Silicon Valley’s Trojan Horse: Irish Nationalists Beware of MAGA Libertarians
Introduction: Why Nationalist Populism Exists - Austerity and Immigration
Irish nationalism is at risk of retarding their development and cohesion by gravitating toward the American-centric, right-coded ideology of MAGA libertarianism. It offers a tantalizing temptation for Irish nationalists to imbibe in order to receive perceived wealth and power. Yet this reward is elusive and the most likely outcome would be severing Irish nationalists from their historic tradition, authentic ideological goals, potential popular appeal, and allowing Ireland to be whored out to globalists.
The Irish nationalist movement, while anchored by historical continuity, is an outgrowth of the general western populist reaction of the past 20 years. The 2008 global financial crisis was the culmination of national deindustrialization in favor of globalist financialization. The cracks in the economy were exacerbated by an acute collapse and the subsequent years of austerity policies, especially in Europe, which resulted in deprivation, uncertainty, and the loss of sovereignty.
Maynooth University Sociology Professor Colin Coulter and distinguished author Angela Nagle edited the collection of essays entitled “Ireland under austerity: Neoliberal crisis, neoliberal solutions”, in which the authors detail the problems of this period for Ireland and Europe at large. Maynooth University Lecturer Sinéad Kennedy wrote, “The conditionality of the bailout and the austerity measures required were outlined in the IMF’s Memorandum of Understanding. This agreement gave huge powers to unelected and unaccountable technocrats in terms of economic decision-making. The agreement also emphasises the need for a ‘business friendly environment’, ‘vigorous action to remove remaining restrictions on trade and competition’ and a strong emphasis on private sector involvement in, for example, public utilities like water, electricity and gas. It required the Irish state to empty all its reserve funds and demanded that any additional revenue raised in the future through, for example, the sell-off of state assets, be utilised for no purpose other than debt repayment…Seven successive budgets have cut public spending, targeting, in particular, public services like health, education, social welfare and the voluntary and community sector – what the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan referred to ‘low hanging fruit’. As unemployment increases, the government has shifted its focus away from direct taxes on income towards increases in indirect taxation, the most inequitable form of taxation, through the introduction of property and water taxes and VAT increases. The mere suggestion of a small increase in Ireland’s low corporation tax (12.5 per cent) is met with howls of outrage and indignation.”
Coulter described the consequences of Ireland’s austerity:
“As has been the case in many other, rather poorer countries, the structural adjustment of Ireland has centred upon the hollowing out of the public realm. In the era of austerity, some 30,000 state employees have lost their jobs while their former colleagues have faced pay cuts in excess of 20 per cent. Moreover, a series of punishing budgets has seen the erosion of many essential forms of public provision. Some of the swingeing cuts have eroded forms of social welfare – child benefit, the single parent family allowance, pensioners’ medical cards and carers’ allowances among many others – that would have previously been considered untouchable. In total, the era of austerity has seen some €28 billion removed from the Irish economy in the guise of tax increases and reductions in state services. This represents around one fifth of the country’s GDP, meaning that the austerity measures introduced in Ireland have effected the greatest economic adjustment ever experienced in a developed country outside of wartime.”
Globalist elites may have prospered but the average citizen faced negative consequences. Wages were “relatively stagnant” according to the Irish Central Bank, while the cost of living (especially in housing) grew tremendously. As Dr. Matt Treacy wrote, “Official and market statistics show that the average price of a new house in the state rose from €7,523 in 1970 (as adjusted from punts) to €322,602 in 2023. That represents an increase of more than 4000%. Or to put it another way, the price of a new house is now 43 times higher than it was in 1970. Real wages have increased by 3 in the same period.” Many young Irish citizens have fled Ireland as they see it as inhospitable. Others languish in welfare dependence as Ireland has the second highest at-risk-of-poverty rate before social transfers in the European Union (EU).
In this context, mass migration accelerated in western countries. An already declining economic environment was compounded by rapid growth in competition for housing, resources, and jobs. Tensions were made worse as divergent cultures clashed and immigrants were shown to engage in criminal activity at higher rates than natives. In contrast to the wishes of their general populations, western governments and elite institutions often championed both national deindustrialization and mass migration.
