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November 3, 2004
This is a good post by Evan Jones over at Alert and Alarmed. It exposes the way competition is used in economic policy talk to mean something quite different.
Competition is supposed to be what neo-liberal economic reform is all about, since the goal of these reforms is a competitive market economy though mechanisms such as deregulation and privatisation. National competition policy, introduced under the Hawke-Keating Labor Govenment to overhaul government owned businesses and laws, is generally seen as boosting the economy big time.
Evan says:
"The rational interpretation of the seminal Campbell and Hilmer reports is that they were about deregulation and privatisation. They were not about competition per se (however defined); they were about escalating the rights of the private sector (meaning corporate, not petty bourgeois, capital) over public regulation and public sector or community provision.
The word ‘competition’ then is code for what corporate capital does in practice. We will decide, says the top end of town, and whatever it is we do we will grace with the label of competition on our terms."
The rhetoric of the true believers is about a free market full of small dynamic innovative entrepreneurs. The reality is one large corporations stifling competition through driving small businesses out of business (Coles and Woolworths) or large corporations such as Telstra engaging in anti-competitive behavour.
The limits on competition can be seen in the way the Howard Government is willing to privatise Telstra but not break it up so as ensure that it did not dominate the market. It's neo-liberal rhetoric stops short at ensuring a competitive telecommunications market, or giving the regulator more teeth to ensure the actuality of competitive markets. As Evan points out :
"The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the administrator of the Trade Practices Act with its expanded coverage, gets by with impoverished conceptualisation of its job and inadequate resources, with inadequate support from its political masters or from the judiciary."
As he says the Age of Competition has been a conjuring trick."The meaning of competition, distinguishing its socially positive and negative dimensions, and whether we want competition and on what terms we want it is off the agenda."
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