the Irish miracle

[Jim heartfield]

In message <l03110702b57e2450ee43@[137.43.14.46]>, Andrew Flood
<andrewflood at eircom.net> writes
>O'Hearn's book contains some useful discussion but like the review
>of it posted here it sufferes from the inital left/republican
>reaction to the boom - that of denial.  We were so used to
>high unemployment alongside government talk of recovery that
>for a long time people on the left assummed the Celtic Tiger
>was just another marketing trick.

Andrew's point that O'Hearn's book (and my review) are stuck in the past
would be welcome news. But I find it difficult to avoid the empirical
evidence O'Hearn cites to the effect that the foreign share of fixed
capital investment in Eire rose from about 60 per cent in 1988 to 75-80
per cent in the 1990s is difficult to gainsay (p.70). Is O'Hearn
mistaken? If not one is left with the conclusion that Ireland is being
exploited by overseas capital, and the interpretation of invisible
growth hiding the extraction of surplus value as O'Hearn describes it.

The value of O'Hearn's analysis seems to me precisely that it does try
to explain the appearances, whilst not being bewitched by them.
-- 
James Heartfield

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