Macroeconomic Success and Social Vulnerability
I came across an interesting paper analysing the roots of the Celtic Tiger and its impact on Irish society.
In “Macroeconomic success and social vulnerability: lessons for Latin America from the Celtic Tiger”, Peadar Kirby of Dublin City University highlights some of the downsides of the Celtic Tiger and the limitations of the Irish government’s economic strategy. Some of the statistics relating to wealth distribution and poverty make sobering reading.
But even if you can dismiss his highlighting of the lot of the less well-off with the argument that the poor will always be with us, it is not so easy to dismiss his obversation regarding the ’sense of dislocation, an alienation from Irish society and its values’ that is felt by those who should have nothing to complain about, those whom mainstream commentators say are the greatest beneficiaries of the Tiger economy.
Kirby sees them (or rather I should say us, for this resonates deeply with me and I have observed it in many of my friends) as the victims of ‘a social catastrophe’ equivalent to that brought on by the Industrial Revolution in Britain. This tallys with much of my own experience. When I read his paper I can map it to my own feelings over the past few years and to those around me a lot easier than the analysis of mainstream economic forecasters, much of which seems to be on a different planet to mine.
Kirby’s conclusions (emphasis mine):
The Irish case and the policy lessons derived from it raise deeper questions about the nature of economic success in a globalised world and the social costs of that success. For policy makers, these inevitably raise painful dilemmas as to the ability of a state in a globalised world to guide the market in ways that are socially beneficial. Unfortunately, the Irish experience throws little light on such dilemmas as economic success has been achieved through the state facilitating the operation of the market rather than guiding it towards more development ends. It is therefore a cautionary tale of the social costs of economic success in a globalised world. Policy makers in states which have not experienced much economic success may be tempted to settle for such a trade off. But its long-term social cost and their threats to its sustainability should not be underestimated.
This echoes much of what I have observed and have been trying to express. It has a lot more substance than the analysis of the media and the ‘pop-star’ economists from the banks obsessed with the single statistic of economic growth as a measure of everything.
It seems we have been too busy chasing the pot of gold to notice that the Celtic Tiger has pulled the social fabric out from under our feet.
Mark Waters marked time at 7:02 pm on August 3rd, 2004 .
