About

We are Left Bloc

Education doesn’t change the world, education changes people, people change the world.

Paulo Freire

Left Bloc is a collective of trade unionists, political activists, environmentalists, tax justice advocates, language activists and even some socialists, and we refuse to believe that a better world isn’t possible.

We are researchers, communicators, educators and activists and we are collectivising our individual skills to assemble a media and political education platform which we hope will enable workers to build a more egalitarian Ireland for themselves.

We are living through a long crisis of capitalism, a crisis of low wages, rising inequality, mounting debt, financial instability and the accelerating impacts of climate breakdown. Ireland has record homelessness, a strained and unequal healthcare system, degraded public services, and a state committed to representing the interests of the one percent.

This has to change. But it will only change when workers have a greater understanding of the political, economic and social system that dictates almost every aspect of our lives and organise to change it.

We don’t have all the answers. Nobody does. But we believe our greatest strength is our ability to work collectively and in solidarity as we seek to build power and develop the solutions which will improve our lives and the lives of future generations.

Left Bloc is an unashamedly left-wing, non-party political, non left-sectarian project which will hopefully tackle the dominance of right-wing, neoliberal hegemonic thinking and build a left hegemony.

What will Left Bloc do?

Left Bloc will encompass five podcasts and a news website where we hope to provide high quality political analysis and as it develops, an island wide political education programme.

Initially, we intend to host a series of Left Bloc Lectures where patrons will be invited to listen, learn and engage with a variety of activists, academics and researchers on a range of eco-socialist political economy themes .

Our current (and expanding) list of podcasts include:

1. A Worker’s Guide to Everything (a political economy education podcast)
2. The Week at Work (A weekly review of the Sunday newspapers and the big news of the week from a left perspective)
3. Nuall Na nÓg (An award winning left-wing Irish language podcast)
4. Offshore (A podcast looking at the world of economics, finance and tax)
5. The ABCs of Green Politics (Everything you wanted to know about Green Politics but were afraid to ask…each week they pick a letter and discuss some aspect of green politics that starts with that letter… from the Anthropocene to Zoos)

Our Mission Statement

To provide class-based non-sectarian political education which will encourage working-class people to understand the political, economic and social system in which they live. To empower workers and communities to understand and critique this system, organise themselves around an emancipatory vision and ultimately transform the system into a truly democratic and egalitarian model.

LEFT BLOC

All funds raised through Patreon will be used for political education and expanding the Left Bloc media project.