Malignancies in Australian Political Culture

In the last politically flavoured article I posted here I mentioned two malignancies in Australian culture – the bastardisation of liberal values, and the penetration of the capitalist obsession with wealth into existential areas. Here I would like to list a few more, most of which fit under the broad umbrellas listed above.

The first one is related to the corruption of the media in Australia, but is broader than that, and runs thus: with increasing frequency we are encouraged to vote for what is best for us rather than what is best for the country. More worryingly, we are frequently told that such behaviour is, in fact, what is best for the country. This seems to be an extension of Milton Freedman’s argument about corporate social responsibility:

“Few trends could undermine the foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible.”

(This line is horrific, but I will leave it for another article) When applied to political behaviour, this line would run something like the following:

“Few trends could undermine the foundation of our open democracy as the acceptance by citizens of a social responsibility other than to promote what is best for them as individuals.”

Such an attitude has some place in open democracies. We need to vote for our interests. But why wouldn’t we? Why would I vote for a government that is going to disenfranchise me? Perhaps I am duped or coerced, but these are problems with the process rather than my motivations. This is not the matter in question. When I suggest that we should not act selfishly as citizens I am referring to partisan, tribal attitudes. That is to say, the insidious thing about this attitude is that it encourages blind selfishness, rather a more utilitarian attitude to self interest that recognises the importance of living in a functional society.

Consider the following example. In the wake of the 2011 budget, which was widely regarded by experts as solid, sensible and in line with promises, a series of Sydney newspapers, notably the Sunday Telegraph, ran stories featuring families earning over $150 000 a year having a whinge about how the new budget had cut middle class welfare and was rude to them. Many of the articles suggested that the government had made a foolish mistake in alienating these voters.

There so much wrong with this. For starters, once you acknowledge that something is middle class welfare, it has to go, because the middle class does not need welfare. To suggest that they do is either a gross distortion of liberal principles as discussed in the last article (see in particular the section on Howard-era education reform) or blatant class warfare. Some of the families in question had argued that the cut payments were not examples of middle class welfare, because they were not ‘rich’. I encourage these people to take a trip to Indonesia, or even Campbelltown, and reconsider their position. If your children attend elite private schools without scholarships then perhaps you are not rich, but you are certainly not in need of welfare. Welfare should function as a safety net, not a timely inheritance that helps keep money in the family. A different, slightly more sensible argument was that many of the welfare payments that were cut or made means tested were, in a sense, deserved by all. For example, it was claimed that the baby bonus should not be means tested, or the family benefit scheme. But this is again a perversion of the intent of welfare. Welfare is meant to provide a decent base line so that everyone can ‘live well’. This alleviates crime, depression and the development of ghettoes, and improves the economy generally. Giving welfare to middle class households contributes to only one of these effects.

Perhaps one could argue that welfare does not have these effects. As a simple counter, let us consider welfare in the form of housing services for victims of domestic violence who have had to leave home. Under the Liberal governments of the Howard years, these services were often cut to make way for tax cuts (often to middle class families). As a result, the occupants either ended up in the street, or were forced to stay in their household were they continued to be the victims of violence.

As a side note, I really don’t see how such actions can be justified by a government without, at some point, saying that your experience is your own fault, and nobody should have to bail you out. The argument that government should mind its own business is reasonable to an extent, as is the suggestion that charities and the like exist, but this position just seems so callous. In a country as affluent as ours it seems almost cruel of us to deny this kind of welfare provision, especially for the sake of middle class welfare.

The third problem with this attitude, which is perhaps the most toxic, is that it implies that politicians should determine their policies based on what will get them elected, rather than what is in the best interests of the nation overall. In no way could it be argued that it would be best for Australia to siphon money away from the safety net to provide middle class welfare. Pretty soon we’d look like the US – burgeoning lower class, ghettoes, street violence, income gap the size of Texas, prolific drug trade etc. The safety net keeps our society and culture afloat. Consider the following. In Hungary, a top graduate student earns approximately E1000 a month – that is less than AUD$400 a week before tax. As a result, this top graduate student is unable to afford much entertainment, considers eating out an absolute luxury, and doesn’t even consider taking a holiday. It is little wonder the country has endemic depression. By contrast, in Australia the minimum wage is such that nearly everyone who works full time can earn enough to afford leisure activities, eat well, dress practically and put a roof over their heads. This is a brilliant case of economic management of base-line existential needs. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to see how this kind of safety net provision differs from subsidies to send children to private schools (an Abbot proposal).

This attitude encourages policies that favour the stratification of our society along class lines. I should point out that Howard loved this sort of thing – you’re a pleb, so you should get a trade. My son here is a bourgeois, so he’s going to go to uni and get a profession. You two shouldn’t meet, it wouldn’t be right. More importantly, it encourages governance by lobby rather than governance by reason. When a policy issue arises it should be tackled with sensible, rational techniques, rather than those techniques that are likely to get a party into, or keep them in, power.   

But let me return to the original point – self interested citizenship. In contemporary society, we are being encouraged, with increasing intensity, to view self-interest in a narrow way. This put an extra $200 in your pocket per fortnight, for example. What is not mentioned is that it takes $200 out of welfare provision which means that the next time you catch the train home there will be three homeless people living in it, or that the next time you walk through the city late at night you will be mugged. Surely it is self-evident that your broad environment is nearly as important as your immediate environment. While your house or your street might be lovely, the city that you live in might be totally knavish. Consider the example of South Africa, where affluent people live in secure zones with high walls, security cameras and private security. Is this what we want? Would we let our society degenerate so that we can live in a six room house instead of five? What is more important, that we live in a place where everyone is doing pretty well, or that we are the biggest fish in an increasingly filthy puddle?

I don’t want to be seen as a socialist, so let me address a few concerns along those lines. First, I believe in capitalism as a system, and I am especially fond of the free market mechanism. But these things are tools to help us achieve a grander, broader, more holistic humanist vision. We don’t need to apply them wholesale. Use capitalism and the market to generate wealth, and then when their free reign starts to cause social dysfunction, check their advance. Second, I am broadly a liberal. In fact, if I were asked what my most fundamental political value was, I would answer – liberalism. But I don’t see liberalism and welfare provision as incompatible; in fact, I see them as totally interlinked. As the French Existentialists argued, if I will my own freedom, then I must necessarily will the freedom of others because I must want a free society as my environment. From this perspective, suggesting that the defence of privilege is somehow in line with liberal ideals is grotesque. What is in-line with liberalism is to give everyone a fair-go at life, and not to give one particular group all the advantages. For a society to qualify as liberal it must recognise things like freedom of religion and sexuality. Freedom to pollute and plunder (to quote captain planet) is not necessary. Nor is an attitude of blind selfishness.

Let’s move onto another malignancy…