Landscape and the Economic Crisis

dublin | environment | event notice Monday October 26, 2009 18:27 by Richview Society - Richview Society

NAMA is the symptom of that which it pretends to be the cure

In the Red Room, Richview UCD, 5.30pm Monday 2nd November.

Speakers:
Andrew McLaren - Director of the TCD Centre for Urban and Regional Studies.
Kieran Allen - Senior Lecturer, School of Sociology, UCD.
Enda Murphy - Lecturer, School of Geography, Planning & Environmental Policy UCD.

Directions: tinyurl.com/yhfvnzr

he property bubble resulted in wholesale commodification of the Irish landscape for capital accumulation. Now NAMA will take this process to a new and dangerous level by overseeing a major consolidation and concentration of wealth, while pretending to act in the common interest. It is in response to periodic crises of overaccumulation that capital finds new areas for expansion: these are phases of what Marx called Primary or Primitive Accumulation. In this vein NAMA is proposed as a solution to the current credit crisis. But will NAMA really act in the public interest? Or is NAMA another opportunity for capital accumulation presented in the guise of a 'rescue package'?

Underpinning NAMA are assumptions about property ownership which are not being called into question. And foremost among them is the mistaken belief that the State always acts in the public (as opposed to private) interest. In fact history is littered with examples of disasterous state appropriations on behalf of capital.

How will the events now unfolding affect the Irish landscape? The current crisis calls for a radical reappraisal of the structures of property ownership and exchange which have caused wholesale depredation of the landscape. Three academics will present short responses to the crisis and its implications for the landscape, followed by an open discussion in the School of Architecture, Richview, Clonskeagh, Dublin.