The idea that tighter regulation will prevent a repeat of bank failures is naive . . . We have to detoxify the culture of inequality, whereby there is a class with wealth and power and then everyone else, writes VINCENT BROWNE
EVEN MORE depressing than the depression is the absence of any determination to change.
No change to our political system that allowed the crisis to happen. No change to our economic system which has failed us so spectacularly. Yes, some talk about regulatory change but that misses the point.
No change on health or education, except to cut budgets. The legal system to remain the same. Professional fees to remain the same. Bankers to be paid mega wages in spite of their stunning failures.
No sense at all that a social and political system haven’t worked. No search for something radically different. You might have expected more from the Labour Party or even Fine Gael, but Labour is afraid to frighten even the horses (see stag hunting) and Fine Gael doesn’t do change.
Meanwhile, the Left just revolves in its self-satisfied cocoon, although the protest over Tony Blair’s visit was magnificent.
One of the striking aspects of this crisis is the impotence of our parliament when it comes to holding the Government in any meaningful way accountable for what it did to cause the crisis.
The reason for this has nothing at all to do with the electoral system. It has entirely to do with the manner in which the government of the day controls the parliament of the day. So, no accountability. And there is a dogged determination within the political class to ensure this remains as it is because the Government of the day and the would-be government of the morrow don’t want accountability. The pretext is that it would weaken the power of government, disable its capacity to force its will on the Dáil.
Part of the problem is the whips system, which has to be broken, ideally by a constitutional amendment. But more than that, the compliance of deputies with the dictates of the whips is governed in large part by the practice of jobbery. Rebellious deputies know they are prejudicing their chance of ministerial preferment, so we need to get rid of ministerial preferment. Which brings us to another necessary change.
The practice whereby people with no managerial experience of any kind are put in charge of departments is absurd. It is no surprise most ministers make a hash of their briefs. Most other EU countries bring in people from outside to manage departments and we should do the same, and make these genuinely accountable to the Dáil.
We need to broaden the political base, to involve far more people in politics, and this requires term limits on the number of years TDs may serve in the Dáil – ideally no more than six. The Dáil session should be no more than three hours, which would make it easier for women to be more involved.
The legal system needs to be transformed. Rulings need to be in plain English and judgments concise, rather than an arena for galloping hobby horses. The adversarial system we inherited is too cumbersome. Toxic fees should be abolished. The criminal law system must begin to recognise that it is not just the poor who commit crimes.
The idea that tighter regulation will prevent a repeat of bank failures is naive. Capitalism drives recklessness in banks and otherwise – it is the spirit of the being. Regulation inevitably defers to it. The only protection is to have key sectors in public ownership or at least elements of the key sectors.
But above all we have to detoxify the culture of inequality, whereby there is a class with wealth and power and then everyone else. Many of us in the media, including myself, are certainly wealthy relative to many others and this too is a problem because the freedom of the media is enjoyed in large part not by the mass of readers or viewers or listeners (as we like to pretend) but by the owners and professionals of the trade who reflect their own class biases.
The insidiousness of inequality is not so much the absence of money on the part of many. Arguably, there is nobody poor here, certainly nobody poor in terms of African poverty. The insidiousness is in status and respect and power and influence and that is governed very much by income and wealth.
Quite simply those with little relative income and wealth die sooner, have poorer health, lower educational standards, less power over their own lives, a great deal less involvement in the political and aesthetic life of the country. They are also more likely to be branded criminal even though very often the harm they cause to society is of fractional significance to the harm caused by some of the wealthy and powerful.
But there is almost no talk at all about changing things other than marginally, as though we didn’t have a collapse of that Celtic Tiger of which we were so proud and boastful, as though the roots of the society we created were not rotten.
Pity, that.