Speaker 3: Welcome back everyone.
Speaker 1: Today we're discussing Ireland, specifically why is Ireland So left Wing?
Speaker 1: I'm Ryan, I'm joined by a real life irishman, Keith Woods.
Speaker 1: You wrote an essay a couple of months ago called
Speaker 1: why is Ireland So left Wing? It was published in
Speaker 1: Chronicles magazine. It's also appearing in your new book Ethno Politics. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, what inspired you to write this essay?
Speaker 2: Well, it's clearly a topic that interests a lot of people.
Speaker 2: I think if you follow the discourse among the distant right,
Speaker 2: it's often a topic of discussion. People will say, how
Speaker 2: could Ireland fight so long for its independence? And I
Speaker 2: have this robust nationalist movement to the point of militancy
Speaker 2: and then embraced liberalism. And it's a demographic ration sure,
Speaker 2: so much in the twenty first century. And there's also
Speaker 2: I think a lot of bad explanations that it's all
Speaker 2: because her Worldism and you know, things that happened with
Speaker 2: hin Fein or something in the IRA you know, it's
Speaker 2: funny sometimes like Irish nationalist from America on this. If
Speaker 2: you look at the discourse on x it seems like
Speaker 2: a lot of like American conservative posters seem to think
Speaker 2: that the IRA like took control of Ireland in the
Speaker 2: nineties and have been in government since. This is weird
Speaker 2: thing of like, they're like, why why would the IRA
Speaker 2: do this? Why would Hin Finn do this? And Christian
Speaker 2: Finn has never been in government in the South. But
Speaker 2: also there is something anomalous about Ireland's leftism. You know,
Speaker 2: Ireland has the highest proportion of members of European Parliament
Speaker 2: in the leftist bloc in the European Parliament. It had
Speaker 2: a very left wing labor president until recently, Michael D. Higgins,
Speaker 2: who often made news for quite left to statements he
Speaker 2: would make about you know, capitalism, climate change, foreign conflicts
Speaker 2: and so on. And his successor is also a former
Speaker 2: labor politician, equally left wing. There's no populous nationalist party
Speaker 2: with a seed in our national Parliament. To doll And,
Speaker 2: Ireland is quite unique in Europe in the lack of
Speaker 2: emergence of a strong populist right. You know, you look
Speaker 2: at Germany and it has a FD which is in
Speaker 2: recent opinion polls the most popular party in Germany. Even
Speaker 2: in Britain now you see Reform which obviously we don't
Speaker 2: consider them nationalists but they have a populous vote and
Speaker 2: now the emergence of restore Jega and Portugal so on.
Speaker 2: You can always find these examples. In Ireland, there hasn't
Speaker 2: been a breakthrough. You know, the National Party exists, other
Speaker 2: groups exist, but you know, the vote share hasn't been
Speaker 2: there on a national level. Ireland's the most pro Palestine
Speaker 2: country in Europe. I think that's indisputable. Now, I don't
Speaker 2: think that's necessarily a bad thing, right to sympathize with
Speaker 2: the Palestinian cause as well, but clearly it's a reflection
Speaker 2: that politics are a bit different in Ireland. The interesting
Speaker 2: fact is that technically we've never had a leftist government,
Speaker 2: you know, ideologically leftist party explicitly has never been in government,
Speaker 2: and so it's much more down to the shift of
Speaker 2: the ideological consensus so far leftward with the existing formerly
Speaker 2: centrist parties and power. So I think it's actually an
Speaker 2: interesting question to examine. When you don't have a strong
Speaker 2: political left, you know, to sweep in in a huge
Speaker 2: election and implement all these changes, how can things move
Speaker 2: so leftward? And I think it reflects a lot about
Speaker 2: how modern liberal managerialism functions.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's examine that fasis. Obviously, Ireland has been invaded
Speaker 1: for many centuries, first the Vikings, then various entities from
Speaker 1: England and Scotland, and it does seem to have this
Speaker 1: kind of you know, siege mentality, you know, Ireland against
Speaker 1: the invaders. How much does that play into the national psyche,
Speaker 1: you know, culturally, politically, and how far does it go
Speaker 1: to explain you know, a third world it's attitude or
Speaker 1: you know, something like standing up for Palestine or other
Speaker 1: victims of colonialism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's definitely a factor.
Speaker 2: I mean, even the during a parathoid in South Africa,
Speaker 2: there was a big kind of workers strike organized by
Speaker 2: these workers in a department store in Ireland that became
Speaker 2: quite famous. And yeah, those kinds of internationalist issues have
Speaker 2: always struck more of record in Ireland. And yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean to a large degree in the modern world, that
Speaker 2: does feed into leftist narratives about you know, oppress or
Speaker 2: oppressed and feeling this kind of you know brotherhood fraternity
Speaker 2: with other oppressed nations. It does lend itself to your
Speaker 2: kind of slave moralism narrative. But I don't think that's
Speaker 2: as decisive as as some people make out. I mean
Speaker 2: people focus specifically on shin Fain and say, you know,
Speaker 2: this is a result of Irish nationalism, this is a
Speaker 2: result of Irish republicanism. But it's important to remember one,
Speaker 2: as I said, that Hinfain has never been in power
Speaker 2: in the South, but also that the establishment parties have
Speaker 2: established a kind of cordon sanitaire around Hinfain, and for
Speaker 2: a long time there's been very negative attitudes about hin Fain,
Speaker 2: about the IRA, about the arms struggle in the North
Speaker 2: of Ireland. You know, when Hinfein ran candidates in the
Speaker 2: South in the eighties and nineties, you know, they were
Speaker 2: getting like under two percent of the vote, and because
Speaker 2: of the troubles in the North, because of the conflict there,
Speaker 2: it did lead to a re examining of Ireland's militant
Speaker 2: nationalist history. Even as far back as the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: you know, you had influential history professors and places like
Speaker 2: Trinity College Dublin that began to take a more critical
Speaker 2: stance on Ireland's history revolutionary politics. Even at the fiftieth
Speaker 2: anniversary of the East Horizon in nineteen sixty six, there
Speaker 2: was you know, there was kind of an established taboo
Speaker 2: against commemorating it too much because of the violence aspect,
Speaker 2: and for a long time, someone like Poorik Pierce, who
Speaker 2: was kind of the father of that particular revolution, was
Speaker 2: kind of brushed aside because it was seen that this
Speaker 2: is someone that aren't militants in the North. Invoke this
Speaker 2: is kind of a stain on Ireland's reputation, the fact
Speaker 2: that we're in this peaceful internationalist order now and there's
Speaker 2: this black spot of violence in the North and that
Speaker 2: actually really affected people's psyche in the south. There's a
Speaker 2: great writer, Desmond Fennel, who wrote about these changes when
Speaker 2: they were happening in the sixties and beyond, and he
Speaker 2: talked about this, how much the shame of the conflict
Speaker 2: happening in the North and that this was being done
Speaker 2: in the name of Irish nationalism, how much this led
Speaker 2: the elite in Ireland to do a kind of revisionist
Speaker 2: history to you know, try and move away from the
Speaker 2: politics of the gun. I mean, you have a for
Speaker 2: t Shook of Ireland. A former leader of Finegael wrote
Speaker 2: an opinion piece and I think it was The Irish
Speaker 2: Independent a few years ago, sin the rising, the War
Speaker 2: of Independence were a mistake. This should have been done peacefully,
Speaker 2: so these revisionist attitudes became more popular among the elite.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's in so far as as that
Speaker 2: kind of bourgeois mentality has become dominant in Ireland, that
Speaker 2: is what brought about the changes with the embrace of
Speaker 2: the European Union, cosmopolitanism, more open immigration system, shinfen.
