It Can Happen, but will it ever happen here?

by Skippy Mon Dec 04, 2006 19:03

Will it ever happen here?

Ten years ago it would have seemed implausible that the Latin America would swing so far to the left on the natural resources question.

I would not have believed, if you'd asked me in December 1996, that Bertie would be looking at his third full term in office as Taoiseach in 2007.

I don't know whether it will happen that the shift to nationalisation and public ownership will occur in Ireland, but I think it could.

It needs political will, and it will take a lot of hard work, but if the people of Rossport are prepared to stand up for their rights from a health and safety point of view, and the rest of the people of the country are prepared to help them to protect the natural resources, then, together, who knows what we might achieve?

by John Mon Dec 04, 2006 19:53

Here's an idea. For the next 5 years let Bolivia continue with its program of nationalisation, state control of large sectors of the economy, high taxes and hostility to American multi-nationals. For the same 5 years let Ireland continue with its program of privatisation, low taxes and welcoming attitude to American multi-nationals. Then around 2012 let's evaluate which country has performed better in the previous 5 years. Can't think of anything fairer than that. My money is on Ireland, but I'm willing to take bets from anyone who thinks Bolivia will do better.

by KM Tue Dec 05, 2006 01:08

Done better in what way? According to what criteria? Imbalance between have's and have nots? Poverty and social exclusion? Literacy? Health provision for the poor? Democracy? Social unrest?

Even in straight logical capitalistic terms, how anyone can think it makes sense to simply give away a huge natural resource for nothing to a multi-national is beyond me, though...

by Righteous Pragmatist Tue Dec 05, 2006 08:53

"Imbalance between have's and have nots? Poverty and social exclusion? Literacy? Health provision for the poor? Democracy? Social unrest?"

In every liberal capitalist democracy, there is a minimum of poverty and social exclusion, illiteracy and social unrest.

Only an individual blinded by ideology, denial and psychosis would claim that the socialist economic policies produce anything except high unemployment, economic stagnation and poverty.

by paddytheplank Tue Dec 05, 2006 09:43

Really?
Compare Ireland to the present Nordic models with all those pesky socialist mechanisms and then compare the average citizen of each jurisdiction.
Who has the better standard of living? Hands down the Scandinavian.

All we have is the illusion of vast wealth in this country with an incompetent myopic government acting as hoarding miser.
Record tax returns lauded as the proof of economic success by a compliant media, when in reality the bulk of these increases come from exorbitant property stamp duty and extortionate VAT rates of 21% practically across the board.

The true test of a countries wealth is not the cold figures trotted by politically sterile ministers but by things like access to health, affordable and appropriate housing, access to all levels of education, efficient public transport etc etc.

by John Tue Dec 05, 2006 09:48

Obviously the matter of which issues should be used to compare Ireland and Bolivia is highly subjective. But, here's a foolproof way for making the comparison. In 2012 give everyone in Ireland the option of moving permanently to Bolivia and give everyone in Bolivia the option of moving permanently to Ireland. That would be a good test of which country has performed better under their two very different sets of economic policies.

by Leftist Pragmatist Tue Dec 05, 2006 09:57

Righteous Preagmatist

write that

"In every liberal capitalist democracy, there is a minimum of poverty and social exclusion, illiteracy and social unrest"

Ireland has a overall poverty rate of 12.3%, a child poverty rate of 15.7%, an adult literacy porblem rate of 25% accoridng to the last OECD literacy report, (check your definitions here, there is no such term as illiteracy), and police baton charging people in Mayo

Hardly the minimum of povety, social exlcusion, "illiteracy" and social unrest you speak of

by John Tue Dec 05, 2006 14:14

Actually, the last OECD literacy report (the PISA survey of 2003) ranks Ireland 6th in the world and 2nd in Europe for reading literacy. Here are the full figures - you can find them on the OECD PISA website in case you think I'm making them up.

[ 1] Finland 543
[ 2] Korea 534
[ 3] Canada 528
[ 4] Australia 525
[ 5] New Zealand 522
[ 6] Ireland 515
[ 7] Sweden 514
[ 8] Netherlands 513
[ 9] Belgium 507
[10] Norway 500
[11] Switzerland 499
[12] Japan 498
[13] Poland 497
[14] France 496
[15] United States 495
[16] Iceland 492
[17] Denmark 492
[18] Austria 491
[19] Germany 491
[20] Czech Rep 489
[21] Hungary 482
[22] Spain 481
[23] Luxembourg 479
[24] Portugal 478
[25] Italy 476
[26] Greece 472
[27] Slovak Rep 469
[28] Turkey 441
[29] Mexico 400

by Mark Tue Dec 05, 2006 14:52

John you deliberately ignore what was written which is the adult literacy rate in this country. The Adult literacy rate stands at 25% as is discussed on the National Adult Literacy Assoc website http://www.nala.ie/faq/ what you did was deliberately ignore this and not even provide any link to back up what you posted. Perhaps this 25% of the adult population who have been badly let down by the state are all Fianna Fail voters, it would explain a lot.

by Ciarán Tue Dec 05, 2006 17:10

John's inane comment about comparisons between Ireland and Bolivia in 2012 are indicative of the debased nature of right wing discourse and the inability of most right wingers to think things through.

