Irish Left Archive [Remembering 1969]: Sinn Féin, National Solidarity Committee, August 1969 August 24, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Left Online Document Archive (Remembering 1969), Sinn Féin.1 comment so far
Another short document. Note the reiteration of the idea voiced previously that ‘there will be a politicians’ arrangement, maintaining partition and perhaps bringing Dublin and Stormont under a Council of ireland with Westminster involved. In other words, back to ‘mother England’.’
We will see more in this vein in next week’s Left Archive post from this period.
Identity Politics Good. Class Politics Better. August 23, 2009
Posted by Garibaldy in British Politics, Class.43 comments
Interesting article from the current London Review of Books by Walter Benn Michaels, a professor of literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The article touches on some of the themes raised in this recent piece I wrote on the necessity for the left to concentrate on economic issues, specifically the failure of identity politics to address the fundamental importance in society of economic relations. The flavour of it may be guessed by the fact that Michaels has written a book entitled The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality (which I am planning to order for myself in the near future).
Michaels starts by talking about how over the last forty years sexism, racism, and homophobia have declined in America, and obviously acknowledges this as a good thing. And then there is the ‘But’. And it is a big ‘But’.
But it would be a mistake to think that because the US is a less racist, sexist and homophobic society, it is a more equal society. In fact, in certain crucial ways it is more unequal than it was 40 years ago. No group dedicated to ending economic inequality would be thinking today about declaring victory and going home. In 1969, the top quintile of American wage-earners made 43 per cent of all the money earned in the US; the bottom quintile made 4.1 per cent. In 2007, the top quintile made 49.7 per cent; the bottom quintile 3.4.
He goes on to make another important point:
More generally, even if we succeeded completely in eliminating the effects of racism and sexism, we would not thereby have made any progress towards economic equality. A society in which white people were proportionately represented in the bottom quintile (and black people proportionately represented in the top quintile) would not be more equal; it would be exactly as unequal. It would not be more just; it would be proportionately unjust.
Michaels believes that the increasing intolerance for racism, sexism and homophobia is in accordance with the key ideas of neo-liberalism – to put it crudely, when Regan and co and later Bush and his cohorts argued for spreading democracy it wasn’t entirely a front for economic imperatives, but a genuine part of their world view, wherein legal equality and a heavily skewered version of meritocracy were key components of their ideal socieities. But, Michaels points out, just as it is intolerant of discrimination on grounds of gender, race or sexuality, so neoliberalism increases the tolerance of economic inequality.
Hence the extraordinary advances in the battle against discrimination, and hence also its limits as a contribution to any left-wing politics.
Couldn’t (and didn’t) put it any better myself. Michaels swiftly outdoes himself though.
But a diversified elite is not made any the less elite by its diversity and, as a response to the demand for equality, far from being left-wing politics, it is right-wing politics.
Exactly. Hence the facility with which so many seeming radicals obsessed with identity have shifted quickly into the realms of vacuous New Labour politics, if not further to the right.
Michaels singles out the US universities as an example of the inadequacies of identity politics, whereby the race for diversity covers up the failure to address economic inequality. In the UK, the same function is performed by Oxbridge admitting state school pupils whose social and economic background is by and large the same as those of their public school cohorts. In Harvard, which I think takes 40% legacy students (other colleges take more and won’t even reveal the figures), 9% of students are black – but only 7% are poor. Michaels uses the outrage over the recent arrest of Professor Gates in Harvard as indicative of the fact that anti-racism and anti-discrimination enables the elite to feel better about the possession of its wealth – if discrimination against peple is removed, then their wealth is because of their talent, not structural inequality. And the poor deserve to be poor.
in a society like Britain, whose GINI coefficient – the standard measure of income inequality – is the highest in the EU, the ambition to eliminate racial disparities rather than income inequality itself functions as a form of legitimation rather than as a critique.
I’d say that in Britain gender and sexuality would be more important than class, but the point holds.
Michaels’ article is itself a review of a report from January 2009 from the Runnymeade Trust, Who Cares about the White Working Class? The introduction by the report’s editor begins with the subtitle ‘Class Re-emerges in Political Discourse’. Reintroduced, apparently, by Harriet Harman of all people, in a speech to the TUC conference in September 2008. The report points out that when it has suited them, politicians and pressmen who object to the use of class as a political term when it smacks of increasing equality have expressed a great desire to ensure that the white working class is not left behind when they might support the causes of the xenophobic right. The introduction ends with the hope that it will
initiate a dialogue to ensure that a re-emergence of class onto the political agenda will not feed divisions, but promote equality for all.
And here we need to return to Michaels, to see how in the absence of clear class politics, the language of class can obfuscate rather than elucidate the challenges for the left.
In the event, however, what Who Cares about the White Working Class? actually provides is less an alternative to neoliberal multiculturalism than an extension and ingenious refinement of it. Those writing in this collection understand the ‘re-emergence of class’ not as a function of the increasing injustice of class (when Thatcher took office, the GINI score was 0.25; now it’s 0.36, the highest the UK has ever recorded) but as a function of the increasing injustice of ‘classism’. What outrages them, in other words, is not the fact of class difference but the ‘scorn’ and ‘contempt’ with which the lower class is treated.