Speaker 3: As they've entered.
Speaker 2: Establishment politics and moved closer to government, they have adopted
Speaker 2: more and more this kind of social democratic, left wing politics.
Speaker 2: But you know, it was never the militant nationalism that
Speaker 2: was pushing people towards what we have now. It was
Speaker 2: much more a European wide, Western wide ideology of liberal pluralism, cosmopolitanism,
Speaker 2: this kind of neoliberal economic model. It was the very cohesive,
Speaker 2: homogeneous elite of Ireland that were embracing these European liberal
Speaker 2: ideas and somewhat imposing it on the rest of the country.
Speaker 2: And so far as people did have an attachment to
Speaker 2: that more militant, backward looking republicanism, those are people that
Speaker 2: tended to be more socially conservative. I would say that,
Speaker 2: you know, would tend to have more nationalist instincts as
Speaker 2: a concerns immigration, and even see that today if you
Speaker 2: look at the Poland, of which voters are a post immigration,
Speaker 2: you still find shin Fan voters are the ones most
Speaker 2: to post immigration, even though it's it's obviously a leftist
Speaker 2: party that that supports these mass migration policies. So you know,
Speaker 2: that story of Third world isn't kind of infect in
Speaker 2: the country. It's like, you know, Ireland still allows the
Speaker 2: US to run rendition flights through through Shannon Airport, and
Speaker 2: even even during the Iraq War, you know, this was
Speaker 2: something that was disgusted. There was potentially people being transported
Speaker 2: to Guantanamo Bay or torture, and we're supposedly a neutral country.
Speaker 2: They used our airports to stop and refuel and it
Speaker 2: aided in their invasion of Iraq. So you know, our
Speaker 2: government certainly never had these kind of third worldist attitudes.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean to a degree, yes, the you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of underdog politic and you know, this kind
Speaker 2: of anti colonialism that does breed into toward worldism. It
Speaker 2: is somewhat part of the culture.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: My first experience with Ireland was through a much loved
Speaker 1: comedy called Father Ted, which is you know, basically a
Speaker 1: parody of Catholic priests in Ireland. You know, on a
Speaker 1: little little Ireland and that was at a time that
Speaker 1: I was being raised as a Catholic child. So how
Speaker 1: much does this post Catholic attitude is kind of sneering
Speaker 1: at the priests and the old fashioned Irish grandmothers play
Speaker 1: into again the national psyche, the culture kind of retaining
Speaker 1: these egalitarian values, you know, welcome in the immigrant, the
Speaker 1: good Samaritan. How much does that play in these days?
Speaker 1: And has there been a revision of these values into
Speaker 1: something similar but more amenable to you know, this modern
Speaker 1: liberal order.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a meme on Gail Twitter, Irish Twitter of
Speaker 2: this archetype in Ireland of the Derek, which is like
Speaker 2: the you know, boomer centrist, fine gael voting liberal lives
Speaker 2: in Dublin, Uns a couple of houses, and people will
Speaker 2: attach quotes to this image. Very typical, like kind of
Speaker 2: middle class looking Irish guy and it's all about how
Speaker 2: he grew up in devil Era's slave Island, you know,
Speaker 2: where the Catholic bishop's rule that this was like a
Speaker 2: papist theocracy. You know, there were mass graves of babies
Speaker 2: buried in women and children's homes. Child abuse was rampant,
Speaker 2: it was like the Handmaid's Tale in terms of the
Speaker 2: enforcement of sexual morality. They was a backwater all this
Speaker 2: kind of thing. So there has been this mythos constructed
Speaker 2: of this deeply dark, stagnant leak period in Irish history
Speaker 2: post independence, where you know, basically the Catholic Church and
Speaker 2: conservative politicians ruled, a lot of people were emigrating, there
Speaker 2: was very little economic growth, and yeah, the economic aspect
Speaker 2: of that story, there's a lot of truth to it,
Speaker 2: but yeah, the liberal elite has constructed this, you know,
Speaker 2: this big danger of the backwards look in Ireland that
Speaker 2: they're at war with and they can still kind of
Speaker 2: paint themselves as the underdog that you know, we kind
Speaker 2: of liberated ourselves from this in our lifetime and they're
Speaker 2: still backward looking people that would want to take us
Speaker 2: back to this. And you know, this kind of you
Speaker 2: could say, like upper middle class centrists. They're super proud
Speaker 2: of things like the referenda that Arish people have voted
Speaker 2: majority on these liberal issues, and they're super proud about
Speaker 2: European assets and the economic growth Ireland has had and
Speaker 2: so on, and that is kind of typical of the elite,
Speaker 2: the state class. As Desbon Fennel would have called it
Speaker 2: that that really dominates Ireland. And this is an important
Speaker 2: aspect is although Ireland is a mostly rural country, about
Speaker 2: forty percent of the population are in the greater Dublin area.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the concentration of media, banking,
Speaker 2: the civil service, it's really heavily, heavily centralized in Dublin
Speaker 2: and in other countries, I mean they're always you know,
Speaker 2: you look at somewhere like France, they're deep regional differences.
Speaker 2: They're like, you know, there are blocks of maybe Catholic influence,
Speaker 2: farmer influence, these kinds of blocks that can create political coalitions,
Speaker 2: a lot of those things. You know, in Ireland it's
Speaker 2: like the farmer income is so tied to European Union
Speaker 2: cap policy. Again, all of the media, civil service, it's
Speaker 2: it's really one area of kind of South Dublin, the
Speaker 2: leafy suburbs D four is used in conjunction with this,
Speaker 2: the state class a particular particularly wealthy area of Dublin.
