Archive for society

Ruminations – post school outcomes

November 5, 2009 · Filed under homeschooling, politics, society

A newspaper reported that the OECD Report on Intergenerational Social Mobility found Australia’s education system was the third worst in the developed world for contributing to social mobility.  This fed into my biases about the ineffectiveness of school.  School’s on-going reputation as  *the* mechanism for social justice, creating “equal opportunity”, is baffling, when all around we see it doing such a brilliant job of perpetuating the status quo.  Surprise surprise, doctor’s kids have a good chance of becoming doctors, and Centrelink kids don’t.

The problem here is the flawed belief that an institution can function as a change agent.  It can’t.  The only change agent out there is another person- and in some cases an heroic teacher can be that person.  But here, the institution of school works against any developing mentor relationships, as at the end of the year, you get another teacher.  And on the side of the coin, this structure itself can preclude teachers making major investments in their relationships with the children in their class, as they know that the end of the relationship is already proscribed. 

Anyway, I pulled up the report and have to confess that I struggled with it because it’s full of economic jargon and tables that are too small to read on my PC.  But I got enough to realise that the journo at the Oz had got it wrong, and that Australia’s system is comparatively good at facilitating social mobility – comparatively, not in absolutes –  because the UK, USA and southern Europe have virtually no social mobility (even though everyone goes to school).

This research supports *early* intervention/care/education as the best way to overcome social disadvantage.  So this is not news.  Everything you read says that if you want to make a difference in kid’s lives you have to get in there early (80 – 90% of the brain synapse connections are made from age 0 – 3)  Policy makers just can’t seem to come up with wholistic ways to do this.  They continue to direct their efforts at school – starting at kindy when the kids turns 4!  If you believed they had the nous to be that organised, you’d think it was a deliberate plot *not* to make a difference in the lives of disadvantaged children.

Further, it confirms my view that school is designed for and by the middle classes/elites.  It serves their children well – it’s obviously designed as a neat continuum from a middle class infancy, and if you didn’t get that, well, you struggle.  And I note that the good economists at the OECD recommend investment in early intervention for disadvantaged groups rather than re-designing school to work for non-elites.   I mean, we wouldn’t want to change what is working is working perfectly well for us, would we?  Worse, we don’t seem to have the imagination to know that it could even *be* different.

 The report finds that in many cases, it is the average socio-economic standing of the school’s parent group, rather than the socio-economic standing of the individual child’s parents, that is the key to a child’s own socio-economic outcomes after school.   This one’s pretty interesting, and I guess is behind the push for aboriginal kids to go to flash boarding schools….. but obviously this is only ever going to be the solution for a minority of disadvantaged kids, as it’s a numbers game.  If a whole bunch of disadvantaged kids rock up to Geelong Grammar, then they are bringing down the average.   I gather that this is also the argument for a school voucher system…  if you can’t afford to buy a house in a rich area and thereby get your kids into the local state school where the other rich neighbourhood kids go, you should be able to buy your way into these schools with your vouchers. 

Anyway, I guess that makes it clear what you are actually buying when you spend money on a private school…. and the more money you spend the more you are putting your child into an environment where chances are all the parents are filthy rich, and somehow – by osmosis – but the best I can think of (and I couldn’t find analysis in the report as to *why* this finding holds) is that if most of the parents are uni-educated and rich, then this is the value system that the child is being exposed to and so they work hard to fit in with that peer group.  Is it that the dominant value system of the school community is a key driver of individual outcomes?

This makes sense, and is supported by all the research that says that in our society teenagers are more influenced by their peers than their parents – and the main reason for this is that they spend far more time with the former than the latter.  That is actually the community within which they have to function, rather than the community of parents/adults.

And is the reason for the high academic results (though I haven’t seen any research on subsequent adult socio-economic outcomes) achieved by some of the charter schools in the US working with disadvantaged groups?  That the seeming inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm of the (young) individual principals/teachers involved is able to oust the general malaise?