Michaels highlights a dangerous tendency in what he calls ‘left neoliberalism’, whereby being working class is like being a member of an ethnic group, and that all that is needed is to treat them with respect rather than addressing the injustice that workers suffer.
The great virtue of this debate is that on both sides inequality gets turned into a stigma. That is, once you start redefining the problem of class difference as the problem of class prejudice – once you complete the transformation of race, gender and class into racism, sexism and classism – you no longer have to worry about the redistribution of wealth. You can just fight over whether poor people should be treated with contempt or respect. And while, in human terms, respect seems the right way to go, politically it’s just as empty as contempt.
Michaels points out how race in the US has functioned similarly to sectarian identity in Ireland. Poor whites have been encouraged to identity with the white elite, while poor racial minorities have been encouraged to identify with rich people of similar colour, and see their wealth as somehow reflecting well on them. Anyone familiar with Daniel O’Connell’s selling out of the forty-shilling freeholders, never mind the history of Northern Ireland, will recognise this pattern. At the same time, anti-discrimination in Michaels’ argument seeks to form a sense of solidarity between the liberal white academic and the African-American woman who cleans his office for a tenth of his salary. She is supposed to recognise that he values her as a person, and her culture as equal. And thus forget about the income disparity. Michaels doubts that she does, and he may well be right. But the problem for the left is that far too many people do buy into the myths of an unequal society. Again, Northern Ireland gives the perfect example.
So how can we apply Michaels’ argument to our own situation? Ireland is a changing society, with growing diversity in colour and culture among its inhabitants. That brings challenges, which are often met by placing people into pre-determined boxes, especially in NI, where we remain Protestant Atheists and Catholic Atheists in the census. And we must meet those challenges. And sections of the broad left are doing so. One of the issues on which trade unions have been active in the north of late is in reaching out to immigrant communities, and there is a burgeoning NGO sector (some of it state-funded) dealing with these communities. Several recent Workers’ Party Ard Fheiseanna have been addressed by representatives from immigrant communities too. But whereas The Workers’ Party maintains its focus very clearly on class, the same cannot be said for everybody. While Ireland changes and throws up new situations, the Left must place class at the centre of all it does, including issues surrounding immigrant communities and racism. We cannot allow ourselves to be sucked into the vacuous equality-speak of what Michaels terms the left neo-liberals. A case in point would be the complete mess that has been made of the NI Human Rights Bill by the Human Rights Commission, where at times it seems every interest group has been included to the detriment of the overall goal of providing a strong, simple, and clear Bill of Rights. As the diversity of Irish society grows, we must avoid the temptation to fall into the identity politics trap, as has happened so many before. Class is the fundamental division of society. We know that. We must remember it. And we must communicate that message at all opportunities.
Support the Dublin Port Workers – Protest Action Monday 24th August August 22, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Campaigns.add a comment
The pro-Lisbon media moves into top gear. Oh dear. Best not. August 22, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, Irish Politics, The Left.15 comments
Two pieces in two weeks from Patsy McGarry. The first dealt with here indicated his faith in economic orthodoxy. The second delivered yesterday starts as it means to continue with the sub-head…
It must be embarrassing for Sinn Féin to be sharing the No platform with such great lovers of Ireland as UKIP and hardline Tories…
Really? Why? Or at least why any more so than the Labour Party and the Unions sharing the Yes platform with the remnants of the Progressive Democrats and IBEC
AND SO they are off, tails up and promising Armageddon once again, that motley crew of many colours in the Vote No to Lisbon campaign.
There was Mary Lou (McDonald of Sinn Féin) and Joe (Higgins of the Socialist Party) and Bríd (Smith of the People Before Profit Alliance) and Jimmy (Kelly of the Unite trade union). All are members of the Campaign Against the EU Constitution (CAEUC) which launched the No to Lisbon campaign, part II, last Tuesday. Surely some mistake. Is it not Wednesday’s child which is “full woe”?
Right.
Mary Lou, Joe, Bríd and Jimmy were joined at the launch by their friends in affiliated groups such as the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, Irish Friends of Palestine Against Lisbon and socialist republican group Éirigí. Waiting in the wings to lend their support too we have the National Platform, the People’s Movement, Voteno.ie and Cóir.
Now there is a fascinating analysis to be done on the National Platform, and indeed Anthony Coughlan’s trajectory which – as was put to me only this week – at one point appeared fairly left wing and now rather less so – although in fairness to him he hasn’t really changed. But that I think comes with the territory. Europe and matters European are beyond simple ideological categorisations. Some on the left will feel one way about it, others another. I think there’s little surprise that many on the Republican left are profoundly critical, if not indeed suspicious, of it. And it’s only slightly more surprising that the further left are equally disdainful of it. I might think they’re incorrect in their analysis, but there’s little reason to dismiss them out of hand or to try to link them conceptually to much more tricky entities (let me be absolutely clear here, I’m not including Éirígí in that categorisation, but I am including Coir).
Ah yes, Cóir and Éirígí. Isn’t it a sad day for the Irish language that whenever we now see any new political organisation with an Irish name those same two words, “isolationist and backward”, spontaneously come to mind? Cóir, for instance, give the impression that neither the pope, the Vatican nor the Irish (Roman) bishops are Catholic at all when it comes to the EU. Éirígí, for its part, when not hijacking protests by the Shell to Sea campaign or by Thomas Cook workers, would be identified by many as among supporters of “traitors to the island of Ireland”. That was how Martin McGuinness described the murderers of soldiers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar and PSNI constable Stephen Carroll in Northern Ireland earlier this year.
