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He was instantly unlikeable, this man who worked for the US government.
Cold, flinty eyes were set in a pale face swollen by too much food and beaded with perspiration. Short, spatulate fingers which had never seen manual labour played with a pen while he poured forth on everything he thought wrong about the country to which his employer had sent him.
"These people," he snarled, repeating the words for effect. "These people, they haven't even read Milton Friedman."
It was the early 1980s and we were in Bangladesh. My mother was doing some academic research about the fledgeling nation and I'd come along for the ride.
She'd sought the American's views about what could lift Bangladesh from its basket-case status.
His enthusiasm for Friedman's doctrine that maximising profits for shareholders should be the sole concern of corporations came as no surprise. This was the era of Reaganomics, which took Friedman's corporate theory and applied it to the whole economy through low taxes, small government and minimal market intervention.
But applying that doctrine to an impoverished country, trapped by its geography on the flood prone Ganges Delta and, back then, still recovering from its murderous war of independence, seemed ludicrous.
Looking back 40 years later, Friedmanism and Reaganomics seem utterly flawed - the concentration of global wealth tells you that.
The promise that wealth would trickle down to those on whose backs it was built was a dangerous lie. A Credit Suisse report last year revealed 47.8 per cent of global household wealth was concentrated in the hands of just 1.2 per cent of the world's population. So, too, the fairytale all corporations would act responsibly if governments did not interfere in their operations. You only have to look at the global financial crisis to see that notion was a steaming pile of dog turds. Or the plundering of our natural gas by foreign corporations reaping huge profits while we struggle to pay the power bills.
Steadily, the pendulum has swung back towards a more rational relationship between government and capital. Regulation, in small increments, is returning to protect people and the environment. Tougher rules for banks, penalties for polluters. And, presumably, reworked safety standards for mining companies moving dangerous radioactive substances around the country in the backs of trucks.
Yet still the Friedmanites walk among us. And this week, thanks to Treasurer Jim Chalmers, they're squealing like pigs. It's all because affable Jim wrote a think piece about his vision for a new form of capitalism that - shock, horror! - embraced values beyond the relentless pursuit of profit. Values like the social good.
By the reactions in the financial press, you'd have thought Jim had reworked Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto for the 21st century.
"Intervention! Taxes! Red tape!" they oinked in unison, eyes cast skywards lest it should fall, forgetting that the biggest market intervention in our history was the shutdown of the entire economy by the Morrison government in response to COVID - a shock after years of the Coalition doing nine-tenths of bugger all for most of its tenure.
Now I'll confess I didn't read the full 6000-word essay the Treasurer wrote for The Monthly - there are lawns to mow, dogs to walk, echidnas to wrangle - but I did absorb the summary and it seemed reasonable. In defence of his essay, Chalmers tried to calm the farm in another piece to the Financial Review, which particularly had its Y-fronts in a knot.
"Government has a leadership role to play, but that doesn't mean picking winners - it's about finding the priorities and opportunities that capital can respond to, in ways that align our economic and national objectives," Chalmers wrote. "And it's about recognising the power of market-based discipline to help deliver social outcomes - moving away from the 'spray and pray approach' and towards investing with purpose."
Several days after the publication of the Chalmers piece, the sky hasn't fallen.
Billionaires like Clive Palmer are still going about their business, bankrolling his own political party and paying for a bunch of discredited doctors to visit our shores and hawk their COVID snake oil remedies. Ivermectin, anyone?
Some corporations continue to do nicely while we brace for the next interest rate hike. Among them, the Commonwealth Bank, whose shares are trading at an all-time high, suggesting a big profit increase in the pipeline, and Virgin Australia, poised to make its first profit in 10 years as it prepares to float on the stock market.
And the American from all those years ago? If he were still alive - which is doubtful - he, like so many of us, surely would have come to realise that Milton Friedman and the greed-is-good ideology he sold us was a dud. Unless you are a billionaire, that is.
As for affable Jim, he's kicked off a conversation we should have started years ago.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Should corporations focus only on profits to shareholders? Or should they develop values that enhance the broader social good? Do you believe in trickle-down economics? How do you rate Jim Chalmers' performance as Treasurer so far? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Clive Palmer pumped more than $110 million into his United Australia Party in lead up to the federal election, which yielded just one Senate seat for the mining magnate's group. Mr Palmer's Mineralogy donated just under $117 million in total to the UAP in the past financial year, according to the latest annual donations data from the Australian Electoral Commission.
