Citizens expect from their Government , security, freedom, order, justice and welfare. Rather that to fall into the “nasty, brutish and short” life that Hobbes predicted and what life was like during the Middle Ages.
Hobbes also assumed that nature and humans are inherently selfish and self serving. A forerunner to todays 'Me , Me , Me' attitude.

So to hand over control to private enterprise under the banner of 'free trade' will result in exactly what Hobbes et al suggested.

We now see private police forces, run for profit. We see private immigration services, run for profit, Private armies, security contractors with no measure of responsibility to the people. Private contrators running detension centres. Private schools, private health. All run for profit.

Where is the peoples representaion in private companies, we dont get to vote for the CEO of whatever Transational company, the IMF or The World Bank, but these people are running our lives.

Globilisation is tauted as the saviour of our system, yet Globilisation is 'Asymmetrical' which results in an unequal balance where the vast bulk of economic and political activity is concentrated with the small group of OECD countries. (Baylis & Smith).

I want a say in how my country is run, thats democracy. I want my country to be responsible for the welfare of its people. I want my country to be more caring for each other.

I dont need an SUV or a choice of 50 different types of toothpaste.
Consumerism is the new ideology, thats sad.

'As the government stops providing...services,...the free market will dominate international affairs.' That is abhorent.

"Devolving more power to the markets will balance the current contractual deficit and mean that people's wants and needs will be satisfied by the raw power of consumerism."

Spoken like a true cargo-cultist. On a flat Earth of endless natural abundance, economists and treasurers reap but do not sow. There it is always afternoon, just before knockoff time.

Not for them the squeezing of a cow's tit before breakfast, nor wading barefoot through a paddy. Rice comes in natty little packets and milk is poured from a bottomless carton.

So let's all turn up for the great selloff barganza of the old round Earth. Don't miss this great chance to be in on the last of the fish stocks, the last of the arable land, the remnant forest sale, the last of the clean water and energy supplies. All must go - but hurry!

On the new flat Earth, the only inheritance worth passing on to the grandkids will be piles of iconic little pieces of paper. Employment will be no problem thanks to the new "industries" which are springing up everywhere. As well as the advertising "industry", there are the banking, insurance, security and retail "industries".

Who knows, maybe we'll start a Thinktank Industry.

Tom, a very thought provoking piece and disturbingly true on many levels. That people have, by and large, forgotten the responsibilities that are critical to a dynamic and democratic society does mean that the shortfall must be taken up elswhere. Expectations of what governments should provide grows on an almost daily basis yet reciprocity seems to be becoming an alien concept.
That is sad, indeed, however the market, far from being a flexible panacea to the problem could be seen as a funadamental root cause of it. The 'greed is good' 80's instilled a take all and give nothing back ethos. That was a government/business joint venture.
The 'let the market dictate' political economy has been trialled and failed on sociological grounds in many parts of the world. New Orleans is a prime example of who picks up the pieces when the economy, for whatever reason, falls off the rails.
What disturbs me most about your article is that I fear that you are correct in much of your assessment. Well written.

All good responses to our neocon/neoliberal/globalist contributor. Substitute 'corporation' for 'the market' and we have a more accurate picture. Global corporations are becoming the new government and they do not promise freedom, they demand obedience and operate through highly sophisticated brainwashing of mass populations. Witness the drive in the US by Verichip and others to make it 'cool' for people to have a subdermal microchip implant; or the drive to put thumb scanners in supermarkets and other big (corporate) stores. The mass brainwashing methods of corporate/government interests is mindboggling. 9-11 is a case in point - The Day the World Changed Forever, The Coalition of the Willing. Operation Desert Freedom etc, etc. Great scriptwriting there by clever corporate interests. And these are the people bringing up a new era of 'market-driven freedom'? Give us a break!

Chris Shaw carisbrook 3464. I have spent the last hour reading your posts to O.L.O. at the risk of pissing in your pocket, you Sir, who ever the hell you are,in my humble opinion are wasting your writing talents here.Your antagonists are surely wasting good power trying to contradict you.But I digress, where was I oh yes."When the last fish stocks are gone".My son has been involved in the fishing industry most of his working life,and no he is not a Marine Biologist or an Oceanographer,he is a skipper of an ocean going fishing vessel.