Keep that in mind. For, turning on a penny, while Éirígí are lambasted as ‘traitors’ and that phraseology is legitimised by quoting Sinn Féin, our man McGarry is able to then lambaste Sinn Féin.
But then, all Sinn Féin’s giants appear to be in Northern Ireland. Looking into her heart last Tuesday Mary Lou saw how, in the immediate future, people would even describe her and her CAEUC colleagues as “isolationist and backward”. As if! But is this not the same Sinn Féin which has opposed every single vote on the EU in the Republic since and including our decision to join the then EEC back in 1973? Indeed it is.
Well, wrong or right (and I’m a lot more pro EU than SF) one can at least argue that their line has been consistent and is coherent within the context of their belief system.
Is this not the same Mary Lou who set something of a record for an Irish MEP when it came to her non-attendance at sessions of the last European Parliament (even if, as she has explained, she was on maternity leave)? To be sure, it is.
So the maternity issue is valid, even ‘explainable’, but her absence due to that isn’t. Okay.
Well, well. Of course, it is a little embarrassing that Sinn Féin should find itself sharing this consistently anti-EU stance with members of Éirígí and those other great lovers of Ireland and all things Irish, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and hard-line UK Tories. But hey, politics makes for strange bedfellows.
It’s problematic, but little more so, as was pointed out to me once – entirely rightly – by the equally intriguing bedfellows on the other side.
Last Tuesday, Mary Lou continued: “They will say by voting No we are going to cause an even greater recession and depression . . . This is dishonest and cynical.” Of course it is. We all know, if we are honest and not cynical, that by voting No to Lisbon a second time in successive years it can only benefit this economy of ours. It is the sensible thing to do because, as we know too, our EU colleagues will just love us for it all over again.
Ask them. They’ll soon tell you.
In fact, what Mary Lou should now do is take a flight (economy class) to Iceland and advise our friends there of this. She should tell them that their recent rushed application to join the EU is a major mistake and that it can only damage their economy further, if that is possible. It would be the friendly thing for her to do, don’t you think?
But why shouldn’t she? She believes that is the case. I believe otherwise, but she has every right to do so, and it doesn’t invalidate her argument at all that Iceland might – at state level, or indeed at the level of public opinion – think otherwise. Indeed she would simply be being true to her own beliefs by doing so.
She also said Lisbon threatened our military neutrality. Now we all know that when it comes to matters military Sinn Féin has an enviable record on being actively neutral. It is true for instance that during the Troubles the IRA killed more Catholics than did the UDA. Who could ask for further proof of neutrality on the part of any organisation than that it should kill more of its own?
[Puts head in hands and sighs]. So, let’s get this right, as someone noted in the comments section on the IT article, McGarry is happy to use SF to prop up his argument earlier agin Éirígí, but then is also happy to fashion much the same charge against SF. And even if I disagree with the dynamic of the conflict what particular contradiction is there in eschewing military alliances (again, I don’t think that’s a likelihood here, but the SF position and that of others isn’t inconsistent) but seeking sovereignty through force of arms. The question of Catholics as against UDA members is a dismal and pointless comparison.
Then it was Joe Higgins’s turn on Tuesday. He described the Lisbon Treaty as a “profoundly undemocratic” document. Okay, so it has already been approved by 85 per cent of directly elected representatives across the EU, but what do they know about democracy?
They should talk to Joe. He can tell them about democracy. He has been to Cuba.
Huh? Has he? I’ve read the CWI take on Cuba by Peter Taafe… and you can read it here…granted it’s nine years old, but somehow whatever revolutionary solidarity there is I’ll bet is very very critical indeed, and rightly so.
Sometimes it seems as if Joe and his friends on the outer edges of the left would prefer if Ireland became the Cuba or North Korea of Europe. Yes, we should model ourselves on two of the largest open-air prisons for ordinary people in the world. Then maybe we have been ahead of those countries. Was it not George Bernard Shaw who once described this island as “the largest open-air lunatic asylum in the world”?
Huh squared? He’s saying Joe Higgins or the SWP support North Korea or Cuba as political models? I fear Patsy knows little of that which he writes about in terms of the entirely honourable political stance of the SP in international affairs.
We proved that in last year’s Lisbon vote. The lunacy continues, whether it is with ideologues of the left or right, as regards Ireland and the EU and even in the context of a 20th century which proved that in matters of politics and economics the world would have been a far better place had Karl Marx and Milton Friedman spent more time in the pub than the library.
Well, given his alignment with an explicitly right-wing approach to our economic affairs in the form of the McCarthy Report I think he might profitably reconsider his stance.
Last Tuesday the CAEUC group also said the electorate was being “threatened, cajoled and lied to” in relation to Lisbon. But who “threatened, cajoled and lied” to the electorate last year? Who said Lisbon would bring euthanasia, abortion, and military conscription to little old Ireland? It was the No campaign. Such honesty! Such refreshing lack of cynicism!
Right, again. Thing is if he were even to go back and recount those issues, or preferably deal with the issues he might have a case to make. But… he doesn’t. What he does instead is try to say they’re crap because they are somehow intrinsically crap and then make a rather specious effort to determine contradictions where there actually aren’t any.
