Northern Ireland

This is Ian Paisley, the First Minister of Northern Ireland. It's typically not a good sign for a country to elect a leader who calls the Pope the Antichrist (Although, he does make John Paul II look pretty cool).



Of course, the second largest party that governs in coalition is Sinn Féin the political wing of the IRA, arguably a terrorist group. Again, this is not necessarily a sign of a healthy democracy.

That viedo is twenty years old; Paisley is now retiring. Things have definitely been improving in Northern Ireland over the last decade. The country is relatively stable and these formerly more extreme groups have been drug into the mainstream. I would argue that a big reason for this improvement in the governance of Northern Ireland is the tremendous prosperity in the Republic of Ireland over the last three decades. When the people Northern Irish saw the success of the neighboring Celtic Tiger, it became increasingly apparent what a waste the Troubles had been. The Republic attracted business with its very low 12% corporate tax, and as a result has become one of the wealthiest countries in Europe. You now longer hear much talk about the special Irish culture and lack of work ethic that would always hold the country back. Ireland is a success story that economists can point to for capitalism (The country’s heavy reliance on biotech may be a little unstable, but that’s an inherent problem for a small country).

While the rest of the island was pursuing intelligent pro-growth policies, Ulster was fighting over the events of 90 years ago. I don’t think I have to post the music video for Zombie to explain how sad this is. As a result (after the pure human life cost) the North was unstable, reliant on declining industries, and poorer than its neighbor. An honest assessment of their situation in 1997 would cause a rational Nationalist or Unionist to sober up. There have been other causes of the calming of the last decade, but no doubt a desire to catch up has been an underlying. Northern Ireland has even made noise of lowering its taxes to compete with the South. Competition between countries (like most types of competition) tends to better policies. One theory of why Europe was able to get such an early lead in development is the competition and wars between all the different independent states spurred changes and relative good pro growth policies. I think we’re seeing that in Ireland and that essentially a good thing.