Apple and Ireland, 1980–2020

Abstract

This article places the recent tax case concerning Apple Inc., Ireland, and the European Commission within its historical framework to reveal the very particular structural dynamics that exist between the Irish state and transnational capital. It proposes that these dynamics result not entirely from an industrial strategy adopted in the 1950s but instead from a deeper neocolonial economic relationship, itself part of a comprador capitalist system that is firmly embedded in key public and private institutions of the Irish state and socially reproduced through them. An understanding of this comprador dynamic and its ideological framework is essential to understanding why the Irish state protects tax avoidance above the interests of wider Irish society.