More than likely I’m voting Yes. But this complacent and phoned in stuff drives me to distraction. It really does. Most depressing thing, to read of a Friday that…
Patsy McGarry is an Irish Times journalist; John Waters is on leave
… and to wish for the high-priest of the transcendent to be back.
This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to the… Screaming Blue Messiahs August 22, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....5 comments
Ah, the Screaming Blue Messiahs. Never quite the most melodic of groups, never the highest achieving, bar what could be termed a novelty hit in the form of I Wanna Be A Flintstone (which, while no favourite of mine, was in fairness to them, part with a career doused in a kind of political critique of capitalism and ironically was later used on the soundtrack of the Flintsones file – pop will eat itself!).
A UK based outfit formed in the early 1980s they were a sort of malign cross between punk and the blues with a side-order of rockabilly. Lots of crashing, clanging. Short short songs – of which one of their best would be the unfortunately unavailable (on YouTube at least) Good and Gone…
There’s not a huge amount more to say about them, they released two albums of varying quality – the sort of albums that one listens fondly to a side and then decides to skip the other one, for my money had one shining moment in Sweet Water Pools (which has a fantastic snippet of dialogue in the intro, culled from where I don’t know), broke up, reformed more recently and so forth. Horror of horrors lead singer and guitarist Bill Carter is now in his mid-50s. Feck. And he’s not getting any younger.
As an aside, it’s amazing in this digital age not so much what is available as what is not. There are scores of albums by groups like the Screaming Blue Messiahs that you won’t find on the iTunes Store, or eMusic or wherever and only a subculture of ripping from vinyl is keeping them alive. What puzzles me is that the appetite – and let’s be honest, it is in large measure shamelessly nostalgic – for 1980s and 1990s bands that fell off the radar is immense. Given the costs of digitising vinyl or master tapes are so low you’d wonder at a music industry that continues to bleat that all is dismal when they do so little to address a constant source of demand.
Anyhow, here they are in all their shining 1980s glory.
Sweet Water Pools
Smash the Market Place
I wanna be a Flintstone
You’re Gonna Change
A Hank Williams cover…
Someone to talk to…
Arthur Laffer demonstrates the gap between theory and reality August 21, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, US Politics.26 comments
You may know Arthur Laffer better as the economist who developed the concept of the ‘Laffer Curve’ beloved of libertarians and low tax proponents just about everywhere. It goes something like this, increase taxes and revenues will not necessarily increase. Indeed the opposite is more likely correct. Thing is that Laffer curves are not easily predictable, or at least the optimal point on them. And arguably there are many different Laffer curves operating at any one time in an economy. And there are obvious points below which revenue accrued will fall. And… so on and so forth. Which renders the certainty of the proponents of the idea somewhat suspect.
Not that that stopped any amount of supply side warriors fuelled by this concept over the years.
Or you may not know Arthur Laffer at all.
Still, to acquaint or reacquaint you with him here’s a short snippet of him demonstrating in a public place his ignorance in a most impressive fashion.
Patsy McGarry incites class war… against the state. August 21, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.6 comments
Reading Patsy McGarry’s thoughts a week or two ago I was struck again by the concept of hegemony and again also the manner in which the McCarthy report has now become the perceived yardstick against which all else must be measured. Now, two preliminary asides.
Firstly it’s telling, is it not, how the jocular references to An Bord Snip have seemingly fled much of the news media. That’s not to say they’re not there, but as the weeks since the report was issued have lengthened the more sober ‘McCarthy’ report formulation has come into play. I could suggest very hesitantly that the reason for this is that the casual, almost informal, nature of the ‘An Bord Snip’ term was useful in advance of the release of the report, both normalising its function while also rather diminishing or reducing its seeming impact. And afterwards that air of levity seemed inappropriate for something that was and is put forward as, if not quiet holy writ, certainly the answer to our woes. Perhaps I’m over-analysing it, but I suspect I’m not. Political language is loaded at the best of times. These aren’t the best of times. While it is highly unlikely that focus groups are parsing every word there are dynamics at play and a certain sensitivity, or, what am I saying – considerable sensitivity – to language.
Secondly there is the notion that McCarthy will almost certainly not be implemented in anything like full. We know already that the government was seeking lower than the 5.3 bn that he recommends. The ESRI has argued for 2.5 bn. The eventual figure will, most likely, be closer to the ESRI, thereby affording considerable political cover as the most egregious excesses suggested in the Report are avoided and the Government can turn to a – perhaps – slightly-grateful populace and say, ‘look, we’ve smoothed down the rough edges’.
Anyhow, McGarry buys into McCarthy almost lock stock and barrel. And quite a few other tropes. For example…
I love my country dearly but we have been so badly let down. Our ruling class, whether of church, State or in finance, etc, has rarely been more than mediocre since we got our independence but none of its membership through the decades has shown quite the same expertise at enriching itself as the current one.
Among it I include not just our politicians and members of the temporary government but the very many who make up the backbone of permanent governance in this State.
So, let’s get this straight. He’s being quite literal, talking essentially about the ruling elite beyond capital (with the populist dig at ‘finance’… but what is ‘finance’ but the expression of capital?). One doesn’t have to be Marxist to find that a rather suspect analysis.