He has told me that the fish stocks off the coast of W.A. are diminishing at alarming levels.Fish that even ten years ago that could be caught in a few hours are now taking a few days to catch,with as much as five days at sea with nothing.This is not the opinion of some academic who has trolled through mountains of data,this is from a man who has felt the sea spray in his face.He has also told me they have taken fish aboard covered in bilge oil and other contaminates.But the most alarming thing he has told me, it is normal to pull up plastic shopping bags and other industrial rubbish 50 Klicks out to sea.He is seriously thinking about leaving the industry.What a great legacy we are leaving for our kids.

All the long winded posts about trade deficits, interest rates,the dow,employment numbers,and all the other economic mumbo jumbo in another forty or fifty years will mean nothing.People will be fighting each other for a glass of clean drinking water.

Fascinating article. All good posts. Chris Shaw has expressed it most profoundly, with the contemptible sarcasm that it deserves (governments divulging power to profit-driven, balance-lacking, sustainability-blind private enterprise, that is).

This is truly depressing. As if climate change, peak oil, population overload, inevitable pandemic and a few other things that are now completely beyond us to reign in, weren’t bad enough, our so-called democratic governments are steadily divulging more power to the very sectors that need to be tightly controlled. So now, when we need strong leadership more urgently than ever, in order to adapt to (no longer try and prevent) these enormous looming issues, we see the trend going precisely the wrong way.

One of the most fundamental roles of government, and one which very few democracies have ever really come near, is to balance this profit-motive tragedy-of-the-commons economy-before-the-people mentality with the negative effects on its citizens’ quality of life.

Would I being stating it too strongly if I said democracy is demonstrating abject failure. It seems that it was a critically flawed concept in the first place that governments could remain separate from big business (profits, political donations, kickbacks and all that) and hope to effectively regulate them.

I don’t understand the notion that there is a contractual deficit in terms of government giving much more than they get from the populace. It is entirely the other way around – governments just profoundly let us down where it really counts. (By crikey does my local council stand up as a prime example.) The people aren’t demanding anywhere near enough of them.

Oh what hope is there. We’re all going to pot and that’s that.

Thought provoking article Tom - "Contractural deficit" is a great term. I agree people demand more then they give. I also feel this is prevalent, now, in everyday life - not simply in governance. We expect much from partners, yet perhaps we are not prepared to imput in line with our expectations. We want excellent health - frequently for minimal effort. We seek comfortable lifestyles without having to work harder. 'Contractural deficit' could well be a social disease that has fully matured in the 21st century, having been released in the greedy '80's, and generously spread in the hedonistic 90's.
Certainly a cure is urgently required.

The Human Condition.

[But we will not solve this problem by creating more bureaucracy and devolving more power to typically incompetent local councillors; the only solution is to devolve power to the market, which is flexible and responsive to consumers in a way politicians can never be].

The author shows in this one quote/paragraph, the dilemna of the unregenerate (natural) human condition.

He is admitting, (and as Coyote underlined) that most people approach life from a ‘me,me,me’ perspective. This is the natural social consequence of the philosophical idea of ‘Nature’ usurping ‘Grace’ in the minds of those driving the social/political agenda.

Those who do not work from selfish presuppositions about life and their slice of it, such as well intentioned humanists, and ideological socialists, fail to recognize that they have little to offer apart from a “We should” or.. “It works out best for all if” type of foundation.

Unfortunately the hearers on the other end of this philosophical transaction may not agree, out of self interest, or simply because they see no binding ‘reason’ apart from the opinion of those espousing such a view, and this they consider no more valid than their own self/family interested opinion.

The problem with self serving or slack public officials is more related to our overall values framework and their perceived place in that framework.

Such selfishness will arise due to a deliberate supression of divine truth, which places ‘others’ ahead of ourselves.

