Finance

Middle Men and Market Forces - An interview with Conor McCabe

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The following is an edited transcript of an interview cum dialogue with Conor McCabe, author of the 2011 book “Sins of the Father” on the economy of Ireland since independence and researcher on financial shenanigans and corporate misdeeds in the Republic. I keeping with the theme of this issue of IAR on the institutions of power in Ireland, we wanted to explore how money and market forces operate through the specific structures and class composition of Irish society.

 

 

Capital’s Shadow - the left's analysis of debt

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Over all the forms of oppression and exploitation we face today, debt is cast like a shadow. In “Capital’s Shadow”, Paul Bowman analyses left wing theorisations of debt and concludes that there is a lack in their understanding of “the real nature of money” and poses the need for a “new research project that analyses not only value, but value at risk over time, and through that the role of credit, risk and the world market in the current global regime of accumulation.”

An anti-capitalist and environmentalist perspective on the Euro crisis

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Paul Bowman gives a 40 minute presentation on the Euro as a moment of the internationalisation of capital and looks for a way of dealing with the crisis that goes beyond the alternative models of capital being argued for by the left. If the height of a crisis is not the moment to raise a discussion of an anti-capitalist alternative then when is? Beyond this he also warns against the stagest approach much of the left has adopted where the economic crisis is to be addressed first by a demand for growth and the environmental crisis ignored till later.

The historical development of the global financial order under US hegemony

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In 'Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction', Paul Bowman examined the derivatives market and promised that the succeeding article would cover the 'story of the historical development of successive regimes of global financial orders' and would explain the role of the Eurodollars market 'in undermining the Keynesian Bretton Woods system'.

However, in the interests of space and relevance, I will only tell the story of the historical development of the regime of global financial order under US hegemony. I will begin by examining how the centre of capital accumulation shifted from Europe to the US in the first half of the twentieth century, and how following World War II the global financial order became centred around the US through the Bretton Woods system.

I will then look at how the Bretton Woods System was undermined, concentrating as much on the role of workers’ militancy as on the role of the Eurodollars market. After considering the response to the crisis of Bretton Woods, I'll look at the Clinton boom bringing us up to the current situation of the US’s current heavy dependence on foreign borrowing.

Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction

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Written months before the banking crash of the Autumn of 2008 this is the first part of a series of articles investigating the capitalist financial markets from a critical perspective.  It explains in some detail what the various financial instruments are that were to be blamed for the crash and what implication they have for class struggle. (Image: Just around the corner)

Housing is also an anti-finance, anti-capitalist struggle - Fine Gael Inc

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What would happen if Fine Gael had a change of heart? What if, having been visited by three ghosts the night before, Michael Noonan decided to address the misery brought on by the largest housing crisis in this nation’s history? It’s an interesting question, but of course it’ll never be answered. Still, thinking about it forces us to consider other questions. It leads us to a view of modern capitalism and international power relations which, if more unsettling than Scrooge Fine Gael, is a more solid understanding on which to build our offensive.

Domination, Capitalism, and Economic Crises.

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The history of capitalism has been a of history domination; of landowners’ domination over tenants, of bosses’ domination over workers, of economically robust countries’ domination over developing economies. of bloody labour struggles, social struggles, and of many crises, which have the most devastating effect on the working class, those furthest away from the levers of power and influence. As the framework of capitalism has developed, its systems have expanded in complexity, but paradoxically also in fragility.
 

Europe Forged in Crisis: The Emergence and Development of the EU - discussion with the author

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"Although the EU is not new, and its role in determining the economic and political development of Europe is both substantial and well established, critical analysis of the EU is sorely lacking. Most of what is written on the EU is uncritically liberal and focuses on diplomatic and legislative detail. What little critical literature exists often simply interprets the EU in terms of the function it plays for neoliberal globalization. When analyses of the EU go from what it does to the larger questions of what it is and why it exists, analysis often becomes completely un-rooted."

 

Europe Forged in Crisis: The Emergence and Development of the EU - discussion with the author Oisin by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud

 

Nordic Front reawakens Eurogeddon Beast - Euro crisis returns

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The rain is pouring, Summer's over and the Eurozone crisis is back from his hols. Timed nicely to coincide with the brutal Spanish riot police attack on the indignados protest outside the Madrid parliament, yesterday's statement by the remaining triple-AAA rated "Nordic Front" of Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, has put the cat back amongst the pigeons.

The historical development of the global financial order under US hegemony

Date:

This article tells the story of the historical development of the regime of global financial order under US hegemony. It begins by examining how the centre of capital accumulation shifted from Europe to the US in the first half of the twentieth century, and how following World War II the global financial order became centred around the US through the Bretton Woods system. It then looks at how the Bretton Woods System was undermined, concentrating as much on the role of workers militancy as on the role of the Eurodollars market. After considering the response to the crisis of Bretton Woods, it concludes by looking at the Clinton boom, bringing us up to the current situation of the US’s current heavy dependence on foreign borrowing

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