Bryan, I honestly think that the “decision engine” where you calculate your inputs and expected returns that you would like to see will not work. Remember Obama’s stimulus plan got through on the basis that they would keep unemployment below 8 % and it would go to 9% without it. Shock horror it’s above 10% today. The unions are at the same game here, David Begg’s cynical misuse of Keynesian economics that he prattles out from time to time is simply to further the short term interest of his members at other peoples expense, either that or we are having our own version of “Johnfrum” where everyone is wondering where the “cargo” has gone.
Doing the right thing would involve for instance taking into account the consequences that decisions now would have on our kids in the future. But I don’t see that kind of courage in public life here or anywhere to be honest. The unions want more pay, IBEC want more spending for their members, the farmers want more grants. The professions want to hang on to their little fiefdoms, the Left parties seem to think there is a free money machine and centre and centre right parties are far too conservative in their thinking to tackle this except to tinker at the edges. But don’t worry lads, they all have are backs!

Hi Bryan,

I agree completely with your sentiment on this one. There is a definite need for descursive democracy in this country and in all countries, along the lines of Dryzek, but the fact is that it doesnt exist anywhere. However, to begin the process the good people of Ireland need to move on from the Fianna Fail – Fine gael dichotomy.

at the next election it looks quite likely that Fine gael will be elected. thats grand, change is good. But this will only be superficial change. It will lead to no long term change as what will predictably happen after that is fianna Fail will get back in and the process will go on.

Therefore the electorate needs to change the system. To vote labour as the first party would be a real shock to the system. But it seems that they dont really want to go it alone. they are the oldest party in the state but yet need the protection of Fine gael or Fianna fail. So it seems they are happy with third place and i cant see that changing.

So, the focus should go to the little parties. namely the Greens and a successor to the PDs. these parties actually have ideals and so should be supported by the people or at least acknowledged as standing for something unlike FF, FG and to a lesser extent labour.

This approach could be the first baby steps towards discursive democracy. Who knows? To get back to the point of your article, people should realize that taking a sectoral view of correcting the economy will lead to the ultimate division of society. Which is what these protests represent. Public sector workers marching in the streets because the government is going to cut their pay. never mind that wages have fallen in the private sector, that private workers get sacked if they dont do their work, and that private workers must pay their own pensions. The fact of the matter is that public sector workers in Ireland get paid more than public sector workers in Germany, France the UK or the US. Do they work better than their foreign counterparts or are they more productive? I dont think so.

There was a straw poll on rte radio today and 90% wanted the IMF to come in and sort it out. It seems like the silent majority want a fiscally sensible solution but they dont get much airtime as the great and the good seem to know what they want

Bryan: giving people “the authority of the cabinet” isn’t much use when they’re drowning. Or even when they think they are. Too many in Ireland are way over their heads, and too many others hear the water gurgling into their boats.

What’s missing in all this is a sense of shared nationhood. And a government that governs. Ireland has been swept back and forward by international forces over the decades so that FF shrugged and abdicated their leadership responsibilities, choosing instead to play politics and career games.

People were not marching because they knew or did not know about Keynes. They marched out of anger and fear. They marched, many in inchoate rage, because they perceive they’ve been duped. Offered a rampaging Celtic Tiger, proof of having finally arrived and achieved their true status in the world, superior even to the English, they woke to find ther dreams were a cruel delusion.

Yet those seen to be responsible, the fat cats in banks and in speculators offices,and the cute hoors in government still amassing multiple pensions and lavish expenses, are seen to make only cosmetic gestures towards sacrifice, cuts that for them are minor but are actually more than many others earn.

And as the amoral generation of FF futers about, they plan to cut things like children’s allowances, upon which many Irish mothers depend to feed and clothe their families.

They marched in rage, frustration, or bewilderment. There were no national leaders, because FF has made a fine art of dividing Ireland into little fiefs of resentment.

Why did they march? Why in Christ’s name did they not do more than march?

Mickey,
“the people that profited the most from the boom”

Who do you think these people are? We know that there are 143,000 people making over 100,000 a year in Ireland, they are already paying half of the income tax take. Even if we put them on 60% income tax, it’s not going to make up the 23 billion deficit. An extra 10,000 tax a year on each of these is only going to bring in 1.4 billion!!

The public sector payroll gobbles up a disproportionate chunk of 23 billion deficit. The sooner the government brings in a 10 per cent pay cut at least to this, the sooner we will get out of the mess we are in.

