1. Essential elements of Neoliberalism is reduced State intervention
2. Ireland has a highly progressive tax system, acknowledged by TASC. High earners pay the majority of income tax, lower earners pay little
3. Those taxes are redistributed to lower earners
4. We pay lots of social welfare.
5. One area to attack Ireland has been on Corporation Tax, but we are following OECD rules here and have increased them.
6. A note on the above is that we collect more Corp Tax than the EU average as a % of total tax, about 10% more.
7. Another area that people hold up as “neoliberal” is housing, but it is State interventions and taxes that largely drive up costs.
8. This has happened largely under Parties described as “right wing”.
9. One area we could increase taxes on well off earners (property taxes) is opposed by all self styled left wing parties.
Terrible news for those who think we live under some awful right wing government.
I think we need to fix the system with longer term solutions. Like get rid of hap And use that money to build council housing and rent that at affordable rates to lower income people.
It feels like you get shafted if you are in the middle . I just want a home and to move out with my partner. We are working and saving but doesn’t feel like enough especially when being out bid .
You are arguably better of not progressing a career and relying on the state in this country.
Is that not common knowledge at this stage?
Which is why we are attracting all kinds of people here.
People aren’t scrambling to move here for our scenery 🥺
I am shocked, shocked by this news. I thought they were all coming here because they were drawn to the country by the music of Christy Moore and Liam Clancy, or the poetry of WB Yeats, or the words of Beckett and Joyce. Genuinely gobsmacked that they bypassed dozens of countries in Europe to come to this little rock on the edge of Europe because it’s a welfare state where it’s easy to game the system, and not because they’re rabid Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher fans. Shocked I tell you.
This is an extraordinarily naive column from McWilliams so much so that the cynic in me thinks he is wilfully ignorant.
Neoliberalism was a reaction to the success of Social Democracy and the creation of a robust welfare state. As such, it is best seen as a kind of inverse of social democracy as an ideology. What social democracy was to communism, neoliberalism was to capitalism i.e. an attempt to reform the state and society to achieve ”full capitalism”.
Neoliberals are not against state intervention. Indeed, they absolutely love it as long as it favours big business.
Neoliberals believe in free markets in the same way a Catholic believes in transubstantiation. ”Free Markets” are not an ideal for neoliberals so much as a weapon to be used to coerce working class people.
Neoliberal policies in Ireland over the last 15 years: Jobsbridge, Irish water, mandatory private health insurance, ‘social welfare cheats cheat us all’, HAP, allowing the REITS in, all the first time buyer grants, low corporation tax, tax evasion supports, Varadkar describing an expert tax commission report as Sinn Féin policies. I could go on.
The fact that a lot of these failed or are limited is a testament, not to lacking a neoliberal government for the last 15 years, so much as to the fact we have had an extraordinarily stupid neoliberal government (thankfully) and an extraordinarily stupid neoliberal government that was electorally weak.
No one sensible can deny that FG are a neoliberal party following neoliberal policies that are way out of step with the majority of the population which is why they will be kicked out of government soon and probably won’t see government for at least 4 cycles.
8 comments
Summary;
1. Essential elements of Neoliberalism is reduced State intervention
2. Ireland has a highly progressive tax system, acknowledged by TASC. High earners pay the majority of income tax, lower earners pay little
3. Those taxes are redistributed to lower earners
4. We pay lots of social welfare.
5. One area to attack Ireland has been on Corporation Tax, but we are following OECD rules here and have increased them.
6. A note on the above is that we collect more Corp Tax than the EU average as a % of total tax, about 10% more.
7. Another area that people hold up as “neoliberal” is housing, but it is State interventions and taxes that largely drive up costs.
8. This has happened largely under Parties described as “right wing”.
9. One area we could increase taxes on well off earners (property taxes) is opposed by all self styled left wing parties.
Terrible news for those who think we live under some awful right wing government.
I think we need to fix the system with longer term solutions. Like get rid of hap And use that money to build council housing and rent that at affordable rates to lower income people.
It feels like you get shafted if you are in the middle . I just want a home and to move out with my partner. We are working and saving but doesn’t feel like enough especially when being out bid .
You are arguably better of not progressing a career and relying on the state in this country.
Is that not common knowledge at this stage?
Which is why we are attracting all kinds of people here.
People aren’t scrambling to move here for our scenery 🥺
I am shocked, shocked by this news. I thought they were all coming here because they were drawn to the country by the music of Christy Moore and Liam Clancy, or the poetry of WB Yeats, or the words of Beckett and Joyce. Genuinely gobsmacked that they bypassed dozens of countries in Europe to come to this little rock on the edge of Europe because it’s a welfare state where it’s easy to game the system, and not because they’re rabid Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher fans. Shocked I tell you.
This is an extraordinarily naive column from McWilliams so much so that the cynic in me thinks he is wilfully ignorant.
Neoliberalism was a reaction to the success of Social Democracy and the creation of a robust welfare state. As such, it is best seen as a kind of inverse of social democracy as an ideology. What social democracy was to communism, neoliberalism was to capitalism i.e. an attempt to reform the state and society to achieve ”full capitalism”.
Neoliberals are not against state intervention. Indeed, they absolutely love it as long as it favours big business.
Neoliberals believe in free markets in the same way a Catholic believes in transubstantiation. ”Free Markets” are not an ideal for neoliberals so much as a weapon to be used to coerce working class people.
Neoliberal policies in Ireland over the last 15 years: Jobsbridge, Irish water, mandatory private health insurance, ‘social welfare cheats cheat us all’, HAP, allowing the REITS in, all the first time buyer grants, low corporation tax, tax evasion supports, Varadkar describing an expert tax commission report as Sinn Féin policies. I could go on.
The fact that a lot of these failed or are limited is a testament, not to lacking a neoliberal government for the last 15 years, so much as to the fact we have had an extraordinarily stupid neoliberal government (thankfully) and an extraordinarily stupid neoliberal government that was electorally weak.
No one sensible can deny that FG are a neoliberal party following neoliberal policies that are way out of step with the majority of the population which is why they will be kicked out of government soon and probably won’t see government for at least 4 cycles.