Opinions
I’ve been mulling over the idea of creating a section where I can express some of my opinions on current events or politics in general, that don’t necessarily relate to specific policy positions. I feel like this might give a more well-rounded view on myself and my stance on certain issues. Some opinions expressed may be longer and thought-out, while others may be short and concise.
The Role of Government and the Need to Change
Published 07/12/2024
I believe that most people (myself included) have at some point thought that ‘our system is broken’. However, the more I have learned about the history and ideologies of our system, the more apparent it has become that it is not broken. It is corrupt, but not broken. It is working exactly as intended. Let me provide a little background information. The western world is based on variations of Liberal Democracy, with political Liberalism at the foundation.
Liberalism sets the role of government to three fundamental tasks, they are:
1. Protect individual rights. It initially was to protect property rights but has evolved over time, as originally only certain people could own property, and certain other people were property. At the core, this means to enforce contracts and deeds of ownership, ie. Property rights.
2. Uphold the Free Market. This is fairly self-evident in meaning; support the private sector, promote free market, profit-driven, laissez faire Capitalism.
3. Do nothing else. Only step in when the market fails. And even then, the priority is to protect the property owners and the free market.
It is arguable that the services that government provide (such as healthcare, infrastructure, and social welfare) exist only because the private sector failed to make them profitable. Some things are just too expensive or too important to leave to the private sector profit motive, but it takes a crisis for government to take action. Sometimes a crisis needs to become a catastrophe for government to act. If this wasn’t bad enough, the 1980s saw the implementation of Neo-Liberalism.
Neo-Liberalism (or ‘Economic Rationalism’ as Labor introduced it as) was largely an extension of Liberalism through economic policy. At the heart of it is privatisation of public assets and running the government like a business (which has an inherent contradiction). Even if the private sector has failed and the government had to step in, the private sector gets a second chance to make a profit by buying the asset at a fraction of the cost and charging the public for its use. For example: a highway being built by government for billions in public money, then sold to a private corporation for cents on the dollar, who then charges tolls to the public to drive on it.
Here is where the contradiction lies in running the government like a business. Privatisation involves selling public assets for less than its value, but if a business had an asset that generated revenue, then selling that asset for a loss is bad business. Neo-Liberalism says privatisation is good governance, as is running the government like a business. But privatisation would be a bad business model, it is paradoxical.
As a result of these ideologies corrupting and limiting government, the focus of our society has become an ongoing series of money-making ventures. Human civilisation is now just a business eternally seeking profit at the expense of all else, even the habitability of our planet and the survival of our species. It does not have to be this way but it will take drastic, transformational change to redirect our trajectory.
Government is the only institution on the planet with the power and resources to address climate change, to end poverty, to fix the cost-of-living crisis, to end the housing crisis, etc. But regardless of which party is in control of government, it won’t do it. Because it is not supposed to, the private sector is. And the private sector won’t do it because it is driven by profit, and profit seeking is the predominant cause of these issues.
The role of government needs to change. There is room for a private sector but we cannot have the direction of human civilisation be driven by the profit motive. Governments need to build the foundations of human society, in ways that improve the human condition, that are sustainable within the limits of our environment, and with the goal of progressing civilisation beyond our present capabilities.
I believe this is possible, however it is unlikely if we don’t try. Power concedes nothing without a demand.
This is what I want to do.