It’s hard to resist taking potshots at Brendan Nelson’s listening tour diary, and the GrodsCorp crew haven’t been resisting. I plead guilty too.
But there are some interesting questions raised by his Adelaide despatches. Part of Nelson’s aim on this tour is obviously to reinforce his image as “consultative”, and he’s making a virtue of personally writing up his peregrinations. He’s also obviously trying to embed his compassion thing, perhaps because the Liberal Party is so deficient in the “vision thing” department right now.
I started the day at the Adelaide Central Markets and saw my becoming good friend now, Ross Savos, who runs the Central Deli at the markets, and then went on to have the opportunity to speak to a number of the stallholders.
Yikes!
This guy used to make pronouncements about literacy and standards when he was Education Minister. On one hand, maybe we should be grateful that a pollie is actually writing this thing in his own words (unless his staffers are sub-literate). On the other… ? And, then, there’s this:
These are the men and women in small business who really make Australia the great country that it is. They’re out there at 3 o’clock in the morning getting their stalls organised and making sure that the residents of Adelaide have access to fresh, healthy foods of one sort or another.
Making Australia great? Feeding the Adelaidean masses? What did Adam Smith have to say?
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
While Nelson’s palaver is so superficial as to be anodyne, there’s an interesting assumption in here which I suspect is widely shared in Australian culture. Why exactly do we assume that there’s some sort of self-sacrifice and inherent virtue in running a small business? Is it the Protestant ethic – Max Weber’s insight that the coincidence between the rise of Calvinism and capitalism led to the endowment of merchandising (as it were) with a salvific glow? I’m also wondering whatever happened to the cultural theme of the “dignity of labour” – on behalf of us wage slaves, that is. If you prick an employee, do they not bleed? Aren’t we Aussies too?
Mark you should know by now that very little said by the ‘I spent 10 years working at 3 am in the gutter with people who were losing their homes’ prime-minister-in-exile makes any sense at all. Just focus on the positives … did you know he has 5 guitars? Ossome!!!!!!!!
You reckon maybe I’m over-analysing, Ken?
Maybe that’s only because I only possess one guitar?
Huh. We all know you and Rupert have done a deal for lots more guitars.
I did note that he was meeting store owners who opened their shops at 3.00am but no mention of sitting in gutters this time.
When this tour is over he could perhaps join in the Liberal’s Education Revolution.
http://theorstrahyun.blogspot.com/2008/04/liberals-pray-to-tubes-of-internets-for.html
While I didn’t have the pleasure of hearing his interview on 5AA here in Adelaide, I did manage to read the transcript on Nelson’s site which proved to be quite humorous…in Opposition for a decade.
Was he born at 3.00am or something? why does that ludicrous hour keep haunting him?
Mark,
If you keep exposing Adam Smith like that a lot of people might start reading him. In which case the Aussie out there in voterland would realise modern day capitalism is built on a serious misrepresentation and people would stop asking economists to comment on how we should solve society’s ills.
“Why exactly do we assume that there’s some sort of self-sacrifice and inherent virtue in
being a teacher or academic or any other variety of ‘wage slave’running a small business?”Indeed. Good question. I think it’s high time we learned to resist ascribing virtue to *any* occupation.
People make their choices of occupation — I was about to say their “work choices”
— on the basis of what they like doing, what interests them, and, of course, the money. No one in the workforce is nobler than anyone else — and this is something that unionists and leftists should keep in mind.
“…and saw my becoming good friend now…”
Now you, too, can write just like Cesar Vallejo, in only three easy steps — without even any lessonings, either!
Maybe he has benign prostate enlargement and that condition gets him up at that hour. Only a guess though.
Right on! Let’s all give three cheers for bailiffs, repo-men and the credit companies who employ them.
Bailiffs and repo men- members of good standing in the Miscellaneous Workers Union, I think.
Too right, Gummo. People who work in debt recovery have to put up with a level of abuse and nastiness that few of us could tolerate on a daily basis. It’s not a job I could do.
And without them, no one would extend credit to the poor — it’d be too much of a risk.
That said, I don’t believe bailiffs and repo-men (now there’s an old-fashioned term!) are any more noble than any other type of worker — but they’re certainly no less.
Thanks for this Adam Smith quote.
The next time some arsehole starts banging on about how a uni education is a “national” asset and that it is the duty of the entire nation to pay for the sacrifices of uni students, well, I’ll just trot out this piece of wisdom.
“It is not from the benevolence of the uni student, the uni graduate, or the uni lecturer that we expect our nation to progress, but from their regard to their own interest.”
And then the bastards can start paying in full for their own education, instead of poor working stiffs & wage slaves paying for the education.
You’d better read him on public goods, steve, before you get too excited.
We had a nice chat with a very friendly bouncer outside the Step Inn on Friday night. Was in bed way before 3am though. I didn’t want to risk running into any politicians at that hour. Not that I’m not saying that politics, too, can be a vocation, mind.
