The hard part of economics, politics and public policy is deciding where
to draw the line. It's as easy as pie to take a position at one extreme
or the other. To buy the whole Liberal or Labor package - which, after a
change of government, will often involve supporting things you opposed
six months ago. To oppose virtually all government regulation or to
think more regulation is never enough. Doing it this way always feels
good - so neat and tidy.
But though it's easy and neat, it's not
satisfactory. It's pretending the world is either black or white when in
fact it's a quite unsatisfying shade of grey. To say I agree with the
Libs on this and that, but with Labor on that and the other. To accept
that some regulation is good, but too much is bad. It takes more effort,
leaves you under attack from both sides, and it's messy.
It
involves doing your own thinking, which is hard work. I've been thinking
lately that, while I want very much to live in a market economy, I
definitely don't want to live in a market society.
In a market
economy, you and I are pretty much free to make our own decisions about
what we'll consume, what occupation we choose and where we'll work - all
within the limits of what's available, of course - while the great
majority of decisions about the goods and services - and jobs - we're
offered are made by private businesses.
You and I are motivated by
the desire to get the most satisfying deal we can - to buy what appeals
to us and not buy what doesn't - while businesses big and small are
motivated by a desire to make profits by successfully catering to our
wants (which aren't necessarily our needs).
Their desire to make
more profit than they did last year is what drives our economy on,
making it ever bigger and creating more jobs, but also contributing to
its continuously changing structure.
Fine. But it's not that
simple. Anyone who didn't know before the global financial crisis must
surely know now that if you let businesses do whatever they want in
their search for greater profits, the system will run off the rails and
cause horrific injuries.
So we do have to ensure profit-obsessed
businesses work within government-imposed guardrails designed to protect
them and us from their greedy excesses.
We also need to
understand that, if we left it to profit-seeking business people - and
their public-policy consultants, economists - they'd gradually turn
every aspect of our lives into a marketplace, with everything
commercialised. Everything changed into a profit-making opportunity.
Where
there was some legal barrier preventing the market from spilling over
into some part of our lives, businesses would pressure governments to
remove it in the name of "reform". And because, in this
hyper-materialist era, business is on top - and the unions are pariahs,
subject to regular besmirching royal commissions - the politicians are
usually keen to give business what it demands.
This is why I've
been thinking I want to live in a market economy, but not a market
society. I like the commercial to be commercial, but I don't want the
non-commercial made commercial just because business people imagine it
would increase their profits (and the economists' model tells them it
would be more "efficient").
An example is penalty rates. Until
relatively recently in our history, weekends and public holidays were
social institutions largely outside the market economy. They were
essentially commerce-free zones, where as few people as possible worked
and we were free to socialise with our kids, other family and friends.
Fools
that we were, we thought we worked five days a week so we could relax
and enjoy the other two together.
Weekends were kept largely
commerce-free by two legal institutions: restrictions on trading hours
and industrial award provisions that sought to discourage employers from
instructing staff to work at "unsociable" hours by requiring them to
pay a penalty, which rose according to the degree of unsociability.
Most
restrictions on trading hours were removed in the 1980s and '90s in the
cause of "micro-economic reform". And now employers have renewed their
attack on penalty payments, portraying them as some kind of hangover
from the dark ages of socialism, which are preventing businesses
creating more jobs (note they never mention profits).
Thus are we
being pressured to shift the line separating the commercial from the
non-commercial, the economic from the social. Already that line is
blurred and the temptation to remove the last legal barrier is great.
It's
tempting because, in this more materialist, less religious age, almost
all of us like the idea of being able to shop and patronise commercial
sport and entertainment on the weekend. Naturally, we'll take the kids
and meet our friends there.
Trouble is, what we want is for us to
be able to shop and be entertained, but not be required to work
ourselves. We'd like to be part of the upper class that doesn't have to
work, served by a lower class that can't afford not to.
When you
turn a social institution over to market forces, those with money do
well and those without don't. We'd raised our material standard of
living, but do it by lowering our quality of life.
