Shepparton, the Goulburn Valley and the wider developed world has been enriched by the prevailing economic system.
That system, known as capitalism, which, for some, has morphed into neo-liberalism, has been questioned and challenged by many, and is now the subject of a new book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, The Big Myth.
The authors earlier wrote the landmark publication Merchants of Doubt, helping readers understand how the machinery of climate change denial had been energised and embedded in popular thought.
Searching for what it was that gave climate deniers oxygen, the two writers could not avoid the celebration of the free market and capitalism combined with a denigration of government.
The Big Myth has obvious and serious links to what has been and is happening in the United States — it has the subtitle, ‘How American business taught us to loathe big government and love the free market’ — but much of what is discussed can easily translate to what is happening here in Australia, and by implication, the Goulburn Valley. The degree of difference may be marked, but the intent is similar.
The Big Myth, supported by evidence both thorough and alarming, illustrates how Americans, and now Australians, are being sold this illusion, if you consider how certain ideologies are little by little, bit by bit, being embedded in our thought processes and ways of living.
Americans were told at every opportunity — at their church services; by their politicians, of most all stripes; through their schools and universities; by businesses, large and small; and their social groups — that the free market (read privatisation) ensured freedom, liberty, growth and individualism, while big government, along with centralised planning, was, as emphasised by the relentless propaganda, the antithesis of those human values.
That argument is wrong. Many of the things we enjoy and that are made possible here in Shepparton, and, of course, in many other places, exist precisely because of careful planning and government intervention.
Free market enthusiasts abhor central planning, or any planning, never admitting or acknowledging that many, or most, of those things they enjoy, even such simple things as pencils, exist because of co-ordinated effort and, of course, planning and government intervention.
It would take an especially generous soul to see any good in the ditching of Christine Holgate from her role steering Australia Post, but what it did do was drive her into the arms of private enterprise (delivery operator Team Global Express) and now she is using planning to disrupt the service she previously championed.
We have mistakenly seen public bodies such as Australia Post as profit centres when they are not; rather, they are institutions created and structured to serve the people of Australia.
What Ms Holgate is advocating for will serve, first and foremost, the profits of her company and then, only if her company’s profits are well and safely in the black, the people of Australia.
I encourage you to read The Big Myth, as you will learn that those who disparage and contest rules and regulations actually celebrate them, especially when their application enriches their profits.
Greater Shepparton City Council impacts most here with its rules and regulations, and it was only recently that my wife and I fell foul of one of its new rules — we had to pay nearly $400 to a private operator to inspect our pool fence. No complaints at all about ‘our’ inspector.
The rule says we must have our fence inspected every four years and it has been my thought that each of us who have a backyard pool should pay an extra $5 a month in rates (our electronic rating system would easily cope with that) and council could establish a one-person department for its inspection process — a public service, operated publicly.
I advocated for the idea recently and one in the group called me a “communist”. Oh, what a cheap and lazy way to criticise an idea with which you don’t agree!
The idea is not communistic, rather, it’s simply good economic sense, and a convenient service to the people of Shepparton.
The individualism encouraged by the present economic system reminds me of the African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.
Shepparton, indeed much of Victoria and eastern Australia, ‘went together’ during the recent floods; in fact, there was much cheering about the fact that people powerfully bonded as the water pushed into places never before seen.
As an aside, in his latest book (published just this month), Australia on the Brink: Avoiding Environmental Ruin, Professor Ian Lowe from Griffith University wrote:
“Even the World Economic Forum, the big end of town at the global level, said at the end of its 2008 Dubai Summit on the Global Agenda that the observable problems show that the current economic system is not sustainable.”