IPA REVIEW ESTABLISHED in 1947 by CHARLES KEMP, FOUNDING DIRECTOR of the INSTITUTE of PUBLIC AFFAIRS Vol
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IPA REVIEW ESTABLISHED IN 1947 BY CHARLES KEMP, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS Vol. 47 No. 1, 1994 7 Unemployment: 58 Economic Knowledge Who or What is to Blame? and the Churches Helen Hughes Malcolm Anderson The search for scapegoats is deflecting Fewer than one in four in the religious media attention from. the real causes. believe that minimum wages keep young people out of jobs. 11 Under Fire Eric Home Issues which the inquiry into Victorian police shootings should consider. 2 Letters 14 A Peacetime Role for the Defence Force 5 From the Editor David Evans The romance of knowledge and power. Finding useful employment for the Australian Defence Force. 16 Moore Economics Des Moore 19 Employee Share Schemes — Much nonsense is being spoken about A Mixed Blessing population. Nick Renton 18 Press Index The benefits are not as great as they first Should the authority of a UN committee be seem. invoked to over-ride Tasmanias anti- homosexual laws? 23 Mabo: A European Perspective 22 Down to Earth Martin Mears Ron Brunton Ancient disputes should be kept buried. New research on the greenhouse effect which the media have ignored. 25 Science, Morals and AIDS 39 Letter from America Lucy Sullivan Harry Gelber Our knowledge of public health is not being applied to A mood of profound ambivalence has settled the fight against AIDS. on the US public. 41 Around the States 31 What Makes Democracy Work? Mike Nahan Robert D. Putnam The Commonwealth Government is Why democratic governments succeed in squeezing out the States. some places and fail in others. 56 Strange Imes Here comes the junior green brigade. 37 Citizenship at Risk Gre3ory Melleuish 63 IPA News Civic values are at stake in the republican A new project on Federalism is announced. debate. 43 The Myth of Migrant Debt Ian Mott Editor: Ken Baker Artwork: Bob Ca well. Production Graphics: Louise Cato. The claim that migrants create the need to Printing: Wilke Color, 37 Browns Road, Clayton, 3168. import capital is based on a false assumption. Published by the Institute of Public Affairs Ltd (Incorporated in the ACI). ACN 008 627 727. ISSN: 1030 4177. 45 Bad Books Editorial and Production Olricc: Ground Floor, 128-136 Jolimont H.W. Arndt, Michael Duffy, R.J. Stove, Neil Road, Jolimont, Vic, 3002. Ph: (03) 654 7499; Etc (03) 650 7627. McInnes, David Kemp, David Penington and Penelope McKay, Chris Fountain, Brian Subscriptions: $40 per annum (includes quarterly Facts). Trainor and Roger Sandall each nominate Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed. However, potential con- tributors are advised to discuss proposals for articles with the Editor. the most pernicious book or essay of the last Views expressed in the publications of the IPA are those of the authors several decades. and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute. The Malaise in the Welfare State MICHAEL NOVAKS article `The Crisis in the Welfare State (IPA 0 . • Review Vol. 46 No. 4) did not see deep letters enough into the moral malaise to advent of the modern welfare state, as much as the poor — the argument which the welfare state has not only RH Tawney has demonstrated in his that reducing the supports offered to contributed but also, paradoxically, classic work, Religion and the Rise of the poor by the welfare state will provided a partial solution. Unfor- Capitalism.) By placing primary allow space for private philanthropy tunately he did not highlight the fact responsibility for a just distribution to fill the gap, strikes me at best as that welfare recipients are not the of wealth on the state rather than on extremely naive, and, at worst, as only ones to benefit from the growth those who have that excess of wealth, merely an ideological justification for of the welfare state. we have allowed our individual social reducing the taxes of the well-off. In Novak discusses three principles, responsibilities to be reduced to fol- the absence of any sign that those with articulated by Pope John Paul II, lowing the letter of the taxation law. wealth are willing to exercise the which should limit the intervention of This in turn has legitimized the moral dimension of liberty and take the state in public life: the principle personal hoarding of wealth through some personal risks to invest in the of subsidiarity, the principle of evil manipulation of the tax legislation. common good, the state has little op- effects, and the principle of personal Novak is fond of quoting Catholic tion but to continue to provide moral agency. Popes. The papal tradition of social economic support to enhance the The principle of subsidiarity is doctrine also teaches that while each economic