Of course in 2012 Ireland will still be far ahead of Bolivia; the same will probably apply in 2022 and, unfortunately, in 2032. So what!! You get no points for making that pretty obvious observation. What matters is how Bolivia progresses in comparison with its current economic situation and in comparison with its neighbours in the region. They're starting from a far lower base than Ireland did, for example, in the 1980's. There is a good chance that under Morales' current policies there will be a broad upward trend in improvements across most economic and social indicators. Granted there will still be some people who are still poor or not getting the full benefit of more egalitarian policies; but that applies to every state, rich or poor, and is no reason to abandon broadly egalitarian policies. Certainly, gradual rejection of neo-liberalism over the course of a generation will in all likelihood benefit the majority of Bolivians; continued adherence to neo-liberalism will only continue to benefit a tiny minority of the well-to-do in that country.

What John and Righteous Pragmatist, along with all other supporters of neo-liberalism, seem to forget is that the leftward trend in Latin America is happening after these countries have experienced decades of neo-liberal, pro-capital policies with very little to show for it. That is, the very policies that both John and Righteous espouse. Because of damage these policies have done statist, egalitarian and socialist ideas are regarded the only game in town. The inherent bankruptcy of neo-liberalism has been revealed in Latin America. It's an uncontroversial historical fact that economic growth can only be ensured behind tariff walls, restrictions on capital movement, state control of vital economic sectors - East Asia is the prime recent example. Latin American governments and electorates appear to be grasping this point, and they will benefit from this. Sure, Ireland, for the moment, has benefitted from neo-liberalism, but the same policies have had disastrous results in, for example, Poland and other Eastern European states. These same policies, when they formed the core of the EU constitution, have been rejected by the electorates of France and the Netherlands. I really wish that supporters of neo-liberalism in this country would finally acknowledge that what was good for a small reasonably well developed country of 4 million people in the 1980's (Ireland), is not necessarily applicable to other vastly different countries such as Bolivia, France etc.

by John Tue Dec 05, 2006 17:47

Mark, the figures I gave are much more up-to-date than the one you quote. They are from the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) 2003 survey and can be found on the website: www.pisa.oecd.org

The figure of 25 per cent illiteracy (actually its 22.6 per cent) you quote is from the IALS (International Adult Literacy Survey). What you fail to point out is that it was conducted in 1994/1995. That's almost 12 years ago. It says so in the website you gave - go check it for yourself. So, it predates the current FF/PD government. The Rainbow Coalition was in power then - although, to be fair, the results would probably have been similar no matter who had been the government then. But, its difficult to see how the current FF/PD government can be blamed for the level of illiteracy in Ireland in the year before it came to power. The actual figures for illiteracy in different countries in that survey were:

Poland 42.6%
Portugal 40.0%
Hungary 38.0%
Ireland 22.6%
United Kingdom 21.8%
United States 20.7%
Switzerland 19.3%
Belgium 18.4%
New Zealand 18.4%
Australia 17.0%
Canada 16.6%
Sweden 7.5%

Its not a matter of dispute that up until the 1970s or so Ireland had a very badly educated population, largely because secondary education did not become universal in Ireland until Donough O'Malley (ex PD leader Des O'Malley's father in case you are too young to know) introduced it sometime around 1970. Since then Ireland has been catching up, with each new generation of school-leavers being near the top of the league for literacy, as illustrated by the PISA figures I gave in my last post. However, at the time of the IALS survey in 1994/1995 probably half the over-45s had not availed of secondary education because they left school before 1970. As this generation dies out and is replaced each year by new streams of school-leavers, whose literacy levels are the second highest in the EU (according to PISA), Ireland can expect to continue moving up the league table for overall adult literacy. Literacy is, of course, directly related to educational attainment.The figures below (from the 2005 EU labour Force Survey) show the same trend as for literacy. That is, taking the adult population as a whole, Ireland is in the bottom half, largely because of the reason stated above, namely that secondary education was not the norm for most people in Ireand prior to 1970. But, among the younger generation (aged 25-34), this has been reversed and Ireland is very near the top of the league, way ahead of countries like France, U.K., Denmark, the Netherlands. Obviously it would be a good idea if special literacy courses are made available for the older generation in Ireland, i.e. those who were at school pre-1970. But, even if that didn't happen, the mere fact that the younger generation in Ireland now have far higher levels of completion of secondary education than most EU countries would result in Ireland moving to near the top of the league for educational attainment for the whole population as that younger generation become middle-aged and the older generation who lacked secondary education die off.