In response, nationalist populism burst onto the political scene. These movements spanned from England to Italy. Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, in many respect, epitomised novo-national populism. These movements were defined by their acute rejection of mass migration, as well as their rejection, more generally, of neoliberal economic globalization. While it's easy to see how that conflicted with the political left’s woke and anti-national sentiments, nationalist populism was no less antagonistic to the conventional political right. It could be argued that the conventional political right contributed more to the two trends that stimulated the nationalist population reaction. It was the right’s favored economist, Milton Friedman, who led an ideological pivot in the west towards neoliberalism at the end of the 1970s. The economic pivot advocated for deregulation, diminished state capacity, and prioritized globalized financialization at the expense of western industry. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, this same ideology was emphasized in order to enforce harsh austerity measures across Europe.
Additionally, mass migration was conducive to the right’s ideas. From an academic perspective, the right believed that any immigration was a net benefit to the economy, even at the expense of detrimentally impacting less affluent segments of the native populace. Per this purview, the right believed that society, in aggregate, would always gain from immigration. Admittedly, certain circles on the right adopted a tempered and attenuated variant of this perspective, but their ideal starting point was and is open borders, as articulated by the economist Bryan Caplan. From a more cynical perspective, the right’s representation of business interests led it to embrace increased immigration to provide cheap and vulnerable labour to exploit. If not for this immigration, native workers would have more bargaining power to extract higher wages and better conditions from their employers.
Nationalist populism, at its core, was a rejection of both the conventional left and right. Nationalist populists critiqued the right’s neoliberal ideology. During his 2016 campaign, Trump said “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican, and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.” Trump also advocated tariffs, industrial policy, and a reversal of globalization. His more notable anti-immigration stance was just the tip of the iceberg. These were taboos on the right and Trump embraced them. Much of Trump’s early MAGA movement, and its spin-offs in other countries, broke with the right’s neoliberal orthodoxy.
Across the Atlantic, Hungary’s Victor Orbán increased subsidies for families in order to stimulate fertility rates. Orbán also backed explicit industrial policy. He said, “We will have Eastern and Western car plants, technologies and production capacities…we will participate in space research and link Hungary to the [international] bloodstream of the most modern information technologies.” His economic agenda includes providing the seeds to grow new sectors and incentivizing firms to increase and diversify exports. Orbán even went so far as to break the ultimate taboo of the right — raise taxes. In 2022, Orbán not just raised taxes, but targeted increased taxes on banks’ and other corporations’ “extra profits” to fund subsidies for consumer energy savings and the Hungarian army. “We will oblige banks, insurers, large retail chains, the energy industry and trading firms, telecoms companies and airlines to pay a large part of their extra profits into two-state funds,” Orbán said.
Any authentic nationalist populist movement is thus critical of the right’s neoliberalism and libertarianism. Nationalist populism challenges the very notion that left and right are relevant distinctions because, as shown with immigration, they often align. Instead, nationalist populism exists outside the frame of these two irrelevant categories. Nationalist populism’s logic is defined by three attributes: 1.) what is optimal for the nation’s interests, 2.) what is supported by the majority of its citizens, and 3.) what is coherent to the nation’s heritage. Whatever policies successfully adhere to those attributes are thus nationalist populist. There are various tenets of either the conventional left or right that break with these attributes.
Returning to Ireland, the emergence of its nationalist populism followed the general pattern. Ireland’s speculative financialized economy gave way to some of the harshest austerities in Europe. While this negatively impacted the native economy, the most acute issue was the severity of the resulting housing shortage. In this declining environment, Ireland experimented with never-before seen immigration increases. Finally, Ireland’s own variety of nationalist populists arose and vocalized criticism.
These nationalist populists ended “the end of Irish history”, to paraphrase Francis Fukuyama. For decades, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ran Ireland with little challenge from smaller parties. They represented an establishment status quo. Sinn Féin gained ground in the past 10 years as a notable “opposition” but those credentials are dubious. Sinn Féin agrees with most of the status quo policies. The party, for all its “underdog” status, was born at the exact same time as the two dominant parties because they are all splinters of the original revolutionary party and thus about 100 years old. The stage play of Irish politics was never truly open to radical change yet offered the aesthetics and slogans of such. Without the potential for change, Irish history stopped. However, the nationalist populists disrupted the stage play. They restarted Irish history and presented a new dichotomy where all the existing parties were the establishment or elites and they were the opposition or underdogs.
Why Irish Nationalism Should Eschew MAGA 2.0
Under this current paradigm, if a candidate, party, or activist wants to tap into this anti-establishment sentiment, they must conform to the framework of nationalist populism. If they want to represent those disaffected masses, they must reject what they are reacting to and embrace ideas that transgress the former orthodoxy. However, while nationalist populism can be defined and its ideas identified, it often lacks organized institutions. This flaw opens nationalist populism up to confusion, as it is too decentralized and fluid.
