MAX BOUND
Writing in “Australian Options” December 1995 Head of Science at Griffith University, Professor Ian Lowe, drew attention to Nugget Coombs’ concerns about the negative consequences of the power over decisions about technology and our economic and social future held by large corporations. Lowe then called for “public control of technology.” and commented “If we don’t use it to shape the sort of society we want, it will be used by others to give society the shape they want- which is unlikely to be a just, sustainable society.”
The current threats to existing industries in the Tamar Valley and serious further downgrading of other parts of Tasmania, illustrates the power large corporations still have in 2009. To stop Gunn’s Paper Mill from being built appeals are being made to overseas investors not to invest their money in the Mill project.
This necessary appeal raises the question — Why do people who live elsewhere and whose only qualification is that they have capital to invest have such potential power over what happens in Tasmania? Is this sort of anomaly merely an isolated failure of elected Governments to look after the interests of the people who elect them? The emphasis given to encouraging foreign investment by both major political parties suggests that it is a normal part of the current status quo regardless of which major party occupies the government benches.
This in turn raises further questions including —how, in an economic system in which capital accumulation by a few is the core function, can deals involving the public interest being made in secret be avoided? We all know that currently representatives of private corporations meet with cabinet ministers and top bureaucrats, behind closed doors, to decide vital issues affecting the lives of other people, and that there are no proper disclosures to the public.
Hobsbawn and others on Economic Realities
IN AN invited contribution to the May 2009 issue of “The Monthly” Eric Hobsbawn writes “…Kevin Rudd’s own sketch of the post-crisis system almost certainly underestimates the scope and need for future state or other public action”. His final paragraph suggests a need for much deeper consideration of the issues confronting us. He writes “Fortunately, the systematic and necessarily gigantic public investments to take on the world’s environmental crisis offer a more civilised equivalent to World War 11 which made it possible to overcome the heritage of the last Great Depression. Whether and how it can be effectively pursued should determine not only how the world economy recovers, but the future of humanity in the twenty first century.”
Hobsbawn, despite some equivocation, also suggests that “… the crucial problem of the environment,” requires “a major shift … from an economy moved by the market to one directed by the priorities and imperatives of public interest.” And he makes the point that “Paradoxically, some intelligent practising businessmen, more firmly in the real economy than ideology bound economists and politicians, anticipated trouble. After 1998 they even rediscovered the relevance of Marx”
Another of the 5 invited contributors, with a quite different ideological orientation to Hobsbawn, namely John Gray, recognises that “the implications for energy and climate change are sobering”. Obviously recognising the degree of reliance Australia’s current economy has on export of minerals to China, Gray comments on China’s need “to maintain growth at around 7% or so a year” and writes “But can it do so, given the world wide collapse of consumption.”
The other three contributors reveal little evidence of taking to account the real threat to human existence human activities driven Climate change represents. There are however some revealing comments in these contributions. For example C.R.. Morris writes that “macroeconomics is not a science … Its data are gross and error-prone, and its models of economic inter-actions bear only a distant relationship to those in the real world.”
Saul on inadequacies of ‘economics’ and Galbraith on corporations as part of Government
This comment brings to mind the comment made by Canada’s thinker, writer and economist John Ralston Saul in his 1995 Massey Lectures to quote “… economics has been spectacularly unsuccessful in its attempts to apply its models and theories to the reality of our civilisation”( Saul J. R. pub.1997 ) J.K. Galbraith’s comment that “ … the corporation is an instrument for the exercise of power, … it belongs to the process by which we are governed, …” points more directly to why currently dominant economic theory so frequently gets it wrong. (J. K. Galbraith 1977)
In the passages from which the above quote from Galbraith is taken he expresses, even more clearly than he had 5 years earlier in his Dec. 29th 1972 Presidential address to the American Economic Association, concerns about the damage to society caused by the teaching of economics as if the corporations were not a powerful political and social force .
Gunn’s Mill issue confirms Ian Lowe and Coombs’ concerns about Corporation Power
Writing in “Australian Options” December 1995 Head of Science at Griffith University, Professor Ian Lowe, drew attention to Nugget Coombs’ concerns about the negative consequences of the power over decisions about technology and our economic and social future held by large corporations. Lowe then called for “public control of technology.” and commented “If we don’t use it to shape the sort of society we want, it will be used by others to give society the shape they want- which is unlikely to be a just, sustainable society.”
The current threats to existing industries in the Tamar Valley and serious further downgrading of other parts of Tasmania, illustrates the power large corporations still have in 2009. To stop Gunn’s Paper Mill from being built appeals are being made to overseas investors not to invest their money in the Mill project.
This necessary appeal raises the question — Why do people who live elsewhere and whose only qualification is that they have capital to invest have such potential power over what happens in Tasmania? Is this sort of anomaly merely an isolated failure of elected Governments to look after the interests of the people who elect them? The emphasis given to encouraging foreign investment by both major political parties suggests that it is a normal part of the current status quo regardless of which major party occupies the government benches.
This in turn raises further questions including —how, in an economic system in which capital accumulation by a few is the core function, can deals involving the public interest being made in secret be avoided? We all know that currently representatives of private corporations meet with cabinet ministers and top bureaucrats, behind closed doors, to decide vital issues affecting the lives of other people, and that there are no proper disclosures to the public.
