STAMOCAP, as all true Marxist theory nerds will recollect, is an ugly little acronym for state monopoly capitalism. It comes in Stalinist or Trot variants, but the basic idea is that modern economies are characterised by a fusion of financial capital and the state.

About a decade ago I realised that the whole notion is actually bollocks, and that by confusing this observable trend in modern economies with settled reality, the far left general ends up with its political knickers in a twist.

But reading the Financial Times this morning, I couldn’t help wondering if Rudolf Hilferding – the bloke who thought the whole concept up – was onto something. The Irish state’s bailout of Anglo Irish Bank is gobsmacking stuff.

Banc Ceannais, the central bank, is going to stump up £30bn to keep Anglo Irish from going under. The move will send the budget deficit soaring from 12% of gross domestic product to an astonishing 32%. Overall public debt will hit around 100% of GDP, which is four times what it was in the Celtic Tiger years.

Finance minister Brian Lenihan admits that the state had little choice. No country could contemplate the failure of such an institution, he insisted. Or, in colloquial English: If Anglo Irish fails, Ireland goes tits up.

Except Ireland has already has both its knockers out and pointing resolutely heavenwards. It has experienced the deepest slump of any European Union country during the past three years, with GDP declining by 10% in 2008 and 2009, and expected to fall for a third successive year in 2010. Meanwhile, its cost of borrowing has hit record levels.

It is part of the eurozone, which means that it has to live with a monetary policy in which the top three concerns are Germany, Germany and Germany. If it is not careful, the EU could be about to get its first demonstration of Japan-style permanent stagnation.

What’s more, the talk in the City is that some of the other PIGS economies – as Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain are known – are in an even more parlous position.

Obviously, I’ll leave it to the Irish comrades to organise the protest campaign. But I cannot help but observe that policies that Ireland has pioneered in response to the post-2007 global economic travails have been based on slashing public sector payrolls and welfare benefits. Remind you of anybody?