A June 2024 Red C poll found that 72% of Irish people thought the Irish government lost control of immigration. The popular position in Ireland is one that restricts the mass migration trend. In this regard, the nationalist populism pattern has been observed. However, there’s a dissonance between that position being popular and candidates getting elected. In the most recent 2024 Irish election, the total nationalist populist vote share was 2.7% nationally, 6.4% in five Dublin city constituencies, and Dublin North-West at 9.8% which is 5x greater than 2020, according to The Flare News. These results may be commendable given the adversity undergone and gains made but they still leave the movement in powerless marginality.
The disconnection between voter preferences and electoral success leaves many within the nationalist populist sphere in search of a political identity that will solve that problem. They seek to find what combination of policies, slogans, and aesthetics appeal to voters (and perhaps donors). In the wake of the 2024 U.S. election, some are finding inspiration from Trump’s second win. This is a miscalculation for the Irish nationalists. Ironically, the 2024 Trump movement has broken with nationalist populism as well. The prior explanation of Trump’s movement in 2016 was accurate, but it has since evolved, or perhaps devovled…
The 2024 Trump movement lacks coherency, and is, in some respects, frankly antagonistic to the vision of 2016. For instance, Trump’s 2016 immigration stance was notoriously harsh on illegal immigration, but was very concerned with legal immigration as well. In a 2016 speech, Trump said,:
“Within just a few years immigration as a share of national population is set to break all historical records. The time has come for a new immigration commission to develop a new set of reforms to our legal immigration system in order to achieve the following goals…To keep immigration levels, measured by population share, within historical norms…And to establish new immigration controls to boost wages and to ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first…We’ve been living under outdated immigration rules from decades ago. To avoid this happening in the future, I believe we should sunset our visa laws…[along with] immigration caps or limits.”
However, 2024 Trump sounds quite different. In an August speech, Trump said:
“We're going to let a lot of people come in” in reference to substantially increasing legal immigration. On the The All-In Podcast in June, Trump said “What I want to do, and what I will do, is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country…And that includes junior colleges too. Anybody graduates from a college — you go in there for two years or four years. If you graduate, or you get a doctorate degree from a college, you should be able to stay in this country.”
Mark Krikorian, immigration skeptic and the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, criticized that and remarked that such a proposal would effectively be “stapling a green card to the diploma” of any foreign graduate from an American college.
Krikorian continued, “If this proposal were adopted, you would see an explosion of quickie, one-year master’s programs around the country as a way of selling green cards to foreigners,” he added, which lobbyists and others would “exploit” to earn profits from potentially “billions of people around the world.” This isn’t speculation, this was one of the driving factors of Canada’s immigration surges. Trudeau’s Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced “that the federal government will cap the number of international student permits over the next two years, told CBC's David Cochrane that there are hundreds of 'degree-granting institutions' across the country, and that the provinces bear part of the responsibility for cracking down on them.” Miller also called these “fake” degree granting institutions "the diploma equivalent of puppy mills." Canada added 1.27 million people in 2023, up 3.2% from the previous year - marking the highest growth since 1957. Legal immigration has become such a crisis in Canada that the woke left’s Trudeau has now admitted it was a “mistake” and wants to reverse it. Yet, the 2024 Trump agenda seeks to replicate the exact policies that placed Canada in this position.
Regarding his anti-neoliberal economics, 2024 Trumpism has similarly contradicted 2016 Trumpism. Robert Lighthizer is the intellectual power-house of industrial protectionism and represents a sharp contrast to neoliberalism. His decades of trade experience and comprehensive theoretical understanding made him a wise pick in Trump’s first term. The Wall Street Journal reported that Lighthizer has been “shut out” of Trump’s second term. In place of men like Lighthizer, Trump has selected Wall Street creatures such as Cantor Fitzgerald’s Howard Lutnick and George Soros’ former hedge fund manager Scott Bessent. The tariff strategy has shifted from targeted and methodical to broad and reactionary. Tariff policy is shaping up to be just a reconception of the existing neoliberal paradigm’s use of sanctions. They will be used to accomplish imperial foreign policy goals rather than stimulate domestic consumer industry. Industrial policy itself seems to have been replaced by crypto policy. Rather than reshoring manufacturing, the central focus of 2024 Trumpism’s economic agenda is to open the floodgates for crypto speculation through deregulation and government support. It is even more shocking as Trump had been against crypto and called Bitcoin a “scam” up until 2024.