percentage of population aged 25-64 in 2005 who have completed secondary education (from EU labour Force Survey 2005)

[ 1] Czech Rep. 89.9%
[ 2] Estonia 89.1%
[ 3] Slovakia 87.6%
[ 4] Lithuania 87.1%
[ 5] Poland 84.6%
[ 6] Latvia 83.6%
[ 7] Sweden 83.4%
[ 8] Germany 83.2%
[ 9] Denmark 81.1%
[10] Slovenia 80.5%
[11] Austria 80.0%
[12] Finland 79.1%
[13] Hungary 76.1%
[14] Neth"lands 71.7%
[15] U. Kingdom 71.2%
[16] France 66.4%
[17] Luxembourg 65.9%
[18] Belgium 65.5%
[19] Cyprus 65.3%
[20] IRELAND 64.6%
[21] Greece 59.7%
[22] Italy 50.3%
[23] Spain 48.4%
[24] Malta 26.2%
[25] Portugal 26.2%

percentage of population aged 20-24 in 2005 who have completed secondary education (from EU labour Force Survey 2005)

[ 1] Slovakia 91.5%
[ 2] Slovenia 90.6%
[ 3] Czech Rep. 90.3%
[ 4] Poland 90.0%
[ 5] Sweden 87.8%
[ 6] IRELAND 86.1%
[ 7] Austria 85.9%
[ 8] Lithuania 85.2%
[ 9] Finland 84.8%
[10] Greece 84.0%
[11] Hungary 83.3%
[12] France 82.8%
[13] Latvia 81.8%
[14] Estonia 80.9%
[15] Cyprus 80.7%
[16] Belgium 80.3%
[17] U. Kingdom 77.1%
[18] Denmark 76.0%
[19] Neth"lands 74.6%
[20] Italy 72.9%
[21] Luxembourg 71.1%
[22] Germany 71.0%
[23] Spain 61.3%
[24] Portugal 48.4%
[25] Malta 48.1%

by amused Tue Dec 05, 2006 18:06

God the FF press office is working overtime on the stats

John u miss the point on a number of things

(1) Illiteracy is not a term used in education the term is adult literacy rate

(2) Whatever the figure is it right that in a country recently voted the best place in the world to live http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4020523.stm that between 20-25% of the population have literacy difficulties.

Do you know the measure of literacy - acceptable literacy was deemed to be the ability to read and understand the directions on basic medicines and between 1 fifth and a quarter of this country could not do that. In 1994/1995 the budget for adult literacy was 1m its now around 25m and a recently published Oireachtas report on Adult Literacy stated that this budget needs to be increased to around 125m in order to halve the numbers at the lowest levels of literacy in the next 15 years.

How is this wonderful capitalist country of ours can we still need to spend 125m upto 2013 to halve the rate of low level literacy difficulty. Why are kids stills leaving school with literacy difficulties? Why does it take years of waiting for educational intervention with kids for speical needs?

John-I work in the adult literacy sector and I can tell you things are not as rosy as they seem, many of my students have completed second level school but that dosnt mean they dont have literacy difficulties or that they have acheived certification!

by slackert Tue Dec 05, 2006 18:22

John, perhaps rather than tell us how literate we are and how wonderful it is to live in Ireland- can you explain how it makes economic sense to give your natural resources for nothing?

Who is getting a better deal, us or the Bolivians?

Will Shell pull out of Bolivia now? Will the gas and oil stay in the ground?

Even if that was to happen, how could that be considered worse than what we are getting, a community being destroyed for no benefit (except for some rich shareholders)?

by number 6 - legalise freedom campaign Tue Dec 05, 2006 19:28

All those figures are so impressive John. Did your boss give them to you?

Man's ability to complicate simplicity never ceases to amaze me.

Does Bolivia have a bullshit 'celtic tiger economy' at the moment? I think not.

Not a balanced projected five years to gauge upon.

