drift to the right.

It no paradise.

Ireland with a large land mass per population , will always struggle to implement world class social services. It is not help by a over reliance on public sector jobs, feather bedding, and gold plate terms of service. None of this will be fixed anytime soon.

BoatMad

KomradeBishop wrote: »

It doesn't mean that at all - it just means that instead of 97% or so of all money, being created by banks when they make loans (debt-based money), you instead have some money created which is not debt-based (introduced to the economy through some means other than a loan).

You don't even have to end the current banking system to do this, you could just supplement it with money that is non-debt-based.

The controversy there is: How do you introduce non-debt-based money into the economy? The main way of doing that is through fiscal spending i.e. governments.

what you are referring to is moral hazard. debt, is a function of interest rate, which is the key controller a country has in controlling money supply,.

Europe as a whole could do this (except Europe is too dysfunctional to ever agree on any recovery policies), Ireland on its own can't while using the Euro, but Ireland on its own can do stuff similar to this, without using the Euro (don't even have to stop using the Euro either - can do it alongside).

no we can't and no Europe couldn't.

People really should learn about how banks and the monetary system work - it's an incredibly important topic - have a quick read of just the first few sentences of this Bank of England report, for example:
www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q102.pdf

Most people are totally unaware of this stuff, yet it's very important that more people become informed on this topic.

yes yes money supply. most people have no idea how it works in a fiat currency.


What i don't understand is what you are trying to fix with your suggestions. what issue(s) are you trying to deal with.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

BoatMad wrote: »

I have worked in several scandavian countries over several years,

The tax burden is enormous, and a constant source of compliant. the public sector is over paid and excessive and job creation has stalled. There has been a steady drift to the right.

It no paradise.

Ireland with a large land mass per population , will always struggle to implement world class social services. It is not help by a over reliance on public sector jobs, feather bedding, and gold plate terms of service. None of this will be fixed anytime soon.

Oh, I never said it was a paradise. I was merely saying that you can't judge it by tax levels alone - you're creating a very imbalanced argument by doing so. Even more so when you don't mention their social services or our taxes, or toss around terms like "feather-bedding" and "gold-plated terms of service."

KomradeBishop

BoatMad wrote: »

what you are referring to is moral hazard. debt, is a function of interest rate, which is the key controller a country has in controlling money supply,.

That doesn't fit the definition of moral hazard. You don't need debt to control the money supply; the interest rate is controlled by the central bank, and you can put the central bank in charge of non-debt-based money as well; if inflation rates approach the inflation rate target, the central bank stops providing non-debt-based money.

BoatMad wrote: »

no we can't and no Europe couldn't.

Yes, Europe can (if it weren't as politically dysfunctional as it is now), and yes, we can - just not using the Euro.

BoatMad wrote: »

yes yes money supply. most people have no idea how it works in a fiat currency.

What i don't understand is what you are trying to fix with your suggestions. what issue(s) are you trying to deal with.

To stabilize the economy by helping to solve the issue of excessive private debt (caused by an over-reliance on debt-based money, combined with the economic slowdown) while at the same time freeing up fiscal/government spending enormously (until full-employment/inflation-targets are reached); pretty much solving the economic crisis.

Don't Chute!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

So, what exactly is "hard" left? Are we talking far left? Or just centrist left? And if the latter, what is "soft" left?



Ireland has a comparable population all of the Scandanavian countries bar Sweden.

If you're going to look at Scandanavian models, though, you have to take into account quality of services though. Health, education, transport, sports facilities are far superior to what's avialable in Ireland. But I wouldn't call Scandanavia "hard" left in any case.

I've asked many times before: if you were guanateed much better services, would you be willing to pay more taxes?, and most people said yes.

They do have better services but it takes years for something like that to work and the people have to buy into it. Irish people are not willing to think long term or about anyone but themselves.

diomed

mariaalice wrote: »

Genuine question what do the hard left in Irish politics want too happen

• Create jobs for everyone, with everyone paid about the same.
• Eliminate profits, because they go to capitalists, by paying a decent wage.
• Remove tax from the ordinary working man, and "tax the rich".
• Tax the wealthy so they have nothing left to invest, and businesses close.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

diomed wrote: »

• Create jobs for everyone, with everyone paid about the same.
• Eliminate profits, because they go to capitalists, by paying a decent wage.
• Remove tax from the ordinary working man, and "tax the rich".
• Tax the wealthy so they have nothing left to invest, and businesses close.

Source...?!!!

BoJack Horseman

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Source...?!!!

Every time one of them opens their mouths.

In particular the Stalinist horror show that was Ruth Coppinger's interview on Newstalk recently

AudreyHepburn

duckcfc wrote: »

If you like your government raping you, continue to vote for right wing or close to it. If you want a fair system for everyone then left is the way to go. Sadly were all a bunch of greedy fcukers so we'll always be left with the capitalists

Taxing the rich only while handing everyone everything else for little or nothing and paying them the same as the rich etc, which is what the Left would appear to want, is neither fair nor reasonable.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Every time one of them opens their mouths.

In particular the Stalinist horror show that was Ruth Coppinger's interview on Newstalk recently

Yeah, that's a Bill O'Reilly line if I ever I heard one.

Probelm is it does back to my original question about defining "hard" left. Diomed is obviously talking about extreme left, but I think most of us would argue against an extremist government in either direection.