Finally, Trump appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. Musk promised to find $2 trillion in cuts to the $6 trillion U.S. budget. Some of their suggestions have been blind mass layoffs or what they perceive to be useless spending which included eliminating funding for veterans health care, the Department of Justice, NASA, and all U.S. embassies. The rashness of such decisions may pose serious consequences, but some argue the only meaningful way they can achieve a portion of their goal is to go after entitlements. Eric Boehm, an economic writer at the libertarian Reason Magazine, argued that “unless…[they were] willing to set aside [Trump’s] promise not to touch America's entitlement programs, the DOGE will be unable to follow through on its mandate.” A Republican congressman also praised DOGE, advocating that cuts be focused on entitlements, while shielding the military from them. On 2 December, Musk retweeted Senator Mike Lee’s attack on Social Security and his solution of “reform.” Lee’s definition of reform is, as he explained, “to phase out Social Security, to pull it up from the roots and get rid of it…Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort, they need to be pulled up.”
Trump’s 2016 promise to not cut entitlements would be destroyed if DOGE follows Lee’s plan. This is representative of the drastic ideological shift between 2016 and 2024. Rather than an opposition to neoliberalism, all of these policies are just a multiplication of its logic. This change coincided with Silicon Valley oligarchs wrapping their arms around Trump. Musk is the most visible avatar of this, but many others have followed as well. Lutnick, while a Wall Street veteran, is one of the biggest promoters of crypto too. Silicon Valley is much more libertarian than the conventional right’s neoliberalism. Silicon Valley’s libertarianism was less concerned with the political constraints and realism of the conventional right’s neoliberalism, but instead is at best autistically idealistic or at worst egotistically self-serving.
The support of mass legal immigration, squandering of intellectual protectionism, promotion of crypto speculation, and desire to rashly cut government spending are all cruder than the conventional right’s neoliberalism. While cruder, both Silicon Valley libertarianism and the conventional American right’s neoliberalism are ideologically aligned with the right’s academic purists - the latter view the former parties as a window of opportunity. The aspects of 2016 Trumpism that have lingered on within this new fusion are mostly aesthetic. The trash talking, the YMCA dance, the social media saturation, and deplorable revelry, are examples of lingering aesthetics without substance of Trump’s former stances.
In the process of writing this essay, an internal debate over H-1B immigration erupted in the American right. The Silicon Valley faction was seen as advocating for more immigration, which alarmed the 2016 purists who wanted to hold the line on both illegal and legal immigration reductions. The Silicon Valley faction spiralled into frenzied attacks on the 2016 purists and American culture in general. They openly insulted Americans and celebrated their explicit manipulation of the MAGA movement. Elon Musk vowed to “go to war on this issue” and told the 2016 purists to “F— yourself.” Musk then argued that “those contemptible fools must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem.” Most surprisingly of all, Trump has continually supported Musk and the increased “high skilled” immigration position in the aftermath of this debate, to the bewilderment of the 2016 purists. One observer wrote, “[t]he technocapitalists are indeed the new neocons. Jumping on a bandwagon they’re not ideologically committed to with primary goal not of bettering America, but enriching themselves.” Thus, the prior argument made in this essay has been vindicated.
I’ve walked through all this to explain, as clearly as I can, that 2024 MAGA libertarianism is not the same 2016 Trumpism and, especially, overall nationalist populism across the world. In my opinion, 2024 MAGA libertarianism is not a model to follow for any other nationalist populist movement. However, Ireland’s confused and structureless movement has some who would like to follow it. Some believe that that genre of policies is what voters really want. Some believe that there are saviours waiting in the wings of the future Trump administration to formally assist them. Most ridiculously, some believe that pining for a Musk retweet will somehow translate into electoral success.
Anyone that truly believes in these strategies and wants to push Ireland in those directions is totally out of line with movement. The reason there is any demand for an anti-establishment political movement in Ireland is because of the surge in nationalist populism. Any individual or entity that seeks to represent and tap into that demand must adhere to the definitional attributes of nationalist populism laid out previously. If those conditions are not met, then those individuals and entities are, at worst, knowingly and cynically attempting to co-opt the movement for agendas that can be totally anathema to it. At best, some are unknowingly and naively self-sabotaging the movement.
Outside of diplomatic pragmatism, collaboration with MAGA libertarianism does not present positive outcomes for Ireland. The Trump administration's non-negotiable policy for Ireland is to end its trade surplus with America and dismantle its multinational tax model. There is no preventing this through the bonding over your shared love of free speech or back-pedalling any moral stances. They want to grab Ireland by its ankles, turn it upside down, and shake all the cash from its pockets. You have zero leverage. Flattery will not gain Ireland anything with Trump’s administration. In fact, it is a distraction from preparing solutions to the new administration’s hostility towards Ireland.