Taxing “trophy homes” etc. is not going to sort out our problems. While I am no lover of the developers, bankers, etc, they are all bankrupt now; most of the wealth generated by the Celtic tiger was invested in either the stock market or the property market, and is gone.

There is no pot of gold out there.

And as for the unions, Jack O’Connor and co, rather than debating all they are doing is making strike threats, and looking for pay rises. When have they agreed to any pay cuts, which have already been rife in the public sector, and which are needed to balance the books?

I know what you’re saying Liam, but the fact is, there’s no such thing as a “free” market. It only exists in a lab. Never in the wild. The amount of government intervention in the markets is a question at least as much of economics as it is of politics, but the issue I was getting at is more socio-political. I don’t think people are up in arms about government intervening in the markets, as they are about the average citizen being forced to bear an undue and unfair amount of cost-cutting burden in order to balance the books. Especially since the real fat to be cut may be in the form of bloated government salaries and places like that. I can’t believe the pensions and pay packets that some of these bunglers are getting. While I have uncles and cousins out of work, and my parents are watching every last penny. It’s not fair. It’s not right. Those guys do NOT deserve those pensions or those salaries. Let’s not even kid ourselves that they’re “performance based”. If government & bank managers remuneration were performance based, they’d be in the dock, charged with securities fraud and criminal negligence. But instead they’re trying to slip out the side door to their BMW unobserved, with their pockets full of stolen money.

Liam – What ‘decision engine’?

As for the IMF, people may say that, but I doubt they mean it. The country goes up in arms whenever some social service is cut. Can you really see the majority favouring IMF fiscal policies?

Patrick – I agree that the government has just decided that it’s going to pretend it can’t hear any criticism. And were people taking to the streets to protest the fact that government wasn’t listening to them on NAMA, I’d be completely behind the march. But that’s not what these marches are about. I walked past a meeting point for the march in Sligo. I hung around for some time while some politician did his best to stir the crowd up with the worst bit of attempted populism I’ve yet to encounter. It was an incoherent jumble of complaints and accusations about the government, bankers, the rich and all sorts of nonsense. And it was exactly what I expected.

I love watching ‘people power’, but this isn’t it. The marches, in my opinion, are about bolstering the position of the trade unions as opposed to engaging in constructive dialogue. When trade unions were a mouth piece for the working class, that may have been acceptable. Today, I’m not so sure.

Richard – Thanks. Do you really think that Labour is so far removed from the mainstream political culture that it could lead a restructuring of the political system? If I had a magic wand and could install the politician I have most respect for in office, I don’t think they would even attempt structural political reform.

Mickey – Are the unions really trying to talk? I know a few union members who feel that the unions don’t talk to them. If there isn’t even a deliberative structure within the unions, is it surprising that there isn’t one within the partnership? Maybe the problem is societal. Maybe the whole country just isn’t great at talking things through?

Mark – thank you.

DesJay – What’s missing in all this is a sense of shared nationhood.
I completely agree. And I think you’re right, were there a sense of leadership and direction, the situation would look much less bleak.

Steve – My own hope is that this crisis will crowbar it into the national cranium, that unless he lives in a dictatorship, it’s the citizens responsibility to hold his politicians accountable. Politics in Ireland has been in its infancy…
I hope so too. And you’re right. Democracy is a learnt process.

Liam,

I know all about the debt figures, and the dilemma of the affected countries trying to solve the problem of a debt meltdown by leveraging yet more debt. But the ideologically “pure” solution of letting the rotten banks fail would probably result in anarchy. Because they’re almost ALL rotten.

Let me throw a few phrases out here. I won’t even have to form sentences, you and I probably read a lot of the same material, so you’ll know what I mean with a bare minimum of reading.
Fiat currency… loss of faith… unsecured deposits… run on the banks…. Weimar Republic…. then we’ll see the sort of real extremism that’d make the hysterics and dilettantes really pull their hair out in clumps.

My own feeling is still that Irelands meltdown isn’t some kind of illustration of the failures of Capitalism, but of the failures of an immature national attitude and corrupt political system. I think we need some convictions and a couple of TDs and builders in jail. If Bernie Madoff’s scheme had operated in Ireland, he STILL wouldn’t have been convicted. In fact, he probably would have been bailed out by the government, and the whole thing hushed up. Nobody would even know.
Ireland is awfully backward in that sense. Secrets. Inner circles and cliques. My old journalism teacher told me in the 80s that if Watergate had occurred in Ireland, we’d only be finding out about it then (1989 or so).

We have plenty of crime. We need punishment. We’ve needed it for years.