In the Pursuit of Mammon
A Friendly Reminder of Why Free-Market Capitalism and Conservatism are not Synonymous Terms
By Leon H Wolf Posted in Policy — Comments (33) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I have been meaning for some weeks now to write about this extremely interesting piece about the state of affairs in modern-day Ireland. Ireland has long been a place which has fascinated me, being the last place in Europe where abortion is substantially illegal and where Christianity plays a substantial role in the public sphere. Modern conservatives, who are generally classical liberals, are wont to make the argument that free-market capitalism is, if not the sine non qua of conservatism, one of its innermost cogs. Even those who are aware that Adam Smith was, in his day, the quintissential liberal, seem to have come to believe that his ideology, put into practice, will produce conservative results, by which it is meant that the invisible forces of family, community and society which are necessary to the formation of a cohesive nation-state will best be protected by the system which is most like free-market capitalism, and that all deviations from this classical liberal ideal are in fact liberal.
To be sure, there are some deviations from capitalism which are both antithetical to classical liberalism and conservatism. But it is a mistake to proceed from that assumption to the belief that free-market partisans and conservatives believe essentially the same things (albeit with different emphases), even if our longstanding coexistence in a voting coalition has made it seem that this is so.
More below...
The article begins by recapping the shocking Irish rise to prosperity, much of which has been recounted before:
On my last visit here 22 years ago, Ireland looked and felt pre-modern, charmingly as well as annoyingly so. It is a vastly different place today. Late-model BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes glide past my hotel window (metallic silver is de rigueur). Georgian terraced houses across the street are immaculate outside, remodeled inside, and sell for three million apiece. The term “economic miracle” is entirely appropriate to the Celtic Tiger’s performance over the past decade—a fortuitous mix of low corporate taxes, low wages, good public education, Anglophone culture, US economic strength, foreign investment, stable national economy, prudent budget policies, and EU membership.
Economists are still debating the relative importance of each of those factors, but taken together they have interacted to transform Ireland into an economically vibrant, rich modern country. In 1987 Irish GDP was a mere two-thirds of the EU per-capita average; it is 140 percent today. Unemployment fell from one-fifth of the population in the mid-1980s to 4 percent—one twenty-fifth—in 2003; and government debt shrank from 112% of GDP to just over 30 percent today. Ireland’s per capita income exceeds that of Great Britain—a feat unimaginable a generation, let alone a century ago.
The Irish experiment, of course, is the free-market capitalist's greatest validation: low taxes and relatively unrestricted free trade have rather predictably led to greater wealth for the populace and greater technological innovation. But the by-producs of this revolution are a conservative's worst nightmare: a fertility rate that has plummeted below the retention rate, rampant bastardy, rising crime, and the abject surrender of cultural and religious identity to accomodate the pursuit of mammon. These things are of course of no concern to the free-market partisan - to the conservative, they signal the collapse of a society's greatness. They also contribute greatly to the existence of an underclass in society, one that cannot be adequately cared for by the institutions which would have previously shouldered the burden (family and church) because these have been eroded away. Because no humane society can turn its back on this underclass when it reaches a sufficient size to be widely noticed, free-market capitalism then leads inexorably to libieralism and statism, as our experience here in America has demonstrated.
Let it not be said that I object to the freedom of an individual to pursue his wealth. I suppose that it might be said that there is yet insufficient evidence to prove that the dissolution of family and cultural identity follows necessarily upon the heels of a certain level of societal wealth, but the experience has shown this to be so, [almost] without exception. This observation ought to lead conservatives to immediately stop and question whether the pursuit of mammon deserves to be placed above the things which mammon costs (in the familial and cultural sense) in their hierarchy of political priorities - that it does not lead to such questioning indicates that we have unnecessarily and to our very great detriment conflated being conservative with being capitalist. Even worse, it is possible that we have elevated being capitalist above being conservative.
Explaining all of this to modern conservatives can be an extremely tiring exercise, because it is difficult, in modern America, to truly understand the fruits of our pursuit for mammon, since for better or worse (almost surely worse), history has passed the moment of decision by. However, it is possible that the Irish might serve as a useful example to those who will pay attention, as it is happening before our very eyes.
I hope, for the sake of the Irish, that they will not.