On a related topic, I see that in her quest to have more students from low socio-economic backgrounds get to university, Julia Gillard is starting to try to break the link between school results (TER & similar) and university entrance.  (An acknowledgement that the school system can’t  deliver equitable outcomes?)  In Victoria they are are trialling new ways of offering university places – focusing on aptitude tests and interviews and portfolios of work. ( All good news for people who don’t bother to go to school by the way)  I see that the President of the Australian Secondary School Association (of something like that) is all in favour of this, as he feels that the focus on university entrance severely limits the “meanings” of post-compulsory education.  Unfortunately the only other “meaning” he mentioned in the interview was vocational training.

Well, this is all half-baked I’m afraid.  I’ve had it sitting in draft thinking I’ll have time to clear my thinking, but I have just seen that Noel Pearson has pipped me to the post in the latest Quarterly Essay - on “Education and Equality in Australia”. (!!)  The title?  “Radical Hope”.  Anyway, I’m off to find a decent newsagent & I’m hoping to be inspired!

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Dispatches from Cooktown

October 24, 2009 · Filed under The Big Lap, parenting, society

Port Douglas,CookTown&Dunk Isle' 073

Grassy Hill

For some reason I hadn’t realised until now *why* Cooktown was called Cooktown.  I mean, if I’d contemplated the issue, I probably could have figured it out.  Cook……Town.  How funny.   I’m glad I don’t have an eponymous town.

It’s spectacular around here.  We went to the top of Grassy Hill where Lieutenant Cook went to have a look around.  Apparantly he was a bit concerned by the navigational conditions.  It must have been a bit like Apollo 13 – no Houston, but unlimited oxygen and coconuts.    The drive to get home seems to be very strong, as evidenced by these pioneers.  It’s interesting – so much effort to go so far away, but *really* wanting to get home….. even at the risk of shortening your life.

However, we obviously weren’t inspired enough by this derring-do, as we decided *not* to go to Cape York.  Initially I was very hopeful that we would do this, but I think we just didn’t have the energy levels required to get the kids up and down an extra 2000km of dirt.  I’ve pencilled it in for P and the boys in about 10 years time.  One  of those “coming of age” masculine rituals, where the boys can do a lot of driving even though they don’t have licenses. (I have loads of ideas as to how P can replicate male initiation ceremonies for our boys in this bereft culture.  Do you think this is a problem?  I don’t have any daughters to plan a menarche ceremony for, so my enthusiasm manifests inappropriately.)  I’m trying to avoid the binge-drinking, drugs and disrespect of women which seem to be the current ways in which boys try to tell the world that they’re “all grown up”.  

“Good luck”, I hear you say.

PS.  This was also the site of another of my excellent attempts to impart Australian history.  “Captain Cook is remembered for discovering Australia.  But of course, he didn’t discover it.  Aboriginal people had been here for around 60 000 years, and other seafarers had also visited before he got here….. (desperate look to P – who obliges “Captain Cook claimed Australia for England”.. which gets a blank look from T and segues into a conversation between P & I as to the strange mores of the time that allowed him to consider doing this, and the sad truth that maybe not much has changed…..) so T is able to summarise “Captain Cook didn’t discover Australia.”  I’m glad we’ve got that covered.

Port Douglas,CookTown&Dunk Isle' 083

Musical Boat

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Teeth-whitening and tanning package: $269

October 24, 2009 · Filed under ethics, feminism, society

So said the sign outside a “spa” in Port Douglas.  And that gives you a good idea of the type of place it is.  Very beautiful, but teflon.

This got me thinking (again) about the ways in which the culture tries to clone us all into one definition of beauty (tanned, with white teeth!)  Surely something not confined to our own time and place, but now that all the photos are photo-shopped, and you can literally cut and paste and colour your own body, it seems  more extreme.  Plastic surgery actually exists in my own social world (baffling but true.) I particularly remember a child who had her ears “pinned back” as soon as it was legal – aged 7.    It was ‘to save her from being teased at school’.   I wonder what other lessons and values she draws from that experience?  Looks are important.  It’s important to be like everyone else.  Don’t stand out.  You can’t cope with being teased. 