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. (Romans 1)

So, the ‘wrath’ of God, is a legitimate factor in our values framework, but not the overiding one.

Paul, who wrote these words also says earlier

9God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son,......

This, from the first “Anti-Christ” if his actions prior to conversion are any indication. A man serves from ‘The heart’ only one whom he loves.
So, while the wrath of God is certainly revealed, the Love of God is what must drive us.

The factor that should be considered here is the legacy we have received from our convict past. This may be summarised in the following four general principles of Australian political life:

1. The Government is the Enemy of the People.
2. No taxation with or without representation, with any deficiency in government spending to be made up from the sale of politicians assets.
3. No matter whom you vote for at an election, a politician always wins.
4. Always vote NO at referendums.

No analysis of any political issue, from the republic to the role of government, can be undertaken without considering these principles.

The Human Condition.

[But we will not solve this problem by creating more bureaucracy and devolving more power to typically incompetent local councillors; the only solution is to devolve power to the market, which is flexible and responsive to consumers in a way politicians can never be].

The author shows in this one quote/paragraph, the dilemna of the unregenerate (natural) human condition.

He is admitting, (and as Coyote underlined) that most people approach life from a ‘me,me,me’ perspective. This is the natural social consequence of the philosophical idea of ‘Nature’ usurping ‘Grace’ in the minds of those driving the social/political agenda.

Those who do not work from selfish presuppositions about life and their slice of it, such as well intentioned humanists, and ideological socialists, fail to recognize that they have little to offer apart from a “We should” or.. “It works out best for all if” type of foundation.

Unfortunately the hearers on the other end of this philosophical transaction may not agree, out of self interest, or simply because they see no binding ‘reason’ apart from the opinion of those espousing such a view, and this they consider no more valid than their own self/family interested opinion.

The problem with self serving or slack public officials is more related to our overall values framework and their perceived place in that framework.

Such selfishness will arise due to a deliberate supression of divine truth which places ‘others’ ahead of ourselves.

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. (Romans 1)

So, the ‘wrath’ of God, is a legitimate factor in our values framework, but not the overiding one.

Paul, who wrote these words also says earlier

9God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son,......

This, from the first “Anti-Christ” if his actions prior to conversion are any indication. A man only serves from ‘The heart’ one whom he loves.
So, while the wrath of God is certainly revealed, the Love of God is what must drive us.

Here's an idea for you Tom, perhaps our "contractual deficit" exists because we assume the state to be a thing which exists only to permit social contracts.

Without the authority of the state, no contract is possible, yet despite the recognition by many of those posting of Hobbes' maxim, there is no talk of "duty" to the state, let alone upholding the "authority" of the state - a thing undermined by talk of harm-minimisation or the flagrant disregard for the laws of the land.

To support the free market to bring order is to fail to recognise that civil society grew from the authority of the state. Rather than devolve more power from the state, we should be drumming into the next generation of the duty they owe the state, of their duty to respects its authority, and abide by its customs. Law should then be aimed towards enoforcing standards and civilising, even when it destroys "choice".

Surely the answers are in the past, rather than a gamble on the market, as most things in the market are!

We are in a bind aren't we. We have the economists telling us all's fine for the next twenty years if we keep going down their road. The Balens of the world telling us we must pay politicians more, but expect nothing but treachery from them. And we have the god fearing telling us that the wrath of god is striking us down.

So we have 3 sets of illusionists trying to control a 3 dimensional real world with more illusions. Makes the mind boggle. I would expect the reality of the next 5 years may just be a little outside what we or others would want.

We are told that we have a budget surplus, whilst the truth is we have huge social deficit as well as massive growing balance of payments debt. I note all these experts (eX is an unknown quantity and (s)pert is a big drip) don't seem to address this. Why is it that most countries have growing deficits in this area, who do we all owe the money to. How can you have a balanced world economy when everyone is in debt.

Growth should be in sustainability, not via social degradation. When you privatise a public service, you lose that service. All privatised services have failed and led to escalating costs to us. Instead of the countries resources supporting us, they are supporting multinationals. We're paying more and more for less and less.

