My early "Musings and exttrapolations" (1983-5).... Contributions to Irish economic thinking

First, a preliminary....I believe,as Marx believed and all sane people believe,that economic conditions and social upbringing determine collective consciousness. The individual can only be understood by men in his social setting. My primary point,back then,was that we are all "social beings".

My youthful high academic achievements were the outcome of reasonable sufficiency and a Catholic upbringing in Northern Ireland. 

Thatcher took reasonable means of support away from myself and many others,pitting young against middle-aged and old and low-paid and poor against middle class and students. She destroyed youthful naivete, careful nurturing and moral tuition. Mouthy middle class Brits backed her so-called reforms. Middle class prats back every reactionary government. As long as we have classes,these twits will always do so,British-Asian hoodwinkers not excepted. (Therein lies the reason,lack of means universally and small sufficiency, that the Security Unit pulled a white plastic bag over Frank Hegarty's and others head.For my part, I decided to be economical with explosives by attempting to use fuel-air materiel).

Schooldays over...

My high academic standing disappeared when confronted by workerist obstinacy. This I encountered in agency working in Germany. Later, I saw the fruits of Anglo-Saxon economic laissez-faire in idleness and Dutch sloth.

Working years. Comparative wages on the Continent 

In Germany,I was paid an average wage for work native youth would not,or would only reluctantly, perform; in Holland,land of docility and social agitprop,I was paid a low wage set by government fiat.

Attitudes of workers,health and safety 

In Germany, conditions were better materially but I saw no evidence of social enlightenment apart from the Social Democrats. Old prejudices still prevail in that racially-superior,if you please,dungheap ('dochall'). 

In Germany labour rewards for juveniles are higher and safety at work tightly enforced.In Holland I often found work conditions, particularly the health and safety of young people at work, dangerously unregulated. I sometimes,as memory recalls,worked two 12-hour shifts in succession in the docks. Not for me the farmer's lazy bed in winter-I worked all year round.

Student reflection on the working life

At university,my social and labour views were sought for the purposes of labour regulation and social reforms and the drafting of labour laws by the resident QUB MI 5/Sinn Fein agents.

In responses,I was that dehumanised young man who preached the mobilisation of all labour power for the maximum social and manufacturing output. I was a conservative but not scientific materialist.

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Looking back on my philosophising,I was  what Phyllis Bateson of the Northern Ireland Police Authority,called a "German agent" but one who wanted Irish society to compete with his German alma mater.

Despite Ireland's best efforts to capture its inflowing investment,Germany has recovered its famous equilibrium after long years of stagnation.Britain has failed to learn from Germany and rests where it has always been since the defeat of the Miners' Strike of 1984-5. To whit,a lesser player in many industries ruined by indigenous interest rates and technical underperformance.

Post- student reasonings and explications

Ireland has followed my prognoses and schema for change.

As a result,there is "a bit of spare fat to be skinned off".

The financial and industrial problems remain over the narrow  crossing. Britain is greatly overdeveloped.

Working people and our share of global exploitation 

Let us,rich and poor,be happy with current growth rates of income.We are in a much better situation since the death of Reagan, Thatcher and Reynolds. We live in a much better-divided world because of the influence of social democratic and national-social movements and progressive wage and price measures in terms of arbitration and controls. The social market philosophy has, however,been dealt mortal blows in its heartlands.

The legacy of corporatism has not vanished. The right,the statists such as the military apparatus of terror and violence runs riot in all but a few parliamentary democracies.

In the South, social engineering has had an enduring effect,street-crawling Gardai,ex-soldiers and social parasites apart.

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With hindsight....A contemporary reference

Work,work,work,I used to say. 

Now,keep them parcels moving to coin an adage with the long-running and intractable UK postal strike in mind. 

Britain, in the dying years of the parliamentary Raj is breaking up the postal service to satisfy the appetite of a few bully boys in police uniform for "clowning" and "lengthening lines of communication". Those games have the potential to become a Final Frontier in the breakdown of centralised society. Similarly,witness the asset stripping. That is made possible by the sowing of social disorder and the seeds of totalitarianism. The culprits are the soldiers and police community.

That fundamental change or sets of changes have been long prefigured in the Wee Six.