Does she feel sorry for the other kids with sticky-out ears who haven’t  had their ears “done” yet?  Will she ever feel that her body and choices were violated?

Am I just sensitive to this because I have sticky-out ears?

But as it happens I am here to confess that “teeth” is one area where I have been thoroughly socialised into believing that they have to look a certain way.  Blessed with a higgley-piggley mouth of teeth, I had braces when I was 13, and I never questioned the necessity of this, and even now can feel happy that they were “fixed”.   Due to the (painful) rapid movement of my teeth into their “correct” positions, I now have a dead tooth in the front of my mouth that is getting more and more yellow as I get older.  (A dental plot?)

I hope you’re getting a good visual of me, witch-like, with sticky-out ears and yellowing teeth.  It’s amazing I can function in this world at all.

Anyway, I have been advised that the only way to “fix” my yellow tooth, is to have a crown.  Which will involve vast expense, and the removal of a perfectly functioning tooth.  So far I have baulked.  All my principles are at stake:  How can I spend money in this way when other people don’t have *any* teeth and can’t afford them?  The money should be given to a dental clinic somewhere.  If I do this, I will be buying into the whole beauty myth.  The more happy yellow-toothed women out there, the better, as we demonstrate that white teeth are not pre-requisites for a fulfilled life.

BUT (and this is a big but) I *really* don’t like my yellow tooth.  And no intellectual reasoning seems to be able to overcome my flinch of disgust/concern when I see photos of my smiling yellow tooth.  I can intellectually realise that “it doesn’t matter”, but my socialisation doesn’t seem to allow me to emotionally realise the same.  Of course, other people probably have yellow teeth too - I just don’t notice them.

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Ruminations

October 1, 2009 · Filed under homeschooling, parenting, politics, society

Halls Creek was a weird kind of apartheid arrangement, where all the white “service” people (police/teachers/public servants) had nice houses at one end of the town, and the local aboriginal people lived in the seeming ghetto -  at the other end of town.  I can understand that if the community doesn’t have enough skilled people to take up local positions then you have to attract them from somewhere else, and that probably includes access to a reasonable house.  But why is the urgency and outcome there for one end of town and not the other?  Why are there ”ends”?   How is it that decent housing has been achieved in only half the town?  I read in the paper that the Fed Govt SIHIP (strategic indigenous housing initiative program – or something like that) for the NT has spent $45 million dollars and haven’t yet built a single house.  Where the money went seems unreported.

Speaking of the lack of investigative journalism – another article in the Oz the other week…..  Lightening Ridge, a community in NSW.  Many of the children have been removed by DoCS.  The mothers claim there has been no abuse; that the DoCs workers view their lifestyle through a white middle class prism and don’t approve, and remove the children citing “neglect”.  Presumably the families have gone through the relevant DoCS/govt processes and got nowhere, so contacted the fourth estate.  The relevant journalists managed to get the official line from DoCS, that the childrens’ removal had been appropriate, and nothing else.  Any 15 year old could do that.  Where is the investigation?  If my children were removed because my lifestyle  didn’t fit with govt official values and I was desperate and contacted a journalist and their “investigation”  comprised a phone call to the relevant govt dept and writing down the official line….. I don’t know what I’d do.   That seems more like what you would expect in China, rather than Australia.  

Anyway, this was an interesting article for me on another issue as well. When they visited Lightening Ridge, the journo interviewed a white middle class woman who had lived there for many years in an abandoned bus with no running water and homeschooled her children (I know this as the journo reported these astonishing facts)    It seems there is no school there.  This mother was waxing lyrical about the fab childhood her kids had had, learning about the bush and cars and cooking etc…. and that this was the childhood that all the kids (black & white) were having…..  anyway her kids had “made good” (more astonishment) one doing postgrad studies in Canada, and the other a public servant with the Vic state govt (you can see where the journo got sidetracked….)  Anyway, obviously I appreciated the h/ed kids “success” stories, but I wondered whether the aboriginal children were seeking/sourcing similar opportunities from this childhood – not so much that these are the only type of outcomes that are “good” in my view, but did the white middle class mum in that environment continue to express/espouse those middle class values of “the world is your oyster”  “you can do anything” ” what will you study at uni?” etc etc… and it was actully her input at this level that made a difference?? 