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In a free society, which is a capitalist one, such undesirable things as crime and bastardy are eliminated by the society precisely because they are undesirable. To look at capitalism as the blind pursuit of money is, I think, in error.
To call the Irish system pure capitalism is incorrect. The system might be "more capitalist" than others, but it is a product of the same economic bastardy which is practiced to some degree everywhere. Take your mix.
If we're talking about which of government's laws are a product of capitalism and which a product of Christianity, and I don't think that's what Leon was getting at, I think we're confusing the matter. And we're again looking for a mix, a product of bastardy. In a free society, a desirable condition is achieved because it is desired.
And, yes, I like that word!
Re: In a free society, which is a capitalist one, such undesirable things as crime and bastardy are eliminated by the society precisely because they are undesirable.
No one has ever eliminated either crime or bastardy. In fact these things were arguably worst in the (more distant) past. Illegitimate children were so common in the Middle Ages despite it being the Age of Faith-- faith perhaps, but morals definitely not!) that a large body of law both secular and religious existed for them. In fact you could even "legitimize" an illegitimate child by a complicated and expensive procedure.
I've made this point before: there was never any true "Age of virtue" in the past. That's just nostalgia talking, the fact that we humans romanticize our youths-- heck I even think that way about the 70s (my childhood decade) in my less sensible moments!
The kingdom of virtue is not something we Christians look back to, but something we look forward to. It is not in this present world at all.
But in this case I'm going to make an exception - did you perchance read the article which was the feature of this piece? I'm just curious, because while it's true that "no society has even eliminated crime or bastardy," it's also true that the fertility rates have been more than halved in less than a generation, and that bastardy has tripled in the same time period.
No one has ever argued, here or elsewhere, that any society has ever been perfect. But when you stick yourself into these discussions and pretend that objective measurements like "the illegitimacy rate has tripled" are somehow meaningless because there were illegitimate children to begin with, you expose yourself as someone who is not interested in legitimate debate, but rather merely being a pedant. YMMV.
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Fnord.
You're pretending that you know the answers to questions that are unknowable - what was the bastardy rate of the middle ages, compared with that of modern times? Nobody knows, because no one even attempted a comprehensive count of such things. And so you are forced to rely on such anecdotal "proof" as the existence of law structures to care for the problem. Of course, the Torah, which remained in force for over a millenium, contained detailed instructions for the care of widows/fatherless - presumably the incidence of these two problems rose and fluctuated at least somewhat during that time period, yes? So what use is the existence of law as a metric? I know - none at all. What conditions may have been in the middle ages is basically just wild-*** guesswork based solely on anecdotal firsthand accounts.
What is relevant is that since countries in the West have begun to carefully keep these statistics, they have uniformly been headed in the wrong direction.
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Fnord.
is so what? Fertility rates have bounced up and down over the ages (remember, as recently as the early 20th century, childhood mortality rates meant that effective "replacement" was not 2.1 children, it was more like 4-6 children depending on the time and place.)
Likewise bastardy was not exactly unknown.
You know, I really have little sympathy for people who cry over some lost past. Even if it was real (often enough it isn't) you can't spend all your day in mourning for the dead, and yesterday's snows and sunsets.
And just as much, I have no sympathy for the future worship of progressives either. Except for the Kingdom to Come (God's responsibility not ours) I don't find the futrure particularly venerble either.
Live in the present, try to understand it and then overcome it, so as to be in the world but not of it.
And if it's pedantry you want then here's Virgil to Dante in on the plight of the sinners in Hell:
Non ragiam di loro, ma guarda e passa (Don't worry about them; just look and move on).
So, your position is that the past can be no guide for the present? All I have to say is that that's an astoundingly dangerous way to view the world.
And, if that is your position, I can understand why you wouldn't have grasped the point of this piece, as it was aimed at conservatives.
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Fnord.
The answer is that, especially in a democracy, the state of the law has a symbiotic relationship between the attitudes of the people - while it is true that the sentiments of the people can, in the long run, create law, it is also demonstrably true that the law is capable of creating public sentiment. For instance, in the years prior to the Roe decision, NARAL has conceded that their own polling showed between 60 and 70 per cent of the population opposed to the wide legalization of abortion. However, in the wake of Roe those numbers almost instantly reversed. People like to feel that the law is right, that their country is doing the right thing, and a sizeable portion of the populace will adjust both its behavior and belief system in accordance with recognizable trends.
