Pearls and Irritations

Business leaders — and the politicians that enable them —  must be put on notice that they must serve society, not the other way around.

In an excellent article by Martin Wolf headed “Business leaders on notice” we are reminded that business and business leaders must serve society.

But all too often it is business with the cooperation of corrupt governments supported by compliant corporate media that sets the  rules for society. We see that in the gross inequality in both power and incomes across the western world that have given rise to shallow populists like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison.

We see examples of this corruption of markets and crony capitalism in Australia.

There is tax avoidance on a massive scale, with the rich using tax havens and other devices. Society’s interests are ignored.

Meanwhile, industries lobby behind closed doors for government subsidies. For example, private health insurance funds receive subsidies of about $12 billion a year, and fossil fuel subsidies cost taxpayers $10.3 billion in 2020-21. They are business scams. Who cares about society!

More than $90 billion has been spent on JobKeeper with little transparency and no government plan for repayment, or the government insisting on company shares in return for the JobKeeper subsidies. Labor MP Andrew Leigh has correctly described JobKeeper as “the biggest waste of Commonwealth money in history”. Many companies paid bonuses, increased profits but still clung to enormous subsidies from taxpayers. Society was treated with contempt with the poor and disadvantaged  pursued by Centrelink for the last dollar.

For years the Business Council of Australia and other business leaders have resisted the introduction of a carbon tax and effective taxation on foreign-owned mining companies. Society and the public interest were ignored. Business won out again.

The public service has been de-skilled as it contracts out its work to friends in business.

And in putting business ahead of society, the Morrison and Perrottet government have let Omicron loose across the country. NSW might have been the “gold standard”, but society got the wooden spoon.

As Wolf tells us, business leaders must be put on notice that they must serve society .

John Curtin called it the “social question”. Society must set the framework for business.

Can we be safe from more Trumps, Johnsons and Morrisons that are in league with corporations and the corporate media that put business interests ahead of society?

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