Our roads, we payed for and now pay every time we use them. We payed for all our services and yet are told me must pay more to support just a few people. Its just the opposite to what Balen says, we give more and more and get less and less.

Its all just a way of keeping people controlled and enslaved, with less and less freedoms and choice, for the benefit of less and less people.

Till now, none explained Australian “market-based reforms” practice upon which richer citizens factually pay less than pure consumers for common services acquired.

To move forward, the understanding of state’s obligations as the structure existing to unify and serve all democratic nation’s constituents, not privileged and bureaucracy only, would eventuate a great appreciation.

"Rather than devolve more power from the state, we should be drumming into the next generation of the duty they owe the state, of their duty to respects its authority, and abide by its customs. Law should then be aimed towards enoforcing standards and civilising, even when it destroys "choice"."

DF, sorry but the days of tyranny are over! We are not slaves of the state. What history has taught us is not to trust leaders, not to trust the clergy, for they will misuse their power for self interest. History has taught us that heads need to roll, people power needs to happen, to keep the leaders in line.

Luckily the information genie is now out of the bottle (internet) The find information genie is out of the bottle too (google) People will be better informed as to what their leaders are up to, so it will be more difficult to hoodwink them then in the past.

Your opinions sound like you are more in favour of a dictatorship then a secular democracy. Sorry, those days are over!

Yabbi,

You are simply either naïve or playing a naïve, or both: “DF, sorry but the days of tyranny are over! We are not slaves of the state. What history has taught us is not to trust leaders”.

Eventually, you are privileged enough to never hear a crap pressed in heads by case managers of so-called Job Network, and trainers at English courses for migrants.

It is different Australia – a real one.

Yes Yabby, information access has vastly improved, as has our ability to communicate with our elected reps (or at least their staff). If we put our minds to it, this could lead to greatly improved accountability of our decision-makers and greatly improved understanding of their actions by the general public (or at least the very small fraction who give a damn). And it could empower a much greater portion of the populace to get involved.

In short, it should serve to greatly strengthen our whole system of governance.

One of the major problems is that the public is apathetic, until they have a particular cause not to be, which is usually triggered by some political actions that adversely affect them pretty directly. For most of us, we only really get to know anything about particular politicians or levels of government over things that we disagree with. This promulgates an overriding bad impression of our pollies and festers away in mistrust if not outright hatred of our leaders.

So maybe it is not democracy itself that is the problem, but the lack of involvement of the populace.

Now I don’t know if this is at all what Tom Balen means by contractual deficit (I think not actually), but I think that the voter should be required to hold a high level of knowledge about our political system, policies, elected reps, etc. This should be strongly enforced by the state.

It is not a matter of divulging more power back to various sections of society that don’t have a holistic view of the world, it is a matter of strengthening government and keeping it accountable. And this means empowering, coercing or even bribing (with tax incentives, etc), the whole community to be involved.

The notion that most of us can only be involved in government during elections or the very rare referendum is fundamentally flawed, as is the notion that governments have a mandate to do things that they espoused before being elected, simply because they were elected.

It is true that the populace gets the government it deserves.

"Eventually, you are privileged enough to never hear a crap pressed in heads by case managers of so-called Job Network, and trainers at English courses for migrants."

Michael, I think thats a bit of a different issue, to what I was
on about. On the adminstrative side of govt, I too have met "little
Hitler beaurocrats", trying to throw their weight around. Those types seem to exist all through the population. As principles matter to me, I've challenged them, gone over their heads, usually to Canberra and I have to say that every single time, when I have presented a reasoned argument in Canberra, I've been heard and usually action was taken to change things. Once even the law was changed Australia wide.

What I was on about to DF, was regarding people who write policy etc. There is a certain upper crust who think that they can dictate to the public as they please. Religious agendas, you name it, their little view of the world. Lets say tomorrow they tried to take the right to an abortion away. There would be riots in the streets, heads would role!