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Fnord.
the same effect in the South after Eisenhower desegrgated Little Rock schools and the passage of the Civil Rights Act. This is a case of the law changing public sentiment.
And the fact that Eisenhower used the 82st (or was it 101st) Airborne to enforce a ruling he disagreed with, points to negligence of our own leaders today on a variety of issues.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
is that it was essentially solved by the American Framers. The correction for vice and degradation will most likely come from local communities, small-scale human interaction, Burke's "little platoons," the whole civil association system analyzed so ably by Tocqueville. Thus the Constitution contained strong measures to protect these institutions from statism. And part of the great success of Liberalism was to throw down these protections.
What is most frustrating, from the Conservative position, is that libertarian-minded allies so often interpret the attempts to retrieve this structure, which our political science calls Federalism, so ungenerously. Witness the madness of a certain legal blogger, recently exposed. To scream at men who pine for a return to Federalism that they might be racists, is to silence them and shatter a good alliance.
Thus, when the Court showed its pretty clear intention, in Lawrence, to dismantle utterly the vast edifice of state-level "morals legislation," as Scalia put it, Conservatives were aghast -- but they were also prepared to accept this cheap maneuver and move to the only ground still available to them: Congress. At this point the libertarians, or at least alot of them, sent us divorce papers. Which is hardly the sort of thing to be expected of friends.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
I have to disagree, I strongly support federalism. I want to also point out that there are a few things government could do to promote things like families which are not coercive, such as giving tax breaks to MARRIED couples with children.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
Re: The correction for vice and degradation will most likely come from local communities, small-scale human interaction, Burke's "little platoons,"
Sometimes though the federal government has to step in. The Founders' hope that slavery would wither away proved false. Also, Jim Crow was not going to is mantle itself.
Re: Thus, when the Court showed its pretty clear intention, in Lawrence, to dismantle utterly the vast edifice of state-level "morals legislation," as Scalia put it,
"Morals laws" can be unjust, irrational or just plain dumb. Tradition is not always wise or good. As someone once said, there is nothing more respectable than an ancient evil. For a shining example we need look no further than the awful edifice of Muslim shari'a, wherein hate, prejudice and atrocity and justified in the name of virtue and tradition and God's purported will. We can argue, legitimately, over who is responsible for deep-sixing unjust, unenforecable or outrageous laws. I understand the wariness conservatives feel about the courts-- though the laziness and cowardice of legislatures and executives all too often invites and relies on these actions. Still, some things belong in the trashdump of history and you won't find me shedding any tears for them no matter how tarted up in old and hallowed garb they may present themselves.
"We need no more mourn the dissolution of marriage as the constitutive social institution that it was than we would mourn the passing of a sharia regime."
Oh, I know that you'll retort that the recourse to the sharia example was intended only to be illustrative; but even you ought to be able to perceive the incendiary nature of the juxtaposition, no? For the truth is that the appropriate criterion of analysis where morals legislation is concerned is not justice, but rather, prudence; it cannot be unjust, strictly speaking, to enjoin upon the people the observance of the precept expressive of their very nature as rational, embodied beings, although it may, circumstantially, and thus contingently, be imprudent, by which is meant that in certain circumstances, which do not universally obtain, the attempt to enforce observance of such precepts may be productive of greater evils than the commission of acts violative of those precepts. Aquinas illustrated the foregoing principle by citing local and historical difficulties attendant upon the extirpation of the vice of prostitution; we might illustrate the same principle by citing the many absurdities that the failed drug war has bestowed upon us.
Now, it might be urged upon the reader that there exist depraved moral codes - immoralist codes, one might say - such as the sharia; and this would be an accurate observation, as far as it proceeds. However, it would be inapposite in connection with commentary upon the Lawrence ukase, inasmuch as there is no injustice in framing legislation upon the foundation of the very constitution of man and a composite being. Perhaps there may be in certain attempts to enforce such legislation, as discussed previously, but I trust that the distinction is manifest: the legitimacy of law is not exhausted by the difficulties attendant upon its enforcement; its tutelary function remains valid as an expression of right order.
My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.
Re: the last place in Europe where abortion is substantially illegal and where Christianity plays a substantial role in the public sphere.
Um, Poland?
