The shame and discrace of being Irish

In Ireland we have the health care system of a fairly fucked third world country. If you have multiple sclerosis, are a celiac, have kids with special needs or indeed any medical ailment of any kind that demands more complex treatment than a Band-Aid then you may as well kill yourself now. People regularly die while waiting for treatments which, when they arrive, are sub-standard. About half of the population rely on public health care while the other half is private. Because the overall standard is so bad and the 'consultants' are the same for both areas, the result is that the standard of private care is also one of the worst in Europe in terms of value for money. In this respect both rich and poor have an interest in improving the level of health care. As Vincent Browne said 'if you are below a certain income level in Ireland today it is a death sentance'. And yet, every weekend, the streets are still quiet...

No Pasaran

Apparently there is a law against putting you tube videos on your blog so with the coming into effect of the 'Ley de Memoria' this year, here is my choice for the new national anthem, imagine Carlos Puyol belting out this one before a game:

Machiavelli On Virtue, Corruption and Discourse

When we hear the word corruption today we automatically tend to associate it with a brown envelope, a kickback or a bung, things that are corrupting to the ‘individual’ and by extention to the state also. It is ironic then that Machiavelli’s name has become synonymous with the word because for Machiavelli himself, corruption was a bit more esoteric, for him it was: ‘that which prevents the Republic from attaining a high status of excellence in military and public affairs which if left unchecked will cause a complete degeneration of the state or prevent a good one from being set up in the first place’. It sounds at first like a very Christian take on politics but he had specific ideas on the role of the church. The main difficulty remains the interpretation of his term ‘Virtue’. Machiavelli’s’ language is of the everyday kind and at first glance ‘The Prince’ and to a lesser extent ‘The Discourses’ can seem like ‘an advertisement for wickedness’, where he seems to say that whatever action to be taken for the ‘common good’ is acceptable and that cynical skills are an important part of a rulers C.V. However this is to ignore the foundations upon which this exchange takes place. There are two types of virtue, one ‘civic’, and the other ‘military’. It is this interpretation by commentators of ‘virtue’ as: ‘that which is correct’, that has tarred Machiavelli and set him up as the first ever amoral ‘technocrat’ of all time, but this is not so, even if he was at the best of times a bit too plain speaking for his own good.

What is corruption?
There is then the ‘virtue’ of the ruler and that of the populace at large which require distinct talents but because of this ambiguity of meaning it is first important to understand what he sees as being the ways in which a state can descend into factionalism and what corrosive influences are to be avoided. Machiavelli does not see friction and political action by the plebs as an indication of this corruption but as a sign of health, so long as it doesn’t run riot.

He starts the Discourses by stating that people are ‘essentially greedy’ and is relentlessly grim about human nature. The primary evil is the existence of a separatist elite pursuing personal goals in contradiction to the public interest. The general idea of corruption is the obsessive pursuit of personal individual wealth and title instead of common wealth and goods and adherence to communitarian values. The rulers of the state define what this public interest or common good is and the apparatus of government is accordingly constructed to achieve this end, as we shall see. He states that steering a middle course being neither wholly good nor bad will lead to weakness of rule and act as a fan to faction. However, if there is a tradition of laws and a history of ‘virtue’ then there may be a framework for salvation in spite of ineffective government. At the same time he clearly states that ‘a prince who does what he likes is a lunatic’ and he never recommended evil just for the sake of it, saying that those kinds of actions will always bring ruin.

How to prevent it?

Machiavelli likes to look to the circularity of history for solutions in The Discourses’ and proves his points using classical models. In the establishment of the state in the first instance, it is important to consider the idle rich. In a state, which has a lot of this, then the best course may be a ‘just’ monarchy of some sort until such a time as a republic can be established as they will probably ignore any laws, which are devised to increase equality. His ideal solution is to get rid of all royalty because aristocracy is preferable to monarchy. Not an aristocratic elite but a cabinet of all ranks of civilians, taking the best citizens and privileging them in the right way while applying force to the rest. (Discourses: I.55) By privilege, he means influence and not necessarily personal wealth. It’s important to ‘keep the state rich and the citizens poor’. (Discourses: III.16). State wealth is communal wealth. Seeing as the rich always seek to secure what they have causing division in the process, the trick is to ensure that it’s more advantageous for every citizen to gain favour by public service than factious alliances.