Speaker 2: And yeah, these are people that tell themselves a certain
Speaker 2: story about the history of Ireland. Esmond Fennel had a
Speaker 2: book titled Nice People and Rednecks, and it was to
Speaker 2: represent the way that they see the world that they're
Speaker 2: the nice people, the friendly, liberal, cosmopolitan, welcoming people that
Speaker 2: live in the city that you know, they go to
Speaker 2: the same schools, they drop their kids at the same schools,
Speaker 2: they work in the same offices. Oftentimes they're they're kind
Speaker 2: of lifers in the system. They transfer from the civil
Speaker 2: service to banking, to advisory roles to whatever else. And
Speaker 2: then they have this picture that you know, outside there
Speaker 2: are these backward looking rural lites, rednecks.
Speaker 3: You know, they take.
Speaker 2: Their morality unquestioningly from the Catholic Church. They resisted all
Speaker 2: of the things that brought us prosperity, the European Union,
Speaker 2: the euro global trade and so on, and so they
Speaker 2: always tell the story of them being at war with
Speaker 2: this this larger, backward looking system, and they can there's
Speaker 2: still very much, I think, see themselves as kind of
Speaker 2: an underdog. You know that you have these forces of
Speaker 2: trumpsm and Brexit and the Catholic Church, and these are
Speaker 2: the this is the brave, forward looking generation that that
Speaker 2: overcame all that mid Ireland, the pluralist, open, outward looking place.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about that antagonism between you know,
Speaker 1: this emerging technocracy in Dublin, which you know has forty
Speaker 1: percent of the population versus rural island. So that's as
Speaker 1: I understand, something that's come about mainly in the last
Speaker 1: thirty years. It was really the emergence of the Celtic
Speaker 1: Tiger economy preparation for joining the EU and the Euro.
Speaker 1: Of course, the corporate tax rate was cut to twelve
Speaker 1: point five percent, and Ireland has been you know, this
Speaker 1: hub of especially tech companies, biotech. I think Apple do
Speaker 1: a lot of business there, Google, these huge companies, And
Speaker 1: I was looking at the statistics of government government revenue
Speaker 1: before preparing for the show, and the government revenue in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five was fourteen billion euro and this year
Speaker 1: it will be I think one hundred and seven billion euro.
Speaker 1: So clearly the state has just grown massively seven x
Speaker 1: in thirty years. If you can explain your thesis of
Speaker 1: how the Irish political systems kind of molded into this
Speaker 1: Uni party and managed the growth of this economy which
Speaker 1: is kind of offshore but highly integrate to EU economy, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: like I said, I.
Speaker 2: Think the key is how homogeneous the state classes. And
Speaker 2: I think there's something with Irish history and Irish politics
Speaker 2: that there is a kind of I don't know if
Speaker 2: i'd call it a conformity, but you know, there's almost
Speaker 2: like the there's a certain clannishness to Irish people. I
Speaker 2: think that that makes them less willing to challenge consensus
Speaker 2: within small groups. And yeah, I mean I think for
Speaker 2: a long time the Irish elite were already way ahead
Speaker 2: of the population in terms of their liberalism and openness
Speaker 2: and holding the values that are commonly held now. But
Speaker 2: they had this population that was resistant, that was Catholic,
Speaker 2: that was nationalists, commonly held beliefs. So it was really
Speaker 2: a long process. But if you look back, you can
Speaker 2: see that you go right back, and you know, you
Speaker 2: have people like Connor Cruz O'Brien, who was very influential
Speaker 2: Labor Party pole politician. He implemented the rules that you
Speaker 2: couldn't have representatives of the IRA, their voice couldn't be
Speaker 2: heard on television seat of actors like repeating praises from
Speaker 2: Jerry Adams, and he intros really strict censorship laws. And
Speaker 2: again he's someone that basically repudiated the nationalist tradition. But
Speaker 2: you have a lot of these figures there were you know,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of Anglo Irish figures that retained
Speaker 2: influence after independence, but it's more generally a mindset of
Speaker 2: of again an upper middle class, kind of mercantile elite
Speaker 2: in the in the city, and the degree of media
Speaker 2: control allowed them very much to bring the population with them.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a state broadcaster or a certain perspective.
Speaker 2: For a long time, that's that's what Irish people were
Speaker 2: limited to. And so it was a process of liberalization.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people will look at you know, oh, the corporations
Speaker 2: came and they must have made Ireland liberal, and it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, you could look at you know, Facebook donates
Speaker 2: money to leftist NGOs, But none of this is very causative, right,
Speaker 2: These corporations set money aside for some of these projects
Speaker 2: and you know what's there they donate to. But it's
Speaker 2: it's like by the time that was happening, the country
Speaker 2: had already moved very leftward. It was already on the
Speaker 2: course that was said, an embrace of global capital financialization.
Speaker 2: You've the opening of the Irish Financial Services Center that's
Speaker 2: meant to attract financial services similar to the City of London.
Speaker 2: Like you said, there's the low corporation tax. There's also
Speaker 2: a number of loopholes that essentially allowed corporations to dodge
Speaker 2: tax almost completely. And the joining of the European Union
Speaker 2: is usually beneficial economically. We get this huge export market.
Speaker 2: Ireland's and English speaking country. It's highly educated because of
Speaker 2: investments that were made in public education, and so it
Speaker 2: becomes this very attractive place for companies to set up
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical companies. But increasingly in recent years tech company. Right,
Speaker 2: all of these companies like Facebook and PayPal have head
Speaker 2: offices in Dublin, and so at the same time you
Speaker 2: have a population becoming more acclimatized to this liberal vision
Speaker 2: of the state class, you have huge revolutionary economic growth
Speaker 2: coming through a vision that that really matches their perspective
Speaker 2: on things, you know, European integration, global trade, you know,
Speaker 2: this import export model with a lack of tariffs, highly educated,
Speaker 2: bluid population that can serve a number of functions for
Speaker 2: these corporations, and so this really fits with their new
Speaker 2: global vision of things. And Ireland remains one of the
Speaker 2: most pro EU countries in Europe. And I mean it's
Speaker 2: to my mind, it's simply because of the enormous economic
Speaker 2: growth that did bring so it really bolstered their vision
Speaker 2: of things, and it does obviously make it a lot
Speaker 2: more difficult for some kind of populous force to tap
Speaker 2: into a lot of angster on that, just because Irish
Speaker 2: people that live through that have observed a huge change
Speaker 2: in the standard of their living in a short period
Speaker 2: of time. Now there's a young population who don't experience
Speaker 2: that and who through various means, are locked out of it.
