What do you think?
Rate this book
The Celtic Tiger?: The Myth of Social Partnership
Ireland is today's success story, a "Celtic Tiger" where the free market brings unprecedented wealth and opportunity. This book looks below the surface to discover a discontented majority who do not share in this prosperity. The booming economy, built on US investments attracted by the prospect of tax cuts, has led to a weakening in social services and a deterioration of quality of life. Cities are gridlocked because of poor public transportation, and housing crises have left 150,000 people in need of adequate accommodation. This critical look brings its class divisions into sharp focus to challenge many myths about Ireland's success story.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published March 9, 2001
6 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 8, 2019
An engaging and sustained critique of the Celtic Tiger written during the time in which it was in full swing. A stark reminder of the class polarisation that still grips Ireland, despite our too-often denial or dismissal of it as a mainly 'British' issue. It is a quite interesting read especially after the economic recession. It demonstrates quite clearly (and frustratingly) that all of the warning signs were there.
But how to dismantle capitalism when we are all complicit in it, when the political climate of Ireland has always been centrist or 'third way' and thus incapable of alternative discourse or resistance, where the growth of the economy is dishonestly sold and accepted as something that will create wealth for all, where even Irish trade unions are ideologically committed to the thing they are supposed to militate against? Not quite sure I - nor Allen, in fact - have a satisfactory answer to that. Indeed, he spends much of his time rightly complaining about the uneven distribution of wealth during the Celtic Tiger, the gap between rates of production and rates of pay, the significant distinction between GNP and GDP (which, in fact, demonstrates that our over-reliance on multi-national corporations is not good if it means that they fail to invest their fair share back into Irish society, and in fact rely heavily on low paid workers (one of the lowest in the EU) and a low union environment in order to flourish - effectively pushing the concept of capitalism on an even greater global scale) - all of these arguments are based on economic development, and are therefore themselves embedded within a capitalist framework he seeks to disavow.
But how to dismantle capitalism when we are all complicit in it, when the political climate of Ireland has always been centrist or 'third way' and thus incapable of alternative discourse or resistance, where the growth of the economy is dishonestly sold and accepted as something that will create wealth for all, where even Irish trade unions are ideologically committed to the thing they are supposed to militate against? Not quite sure I - nor Allen, in fact - have a satisfactory answer to that. Indeed, he spends much of his time rightly complaining about the uneven distribution of wealth during the Celtic Tiger, the gap between rates of production and rates of pay, the significant distinction between GNP and GDP (which, in fact, demonstrates that our over-reliance on multi-national corporations is not good if it means that they fail to invest their fair share back into Irish society, and in fact rely heavily on low paid workers (one of the lowest in the EU) and a low union environment in order to flourish - effectively pushing the concept of capitalism on an even greater global scale) - all of these arguments are based on economic development, and are therefore themselves embedded within a capitalist framework he seeks to disavow.
Displaying 1 of 1 review