Indeed a portion of the Liberal party contains pro-business ideas, but true liberalism provides no assistance or affirmation of a particular group. When we take on the name Liberal, we do not need, nor want a reputation for defending the ‘rich’. We rather wish to hold as our ideals, that of entrepreneurial zeal, individual action and responsibility, our rights to property and ownership, and above all, liberty. Liberalism is for the free and independent choice of all individuals; swayed by no special interest or group but the common right of all to be free to choose. Our means to achieve these ends lies in laissez-faire, free market devotion (in other words capitalism).
Capitalism has become a much hated term and consistently linked with “exploitation”. The vale of distinction of the employer and employee is immense. But, no greater fallacy has existed. It is always and ultimately the free action of individuals within society. The ability of men and women to trade at will, in terms that are favourable to all parties. Capitalism which has become corrupted by misunderstanding, means freedom. It is the liberty of individuals and allowing one’s own effort (in which I mean income) to be mutually exchanged. This is the freedom of Australian’s to expend their effort in any way they wish.
A person’s life is their effort, where should they be limited or controlled in the way they dispense with their effort, they have lost their freedom. They have lost control of their lives. They are no longer individuals of free action, but controlled subjects at the whim of the few that rule over them.
The elimination of their basic rights to ownership over one’s own body, life and effort will never allow for a betterment of humankind and will always work in the reverse.
I will repeat again. Capitalism is not about the employer or employee. These two parties are almost irrelevant, or at least should be considered conjointly. It is the consumer which holds the power in the market. Or, more rightly, the market is the consumer. The consumer is without doubt the individual who chooses to spend their property and income on items that provide and satisfy them adequately. It is each and every Australian that maintains choice of where to shop, eat and live and provide for competition.
It is however, government intervention that limits the choice of the consumer. It is the government that erodes competition in a free society. Central economic planning, whether by minimum wage, fixed prices, subsidies or tariffs, will always limit the power of the consumer, which of course means you. When government decides to play with prices on products, it plays with you. If government levies a discriminating tax on a product, it has burdened you. When government provides a service by monopoly, or even allows a corporate monopoly, it has decided for you. Government as an institution has no faith what so ever in you the consumer.
It becomes largely ironic that the consumer elects these representatives to do the thinking for us and eliminate our right to choose. We elect these people with a lack of faith in our own capacity to think and act. In this climate, we are not able to live as peaceful, civilised Australians, for that is precisely what our government bureaucrats take away.
Milton Friedman put it wisely in his book Capitalism and Freedom where he said “underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself”.
As I have been listening to the various members of the Liberal party speak on policy direction (not the policies themselves), I have become extremely worried about this leaving behind, or ‘dumping’ if you will, of our very beliefs in the direction this state or country should be heading. Instead of allowing what we know to be right forming policy it becomes what ever the voting public can eat out of the ever growing government pie. This idea of consensus, or even moving to accommodate what has been proven wrong over the centuries is extremely disappointing. To this I refer to our middle class welfare which is now common place. We have lost confidence in our values, and sold-out our ideas on what is purely and simply a pathetic attempt at vote grabbing.
To be frank, if the voters of this country want high taxing, high spending government, the Liberal party would never be their first consideration. Let them vote Labor and watch this nation sink. It offers little help to the party to be playing ‘Big Brother’ and giving the ‘poor guy’ a hand as Labor will always hold that ground.
I find it extraordinarily surprising that I have to present to this party a reason to return and focus on our home ground; almost as if the concepts that the Liberal party had once adopted as core beliefs are thrown a sunder by false and ignorant consensus building. The party may lose it’s way at an increasing pace if we continue to ‘toe the line’ on flawed policy being spat out by the socialist governments presently in power.
Our party can, and without doubt ought to be focusing on policies that remove these boundaries on competition and choice in the market. We ought to drop tariffs as they drive up the prices of goods in society, taxes ought to be low, for each dollar extra in the hands of consumers is a dollar extra towards the production of goods that add value to the economy and thereby increase the standard of living.
The key to our focus ought to lie in increasing the maximum level of production. Each policy designed with this in mind will assuredly proceed with a real and clear advancement in the nation’s standard of living.
What we have to do as firm believers in free-enterprise, is prove how they can benefit everyone. We must define every step of the way with clear rejection of policy based on faith and feeling. Rather than tout voodoo economics like the socialists, we need to present our beliefs as truisms – facts that are undeniable.
To pull Tom Paine’s banner, it is to us that will promote what is simply ‘Common Sense’. We can show that we do not take one particular group or special interest into perspective, but the whole of Australia. Not just looking at the effects of policy on one area, but on everyone. This is our reason for a common sense approach to the direction of policy in this party, in this state, and in this country. We do not favour the employer or the employee, the rich, or the poor. We favour what is true.
Government holds a monopoly over the law, and with such power we must constitute ethical conduct as a supremely undeniable principle. This means the refusal of politics toying with the haves and have nots in society. Without coercing one through restriction or redistribution, we will axiomatically prove an ideology with no contradictions. We will show the left that it is acceptable to disagree, but that it is their principles that will not allow freedom and work strongly against society through mystical, dogmatic perceptions of the mechanics of human interaction and cohesion.
We favour each and every person in this country, and their rights to just and equal treatment from the law. The delusion of getting ‘something for nothing’ must be quashed.
This is common sense. This is right. This is liberal.
