I said that my previous post would be my last, but Fungochumley’s latest persuades me to write once more. He’s right that many commentators confuse economic rationalism and free market fundamentalism.

In my Presidential Lecture to the Economic Section of ANZAAS (remember ANZAAS?) in 1984, I showed that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the leading classical economists – Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, the Mills and the academics whom Carlyle dubbed ‘respectable professors of the dismal science’ – were supporters of selective government involvement in the economy, and opponents of the unconstrained operation of the free market.

Adam Smith himself described his ‘Wealth of Nations’ as a ‘very violent attack upon the whole commercial system of Great Britain.’ He assailed ‘the greed of private manufacturers’, the excessive influence of private shopkeepers, the ‘oppressive and domineering’ conduct of the East India Company and the customs policy under which ‘the sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are ... erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire.’

Those who join with Carlyle in jeering at the ‘dismal science’ for ‘reducing the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone’ should know just what kind of government intervention he was advocating - and the kind of intervention for which he condemned the ‘respectable professors’ .

While Carlyle urged that unwilling workers should be compelled to work with ‘beneficent whip’ and told his friend Emerson that ‘two million idle beggars’ should be sold as [I can’t use Carlyle’s word: OLO’s edit has instructed me to ‘remove the profanity’], the respectable Professor Senior told his students at Oxford that Government ‘cannot of course enact that every family shall have five well-built … rooms, any more than it can enact that every family shall live on roast beef, but it can prohibit the erection of houses without drainage, or in courts, or back to back. It can require the streets to be paved, it can regulate their width and the thickness of the walls. In short, it can provide prospectively against the creation of new seats of disease and vice.’

IanC. Allow me to define the stark realities of your "beneficent" economic rationalism and free market fundamentalism. While you were crunching numbers at the ABS in the 80s and 90s on environmental matters, the gross behaviour of the corporate lechers - the eco-vandals you are protecting, were steering the Titanic towards the iceberg the IPCC must now urgently address:

1. "Rationalised" intensive agriculture is not only inflicting intolerable stress on the environment and living conditions on animals but increasingly requires massive slaughter events to stem the disease outbreaks its conditions foster.

2. Shell’s Victorian refinery has committed more than 300 environmental breaches in two years, including 145 between June and September this year (2003).

The EPA said Shell should aim to stop discharging toxic water into the bay within a decade. Shell has conceded to The Age that the refinery was unlikely ever to have complied with its EPA licence, first issued in 1973.

3. New York, October 8, 2008 — Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York set a trial date of February 9, 2009 for a human rights and racketeering case against the Royal Dutch Shell company (Shell) and the head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson.

The case was first filed in 1996. The judge rejected Shell’s attempt to file additional legal motions to postpone a trial date.

“We are looking forward to finally bringing Shell into court, where we will prove their role in the torture and murder of our clients and their pattern of human rights abuses,” said CCR attorney Jennie Green.

4. At its AGM in London on 23 October this year, BHP Billiton was attacked over its record in the Philippines, Indonesia, Guatemala and Colombia, its failure to endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and its role in worsening climate change and producing a radioactive legacy for future generations.

5. Remember Mark Latham who claimed that Gunns run the state Labor government and that Premier Lennon wouldn’t scratch himself unless Gunns told him to?

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6. A 2000 lawsuit alleged Rio Tinto laid the groundwork for environmental disaster on Bougainville by improperly dumping waste rock and tailings, emitting chemical and air pollutants.

It is alleged the tailings turned the fertile Jaba and Kawerong river valleys into wasteland. Fish and whole forests died and water became non-potable, turning 30 kilometres of the river system into a moonscape.

As tailings made their way down the Jaba River to drain into Empress Augusta Bay, the Bougainvilleans major food source of fish was also destroyed in the bay.

7. In September this year, the Guardian (UK) reported that Rio Tinto, has been thrown out of a sovereign wealth fund's portfolio for allegedly subjecting it - potentially - to "grossly unethical conduct".

Norway’s Ministry of Finance said: "Exclusion of a company from the Fund reflects our unwillingness to run an unacceptable risk of contributing to grossly unethical conduct.

The Council on Ethics has concluded that Rio Tinto is directly involved, through its participation in the Grasberg mine in Indonesia, in the severe environmental damage caused by that mining operation," she said.

8. The drunken captain of Exxon Valdez was responsible for spilling 11 million gallons of oil, covering 11,000 square miles.

Within days an estimated 250,000 seabirds perished, along with thousands of otters and seals. A jury awarded 32,000 plaintiffs a total of $5 billion in punitive damages.

In 2007 the United States Court of Appeals reduced the amount to $2.5 billion. On June 25 this year, the United States Supreme Court slashed the punitive damages judgment for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which devastated Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The award was reduced from $2.5 billion to only $507.5 million—an amount equivalent to a few days’ profit for the giant oil company.

9. Of course allow me to again remind you of the global operations of Barrick Gold, the JV partner in the Kalgoorlie super pit. In 2005/2006, Barrick/Newmont emitted in excess of 5 and 7 tonnes of mercury, respectively over the Goldfield’s community:

http://protestbarrick.net/downloads/barrick_report.pdf

And your recommendations IanC or can I expect the usual, "no comment?"

Gee, dick, you seem to be holding IanC responsible for a helluva lot, including the drinking habits of seamen. I'm quite certain you will get no comment, until, as was made abundantly clear, you address the error you made above (re Lomborg reference) honestly, and stop trying to hide it by smearing the comment walls with more and more poop.