Their extraordinary vanity [that of our ruling classes] would be hilarious were it not so ludicrous, as illustrated through the inflated salaries and outrageous expenses they believe are their due, making us poor suckers the laughing stock of the developed world. This, despite their repeated profligacy and lack of foresight.
That this privileged class is aided and abetted by trade union leaders on six-figure salaries and with more directorships in their back pockets than they care to remember, simply heightens the farce in it all.
How many trade union leaders have that many directorships? But more concretely… what is he implying, that the trade unions are complicit in all this? That sounds unlikely given that their stated policies are – even if we allow for the nonsense of social partnership as currently formulated and which some unions appear far too wedded to – actually opposed to government policies. Indeed as was pointed out to me yesterday in a conversation with an astute observer of such matters, it’s notable how the unions are being raised into the adversary in this contest of wills by the right and its media.
But note again that his definition of ‘class’ is almost entirely within the orbit of the political classes. One might even argue that he’s talking about what is termed ‘civil society’. Odd that.
Our ruling class showed similar self-belief throughout the Celtic Tiger era. That continues, despite so much evidence to the contrary. Just this week, for instance, the Department of Finance was shown once again to have got its projections for State income wrong. This is a skill perfected in the only way possible, through practice. The department got such practice throughout the Celtic Tiger period when its projections were wrong with a consistency which suggested genius. For this its officials were rewarded with ever-increasing salaries and generous bonuses.
All of them?
Hmmm…
What though of the cheerleaders for business, both in their representative bodies, such as ISME, SFA and IBEC? Or that legion of the rear-guard in the media whose shrill boosterism through the best of times was accompanied by the most breathless rhetoric in business and property supplements. Ah… [strokes chin, thoughtfully] property supplements.
Still, none of that for Patsy. For him no need to look behind the curtain for the strings. He’s taking on the puppets.
Our ruling class must be brought to book if the people of this State are to accept the pain necessary to get us all out of this awful mess. It must be seen to shed its vanity and lead by example. Colm McCarthy has shown how, in sections of his report which have attracted far too little attention.
So what does McGarry agree with? Well, what’s interesting is that he says…
He recommended that 17,000 public servants should go, and I would suggest that as many as practicable of these come from the “Sir and Lady Humphrey” level. A new income tax band for all on more than €150,000 a year should take care of the rest, including the judiciary and their “because we’re worth it” attitude. Further, no sitting TD should be allowed draw a pension of any sort until he or she retires.
‘As many as practicable’. No quibble with the numbers. Just assent, albeit with a populist tilt, writ large as it happens, in regard to TDs. I’ve no problem with the latter idea, indeed I’d argue that if the rest of the PS is being asked to bear hybrid pensions a la McCarthy then the same should hold true for TDs, etc. Although it would be interesting to get a bit more evidence of this ‘Sir and Lady Humphrey’ mindset. It seems to me, and at least one member of the McCarthy group bears this out if you care to examine their approach to pensions and bonuses, that such attitudes existed in the ferment of the early to mid 2000s where supposed ‘commercial’ approaches were meant to be introduced to the PS.
But…there’s no effort to divine whether the job cuts recommendations by McCarthy necessary? I’ve yet to be convinced that we’ve got over staffing in the public sector, albeit there are issues it would seem in the health area. However, note that McGarry cannot or will not dispute the idea that 17,000 public servants ‘should go’ – and what a neat little euphemism that is, whether or not McCarthy seeks outright redundancies or reductions through attrition (and his studied ambiguity, not to say contradictory statements, on that matter bear careful consideration).
Note too not a mention of private sector excess. This is almost all about the state, the public sector…and…McGarry goes further, for he seeks an essentially populist axe-wielding against the representative aspects of our democracy.
McCarthy proposed that local authorities and VEC numbers be reduced to 22 across the State. Who needs town commissions and all those county/city councillors with their hefty expenses? Who needs the Seanad? It costs €25 million a year. For what? All its decisions can be overturned by the Dáil and its tiny electorate of some graduates and all county councillors make it elitist and undemocratic. As McCarthy pointed out, fellow EU states such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Sweden can survive without its equivalent. So can we.
While it is true that the above mentioned countries manage without a bicameral system that doesn’t in and of itself support a compelling case for such a transition. Indeed, whatever about the gloomily predictable political carve-up of the Seanad it is a reflection of particularly Irish conditions. We don’t live in Latvia or Portugal. That’s self-evident and consequently easy comparisons should be eschewed. Or, let’s put it another way. Why not look at those European countries which retain bicameral parliaments. Why is that comparison not as valid?
We don’t need 166 TDs. Scotland, with a population larger than our own, has 129 members of its parliament. Do we even need that number? There is no doubt that any government which went to the country seeking to change the Constitution to reduce the overall number of TDs to, say, 100, would have no problem getting that through.
Scotland isn’t an independent state. The institutional arrangements there are subsidiary ones. Maybe that’s a trivial detail, but somehow I don’t think it is.
And while I’m all for reform of our democracy, over-representation per se doesn’t seem to me to be the basic problem. Indeed if anything I think it could be argued that engagement with representation is a greater problem by far (and for a country that takes at least some aspects of this seriously look at democracy as a facet of US life and where elections occur across a much wider range of areas than here – that throws up both positive and negative outcomes but if we’re talking about democracy…). And by such massive cuts into the level of representation it seems to me the potential for disparate voices to enter the system would be radically diminished. Now some may think that’s a price worth paying, but I tend to the opinion that democracy demands more, not less, voices. And feck it, if they’re divergent and cause problems, well so be it. I’m happier with a Ronán Mullen or a Pearse Doherty or Joe Higgins as our representatives than otherwise.