Re: But the by-producs of this revolution are a conservative's worst nightmare: a fertility rate that has plummeted below the retention rate, rampant bastardy, rising crime, and the abject surrender of cultural and religious identity to accomodate the pursuit of mammon.
Why do you assume that these are "byproducts"? Might they not be independent developments that have little or nothing to do with free market capitalism? After all, there are any number of non-free-market societies with similar pathologies, notably the Soviet Union under Communism.
I meant, of course, to confine my analysis to societies that are Western. I was insufficiently clear in stating that.
As I've said in my more recent pieces on Iraq, our basic strategic error was in assuming that this very analysis would apply to a non-Western society; that mammon would mellow faith, as it were.
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Fnord.
Bring an Iraqi to this country, and within a few short years he will own his own business, be supporting an extended family, sponsoring other Iraqis to come to this country, and in all ways become a Capitalist.
Take that same citizen back to Iraq and within a few days he will be waving a gun at his fellow citizens and renew old hatreds thought buried for decades.
It has to be something in the water!
I Get My News at HinzSightReport!
It could, on the other hand, be the powerful shaping force of society, as I suggested to Mayhem upthread.
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Fnord.
I recommend 1 of Mark Twain's last novels A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It is chock full of examples of how men can be shown a new idea or way of living and still revert back to feuding and fighting to gain favor and power.
You’re a persistent cuss, pilgrim.
John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
western (Roman Catholic, uses Roman alphabet etc. just like Ireland). But if you want to class it with Russia and the east of Europe, I suppose the last two hundred years are some justification (but don't tell any Poles that!)
In my view, one useful way to approach this "extremely tiring exercise," of carrying this vital distinction between Capitalist and Conservative into full appreciation, is through reflection on the principle of private Property. Property, as I best understand it, can be called the means of our engagement with the biblical injunction of be fruitful and multiply.
Thus, as we see Capitalism detach from its anchor of the concrete, and race off deeper into a world of abstraction, we can perceive the origins of this burgeoning rift within our coalition.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
what has been my inarticulate objection to fiscal conservatism and why I am not one. A political philosophy that revolves around money, because in the final essence taxes and spending are merely money writ large, seems to me a stunted way of governing and epitomizes the old saying about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
While I certainly could agree that Conservatism, in a great sense, has devolved into an amoral money-focused philosophy, isn't it true that the honest moralist prefer what he has rightfully earned be given freely by his will rather than by compulsion of the State? Hence, is he is not forced to choose between the lesser of two evils to further his own honest intent?
As Leon aptly described, and if I have understood his thinking, the crux lies in the reconciliation of the freedom provided by Conservatism's free-market and the will to accept, and to act upon, the rightful responsibility that comes with such freedom.
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism...Theodore Roosevelt, October 12, 1915
accepted moral practice. Prosperity without these almost inevitably leads to experimentation and relativity and with that a loss of the links and identification with one's fellow citizens. Less is shared in common and tolerance declines, it being no accident that the welfare state follows in the footsteps of prosperity, generated by the belief that a person is due the support of others.
Ireland may in due time revert back to it's sluggish welfare state although I do hope it is the exception. Even so, without the bedrock beliefs that are the foundation of a decent society the signs of social pathologies can continue to manifest themselves.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
In establishing a moral framework which most of society could agree, you could not appeal to reason because my reason is just as good as your reason, and they might not agree. You cannot appeal solely to religion because we all do not share the same beliefs, But you can appeal to reason, religion, AND tradition. Tradition is the big thing that most leftists hate.
But it is traditions, history, and a knowledge of what actually works that are our best allies.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
Until very recently Ireland was a country with an extremely high birth rate. Its population remained broadly stable because of large scale net emigration. The economic boom - which, by the way, is built partly on external subsidies, as well as low taxes - has made Ireland the focus of net immigration for the first time on record. The result is a very young population. I suspect the rapid change in social attitudes stems partly from this.
Some 20.9% of Ireland's population are under 15 and the median age is 34 years
For comparison, in the UK, 17.5% of the population are under 15 and the median age is 39.3 years. The US is much closer to the Irish figures with 20.4% below 15 and a median age of 36.5 years.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
Bear in mind too that Ireland lost a very large fraction of its people in the 1840s, to starvation and immigration, and was quite underpopulated for generations.