Ludwig you are correct, but things are improving. The most politically informed people I have come across are the Swiss.
As they vote on just about everything, the level of political discussion amongst the community is at a far higher level then
anywhere else I have come across

Reality does bit, Yabby: “What I was on about to DF, was regarding people who write policy etc. There is a certain upper crust who think that they can dictate to the public as they please.”

This exsert, to my understanding, practically reflects very particular personal interests-related deeds, and a path from one-man-possibility of changing a law to a rule adopted by national representatives inspired with a national interest is definitely still long in a non-sovereign state adjusted to some democratic requirements.

The private provision of public services and infrastructure was road tested by Kennet in Victoria. He then unsucessfully market tested the provision of his political services.

Local proselytes of flat earth clap trap like our own Institute of Public Affairs still struggle with concepts such as climate change. Meanwhile, the state government is struggling with the environmental management of some of the worlds dirtiest power plants and the question of demand management in a situation where it makes perfectly good sense for the now fragmented, privately owned generators to burn more coal in a competitive market that some would argue is selling power to cheap by ducking out on externalities.

If one can run trucks or build planes, why not run hospitals, prisons and public transport?

We have done P.P.P's in Victoria. Many ended in substanstial Contractual Deficit and selfish parties to the Contract (taxpayers) footed the bill. Most recently it was with rail. Fortunately, the Government honoured the Social Contract and tipped buckets of money in when a good corporate citizen’s branch office went broke running suburban trains. Flat earthers expressed the view that the private transport company should have been allowed to chaotically flounder stranding public transport users for an indeterminate period of time.

Customers of the branch office’s market don’t have the Global Corporations option of where they pay tax and continue to foolishly look to Government under the Social Contract. Unfortunately the bastards vote.

It’s not the client who has incrementally abrogated the Contract, but the provider. The provider on one hand has been conned to the belief that public sector debt is an evil thing but on the other, contends that private debt to fund infrastructure is not.

Smaller Government should be a good thing, but it’s a bummer when one's ports are clogged, one's roads impassable, and the rail, water and energy infrastructure paid for by one’s great grandparents is at the point of collapse and one cant get one's Mum a bed for her hip replacement. But hey, GDP is rising isn’t it?

It is not an unsuccessful test – it is in advance lousy politics:
“The private provision of public services and infrastructure was road tested by Kennet in Victoria. He then unsucessfully market tested the provision of his political services” (from Jim K)

“Public Affairs still struggle with concepts such as climate change”, “the state government is struggling with the environmental management” (Jim K) - those who are professional have traditionally been kept out of Australian job market, which is to great extent a show-ground for privileged to swipe their advertising agencies for science/health/engineering etc departments where particular professional knowledge and hands on expertise in a field rather than playing English while exercising simplistic craft skills if any at all, is the most.

I'm not so sure the problem is that 'the people' expect too much of their government. Unless you mean they expect the government to protect its' citizens. That *does* seem to be too much to ask.

Over the past few decades, economics has come to drive and shape our personallives in ways it never did previously. I'm still not sure what the price of the Yen or a 2c rise in Billiton shares is supposed to mean to my life, as I live it, today?

Governments have chosen to produce ever more prescriptive and proscriptive legislation, embarking upon a massive control frenzy. We, the people, surrender a portion of our wealth to the common good - supposedly administered by the state, the Commonwealth. The state is supposed to use that wealth *for us*, not merely to advance the interests of the people currently privileged witht he responsibility of being our guardians and trustees.

Trust has been eroded over the years, replaced by enforcement and litigation. Everytime a lawyer has to walk into court, we have lost. Even when we succeed in our suit, we have lost.

It is not that 'the people' have demanded that the state nanny them, but rather they have come to expect that the state will live up to the expectations raised on its' behalf by our representatives, who run it on our behalf. With the domination of money over actual people, corporations interests over human beings, has come a warping of our society and its' values. We have not surrendered to the state willingly, we have begun to wake up and realise that we allowed the people running the state to control the agenda.

[Globalisation is an amusing artifact of this process. Neither telecommunications nor computers change the fact that we have been trading and interacting globally for centuries. It's just faster and easier now.]