I like this idea but it is definitely a long-term aim and will not solve our immediate problems. In my experience most people become disinterested when asked to focus on the longer term. That is not to say that we should ignore it. On the contrary we need to have a long-term aim for our society, but remember that the longest journey begins with just one step, one practical step to set us off in the right direction! What can we do now to begin the move in that direction?

One of the greatest failings I see in our political life in Ireland is that many people are keen to offer their views on what that first practical step should be but ignore the relevance of the long-term aim in identifying the direction of that first step. The result is that we are for ever producing stop-gap solutions which lack coherency. If we don't know where we are going then any road could take us there!

It is important that in this Conference and in the ensuing discussions we try to follow parallel tracks, one to refine our long-term vision and two to sharpen our plans to move in that direction. It seems that there will be people attending the Conference who come from a background of differing political philosophies and commitment, and others with none. I hope, however, that all will use the opportunity to generate an inspiring vision of our future. Yeats once wrote (remembered from my Leaving Cert!) that "our young men shall see visions and our old men shall dream dreams." The difference explained in the notes to that essay stated that "visions were closer to reality!" Today's reality is a very threatening and conflicted one. Let us use that as the base from which we start to envision a new and better way to run our country.

An important component in that approach would be to allow participants to hold on to their personal political views if they wish but they must not be allowed to use the occasion merely to promote their own alternatives. If that happens then the day will be wasted.

Emotional arousal locks our attention and narrows our perspective therefore i hope that the event on 30/10/2022 does not become a forum for 'scapegoating' but rather a space where people can be creative and patiently receptive to NEW ideas. Imagine a different Social Model with Our Natural Resources freely available to all like air, water,sunshine for starters.Education and the freedom to pursue our instinctive drives so that we can we can feel fullfilled.The current Social Model which is based on a Monetary System in which scaricty is artificially created for the benefit of an Oligarchy-Global Corporations-is exploiting the planets resources in an unsustainable manner.This activity is aided and abetted by our Government for short term gain e.g.creating employment producing goods which have a dubious value to mankind.I believe that we need to consider how we can change from a Monetary Based Social Model to a Resourced Based Model where every human being has an oppertunity of getting their needs met.

What amazes me is we elect a government at amazing cost to us to run the country. But they dont do their job they employ so called experts to advise them. Less and less do the do the People of Ireland have a say in our future. So called consultation with the public is a sham, as anyone involved will agree. The role of the Government, in a democracy, is to look after the best interests of the People not the financial benefits of the few as is happening now.
We need a strong public sector who will demand that the Government fulfill it role.
Jim

Tony Pratschke, you are not quite correct when you say that the government cannot create jobs, they employ possibly hundreds of advisors and researchers at a huge cost but no accountability to the taxpayers. On the other hand the semi-state sector although run down and in cases sold off at bargain basement prices by the four main political parties and Mary Harney did and do employ many skilled workers.

The remaining semi-state enterprises should be utilised as job creators through diversification. The main problem with the semi-states is that their management structures tends to be riddled with bourgeois political toadies. This however is no reason to advocate their sell off or 'Management buyouts'. In my opinion the upper echelons of our semi-state enterprises and indeed the state departments and companies have to be purged ruthlessly and replaced by competent managers.

Local Authorities should be instructed to carry out social housing programmes and road repairs using direct Irish labour. In the longer term the local authorities should be instructed to prepare themselves to carry out where possible, the relatively lucrative road and other infrastructural works. Such works would reduce the huge amounts of taxpayers money that is presently being taken out of our country.

Paul

You missed out 'high quality politicians'.

It's not entirely facetious either. Those countries you mention have been around - and been successful - for a long time. If they're so good (and they are), why doesn't everyone copy them? Why ignore best practice? Our politicians must think they have better ideas is why!

However, remember this:

Norway is in a unique position, having something like 0.5% of the world's oil but a population similar to Ireland's. That is a massive piggy bank and what's more, they have retained control of their resources, unlike Ireland.

All three countries have enormous hydro-electric resources; indeed, Sweden will probably be the first developed country to become, to all intents and purposes, 'oil-free'.

Notwithstanding all that, your comment I largely agree with - particularly your use of the word 'fair'. Equal societies are happier societies.

I agree broadly but lets neither reinvent the wheel nor shoot for some ideal reform that has the potential to be sabotaged by special interests.

