According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, something is "pathetic" if it invokes "pity or sadness or contempt". Pathetic is the only description that can be applied to the behaviour in recent weeks of Australia's economics profession, business organisations, and the media.
Witnessing the reaction of these groups to the federal government's $42 billion stimulus package, it is impossible to avoid feeling anything other than a mixture of pity, sadness, and contempt.
It's a pity that the country's economists, corporate leaders and journalists have been reduced to little more than cheerleaders for the government. It's sad that we've come to this. And there's something a little bit contemptible about the whole thing.
Given the way the country's policy elites have rushed to embrace more government intervention in the economy, more government spending and more government debt, it's as if the 1980s never happened. And what was the point of the recession we had to have if we have forgotten its lessons?
At least in America, the economics profession was willing to engage in some sort of debate about President Barack Obama's stimulus package.
A few hundred academic economists signed a petition organised by free market think tank the Cato Institute that declared: "It is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the US today ... Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth."
Not many academic economists in Australia would be willing (and brave enough) to put their name to something like this. Only one economist who gave evidence to the Senate inquiry on the package was willing to declare it should be opposed. There have been a few individuals and associations that stood against the Zeitgeist of recent months but they've been the exception. Within hours of the stimulus package being announced, business groups were calling for it to be passed. Anyone who suggested debate, delay or deliberation was scorned as being unpatriotic.
It was automatically assumed that a fresh coat of paint on a school gymnasium was the best way to boost Australia's future productive capacity. The government didn't even have to bother explaining what was special about the figure of $42 billion.
Presumably business would have been just as pleased to agree to a $32 billion or a $52 billion package. Nor was the business lobby too concerned by the size of the looming budget deficit or the borrowings required to fund the package. This sort of lackadaisical attitude is what's responsible for the global financial crisis.
The media's main interest was in reproducing the views of everyone who supported the stimulus package. There wasn't too much analysis of what the package contained. The media reported that the Treasury Department endorsed the package as if it were news. Given that Treasury wrote the package it's hardly surprising that Treasury would endorse it. This country's press, which prides itself on its willingness to probe and question (and sometimes even harass) anyone in authority, seems content to accept as holy writ the pronouncements of the secretary of the Treasury.
Bizarrely, many in the Canberra press gallery genuinely seemed to believe that if the big-business lobby groups endorsed the package the coalition would automatically fall into line. The approach of the gallery was along the lines of: "If everyone who's anyone likes the idea of cash handouts how can the coalition be opposed to the package?"
What media commentators failed to notice was the growing rift between the public positions of the business lobby groups and the opinions of their members. The Liberal Party, at least nominally, supports free markets.
The business lobby stopped supporting the free market years ago. Credit must go to the new shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, who started in the job this week by declaring the obvious truth that "the [free] market has made every Australian richer than they have ever been -- even with this economic downturn". It's impossible to recall any business leader who in recent months has come close to saying anything like this.
Treasurer Wayne Swan scoffed at Hockey's suggestion and said that Hockey should "go and tell that to those with superannuation who've been hit by the global recession, people in the stockmarket who've seen their shares halve in value as a result of the global recession". It seems that Swan believes there's some preferable alternative to free markets. What that alternative is, the Treasurer hasn't yet revealed.
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