freedom of the most disad- violated when a community of a individual has the right to private vantaged members of our society. The higher order (eg the state) interferes property, this property should be welfare state does not so much in the internal life of a lower com- used to promote the common good, "crowd out" private charity as make munity, depriving the latter of its and that once a person has provided allowance for the moral weakness of functions. One of the evil effects or for his own needs, he should dis- those with excess wealth. unintended consequences of this is a tribute his excess wealth to those in sluggishness on the part of many David de Carvalho, need. The social use of private wealth Blackburn South, Vic citizens towards their personal and is a habit practised by very few busi- social responsibilities. ness people. The late John Bell and Unfortunately, Novak suggests the successful Body Shop Wayward Children that this sluggishness is limited to entrepreneur, Anita Roddick, are welfare recipients. He asserts that two examples. Rather than writing "false excuses" like a "bad back" have impressive cheques to charities, MOST WRITING on the subject increased the number of malingerers which is nevertheless commendable, ofstreet kids (including IPA Review, in society, and he is probably right. they use the profits generated by their Vol. 46 No. 4) talks about how we But just as common, if not more so, is businesses to invest in employment- should treat the children who are al- the excuse heard among the clinking generating activity. And they do so ready living away from home. Perhaps of cocktail glasses at high society par- out of a personal sense of social instead of treating the symptom, we ties: "I pay my taxes! I dont owe responsibility. Contrast that with should be trying to prevent the con- anyone anything!" Or worse still: "I those many business groups who ception of babies who will become the and many of my wealthy friends pay waited with baited breath for the next crop of wayward children. no taxes at all, and that is right, be- Federal Treasurer, Mr Willis, to an- Homeless children come, to a cause it is the law." nounce the size of the budget deficit large extent, from single or step- What is reflected here is the fact before deciding whether to increase parent families, from a background of that many of those who do so much to employment-generating investment. fighting parents or from drug-ad- generate wealth in our society have The moral component of an invest- dicted parents. Of course, some come totally lost sight of their moral obliga- ment decision has been forgotten, from apparently stable and well-off tions to contribute to a just distribu- while the business community waits, families. It is not possible to predict tion of that wealth. The welfare state relies and becomes dependent on the infallibly how a particular child will has contributed to this attitude. (I say state to deliver a risk-free economic turn out, but there is a tendency for "contributed to" rather than environment. people in certain circumstances to "caused", as Novak might say, be- In this context of a reduction of produce a disturbed family atmos- cause the origins of this moral decay personal moral agency among all sec- phere and disturbed children. How, go much further back in time than the tions of society — the wealthy just as then, does society discourage these IPA Review, Vol. 47 No. 1, 1994 people from bringing babies into the pendence has been firmly acknow- The situation in each of the States world? ledged by our former colonial masters would parallel that of the Common- Two ingrained dogmas need to be and never questioned by our interna- wealth in all respects, but individual examined. These are the assertion tional trading partners, doubt about States could, of course, exercise their that human birth is a miracle, or a gift our independence has been cast by the right to retain the British Monarch as from God, or some such thing rather republican movement, particularly in Head of State. The advantages of this than a natural consequence of a pre- the minds of those (including Young proposal include: vious natural act. Birth is no more Liberals) who have not attained wis- The use of the honourable term miraculous than the germination of a dom through age or inheritance. Crown can be retained in all legal seed or the metamorphosis of a cater- Yet many of the doubters would documents, otherwise all references pillar. The other dogma holds that abhor the thought of living in a to the Crown would need to be people have a right to procreate at any republic dominated by politicians changed to the People of Australia, time and in any state of preparedness with an elected and therefore, more or the People of Victoria, etc.; alter- and on no better pretext than whim.