Robert’s article hasn’t escaped the attention of the right. Today’s Oz features a Green bash written by Gary Johns whose articles frequently appear on the right wing think tank IPA’s website. Gary is the leftie the right loves, a former Labor minister in the Keating government and now Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Australian Catholic University’s Public Policy Institute, his article is right at home with the Oz’s right wing agenda.
However, not content with smacking down an idea before it gains traction in the public’s mind, Gary has plenty to say about the Greens and the people who might vote Green.After visiting some anonymous polling data (unreferenced of course) that labels the Green voter as young and working in Education (bloody teachers) Gary goes on to vent his spleen on these lost souls…
My theory of the green mind is that they are people who are pessimistic about the human ability to deal with the physical world. This is because their experience, as rich and powerful as it may be in, say, human relations, has little bearing on the world that determines our physical wellbeing.
That would put Gary into the hard deterministic camp. It’s also a sweeping generalisation and one that denies the importance of human relations to our society. Still after 9 years as a senior fellow at the IPA Gary’s social agenda is pretty obvious.
Gary is also guilty of rewriting history. According to Gary the VFT was
abandoned when the cost and benefit study proved it was not viable
which might be superficially true but ignores the roles of vested interests who opposed any serious competition to existing road and air transport operators. This is a structural economic issue. By pricing a VFT out of the equation, the entrenched operators preserve their monopolies which in turn reduces government decision making to ad-hoc market intervention of the type the owners and writers for the Oz consistently attack. It also restricts the choices (reduces the freedom to choose) of future generations.
Financial viability is the great debate killer of our times yet one that is used selectively. The financial cost of our Afghan adventure is never an issue when one of our soldiers die. Yet when a so-called “Green” idea surfaces that might undermine the existing status quo, its financial viability is immediately questioned and declared suspect.
The mistake in Gary’s thinking is that while Green issues do concern technology and economics, these are not the only values that matter. Unquestioning subservience to the gods of economics and technology isn’t really in the best interests of a free society or individual freedom.
Boring freight and exciting high-speed rail at Larvatus Prodeo.