I have always thought that any conservatism, particularly, since this is the loose association of political philosophies that concerns me, that established the dyad of capitalism and progress as the sine qua non of its public doctrine would swiftly fall under the condemnation of the ancient admonition, "...for the love of money is the root of many evils."
My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.
in linking capitalism to an increase in poverty (has it really? or is it just more noticable now?) and in crime.
While I agree with your basic idea that:
1 Timothy 6:10 (NIV)
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
And perhaps more close to your point:
Luke 16:13 (NIV)
"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
I don't believe free markets in and of themselves cause the problems. A good Christian can be a good capitalist and still not make money the center of their lives (though it does require some discipline and effort to keep money in perspective). After all, I can't think of a better way of helping a person than to provide them with gainful employment or allow them to build their own businesses.
But to a more practical point, the Irish have a MUCH lower unemployment rate and much higher average income than they had only a decade or so ago. They on the whole are also much wealthier. I think the issue is that while there are far fewer poor people in Ireland than in the past, the differences between those who have elevated themselves beyond poverty and those that haven't are at a higher contrast. These differences in wealth can generate jealousy and tempt people to commit crimes to "even the score".
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
I suggest a simple Christian pillar that should not be profound. The reason for this economic cause and societal effect is that the fruits of capitalism alleviate a great deal of simple suffering, economic and otherwise. We constantly pat ourselves on the back because of this cause and effect, but sometimes we forget that suffering is not always bad thing. Suffering is necessary.
No, none of us wants to suffer, or see others suffer, but suffering is a part of life. Not many people truly enjoy the taste of strong bitter, but suffering is like bitter in that it is a part of our sense of taste that we would miss terribly if all of a sudden it went dead. Suffering makes us appreciate what we have. Suffering makes us strong. Suffering makes us believe in ourselves, and believe in the future. Without suffering there is no sense of accomplishment, no self esteem, and no hope for the future. Like there is no courage without fear there is no happiness without suffering, but rather an emptiness that humans seek to fill with meaningless and often destructive diversion. Suffering makes us remember what is important in life, and it is what guides us to the core of society and our human condition.
One of the tenants of liberalism seems to be to seek the end of human suffering by involving government in every aspect of life. Even though this has never worked, and will never work, the idea that suffering in itself is bad is what leads them to this broken ideology, and to reject religion. What this attempt does to a people is certainly as bad as the impoverishment it always causes, but it is far worse for what it does to the fabric of society that social conservatives are so concerned with.
Human beings need to cross difficulties and to suffer in order to become wise, self assured, and understand the kaleidoscope that this world is. Suffering is as much a part of happiness as fear is a part of courage. You cannot have one without knowing the other. Suffering is a big part of what life is all about, and though we constantly seek to avoid it, it is necessary, and not detrimental to the human condition.
However, I believe there is a solution that need not challenge the free market or the prosperity, leisure, and bounty it creates… “Artificial Suffering”!
Yes, I know it sounds odd my friends, but artificial suffering is what’s called for! Of course, to the individual suffering it is not artificial at all. Rather, it is suffering that is imposed without dire necessity, which is really the only suffering most of us know. To suffer for the sake of suffering, and for the changes in character that it brings about is nothing less than artificial. We’ve been doing this very thing in the military for centuries, and we know that it works exceedingly well.
If every citizen spent some time cold, wet, hungry, and scared our society would be a different place. If every citizen intimately knew what it meant to stare danger and uncertainty in the face we would not be fighting any socialists within our midst today. If every citizen knew suffering and was willing to suffer for the body politic our society would be very different. If every citizen, even if for a brief period of their lives, had to reach deep down inside themselves and become more than the sum of their parts our society would be very different. If every citizen was an intimate friend of the discipline necessary to overcome adversity, and had the strength of will to persevere against poor odds our society would be a different place.
I learned more when I was suffering that at any other time in my life. I gained more self esteem and more self assurance while suffering than I ever could any other way. My suffering is an integral part of who I am, and it is the cement that bonds my beliefs. I protect the suffering I have known. I am proud of my suffering, and though I rarely talk about it, I clutch it close to my breast.