And then he continues…
After all the USA, which is somewhat larger than us, has just 100 senators, two for each state. Fine, it has 435 members of the House of Representatives – for a population of 307 million. Colm McCarthy’s proposed 22 local authorities could fill that role here.
Now, I’m no expert on the United States, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is that it’s a federal state, and that therefore it is impossible to map the House of Representatives onto the Dáil given that within each state of the union there exist representative structures above the level of local government (and by the way, the US has a remarkably complex level of government. It’s a simple mistake to make. It really is.
You see here’s the problem I have with his analysis. We live in a complex capitalist liberal democracy. And all these supposed ‘solutions’ seem to me to be tilted to a sort of reductionism or simplification. I’m innately wary of that. The society isn’t simple, there are no simple solutions, and it’s time people accepted that. If anything it’s going to grow even more complex and in that context I’d hope there were tough sinewy democratic representative institutions that attempted to engage as deeply and widely as is possible. And I don’t believe that can be done by cutting numbers.
But look, that’s almost a side issue given the way McGarry accepts all that has been set in front of him. There’s no questioning of the menu, merely a passive acceptance of its offerings. And, for all the populist touches, in truth what does he seek to alter in terms of the structural defects of this society? Precious little. In all the suggestions he makes I see no evidence that it would tilt the balance towards those with less rather than more. If anything, in what I suspect is a shiny technocratic world that he seems to aspire to, we’d see much the opposite. Fewer representatives. Lesser representation. Efficiency, defined by the prevailing orthodoxy. And an attack not on centres of power but on their manifestations, in some respects the most cosmetic aspects of same. Precious little.
Left History links… August 20, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in History, The Left.19 comments
Due to my absence last week I didn’t get a chance to link to these, but I think many of us will find them very useful. Conor has done all of us interested in Irish left history an enormous service by unearthing a number of documents that are central to that history.
First there is this article here which reproduces a piece by John Goodwillie, an effective glossary of the left between 1960 and 1983.
And in addition to that we also have this, a diagram that charts the ‘family tree’ of the left. Those who have enjoyed the DCTV series on the left, which Conor and Donagh of Dublin Opinion were centrally involved in with others, or indeed have passed by here are sure to find it intriguing reading.
Time a new one was drawn up.
NAMA. The McCarthy Report. Bailouts? Confused? You will be. August 20, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.5 comments
Does the thought of NAMA concern you? And is the economic crisis and the proposed part solution, the McCarthy Report, a source of anxiety? Are you a bit puzzled as to the rhetoric surrounding it, after all the principals involved seem somewhat hazy on precisely what the effects of the implementation of both those will be. You’re not alone. For this last three days has seen a flurry of reports in the Irish Times that would have one scratching the head…
“So the Government could end up owning the banks or owning most of them. So there’s a kind of false debate goes on sometimes as to whether we should have Nama or nationalise the banks. You could end up nationalising them, or going most of the way towards nationalising them, within the terms of Nama if the haircut is severe enough.”
Mr McCarthy said the “essential difficulty” at present was that nobody knew how big was the “hole” in the banks’ balance sheets and that even those who had been inside the system had not been able to come up with firm figures.
The economist said he wished to “nail” the idea that the taxpayer, through Nama, was “bailing out developers”.
Yes. Let’s nail that idea immediately. He argues that…
“The developers’ debts are currently to the bank. A lot of the developers obviously can’t meet them. That debt will be transferred to the Government agency. The developers will still owe exactly the same amount to that agency, which will then go off and try to collect it. So there’s no bailout to developers involved in all of this. What developers have got to date is a bit of a stay of execution, but that’s all. As to the banks, there will be no bailout of the banks as such, unless the Government overpays for the loans.”
Instead, and this will no doubt be a massive source of comfort to us…
Mr McCarthy said the “real bailout” was a bailout of depositors to prevent “a complete financial collapse”.
That meant that the taxpayers were going to end up footing the bill to some degree.
But, surely extending preferential repayment terms to developers – the ‘stay of execution’ is precisely bailing them out, ‘try’ as NAMA may to recoup them.
Turn to Sarah Carey and one will discover that we should…
…stop asking yourself why we’re bailing out developers (we’re not); how much this will cost us (a lot) or why the little people have to pay (because that’s what little people are for). You should also spare yourself the bother of reading the litany of “Not I” articles spawned by the McCarthy report, for Colm’s €5 billion is a fraction of what the banking problem is going to cost us.
Hmmm… that’s interesting in itself. The sums ‘saved’ by McCarthy are as nothing compared to the financial sector? Well, you know, the weird thing is that that’s a line many on the left have been taking for God knows how long now. And yet we’ve been told that that ‘fraction’ is the crucial figure to keep in mind whereas let’s not exercise ourselves overly much about NAMA.
But in fairness to Carey – words I don’t utter everyday – she’s found a bit of a contradiction in the prevailing wisdom as expressed by McCarthy, and it’s precisely in that sentence I quoted at the top of this post.