The Psyhology of self delusion knows no bounds , John.

bcnu.

by John Tue Dec 05, 2006 20:06

I am well aware of the the terms used. I was putting a post on indymedia, for heaven's sake, not delivering a lecture at an Adult Education Conference. If you want to be technical, all the figures quoted above, not just my figures but the (incorrect) figure of 25% quoted Mark, refer to those who scored Level 1 or below in the various surveys mentioned (IALS in 1994/95 and PISA in 2003). The term 'illiterate' is often used in the media by left-wing journalists in reference to those who scored this level. In fact, Leftist Pragmatist in his post above used the term 'illiteracy' and my first post dealing with the subject was in reply to his comments.

But, this is gnit-picking.

The main point is that the figure (you say 'between one fifth and one quarter' - I say 22.6 per cent) you give for the proportion of adults who can't follow instructions on medicine bottles was obtained from a survey carried out in 1994/95. You admit this. So, how can it be due to the 'neo-liberal' economic policies pursued by the FF/PD government which only came to power in 1997. Does the government have some sort of time machine that enables it to go back in time and change things as they were before it came to power? Labour was in government when that survey was carried out. You might as well blame the current FF/PD government for the 15 per cent unemployment rate that Ireland had in 1994/95. The FF/PD government can only be judged on how the literacy figure has changed since 1994/95. Ideally, we should now have another survey conducted among all adults similar to the 1994/95 IALS survey and see how things have changed since then. You may disagree, but I'd say that the evidence of the more recent PISA survey indicates that a survey today among all adults would show a very large drop in the proportion scoring Level 1 or below, as compared with 1994/95. Even if there had been no increase in the Adult Literacy budget (and you say its increased from 1m to 25m under this government), there would still be a large drop in the proportion scoring Level 1 or below as a result of the dying-off of the older age-groups who rank very low in EU literacy league tables and the coming on stream of the younger age-groups who rank very high in EU literacy league tables. That's simple mathematics. But, its worth noting that even way back in 1994/5, half a generation ago, the figure of 22.6 per cent for Ireland was only a little higher than in the U.K., the U.S., Switzerland, Canada etc and well below the likes of Poland and Hungary although, of course, these two countries have the excuse that, at the time of the survey, they'd only just emerged from 50 years of socialism.

by John Tue Dec 05, 2006 20:23

What a negative lot you are. Try to think positive once in your lives. It will do you good. Take 'Amused' for example. Amused says: "Why are kids still leaving school with literacy difficulties?" Well, according to the PISA survey fewer kids are leaving school in Ireland today with literacy difficulties than in any other EU country except Finland. Why don't you take some comfort in that? Even take some pride in it, given that you say you work in that field. I''d say you're doing a good job, Amused, if the PISA survey is correct.

Another survey out today shows Irish people are happier more of the time than any other EU country except Holland. Its reported in the Irish Times website. Obviously, none of you lot took part in that survey. But, cheer up. I'm sure you'll feel happier this time tomorrow after Brian Cowen delivers your tax cuts.

by slackerT Wed Dec 06, 2006 01:46

John, you are still not getting very far in your efforts to explain how it makes economic sense to give away your natural resources for nothing?

How would we be worse off if we left the gas under the sea?

Should the people of Erris be happy or sad that theie neighbourhood is being torn asunder to make already rich people richer?

by John Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:07

We aren't giving our natural resources away for free. There will be a tax rate of 25 per cent on all profits earned by private sector companies who produce oil or gas in Irish waters. This is twice the tax rate that all other businesses in Ireland enjoy. Low tax rates on the profits of private businesses are the main factor in propelling the Irish economy towards the high growth and low unemployment we see today. Its so successful that even socialist Sinn Fein are agitating for Northern Ireland to be allowed to have the same rates of corporation tax as the Republic before they sign up to the St. Andrews Agreement.

Here's how you might be worse off leaving the gas under the sea.

We're getting more and more of our gas from Russia. It comes through a 4,000 mile pipeline. That supply could be disrupted for any number of reasons. Mad murderer Putin could cut it off. Al Quaida could attack the pipeline. If that happened in the middle of a hard winter here, thousands of old people would die of hypothermia. Is that what you want? Do you use natural gas yourself? Do you heat your home with it in January and February? If so, you might ponder for a moment on where that gas that keeps you warm comes from. Perhaps you think it comes from a bog in Offaly? Alas it doesn't. It comes from the other side of Europe through a very vulnerable 4,000 mile pipeline. Any government here would be guilty of criminal irresponsibility if it allowed such a precarious situation to continue when we have the option of getting a supply of gas from our own waters. That is the view not just of the present government but of the alternative FG/labour government as well.