>This is why it is so frustrating to stay with this list;
>seeing continuously hopes for the future based on
>totally false assumptions.
>
>The state and it's institutions are there
>to defend the economic and thus social/cultural
>power of the ruling class.
>
>And at the moment the ruling class is still the
>capitalist class that owns our economy.
>For it to survive, it needs to operate in a
>capitalist fashion (whether it likes it or not!),
>which means making profits
>and not satisfying human survival/sustainability
>and other needs.
>
>Without changing the economic structure you are wasting
>your time. You may ignore this to have a comfortable
>time in the short term, but it will get you at the
>end. If you don't consider it, it will be a rather violent
>end; if more of you give it a thought, it could be
>a channelled, planned and democratic proccess and
>a slim hope to survive.
>
>>
>> My other point is, where is government in all of this?
Eva,
It wasn't Victor Milne who asked where the government is, it was me.
And I really meant it. As I'm sure you know, over the centuries western
countries built up a system of laws and individual rights which are supposed
to protect the citizen from abuse by other individuals, including the rich
and powerful.
This has not been a continuous process, but one which has proceeded in fits
and starts, surging ahead now and then, and then slowing down and at times
stopping altogether. It would seem that, during each surge, there was an
initial burst of reformist idealism which fueled an era of construction.
However, at some point reasonably far along, a tiredness set in, societies
became distracted by other issues, perhaps wars, and the process ground to a
halt. Idealism and the hope that anything could be achieved through
political and social reform faded and a banal form of laissez-faire which
favoured the rich and powerful took over.
I look at Canada over the past fifty years and see something of the pattern
I have described. Following World War II, and until the late 1960s or early
1970s, we built a system based on universality in health, education and
social services. This was a time driven by high idealism. When I joined the
Canadian public service in the very late 1950s, I did so because I felt that
this is where things could get done. I had several job offers from industry
but chose not to pursue them, even though I probably would have made more
money over the course of my career. Since sometime in the 1970s, our system
has begun to unwind, slowly at first, but more rapidly in recent years. Ask
any kid coming out of university these days if they expect to fulfill a
social mission by going to work for government and I'm sure you would get a
blank stare. Since I left government service a decade ago, I have done a lot
of consulting with government departments. During that period I have seen a
cancerous deterioration of morale. I've also seen a very serious erosion of
the corporate memory because ever so many good people "took a package" and
left well before they had to and before anyone could be properly trained to
replace them.
This is the background to my question concerning the whereabouts of
government. Compared to the influence it had in Canadian society in the
first two decades following World War II, government has become a pale
shadow. Instead of continuing to refashion Canada into something better than
it was, our government has mastered the fine arts of obfuscation and smoke
and mirrors. Our prime minister, once an idealist himself, has become little
more than a traveling salesman who tells crude jokes about pepper spray,
perhaps because in his heart of hearts he senses that there is not much else
he can do. The influence of the private sector on government has become
almost totally intrusive. Government now pretends to be a business,
continually watching "the bottom line". Like private corporations, it is far
more concerned with "downsizing" and operating at minimum cost than
providing good services. There are still many good, concientious public
servants left in Canada, but recently some of these people have felt that
they had to go public with their concerns about government's inability to
act on behalf of Canadians because their superiors will not, or cannot, hear
them.
I don't believe that what is needed is a replacement of the system. As we
have learned time and again in history, corrupt systems are almost always
followed by corrupt systems. However, I do feel that advanced democracies
such as Canada were, at one time, on the point of achieving something
special, a society which really did work in the interests of its citizens.
At one time government operated on the belief that it had a very different
role in society from business -- that business must work in the interests of
its shareholders but government must work in the interests of citizens. I'm
beginning to wonder if this belief has been so eroded and government's view
of itself has so confused as to make government virtually ineffective.
Ed Weick
