Love and economic efficiency

Trust was more prevalent in decades past because there was less at stake. Life was simple and expectations modest. The growing sophistication, wealth and aspiration facilitated by an open economy have made such a trusting attitude conditional. With more to lose, sections of the community demand government abandon the successful free market philosophy and introduce new legislative controls designed to ensure we embrace what is truly important. Politicians then yield to such nonsense, lacking the courage to inform the masses we are on the right path but that there is no way to guarantee the leap of faith needed to complete the journey.

This postmodern dilemma was succinctly captured by former Cambridge professor, Onora O’Neill.

“Elaborate measures to ensure that people keep agreements and do not betray trust must, in the end, be backed by - trust,” she said during her 2002 BBC Reith Lectures.

“At some point we just have to trust … So trust cannot presuppose or require a watertight guarantee of others’ performance, and cannot rationally be withheld just because we lack guarantees.”

Without such frankness, Australia will fail to play its part in the long and troubled quest for absolute freedom. Western history is marked by violent convulsions away from hierarchical control, like the French and American revolutions, and the collapse of the Berlin wall.

While there’s been obvious back-tracking, the West has generally edged forward under visionaries like Benjamin Franklin who declared that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

The Australian character is under threat because of an unhealthy reliance on legislation to buy fleeting respite from ourselves. Instead of blaming the market, Howard and Rudd should be acknowledging the only way to protect our fair go culture is through a conviction that what we most value can’t, in the end, be delivered by government.