Picture Ireland in 1987: unemployment at 17%, debt-to-GDP ratio pushing 120%, and young Irish workers fleeing to London and Boston faster than you could say "economic basket case." Finance Minister Ray MacSharry slashed government spending by 3% of GDP while dropping corporate tax rates to 10% for manufacturing (later extending it across sectors). Brussels bureaucrats screamed about "unfair competition," but MacSharry kept cutting.
By 1994, something extraordinary happened. GDP growth hit 5.8% annually, then accelerated to over 10% by 1999 (try explaining that with Keynesian multipliers). Foreign direct investment poured in as companies like Intel, Microsoft, and Pfizer set up European headquarters in Dublin, creating actual productive jobs instead of government make-work programs. The Irish called it the Celtic Tiger, and suddenly emigration reversed into immigration.
The formula was blindingly simple: slash bureaucracy, cut taxes, get out of entrepreneurs' way. Estonia used the same playbook after leaving the Soviet Union. Hong Kong became an economic powerhouse when it was still a British colony using the same principles. Yet today's politicians act like Ireland's transformation was some mystical accident rather than predictable market forces unleashed by government restraint.
Of course, Ireland later screwed it up by joining the euro and letting banks leverage themselves into oblivion during the housing bubble (because politicians can never leave well enough alone). But for one glorious decade, they proved what happens when you stop trying to manage an economy and just let people create wealth.