Decisions about public issues and that involve the use of public money need to be made in open and public discussion about what is best in terms of the public interest. But that is not how our social/economic system works.
The public interest and ecological sustainability need to guide economic directions
Earlier quotes from Hobsbawn suggest the probability of real problems ahead. Human activities driven climate change imposes restrictions on growth. Thus serious doubts arise as to whether a system that unashamedly relies on growth of consumption, and falls into deep crisis when consumption falls, is capable of providing even medium term solutions to current problems.
The ecologically imposed need to end consumerism and the waste of war as a way of life requires a major shift, away from the aim of capital accumulation by a few, to an economy moved by the imperatives of public interest and ecological sustainability.
In the short term we need to encourage ecologically enlightened capitalists to invest in renewable energy and other ecologically sustainable projects. But that is not happening. Ecologically enlightened capitalists are currently being thwarted by the power, over the Rudd and other governments’, that the coal, oil and other powerful polluting corporations are so clearly exercising.
Industries involved in developing sustainable energy have been /are driven off shore because of the policies of both major political parties.
Further to this are the problems created by the contradictions between environmental issues, or ecological sustainability, and the motive force of the market system itself. It is not only ecologically literate Marxists who draw attention to this last mentioned problem. It has also been made clear by highly rated classical economists, including J. K. Galbraith and Australia’s H.C.Coombs. It is a problem that can only be overcome to the extent we curb the power corporations have over our economies and social lives.
Rudd’ abject failure to confront Climate Change
To borrow a few words from Senator Christine Milne’s recent Tas. Times article –that “ … Australia was awarded the first “Fossil of the Day” at the Bonn conference shows how unhelpful the Rudd Government’s target is.” Clearly the current push by the Rudd Government and the Liberal Opposition to maintain the Australian economy as one of highest per capita green house gas producers – has to be replaced with socially and ecologically sane and sustainable economic policies.
The involved processes essential to winding down coal fired power stations and the excessive use of road transport, and the role these activities play in making Australia one of the World’s highest per capita producers of greenhouse gas, need to begin now. We need to begin to develop renewable energy projects – and to develop rail transport facilities for people and ecologically sustainable materials and products. There is need to stop the high level of public money used to support transport of coal and also stop giving priority to road transport facilities over rail transport facilities.
Small business in an economic world controlled by large companies and corporations
How can we achieve the change of direction in economic priorities that is needed to, as far as is possible, avoid major environmental catastrophes? Some economists who voice environmental concerns persist with trying to avoid the fact that privately owned and controlled corporations are, in practice, part of modern day government. These ‘economists’ push the view that we can ignore the power the corporations have and build up small businesses. Small business, as distinct from small off shoots from large company /corporation controlled businesses, has a role in a changing economy.
However, in the real world, there are major problems for small business projects that are clearly evident to all people who do not wear ideological blinkers. The alarming demise of the small corner or other suburban or country shop as Woolworths and the now swallowed Coles increasingly monopolise the retail trade. The reality that confronts us is that small businesses and even some quite substantial businesses are being closed down, swallowed -or made into mere satellites by larger companies or corporations.
The “free market” is not free but is more and more controlled by a powerful few. Small business can play a part but it cannot decide the context in which small business operates. The current control and upwards price fixing of basic food and other items by large retail corporations is a national disgrace. Only Government action driven by an aware and politically active public can change this situation.
The situation requires the Empowerment of and political /cultural action by ordinary People
People empowerment requires that governments intervene to protect the public interest, rather than the corporation chiefs’ interest. The voices of Senator Milne and of a few others are heartening and important but are not enough. There has to be political social cultural and economic direction change. Open and publicly administered regulations that challenge and restrict the power of large companies over our economy are essential.
The power over consumers now exercised by advertising, that has more to do with ‘shop till you drop’ mind control than with providing people with useful information, has to be challenged and changed. Think how many trees that could save from the chippers.
The means of communication of realistic and positive ideas for a human future are of vital importance. However there are threats from the large media corporations to the all too limited opportunities provided by a few of the myriad of existing websites and by email. The future of Newspapers as we know them is now under question and the press barons will not give up their profits and very extensive power over public opinion easily. We need to find ways to extend the depth of analysis and extend interchanges of ideas between people friendly groupings and organizations.
Over time, dumbing down, via a combination of over simplification, spreading mis-information and withholding of vital information, has encouraged blind acceptance and discouraged the development of the capacity for serious enquiry, and critical creative thinking. Yet creative thinking, outside of the corporation controlled square, is an essential part of achieving the shift in social cultural outlooks and expectations necessary to creating a positive human future.
Parliament is an important institution with potential power for the human good. Tragically only a small minority of those now occupying seats in our parliaments’ see themselves as beholden to the people who elect them but rather as beholden to their own perceived short term self interest. And a look at what currently happens reveals that agreeing to demands of the controllers of large private companies and corporations is a priority for all too many parliamentarians.
A People’s Movement capable of changing our ways and the ways of most parliamentarians by beginning the processes necessary to ending the power of corporation chiefs over people, parliament and societies is, I certainly hope, coming over the political, social /cultural horizon. There is a quite a way to go but success in building such a People’s movement is our realistic hope for a decent human future.
Max Bound June 2009
