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June 26, 2007
As we know in many Aboriginal communities, social organisation has completely broken down. In some communities indigenous people have shown they have great difficulty in governing themselves. Some -commentators -eg., John Hirst writing in The Australian-- say that there is no point in consulting them about the creation of authority; authority has to be created for them. The reaction by Canberra has been to treat parts of the Northern Territory as a failed state. It implies the imposition of social discipline.
Geoff Pryor
John Hirst, the conservative historian, argues for this position. In The Australian he says that it is the libertarian ethos that is the reason for the the development of a white underclass.The Aborigines were liberated into a libertarian age and they will not be able to help themselves or be helped to a better life until the libertarian impulse has exhausted itself. He says:
Among the many misfortunes of Aborigines is that they were freed from civil disabilities and controls just when the libertarian wave swept through wider society. They became eligible for the dole when the dole became a right not to be interfered with. The prohibition on their drinking of alcohol was dropped just as wider society moved to make alcohol more readily available. Schools were provided for Aboriginal communities just when truant officers were deemed no longer necessary. As the missionaries went out, pornography came in.
Hirst argues that the rules of capitalist society have broken down and the habits of work do not exist any more. Consequently, indigenous people do not accept, nor have they internalised the rules of work that govern the capitalist society. Hirst has forgotten about the family, which is different from civil society.The norms, values and habits--the ethical life-- of the family have also broken down largely because of the grog and sexual abuse.
I accept that we, as individuals, workers and citizens, internalise a set of social norms, and that these shape our conduct as free subjects in a liberal polity. Wasn't libertarianism a part of consumer capitalism, rather than an alien body? Wasn't it a response to the previously strong conservative emphasis on order and traditional values? Hirst is pointing the finger at libertarianism, implying that it is a rejection of rules and norms. Is it? Isn't Hirst actually referring to social liberalism of the 1970s and its ethos of personal development? Are not social liberalism and libertarianism different strands of liberalism?
Hirst goes on to say that libertarianism has created an underclass:
The wider significance of the Government's takeover of Aboriginal communities is that it is a spectacular official announcement of how poisonous the libertarian approach has been to marginal people. It has helped to create an underclass in society where life on welfare is the norm and the single mum's latest boyfriend bashes and sexually abuses her children. There is much to be done if the Government wants to stop sexual abuse of children. Every report shows children in such households are most at risk.
Libertarinsim creates social chaos
Why is it libertarianism and not welfarism that creates an indigenous underclass? Or why was this libertarianism and not poverty? This is crucial because Noel Pearson's strategy is one of internalising revitalised social norms, which mandate personal responsibility for work, education and the welfare of children, so that they become free from dependence on passive welfare and so that child neglect and abuse cease.
Pearson addresses the social norms of the ethical life associated with people's conduct in both the family and civil society. He does not imply assimilation which is what Hirst appears to imply
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