For instance, although Trump’s administration is against China, increasing trade with China could hedge against Trump’s economic attack on Ireland. Further, any analysis of Trump’s psychology reveals that he doesn’t respect those that flatter him. He only makes deals with those that have leverage against his interests. Increased Chinese trade ties provide Ireland with actual leverage to play off Trump in order for Trump to make a good deal with Ireland. If America reduces Irish trade, China can replace it. If America wants Ireland to avoid China for foreign policy interests, it can make concessions to Ireland. Here’s Trump in his own words from “Art of the Deal”, “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can’t do without.” To cite Hungary again, it has large trade ties with China and has a strong relationship with Trump.
Those are short-term issues, but leaning into MAGA libertarianism also presents long-term challenges. It would replace the current ideological agenda with the contradictory policies outlined above. Ireland’s problems have to do with its acceleration of legal migration, lack of industrial policy, weak state capacity, and financialization. The injection of MAGA libertarianism into Irish nationalist populism would undermine the authentic solutions to those problems and instead double-down on the problems themselves. It is not worth even entertaining conjecture about wasteful woke NGOs in the spirit of DOGE-ist efficiency. Of course those need to be cut. Nagle criticized the NGO-complex in 2021. Instead, we are talking about hospital bills for grandparents, research and development for cancer treatments, and building infrastructure for reliable energy. The state must increase its capacity to meet those needs. Any debate about too small or too big government is besides the point. You don’t solve obesity with anorexia. The optimal state is one that is fit and muscular. Ireland’s state needs to hit the gym and MAGA libertarianism would prevent that.
Beware of Tech Bros Bearing Gifts
The perception of Irish flirtation with MAGA libertarianism is sourced from my general observations of social media and direct conversations. However, to better illustrate my point of view, I will direct my critique at specific subjects: the Collison brothers. I will critique them because they are Silicon Valley billionaires and Irish citizens. They are tremendously professional and competent, which makes them a beacon of leadership. Most importantly, they’ve stepped into the Irish political arena through recent funding and activism with an anti-establishment veneer. All these qualities make them a potent force, and if you combine that with their wrong ideas, they present a significant risk to Irish nationalist populism.
The Collisons got some of their first funding from current Trump-aligned Silicon Valley billionaires. such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen. They have since remained close with them. In 2020, the Collisons raised funds from Thiel, Musk, and others for their “Fast Grants” program to fund scientific research. Their attachment indicates an ideological overlap and enmeshment in their network. Further, the Collisons collaborated with a particular economist on the Fast Grants — Tyler Cowen. Cowen is a professor at George Mason University, produces the Marginal Revolution blog, and appears to be the go-to economist for the Collisons. In 2019, Patrick Collison co-wrote an article with Cowen in The Atlantic. Patrick frequently promoted Cowen’s writing and podcasts on social media. It’s safe to say the Collisons are very influenced by Cowen’s school of thought.
In his own words in 2014, Cowen said, “I generally favour much more immigration but not open borders, I am a liberal on most but not all social issues, and I am market-oriented on economic issues.” In April of 2024, Cowen endorsed the dismal failure of Canada’s immigration policy. Back in 2007, he wrote, “I would like to restructure classical liberalism, or libertarianism” in the libertarian Cato Institute’s blog. That restructuring manifested itself in his 2020 blog post on “State Capacity Libertarianism.” State Capacity Libertarianism, he advocated, is a strong but non-tyrannical state that maintains and extends capitalism. Cowen also noted “Peter Thiel” as an influence which brings us full circle. While dressed in nuanced intrigue, the substance of State Capacity Libertarianism is bland. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about Cowen’s propositions from the existing neoliberal paradigm, other than allowances for more extreme means to achieve its existing ends. In fact, Cowen makes an endorsement of “Pax Americana” or in other words the conventional bipartisan position for imperial American hegemony as one of the propositions.