Speaker 2: Most obviously the housing problem. But if you're a boomer
Speaker 2: in Ireland, I mean, you know, there are boomers that
Speaker 2: grew up in houses without running water and now they
Speaker 2: own they owned two homes and a holiday home, and
Speaker 2: they've watched the value of their house, you know, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty x and full employment, economic growth every year exceeding expectations.
Speaker 2: Like for a certain segments of the population, things have
Speaker 2: never been better, and that's the group that really dominates
Speaker 2: Irish politics.
Speaker 3: The people that feel left out of.
Speaker 2: That broadly are kind of on the margins and not
Speaker 2: as influential politically.
Speaker 1: And that economic growth has been quite remarkable. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of well paid jobs associated with
Speaker 1: these new tech sectors, but importantly, the asset growth has
Speaker 1: been ridiculous. I was looking at a real estate in
Speaker 1: Dublin a couple of years ago and I saw this.
Speaker 1: I think it was a six hundred foot Dockers cottage
Speaker 1: in Dublin, just outside Dublin, and it was something like
Speaker 1: over six hundred thousand euro, more expensive than most parts
Speaker 1: of London. And that's something that's really been harming the
Speaker 1: Irish youth. You know, many not able to afford to
Speaker 1: buy a home. I think there was statistic that forty
Speaker 1: of eighteen to thirty four year olds live in their
Speaker 1: childhood bedroom with their parents. Many have decided to move
Speaker 1: abroad because they don't see a future in Ireland.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The boomers have done very well out of this, and
Speaker 1: you know economically, so you know, do they have a
Speaker 1: stranglehold on you know, the democratic system and this Uni
Speaker 1: party that's emerged.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I've written before about the gerontocracy and the
Speaker 2: boomer domination of the economy and if Ireland is like
Speaker 2: the liberal managerial state power excellence, it's also the Western
Speaker 2: gerontocratic state power excellence. There's a statistic I think seventy
Speaker 2: percent of household wealth in Ireland is tied up in
Speaker 2: the value of houses and this for a long time
Speaker 2: actually fueled the economy. I mean during the Celtic Tiger
Speaker 2: when we had a normous economic growth, it was also
Speaker 2: a massive property bubble. At one point, I think almost
Speaker 2: a fifth of GDP was just coming from the property market,
Speaker 2: and that contributed to the massive collapse that came when
Speaker 2: there was a global financial crisis. That's why Ireland was
Speaker 2: especially hit hard. But yeah, boomers bought houses in the
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety some of them, and in ten fifteen years
Speaker 2: their houses were worth four or five x. So again,
Speaker 2: this is something we talk about. We've talked about a
Speaker 2: bit on the show and other episodes, but this problem
Speaker 2: of land value and this just clearly unfair wealth transfer,
Speaker 2: where the collective productivity and work of the working population
Speaker 2: creates an overall increase in value and that eventually gets
Speaker 2: funneled into land value and into unproductive asset holders. And
Speaker 2: Ireland was the ultimate example of that because you had
Speaker 2: a growth in the nineteen nineties that was driven by
Speaker 2: really solid economic fundamentals. You know, we had a very
Speaker 2: educated population, we invested in publicly funded secondary level third
Speaker 2: level education, we had this integrated economy. We were heavily
Speaker 2: ex sporting. We had our own native industry, but again
Speaker 2: it was heavily funneled into speculation and government. Successive governments
Speaker 2: played into that. They slashed taxes on property as far
Speaker 2: back as the nineteen seventies. Rates on dwellings that used
Speaker 2: to be used to fund local governance were abolished, and
Speaker 2: so the entire taxation system was geared towards people hoarding assets,
Speaker 2: specifically housing as a means to get rich quick. And
Speaker 2: this was very common during the Celtic Targraph for people
Speaker 2: to begin owning two tree homes. Policies like mortgage interest
Speaker 2: relief encouraging people to take second, third houses. And now
Speaker 2: you have this massively lopsided economy where you have an
Speaker 2: older generation that benefited from low prices, full employment, new builds,
Speaker 2: public housing that was being made available, taxes geared towards
Speaker 2: encouraging speculation and property. When you have a generation out
Speaker 2: that can't enter the property market and are emigrating at
Speaker 2: massive rates. You name that figure about people living at
Speaker 2: home that puts Ireland on power with countries in the
Speaker 2: Balkans and Southern Europe. You know that's unheard of for
Speaker 2: Northern European countries, and of course when this came crashing
Speaker 2: down in two thousand and eight and we were so
Speaker 2: highly leveraged with a bubble in the property market, political
Speaker 2: decisions were made that again protected boomers, protected the older
Speaker 2: class of asset holders above everyone else. You know, Ireland
Speaker 2: suffered so badly because of an absolutely disastrous economic policy
Speaker 2: to guarantee all banking deposits in the banking system. This
Speaker 2: was seen as a problem that these banks were potentially insolvent.
Speaker 2: There was fears about a run on the banks, a
Speaker 2: loss of confidence, and so government's made a political decision
Speaker 2: to guarantee all of the bad debt that these banks held,
Speaker 2: and that led to a disaster in public finances. Anglo
Speaker 2: Irish Bank, which was heavily tied up with property speculation,
Speaker 2: went bust, was nationalized. The public deficit became so large
Speaker 2: that we took this Triika bailout so called, from the
Speaker 2: imf EU, the ECB and then throughout that you had
Speaker 2: years of austerity and really difficult times economically. But the
Speaker 2: class that was always protected was the old and was
Speaker 2: asset holders. So one example, one of the first policies
Speaker 2: they did in trying to close this budget deficit was
Speaker 2: taken away universal free healthcare from the elderly, so we
Speaker 2: have medical cards where certain people that are below an
Speaker 2: income threshold can receive free healthcare. If you're over the
Speaker 2: age of sixty five, everyone receives that. So one of
Speaker 2: the first things the government did part of their austerity
Speaker 2: programs was to means test some of these universal benefits. Well,
Speaker 2: of course, as soon as they came for the boomers
Speaker 2: with massive protests like Arland had never seen before a
Speaker 2: huge collapse in support for government because boomers are the
Speaker 2: largest voting demographic, and it was quickly reversed and from
Speaker 2: that point forward we had years of austerity where it
Speaker 2: was things like income tax increases, a universal Social charge
Speaker 2: which was a new income tax, took us up to
Speaker 2: the point where Ireland is the third highest country in
Speaker 2: the OECD for income tax and the average earner. Cuts
Speaker 2: to public spending. But overwhelmingly boomers, the retired, the old wealthy,
Speaker 2: acid owners were protected and working middle class people, younger
Speaker 2: people that would have been trying to get on the
Speaker 2: housing letter and start the family were heavily targeted by
Speaker 2: the austerity program and as we mentioned before, it was
Speaker 2: a huge collapse in the birth rate from about twenty
Speaker 2: ten onwards as well, from above replacement to now well
Speaker 2: below replacement. But you know, because of the decisions taken
Speaker 2: by governments to protect the banking system and the confidence
Speaker 2: in the banking system and asset holders above all else,
Speaker 2: property prices pretty quickly re covered just up to twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen they were pre crash levels, and since then they've
Speaker 2: exploded and there at record hies again. So the older
Speaker 2: boomer kind of Celtic Tiger generation that availed of cheap housing,
Speaker 2: free education, full employment, investment in an economic model that worked.
