Henry Farrell: belief

Transcript context

…Speaking of Ireland, let’s say I look at the last 30, 35 years of Irish history and I say, “Ireland went from being very poor to being one of the wealthier European nations. And this, in essence, just shows neoliberalism is correct, and we don’t need any more from the Left.” What would your response be? I would say that there is a certain amount of neoliberalism in there, but maybe not in quite the sense that you suggest. There are two things. First of all, I would say, insofar as there is anybody who’s identified with neoliberalism in Ireland and has another family member who has an uncle who was the deputy prime minister of Ireland, Michael McDowell, who I’m very fond of and who I have strong political disagreements with. But if one is to look at neoliberalism as a kind of global power structure, plausibly Ireland managed to figure out very creatively, very ingeniously, ways to fit into that power structure that allowed for massive inward investments. Here specifically, a lot of what Ireland has done over the last number of years is to figure out a combination of a regulatory play and a taxation play. So it has been a relatively lax place in regulating various financial activities, in regulating platform economies. And it has also been relatively willing to facilitate some very exotic tax arrangements. I think that the former of these still continues and has managed to kickstart a genuine native industry, which will continue to do very well. I think that the latter part, the taxation game, is coming to an end, and it’s very clear that it’s coming to an end. People in the Central Bank have been making statements about it, more or less warning the government of the fiscal implications to a cessation of Ireland’s ability to finesse the global tax system. This is coming to an end, and the Irish state is suddenly going to have a fiscal headache as a result, which, added to a possible Brexit headache, could have some pretty significant implications. Karl Polanyi’s book, The Great Transformation — what was it, if anything, that he got wrong in there? It’s a brilliant book. It’s had massive influence on Dani Rodrik, I think yourself, many other people. Does it have a flaw?…

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