The conceptual suffering that “liberals” decry, but do not know themselves, is like a blind man describing a panoramic vista. It is more important than anything to them because it is something that they do not know, and cannot understand. The lengths they go through, no matter how ineffective, are a natural result of the revulsion and pity they feel. A deep and personal understanding of suffering does not make a person callous to it, but rather creates an even deeper sense of empathy, without the revulsion, pity, and blindness that someone without it projects.
Citizenship in America should not rest on the lucky sperm club of being born here. Every citizen should have the option to serve in whatever capacity they are able in order to obtain the rights of citizenship, and that service should not be easy. It should not be confined to our shores, and it should not spare aspiring citizens suffering. In fact, it should encourage it. It should be difficult enough that everyone who goes through it is proud of their accomplishment, and therefore values the rights and privileges that they have EARNED. The military should only be but a single avenue among many.
I believe that if we did something radical like this we would not be fighting these political battles for the soul of America, but would rather be confining our squabbling to methods and means, much like we do in here. Just a thought…
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." - President Ronald Reagan
Re: Suffering makes us strong. Suffering makes us believe in ourselves, and believe in the future. Without suffering there is no sense of accomplishment, no self esteem, and no hope for the future.
Maybe, but anyone who inflicts unnecessary suffering on someone else against their will is still doing great evil. Else we would not have hanged Saddam Hussein, but given him a humanitarian award. And fear not-- life is still full of griefs and ailments and miseries. That we shall alawys have with us.
has one of those dreamy Irish voices that suggest cool mists, green grass and the warmth of the hearth in a picturesque cottage. However, she complains about the traffic jams heading in to Shannon, where her office is.
There was massive emigration from Ireland until the late 1980's because of the poor economy. Thus, the country had to absorb a very dramatic change in lifestyle in a very short time.
Also, the Catholic Church in Ireland has been rocked by abuse scandals that are worse than those in the US, and further magnified by the traditionally greater role of the Church in society and the provision of social services.
It will be interesting to see how the situation evolves.
The author's thesis in the article Leon cites is that Ireland traded its moral values for prosperity. He lays out these benefits and costs in two of his opening paragraphs:
Economists are still debating the relative importance of each of those factors, but taken together they have interacted to transform Ireland into an economically vibrant, rich modern country. In 1987 Irish GDP was a mere two-thirds of the EU per-capita average; it is 140 percent today. Unemployment fell from one-fifth of the population in the mid-1980s to 4 percent—one twenty-fifth—in 2003; and government debt shrank from 112% of GDP to just over 30 percent today. Ireland’s per capita income exceeds that of Great Britain—a feat unimaginable a generation, let alone a century ago.
The cultural price of prosperity could be predicted with mathematical precision. Between 1975 and 1995, Ireland’s fertility rate declined from 3.55 (Europe’s highest at that time) to well below replacement level of 1.87. This represented a decline of almost 50 percent within one generation, comparable to what happened to Spain and Italy in the 1970s and 1980s. The freefall is still continuing, and—unless checked—will halve the country’s already ageing population in the next four decades.
Unfortunately, an examination of the facts reveals does not support his thesis. His last statement ("The freefall is still continuing, and—unless checked—will halve the country’s already ageing population in the next four decades.") is incorrect. According to the OECD, Ireland's fertility rate increased from 1.87 in 1995 to 1.9 in 2000 and again to 1.98 in 2004, hardly a "freefall" at all. This rate is just below replacement and given Ireland's current demographics will not halve the population in 40 years.
The remainder of his statement ("Between 1975 and 1995, Ireland’s fertility rate declined from 3.55 (Europe’s highest at that time) to well below replacement level of 1.87." omits some important details. The steep decline in fertility rates began in 1980, with the steepest drop from 3.2 to 2.5 occuring over the period 1980-1985, a smaller drop of 2.5 to 2.2 from 1985-1990, and a similar drop from 2.2 to 1.87 over the period 1990-1995 (see "Recent Fertility Change In Ireland" by James McCarthy (1995), pg. 4 and 22). Likewise, the increase in out-of-wedlock births also began its increase in 1980 (same source, pg. 25). The author claims to have been enchanted with Ireland's "pre-Modern" society when he last visited in 1984, but by 1984, Ireland was already well into its transformation into its "post-Modern" self.