Speaker 2: They were protected through the austerity it fell on younger
Speaker 2: working people, and then they got the public benefit of
Speaker 2: once we had a new economic growth model that was
Speaker 2: heavily focused on export growth and just GDP growth generally,
Speaker 2: which came alongside the mass immigration and flexible labor market.
Speaker 2: They've benefited through that.
Speaker 3: All the way.
Speaker 2: They were protected from the austerity it fell on the
Speaker 2: younger They had universal benefits protected that younger people don't.
Speaker 2: And then the growth very quickly appreciated into asset growth
Speaker 2: and specifically land and property, and they've seen their wealth
Speaker 2: go massively up since then. And then at the same time.
Speaker 2: You know, we again talked about this before, the need
Speaker 2: for a land value tax. People are seeing multiple axes
Speaker 2: of their wealth without doing anything productive. Productive people had
Speaker 2: to pay for all of this austerity for years and
Speaker 2: then when people try and buy a house, that's the
Speaker 2: point we tax, right, we tax through stamp duty the
Speaker 2: transaction of buying a new home. But of course if
Speaker 2: you just sit on your property for twenty years and
Speaker 2: you know you can go off living in another country,
Speaker 2: do nothing, never look at it, never improve it, never
Speaker 2: rent it out. While we have a house in crisis
Speaker 2: and you just watch your wealth go up and up.
Speaker 2: So it's a totally broken system and the voting dynamics
Speaker 2: of mass democracy. This is true across the West and
Speaker 2: force this because if you look at Ireland to tie
Speaker 2: this back to well, why is Ireland so left wing
Speaker 2: or why does Ireland continue to elect these governments that
Speaker 2: take these disaster of policies. Where now we have a
Speaker 2: country with the highest percentage I think the highest migrant
Speaker 2: percentage in Europe right now is in Ireland. And you know,
Speaker 2: if we want to just tie back to numbers, I
Speaker 2: mean for two three years there consecutively after COVID we're
Speaker 2: increasing our population by three to three and a half
Speaker 2: percent per year just through inward migration, over one hundred,
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty thousand people a year. Which break
Speaker 2: it down by percentage wise, I think it's it's the
Speaker 2: highest in the world, up there with with Canada. So
Speaker 2: it's absolutely staggering numbers. And again, what does that translate into. Well,
Speaker 2: it's it's you know, it's it's lower wages for lower paid,
Speaker 2: lower skilled workers. But it's more bodies, it's more consumer spending,
Speaker 2: it's more taxation, it's more competition for housing, for assets,
Speaker 2: and you know, again you trace it back and what
Speaker 2: it translates to. It it trickles up into the asset
Speaker 2: holders and into unearned gains for people that own property,
Speaker 2: which is a benefit that was given to the older
Speaker 2: generation that they could freely enter that market. But why
Speaker 2: this isn't forced politically is if you break it down,
Speaker 2: you know, at the last election again and everyone was
Speaker 2: kind of hoping for his populist ups well and again
Speaker 2: the establishment parties were in supreme but you look at
Speaker 2: who's voting and in the age cohort, over fifty five
Speaker 2: ninety percent of eligible voters vote and you go down
Speaker 2: to under thirty fives and it's about thirty percent. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so young people are alienated, they're not happy with things.
Speaker 2: I'll give you another Sagarin statistic, twenty five to thirty
Speaker 2: nine year olds in Ireland. Ninety three percent of them
Speaker 2: don't down at home.
Speaker 3: It's it's intill thirty nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty five to thirty nine. So this is a
Speaker 2: generation that's just completely locked out. Like I said, birthrate collapsed,
Speaker 2: mass emigration paid for the austerity a lot of them
Speaker 2: during the crash years, then saw no real benefit. You know,
Speaker 2: the income taxes have basically remained the same, the emergency
Speaker 2: income tax that brought. Instead we taxed, we taxed labor
Speaker 2: and capital because this is the model we follow where
Speaker 2: we leave land value alone, so we let all the
Speaker 2: wealth trickle into land values. But yeah, boomers go out
Speaker 2: and vote, and every election is basically a referendum where
Speaker 2: you have these two dinosaur old centrist parties of Finegel
Speaker 2: and Pheno Fall, and the choice for boomers is basically
Speaker 2: you have the Progressive Center. This is just block of
Speaker 2: these two parties that used to be separate but now
Speaker 2: are basically a uni party. And then you have like
Speaker 2: a smattering of leftists and you know, some kind of
Speaker 2: fringe populist parties, and so for them, it's basically a
Speaker 2: choice of do you want the stability of the progressive
Speaker 2: center that brought EU integration and economic growth and you know,
Speaker 2: all of the things that they've benefited from, or do
Speaker 2: you want the chaos of leftist government probably led by
Speaker 2: Shin Fein. And so most boomers vote for stability over chaos,
Speaker 2: and that's basically the story of every Irish election.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean in terms of well, why why is there no
Speaker 2: great backlash against this? And this is something I think
Speaker 2: populous miss a lot of the time. You know, we
Speaker 2: want to tap into, you know, boomer rage at the
Speaker 2: you know, at the progressive liberals and so on. But
Speaker 2: I mean for a generation of Irish people, they've never
Speaker 2: had it so good and things have never been better.
Speaker 2: I think people forget this and they're analysis sometimes they're
Speaker 2: looking at it from the perspective of a young guy
Speaker 2: that's that's trying to make his way. But it's like,
Speaker 2: put yourself in the shoes of boomers that have lived
Speaker 2: through this and have have asset Welton are just watching
Speaker 2: it explode every year.
Speaker 3: It sounds incredibly similar to the UK.
Speaker 1: These boomers think they are financial geniuses for buying real
Speaker 1: estate before the mid nineties. You know, the values grown
Speaker 1: six hundred percent in thirty years or something like that.
