Connect: 'If the government was a private company, it would be gone bankrupt," said John McNerney this week. Mr McNerney is the managing director of Readymix and chairman of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) economics and taxation committee. He made the comment at Monday's launch of IBEC's pre-Budget submission.
Dear, oh dear! The remark showed private business at its most preposterous. It's fair enough that as a lobbying tactic, IBEC, like any other outfit, should disparage this government. But an angry public mustn't be blinded by its own empathy.
The unavoidable truth of the metaphor is that if the government were a private company, democracy too would be gone bankrupt, Mr McNerney.
The government is not, nor is it meant to be, a private company, a trade union, a co-op, or any other subsidiary form of organisation. It's a publicly elected government and has greater public responsibilities than any mere business. Whether voters agree it meets those responsibilities is a separate issue. The fact remains it has duties beyond those of a private company.
Anyway, McNerney's comparison reveals not only much about IBEC but about relentless attempts to make normal a discourse that degrades democracy. Why should the model of a private company be incessantly put forward as a credible comparison with that of a democratically elected government? It's obviously because IBEC sees 'economy' and 'country' as synonymous. But that's like comparing apples and oranges without acknowledging that they are essentially different fruits with essentially different properties. The economy, though it is undeniably crucial, is not the country. So, comparing the government with a private company is a spurious and disingenuous analogy.
Yet John McNerney, at least in the media I've seen, read and heard, was not challenged about the validity of his comparison. Were, for instance, a charitable organisation to insist that if the government were a charity, there'd be less poverty and a more equal distribution of wealth, the daftness of the analogy would be obvious.
It would also be ridiculed - and fairly too - as being hopelessly out of step with 'the real world'. Yet IBEC can propound equally absurd comparisons while simultaneously representing itself as the quintessence of 'the real world' and we are supposed to take its illogical, propagandistic and - most damning of all - democracy-undermining utterances seriously.
The author and Oscar-winning documentary maker, Michael Moore, has written a new book about America. Its due to be published next Tuesday and its title - Dude, Where's My Country? - poses its question to George Bush (called by Moore the 'Thief in Chief'). It's a question that should be asked of all powerful lobby groups in all 21st century democracies. It's a timely question too because there's widespread discontent among everyday Americans. The fanatical and poisonous rhetoric that has warped the US for years is, at last, being rejected. Fundamentalist conservative books such as David Limbaugh's latest heap of nonsense - Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity - are being largely ignored.
In the Republic of Ireland, we have - ironically perhaps, given our history - avoided excesses of religious fundamentalism in recent years. Material affluence and Church scandals have seen to that. We remain stuck, however, with an economic fundamentalism that is brazen enough to insinuate that its essentially self-serving structures could be a template for government.
Of course, there are pluses and minuses on both sides of the interminable public v private debate. The government can learn from private sector successes and adopt aspects of these when appropriate. To insinuate though, as IBEC did this week, that its members' structures and methods are fully interchangeable with those of a democratic government, is dangerously daft.
In fairness, you can't blame IBEC for representing the wishes of its members and supporters. It campaigns for the best conditions for private sector business and that's perfectly fair. But it's not fair that it should misrepresent itself as an outfit carrying out a comparably inclusive job to that demanded of a government. Still, the whiff of hubris from its attitude is instructive.
The Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats coalition that has governed this state since 1997 has been the most pro-private business government since the state was formed. IBEC ideology has prospered under its rule and there have, of course, been gains (economic dynamism and material affluence) and losses (health services and a widening wealth gap) as a result.
Yet, as the US - the most IBEC-ish of all states - re-examines itself, IBEC treats us to Thatcherite guff that is 20 years out of date. This week, the chairman of Readymix was too ready to mix business and government in a self-aggrandising comparison. His impugning of democracy was probably inadvertent. If so, however, it shows just how deluding spurious comparisons can be.
Not content with fighting for its already vast place within the economy, IBEC, a lobby group - without humour, it appears - can imagine itself running the whole show. Now, if only the government were a football team. . .