Competition has a lot to answer for

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit is an unusual opportunity for the people to get down to unearthing the roots of serious unfairness in Australia and show courage in making radical changes.

Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes described his 1930s childhood in Ireland when their only income was church charity and they lived next to the street’s one lavatory. In heavy rain floods brought toilet effluent into their ground floor room. Three children died very young.

Then Dad, Malachy, found work. They would now be able to buy shoes and food. On pay day Ma and the kids waited expectantly with the kettle on. But Dad decided first to celebrate in the pub. He arrived home happy but money-less. Ma and kids remained hungry.

Dad had the money and power, the others had poverty. This is the essence of economic competition.

In modern economies we like to boast everyone gains from competition. But obviously not everyone does. Would it make sense to open a new shoe shop in a suburb already with six shoe-shops, or where there are no shoe-shops? When they can smaller businesses often join larger conglomerates, like the Woolworths retail group or the Coles group. Why? As Kerry Packer said, “I don’t believe in competition, I believe in monopoly”.

Competition can create disadvantage. Australia is the third richest country in the world in average wealth per person, but while 1,200 Australians have more than $30 million in the bank there are areas where Indigenous incomes are extremely low and healthy food costs 30 per cent more than in the cities. Consequently diets are poor, low birth weight common, 11 per cent of children are “wasted” through malnutrition and average life span is nearly two decades shorter that the rest of the population. Nutritionist Sharon Lawrence says a national action plan to counter this problem has been ignored for eight years!

’Twas ever thus, of course: the original invaders of this land in 1788 seemed to have no intention of sharing its bounty with the original inhabitants.

At the other end of the social spectrum a Governor-General and State Governors, however nice they are personally, have no essential work but live in free luxury lodgings, with cars, servants and other characteristics of an outdated aristocracy headed by an overseas Queen.

This gives the lie to former Prime Minister John Howard’s much vaunted belief in “equality, mateship, and fairness”.

Meanwhile, Australia, the clever country, did not predict the need for affordable public housing of which there is now a critical shortage. “Housing stress”, defined as paying more than 30 per cent of income on rent, is suffered by one million Aussies, some paying more than 60 per cent.

Furthermore, due to the current state of the economy, people who can no longer afford their mortgage repayments are moving into the rental market, pushing up rents further.

Perhaps it should not be possible to own property that others live in, unless it is rent-free or the rent strictly controlled by legislation.

In the health field, why should a person be able to obtain immediate treatment for a life-threatening basal cell carcinoma because s/he can buy it, but a person without insurance or cash has to risk dying on a long public waiting list? Why should access to health depend on which state one happens to live in? It is noticeable that when a Member of Parliament needs specialist medical treatment s/he rarely joins the queue for state services.

We have a two-tier system, one for the haves and one for the have-nots, in a democracy rich in resources, both physical and human. If Cuba can create a good free national health service for all, without waiting lists, even exporting doctors, why cannot much wealthier Australia?

State governments have failed in their supply of health and housing services and they should be taken over by the Commonwealth.

A population of only 21 million people should not have to support a federal government, two territory governments, six state governments, and many local authorities, all with representatives and public services on salaries, expense accounts, and the rest. Many parliamentary “debates” seem to consist of childishly insulting opponents and too often, according to media accounts, there are some MPs who use their opportunities for personal gain.

State governments should be abolished and their responsibilities transferred to either the Federal government or appropriate local authorities.

When a very rich country like Australia consistently fails to supply very basic services, it is difficult to avoid the suspicion it is not accidental. It raises the question whether it is part of a plan to transfer wealth to private companies, as suggested by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine. For example, limiting public health services so patients, desperate to avoid blindness or death, are forced to transfer to private specialists. Or not building public housing to force families to stay in the private market.

Klein sees this as the influence of economist Milton Friedman who fervently believed people should purchase what they need from private business and if they can’t afford it that’s tough. The influence of Friedman (a great supporter of Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator) on the US political economy can be seen in the privatisation of the Iraq war, a conflict strongly supported by Australia.

We are at a dangerous time in history and Australia needs seriously to review its close relationship with USA.

