Austerity group think processes continue

The economists Carmen Rogoff and Kenneth Reinhart, authors of ‘This Time is Different’, have asserted their belief regarding the tendency of both governments and private investors to fool themselves about the dangers posed by debt.

Rogoff and Reinhart now accept that they overstated the harmful effect of high levels of government debt on economic growth. They insist, however, that this error does not undermine their larger argument.

The political stakes are high because their work has been used as a justification for austerity in Ireland, as elsewhere across Europe. As one commentator has noted, had this study not served the interests of the powerful and privileged, it would have been either negated or discredited. More disturbing was the way in which dissent from the prevailing view that austerity works and TINA (there is no alternative) was dealt with. .

The Nyberg Report (2011) pointed to the group-think of the Celtic Tiger. Worryingly, the austerity hegemony demonstrates that group-think processes continue to prevail. Following Nancy Folbre, the remedy may lie in efforts to foster “the kinds of theoretical, political and cultural diversity”, and may I add critical thinking, that provides the impetus to repeatedly challenge an economic ideology which has proved immensely damaging to European society and its economy.

Dr Margaret O’Keeffe

Mayfield

Cork