Mangled Thoughts

The Coalition is taking a caning over its labour market measures. Quite frankly, `Government’ should get right out of the way, Common Law is moe than adequate to resolving any conflicts of interests arising out of contracts. The problem is, the Coal;tion has kicked goals for the opponents of free labour markets. The first goal scored was when the Cabinet first mooted a bill; they asserted, `deregulating’ labour markets would increase productivity. To this false claim, things degenerated, as when Hugh Morgan declared on ABC t.v., many employees earn to much. That the Coalition has mangled what is a very moral and sound case is due to ignorance.

The Coalition boast of being pragmatic and practical, that is as bad as the ALP and its claim to be idealists. Pragmatism is a specious excuse for absolutism. The practical man is an ignorant man, which is summed up by even Liberal politicians dismissing economic theory as a romantic indulgence and the preserve of boffins. Perhaps it is understandable, to a neglible extent;Keynesian economics rules O.K. What, however, such politicians pride themselves on is ignorance, a deliberate spurning of explanation of reality, which is exposed by a telling question, Why do they ride a lift to the umpteenth floor of an office tower, fly in planes, drive in cars and over bridges, consult surgeons? Such politicians should be indifferent as to whether a butcher or a song and dance girly builds a plane or a bridge or a tower. Why bother with an engineer who has had to master an exhuastive body of theories in order to make things which don’t collapse, things which can be launched off the ground and not fall out of the sky. So, too economics, and that is what distingushes the classical Liberal economic tradition against the rubbish of Marx and Keynes.

The consequence is, the Cabinet has engaged the wrong people for advice. The H.R. Nichols Society, for example, is a club of the economically blind leading the blind. It shows, they leant their puny weight to damaging the case. The upshot is, the opposition, while their claims are rubbish too, and what Beazley is promising he would do should he win office is monstrous, is making headway in this fight, boosted by the Bracks Juntas’ use of taxpayers’ stolen property to mount a party political campaign against the reform.

Gerard Jackson and Prodos Marinakis have weighed in with what is a weekly series of podcasts, the first put up this week. Gerard is doing what the advisers and ministers are incapable of doing, explaining the economics of labour markets, and why free markets are essential. The first in the series is titled, Labour Market Reform:Can unions protect wages?

Unions, Socialists, and other critics of the market argue that without unions, collective bargaining, or state intervention wages and living standards would be driven down.

Gerard Jackson explains the fallacies behind this position. How logic, history and centuries of economic thinking refute this notion.

As with all sound theory, of course economics is abstract reasoning and requires concentration to learn and master. Gerard , none-the-less, gives a succinct and crisp account which explains the matter for the layman. Readers might note, union officials read Gerard’s articles on economics and labour markets on Brookes News precisely because, they recognise, Gerard is an economist, as opposed to say keynesians, and to study what the explanations, the theorems are, on the principle perhaps of, understand the opponent in order to attack. Not that the unions have to do much, what with the Cabinet and the Nichols mob mangling the case thoroughly, they are saved a great deal of bother.

The podcast is about 30 minutes, with a couple of short ad breaks. The series is a must listen to special, which the Cabinet also should attend to, and then sack their current advisers and engage those who can do the real work, such as Gerard.