In 2008, Cowen wrote that “I have a simple model of how some people — but by no means all — process political issues. Occasionally the real force behind a political ideology is the subconsciously held desire that a certain group of people should not be allowed to rise in relative status.” In the wake of nationalist populism rejecting neoliberalism and libertarianism, it would seem plausible that Cowen himself leveraged the veneer of “state capacity” to gatekeep the rise of nationalist populists from rising in relative status. In the recent H-1B debate, Cowen provided further evidence of his duplicitous strategies. Cowen wrote, “I have some simple, to the point free advice for the DOGERs — the public is not always with you. Making your fight more public, and putting it more on social media, is no guarantee of victory, and indeed it often boosts the chance you will lose or be stymied…Right now there is an anti-immigration mood…So please develop a better sense of when to keep your mouths shut and work behind the scenes.” Put in other words, Cowen told the Silicon Valley oligarchs to lie to the nationalist populists and then usher in the opposite of what they want from the shadows.
Zooming out, Cowen is an appendage of George Mason University (GMU). GMU has long been a loyal institution of the conventional American right. The most notable example being the Koch brothers using donor influence to manage the school’s intellectual perspective. The Kochs are one of the richest families in America and are one of the most responsible for funding research, activism, and political campaigns during the previous era dominated by neoliberalism. The Kochs have long-standing donor ties with GMU and have leveraged that to select faculty in order to shape it to their ideological framework. After calls for more transparency, released documents revealed the extent to which this relationship was controversial. So much so that GMU’s President acknowledged that the donations raised questions about outside influence and had his office conduct a review of donor agreements at the university. The faculty senate also voted to increase transparency of these donor relationships and create rules to prevent abuse.
GMU’s Mercatus Center is a think-tank that drew some of the most interest and funding from the Kochs. It's been funded by them since the 1980s and has been an influential policy lobbyist in Washington DC. Cowen received his undergraduate degree from GMU and was taught by Mecatus’ founder and Koch affiliate Richard Fink. Cowen has been a GMU professor since 1989 and became General Director of the Mecactus in 1999. Today, Cowen is Mercastus’ Chairman of the board of directors where Charles G. Koch still sits as a member. Cowen was literally hand-picked to be the salesman for neoliberalism by the Kochs. Rather than anything novel or anti-establishment, Cowen represents the status quo’s school of thought. The same school of thought that created the conditions to which nationalist populism is reacting to. Thus, the Collisons, as disciples of Cowen, share in this school of thought. In a certain respect, the Collison brothers almost seem like a millennial reimagining of the Koch brothers.
It must be noted that in a 2021 interview with Noah Smith, Patrick Collison said, “As an aside, this view of the role of government is an area where I find myself often disagreeing with libertarian-inclined individuals. While I consider myself strongly pro-free market and pro-freedom, I am not a libertarian, and I think this is the kind of place where a traditionally libertarian approach simply doesn’t have much that’s useful to say.” This might seem like a contradiction to the analysis made so far, but is it really that much different than Cowen’s State Capacity Libertarianism? Cowen calls libertarianism “hollowed out” and “doesn’t seem…[to] solve or even very well address a number of major problems.” This seems remarkably similar to Patrick’s view. On the surface, they are both critical of libertarianism but, on the substance, they are adherents to it. Where there are exceptions, it usually comes in the form of “government as buyer”, as Patrick said, which means government subsidization to favored firms. They have no problem with big government in practice so long as it funds their special interest private sphere project. In many cases such government buying occurs in relation to the military. Thus, we see a contextual alignment with Cowen’s Pax Americana.
Further in Patrick’s 2021 interview, he criticized anti-neoliberal economist Mariana Mazzucato. Mazzucato is an extremely experienced economist and her work is essential in informing solutions to Ireland’s problems. He based his criticism on a blog post by Jose Luis Ricón. Ricón’s blog has all the trappings of the eccentric Silicon Valley STEM individual just following the data, however, Ricón’s blog was funded by Emergent Ventures grant-program which is a subsidiary of GMU’s Mecatus Center. So let’s get this straight. Collison leveraged a Koch-funded writer to dismiss Mazzucato, although Mazzucato would be an go-to resource for anyone who called themselves “not a libertarian” as Patrick did. Instead, he then turned readers onto Simon Johnson and Jonathan Gruber as a replacement for Mazzucato.
Johnson is an economist who served in leading roles at MIT, the Peterson Institute, and the IMF. He recently won a Nobel Prize for his work on institutions and their connection to development. Putting his establishment credentials aside, his work on institutions has been criticized as a defense of neoliberalism. Gruber served at MIT and NBER. He was also a leading architect of Obama’s Affordable Care Act (in this author’s view, a neoliberal subsidy to private insurance companies). Controversy emerged when videos surfaced that revealed Gruber to be a two-faced Machiavellian. He said the ACA’s "lack of transparency is a huge political advantage” because of “the stupidity of the American voter." Gruber is an example of someone who says one thing to the public and another to his inner circle with a large degree of contempt for the public echoing the prior example of Cowen and GMU.
