OPINION:We need leadership and self-belief in our hour of need. Politicians (back in the Dáil today), please take note
IT IS A bit of a cliche to say that hindsight is 20-20 but it might have been a good idea before boom turned to bust if our politicians and business elite had read Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
Within Mackay’s treasure trove of human folly is an account of the tulip mania that gripped 17th century Holland.
In his account, published in 1841, Mackay could have been writing of the Irish economy of the last 10 years: “Confidence was at its height, many individuals grew suddenly rich, poverty seemed to be banished and a golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and one after another, they rushed to the tulip-marts, like flies around a honey pot.”
However, as Mackay points out the illusion of instant and continuing prosperity was hard to maintain and in time the “prudent began to see this folly could not last. Confidence evaporated, universal panic set in, and defaulters were announced day after day in all the towns of Holland.”
Mackay’s analysis of tulip mania seems very relevant to our present economic and political problems.
Behind the half-finished housing estates, bankrupt builders, toxic banks, threats of industrial action and the cold, dispassionate statistics of economic decline and unemployment are the stories of large numbers of Irish people who are now paying the price of the rampant Celtic Tiger.
It is the unemployed, the carer, the street cleaner, the nurse and the nurse’s assistant, the single mother and the vast majority of the children of Ireland who must now “do their patriotic duty”, “share the pain” and suffer the tax hikes, the levies and reduced hours and, of course, redundancy.
I am a public servant whose employment is relatively secure. Like many others in both the private and public sectors, I have suffered a considerable decline in income over the last six months. For me life has become a series of financial juggling acts interspersed with the odd dramatic moment whenever the Minister for Finance has a microphone in his hand informing us all of the latest cuts.
I find increasingly depressing radio and TV reports from our prophets of economic doom and catastrophe.
Meanwhile, inspired by a number of pundits, well practised in the gentle art of divide and conquer, many in the private sector were led into the fatal trap of believing that both their economic woes and the solution to same lay with a pampered public service.
Unfortunately, a lot of people in the private sector forgot the dictum that “united we stand, divided we fall”.
As our economic crisis loomed, I watched the so-called property boom with incredulity as house prices spiralled out of control. Like many others of my generation, I found myself attending “house warmings”, often in soulless suburbs.
I presented the customary bottle of Chilean wine while doing my best to seem impressed by the Italian tiles in the kitchen, the enormous American fridge and the garden decking that was soon to be installed for the barbecues in summer.
I had this uncomfortable feeling that people in Irish society were increasingly being measured by what they had and not by who they were. For my part, I listened to the “propaganda” from government about the boom but decided not to buy a house. I rented and waited.
I had been fortunate to escape the bursting of the economic bubble but I was well aware that so many others of my generation were now trapped in an almost unbreakable cycle of debt, with some turning to loan sharks and others living in fear of losing their jobs. The economic miracle had become an economic nightmare for so many of my colleagues and compatriots and yet the halls of power never seemed quieter nor the body politic more estranged from the general populace.
Now we are told is the time for creative thinking and innovation and indeed it is.
Again, like many of my generation, I have to be my own innovator, manage my finances more carefully, renegotiate my rent and consider cutting up that credit card.
I was surprised to find myself getting excited about deals in Lidl and Aldi and then positively shocked when I started telling my friends about the special offers. I certainly was in unchartered waters. Now that the Celtic Tiger and its ideological basis have failed so spectacularly, we have a unique opportunity to forge a new republic where the economy promotes the wellbeing of the entire community.
We must banish cheap slogans such as “rebranding” and “Ireland Inc” and replace them with real language based on our common values, heritage and culture.
Our history illustrates clearly that we have the capacity to overcome adversity; all we need is leadership and self-belief.
Gerard Horgan works in third-level education in Cork