Speaker 1: And really the only millennials that are buying property are
Speaker 1: being gifted money by their by their boom of parents.
Speaker 1: They are really the only people that are in a
Speaker 1: position to to start families and own their own home
Speaker 1: and everything like that.
Speaker 2: Well that's the other thing is, you know, when we
Speaker 2: had this crisis that was driven by property speculation, and
Speaker 2: it was boomers buying a second and third home and
Speaker 2: sometimes you know, people would be telling these stories about
Speaker 2: like the you know, their postman that owned a third
Speaker 2: home in Bulgaria. It was just insane level. It's literally
Speaker 2: like the big short Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: and the banks were hugely at fault. They were just
Speaker 2: lending to everybody. They were you know, I mean, people
Speaker 2: would tell stories like their banks were calling them up
Speaker 2: trying to encourage them to take another mortgage out while
Speaker 2: interest rates were so low, and you know, just going
Speaker 2: and speculating on the property market, so that this was
Speaker 2: really encouraged at every level, and then you know the
Speaker 2: stamp duty receipts and the VAT from the building boom
Speaker 2: and the job growth. This is what was funding the
Speaker 2: exchequer constant expanding, and government's been able to do these
Speaker 2: big giveaway budgets every year. That made the rule and
Speaker 2: party pheno falls so popular. So it was a ridiculous system.
Speaker 2: But then of course, when when the Troika comes in
Speaker 2: and you have all of this bad debt, you know,
Speaker 2: again those people are protected. There aren't great rite downs
Speaker 2: by the banking system. These people don't really take haircuts,
Speaker 2: and the government really keeps the banking system funded and
Speaker 2: solvent at the public expense until those asset prices recover.
Speaker 2: And then they kind of, you know, they make a
Speaker 2: true some very bad financial decisions. But then how does
Speaker 2: the government respond to you know, clearly we've you know,
Speaker 2: we've made mistakes here to create this large of a bubble. Well,
Speaker 2: what they do is they bring in rules that if
Speaker 2: you want a mortgage now you have to have fifteen
Speaker 2: percent in cash as a deposit before the bank will
Speaker 2: end to you. So again, rather than those people that
Speaker 2: were there speculators that were driving this taking a haircut
Speaker 2: and staid, what happens is people that haven't owned property,
Speaker 2: that have never been in the house.
Speaker 3: Now they have to have a much.
Speaker 2: Greater amount and savings to enter the house a market
Speaker 2: and so, yeah, who's going to have fifteen percent, right,
Speaker 2: it's you know, people with wealthy parents. I mean Leo
Speaker 2: Vradker when he was t shopped before even said this,
Speaker 2: he said, well, you know, people can ask for money
Speaker 2: from their parents if they want to get in the house,
Speaker 2: and letter, well, you know, not many people have that luxury.
Speaker 2: I mean I used to work in Dublin, like an
Speaker 2: entry level graduate job. You know, I worked with some
Speaker 2: people that were living with their parents while they were
Speaker 2: there in their mid twenties, you know, post third level
Speaker 2: education and everything, and you know that was kind of
Speaker 2: the plan, is like save up until basically you're around
Speaker 2: your thirties, and then at that point you'll have enough
Speaker 2: just for the deposit for your mortgage and then maybe
Speaker 2: you know this great aspirational dream you can have a
Speaker 2: mortgage by the time you're entering your thirties and then
Speaker 2: you can think about family information.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 2: So, you know, you want to talk about the birth
Speaker 2: right collapse, but there's why so many people are emigrating.
Speaker 1: I don't think this issue gets spoken about nearly enough.
Speaker 1: The banks just handing out as much leverage as these
Speaker 1: boomers want. They're buying the second third home. They may
Speaker 1: not even rent them out, they may just keep them
Speaker 1: as an empty property by the seaside holiday home type thing.
Speaker 1: And it's just insane the restrictions on the overall housing
Speaker 1: stock that a lot of these parties enforce. You know,
Speaker 1: the Conservative Party has not really made any effort to
Speaker 1: build houses in the UK. The boomers will vote them in,
Speaker 1: you know, generally, I mean the.
Speaker 3: Fourteen years in power.
Speaker 1: They've fallen out of favor now, but they had a
Speaker 1: good run, and all the while they were bringing in
Speaker 1: more and more migrants, which again pushes the prices up,
Speaker 1: and the boomers just turned the blind eye. They say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, they do the hard jobs. They make the coffee,
Speaker 1: they deliver the food, and really, you know, the boomers,
Speaker 1: they don't they don't realize that they are pillaging the nation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think they're even really cognizant of it. They
Speaker 1: don't admit it that they were lucky to be born
Speaker 1: into such a nation. That nation develops and then they
Speaker 1: just pull the ladder up behind them, leave their children,
Speaker 1: grandchildren to you know, multi racial disaster, and they think
Speaker 1: they're so clever. It's just it's just tragic. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, more and more young people are becoming discontented
Speaker 1: and just going radical left. We're seeing that in the
Speaker 1: UK now and that there are voting trends now that
Speaker 1: young Irish people are supporting Chimfain Social Democrats, which are
Speaker 1: far more left wing economically.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Again, it's a similar dynamic where like I said,
Speaker 2: you know, people get frustrated at elections, why did nationalists
Speaker 2: get more votes and so on? But for people for
Speaker 2: the television watching boomers, like your choices are Finnegael Phena Faal,
Speaker 2: the old centrist parties or this big smattering of leftist
Speaker 2: parties that we have a bunch of the Green Party,
Speaker 2: shin Fein, Social Democrats, Labor and so it's just a
Speaker 2: referendum on stability versus leftist chaos for them. And then
Speaker 2: for young people it's like the big issue is housing,
Speaker 2: wealth inequality as many of them would see it. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it's similar to the shift to the Green Party in
Speaker 2: the UK. Here in Ireland, the Green Party, it got
Speaker 2: wiped out a couple of times because it was a
Speaker 2: minority partner in unpopular government. But here, if you look
Speaker 2: at like Trinity College graduates, I think they're over fifty
Speaker 2: percent Social Democrats, which again is one of these leftists
Speaker 2: social democracy kind of Nordic socialist parties, but you know,
Speaker 2: super open borders, leftists on everything, just like you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of leftist vibes party. I think shin Fein
Speaker 2: is consistently the most popular party among young people. And again,
Speaker 2: you know, the left is tapping into that angst about
Speaker 2: a generation that's clearly been left behind, screwed over by
Speaker 2: this economic system. I mean, I don't think that their
Speaker 2: answers are very good for that. And again, no one
Speaker 2: wants to tackle this fundamental problem of the way this
Speaker 2: system is geared towards just transfer and welt towards landholders
Speaker 2: that can establish their own kind of monopoly and taxation system,
Speaker 2: you know, with all the focuses on income inequality and
Speaker 2: income taxes. But like I said, we have a very
Speaker 2: by international centers, a pretty egalitarian and a pretty tough
Speaker 2: taxation system for average earners. But you know, the burden
Speaker 2: always falls on the the younger entrepreneurial people. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean that's how most people see the system, and
Speaker 2: so it's very it's very difficult for right wing or
Speaker 2: nationalist populoust alternative to get a spot in that because
Speaker 2: you have an older edge court heart that maybe more
Speaker 2: socially conservative than you'll find with younger people. You know,
Speaker 2: perhaps there's a greater attachment to Catholicism among a segment
Speaker 2: of them, but they're they're just as conservative about these
Speaker 2: economic ideas, and then like young people are just you know, basically.