But then along comes Colm McCarthy, a sober, patriotic man. On Monday, he said on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland that even if we overpay for the development loans, we could still end up nationalising the banks anyway because they’ve got so many other bad debts. So we could overpay for the sole purpose of avoiding nationalisation, but still end up having to do it? Ah, no.
And that is a fair point she makes. And the answer would be most enlightening, were one to come.
Now, as is usual with Carey, there’s the tilt into oddity of analysis, for example, she expects the Green Party to push for nationalisation and NAMA. What she really wants, and she’s not coy about it, is for the GP to precipitate an election with FF refusing to countenance the nationalisation part. But why should the GP do this, or rather, why should the GP as currently constituted feel obliged to do it. Her exit path for the GP is that…
The hard bit though is that the Greens will have to be ready to walk out if they don’t get what they want and what we need. People will try to scare them out of an election. They will say the last thing the country needs is an election. Rubbish. An election will take three weeks and Nama is taking almost a year to establish.
They will say that the international markets will react badly. Balderdash. Our political parties are the same, so the world will know that it won’t matter who wins. The only people who won’t like it are those who’ve been buying bank shares for the past three months and they shouldn’t matter to us.
They’ll say that the Greens will get hammered at the polls, but the leadership should ask itself this: Would they rather fight a general election which they precipitated over nationalisation or one prompted by Jackie Healy-Rae over rural buses? There’s only one right answer to that question.
It’s a nice proposition, but I fear that for she will be disappointed.
Meanwhile, though, on the saner side of the right side of the street we have Michael Casey, formerly of the Central Bank and now with the IMF. And curiously he’s one of the few on that side to actually, y’know, think a little bit about what the effects on the social fabric of all this stuff coming down the line might be.
Though let’s note that his thoughts on NAMA are oddly similar to those of the left. Not quite identical, I suspect he isn’t quite able to make the conceptual leap, but not that different.
This arises in the course of a discussion on welfare and wedges, although he doesn’t use that term.
By the by he doesn’t really seem to get the idea that welfare wedges are as much a product of low wage rates as ‘high’ welfare rates. Or that we live in one of the most expensive European economies as per costs. In fact he argues rather vaguely that:
The short-sighted profligacy by government (and social partners) has now returned to haunt us. Once benefits are conceded it is virtually impossible to reduce them later on, even if economic circumstances deteriorate. Governments have never learned the basic lesson that prevention is infinitely better than cure. While it is difficult to make international comparisons, it does seem as if Irish benefits are high, even allowing for relatively higher costs of living.
Really? As against where? I’ve got good stats that suggest otherwise. So a little precision in this particular debate might be useful.
But he’s of one mind with McCarthy that the cuts are necessary. Completely necessary and that they must encompass welfare. Again he doesn’t quite say why bar some nebulous stuff about ‘perverse incentives created by government…. inimical to economic growth and job creation’. Hmmm… Well. We didn’t hear too much of that pre 2008 so presumably they weren’t that inimical to economic growth and job creation. And he goes on to say…
Whether the Government accepts in full a cut of €1.8 billion, as put forward by McCarthy, remains to be seen. But anything less than that would scarcely be adequate.
Again with the vagueness. Adequate to what purpose? We know, because the ESRI has told us, that the impact on the borrowing requirement will amount to .6. In a deflationary economy. We know there is no fiscal or economic stimulus package. We also know that in the US and the UK they are attempting to use monies disbursed through those in lower socio-economic brackets to pump prime their economies for… er… growth and job creation. But somehow this state and this economy doesn’t obey any of those new-found rules of economics.
But it is on the political aspects of this that Casey is – as ever – most revealing. For he acknowledges that which McCarthy and Carey cannot…
Although note, as a further aside, the odd idea that our economic discussions are now clogged with issues of a specious equality – albeit only one of pain, and quite quite different you will note from the calls for equality, or even equalisation of the gains of the boom during better times…
Equality could be maintained by other sections of the community, eg public servants, taking larger cuts than welfare recipients. Given the correlation between the growth in public sector pay and social welfare over the last decade, some kind of linking formula could presumably be worked out.
I like the ‘eg public servants’. What about the rest of the community? Why not add them to the list? Why match public sector pay and social welfare alone? Not least because it is the private sector (now awarding themselves at their higher echelons pay increases in order, presumably, to defray further tax increases coming down the line) that has jettisoned those numbers onto social welfare rolls. Still, why explain? But here… this is of interest.
Something along these lines might be regarded as a reasonable prescription in a normal situation. Unfortunately, we are in a completely unprecedented situation which gives opponents of welfare cuts a powerful argument. A huge amount of Government spending is going, or will go, into bailing out the banks. Nama, the National Asset Management Agency, is likely to pay too much for the bad assets of the banks. If they don’t do this they will have to inject more capital into the banks; this may or may not lead to nationalisation. Taxpayers are likely to suffer for years even though shareholders will benefit from recovering bank profitability.
And…
Although most welfare recipients do not pay taxes, any reduction in their benefits could be seen as a contribution to the coffers of banks. A PR genius could not spin this any other way. It comes across as obscene: the poor subsidising the rich. It must be the worst nightmare of spindoctors.
