James Connolly Memorial Lecture 2009

Economics for Workers

The Ireland Institute on Pearce Street, situated in the former family home of Irish patriots Padraig and William Pearce, played host to this years James Connolly Memorial Lecture.

This event is organised on an annual basis by the Communist Party of Ireland and aims to bring the highest level of Marxist analysis and theory to practical issues and challenges that confront us – an aim fitting of Ireland’s finest Marxist leader in which the event commemorates.

Over the last number of years the CPI has had subjects such as the life and politics of James Connolly, delivered by CPI General Secretary Eugene McCarten, ‘Culture, Class and Connolly’ by philosopher and writer Terry Eagleton and the challenges confronting Venezuela today by the Communist Party of Venezuela.

For obvious reasons this year it was decided the lecture should be entitled ‘Economics for Workers’ and the CPI were proud to present Mr. John Foster, Head of the Economics Committee of the Communist Party of Britain to deliver this somewhat daunting task.

A packed theatre, a sign of the positive growth the CPI is witnessing and of the crisis of capitalism we are living in, greeted John who delivered a clear and much needed explanation of the economic crisis.

Starting with a basic and concise introduction to Marxist economics covering the exploitative relations between capital and labour resulting in surplus value through to the anarchic system of production resulting in a general declining rate of profit (except for the last 21 years of extraordinary rates of profit due to the political interference and management of the market) and the inevitable cyclical crisis.

John then went out to outline the establishment explanations and responses to capitalist crisis of the last hundred years that could broadly be categorised by two approaches, a monetarist one or a Keynesian one, neither of which take account of the fundamental and defining characteristic of this period of capitalism that of monopoly.

John’s flowing descriptions and abundance of practical examples and explanations seemed to make light of work of what many believe to be complex issues.

The presentation ended emphasising, firstly, the necessity to understand the stage of capitalism we are in, that of state monopoly capitalism, where the state directly intervenes and manipulates the market in the interest of monopolies and where a ‘free’ market no longer operates given the level of control, leverage and resources that monopolies have accumulated. And, secondly, the need to frame our solutions in the struggle for national democracy as the progressive contradiction to monopoly capitalism.

Foster, having also written extensively on James Connolly, outlined what he believed to be Connolly’s greatest theoretical contribution that of understanding the class nature of the nation and of the struggle for national liberation and democracy and emphasised our need to return to this struggle in the current crisis.

For copies of John’s presentations please email cpoi@eircom.net