Our Enemy the State

By: Christopher_Quigley

A Tribute to Mr. Raymond Crotty 1925-1994
Economics Lecturer Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

"Our Enemy the State", so said Raymond Crotty in 1988 in his book "A Radical's Response". In this treatise Mr. Crotty, former farmer and economics lecturer at Trinity College, tried to explain why Ireland should not have joined the EEC. Through his efforts the constitution was correctly used to try to protect the Irish people from what he saw as abuse of privilege by an immoral political class that usurped power from the British in 1922. This class, he believed, were using the resources of the Irish people for their own selfish benefit.

What would Mr. Crotty be saying now about the "EEC" which has now morphed into the (communistic) European Union? To get a sense of how he would be thinking I include some excerpts below:

"Sixty years on (1986), the Irish economy is back again to a position similar to that of 1922, immediately after the break with Britain…….Joining the EEC seemed, in 1972, the answer to 50 years of failed self-government. Fifteen years of membership of a Community comprising all the former capitalist colonial powers has done nothing to alleviate, but much to aggravate the problems of the former colony……This happened also with the earlier Union with Britain, which brought untold hardship on the Irish masses, while, as intended, securing the position of the elites who engineered the Union. The new Union likewise has resulted in wholesale loss of jobs, a quadrupling of unemployment and an increasing extreme dependence on subsidies from, and credit through, the EEC."

Thus we can see that though much has changed since 1986, unfortunately most remains the same in 2009.

Ireland is now lurching toward financial ruin through NAMA (the National Asset Management Agency, its home-grown form of quantitative easing) and out-of-control public sector borrowing. Many would say that it is the financial crisis that caused the problem however, I believe, it is the failure of our political class to ethically regulate itself which is the true source of the current mayhem. This class is working closely with a golden circle to bail itself out yet will now leave a "bill of costs" which will cripple the Irish public finances for decades. This class has sold out the country to a super socialist Europe that forces itself into every aspect of out lives to the detriment of real freedom. The ongoing erosion of our liberty is clothed in a veneer of "greater good" but the effect is social atrophy. This governmental "fabianism" will result in the control of everything by an all powerful bureaucratic elite, where "ownership" is valueless due to carbon taxes, government regulation, local authority supervision, clerical intrusion and stealth constraints.

As Crotty predicted, the state is no longer the friend but the enemy of the citizen. This situation was always the case in mainland Europe and throughout the British Empire.  Constitutions were thus developed by revolutionaries, such as DeValera (the Irish Prime Minister), to tame the power of the ex- colonial states. This lesson of history has been forgotten by the "new" Irish and they have now sold their children's birthright to elites, while they allow themselves to be brainwashed by sport, by the X-Factor, by crime-watch, by global warming, by "swine flu" hype, by media consensus and other "timely" nonsense.

To quote Mr. Crotty again:

"A number of expedients have been tried and found to yield short-term benefit but longer term aggravation of the original weakness. Protection gave jobs in the 1930's; but it was no longer tenable in the 1950's, by which time it had done irreparable harm to older, non-protected industries. Deficit financing, particularly with the Whitaker stratagem built in, made all things possible, including a public debt in 1987 equivalent to 160% of GDP. ………There is no light at the end of this tunnel. The unbroken record of undevelopment in all former capitalist colonies is that the road the nation now follows ends in collapse and chaos. The experience of 65 years of self-government points to the same ending (how prophetic he was). But that is of less consequence to the poweraholic establishment than that they should remain in charge. Hence their insistence that there is no alternative to the present course though it must end in disaster."

Thus we can see that Ray Crotty knew in 1986 that the European Experience would end in disaster for Ireland, and we currently who are socially conscious, are experiencing a political catastrophe of unspeakable proportions. To repeat he foresaw all this.

But Mr. Crotty did not leave it there, he used his considerable intellect to propound a way forward, an analysis which we know all too well was never followed. His solution could be applied even now, if only we found the will and the determination. His formula for economic and moral salvation runs as follows:

"It is not difficult to identify the nature of the change that is necessary to transform Irish undevelopment into development. That change is determined by the character of capitalist colonial undevelopment and the mechanism of its implementation, as analyzed here. It involves essentially eliminating capitalist colonial privilege and its associated disabilities which are maintained by a state that is the direct descendant of and heir to England's Dublin Castle rule in Ireland. Producers are charged too little for land and capital and too much for labour. ……All taxes should be removed from labour (PAYE & PRSI) and the things that labour buys (VAT). Tax revenue from land and from the financial system (Banks, Insurance Companies and Building Societies) should be maximized. In addition, in order to save revenue and to preclude further borrowing by corrupt and corrupting politicians, the public debt should be repudiated. …..The proposed fiscal changes would transform Ireland's undeveloping economy into a developing one. Given that transformation, it would be feasible to reappraise critically the Irish state. The state is the enemy of the nation and has been the cause of its undevelopment. But even as the nation has been undeveloped by the state's actions, the people have looked more and more to the state to remedy the situation."

In the year of our lord 29th. October 2009 The Irish people somehow must start rejecting the local/international enemy now robbing the national coffers. Raymond Crotty cries out from the past and his call in 1986 (in hindsight) was prophetic, insightful and true. He was not listened to then and we are paying the consequences. It is never too late to admit one was wrong, to brush oneself down and learn to start again, but this time can we move onto the right road, not some media induced, delusional escape hatch? Can we run the enemy within, out and redevelop ourselves? History shows that all things are possible, particularly to those who wait and act with a sense of time and moral destiny.

Reference:"A Radical's Response"
Raymond Crotty, Poolbeg Press, Dublin 1988

Postscript

"Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders," wrote Ludwig von Mises, "no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interest, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle."

Ludwig Von Mises
The Austrian School of Economics

By Christopher M. Quigley
B.Sc., M.M.I.I. Grad., M.A.
http://www.wealthbuilder.ie

Mr. Quigley is 46 years of age and holds a Batchelor Degree in Management from Trinity College/College of Commerce, Dublin and is a graduate of the Marketing Institute of Ireland. He commenced investing in the Stock Market in San Francisco, California where he lived for 6 years. Now based in Dublin, Mr. Quigley actively trades utilising the principles set out in the modules above. This Wealthbuilder course has been developed over the last 9 years as a result of research, study, experience and successful application.

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