The moves by US President George Bush, and his main adviser Dick Cheney, to transfer government functions to private concerns even includes fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Evidence for this is made clear not only by Klein but more recently by former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes in The Three Trillion War where they set out highly detailed data showing not only how this continuing war has ruined the Iraq economy but has gone a long way towards also ruining the US economy:

By now it is clear that the US invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake. Nearly 4,000 US troops have been killed , and more than 58,000 have been wounded … Miserable though Saddam Hussein’s regime was, life is actually worse for the Iraqi people now … The notion that invading Iraq would bring democracy and catalyze change in the Middle East now seems like a fantasy. When the full price of the warhas been paid, trillions of dollars will have been added to our national debt. Invading Iraq has also driven up oil prices. In these and other ways, the war has weakened our economy.

Le Monde diplomatique, in February 2008, published the world’s top ten military budgets. The highest by a long chalk is the US with US$623 billion, the next highest China with US$65 billion. Writer Chalmers Johnson argues America’s high investment in the military-industrial complex is the cause of global confidence in the US economy dropping to zero. It actually gets worse to the extent that US troops - those that survive - are leaving the government’s armed services and transferring to private “security” companies at a much higher salary, but not subject to government control, living in comparatively palatial conditions compared to the Iraqi people. All paid for by the American taxpayer.

These developments raise the suspicion the war has not been fought for the Iraq people but to establish a permanent new American colony in the Middle East.

Meanwhile armed forces health services back in US have deteriorated to the extent even the famous Walter Reed military hospital was found to be “infested with mould and vermin … suffering from shortage of staff and basic hygiene”.

In a recent interview on SBS Dateline about her new book The End of America Naomi Wolf equated Bush with Adolf Hitler.

The Australian government would be well advised to steer clear of the US, at least until a new president is installed. Already, most of the war weapons in the world are made in US, including some of the most lethal, like cluster-bombs and landmines which blow children apart years after conflict.

This warfare is the ultimate competition.

Perhaps in Australia we fear if we don’t have vigorous economic competition we will “all be rooned” and slip into nationalisation and regimentation. There are other alternatives. One is the mixed economy seen after World War II in Britain which combined private industry, appropriately nationalised industry, and considerable investment in public education, health, and housing services.

Another is the co-operative system, seen, for example in the Mondragon international industrial complex in Spain and the Semco manufacturing conglomerate in Brazil, where duties and rewards are shared according to agreed systems.

One of the most extreme forms of privatised exploitation is the world-wide trafficking of young women into the sex industry, in which Australia plays its part.

Then there are increasingly commercial pressures in sport. “It’s not cricket” used to mean “It isn’t fair”. That’s gone now. Sledging in international cricket is a cowardly underhand attempt to win outside the rules of the game. Soccer is now as much about elbowing, holding shirts and other illegal moves as it is about ball-playing skills. Healthy competition morphs into thuggery and cheating. Is it because the commercial ethic of winning at all costs now pervades the sports field? And is that because sport is as much about becoming millionaires as about health, fitness, fair play? Is the whole of life, even pleasure, now aimed at making money?

Why does Kevin Rudd always talk about “working families” when this excludes those who don’t work, for whatever reason, and those who live alone?

Politicians are wont to glorify past wars, throwing out their chests and trying to sound personally tough, as if war is a boxing match. Service personnel often show great courage, but it is a pity they are called on to do so, and it is commonly the innocent, including children, who suffer most. Politicians should not pretend they are soldiers, but spend their energies preventing further conflicts, achieving peace, and considering the many problems it is possible to cure with the dollars spent on destruction.

One of the most impressive speeches by a national leader in recent years was in 2005 by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. He did not boast about the bravery of German soldiers in various wars but lamented his countrymen’s support for Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s and that they did not do more to oppose him. In other words there is nothing sacred or perfect about national history, past wars, former leaders. Honesty is more valuable than spin.

In the media we have frequent finance reports for the well-heeled but very few of interest to pensioners and others on low incomes. Does this reflect that most broadcasters are themselves on good incomes and financial struggle does not currently impinge on them? We should also have regular reports on homeless people in different communities, the waiting period on the public housing list, what applicants need to do to climb the ladder, how to survive on a low income, about new regulations from the Department of Social Security or Housing.

Advertisers should also lift their game. Authorities tell us the major health threat in this country is obesity in youngsters. Getting fat shortens life. A major cause is fast food. But who advertise fast food on television? Cricket heroes. Someone should take them on one side and inform them of the damage they are doing to youngsters.

The 2020 summit participants have an unusual opportunity to bring about significant changes in this lucky country. I encourage them to be brave, really brave.