Libertarian nation by stealth

John Howard will go down in history as the stealth bomber of libertarian politics. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-90) was the libertarian trailblazer; US President Ronald Reagan (1980-88) was her trans-Atlantic twin. But in his ten years in office, John Howard has achieved a libertarian transformation of the public policy landscape in Australia no less dramatic in depth, no less ambitious in scope than either Thatcher or Reagan achieved in their own domains.

Even late in Howard's disastrous first experience of Opposition leadership, he held fast to his plans, as made clear in Gerard Henderson's interview with him in1989 just prior to his being toppled by Peacock:

Henderson: Industrial relations. Assuming a Liberal government were elected tomorrow, what would you do?
Howard: Implement our policy root and branch. If we do that we'll effect a revolution.
Henderson: Straight away?
Howard: Yes. Absolutely. Nobody should be in any doubt. Our attitude on industrial relations has not changed one iota.

The leadership loss, reflection on the negative political yield from his policy candour during that period and seeing the Coalition sunk by then leader John Hewson's radical "Fightback!" platform at the1993 election all taught Howard to keep his mouth shut publicly about libertarian reform. But Howard had not abandoned his plan to pursue it in office.

At the1996 election, reform and restructuring-battered voters thought they were buying a breather from radical change when they elected Howard as Prime Minister. But, under the cover of the "reasonable man" voice and the soothing denials of radical intent and persistent reassurance about the future of iconic institutions like Medicare and the Industrial Relations Commission at that election, Howard gave them the beginning of a decade's fundamentalist reform instead.

Over that decade, the rhetoric remained "relaxed and comfortable": the reality was libertarian revolution.

But, with the patience and cunning of a person who has previously possessed power and then felt the keen pain of its loss, Howard made maintenance of power his overriding goal. The pace of the (latent) program was never allowed to outstrip the ability of voters to remain in a "relaxed and comfortable" hill. The agenda at any given moment was never allowed to be so crowded with transformational policy change that voters might be startled.

Short, plain, bespectacled Howard, with his Akubra and the complete confidence of power, developed a "don't you worry about that" style, a suburban version of his old National Party bête noir, Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

The work of libertarian philosopher economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman nevertheless forms the intellectual foundation of the Howard Government. The primacy of free markets as the underpinning of social and political freedom lies at the heart of the libertarian program. A decisive shift in power and resources from the public to the private sector is the keynote of libertarian policy change.

The central difference between the Howard Government and those of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan is that Howard never announced the revolution - he just quietly, over time, piece by piece, did it. By this means, at least until the recent passing of the WorkChoices legislation, he preserved his Government from any massing of popular opposition to change.

The central difference between the Howard Government and the Hawke-Keating governments is that the Labor governments saw a crucial role for the public sector across the policy framework and actively used it - especially in relation to issues of economic inequality, about which libertarians are unconcerned. (Witness the widening wealth gap which occurred during the Thatcher and Reagan years in Britain and the United States, and in Australia during the life of the Howard Government.)

The other main difference is historical. The Hawke-Keating governments had to negotiate adverse international economic developments for most of their tenure while the Howard Government has enjoyed a massive terms of trade boom in the context of rapid global growth; the extra wealth a lubricant to ease policy change past any remnant voter resistance.

The all-embracing sweep of the libertarian approach is, generally speaking, not well understood. US legal scholar and Reagan favourite Robert H. Bork spelled out in his influential Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline (Harper Collins, 1996), published the year Howard won office: "Culture eventually makes politics."

Bork wrote: “‘Culture’, as used here, refers to all human behaviour and institutions, including popular entertainment, art, religion, education, scholarship, economic activity, science, technology, law, and morality.[It] seems highly unlikely that a vigorous economy can be sustained in an enfeebled, hedonistic culture, particularly when that culture distorts incentives by increasingly rejecting personal achievement as the criterion for the distribution of rewards.”

The libertarian logic is that, since personal freedom and the existence of free markets are inextricably entwined, and since - as Bork puts it - "vigorous" economies are vulnerable to being "enfeebled" by particular cultural practices, then the champions of personal freedom have a licence to police cultural practices - in the interests of freedom and economic vigour.

Thus libertarians can reason that difference (for example, multiculturalism, homosexuality) must be eliminated so that the economy can function better - reasoning that is absurd, to say the least.

That the libertarians’ pursuit of their vision of personal freedom could therefore involve liberticide for others was not understood by voters when they embraced Howard at the 1996 poll. Australians did not think they were installing a government that would rule by dividing the community on race, sex, lifestyle and religious lines, reversing the social tolerance and cohesion that had progressed steadily in the postwar period.

Especially in Australia’s world city, Sydney, where Howard’s long-held economic agenda had many supporters among the business elite, what actually unfolded after the government took office in terms of explicit social division was a shock - a shock whose pain was quickly dulled by successive tax cuts massively skewed in favour of the wealthy.

Enthusiasm for the divisive “dog whistle” politics the government practised from the moment it won office was notable among many blue-collar “Howard battler” voters and gave the government a big political return at subsequent elections in traditionally Labor-voting areas.

Multiculturalism, immigration, border security and indigenous policy all became sharp weapons in the government’s re-election toolkit. The “Culture Wars” so famously fought by libertarians in the United States were adapted for Australian conditions with verve by Howard.

His crusade against the so-called “black armband view of history” is right up there with the most egregious American examples. The so-called “Australian values” debate, the mandating of a national history curriculum, depriving higher education institutions of proper funding, strategic staff and board appointments of Howard favourites to cultural and other bodies are all part of a piece, directed by the government to moulding Australia in its own image.

When Howard hammers “political correctness”, it is not just a political line: it is the battering ram that primes the way for the libertarian initiatives that follow, conditioning social relations in a way that makes Australians ripe for acquiescence.

Howard’s steady, systematic embedding of the libertarian policy agenda in Australia, largely without fanfare and often via backdoor means, can make his approach look ramshackle and puzzling in places - like that of the modestly bright service station owner’s son from Earlwood that he seems to be. It contrasts with the flashy “Fightback!” of John Hewson (PhD in economics from Johns Hopkins University, former International Monetary Fund and Reserve Bank staffer, and University of New South Wales Professor of Economics), and the big, clean policy lines of Paul Keating.

But it has not made Howard less effective in terms of achieving his strategic policy ends. History shows that it has made him more effective. Hewson couldn’t win the only election he led the Coalition to, and then couldn’t hold on to the leadership long enough to get another shot. This was a tragedy for Liberals who wanted the economics of libertarianism without its nasty social agenda. Hewson was about the economics, not about the Culture Wars.

After unarguably the most impressive treasurership in Australia’s history, Keating failed to keep the nation with him long enough as prime minister for Labor to reap the economic dividend and entrench itself in power. The result has been a decade of root-and-branch libertarian change at Howard’s hands.