Ireland Rejects EU Lisbon Treaty for Good Reasons They May Not be Aware of

I don’t know a lot about the politics within the EU or about the details of whey Ireland has rejected the Lisbon Treaty. I do know the treaty addresses the appointment of a president of the EU and a new definition of how funds will be distributed, and that support for the treaty was encouraged by the booming business class in Ireland but was ultimately shot down by the voters who, I suspect, are not overtly thinking about the dangers the modern world presents to wider distribution.

Given the trending inability of large states to manage resources effectively and provide for their citizenry, as well as the ascending power of the market and it’s own profit-driven dismissal of the common good, it’s becoming increasingly important for regional communities to reclaim control over their land, power, agriculture, and other vested interests. The economic web of globalization is proving itself to be exceptionally open to disruptions, as current crises spinning off spiking oil prices illustrate. In this case, high oil prices translate to high food & goods costs, higher energy prices, high infrastructure costs, and flagging state economies as a result. These factors in turn encourage business to trim costs by laying off employees, which raises unemployment, feeding both the burden of welfare on the state and the deterioration of urban communities from decreasing state support and increasing crime. In all likelihood, barring any major technological interventions, this trend will continue.

So now more than ever the state is being challenged and undermined by both corporate and insurgent guerrilla interests (as explored in John Robb’s work) while the reliability of increasingly distributed and vulnerable infrastructure nets is flagging, all in the face of rising costs and diminishing supply of the fundamental substrate of our entire civilization: energy. As states hollow out and over-extend into resource struggles, local communities must pick up the slack and build their own support infrastructures capable of keeping the lights on and the water flowing.

In this context, the desire of Irish voters to retain greater control over their lives and their country is very wise indeed.