Perhaps I am just becoming a peevish old man. I don’t think so because I view life as ‘pretty good’ and wake up each morning with a long list of ‘Have To Do’…and the list is never completed. I am secure in my life, marriage, friends, finances and diet. I do not mind if a few people dislike me because of what I write or believe. However, when ABC presenters pronounce February as ‘Feb-U-ary’ or ‘vuNerable’ instead of ‘vuLnerable’ and when Triple J (JJJ Radio) is about to drop on the world, ‘The most important music of the past decade’; these are all dreadful dismays.
Rising tides of irritation grow in my nine-decade soul. Right now it is the use and especially the misuse of the phrase, ‘Cost Benefit Analysis’. I first became aware of this sucker about ten years ago when Gunns was gearing up to build the pulp mill. First the phrase was used by the Pro-pulp people with devastating impact and to prove that what they were doing with the forests and environment was all good and by using a Cost Benefit Analysis they were able to prove the pulp mill should go ahead.
Eventually, the anti-pulp people picked up this new phrase and helped make it a cliche’. I was taught in writing courses that a cliché is a refuge for lazy writers. They can be. The overuse of tired ‘truisms’ can destroy a good paper or presentation.
Now, I am not an economist and do not pretend to be one. My field is Social History and ‘as such’ (Goodness, is that a cliche’?) Cost Benefit Analysis (hereafter written as ‘CBA’) has become a pandering to other phrases one of which is ‘Market Forces’. We now bow to the idea of CBA as being another economic FACT and when Market Forces are also intoned by a presenter in conjunction with CBA, many people withdraw, defeated by the power of another cliche’. To disagree with such a platitude as Market Forces (hereafter known as MF) is to be a troglodyte living in another century.
The problem with both CBA and MF (Cost Benefit Analysis and Market Forces for those who have already forgotten my excellent ‘economic’ lesson) is that they are frequently wrong and just as frequently correct. Their use as a truth and diamond of deep insight can muddy a good discussion because continuous use makes a person’s brain gloss over with false understanding.
For instance. The best (worst?) example of the false need for social change, right now, has been predicted. Postal deliveries should be cut back and then the postal service could be put out to tender and then another wonderful economic force COULD take over: Profit. Some even dare to suggest that a yearly fee could be charged for mail delivery and would be good for all…especially those on pensions! However, the postal services does not engender enough profit and they will have to go the way of the night cart man, the pony express and home milk deliveries.
All endeavours of life, we are told in our capricious capitalistic society, comes down to ‘profit’ and must follow ‘market forces’. Any Cost Benefit Analysis shows, this philosophy states, ‘If there is no profit, the endeavour should be closed down because it is a failure’. Then another shibboleth of false economics kicks in: ‘The User Pays’. Now the economists tell us that CBA, without P and the careful use of MF we will have to move to a UP methodology. Boiling down this ‘truth’ it is said that if a business or corporation does not make money it should fail. Government is best understood as a business. Simple.
Wait a darn minute! Life does not validate itself if everything is merely part of a profit motive and the profit should grow each year as stockholders seek more profits. The postal service is a service to the people who need information. If we extrapolate that philosophy we would soon have schools for profit (already on the way), police who pay their way (watch out for those speed cameras) medicine that does not cost government budgets too much (and here comes co-payments) and what is next? Surely, not privatising drinking water. That would be a ‘bridge too far’…damn, there goes a cliché’
Who to blame? I want to easily blame the politicians as many have caved into their philosophy of ‘politics for life’ and it is their ‘life’ about which they are so concerned. They seem to want the road to their retirement smooth and easy. But, hey, we are the ones who vote the rascals in.
Government is not merely about greasing the economic skids so Profits can continue because the well-heeled classes view the Profit Motive as a God-given truth. Nor does a Cost Benefit Analysis explain away government’s role to take care of the people as they need, amongst others, universal education, good and freed-up medicine, decent roads and community protection. No Market Force ideas will ever replace government’s role to care for the people and protect them.
Our governments seem to be failing by being blinded by simple Monetary Problems. I here appeal for our pollies and our voters to invoke a new (and very old) idea. Call it the HCF or the ‘Human Care Factor’. It is taught in Anthropology that we can better appreciate a society by understanding how their ‘rulers’ protect, govern and care for their people. Profit, Market Forces and Cost Benefit Analysis should NOT be the first tools used and do not forget, the User is already Paying.
