Conor McCabe – författare

This book sets out to provide a scholarly analysis of money and capital, the institutional economic class interests that exist in Ireland, and alternatives to same in the spheres of paid labour and social reproduction. In essence it is a political work in that it picks a side in the debate over these issues. Money is a social technology, one that underpins a complex system of social relations, and the ownership and control of that technology gives those who hold it enormous social, economic and political power. There is a class in Ireland that has carved out a niche for itself within that system at a national and international level, and that class is deeply embedded in the institutions of the State. There are alternatives, but they involve facing up to both the deep economic class divisions within Irish society and the gendered nature of economic inequality, as well as working collectively to transform the institutions and ideas which sustain and reproduce those divisions. The book's singular focus on that topic should not be taken as an argument for a singular causality - that the money system is somehow the cause of all our woes and that a change in that system will change everything. I do not believe that. Capitalism did not invent the money system. That system was appropriated by capitalism and shaped to serve its own particular interests.

The questions surrounding how the Irish economy was brought to the brink – who was to blame, and who should pay for these mistakes – have been rightly debated at length. But beyond this very legitimate exercise, there are deeper questions that need to be answered.These questions relate to why we made the decisions we did, not just in the last 10 years, but over the last 80. How did certain industries become prominent at the expense of others, banking as opposed to fisheries, international markets as opposed to indigenous industry and job creation?Are our problems structural in nature, and most importantly, what do we need to know to make sure that this crisis does not happen again?These are the questions set by this book. It will look at the development of the Irish economy over the past eight decades, and will argue that the 2008 financial crisis, up to and including the IMF bailout of 2010 and the subsequent change of government, cannot be explained simply by the moral failings of those in banking or property development alone. The problems are deeper, more intricate, and more dangerous if we remain unaware of them, but also potentially avoidable in the future if we break the cycle.