Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
One of the things that annoys about the neoliberal era is the constant advice to “shop around” for the best deal for services we could once assume were fairly priced, like electricity or banking services. A crucial feature of this is that you can’t do this once and for all. Loyal customers are routinely punished by being left on unfavourable deals while new customers are offered better terms.
It struck me that we could get substantially better outcomes from markets if all firms were required to extend to existing customers any offer made to new ones.* That would greatly reduce churn and wasteful sales efforts, hopefully leading to a reversal of the increase in retail margins we’ve seen in areas like electricity.
This would be the equivalent of Most Favoured Nation status in trade policy, which ensures that all members of the World Trade Organization receive the same treatment. Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on Most Favoured Nation status refers only to an anti-competitive version of Most Favoured Customer status, where MFC status is extended only to selected customers.
I’m a bit ambivalent about suggesting ways to make neoliberalism work better, especially as it is now in retreat, but I think it will be around for a while yet, so reforming obvious failures seems like a worthwhile idea.
* I can imagine a case for some limited exemptions, for example, for “try before you buy” deals.
In the latest Section 44 news, it’s being suggested that three more MPs or candidates may be ineligible, two because they are doctors and one because they hold shares in a pharmacy business which is a partner in a Linkage project with the Australian Research Council.
For those who aren’t in the research business, the Linkage program involves research which is jointly funded by the ARC, a University and an industry partner.in this case the pharmacy business. That is, the crime allegedly committed by this MP consists of (indirectly) giving money (or support in kind) to a government program, in the hope that the resulting research will be useful to their industry in general or to society as a whole. (Work done for the private benefit of a particular business would not normally be eligible; it would be undertaken as a consultancy). On this basis, a volunteer at (say) the Commonwealth could be disqualified for using government resources.
Doubtless, the defenders of the High Court will rush to say that no such nonsensical inference can be drawn. But, if they had a shred of intellectual honesty, they will admit that, before this nonsense began, no one had ever contemplated the absurdities we have already seen.
The other defence that used to be offered was that MPs with s44 problems should have checked the rules. It ought to be obvious by now (but probably won’t be, given the human propensity for bloody-minded adherence to a fixed position) that no-one can check on the rules. Suppose you are, say, a bank clerk, and the local council banks at your branch. On a literal reading, which is the only kind on offer from this High Court, you would seem to be doing business with the government, and would be forced to quit your job rather than taking leave. Your case is even worse if your employer converts you into a contractor with a business that might continue while you served in Parliament. Perhaps, based on past precedent, the court would let you off, but perhaps not.
There’s no easy way to fix this. Perhaps people will get sufficiently tired of this nonsense that the massive obstacles to a referendum might be overcome, but I doubt it. The only encouraging sign is that, so far, every member disqualified by the mischief-makers on the Court has been re-elected. Perhaps a few more pointless by-elections will produce some popular resistance.
In any case, the real problem is with the High Court’s entire approach to constitutional interpretation, based on the same kind of literalism that Garfield Barwick used to subvert the taxation system in the 1970s. Barwick was slapped down by changes to the Acts Interpretation Act, but Parliament can’t, I think, tell the Court how to interpret the constitution. The only solution would be to replace existing justices as they retire, with followers of Lionel Murphy who would start from the commitment to a democratic government and strike down any interpretation (such as the disqualification of most of the population from election) that is inconsistent with that.
Adani has just announced another scaled down version of its proposed Carmichael mine, bringing the initial capital cost down to $2 billion, and the estimated initial output to 10-15 million tonnes a year. As usual, the claim is that financing will close in the near future.
Unfortunately, it is possible that this time the project will go ahead. The Indian Supreme Court has reopened the possibility that Adani may be able to pass on to customers the costs of imported coal for its Mundra power station.
That doesn’t change the fact that the project is economically unsustainable in the long run, as well as being an environmental disaster (though not as big a disaster as in its original version). But the cost is now low enough that, if Gautam Adani is willing to put in enough of his money, he may find lenders willing to finance the rest.
At this point, it looks as if Labor will have to get off the fence, on which has perched for so long. The world needs to stop opening new coal mines, and Carmichael is a good place to start.
A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on.
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
An almost-universal feature of current Australian political commentary is the idea that the process of major party breakdown is a symmetrical one, affecting both side of politics equally. At a global level, this is broadly true. European social democratic parties have faced huge challenges arising from their complicity in austerity, and their inability to formulate a coherent response to racism and xenophobia. Quite a few, like PASOK in Greece, have disappeared altogether.
In Australia, the situation is very different. The rise of the Greens, and the formation of an effective Labor-Green coalition, long predates the crisis of neoliberalism. And the coalition has become more stable over time, not less. As Labor has moved, slowly but substantially, to the left on most issues, the Labor-Green coalition has come to resemble, more and more, the permanent coalition between the Liberals and Nationals (nearly always treated as a single party in Australian discussion. The issue of refugees has provided the most important single point of difference, but hasn’t driven the kind of collapse seen in Europe. Moreover, there has been no sign of any kind of radical or populist left alternative to the Labor-Green party. Rather, the remains of the old Marxist left have continued their gradual decline.
The contrast with the chaos within the LNP, and in its fractious relationship with the various far-right groups* it now relies on for support could not be more evident, and has been discussed at great length. I’m just hoping that we can get past the ritual need for balance, and recognise that, in Australia, this problem is specfic to the right.
The fact that the right is in a chaotic and chronic mess doesn’t mean they will necessarily lose. Labor has shown the capacity to mess things up massively, even without any serious ideological divisions, as in the Rudd-Gillard feud and the spectacular corruption of the NSW party. But that’s just day-to-day politics.
The bigger picture is that the Australian left is making a successful adjustment to the collapse of neoliberalism, while the right is not.
* There are also the centrist independents, most of whom hold seats that would normally belong to the LNP.
I’ll be talking at the Ngara Institute’s Politics in the Pub event in Mullumbimby tonight. Unfortunately, their website appears to be offline today, but I’ll link if it comes up.
The talk won’t be quite as utopian as the title might suggest, but it will be a “light on the hill” vision rather than short-term politics . I’m trying to think about how life might look 30 years from now, if Australian society returns to the progressive path we seemed to be following from the 1940s until the defeat of the Whitlam government.
For those readers unable to make it to northern NSW on short notice, there should be a YouTube of the event later and I am working on some articles that I hope will clarify my optimistic vision of a possible future.
Updated: Here’s video from the Facebook livestream.
One of the striking features of the current crackup on the right is the assumption, apparently widely shared, that climate science denial and subsidies for coal are winning issues in Queensland, however much they might appal the toffee-nosed elitists of Wentworth (and, presumably, Warringah and Kooyong among other long-standing Liberal party seats that can now be safely ignored).
Those pushing this view might consider the recent Queensland election, in which proposed subsidies to Adani were a key issue. Not only did the government and the Greens make gains in south-east Queensland at the expense of the LNP, Labor held on to seats in Townsville and Rockhampton where Adani was supposed to be a winner.
Economics in Two Lessons is now officially available for pre-order. Here’s the front cover. Not quite as striking as the one for Zombie Economics, but that would be hard to cap. Thanks to everyone who helped with comments and encouragement.
John Quiggin 