What I'm trying to say is yes we need to declare that we don't want to go back to the old unsustainable ways of the celtic tiger but we should also use the example of the nordic states; Sweden, Denmark, Norway and say - this is the type of fair and successful society that is possible, its been done before, what do we need to do to get there...High taxes, high quality services and a regulated but equally highly successful market.

Tony: 'right' and 'left' still hold meaning in particular contexts but should be combined with 'libertarian' and 'authoriarian'. You can be 'right' and libertarian or authoritarian or you can be 'left' and libertarian or authoritarian. You get better ideas of where people are with this.

Ho hum. It's all irrelevant anyway, left/right/whatever: the capitalist growth model is looking at the end of growth as we know it in the face.

'Growth' today means borrowing from the future and can only be achieved with continual consumption; as the era of free high-quality energy draws to a close, so must this consumption.

Another social model may emerge, that is if we do not destroy the biosphere, but it will be (it is) painful.

I wish to avoid some of the more clichéed political tabs when I emphasise the following points, which I believe to be essential. We must expose and challenge some of the jargon and assumptions infesting political debate in Ireland.

1. Governments cannot "create jobs" (except in the Civil Service and State owned companies) but they can promote the establishment of jobs by others;

2. Governments do, however, create a climate which affects the way in which jobs are created;

3. Employers and investors in Ireland do not have the creation of employment as their objective - profit is the aim and employment the means to that end;

4. Trite language such as "the foreseeable future" (= my best guess at what may happen), "going forward" (= we hope we are making progress), "the social partners" (= that shower who are trying to undermine the wishes of government), and similar phrases can't be banned but should be challenged. Our language must be real and focused otherwise we are no better that those who "call the catch-cries of the clown"!

5. What use is there in using historical phrases like "right" and "left" when the situation is more accurately described by "power holders with little respect for authority", and the "new dispossessed who are being increasingly distanced from the heart of society", "the exploited masses who are now replacing what used to be called 'society'",

As one of those who was involved in the Tax Marches through the Galway Council of trade unions I was totaly disheartened by the way the ICTU took over the campaign and effectivly lost it for the workers in that nothing came of it. I am fearfull that the same thing will happen with this campaign.
On the other hand I agree somewhat with the comments about protest marches - Same Faces at each and numbers dwindling for each.
One of the problems as I see it is that most people feel there is no alternative as they are not made aware by the press of the lack of taxation of our wealth. This country is one of the richest in the world in terms of natural resources Lead, Zinc, Gold, Oil and Gass yet most of this is only taxed at 12.5% after a raft of allowances up to 120% of costs.
Marie sugests that "We must recognise that the cuts are designed to privitise Health, Education and other essential services that can make the rich wealthier". This is at our cost. Time for changes but how?

How is the idea about havin a protest ahead of this proposal??????? have we not learned from earlier in the year people for whatever reason were not mobilising and it was the same faces out on the protests.
I think this is a great proposal and hope it gets the time deserved to be debated, again I cant believe the other one is ahead of this, i have a feeling this protest that will be called will be behind a labour party banner, maybe im bein cynical, i dont know. I think we need to at least start looking at radical alternatives of how we organise ourselves

Thank you for your response Mark, but socialism is not about austerity. The 'austerity' e.g. shortages of goods in the former socialist countries and still present in Cuba are caused by a number of factors not least the bycotts and agression against them by the Capitalist countries led by the United States of America. We should be aware that any attempts by our people to develop any new form of economics other than capitalism will face resistance from capitalism as we have witnessed recently in Venezuela and Honduras etc. However the tide is running against capitalism and in my opinion, the workers struggles across Europe will bring the collapse of the European Union closer.

@ Louise of 5 days ago,
I found your comment disheartening and flawed.
When we have a globalised economy, it's not as easy as selecting the 'greenest' or most 'ethical' product, because to be honest, there just aren't enough ethical factories and employers in the world. There aren't even enough consumers who give a toss. A lot of the things we wear or fill our houses with come from China, where the average wage is £40 a month. We are not helping people in China by buying Ecover or sandals from Oxfam, because they still have to work there, making sandals for people who couldn't afford the 'ethical' ones. We'll help them when we live in a world where everyone has the same freedoms and an entitlement to democratic control over their own lives.
What's worst about your comment is that your suggestion would perpetuate a society in which the poor are excluded from making ethical consumer choices because they can't afford them. By your logic, the unemployed or lowest waged would always have to buy products off people working in factories where 12 years imprisonment is standard for trying to form a union.
good luck with the capitalist guilt,
CCT

McDowells comments still infuriate me. Last night on Vincent Brown 19/10/10 a former banker said we can't tax the rich as they create all the wealth. Browne ate him, fair play. Theres no rehab of that type of mentality. It's dysfunctional, evil , call it what u will. Health,Education, Equality should be 'Ends' in themselves. Under Capitalism the 'Ends' are measured in '%' and '$', everything else is 'nice if u can afford it'. Ends and means have become inverted, and thats a dysfunction. No space for rehab there. Investigate the setting up of a giant National CO-OP , with a moneyless exchange of goods/services (use chip card technology instead of money). Reclaim our country (the country of Horace Plunkett and AE). We can do this.

