Just to clarify for American readers, Malcolm Fraser and Robert Menzies were 2 of Australia's most conservative Prime Ministers, as was John Howard.
Neo-liberalism and libertarianism are two fairly similar, radical economic theories that threaten the very fabric of our society in ways that are to the detriment of its members. Like liberal thinkers of the past, I believe that Government has a role to play in regulating our economy so that big businesses are not able to take advantage of the unequal power relationships that exist between them and individuals. Radical Governments like the Howard Government actually led to a less free society because they handed too much power to big business. I believe instead in a Government that collects taxes in order to provide services to those who are unable to afford them, in order to create a society that is freer for a larger portion of the population. In this, I include children and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, whose skills are not always valued by the Western capitalist system imposed on them.
“People who are free…resist efforts to circumscribe that freedom. To recognise this is not, of course, to maintain that completely unregulated and uncontrolled private enterprise is desirable…Various freedoms have to be balanced against each other and some have to be restricted in order that others can be sustained and enlarged. Even in the economic realm itself government has a role to play in maintaining the conditions of free competition and preventing monopoly” – Malcolm Fraser, 1980.
WorkChoices is an example of how the “choices” of neo-liberal philosophies are really no choices at all. Howard’s argument was that we should provide people with more flexibility and freedom to negotiate over their terms of employment. He maintained that people should be allowed to do things like sacrificing their holidays if they wanted to negotiate higher pay in return. It sounds reasonable at first.
The problem with it is that the relationship that exists between an employer and an employee is rarely equal. It is true that a business depends on its employees to function. However, there is always someone else who is prepared to work under bad conditions. Even after the American Civil War, some African Americans did not want their newfound emancipation. Big businesses like Coles and Woolworths are always able to find replacements for the people that have quit, in spite of their high turnover. This does not mean that it is reasonable that Coles and Woolworths make their checkout operators work without chairs, even though other countries’ supermarkets see chairs as a matter of course. However, what redress do employees have? They can complain to the boss, but Coles and Woolworths both know that they can always find someone else to replace them who will be perfectly willing to work under those conditions. This is why it is important to be able to combat a large organisation of employers with a large organisation of workers, namely a Union. Even, the power relationship is hardly equal because of the economic advantages held by the business.
The same applies to the negotiations over individual contracts that WorkChoices gave us. A big business always holds a much larger portion of the power when it says to an employee that they should sacrifice their holidays for a small increase in pay. The business can always find an employee willing to accept this condition ahead of unemployment. The employee however, can not always find another job. As is so often the case when a society makes progress to allow certain choices, it eventually becomes commonplace, and when it becomes commonplace, it becomes the standard, rather than something that is allowed for certain groups. That is to say that while there may be some benefits to some people in being able to negotiate away their holidays, there are disadvantages for other people. Yet because of the power a big business holds, it is able to demand this same standard of all its employees, and so there is no choice at all, just a change in the norm.
This in turn leads to the degradation of society, when we are no longer free to spend time with our families, but are instead left to the whims of our employers. Liberals maintain that we should not give the state unlimited power. Equally, we should not give employers and the free market unlimited power over us.
“Liberalism always emphasises the freedom of the individual and the absence of restraint. In its extreme form it becomes libertarianism and denies the need for or efficacy of any constraints on freedom. Conservatism on the other hand stresses the need for a framework of stability, continuity and order, not only as something desirable in itself but as a necessary condition for a free society. It believes that without that framework, the cohesion and predictability necessary for people to engage in meaningful free activity would be lacking.” – Malcolm Fraser, 1980.
Although Fraser does spend most of this speech arguing in favour of economic liberalism, he recognises that the complete adherence to free market capitalism as advocated by libertarians actually produces conditions that are less free. The current system of regulation provides predictability. Predictability allows us to make considered, rational decisions. Without that regulation, we are left with a much more anarchic system, which means that we would no longer be free to make considered, rational decisions, as we would have no way of predicting their outcome.
“We wish to build a country in which no consideration of wealth or privilege will determine the education of either child or man”. – Robert Menzies.