Inequality continues to preoccupy us. Equality of opportunity is taken for granted while we continue to look for ways to ensure equality of outcome. Machiavelli appeals both to liberal and conservative traditions. He is resolutely compatible with modernity in the sense that he felt there could be no political utopia, only balance between factions. Finally, he is an optimist, the most successful and virtuous republic is one who can postpone conflict and war for the longest time while providing for the highest possible level of equality. His belief is that if you get this balance right, civic virtue can be instilled in the populace, their ability to participate, understand and change politics can be established and he also believes it can last indefinitely.

Taxation and the Nouveau Riche

A couple of radio shows on Ireland's economic situation. Laure Taylor has one of the best radio voices I have ever heard. His show is called 'Thinking Allowed' and it illuminates my Wednesdays. Here he talks to Roy Foster and John Murray Brown on modern Ireland:

Thinking Allowed

Maurice Walsh just finished a 4-part series on taxation, which does not sound like the most exciting way to pass the time, but is actually quite good. One of his shows is about the Irish low-tax policy which we have been getting away with for the last few years:

Taxing Questions

15 Storeys High

My house alarm has a facility on it whereby you can record short voice memos. I installed it some years ago and messed around with with it but never bothered to pay much attention to it until I got this mail from Murray* yesterday, who rents my house, here it is in full:

V,

Round about 5pm I went out to the shop briefly. When I came back I began to notice "bleep bleep**" about every 10 seconds. I believe this comes from the alarm system?

How to turn the bleep-bleep off? Urgently, as I shall be hearing it all night.

I noticed no sign of entry or anything taken. However on the alarm system when I played the message button, there was a thirties(?) voice saying "You big fat arsehole..." then cut off. I think there was traffic sound in the background. Does that mean this message was indeed new, and was left by someone who rang the bell but got no answer because I was out. Or does it mean that alarmlingly he already came inside?

Regards,
Murray

**The bleeping turned out to be the battery on the phone dying.
*Names have been changed to protect the stupid.

Irish Self-Crticism, an oxymoron?

"For usually people resist as long as they can to dismiss the fool they harbor in their bosom, they resist to confess a major mistake or to admit a truth that makes them despair."

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)

How do Irish people view themselves at the moment and how does that fit with our recent success? We are very critical of ourselves and others, and yet our ability to demand and receive good public services with a fair quality of life in Ireland, is very low.

It can apparently only come from within, as the recent flare up over the German Ambassador’s comments has proved. One of the ways you can offer an insight to this is to look at how we take criticism and what we do with it.

Since the start of the upturn in economic fortunes there have been critiques and multi page spreads about what our new materialist identity is doing to our personalities and how we are changing for the worst. I grew up in the middle of the country in the 80’s and let me tell you it was grim.

On the surface things look better now, but underneath, the old solitary self-loathing has even less chance of being overcome by the positives of social interaction. I envy the way Spaniards construct their lives around social occasions like fiestas, Easter, bullfights, family Saints days etc. A solitary Spaniard is a rare thing.

On the other hand, the little we had before has become almost totally subsumed by the pace of modern life. There has been a reduction in social contact. Where before, the pubs, town field days, church meetings and sporting events would be the main forums of social contact, only sporting events are left, all the others have been diminished as to have no impact. Smoking laws, zero public transport, and long hours have put paid to that.

The only thing anyone is bothered about is ‘road safety’. So why is it not possible to criticize constructively from the very start so that there is at least a fighting chance of developing some self knowledge? A useful way of sidestepping responsibility for inaction is to respond to the man who reflects that sense of deliberate ignorance. FF warned us before the election not to ‘talk ourselves into a recession’ rather like a parent warning a child off its favorite sweet .

The great success of FF in modern times is to capture the great negativity of attitude towards the self which Irish people possess and then reinforce that attitude by guaranteeing us that they share the same low expectation of our outcome and our desire to hang on to what we’ve got and thus that no radical changes will be made to anything, ever. ‘Your ignorance is safe with us’.