Regarding their book that Patrick cited, Queen Mary University of London Professor Patrick Diamond wrote, “In Jump-Starting America, Gruber and Johnson advocate government activism and public investment…Yet their focus is…a policy mix remarkably similar to that advocated under” the establishment ideological regime of the past few decades. In similar fashion to State Capacity Libertarianism, Gruber and Johnson presented a plausible critique yet ultimately constrained the realm of their critique to particular preferred projects — basic scientific research in their case. Gruber and Johnson wrote that the existing “American economic environment…is good” and only “tweaks” are needed. In 2019, Noah Smith’s review of their book remarked on the similarity to Mazzucato’s perspective. The key distinction is that Mazzucato has a more comprehensive economic framework that is holistic of other aspects of statecraft. Mazzucato’s perspective goes beyond tweaks and offers fundamental structural changes. In short, the sleight of hand in swapping Mazzucato for Gruber and Johnson presents the veneer of a neoliberal critique but in substance seeks to preserve the incumbent system whereas Mazzucato’s ideas would disrupt it.
This is not to say an individual policy to increase basic scientific research is bad, but to point out the overall school of thought that each economist presents and the ideological gravitation that cantering them will cause. Mazzucato’s work is worthwhile on its own merits but she also has higher resonance with Ireland than one would assume. She remarked that her University College London Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose was an “outcome…of the work” of economist Erik S. Reinert. Reinert ought to be credited for fostering the tremendous economic growth of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger.
“In 1980, the globe-trotting Norwegian economist worked for the consulting firm Telesis and found himself of all places sitting in the office of Ireland’s Prime Minister Charles Haughey. Reinert was tasked with advising on a future Irish industrial plan…[his] directives to the Irish government were to be more active and selective. It recommended supporting domestic firms in the productive traded activities that were strong rather than new or weak firms to build on existing success. It wasn’t a startup strategy, it was a scaleup one. The government was advised to create a variety of industrial support programs in financing, skills, labour, and more.”
This advice created the greatest period of real economic growth in modern Irish history until it was gutted by 2000 because foolish Irish elites fell under the spell of neoliberalism and its connection to federalizing Europe. Ireland would greatly benefit from returning to the school of thought of Reinert which Mazzucato, in her own words, is an heir of.
For further evidence of Irish congruence, Mazzucato and the Catholic Church are collaborating more. Although today’s Ireland presents as secular, there’s no getting around its deep Catholic roots, and nationalist populists tend to be the most admiring of said roots. Mazzucato has recently been appointed to the Pontifical Academy for Life by Pope Francis to support dialogue and research into fostering the economics of the common good. Pope Francis had written that her thinking "is not ideological, which moves beyond the polarisation of free market capitalism and state socialism, and which has at its heart a concern that all of humanity have access to land, lodging, and labor." He noted that her work, particularly "The Value of Everything," prompted significant reflection on how "business successes lauded in our economic thinking as the result of individuals' efforts or genius are in reality the fruit of massive public investment in research and education." In 2015, Pope Francis gave his Laudato Si’ encyclical which expanded on his perspective of how Catholicism should inform a common good economics. In it, he referenced Church teaching and past Popes’ alignment with his perspective. In a separate address in 2015, Pope Francis alluded to Pope Leo XIII’s 1819 Rerum Novarum encyclical. Georgetown University called the 1891 encyclical “a foundation text in the history of Catholic social thought.” In the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop’s Foundational Documents of [Catholic Social Teaching] CST webpage, it is listed as the first primary source document. Pope Francis connects his common good economics with traditional Catholic teaching and Mazzucato. Therefore, such a perspective is much more coherent with Ireland’s Catholic heritage.
Regarding other issues, the Collisons show signs of further incongruity with Irish nationalist populism. In 2017, Patrick tweeted “Trump's stated immigration policies would be economically damaging and will in time be seen as morally wrong.” Patrick was among a group of high profile business executives to donate to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to fight Trump’s immigration policies. Patrick promoted arguments for “much more open immigration” which were co-written by another GMU writer. As the cherry on top, Patrick promoted Bryan Caplan’s open borders idea which was referenced above as the most extreme position of neoliberal immigration i.e. no limits. There’s no getting around the fact that this view is diametrically opposite to that of Irish nationalist populists.
