A chara, - With reference to your Editorial "Budget Priorities" (September 28th) you are of course correct to assert that the direction of the national budget is a source of tension between the State and the economy. However, it is perhaps instructive to note that such tension is not "real" but a manifestation of what John Dewey in Liberalism and Social Action called "the crisis of liberalism" - that is, that such tension is caused by the accidental historical preoccupation of liberalism with material wealth. It is this "accident", whose seeds were planted during the Industrial Revolution and which have blossomed since the second World War, that continues to inform orthodox economists, politicians, large sections of the popular press and consequently policy. Even in your Editorial you spoke of spending (wildly) on social services as "endanger[ing] our economic success".
The problem is that a dichotomy has been created between the economy and society. However, economies are part of society and the proper function and place of the economy in human society is to support the individual to enable him/her to develop his/her potential to contribute to human life. The budget, a major facet of effective economic policy, is inseparable from this fundamental function of the economic process. C.E. Ayres in Towards a Reasonable Society was correct in his contention that "mere" economic wealth must be subordinate to human development.
Your stated belief that further societal alienation will weaken the quality of life, which should be the priority of a democratic government as opposed to a dogged preoccupation with economic aggregates, is also perspicacious. Our society is one increasingly displaying the values of "instituted capitalism", persistently promoting growth for its own sake. It is time that people, through their conduit - the Government - reinvested in the axioms of a "reasonable society", one in which human needs are provided for as a matter of principle and priority. Contrary to popular opinion, we are not helpless slaves to the market.
Marc Tool in Discretionary Economy trenchantly argued that the economy is discretionary and can choose for itself what it wishes to do and what it needs to be most concerned with. To do so will entail the Government, through such instruments as the Budget, becoming more than an umpire - a manager, coach and player. This will purge society of any perceived tension that exists between state and economy, thus allowing for the fruits of economic success to benefit all of society. - Is mise, Daniel Blackshields,
Department of Economics, University College, Cork.