Opinion & Commentary
Self-interest skyrockets in spoilt nation
The Reserve Bank's latest interest rate rise has been particularly revealing. Not only has it confirmed what the everyman has long known -- that the strong state of the economy has created unprecedented new wealth across Australian society -- it has also unmasked a particularly ugly modern affliction that is reminiscent of the Stone Age.
"I see. I want. I have. . . If I don't have, it's someone else's fault."
Such strenuous calculations are clearly not confined to the thoughts of our Neanderthal cousins. This seems to be the attitude of much of modern suburbia.
Newspapers across the country are dedicating columns to distraught "battlers" who now must budget and save money. Grown men and women, allegedly responsible for their own lives and in control of their own fate have been complaining loudly that interest rates and petrol prices have risen. Everywhere, and particularly in Sydney, families with two cars and double-storey houses are complaining they can no longer afford cigarettes and a rise in the price of beer.
Here is the highlight reel of what some of the papers have quoted:
"We need to vote for someone who will look after us."
"I think more people have been disgruntled by the things that John Howard is doing with interest rates and petrol."
"We won't be going out to dinner and the movies as much as we used to -- we'll stay home and watch Foxtel."
"All I can say is, it's the wrong time to raise rates."
There is something perverse and wrong with this.
Isn't all the angst and aggravation that inevitably accompanies each interest rate hike somewhat petty?
We are one of the wealthiest societies in history with record levels of consumption: iPods, plasma TVs, cars and DVDs.
A 25-basis-point rate hike, for most people, is a six-pack of beer and a night at the movies they have to do without each month. Hardly the bare essentials. And certainly not enough to bemoan the fall of civilisation.
Then again, this Government has shown that those who stick their hands out and collectively cry "gimme gimme" in their direction for long enough might just strike the jackpot.
The Government did, after all, relieve CPI indexing on petrol after similar howls of inequity, a move that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
Ironically, we complain so much because we have so much. That not being able to pay the monthly Foxtel bills suddenly seems so dastardly is a sign of our good fortune and our unprecedented levels of comfort. It is a golden age to be an Australian.
It seems people are happy to keep the benefits of a market system, but expect someone else to bear the cost. Interest rates can go down, but not up.
Petrol prices can decline, but when they rise, it's the Government's fault -- as if Howard himself has been implicit in the supply and demand imbalance in global oil markets.
All the benefits and none of the costs -- it perfectly describes the mentality of modern life. Any economist or Zen monk will tell you there are good times and bad times when prices rise and fall that merely reflect the mechanics of a market economy or, indeed, the mechanics of life.
Of course, governments don't help foster individual responsibility when they keep telling us they'll look after us.
That they have single-handedly brought the good times, but had no hand in the deliverance of anything bad. They set a poor example by accepting all the kudos but none of the blame. We shouldn't buy it.
In truth, we are responsible for our own lives and, in this country anyway, we largely determine our own outcomes. Sure, if rates rise, if petrol prices rise, we feel the pinch. Such is life in a wealthy, free-market democracy.
We find ways around such impediments. We save, we budget, we might have to accept that we can't have everything we want exactly when we want it. We adapt. That is, after all, what separates us from the Neanderthals.
Gaurav Sodhi is a researcher at The Centre for Independent Studies.
