It’ll take a little bit more than a media circus to deal with the crisis in the economy. Although €30 million might appear to some people at Leinster House as good value if it takes workers eyes off the mess that the state is in. As the Queen departed in her luminous green dress the review into Joint Labour Committees and Registered Employment Agreements was published and the crisis in the eurozone reared its head again.

While the JLC and REA review is couched in fairly careful language it’s obvious that the bosses are after tearing up the agreements as RTÉ commented:

“However, the review of Joint Labour Committees and Registered Employment Agreements, carried out by Labour Court Chairman Kevin Duffy and UCD Professor of Economics Frank Walsh, says the system needs a radical overhaul to make it fairer and more responsive to changing economic circumstances.

Employers have argued that the system of sectoral agreements hampers competitiveness and job creation, and is unaffordable in the current economic crisis.”

So far from a new period of peace and harmony breaking out, with Sinn Féin and Orange Order representatives shaking hands with the Queen at various tourist traps across the land, it looks like the bosses are preparing for fresh assaults on working people. That is the nature of the current period in Ireland and internationally for that matter as the reports from Spain demonstrate. Every time the government and the ruling class attempt to create some sort of equilibrium the contradiction is that their actions merely serve to undermine the status quo.

That was the lesson of the FF/Green coalition, and there is no reason to suspect that the new FG/Labour coalition will fare any better. Capitalism is fatally flawed as an economic and political system encompassing the whole world and dragging all working people throughout the world down with it.

But Ireland’s position is especially weak. The scale of the crisis in the eurozone represents a Sword of Damocles hanging over the state as the British Guardian newspaper remarked yesterday:

“The International Monetary Fund has warned that Ireland's rescue plans could be blown off course as markets lose confidence in the eurozone's indebted nations and drive up borrowing costs.

Without a comprehensive rescue plan covering the eurozone, Ireland could be blocked from borrowing on the international money markets until at least 2013, leading to a prolonged period of public spending cuts and lower growth, the Washington-based organisation said.

"Slower growth, and higher unemployment, further ratings downgrades and developments in other euro area countries have contributed to a rise in bond spreads that hinders Ireland's prospects to regain market access on affordable terms in the near future," it said.”

The explanation for this is quite clear; you can’t control what you don’t own. As long as the financial system is dominated by speculators and big capitalist institutions there is no prospect of planning in the long term. In an economic boom the contradictions of the world financial markets are masked by the general development of the world economy. This is what lies behind the policy of “convergence” that was much touted when the euro was being developed. But in a slump all bets are off, the economies drift apart and the speculators pounce on the weakest countries and demand their pound of flesh.

Ireland can’t solve its problems on the basis of capitalism, neither can any of the countries in the eurozone or in the world for that matter. Promoting feudal relics like HM Queen won’t solve anything in the long run either. The only way out of this crisis and the only way to ensure a harmonious development of society on a world scale is through the overthrow of capitalism and the ditching of all the parasites, be they bankers, speculators, capitalists or royalty.