Without the taxation system, this is not possible. Menzies recognised this. Unlike his protégé (Howard), Menzies invested substantially in Australian Universities and the education system. When the state is not involved in providing education, people are not free to pursue a better education. They are only free to pursue the education they can afford. This is still true of the current system of course. However, if adults were again free not to send their children to school, what child would have the choice to contradict their parents’ ill-considered decisions? Indeed, what child would have the maturity to recognise the folly of their parents’ decision?
Not only would children not be free to make these decisions, but many adults would simply make the decision not to send their children to school because of economic necessity. They may want their children to attend school, but shorter term economic goals would for many families have to prevail. Only through a proper system of taxation can we ensure that all children have access to a good quality education that will allow them a good opportunity of achieving whatever goals they set for themselves.
This argument can of course be applied across many services that Government provides. Government after all is simply an organised group of people we employ to organise certain things for us, like roads, schools and hospitals. If we do not like the way they are organising these things, under our democratic system we have the option of choosing new people to do the governing. It is fortunate that we have this mechanism. Without it, the only way of deciding which ideologies should prevail would be through violence.
Libertarians (and in fact, liberals) also often pre-suppose that our capitalist system produces a meritocracy. People are free to sell their skills and labour, and the people who do best at this will make the most profit. It is on the one hand one of the strengths of capitalism. It encourages us to make more effort by rewarding us for increased productivity.
However, it should be noted that there are many talents which people possess which are not valued by a capitalist system. This is particularly pertinent when there is an indigenous population, some of whom still have skills in ancient practices from their culture. There is very little of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island cultures that is valued by our capitalist system. That is not to say that it is not a great talent to be able to do many of the things highly valued by those societies. However, those skills are not valued by enough people from the group now considered the mainstream in order to make these activities financially productive. This is another reason I have an interest in advocating regulation of the capitalist system over the neo-liberal or libertarian approaches.
Not only that, but the freedoms of Aboriginal people (and indeed anyone else who wants to lead a lifestyle more akin to that of traditional Aboriginal people) are severely limited by the actions in the past and present of non-indigenous Australians. There has been so much destruction of the economic base of pre-contact Aboriginal societies (which of course was the bush) that it can no longer be depended on by Aboriginal people.
Some dismiss this as actions in the past. They are not. Your choice to continue to occupy the space where you are now is a decision not to hand the land back to the Yagera people (or Ngunnawal). We would not accept this decision if you were the descendant of a Nazi who had taken land or property from a Jew. Your decision to live where you do now is a continued act of colonisation (as is mine). That is not to say that I disagree with it. It would be impractical and unfair on us to hand over our houses to the Yagera people of today. However, our continued colonisation is an impediment to the freedom of Aboriginal people because it destroys the environment on which they relied and prevents the continuation of their economic system.
Not only this, but decisions are regularly being taken to further erode the land owned by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. These decisions are taken for economic reasons. Companies recognise the benefit of land to them and enter into unequal relationships with indigenous people to dominate that land and use it for their purposes. It has only been through regulation that indigenous people have been able to achieve some control over their land and in some cases to maintain important parts of their culture. Once again, regulation has been important for redressing unequal power relationships.
Neo-liberalism and libertarianism are two fairly similar, untested, radical economic theories that are often prone to the same problems as radical theories like Communism. Its believers often have a similar fervour to the Communists of last Century and in many cases, they have similar good intentions. However, these theories are based on the basic premise that people can be trusted to do the right thing even when Government is not there to intervene. They fail because it is in many people’s nature to take advantage of the weaknesses of others for their own gain. It is in an employer’s nature to seek the best possible deal for themselves and to exploit the unequal power relationship that exists between them and their employee. This in turn leads to a less free society, as the bullies are given free rein in our economic system. Without taxation, individuals are simply condemned to follow the paths of their ancestors because they are not given access to the necessary institutions to give them choice over their own destiny. Regulated liberal capitalism or social democracy, such as that which exists in Australia and the UK is much better at ensuring that all citizens have a more equal chance of competing with each other fairly.