Are capitalism and parliamentary democracy unsuited to Ireland?

[slx]

The biggest problem is that there is a power vacuum at local level. The TDs are taking on a role that should be held by a powerful and accountable local authority which only deals with local issues.

One of the most important things we could do as a nation is to finally resolve the mess that is Irish local Government.

The simplest way of doing this would be to remove the role of city/county manager and replace him/her with an elected executive Mayor.

I'd also take the opportunity to shrink the number of councillors by about 50% and merge a lot of the lower population local authorities into broader regions. There's absolutely no way that we need the preserve the historical 26 counties for modern administrative purposes. That being said, there's no reason why the counties could not co-exist along side new administrative regions much like the historical provinces do today i.e. for sports, tourism etc.

I'm sure that some system could be designed that would ensure good representation with a smaller number of more powerful councillors and some kind of a cabinet arrangement on the council where it elected people to particular portfolios.

If local Government actually worked and was actually accountable and if the mayor or councillors were able to actually do things on the ground then you would release TDs to their duties in Leinster House.

There also should be a legal definition of what a councillor / mayor and TD is and what their roles are. TDs should be legally prevented from interfering in local authorities' work .

In the current setup, TDs are behaving like some kind of Mayor type figure rather than as what they're supposed to be - national legislators!

[making waves]

No alone is capitalism and parliamentary democracy unsuited to Ireland - it unsuited to every country on the entire planet.

What do you propose as an alternative?

Stalinism?

Failed

Islamic theocracy?

Failed

Feudal monarchy?

Time has passed by about 350 years.

The alternative is democratic socialism with a system of participatory democracy.

[Echolalia]

how about a temporary elected king that gets executed at the end of his reign?

[Dylan2010]

the way I look at it , Irish people can be very productive. The problem is we dont have the backbone of societies like Germany , Sweden etc. Whatever system Ireland has it needs to be accountable at all levels in particular in financial matters. As long as someone in West Cork thinks that someone in Dublin is paying for his roads and someone in Dublin thinks that someone in Europe is paying for his food, economic decisions will be a nonsense here. I'd vote for a system where there is some distribution from the top 10% to the bottom 10% but after that everyone else should be responsible for their own health needs etc.
The history of Irish society has been to run it like a ponzi scheme, which is just wrong

[farnaby]

No alone is capitalism and parliamentary democracy unsuited to Ireland - it unsuited to every country on the entire planet.
...
The alternative is democratic socialism with a system of participatory democracy.

The vast majority of US citizens would consider it treason to abandon capitalism (or even just the elements of unlimited wealth creation I described earlier). Parliamentary democracy has worked ok for Britain - at least there is little appetite for overhauling the system.

For those who can agree to such statements (and accept you would not) I am arguing that Ireland is different and what works elsewhere has simply been proven not to work here. Unrestrained capitalism creates bubbles and we have shown a propensity to blow ours up to the point of self-destruction. The centralisation of political power through parliamentary democracy has exacerbated political group-think and cronyism here to an oppressive degree. To say so does not deny democracy or enterprise, it just means we need to do things our own way.

[obfp2010]

To use a worn out phrase, smaller government closer to the people. Not revolving round the parish pumps but working on a national level only. Involves a major reeducation of the electorate but now would probably seem a good time to try.

[beamish2010]

They are certainly unsuited for Ireland and for most countries through out the world...