Dublin Opinion

In something of an event Michael Taft’s essay ‘Towards a New Economic Narrative’, has just been published on Irish Left Review.

Michael’s article is a 10-point plan for sustained economic recovery based on the following principles:

• Fiscal expansion.
• Demand expansion
• Expansion of indigenous enterprise

It’s not the final word on what could be done to help regenerate an economy that has been squandered by a government who remain determined to keep economic power in the hands of vested interests, but hopefully it will be the beginning of a debate that is not centred on the mantras of tax increases, spending cuts and attacks on public services. So far there has been no coherent plan put forward by anyone about how that may be done.

So I think its great the Michael has stepped forward to do this. As he says himself, it’s put up or shut up time. Commenting on the right-wing agendas of politicians and criticising neo-liberal commentators in the media is fun, but the time has come to provide solutions.

As part of all this I’m issuing a press release to all the major media outlets (although I might skip the Irish Catholic). I hate to quote myself, but here’s what I say in it, as ILR editor:

“While fiscal stimulus packages are being advanced in countries as diverse as the US and Germany, the Irish political establishment remains wedded to a cut-and-tax approach which will simply suck more money out of the economy at a time when we need to be expanding rather than curtailing demand. ILR hopes that ‘Towards a New Economic Narrative’ will help frame a coherent progressive response to the current economic crisis. To that end, we will be circulating the paper widely and inviting comment from a range of sources”.

So far the response from those contacted has been very encouraging and over the next few weeks I hope some very prominent politicians and commentators will be giving us their opinion about Michael’s proposals.

In short Michael argues that we need to:

• Overcome the fiscal trap by borrowing, tax capital assets and open up the Pension Reserve Fund to infrastructural and enterprise investment

• Increase demand and consumption through a new pay deal, extension of welfare benefits, and anti-inflation measures

• Put our enterprise base on a new footing through a new Green deal, opening up new investment streams, an Enterprise Guarantee and new models of public economic activity.

And finally, he suggests:

Do with these proposals what you will. Improve on them. Come up with better ones. Add and subtract.

So, please, have a read of the article, think about it, see if you agree or disagree with the substance of what is being said, and leave comments on ILR and get this debate going.