Rolling Through

Australia’s treasurer, Jim Chalmers has laid out some of his vision to build a new “values based capitalism” in his essay in the February 2023 issue of The Monthly.

When “well-being” got a mention in the October 2022 budget, I felt a bit more hopeful despite all the challenges we were dealing with as a result of COVID, extreme weather and the war in Ukraine.  It sounded like the impact of events and decisions on the quality of life people experience might actually become a real part of political choices.

After reading the treasurer’s words in The Monthly, I’m feeling the opposite of hopeful.  The treasurer says he wants to build “a new, values-based capitalism” to better address disadvantage and help make communities more resilient.    The idea of a “new, values-based capitalism” perplexes me.   

Capitalism has strong values

It seems important to note that capitalism has never been bereft of values, though they’re not values I’m fond of.  The values of capitalism prioritise profit and the accumulation of wealth.  Capitalism prioritises profit to shareholders over social and environmental considerations.  Capitalism leads to the concentration of wealth and an ever-increasing gap between the richest and the poorest.  Capitalism chases the dollar.  Nothing else.  Capitalism marginalises anyone who can’t satisfy its appetites.  It has no interest in the old, the sick or the disabled, unless they can contribute to profits.  These values of capitalism aren’t going anywhere.  Any genuine attempt to create a “new capitalism” must acknowledge and address them.

Democracy limits the power of capitalism

Australia has put some limits on capitalism via democratic government.  The tax system that provides old age pensions, a social security system and Medicare is not a result of capitalism.  It is the result of long fights to limit the power of capitalism by people who recognise that a good life includes a community, with room for more than the strong and the fortunate, as well as a healthy and thriving natural world. 

As a disabled person, who’s spent years of my life on unemployment payments, largely relegated to the capitalist scrap heap, I’m very concerned at what I’m hearing from Australia’s current treasurer. 

Government and capitalism have different priorities

The treasurer says he wants to further “intertwine” the interests of government, business and philanthropy in Australia.  It’s the word “philanthropy” that really worries me.  Philanthropy is another word for charity.  It’s more often used to describe larger or ongoing donations and more likely to be used in reference to a business rather than an individual.  Charity and philanthropy both allow the person (or company) with money the power to decide who they help and under what conditions.  Businesses are accountable to their shareholders first and foremost.  Any philanthropic decisions are likely to be strongly guided by their impact on the bottom line.

Government support, on the other hand is distributed according to laws and regulations determined by democratically elected parliamentarians.  Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems when it comes to government support.  Robo-debt is a clear example of just how badly elected representatives can treat their citizens. But when government fails to meet the expectations of the people, there are systems in place that give us some chance to hold them to account and at minimum, we have the option of voting them out at the next election. 

Economic priorities are only one of the things people consider when they elect parliamentarians.  They also consider what kind of society they believe those parliamentarians will work to create.  They look at their record on the environment, and their approach to climate change, too.

CEOs, in contrast, are not democratically elected by the entire Australian population.  The broad Australian community has no say in their decisions.  They are selected for their ability to maximise profits.  As customers, we have some choices over which businesses we support but people with more money have a lot more choices than people with less.

While government and business always need to work together to an extent, it’s important to recognise that they have different roles.  We need to be very cautious about confusing or intertwining the two.  Employers already have the power to hire and fire.  They already have massive power over people’s financial circumstances.  They should not be placed in any more of a position to determine who receives social support and under what circumstances. 

I’m not the only one who is concerned about this.  Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and Disability Support Pension recipient Kristin O’Connell observes,

It’s a disturbing state of affairs when the government’s solution to inequality is to outsource our wellbeing to private organisations whose priorities change on the whims of unaccountable individuals.

Giving corporations more power will shrink our democracy

Putting more of the power of social support into the hands of individuals and corporations will push us further back towards support being given to the “worthy poor”.  Support will be based on whether the person in need of help does what the person or corporation with the money requires them to do to get it. 

That already exists in our Social Security system in the form of things like compulsory jobseeking and other obligations.  Even now, Australia doesn’t give people in need money to live on when they need it simply because that’s the right thing to do.  Job seekers and some other welfare recipients are required to perform certain tasks if they want money to put food on the table. 

As things stand at present, though, the government has the power to change the obligations that welfare recipients are subject to.  During the COVID lockdowns, jobseeking obligations were removed for all job seekers.  When people in need are supported by the philanthropy of private individuals or companies, each of those philanthropists is the one with the power to determine the conditions under which it occurs.  Government will no longer have the power to make those decisions. 

If government hands that power to the private sector, the democratic process offers no opportunity to challenge those decisions.  Jim Chalmers article in The Monthly talks about strengthening democracy.  Handing more power to private enterprise does the opposite.

Philanthropy will revitalise the “charity model” of disability

There’s another reason why I find the push towards philanthropy disturbing.  As a disabled person, I’ve been subject my whole life to the “charity model” of disability.  While some change is happening, the charity model remains dominant.  It is still the case that discrimination, not just impairment, gets in the way of disabled people securing employment, finding appropriate housing and participating in our community.  It’s still common for the dominant response to disability to be pity and for disabled people to be viewed as people who need charity.  Just a few years ago, I was sitting in my wheelchair waiting, for a moving van to arrive when a woman I didn’t know offered me money, simply because I was sitting there in a wheelchair.

Creating a stronger role for philanthropy in our society reinvigorates the charity model.  It makes some people the powerful givers and casts others in the role of recipients forced into compliance.  It doesn’t facilitate self-determination.  It works against it.

I’ve lived all of my life on a low income.  That already does a lot to limit my choices.  I don’t want that pushed any further.  Some businesses do make choices that are designed to have a positive social impact.  That’s welcome, but it is unrealistic to expect capitalism to bring about an inclusive more equal society.  Its core values of maximising profit through competitiveness cannot get us there.

Good government redistributes wealth

Good government means paying attention to what makes a good life beyond economics and profitability.  Government isn’t just about the economy. It’s about how people live together.  A strong democracy doesn’t hand more power to the people with the most money.  It checks the power of the wealthy and gives more power to the people – all of them.  Good government looks for more effective ways to redistribute wealth through a progressive tax system, to reduce the gap between rich and poor. 

I note that there is not a word in Jim Chalmers’ article in The Monthly about ensuring that the wealthy make a fair contribution to society through taxation.   Good government works for the collective good.  It means collecting taxes from the wealthy  to ensure that no -one lives in poverty and everyone has a chance for a good life.  That’s how you build the resilience that the treasurer says he’s working towards.  Philanthropy is more likely to build dependence and reinforce and widen the gap  between rich and poor.

A strong democracy looks for ways to hear and pay attention to the voices of those with less power and enable them to participate.  It supports a strong medical and education system so that the impact of disadvantage is minimised and people are well equipped to live the best life they can and improve their circumstances.

I want to see change under the Albanese government.  We need a stronger democracy and a more effective tax system, not a bigger role for philanthropists.

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