In his book about the roar and subsequent mauling of the Celtic Tiger, Ship of Fools, Fintan O'Toole details how the wealth created during the boom years created both an incredibly unequal and an incredibly uncritical society.
"Excluding the considerable value of its residential property, the personal wealth of the top 1 per cent of the Irish population grew by 75 billion euros between 1995 and 2006. Bank of Ireland Private Banking estimated in 2007 that, including private residential property, the top 1 per cent of the population held 20 per cent, the top 2 per cent held 30 per cent and the top 5 per cent held 40 per cent of the wealth...Yet, somehow, Irish people went on believing that they lived in a relatively classless society" (p.76).
Now contrast this with the latest budget, issued with the public mantra that as a nation "we all must bear the pain equally" (and the apparent private one of "lets beat the economic shit out of the young and the poorer sectors of society because everyone knows they don't vote"). Funnily enough, there was nothing in the boom years about reaping the rewards equally. No, the property developers and the like ("the new gentry" as O'Toole so aptly terms them) had to be given free rein, unencumbered from such proletarian practices as taxation and accountability. And Fianna Fail, in their grubby, gombeen desire for power and privilege (how the good f*** can Brian Cowen still be the third highest paid political leader in Europe?), were only too happy to prostitute themselves before the lords of bricks and mortar.
Marx was right: in the economic good times the owners of capital benefit the most; in the bad times (and this is one of the worst), the burden of pain falls disproportionately on the labouring classes. Equality has nothing to do with it.
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