Anyway, I have no knowledge of the potential ”successful” outcomes achieved by the aboriginal children of the community as the article didn’t go there.

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Dispatches from Halls Creek

September 18, 2009 · Filed under The Big Lap, society

Old town

Old town

We spent a night at the “lodge” at old Halls Creek, 15km out of town – site of WA’s first gold rush.  This place is a mecca for anyone who appreciates the surreal.    We pulled up into the ghost town type surrounds.  A few minutes after we entered the darkened ’reception’, someone yelled from out the back and turned on the lights, and we were served by the bustling Filipino hostess.   I surveyed the mini-mart, but did not make any purchases due to the uncertain age of the groceries on offer.  T spotted a metal detector, and we were encouraged to have a go outside…. and if we liked it we could purchase for $550.  We had a go,  but as it had no headphones, the sound was piercing, and our ears weren’t tuned into the nuances of the tune, such that waving the thing over my wedding ring elicited the same scream as the rest of the dirt road (all gold?)

There was a resident fugitive in one far corner of the park, and a couple of other “permanents”, who had forgorn a boring patch of garden in favour of collections of spare parts for cars and fridges.  I spoke to one about our plans to camp at Wolfe Creek – one of those fantastic laconic characters:  ”That’ll be nice and hot.”  “Nice bumpy road for you.”  It was only later that I realised he looked suspiciously like John Jarratt. 

The best part, of course, is the lodge is for sale!  I asked the lady how much, and it’s $600 000 – three acres – freehold!  OR, she’ll swap for another house, or what have you.  Loved it.

We then set off down the Tanami for Wolfe Creek Crater.  The road *was* nice and bumpy.  And when we got there, it was nice and hot too.  Fortunately the walk to the top of the crater wasn’t too far, so we could achieve it at midday – the ridiculous time we arrived.  T’s comment:  “Where is it?”  I think he was expecting a burning meteorite.  P hiked down into the middle so he could see whether his watch stopped (it didn’t) and could report back on the beautiful wildflowers down there, which we had missed.  

We ditched our plan to camp there due to the searing heat and lack of shade, and headed back down the nice bumpy road.  That night I overheard J playing with his cars:

Red car:  “Would you like to come on the bitumen?”

Blue car:  “Yes please!”

We are now camped at the caravan park in town – initially for one night, which became two to give the kids a break from the car.  I walked around the town, and over the purchase of an citronella candle at the local general store, had an interesting conversation with the chap there.  He’d been in town for two years, and was frothing with anger over the poor circumstances of the aboriginal people in town and the lack of care from mainstream Australia and its government.  So much so he’s emigrating to Canada in disgust.  It was a wide-ranging conversation covering his submissions to Senate Estimates Committees, the Australian Constitition and  Eleanor Roosevelt’s speech on the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights… a portion of which I attach here, and if you were here in Halls Creek you would understand why this resonated for him.   I pretty much know nothing about “Aboriginal Affairs” but you can’t pass through this part of Australia without having some thoughts about it, which I will try to put down at some point.

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Wolfe Creek Crater

Wolfe Creek Crater

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Saying Goodbye

May 26, 2009 · Filed under The Big Lap, parenting, relationships, society

Well, not quite.  Still here at home actually.  Our departure has been delayed by 24 hours, in the realisation that we aren’t actually ready to leave.  I didn’t realise how much work it would be at the last minute, packing everything into the car and trailer, while concurrently ensuring that pretty much *all* our belongings are packed into the backyard shed, and the house is sparkling clean for the incoming tenant. 

