Re: Re: Re: Comparative collective action

[Rob Schaap <bantam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

G'day Michael,

> It is much easier for people to believe that some "bad" individuals  > or corporations do evil deeds than to understand systemic problems.

Importantly true, but that doesn't mean the force of empirical evidence that
has been the last twenty years isn't opening a few eyes.  British and Kiwi
media discussions do seem to accommodate bigger critiques than the old
scapegoating shit we Australians are still copping.

The privateers have the institutional setting going for 'em in a big way, but
the PR is proving a tough job in light of British trains, Yorkshire water, and
Auckland electricity.  And Australian banking, insurance, airways and telecoms
look set to wake a few up any minute now.  Twenty years ago, the
'privatisation' suitstaffels had the public ear because they had no record
(the electorate not being thoroughly schooled in the ways of the robber barons
of the 1870s or the Great Depression of the 1930s) and the welfare state did
(to such a degree that governments of all stripes were glad to rid themselves
of complex and gargantuan responsibilities which were all too easy to sheet
home at election time - best to let 'the hidden hand' cop some flak for a
change, eh?).

It'll be very interesting to see how Britain responds to Blair's mendacious
interpretation of his 'mandate' - unions [if they can't build social support
for this campaign, they might as well give it away], libdems [Kennedy seems a
dangerously good pollie to me]; and moderate mainstream media [from whom
Michael Keaney et al seem to have plenty of critical articles to choose these
days], and how the Kiwi socdem government goes, poll-wise, with its
(admittedly modest and selective) re-tooling of the state.

The 'perceived corruption' table Ian proffered shows that the world's leading
socdem countries (Scandinavia, Netherlands) top the tables there, as they did
in that contentment table I mentioned a month or two ago.  Anglo populations
are beginning to notice that.

Australia is still a few years behind the curve (our whole Labor Party has
suddenly taken to responding to questions with scarily familiar vacuities like
'social capital', 'social entrepreneurship', and 'partnership' - so we're
embarked on the whole 'third way' road-to-nowhere for the moment), and we have
no way to express our views other than in the odd bleat to the editor.  But at
least the letters are of a more gratifying quality these days.

BTW, the word is drifting out that a 'shoot-to-kill' order was heard on scores
of police radios just before those PNG students began to die on their own
campus grounds - even people lying down in submission were riddled with M16
slugs.  Can't see the PNG government getting its privatisation programme back
on track for a while now ...

Cheers,
Rob.