Furthermore, the reforms to Ireland's economy didn't begin until 1985, a full five years after the author's primary indicators of cultural decline (fertility rates and out-of-wedlock births) began their rise. Prior to that year, Ireland had the same neo-Keynesian, socialist policies as the rest of Europe. Economic reforms were not enacted overnight but took years, and the "Celtic Tiger" period, which saw Ireland's transformation from the sick man of Europe to its current powerhouse status, began in 1994. During this period, unemployment would fall from 14.7% to 3.5% and the wealth of Irish households would equal, then exceed, the wealth of their European counterparts.
Given that the decline in fertility rates preceeds the Irish economic expansion, and that the largest part of the expansion coincides with a slight increase in fertility (from 1.87 to 1.98), Ireland's current economic culture and policies can hardly be blamed for the decline in fertility.
The author goes on to state further evidence of Ireland's cultural decline:
Yes, Ireland is just another postmodern country now, and that includes high-speed internet in my room (so you get these musings in real-time), as well as collapsing birth rates, dysfunctional families, rising crime, ubiquity of global mass-cultural uniformity. The number of unassimilable immigrants and “asylum seekers” is rising rapidly—their influx inevitably coupled with the imposition of ideological and legal mandates of “diversity,” multiculturalism and anti-discriminationism by the elite class. In the meantime, Irish culture is fast becoming a relic, either neutered à la “Riverdance” and relegated to heritage, or else condemned as retrograde.
As we have shown, Ireland's birth rates are hardly "collapsing." As evidence of "dysfunctional families," the author cites this web page that contains statements in support of gay marriage by the Irish Council For Civil Liberties, an "independent, non-governmental membership organisation working to defend and promote human rights and civil liberties in Ireland." Regardless of how one feels about gay marriage, the opinion of one left-wing civil liberties group about gay marriage is hardly evidence that more families in Ireland are "dysfunctional" now than when Ireland was in its pristine "pre-Modern" state prior to 1985.
For "unassimilable immigrants," he cites a web page belonging to "Islam For Today, which briefly describes the Muslim population of Ireland. His link for "asylum seekers" again points to the Irish Council For Civil Liberties, this time to its statement on immigrants rights. Neither page provides any evidence that Ireland is drowning in "unassimilable" immigrants. Indeed, according to the 2002 census, there were 19,147 Muslims living in Ireland of a population of 3,917,203 (table 4A on pg. 17), or 0.5% of the population. Clearly, Ireland has a long way to go before it has problems on the same scale as England, France or Germany.
He provides no links to back up his assertions of rising crime or "ubiquity of global mass-cultural uniformity." His "evidence" for "ideological and legal mandates" for "diversity" is a link to a four-part radio series on Muslims families living in Ireland, and his evidence for "ideological and legal mandates" for "multiculturalism" is a link to a speech by a member of the Irish parliament about the challenges police face in dealing with immigrant communities, a speech that states the need to "focus on ensuring the successful integration of our new communities," hardly a multiculturalist sentiment.
He has other links in the article, but given that the links examined so far do not back up his point-of-view, and that this comment is already very long, I will not examine them.
In conclusion, the author's lament about an Irish culture destroyed by greed is hardly backed up by any facts on the ground. Birth rates had reached their low point by the time the "Celtic Tiger" economy got started, and even rose slightly during this period. The onset of both the decrease in fertility and the increase in out-of-wedlock births preceeded any meaningful economic reforms, let alone any changes in the economic culture, by at least five years. There is no evidence that Ireland is awash in "unassimilable immigrants," Muslim or otherwise. Many of the author's links do not back up his statements about other forms of cultural decay, such as "dysfunctional families" or government-imposed "multiculturalism" and he provides no evidence at all for his assertion of "rising crime." Although a pretty fable for those who hate "modernity," his article is all light and no substance.
Do you think that a government should bear the responsibility of "correcting" this capitulation to capitalism over conservatism? In otherwords, when scociety loses its "faith and family" aspect, does government step in and correct that, or does a society need to collectively "gird up its loins" and fix itself?
Part of me says that it's somwhat statist for a government to try and counter-trend a people, even if it is to implement conservatism back into society. If it was the government's mistake in the first place, the people should still bear the responsibility of reinstituting lost virtues, if for no other reason than it being the most genuine means of achieving said end.
Just wondering what you think.
In a world full of twists and turns, the ultimate twist...is a straight line.