/Weberian allusion
Obviously Dr Whatever thinks all Liberal Voters are 1970s tragics, with reading ages under 10 and IQs of the seriously mentally challenged. No wonder he’s Mr 10%
Doh!
Nelson would tell you that repo men suffer just as much as the people whose goods they are repossessing.
And then, later, he’d say it was a different kind of suffering, of course, but he recognised it all the same, and he spent 10 years of his life working with people whose goods were being repossessed.
Why, only the other day – at 3 am in the morning – he was sitting in the gutter with someone who used to own five guitars but then one was repossessed so now there’s only four.
And when you see him, just go up to him and say “G’day Brendan” ‘cos that’s what it’s all about really.
I helped pay for my uni education by working as a short order cook at 3am in the old Adelaide East End Market.
OK truth be told maybe some of the money, just a wee bit, went on non-university related pursuits.
But at least I helped the men who made Australia great and fed Adelaide.
Mark? Is that your way of saying that I should pay for someone else’s university education?
People go to uni so they can draw a higher salary. Why should they be subsidised by blue collar workers?
I’m just saying, steve, you might find Adam Smith an interesting read on the topic, is all.
Did you realise you’re channelling Paul Keating btw? That was one of the arguments he made in Cabinet in favour of HECS.
Paul Keating seems to be getting smarter in his dotage. He is speaking in lockstep with me more & more often!
I don’t think he was in his dotage in 1987 by any measure!
There are plenty of 2nd opinions available on that!
Well, I guess he was way off the mark with his comments about “North Shore housewives sunning by the pool and studying sociology”, steve, and how the workers shouldn’t pay for their indulgences.
Rather a contrast to Whitlam’s rationale of 15 years beforehand. Always did blow hot & cold did Keating. One statement so looney he should be put against a wall, the next day he comes out with something more pragmatic than a fisherman or truckie would.
I’ll get around to reading Adam when I finish the works of his relative Wilbur, who writes some compelling social observations.
Without subsidised university fees, how can the children of the blue collar worker ever hope to get a degree if they so wish? Why should tertiary education only be available to those who can pay tens of thousands of dollars up front, Steve?
For the record, when I worked for a *very* short time doing skip tracing, my union was the ASU, who organise lots of call centres. I probably could have joined the NUW who do the same.
I suppose bailiffs employed as State public servants could join the PSA. Don’t know about repo people.
I know arguing with Steve at the Pub is not exactly on topic but I think a quick comment on user pays university might slot in here well.
The clearest counter argument is US medicine. Here, my degree cost me six years and around 40 thousand in fees. This means that, come graduation time, I can work for 20 dollars an hour, sliding up to the princely sum of 30 dollars an hour over the next five years. In public practice. Both doing and training to do useful things.
An American medical graduate hits the ward with upwards of half a million in debt. They not only have no particular reason to feel grateful to the government that trained them but also had better start earning hand over fist. Now. To hell with the useful things.
There is no doubt I went to university for my own nefarious purposes but the subsidisation of the course allows a little less pressure to become a business man rather than a public servant and a little less justification for self-righteous opportunism.
Let’s all share previous work experiences (esp those involving 3am shifts) – eventually we may figure out why 3am is so “special” for Brendan….
labourer: foundry in Collingwood
labourer: foundry in Port Melbourne
casual fruit picking, paid by the weight
go-between [kitchen, waitresses] at restaurant near Eltham
warehouse (storeman) work in Port Melbourne
casual painting etc Brunswick
sorting mail at Richmond PO
NONE of these involved working at 3am.
Put your mind at rest SATP, according to a report I read in the OZ during the week, it seems many eligible youngsters are bypassing tertiary education to cash in on the big bucks to be had working in the mining sector.
And I didn’t know that it was only blue-collar workers who pay tax and “subsidise” tertiary education. Bugger! I want all that tax money back, I’m a white-collar worker!
All that means, ambigulous, is that you’re not one of those who made Australia the great country it is today.
For that, either getting up at 3 am or sitting in the gutter at King’s Cross at the same hour is obligatory.
Sorry about that. Up to now, I bet you thought you were quite useful.
And you?
A smug, complacent little parasite, and quite happy about it?
GregM, mckenzie seemed to me to be being ironic and playful, and I’m not sure you are. I recognise it’s hard to read all this sometimes, but let’s not get personal, please.
I’ve never had 3am shifts. I did have to get up at about 5 for work as a labourer a few years back, but that was the earliest it got. Also, I did some hospitality work that would sometimes finish close to 3am: does that count?
“I’ll get around to reading Adam when I finish the works of his relative Wilbur, who writes some compelling social observations.”
I stopped reading old Wilbur about the time he started doing books about Egypt. For those who are interested, it’s all there in the Smith oeuvre: the white man’s burden, the noble (and ignoble) savage, cold war espionage, ugly stereotyped characters, family sagas spanning several generations, geopolitical rumblings in the jungle. A real feast of social observation, and quite entertaining.