The Irish Bank Crisis: Cuts are a Feminist Issue : Gender and the Economy, Lecture Seven, UCD, 20 Oct 2014

1. Dr. Conor McCabe
UCD School of Social Justice

14. Over the last quarter of a
century something
fundamental seems to
have changed in the way
in which capitalism works.
The tendency since 1970
has been towards greater
geographical mobility of
capital.

15. Rather than being a modest
helper to the capital
accumulation process,
[finance] gradually turned into
a driving force.
Speculative finance became a
kind of secondary engine for
growth given the weakness in
the primary engine, productive
investment.

19. “Part of the reason people get less giddy
about the Dow than they did five years
ago is that they have learnt a bit about
inequality.
what looks like a recovery, a rally or an
increase in consumer confidence may
just be the effect of elites passing money
among themselves.“
Christopher Caldwell, FT 9 March 2013

42. One company –
200 employees
One employee–
200 companies

55. Irish Executives in the six
lenders must have been
rubbing their hands with
glee as the State-sponsored
€400 billion
insurance policy covers
commercial, institutional
and interbank deposits,
and investors who have
bought some of their
debt.
The State guarantee
allows the six lenders to
borrow more freely and
more cheaply for short-term
funding that had
become scarce due to
the global credit crunch.

56. Mr. Lenihan said on
Tuesday that the
increase on the cap
on deposit
guarantees up to
€100,000 from
€20,000 last month
covered 97 per cent
of customer deposits
so the guarantee has
clearly been included
for the benefit of the
banks rather than the
savers…

57. “Denis Casey, chief
executive of Irish Life
and Permanent, said
the guarantee would
allow Permanent
TSB and the other
Irish banks covered
to borrow more
cheaply.
“The oxygen supply
for Irish banks was
being cut off and
healthy banks were
starting to gasp for
breath. This
guarantee turns on
the oxygen supply.”

58. “Eurostat, the EU
Commission’s data
agency has calculated
the cost of the
banking crisis in each
EU country. The
following focuses on
the cost to general
government budgets.
Ireland has really
taken one for Team
EU.”
A Really Really Special Case
Requires a Really Really
Special Solution
Michael Taft, 15 Jan 2013

64. “Capitalism exploits
more work and
production relations
than just labour
relations.”

67. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

68. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the
biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional
work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

69. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the
biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional
work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.
As a concept social reproduction has been key to feminist social theory, because
it challenges the usual distinctions that are made between productive and
reproductive labour, or between the labour market and the home.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

70. Over the past thirty years, despite their being essential
to human life, neoliberal restructuring across the world
has privatised, eroded and demolished our shared
resources, and ushered in a ‘crisis of social
reproduction.’
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

71. as a result of cuts to benefits and the social wage,
women are also being forced out of the home and into
(predominantly low paid) waged work, as families
increasingly require more income to cover the basic
cost of living.
[In the UK] Proposed benefit reform brutally promises to
`encourage' mothers back to work through compulsory
labour programmes; lone parents will be expected to be
actively seeking work when their children are as young
as five years old.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

72. The combined effects for working women of the
removal of socially provided childcare (which should be
seen as part of the social wage),
the diminishing availability of work that pays an
adequate wage,
and the increase in their responsibilities for unpaid care
work,
tend to push women into informal labour markets,
including sex work, that are unregulated, and in which
workers face high levels of exploitation and, often,
violence.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)