- Former human services minister Alan Tudge refused to accept that he had ministerial responsibility for failures of his department to confirm the lawfulness of the robodebt scheme. The robodebt royal commission heard that the former Coalition government minister was forwarded a media article by his prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, questioning the legal basis for the scheme.
- The average price of a schooner could get more expensive, as licensees must choose to absorb tax rises, or raise the price of a cold one. The federal tax on beer rose by 3.7 per cent yesterday.
THEY SAID IT: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." - Winston Churchill
YOU SAID IT: Our dwindling insect populations should concern us more than the irritations of bush flies.
Sharon says: "Thank you for another thought-provoking article. As a non-native Aussie I was stunned by the amount of poison used by households and employers to rid their buildings of so called 'pests'. I wince when I see pest control vans emblazoned with names like 'Nuke' and 'Exterminate'. Leave the spiders to make their webs to naturally catch the mosquitoes, attract the beautiful array of native birds to eat non-poisoned insects and spiders. Stop being lazy and use a broom rather than cover your buildings with toxic sprays. Where have the iconic (and actually timid and reclusive) redbacks gone? The last one I saw in WA was 13 years ago. I have a fear of spiders but a much more rational fear of inhaling and ingesting chemicals. Leave nature to its own devices, it is more innovative than us and has no malice or vanity."
Brad has noticed the decline in insects this summer: "One Christmas beetle, no bogong moths and few huntsman spiders so far, although February/March is more likely for them, and cockroaches in my part of Wollongong. However, have noticed some ladybugs and native bees starting to reappear!"
Rosemary says: "I love the Echidna! I was weeding this morning amidst the trees we had planted and saw wings of the Christmas beetle! There were ants of all sizes scurrying around with their holes of various sizes nearby. Of course, we love Fiona K but her replacement cartoonist is doing just fine." Fiona's still with us Mondays and Wednesdays.
Heather has no fear of insects: "I co-exist with all insects, spiders included, inside and out in the garden. It's a no-kill zone, although my cats eat the flies. There's no need for fly screens."
Maggie says: "Ah, the huntsman, my no-web house-sharer. A preschool-age friend refused to use my toilet because the huntsman was there. 'But it's the same as the one in your bedroom, and you aren't afraid of that one. Why are you afraid of this one?' 'I know the one in my bedroom and it's my friend. I don't know this one, and it might not be friendly.' And yes, three Christmas beetles this year, compared with hundreds in my childhood. The occasional praying mantis, where there were dozens. No lacewings. At least the cicadas and crickets are still talking."
Alison misses the insects: "Less than 20 years ago there'd be summer nights of so many insects coming in to my unscreened house (in rural south-east Queensland) I'd have to put out the lights. I miss the diversity of moths and beetles, their colours, shapes and sizes. Wouldn't have dreamt of spraying them. And spiders are fascinating! So many ways of catching a meal: net casting, swinging a bolus of sticky web, ambush. Life has lost an edge of wonder."
Jeanette says: "Every night during summer we would have moths in all shapes, sizes and beautiful colours land on the outside of our kitchen window. They all disappeared following the 80-plus bushfires we had around the state some years ago. A few have just started coming back this summer. Moths are an essential part of the ecosystem as a food source and as pollinators."
Arthur happily shares his home with insects: "There have certainly been fewer insects this summer. We do not use chemicals to control insects around our home. The cobwebs are a nuisance but we prefer to have the birds which come to eat the insects caught in the webs. We had a huntsman spider who came to live with us for a while. We regarded him as a pet."
John remembers the Aussie salute: "Reminds me of when visiting Singapore Zoo during the 1980s (at a time when there were many industrial strikes in Australia) and the flies there were plentiful. The tour guide commented, 'Only use one finger otherwise the Aussies will go on strike.'"
Julie says: "Thank you for this article! An important reminder to protect biodiversity, even where there is human discomfort. Spiders are welcome in my home. All bugs. We have a range of daddy long legs and the occasional huntsman. The arrangement is that we clean away their old unused webs. They can keep their current webs. I've heard of the deathly silence around Moree and those deathly wastelands of cleared land, cleared for cropping. No bugs on windscreens, no life."