What has happened to the common good?

The budget as a social blueprint shows the rise of individual responsibility.

There used to be a time when budget night was the occasion for the announcement of major new policies and programs which spelt out the government’s social vision for Australia. Initiatives in education, health and welfare were major elements of the budget, setting the future direction in which we would be moving as a nation. Now, after a decade of a Howard government, it all boils down to one issue and one issue alone – how much of a tax cut will there be in the budget? The front page item of the major papers is a table outlining the amount of tax cut people will be getting in different levels of income. We all gaze at these tables counting up how much better off we will be with the tax cut in our pockets. Lord, how low have we sunk?

Of course the government makes out the budget is all about economic management. It has eliminated government debt; it has kept interest rates low; it has increased employment. Some of these claims are undoubtedly true, while some are due to factors not of the government’s making, such as the resources boom from the expanding Chinese and Indian economies. It could also be pointed out that the trade deficit remains alarmingly high with few signs of improvement. As a nation we still import far more than we export. When was the last time we posted a trade surplus? Can anyone remember?

Nonetheless budgets are still not just matters of economics. Even for this government they spell out a social blueprint, a vision for Australia’s future to which we must attend, however buried it is in the economic focus. For the last decade the government has been reshaping our nation, reordering our priorities and values. And it is not difficult to see that process at work in the present budget.

Take the three major areas of government responsibility and spending:  education, health and welfare. We all know that these sectors are stretched to breaking point. Public schools and the university sector are screaming out for more funding. Public hospitals have long waiting lists for elective surgery and emergency services are in crisis. The welfare sector is always trying to do more with less. Significantly, in each of these areas cut backs in government funding are coinciding with increasing micro-management on the part of government departments. Schools can have money, but they must install a flag pole; universities can have a bit more too, but they must introduce Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). More and more money is being put into the non-government welfare sector such as Centacare or the Salvation Army but all with strings attached, making them de facto arms of government policy. Significant amounts of resources are absorbed just filling in forms for government departments.

Of course it would be wicked to point out the disparity between the accountability demanded by the government of all these sectors and its own lack of accountability in relation to the AWB scandal. But that would be a digression.

The point is all these sectors are largely dependent on government funds and they are being squeezed into oblivion. They are being subjected to “market forces”. The government believes the marketplace provides the most efficient use of scarce resources. It will get the most “bang for its buck” by subjecting these sectors to market forces. However, as the major funding source for all these sectors, it alone is the determiner of the level of scarcity. It artificially creates a level of scarcity by simply lowering the level of funding. It then artificially creates competition by introducing “competitive tendering”, certainly in the welfare sector and now in the tertiary education sector. In fact, of course, there is no real scarcity. Tens of billions of dollars have been given away in the form of tax cuts. Some of this money could easily have gone into the public sectors of education, health and welfare. The government chose not to, simply because it does not believe governments have a role in these areas.

What the government believes in is “individual responsibility”. Tax cuts go to individuals who are then free to determine what they spend them on. If you want better education, go to a private school or university; take out private health insurance and go to a private hospital if you’re sick; and put away your savings and superannuation so as not to be a burden on society when you get old. And of course the more the government drains our public sectors of funds, the less attractive they look, the less confidence people have in them, and the more likely they are to seek alternatives. The inadequacy of this stance was poignantly captured by a self-identified “company executive” who will “benefit immensely from the budget” yet could not get his daughter into the public hospital system after she had suffered two seizures, because no bed was available (Letters, Sydney Morning Herald, May 12, 2006).

What about the chronically unemployed? Force them into low paid jobs through AWAs. In fact, they will need two jobs just to make ends meet  because there will be no more penalty rates for overtime or weekend work. And the chronically sick and disadvantaged? Whatever remains of the public sector, over-stretched and under-funded, will be available to them. The stench of social Darwinism is evident. This will create a two-tiered society with a semi-permanent underclass, alienated from society, locked out of many of its benefits, who will turn to crime and violence as a means of attaining their ends. Welcome to America! Indeed in major speeches John Howard has spoken of his admiration for American society and he is clearly intent on creating us in its image. In a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce, July 2005, he identified the following values as common between our two nations:

… that strong, united, properly functioning families represent the greatest social welfare system that mankind has ever devised. And a belief, a very strong belief, that the bases of national wealth is individual effort and individual capacity. That competitive capitalism has still been and will always be the most effective engine for maintaining economic growth and economic strength. (http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech1468.html)

What the present government seems to completely lack is any sense of government as an agent for the promotion of the common good. To this government, the common good has been reduced to the sum of individual goods. In economics this mirrors what is called the “utility function”. Individuals act to maximize their “utility” which is then added up to provide the social “utility function”. Individuals should be free to pursue their own ends with minimal interference from government. Society ceases to be a common project, with a common commitment to the good of all. We are all simply economic units competing for scarce resources, and God help those who fall behind. Faced with the inevitable decline in social cohesion that this creates, a canny government will seek to achieve some cohesion through fear, the fear of a hidden enemy, both external and internal. Thank God for “illegal immigrants” and “Islamic terrorists” – where would we be without them!

Of course one of the strongest advocates of “individual responsibility” is the Catholic Minister for Health Tony Abbott. His response to calls for controls on advertising junk food to children has been to say that eating choices is a matter of “individual responsibility”. And it is true that the notion of individual responsibility is one element of a Christian anthropology. However, it has always been balanced by recognition of the inherently social nature of human existence and an emphasis on the common good. Indeed, two of the central doctrines of Christian belief, those of original sin and of salvation, emphasise the corporate nature of human existence, a social solidarity in both sin and salvation. As Gaudium et spes notes, human beings are “social by nature”, not simply individuals who happen to be lumped together. Without these balancing elements a stress on “individual responsibility” becomes the heresy of Pelagius, perhaps the first great promoter of rugged individualism in the history of Christian thought. As I often tell my classes in eschatology, there is no fellowship amongst the damned. Hell is populated by rugged individualists; heaven is a community celebration!

Professor Neil Ormerod is Head of the Sub-faculty of Theology and Philosophy at the Mount St Mary Campus of the Australian Catholic University.

For responses to the budget from Catholic Health Australia and Catholic Social Services, please see this week’s New Briefs.