Noel said, "With respect, this presupposes that there can be a nicer form of capitalism. "

Yes and no, Noel. I think you can have a 'no growth' form of capitalism. Feasta have done work on this.

I agree broadly though, that socialism without the austerity is something to be desired but again, we come back to a greedy few who spoil the rest's chances of this.

I think it's academic anyway. Both the left and right have to fight the same demon, that of limits. This last decade has seen those limits - fossil fuels, environment, financial - and there's an increasing scarcity in all of them. The world extraction of oil has gone past its peak, the biosphere is shagged out and money is being hoovered up to the top 1%.

The word, I believe, is paradigm and we have at some point got to move into a new one. The change is going to be vicious.

David you said: “Capitalism in its present form - one which promotes greed as good - has led us to this pit we find ourselves in.” With respect, this presupposes that there can be a nicer form of capitalism. Sorry but the development of capitalism over the period since capitalism replaced feudalism as the dominant economic system has been defined by constant struggle by the working people to achieve advancement of their pay and conditions etc. Lenin and our own James Connolly correctly described working people as ‘wage slaves’. Indeed if my memory serves me correctly Connolly went further and described the wives of the workers as ‘slaves of the slaves’.
Capitalism has now reached the stage whereby it can no longer serve the economic needs of the people and is moving to the stage of Imperialism (the highest stage of capitalism). We can see this in the development of the anti-democratic European Union and the USA both which are moving deeper and deeper into neo-colonialism to conquer new sources natural resources and markets. Our options now are to accept this new dispensation or to move to socialism. In the meantime I believe that our country would benefit by taking a step backwards to the period before we were conned into joining the EEC/EU. At that time what sustained the country was the fact that our economic system was a mixture of some multi-national companies, many small to medium indigenous businesses and state/semi-state companies. Most importantly, we were a free, independent and soverign state with control of our natural resources, sea and land. We should also get out of the Euro zone and do as the British, Swedish and other successful European countries have done. Keep their own currency.

Yeah there are lots of good ideas on the forum. I guess what im flagging up is the need to have a longer term vision than the next 5 year or next 25 years. Its pretty clear that the demands of capitalism has both a flawed internal logic ( demanding/prediciting infinite growth on a planet of finite resources) and runs counter to the demands of democracy ( the ablitity for powers to make and take choices resides as close to the people the decisions effect). What is being called an "economic" crisis is actually a structural crisis, a democratic crisis, an ecological crisis and impending energy crisis. The ask is pretty big.

So a vision of the future really can only have a basis in terms of values. Does anyone really and honestly think it can predict where we will be in 2065. Certainly if we continues to use the current social and economic models we know that humanity will not have furthered the cause of social justice.

We know from our lived experienced and a critical view of both history and "real politik" around the world that capitalism - organised human and environmental exploitation - is THEE central cause of human suffering, as well as being THEE central block to eradicating such suffering. A 11 year old can tell us that. What a 14 year old cant tell you is why the **** our lifes are turned upside down, our security thrown our the window and many of us will lead sicker and shorter lives because "the markets dont have confidence". How institutionalised are we if we accept this as "reality".

So heres the rub. How do we make the connection between our lived experiences now and the historical/structural problems we have inherited. How do we go about rebuilding a new house in place of the old with the minimum of risk of injury. Clearly we need to keep what we can, the values that further our individual and collective freedoms, dignity's and participation, the nuturing of creative human instincts and the egalitarian use of knowledge. What we must remove and cast away can be define by what impede our positive values.

It is a tremendous ask of ourselves, and our society. To truly claim our collective futures demand openness and sincerity to learn, humility and respect. But it also requires a hope, courage, and solidarity in overcoming the barriers put in our way by those who currently benefit from the status quo. Our childrens children can decide if we truly can rise to the challenge ahead of us