I’m kind of losing it actually.  J is really temperamental with all the changes that are happening, and needs a fair amount of input.   I spend a *lot* of time breastfeeding when I really want to be doing something else.  The kids want everything that has already been packed into the trailer and the last semblance of a healthy lifestyle has gone to shit.  I even drank a can of coke today.

I also have a bad fear that we’ll be gone about 10 days and the kids will be well and truly ready to come home.  Suddenly the realisation of “12 months” will sink in, and the recriminations will begin.

I have been saying goodbyes.  As a friend pointed out, I am actually on the “good” end of the goodbye.  It’s kind of easier for the person embarking on the ”new” life  than for those staying home, as their normal life continues, with the absence of people who were previously a part of it. 

Of course I plan to be in contact with people while we’re away.  But there are two people who really only understand face-to-face contact.   Firstly, my precious little nephew who has just turned one, and started at family daycare.  (How dare they appropriate the sacred word “family” and apply it to their business?)  If I wasn’t going away he could have come and played with his *real* family.  Secondly, my dad, who (despite my telling him) has no idea what’s happening, and I can only hope will still recognise me after such a long absence.  I wanted to cry after visiting him on Sunday, but it felt too self indulgent….  it might have made me feel better. 

If I lived in a different type of society, the idea of going away for 12 months would be unthinkable.  I would remain here – fulfilling my family and community role and duties – and this would be in the best interests of the dependent members of my extended family.   It’s a conundrum.  I can only be grateful for the freedom and affluence that makes other choices possible.  But now that I *have* a choice, I have to recognise the essentially selfish nature of my choice to choof off when I could be at home doing something that would make a difference to others. 

Sigh.  Has this got really maudlin?  I’m knackered.

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Civil Disobedience

April 23, 2009 · Filed under ethics, homeschooling, politics, society, voluntary simplicity

T is now officially in Year 1.   By law in Western Australia, I am supposed to register him with the education department as being home educated.   This would involve a “moderator” visiting me about once a year to discuss our progress (or lack thereof).  Well, stuff that.  I figure this is a crap system.   I mean, come on.  Either attend school 30 hours a week for approximately 40 weeks (1200 hours), or they come *one* hour a year…..  to offer what, exactly?

I’m not a Ronald Reagan fan, but I understand his point, when he said the nine most frightening words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.    The ideology of schooling is such that it is a *compulsory* government service.  Along with gaol and being committed into a mental institution.  Hmmm. 

I am deliberately rejecting their service…  so I am obliged to notify them of same, and welcome them into my home so they can moderate us against their service’s benchmarks?  No thanks.  The only legitimate reason I can think of for the government to want to do this would be as some kind of child welfare check.  Which it demonstrably *isn’t* as

1) they don’t turn up till the child is 6; and

2) under their own rules they can’t insist on actually interacting with the child.

A few months ago I was getting riled up about this bad law, and started looking into civil disobedience, as I was intending to deliberately break this law.  And who should turn out to be the father of civil disobedience….  inspiration to both Ghandi and Mandela?  None other than Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden and inspiration for the whole voluntary simplicity movement!  I love this guy!  I confess I find the old fashioned style of writing somewhat turgid, but when he writes that it is the *duty* of every thinking (wo)man to disobey bad laws, I’m reading him loud and clear!

If the education department ever tracks me down (sirens might start sounding at their HQ when I press “post” on this) I’ll be

a) suitably impressed by their big-brother capabilities, and

b) interested to see what they actually do. 

I’ll also be interested to see whether I am more or less welcome than outlaw bikie gangs down at the Australian Council for Civil Liberties.  I’m not yet saving the world, but I’m staking a claim on our own space in the world.

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Easter at our house

April 15, 2009 · Filed under cooking, health, parenting, society, spirituality

I just thought I’d share the tangled web we weave in trying to help our children know about the traditions of mainstream culture, while concurrently trying to hide from it all.

