Professor Terrence McDonough:

Where did these institutions come from? In general, these kinds of institutional transformation come from the conflicts and initiatives which break out in the context of the previous crisis. In this case we are talking about the stagflationary crisis which we had here in Ireland in spades but which was also evident across the globe. I think that in a certain sense, and this is not always the case historically, what has to happen for this kind of crisis to be temporarily resolved is either some kind of class compromise, which is how one might characterise the New Deal system after the Second World War in the United States, or there has to be a victory by one side or the other. I think the era of global neoliberalism could be characterised as a victory for capital, as a victory for business, and as a restoration of the profit level on the back of the repression of the other major candidate for income in society.