Flawed analysis of our economic miracle
He is also right to point out many of the elements that have underpinned our success in recent years, but his deeply flawed analysis is selective at best.
Ireland succeeded using free capital from Europe to subsidise infrastructural programmes while leveraging fiscal reform to poach jobs from other parts of Europe and then subsequently creating new opportunities here as the '90s progressed.
It is clear why Friedman would like Ireland. We can be pointed to as a means to justify the theorems and models of the neo-liberalism he propounds in his books.
It's inconvenient to point to the failed neo-liberal experiments in Latin America and Asia as they undermine the model that Friedman so ardently advocates.
I notice the EU structural funding didn't get a mention from Whelan or Friedman if it did, people would think it wasn't all us.
The idea that implanting a liberalised state, market and society would lead to economic success in next to no time (Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree) has been proved to have been little more than the wayward musings of a journalist with dot.com era cabin fever.
Eulogies have their place, but they should never been allowed to go unchallenged.
Ireland's model, I am sure, could be useful elsewhere, but the gross simplification of neo-liberalism and the Irish economic miracle by Noel Whelan debases cogent argument rather than opening up the debate to one of serious analysis.
If he had done so, he would surely be referring to works by more credible neo-liberal advocates like Ken Rogoff of the IMF or Jagdesh Bagwati rather than a self-publicising populist?
Ross McCarthy
54 Danes Fort
Castle Avenue
Clontarf
Dublin 3.