As you know we are not practising Christians, but one of the things that annoys me, so must annoy them even more, is how the symbols of the celebrations are retailed months prior to the relevant day.  Obviously it is in the shops’ best interests if we eat hot cross buns and chocolate eggs for weeks, not to say months, rather than on one day.  But I refuse to be a patsy to them.

In rebellion I made my own hot cross buns on the day.   While putting on the crosses, I re-told the meaning of the symbol to T, who looked suitably appalled.   I think I may be missing some nuances, because the way I tell it, it’s a story of persecution rather than sacrifice.   P looked horrified that I was spreading this propaganda.  This then segued neatly into the story of the resurrection, where P started to really look concerned.  I explained to T that there was good historical evidence for the crucifixion (which only became apparant to me when I visited Jerusalem many years ago) but not so much for the resurrection – which not everyone agreed had happened (look of relief from P.)   On partaking of my home made buns, T informed me that they weren’t as yummy as the one’s that Grandma had brought last week from the shops.  Great.

On Saturday, a friend advised that he thought that there might be good historical evidence for the resurrection – in the form of hundreds of eye witnesses.   For some reason I thought it was only Mary Magdelene and a few disciples, so maybe I need to do more research into the most common version of events.  But as it happens, my respect for Jesus’s life and teaching does not require him to rise from the dead.  And in fact, this is one of my overall beefs with Christianity – this whole focus on an afterlife is embedded in a negative view of human nature – that we could only be inspired to be “good” by external rewards and punishments – whereas in my worldview the rewards of doing the right thing are always intrinsic.   And in fact, need to be.  Sometimes there is no external reward for doing the right thing.  There might even be an external punishment.   (Jesus’s death here could be a good example…..   but then mangled by becoming alive again!)  Some people do die doing the right thing.  That is the unfortunate truth. 

On Sunday morning I had hard boiled eggs with smiley faces drawn on them.  Then later in the day I felt like a meanie and bought them three tiny choc eggs each for an egg hunt at home.  (Aside:  often I feel that my kids get so many “treats” provided by others, that I can’t give them any myself, as I am adding to a toxic overload.  However I’ve obviously frightened people away, so on this occasion I could choose to provide a small amount of chocolate myself.)  So I hid the eggs amongst much excitement.  Interestingly the first finds were gobbled, the second finds were given to me, and there was not much interest in finding the third.  When I ate one that had been given to me, it really wasn’t particularly yummy.

From all these discussions, T has had two questions.

1.  “Mum, what colour clothes did Jesus wear?”   Umm……. mainly brown?

2.  “Mum, did Jesus have a beard?”  Umm…… not sure.  Some discussion on whether they would have had razors.

So there you have it.  Jesus as object of sartorial interest.

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Morality, Freedom & Responsibility

March 24, 2009 · Filed under ethics, politics, society

Ok, more ruminations on political line-ups.

Here is an insight on morality that I would like to share with you all, as I found this quite interesting.  This is lifted from the work of Jonathan Haidt, as reported by Don Arthur in “Policy”.  According to Haidt, morality is intuited – and only rationalised afterwards - and moral intuitions rest on five foundations:

1)  Harm/care.  This flows from our ability to empathise and creates an aversion to seeing other people suffering.  It generates feelings of compassion as well as approval for people who care for the vulnerable and protect those in danger.

2)  Fairness/reciprocity.  The foundation of judgements about justice and is associated with feelings of anger, guilt and gratitude.  Fairness is about following rules that enable individuals to cooperate in mutually beneficial activities.  When people believe that they or others have been treated unfairly they feel anger.  When they feel that they have treated others unfairly they feel guilt.

3)  Ingroup/loyalty.  Is about putting the group first.  To be loyal to the family, tribe or nation is to put its interests and welfare above your own and those of outsiders.  It is associated with feelings of trust towards other group members and wariness and distrust towards outsiders.

4)  Authority/respect.  Is associated with feelings of awe and admiration towards the group’s governing institutions and leaders.  It gives rise to virtues such as respect, duty and obedience.