Not just the poor, not only the poor. And note that he doesn’t put a tooth in it. For him this is a transfer from us to them. A ‘bailout’ if you will. If it’s the unemployed poor subsidising the rich, then it’s most definitely the employed workers subsiiding the rich. And he points to a practical aspect of that subsidisation…
To make matters worse, one bank, Irish Life and Permanent (ILP), has been allowed to increase its mortgage rate by a half percentage point even though this is in direct opposition to monetary policy as formulated by the ECB. Instead of cutting its margins like every other firm in the country is having to do, ILP are increasing their margins by using their dominant market position. Having caused unprecedented damage to the country, banks like ILP are not showing any remorse but are ready and willing to exploit their customers all over again. And there is a deafening silence from the Central Bank and the consumer side of the Financial Regulator.
If behaviour like this is allowed by the Government, it will make it all the more difficult for them to bring in welfare cuts. If they do not, then they will have to burden the middle class with even higher taxation, thus undermining job creation for years to come.
Do you know why I like Michael Casey? Firstly he’s nuanced in a way that some of the blowhards who populate this debate with their faux-’tough’ rhetoric aren’t. Secondly he’s willing to say what is what, even if that is difficult for his case. But finally, because at root what he says is so unvarnished and essentially honest (even if I disagree with his analysis), he is actually quite frightening. This is the view of the world, our world, from a certain level. And that is no harm at all to know.
This is what we’ve got to contend with when we get through all the bluster and palaver thrown up by those who keep telling us these are for our own good. Casey doesn’t even pretend that, or rather seems half-hearted about having to make that effort.
And, he’s not slow to identify that…
McCarthy seems to be about right in his estimate of the cuts needed. But there is a wide body of opinion which will not accept this, especially in the light of the banking system bailout. The implications for civil unrest should not be discounted. At some stage the economic merits will have to be balanced against the wider social costs. One way of easing the dilemma might be to propose a special levy on banks.
I think, as it happens, that Casey is wrong on the first proposition. I think McCarthy is overblown, that there are alternatives and that it is a further indication of the massive failure of this polity that those are not being explored with any energy whatsoever. But, and it’s increasingly heartening me, I think he may be right about the second proposition he makes. And those like Carey who point up some of the most obvious contradictions in the official line are, perhaps despite themselves, doing us some service. But as to his last propsition I doubt that any cosmetic pain infliction will get this government, or any potential alternative off the hook.
Those Fianna Fáil Senate proposals in full… sort of. August 19, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, Northern Ireland.48 comments
Well, farewell to the TCD and NUI Senators, who under a Fianna Fáil Seanad reform document would be cut from six to two. With a corresponding increase in three senators who all graduates would have the right to vote for, and an extra one voted for by ‘currently unrepresented institutions’. I’m a graduate, for all the good it does me, but I’m not much taken with this franchise by certificate approach. Either in its current incarnation or these proposed future ones. That said it is still somewhat shocking to see that…
A constitutional amendment in 1979 made provision for extension of the franchise to all third-level institutions, but no legislation has been put in place so far to implement this.
Blasphemy you might say, albeit they seem a little more exercised in dealing with that issue (and yes, I know they’re not directly comparable).
And what of this?
At present, Trinity and NUI graduates elect three Senators each, but the submission from the 26 Fianna Fáil Senators advocates a widening of the franchise to include graduates of other third-level institutions.
“It is only right that these graduates are recognised, it is only right that they should have a say,” leader of the Seanad and head of the Fianna Fáil group Senator Donie Cassidy told The Irish Times.
Er… why precisely? Or why graduates and not – for the sake of argument – women working in the home, or architects or helicopter repair and maintenance technicians. Or to put it another way, if you’re being all corporatist one should really go the whole hog, however much that begs any number of questions. And by the way didn’t we recently have the anniversary of events in the North driven in no small part by a reaction to exclusive franchises? Remind me again how that worked out.
Not that the Senate has quite the same relevance – despite my best efforts to publicise it this year.
Although the redoubtable Donie Cassidy is keen to change that, if the proposal is to be believed…
The Fianna Fáil Senators also propose that, as is already the case with the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil, the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad should be automatically re-elected, as one of the 11 senators nominated by the taoiseach after a general election, although the submission notes that this would require a constitutional amendment.
The submission backs the proposal that the leader of the Seanad “should have the right to attend Cabinet with the status of either a minister or minister of state”.
Bloody hell. Donie Cassidy at the cabinet table. Exciting stuff I think we can all agree. Although his now-traditional wrap up of the opposing points of view expressed in the second chamber are quite something to behold. Solomon. Wisdom. Of. Words that don’t quite spring to mind.
Meanwhile, speaking of Northern Ireland, what will the assembled political worthies there make of this?
The Fianna Fáil submission says consideration should also be given to a reciprocal arrangement with the Northern Ireland Assembly, “whereby the Assembly and Seanad Éireann would exchange a right of audience for up to 10 members of each at sittings of each body”.
And…
Mr Cassidy said it was envisaged that, on one or two occasions each year, members of the Stormont Assembly would attend and speak in the Seanad chamber on issues of particular North-South interest such as tourism or energy, but that they would not have voting rights. The same arrangement would also operate in reverse, with Senators attending and speaking in the Assembly.
Hmmmm…. well we’re almost guaranteed that someone in one or other institution is bound to be insulted by that particular example of parity of esteem and mutual respect, questions though are who and from which one?
