Talks an irrelevant and dangerous farce

MATERIAL inequality is an ever more pressing issue.

Most of the developed world enjoys lifestyles almost unimagined in the developing world. This reality is a driving force behind escalating migration to Europe and America. Inequality is growing in the developed world too. Wealth is concentrated in ever fewer hands and, as Greece discovered this week, the power of international money is all but absolute, maybe even beyond the control of democratically elected governments.

Workers face a new, colder reality too. The middle classes have had to surrender hard-won advances and many industries, many supported by government subvention, refuse to recognise trade unions or the process of collective bargaining — principles sacrosanct among public sector employees. Job security, as it was known, is with O’Leary in the grave.