5)  Purity/sanctity.  Is associated with the emotion of disgust.  To do with an aversion to things linked to the spread of disease (rotting meat, pus).  To be pure is to keep yourself clean and disease-free.  It gives rise to rules about food, personal hygiene and sexual behaviour.  A person who feels that they are morally unclean feels shame.

Social conservatives subscribe to all five moral intuitions, and see all of these as the basis for public morality and government action.  Social progressives (libertarians and liberals) only subscribe to the first two intuitions, and think that the last three are matters of personal preference or prejudice.   Hence the tension between the groups about what types of matters should be subject to government action, and differing views on issues such as gay marriage.

This helps to understand conservative angst about “post modern” morality, and their concerns that we are all going to hell in a handbasket as there are “no moral truths” anymore.   Turns out they extrapolate that social progressives don’t subscribe to *any* of the moral intuitions, when in fact the first two remain a basis for consensus.

Now to the freedom bit.  It seems there is a (class-based) argument from social conservatives that many people can’t cope with the personal freedoms promoted by social progressives.  For example, not everyone has the personal and financial resources to cope with the fall out from easily available divorce.  So, the argument goes, we restrict people’s personal freedoms in order to protect people from themselves/predatory forces (and not uncoincidently promote our own moral agenda at the same time.)

Now this is interesting to me, because isn’t this a version of the same (class-based) argument from social democrats/liberals that many people can’t cope with economic freedom?  That is, they would not be able to negotiate their own conditions of employment, would not be able to plan their own retirement etc etc?  So we restrict people’s economic freedoms in order to protect people from themselves/predatory forces (and not uncoincidently promote our own worldview at the same time.)

I’m not saying either argument is completely wrong….. and of course I support some type of safety net that catches people before they descend into hopelessness/homelessness/helplessness.   But it’s interesting to think about how much freedom – and therefore responsibility - our ‘leaders’ think we, as individuals, as families, as communities, can cope with.  And I guess my argument (as a freshly minted libertarian) is that they under-estimate us…… and thereby undermine us.

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Finding a niche

March 19, 2009 · Filed under politics, society

I write to report that it turns out I am not an anarchist.  I think I might be a libertarian!  Don’t you love it when you find a label that helps explain you to yourself?  I owe this insight to the latest edition of “Policy” magazine.  I’m sure you are all subscribers already, but I have only just discovered it (you see how my lack of newspapers is starting to manifest…)

So, a libertarian is someone who is socially progressive and also economically liberal – that is, believes in small government.   I knew I was probably a libertarian when I read that it is “not a popular philosophy.  It’s supporters have never controlled a major political party or created a popular mass movement.”  Right, that sounds like the kind of forlorn hope I’d normally get involved with.  At the risk of major over-simplification:

Belief in social control + economic freedom = conservative

Belief in social freedom + economic control = liberal

Belief in social freedom + economic freedom = libertarian

Belief in social control and economic control = …ummmm….  dictator?

Note to old friends who knew me in my Marxist days:  this is a sad truth that came true for me: the older I got, the more disenchanted with government I became; there’s only so many years you can work for government and/or interface with them before you lose hope, and decide that the need for accountability inevitably leads to bureaucracy which inevitably leads to inertia, few outcomes, loads of unintended consequences and a bunch of self-important bureaucrats.   But worse, it now appears to me that government is implicated in community breakdown – in that the more they take responsibility for the solution to social problems, the less responsibility individuals and community take.   I’m still workshopping this in my own head, so feel free to howl me down. 

Anyway, this is not to say I am about to cite “low taxes” as the answer to every possible social problem.   In my view, the problem with “government services”, as with our our now crumbling capitalist system, is one of scale.   When free trade as the ‘peaceful, non-coercive exchange of goods and services’ transmogrifies into faceless suits crunching together rebadging and selling debts, it’s not surprising when the whole edifice topples over.  I recommend E. F. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful”.  I think I need to read it again, as I suspect it has the answers as to how we might reinvent ourselves through this crisis.

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