Co-operative system best way to beat slump

BANKING commentator Bill Hobbs is absolutely right when he says that yesterday’s solutions will not solve today’s crisis (May 3).

Einstein said more or less the same – that the significant problems we face now cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

That is a timeless, unchanging natural law principle, and until those in the corridors of power – I’m speaking to all political parties – acknowledge this truth, Ireland Inc will only go deeper into recession.

A major shift in political thinking is urgently required. Taoiseach Brian Cowen appears to recognise this, but doesn’t seem to know what to do about it. He is stuck in the old way of thinking – the top-down/control-command model of governance.

That way worked for a time while people regarded themselves as subjects rather than co-proprietors of Ireland Inc. A substantial number of people – and the numbers are rapidly growing – now see themselves in a different light. They see themselves as equals and they want equal input into the decision-making process.

The one way this can be achieved is through the co-operative model of governance.

The co-operative model has proved itself reliable in former times of economic upheaval, eg, the Great Depression of the last century which, not unlike today, plunged the broad masses all over the world into unemployment, hopelessness and misery.

The co-operative way is the best way forward.

It is government from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It is truly democratic – government of the people by the people for the people.

It is the future.

Nora Bennis

Revington Park

North Circular Road

Limerick