The Frontline: Statist Ireland and the Big Chill

Permabear

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Aidan1

I can see your point, but I don't believe your characterisation of expenditure growth is entirely accurate. Leaving aside the unsustainable increases in public sector pay, and the foundation of a series of NCSSBs to lobby for (or 'coordinate') an increasingly arcane series of special interests, it was really only at the very end of the period that the very strange (in Budget 2007 particularly, curiously preceding the General Election) types of current expenditure took place.

And even then, this can be attributed much more a Government that presented itself as being flush with money trying to deal with (a) an electorate with their hands out, and (b) a series of artificially empowered special interest groups (empowered by things like social partnership, itself a reflection of how weak central govt actually is here). The half a billion (€435m) for O'Cuivs Dept to spend on 'rural development' is a case in point - it was a sop to those who argued that 'not enough was being done' for marginal rural areas.

Even then, Govt did not extend into new roles, nor did it assume any very dramatic new responsibilities - most of the time it just tried to actually do what it had always pretended (or tried) to, or upped the rate at which people were being paid (social welfare being a case in point). And then again, much of the expenditure went on capital spend. Again, I sense a shoehorning of libertarian ideology into circumstances which don't strictly justify it.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Aidan1

My point is that there were precious few new 'handouts' - most of the additional expenditure was in the form of salaries or increased payments in areas for which they had existing programmes - there was little or no expansion of the State into new areas (apart from new social welfare payments for carers or the disabled for example). This spending had an inflationary effect, and certainly had an impact on the employment market in that it provided a positive disincentive to work, but it certainly did not fundamentally involve a shift in the role of the State, or exagerate the nature or extent of the role of the state.

I'll give you a concrete example - the main areas where spend increased dramatically were health, social welfare and, to a lesser extent, education. But the people doing the moaning on 'Frontline', in so far as I am aware, were primarily urban based middle class people who owned property. How are they likely to have been affected by these increases? How have their expectations of what the State is or does, or can offer them, been affected by this increase in expenditure? The answer, as far as I'm concerned, is not very much. There have been precious few new handouts for these people (unless you count tax cuts - but I'm guessing that you'd rather not!), and so their behaviour or attitudes cannot be said to have been conditioned by this. There could be broader societal factors at work, but if anything the State has been in retreat over this period, so I don't see how the Celtic Tiger period, which by most analyses involved the promotion of the individual over the collective, could have imbued this attitude in a number of people.

Rather, their moaning has been conditioned by a different set of factors to those that you are proposing. I'm not disputing the fact that Govt expenditure increased dramatically (and recklessly), but I am disputing the effect it has had - I'm afraid I can't see a linkage between this and the fact that a small number of people sat in a studio and gave out about 'their' footpaths not being cleared. At a higher level, I'm suggesting that your repeated arguments as to the virtues of libertarianism* are colouring your analysis. When you have a hammer, suddenly all probems start to look like nails.

The poor record of the State with regard to pouring money at certain problems is, again, reflective of a different problem - the fact that political urgency and the ready availability of funds usurped proper policy making. Bit like individual decisions around buying houses, I suppose.

*I'm not taking a swipe at your ideological preferences - I would have come close to sharing them once. Personally, I think anyone who still cleaves to the belief in the operation of unfettered markets and for weak Government after the events of the last 2 years deserves respect, if only for their bravery