Feasta describes Troika exit as “a piece of theatre obscuring our real challenges”
Exit of troika simply indicates a transfer of Ireland’s allegiance back to the international bond markets, not a restoration of sovereignty
Irish economy’s profound vulnerability could be addressed via a commons-based financial system and energy independence
16 December 2013: Yesterday’s departure of the Troika is being presented as a significant event in re-claiming Ireland’s economic sovereignty. This is an illusion, Feasta warns. In reality we are simply transferring our allegiance from the troika back to the international bond market.
Given the reality of climate change, the clear historic relationship between economic growth and fossil fuel consumption and the growth-dependent, highly volatile and destabilizing nature of the international financial markets, it is clear that allowing Irish economic policy to be guided once again by those markets’ whims is unwise to the extreme.
“The challenges before us all are grave. They touch on the very viability of sustainable life on our planet, and their systemic nature and vast complexity make them more serious and consequential than any challenge we have faced before,” said Mark Garavan, Feasta’s spokesperson on this issue.
Rather than pinning all our hopes on successfully humouring the financial markets we need to work towards the development of a new economy based on true ecological sustainability that includes a commons-based financial system. This can be done. However it needs a realism which grasps what is truly happening before us and a political imagination to think outside the conventional categories.
“While the Troika may come and go the same system and tired old thinking continues. It is this which must change,” said Mr Garavan.
Notes:
Feasta was founded in 1998 with the mission of identifying and disseminating the characteristics of a truly sustainable society. We correctly predicted the economic crash. We have presented in books, articles, papers and numerous submissions a cogent analysis of why our growth-oriented system cannot work. We have sought to think in grounded and creative ways in order to offer not just critiques but cogent solutions to our challenges.
Proposed solutions include the implementation of a twin-track currency system in order to lessen and, if need be, end dependence on the euro and on the financial markets, extensive structural reform in the Irish banking system, investment in energy independence through the introduction of energy bonds and a commons-based climate change policy such as Cap and Share.
Further information:
http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2011/04/07/a-three-step-emergency-plan-for-ireland/
