real utopias

Aidan Regan writes that contrary to the interpretation put forward by some policymakers, the recovery has had little to do with structural reforms or austerity policies, but instead reflects a successful development strategy focused on securing foreign direct investment, particularly from the United States.

The Irish have a long history of being tyrannized, exploited, and oppressed—from the forced conversion to Christianity in the Dark Ages, to slave trading of the natives in the 15th and 16th centuries, to the mid-nineteenth century “potato famine” that was really a holocaust. The British got Ireland’s food exports, while at least one million Irish died from starvation and related diseases, and another million or more emigrated.

And provides for an additional half a billion new capital investment plan.