I've come to the conclusion that socialism no longer has a place in Irish society and those who are still clinging to such ideas may as well be trying to find Mr. Enda Kenny's personality or Dr. Ian Paisley's secret stash of rosery beads.

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So, I see you wear shoes. Me too! want to have sex?

Fair enough. I've come to the conclusion that I don't care about your opinion.

Burn!

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Na Cearta Gaeilge atá agat:

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We don't have to worry about socialism, we do have to worry about "pragmatisim" aka populism.

I for one regard Socialism as a political force that deceives the poor, by helping to maintain the very problems it complains about, in the hope of using them to get votes. Those considering themselves socialists who do not consider themselves as doing so are deceived by party leaders, in my opinion.

The Irish Left and trade unions have consistently opposed greater competition in the Irish market. They opposed the opening up of the aviation sector which let Ryanair into the market, and caused a great fall in the price of flights out of the country. They even opposed the deregulation of the taxi-industry, which has helped reduce the rip-off culture long synonomous with Irish taxis. In taking these positions, Socialism opposes measures to bring prices down. As such, they harm the poor they claim to defend. By supporting the ban on below-cost selling, they help keep supermarket prices artificially high.

By opposing controls on immigration, they pave the way for cheap labour to price Irish workers out of their jobs - especially their demands that asylum-seekers be allowed to work.

The worst examples of socialist excess can be found in mainland Europe, especially France and Germany where high taxes - especially the 55% German corporation tax rate in German - as well as meddling red tape that makes sacking a worker too hard - and the 35 hour maximum working week in France - have all created 11% unemployment rates.

There is a pattern here!

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Socialism, in various guises, was tried several times, cost 100s millions of lives, and should be consigned to the dustbin of history. Any misshapen individuals [and they almost always are for some reason] who still harbour a fondness for this filthy doctrine are either inbred, criminally insane, wilfully ignorant, or a combination of all three.

There has never been an Irish socialist government, we have no examples to judge it on.

That's fairly sweeping FT, and I'm not sure that what you're describing is even particularly 'socialist'. I'll disregard your usual bugbear of immigration and ask you to consider that you're using a rather narrow retrospective viewpoint from 2006 to 'justify' your viewpoint. It hasn't, throughout the 20th century, been always self-evidently clear that competition was the means to superior economic outcomes. Indeed one can argue that capitalism failed on this yardstick until possibly the 1950s, possibly later. Also it depends at what level of economic activity we're discussing. Competition on railways? Not very easy to introduce. Competition between telecoms operators, relatively easy, but realistically was it an option say prior to at the earliest the 1980s in this country? As for the deregulation of the taxi industry, that's fairly parochial stuff.

As for Germany and France (run by conservatives) their economic performance is rather better than you seem to think and over a consistently longer period than this country. This country has been playing catch-up with other European economies. No more and no less. At some point the graph will level off and assume a more normal level of growth - or perhaps slight decline.

Hold on, I won't disregard your usual bugbear, because it strikes me that while you laud competition in all other things you don't in terms of immigration. Now frankly, neither do I. But even so...

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"I like you. You're all right. Actually, I like you better meeting you than if somebody had just given me your record."
Joey Ramone

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Much obliged for sharing that opinion with us. Pity you couldn't elaborate on waht would inform such a ridiculous (my opinion) position

Surely capitalism has cost and continues to cost millions of lives, two world wars over markets and profot for example?, devastaion across Africa as a result of decades of rape by imperialism, millions around the world condemned to poverty as a result of the relentless pursuit of profit.

I don't just harobour a fondness for socialsim I belive it is the only alternative to capitalism and indeed the next progeression of society, I don't believe after thousands of years of human development and many economic structures that capitalism is the be all and end all - that would conradict history?

Despite my support for socialism I am not inbred (to the best of my knowledge), not criminally insane nor ignorant.