Speaker 3: Checked out of this system.
Speaker 2: It doesn't help, of course that the right in Ireland,
Speaker 2: the populist right, is just a totally disorganized kind of
Speaker 2: a mess. Really, I would say outside of the National Party,
Speaker 2: it's just I don't know if this is something about
Speaker 2: Irish politics, but you know, even there, actually, I mean
Speaker 2: I have to tie it back. I'm sorry boomers, but
Speaker 2: even there, I have to tie it back to hate
Speaker 2: non boomers because it's just one of these things like
Speaker 2: too many chiefs. Everyone wants to be chief of his
Speaker 2: little kingdom, and it's a lot of boomer narcissism.
Speaker 3: You know. There's a meme on among.
Speaker 2: Irish nationalists, you know, the the Lenny from the Simpsons.
Speaker 2: Like zero days since the boomer started a new political party,
Speaker 2: Like every week.
Speaker 3: There's a new one.
Speaker 2: There's an AI generated map of Ireland and it'll be
Speaker 2: called you know Era Freedom thirty two. It'll be called
Speaker 2: the Irish Restore Liberty Party. And you know they make
Speaker 2: their AI generated images of the you know Era woman
Speaker 2: with her cheeks painted with the Irish flags and a
Speaker 2: lion behind her, and they never go anywhere, and anytime
Speaker 2: you try and unite these people, it's constant in fighting.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess this is a problem that that plagues to
Speaker 2: ride in a lot of places, but especially in Ireland.
Speaker 2: There's just a narcissism and an individualism among the boomers
Speaker 2: that they're not willing to cooperate or get behind anything.
Speaker 2: And even with something like the National Party, you see
Speaker 2: the membership is very young and yeah, boomers just you know,
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, they can't seem to cooperate or to
Speaker 2: organize politically.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that dynamic. You alluded to it earlier.
Speaker 1: You said Ireland is very clannish. I certainly agree with that.
Speaker 1: I was actually more bullish about Ireland's prospects in the past,
Speaker 1: because I thought it had such a tribal mentality that
Speaker 1: it would be able to launch a national vehicle to
Speaker 1: save itself. But now I actually think the opposite, that
Speaker 1: it's an impediment just because of the clannish nature of
Speaker 1: people it, you know, as you say, feels like a
Speaker 1: lot of chiefs. Irish culture is very based around you know,
Speaker 1: gossip and telling tales, and you know, there's always some
Speaker 1: personal conflict and I don't know if I would describe
Speaker 1: it as individual, I would describe it as you did
Speaker 1: earlier Clanish, where you know, it's very hard to achieve
Speaker 1: a wide enough to consensus to build anything meaningful, and
Speaker 1: you do get all these splits all the time, and
Speaker 1: you know there's some personal conflict or rava, and all
Speaker 1: the while you're shut out by the mainstream and you know,
Speaker 1: considered fringe. So you know, if you'd like to add
Speaker 1: to any of that idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely true. It's funny. I saw something recently.
Speaker 2: Alexis to Tokville, who is obviously famous for studying the
Speaker 2: United States. He visited Ireland and he wrote his reflections
Speaker 2: on it, and in the eighteen hundreds, and he noted
Speaker 2: that he said among the lower classes there was this
Speaker 2: extreme clannishness and tribalism where you know, one village would
Speaker 2: head another village, or you know, two groups would intersect
Speaker 2: and it would come to blows and they didn't seem
Speaker 2: to even remember why they hated each other. There's definitely
Speaker 2: an element of that and you see it in politics,
Speaker 2: especially with the way people vote. Again, this is something
Speaker 2: that's somewhat unique to Ireland is how much people will
Speaker 2: vote for you know, we have a national Parliament, but
Speaker 2: obviously you have the members for reports and in certain
Speaker 2: areas certain counties, similar to what you have in the UK,
Speaker 2: but much more what you have in Ireland is people
Speaker 2: voting for a politician because of what.
Speaker 3: They'll do for their specific area.
Speaker 2: So Kerry is kind of famous for this in Ireland
Speaker 2: that they have like you know, they have the Heally
Speaker 2: Ray Klan right and they've got two of their brothers
Speaker 2: in the doll. Their father before them was in the
Speaker 2: Doll and they're loyal to this family because their father
Speaker 2: could a deal with one of the coalition governments where
Speaker 2: he entered coalition on the promise that the coalition would
Speaker 2: build roads and community centers and so on and Kerry
Speaker 2: and so it's just kind of clientilism where people vote
Speaker 2: on the basis of, well, how much can this guy
Speaker 2: secure from my local area? Right that these national things immigration,
Speaker 2: levels of income tax, this stuff doesn't really register for
Speaker 2: a lot of people. It's about the individual and you
Speaker 2: can see this and tests on voting preferences how they decide.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just the personality of the guy, how well
Speaker 2: he's like locally, and in some sense, you know, you
Speaker 2: could say that could be an advantage, like we don't
Speaker 2: really have ideological politics. Maybe that's fertile ground for populace.
Speaker 2: But then on the other hand, it creates this kind
Speaker 2: of like I said, clientilism, where well, you don't have
Speaker 2: much to offer these people then if you're on the outside, right,
Speaker 2: whereas they're voting for people that they think will be
Speaker 2: members of government that can secure something for their area. So,
Speaker 2: even as Pheno fall and Finegael right, these are these
Speaker 2: parties that go right back to the Civil War and
Speaker 2: have led governments in Ireland. Every government has been in
Speaker 2: Ireland has been led by one of these parties since independence,
Speaker 2: right for a century, and even as people become alienated
Speaker 2: with their policies. Boomers still vote for them because oftentimes
Speaker 2: there was Civil war politics where you had your family
Speaker 2: voted for your Finnah Foal or Finagael based on which
Speaker 2: side of the Civil War your family were on. That
Speaker 2: was the case for a long time. Less so now,
Speaker 2: but even now, like there's loyalties there based on what
Speaker 2: politicians have done in the past. You know, this guy
Speaker 2: got this community center built, this party made sure our
Speaker 2: hospital wasn't closed. There's this kind of clientless thinking that
Speaker 2: makes it very difficult for outside populous forces to break in.
