Income is not a determinator of class, and to think of class in such terms is to miss the point that class is a social relation, not a category. Income, however, can be used as an indicator of class relations, as wage levels are usually, although not always, related to the types of positions people [...]

Yesterday evening, TASC presented their annual lecture in the Royal Irish Academy with two highly noteworthy speakers, economist James K. Galbraith, Professor in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in the University of Texas, Austin and Professor Maria Rodrigues of the Institute of European Studies, Brussels Free University - [...]

Boy, was Senator Fergal Quinn taken in. Or was he? In his recent column, ‘Getting people work a priority’ he attempts to make two real-life comparisons - one based on a letter he received and one from what he read in the paper. Senator Quinn forgot the first universal rule of life: don’t believe everything [...]

This is an excerpt of Professor Terrence McDonough’s post on Progressive Economy in which he provides five reasons why falling wage rates will not help the economy and concludes that we must find ways of being more self-reliant and to stop worrying about competitiveness. Terrence McDonough has written previously for Irish Left Review.
When Ronald [...]

Here is my challenge to the real devaluationists. Will any of them take it up? Real devaluationists claim that, since we can’t devalue our currency, we must devalue other inputs into the economy. Wages feature prominently as in cutting wages will increase our competitiveness. Many of these ‘real devaluationists’ are grouped around Irisheconomy.ie (Alan Ahearne [...]

Ronan Lyon has written an instructive post on the ‘Thorny Issue of Teachers’ Pay’. So useful, in fact, that it was highlighted on Irish.economy.ie and in the Sunday Business Post. And boy has it stirred comments on both websites. Cutting to the quick, Ronan concludes that Irish primary school teachers are paid too much - [...]

In his third post on competitiveness at the progressive economy@tasc blog (previous two here and here), ICTU economists Paul Sweeney asks if a reduction in labour costs, even unit labour costs, will reduce prices for goods and services throughout the economy - the measure needed, the economists tell us, it improve Ireland’s competitiveness. Or will [...]

There is an almighty locomotive train of a consensus coming down the tracks at us: taxation. Many commentators are demanding that tax increases be substantial and immediate. Can this help resolve the crisis? The answer is: yes and no and, in some cases, it can make it worse. Taxation is, after all, an instrument; like [...]

Paul Sweeney, Economic advisor to ICTU, got to shake the hand of the 5th most powerful man in the world, Jean Claude Trichet, yesterday - although he was a little reluctant to do so.
In a new post on the progressive-economy@tasc blog Paul explains his reluctance.
“Here was a very powerful man in a world economy which [...]

As a welcome to the new TASC economic blog progressive-economy@tasc and to acknowledge the first year of Irish Left Review all this week we are publishing one post from the new blog. Today is a post by ICTU’s Economic advisor, Paul Sweeney.
The remarkable barrage of calls for pay cuts, from both orthodox economists and the [...]