Toward an Irish Marxist Political Economy
By Conor McCabe
On 12 August, 1848, the career civil servant and former military officer Thomas A. Larcom signed off on a report into agricultural produce in Ireland.[1] He had been part of the Dublin Castle administration since 1826, when he was appointed to the ‘great triangulation’, the first ever large-scale ordnance survey of the island. In 1846, he was made a commissioner in the Office of Public Works, just as the second year of potato crop failure was taking hold. His report on the year 1847 captured its profound and devastating effects.
This article originally appeared in Rupture 11, as part of the special feature on Land. Purchase the issue here:
Not that Larcom saw it that way. Whilst acknowledging the ‘calamitous season’ that marked 1846 and the ‘formidable decrease’ in small holdings in 1847, he also noticed that, overall, the number of cattle and sheep had increased alongside a rise in larger farm holdings. This indicated ‘a movement toward the extension of grazing, which it will be important to follow in future years.’ Indeed, by 1855, the population had fallen by over two million due to famine and emigration while the number of heads of cattle and sheep had increased by over 2.5 million. Ireland was well on its way to fulfilling what Karl Marx sardonically called its ‘true destiny, that of an English sheepwalk and cattle-pasture.’ [2]
The consolidation of the agricultural and economic power of the cattle grazier was also assisted by the repeal in 1846 of the corn laws. Ireland had held a monopoly since 1815 on the free importation of corn into Great Britain. This was ended by the then Prime Minister of the UK, Sir Robert Peel, ostensibly as a response to the potato crop failure, but it also happened to be a long-held objective of the Irish Whigs under Daniel O’Connell who looked greedily on tilled lands and subsistence farms with dreams of pasture-fattened cattle. The famine cleared the land for the expansion of this particular monoculture of production, the skeletal framework of which had been in place since at least the 1770s. [3] By the time the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, the graziers were among its economic and political kingpins, a capitalist comprador/middleman sector serving the ongoing and deeply-rooted interests of the imperial core in London.
““Ireland was well on its way to fulfilling what Karl Marx sardonically called its ‘true destiny, that of an English sheepwalk and cattle-pasture.’”
It is not an unreasonable question to ask, well, so what? Why is this of interest today? What have the events of a hundred years ago got to do with Ireland in the 21st century?
If I was coming from a routine Irish historical perspective the answer is, very little. The ideology that permeates the construction of history in Ireland is one predicated on essentially a Whig theory of positive progression marked by stages. Ireland was one thing in the 1920, then it changed in the 1950s, it embraced the multinationals, and now it's a shining light of technological advancement through low-tax innovation. There are still issues of course, but these can be ironed out through parliamentary processes and ongoing reform of our constitution.
I see things a little differently. For me, history is a canvas that allows us to observe deep social forces in motion. This means using history in order to see the actually existing relations of production and exchange as they play out on this island. The reproduction of those relations of production requires the full compliance and coercive powers of the state, as well as a supportive ideological framework - a shared ‘common sense’ - in key institutions such as in education, law, finance, and the media. These can only be observed in motion through the canvas of history, which is why Marx made its study a core part of the intellectual apparatus of Marxism. When we apply this methodology to Ireland, we begin to see that the comprador relationship remains deeply imbedded within the state and its supporting satellites. It has adapted itself to the world of high finance, but its extractive middleman and carbon-dumping facilitation is also there in mining mapping, data centres, Aughinish, to cite just a few examples.
Not surprisingly, other Irish Marxists have noticed this comprador dynamic. Peadar O’Donnell clearly identified the relationship in agriculture post-independence. Brian O’Neill, in his 1933 publication, The War for the Land in Ireland, identified the large cattle graziers/ranchers as a key dynamic in capitalist wealth extraction. ‘For decades now the bullock and the Irish peasant have faced each other in enmity’ wrote O’Neill, ‘and the victory of the one has meant that there was no room in Ireland for the other.’ ‘Alongside this bleeding of the country toilers by capitalism as a whole’ he adds, ‘the capitalist state, both in the Free State and the North, takes legislative steps to improve the position of the big farmers.’ For O’Neill the cattle-ranch system remained tied to British interests, providing a colonial extractive continuity post-independence.
However, the analysis abated until the 1970s, when Raymond Crotty identified it this time in relation to the EEC, while the Automist Marxist collective, Ripening of Time, published key texts that applied the comprador analysis not only to agriculture but also to the influx of foreign direct investment.
““Post-colonialism retreated into literature, while dissident historians were pushed into Irish studies which leaned towards more of a nationalist, than Marxist, interpretation of colonialism. “”
Overall, though, the analysis fell out of favor, mainly due to the Troubles as the colonial/post-colonial argument became associated with the IRA’s campaign in the north. Post-colonialism retreated into literature, while dissident historians were pushed into Irish studies which leaned towards more of a nationalist, than Marxist, interpretation of colonialism. I believe my 2011 publication, Sins of the Father, was the first real attempt to interrogate the comprador relationship in terms of Ireland today.
That work, of course, is ongoing. Despite all the glass towers of the IFSC, it is impossible to understand Ireland without understanding cattle and agriculture – and more importantly, the class dynamics that formed out of the particular relations of production on the island. It is not possible – as some have done – to take the Irish Whig historical analysis and sprinkle magical Marxist dust on top of it like so many hundreds and thousands on an ice cream. We need to understand those capitalist colonial agricultural class relations; their ongoing reproduction via state and affiliated institutions (including the agricultural/rural working-class dynamics and expressions); and their ongoing mutation via climate action and investment policy. We do not get to choose the actually existing Irish relations of production, but we do get to choose whether to investigate them or not. Templates from other states won’t cut it. We need to do this ourselves.
Dr. Conor McCabe is a research fellow with Queen's Business School, Queen's University Belfast. He is the author of numerous policy and research reports, as well as two Irish Marxist political economy books: Sins of the Father (2013), and Money (2018). He works mainly with grassroots political, trade union, and community groups, exploring the dynamics of theory and action for societal change.
Notes
[1] Returns of Agricultural Produce in Ireland, 1847, Part II: Stock (Dublin, 1848)
[2] Karl Marx, Capital, Vol 1 (Penguin Classics: London, 1976): 869.
[3] William J. Smyth, quoted in Conor McCabe, Sins of the Father: The Decisions that Shaped the Irish Economy. 2nd ed. (History Press Ireland: Dublin, 2013): 66.