Speaker 2: And then if you talk about the older generation, especially
Speaker 2: in Ireland, you know you look at where they get
Speaker 2: their news an opinion from, and it's TV, newspapers, radio,
Speaker 2: And again I go back to the state class. It's
Speaker 2: just so heavily concentrated where you have people like a
Speaker 2: billionaire Dennis O'Brien who was recently interviewed I shared this clip.
Speaker 2: He was sending the number one challenge Ireland must deal
Speaker 2: with now is teaching people not to be racist and
Speaker 2: stamping out racism, because our future model should be based
Speaker 2: on bringing loads of Indians and Indian tech entrepreneurs here
Speaker 2: but it's like, you know, he owns news Talk, big
Speaker 2: private radio station. He's had controlling shares in the Majure
Speaker 2: newspaper in Ireland and the Rich Independent and Today FM
Speaker 2: kind of a more popular radio station. And you go
Speaker 2: down the list, but you know, there's like a couple
Speaker 2: of kind of non tabloid establishment papers that have the
Speaker 2: same line RT News RTE, the state broadcaster, and then
Speaker 2: one other kind of competing channel. Like it's a pretty
Speaker 2: narrow range of broadcasters and sometimes the same people working
Speaker 2: going between them. Again, coming from a very small area
Speaker 2: that you know, even just based on its geography, is
Speaker 2: necessarily going to be very ideologically aligned. It's hard to
Speaker 2: it's hard to have such strong differences like you see
Speaker 2: with like Republicans and Democrats, where you know, it's almost
Speaker 2: to the point of religious differences some of the fundamentals.
Speaker 3: They disagree on.
Speaker 2: It's hard to have that when the you know, whatever
Speaker 2: two sides of your political spectrum are all attending the
Speaker 2: same schools and colleges and you know, training the same
Speaker 2: programs and working in the same organizations and so yeah, Boomers,
Speaker 2: this is where they drive authority from. And so again,
Speaker 2: and for a populist movement to spring up. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: if you're not on television, if you're not in the papers,
Speaker 2: you don't really exist as a serious electoral alternatives.
Speaker 3: So it has.
Speaker 2: Created an extremely difficult circumstance for something populous to break through,
Speaker 2: even while you know, you look at it, there is
Speaker 2: clearly a kind of organic pushback. You see the protests
Speaker 2: against migrant centers and times were there just been kind
Speaker 2: of organic swells and uprisings. But in terms of translating
Speaker 2: and politically it's very difficult because the lack of organization
Speaker 2: and just you know, the personal failings of people involved,
Speaker 2: and the lack of willingness to unite behind someone and
Speaker 2: people to just stop wanting to be leader of their
Speaker 2: own things.
Speaker 3: Such a huge, huge problem, especially.
Speaker 2: With the the older people involved. But then also just
Speaker 2: the cordon sanitaire that this media class is established that
Speaker 2: makes alternatives unviable in the mind of most voters.
Speaker 1: I think that Irish classness is very much on show
Speaker 1: in Liverpool, England. It's essentially a city of Irish clans.
Speaker 1: They see themselves, you know, very much in opposition to Westminster,
Speaker 1: and they'll pretty much vote for anyone we're in a
Speaker 1: red rosette. But you know, in terms of that clannishness
Speaker 1: in South Dublin, you know you've spoken about dissenters being
Speaker 1: excluded from that social group, and if I can, you know,
Speaker 1: use another analogy from the UK is that the rothemir
Speaker 1: family who owned the Daily Mail, they supported Brexit and
Speaker 1: they were socially excluded by their aristocratic friends because of
Speaker 1: that position, and then they ended up changing their official
Speaker 1: position and moving back for you know, social reasons. And
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people forget that we are
Speaker 1: social creatures. We do have allegiances to you know, our
Speaker 1: social lives as well as you know, broader politics. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's something people forget. But is is there anything
Speaker 1: else you'd like to say on on you know that
Speaker 1: that South Dublin clique.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that's what needs to be
Speaker 2: understood is you know, fundamentally, you know, this is the
Speaker 2: problem in the whole West really is is white middle
Speaker 2: class people have this extreme status consciousness where you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's not about having your status doesn't come from
Speaker 2: seawan Welt or anything like that, but it's it's really
Speaker 2: about having the right opinions and there's a certain kind
Speaker 2: of aspirational, kind of upper middle class type, and especially
Speaker 2: the kind of people that that fill the bureaucratic managerial
Speaker 2: roles that is just so sensitive to that. And for
Speaker 2: the reasons we've discussed, for economic reasons, for the detirement
Speaker 2: of of when Ireland began to grow and experienced prosperity,
Speaker 2: for the history and the unease about elements of Ireland's
Speaker 2: past and the conflict in the North and so on,
Speaker 2: a lot of those things converged on the kind of
Speaker 2: aspirational and respectable position being this heavily pro European, liberal, cosmopolitan,
Speaker 2: anti nationalist view. And you know, that is the perspective
Speaker 2: that is driving and has driven what you'd call the
Speaker 2: elite human capital, the university graduates, the civil servants, the bankers,
Speaker 2: the more influential journalists. I think that's what you need
Speaker 2: to understand ultimately, is you know, you can have a
Speaker 2: history of social conservatism and nationalism, but eventually, if you
Speaker 2: have an elite that controls the means of disseminating information,
Speaker 2: eventually they can drag the country with them. And it
Speaker 2: actually doesn't take a lot to understand who the people
Speaker 2: were that did that. In Ireland and what was driving
Speaker 2: them and their motivations and their mindset. And that's really
Speaker 2: what it comes down to. And in so far as
Speaker 2: Ireland has embraced this new multi racial leftist liberal pluralist
Speaker 2: consensus more than other countries, it's precisely because of that,
Speaker 2: because that managerial liberal elite was so powerful in Ireland.
Speaker 1: I think we'll leave it there. Very thorough explanation into
Speaker 1: the mentality of Ireland and boomers and some economics. It
Speaker 1: often gets overlooked, but the essays available on Chronicles magazine
Speaker 1: and in my new book and in the new book Ethnopolitics,
Speaker 1: available on Amazon. But yeah, thank you and see you
Speaker 1: again next time.