Further, the Collisons support crypto which is a globalist libertarian idea which conflicts with nationalist populist calls for a nationalized central bank and reigning in of financial speculation, both foreign and domestic. The Collisons support climate change alarmism which conflicts with nationalist populist calls to turn away from carbon taxes and renewables for a refocusing on fossil fuels. The Collisons support the questionable Covid-era policies and say things like “go big pharma!” which conflicts with nationalist populist skepticism. The Collisons promote Mario Draghi’s perspective which conflicts with nationalist populist criticism of Draghi’s role in federalizing Europe, implementing austerity during the aftermath of the 2008, and overall neoliberal outlook. The Collisons promote pro-Israel and anti-Chinese views (ignoring the cognitive dissonance) which conflicts with the need for nationalist populists to decouple Ireland from the Israeli economy and expand ties with China.
The Collisons' most direct conduit for Irish political activity is their funding of the Progress Ireland think-tank. So far the think-tank has published a few ideas related to increased state investment in basic science (reminiscent of Simon and Gruber), de-zoning for tiny homes, and restructuring of the state transportation body. While none of these ideas are problematic in and of themselves, Progress Ireland’s “founding essay”, which articles their general philosophy, is problematic. Progress Ireland doesn’t fundamentally disagree with any of orthodox neoliberal narrative on Ireland. They claimed TK Whitaker was the positive and driving force that shaped the modern Irish economy. “We consciously opened up to foreign ideas, technologies, management techniques and capital. The strategy worked perfectly.” The source of Ireland’s problems, they also claimed, was that “Ireland was a backwater” and its native population couldn’t meet the standards of other nations. Putting aside the disrespectful backwater line, this narrative neglected to mention that Whitaker’s legacy led directly to Ireland’s financial woes of the 1970s and 1980s. It was only after Ireland embraced nationalist economics that emphasized domestic industrial policy that its Celtic Tiger was born. Whitaker imported alien ideas, while the Celtic Tiger returned to the ideas championed by pre-1922 Irish nationalists. Rather than Progress Ireland’s outward-looking conclusion to call for “A new Jerusalem”, we actually need an inward-looking resurrection of Ireland.
This is a fundamental divergence from the nationalist populist narrative. If this is the case in their general philosophy, it is only logical to conclude that this divergence would manifest in future policy advocacy. For instance, their founding essay also claimed that they expect “Ireland’s population…to grow at the third-fastest rate in the EU through to 2040.” Does this sound like a perspective that is aligned with those that want to substantially limit immigration to Ireland? How long before a report comes out advocating for more immigration to Ireland? As noted previously, the Collisons are so pro-immigration that they veer into the extreme open borders position. Why wouldn’t the think-tank funded by the Collisons echo their views? GMU’s Mercatus Center certainly echoes the views of the Kochs.
This has not been a criticism of the Collisons’ intelligence, business competency, or even some of their specific ideas. This is a criticism of their overall ideology and their Silicon Valley network. I am warning, not against a single aspect, but of epistemic pollution. If Irish nationalism adopts this ideology, the movement would accrue superficial gains at the expense of conceding its cardinal values. The movement should stick to both contemporary and historical critics of this status quo. The movement should cherish the legacy of Irish nationalists from 1922 and before who laid down the proper ideology to follow. Those Irish nationalists warned of the “dangers of American finance” and that “investors and exploiters from outside will come in to reap the rich profits which are to be made. And, what is worse still, they will bring with them all the evils that we want to avoid in the new Ireland.” Present-day Irish nationalist populists should heed those words and see MAGA libertarianism and its Silicon Valley wealth as the modern manifestations of what was warned against back then.
Conclusion
Whatever convergence of interests present themselves at this time are not because of shared deep belief, but accidental circumstances. Trust is needed for grand political undertakings and trust can never be built without shared belief. Today’s Irish nationalists are the heirs to the belief in a spiritual imperative to save the Irish nation from existential crisis. This inheritance was given by Irish people who rejected material conveniences. It is only after this spiritual existence is secured that material prosperity follows, but it is not for such ends in and of themselves. As Michael Collins said:
“Our object in building up the country economically must not be lost sight of. That object is not to be able to boast of enormous wealth or of a great volume of trade, for their own sake. It is not to see our country covered with smoking chimneys and factories. It is not to show a great national balance-sheet, nor to point to a people producing wealth with the self-obliteration of a hive of bees. The real riches of the Irish nation will be the men and women of the Irish nation, the extent to which they are rich in body and mind and character.”
The core difference between MAGA libertarians and nationalist populists is this: they are annoyed by material inconvenience; we fear the loss of our soul.