John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 27-28, under the heading “Business”.

In its initial stages, a mixed economy consists of a few government controls and an almost laissez-faire business world. But, as time progresses, the mix changes. The controls increase and the freedom begins to disappear.

The end result is a controlled economy — either fascist, socialist or communist — with complete central control, no freedom of action and no meaningful property rights.

And as the economy progresses through the stages of the mix, something else starts to happen. The problems confronting the economy begin to become more numerous and insurmountable: inflation, unemployment, balance of payment problems, gluts, shortages, bankruptcies, industrial unrest.

And who, or what, cops the blame? Free enterprise, of course. Evil capitalism.

But, genuine free enterprise cannot exist within a mixed economy. They are, by definition, mutually exclusive. And, if it was, in fact, the partial freedom in the economy that caused the trouble, then how come the trouble gets worse as the freedom is reduced? Surely the opposite should happen?

But the trouble is getting worse and today business in Australia is in a sorry state. The amazing central finding of the Jackson Committee Report, for example, is “that there is a current but deep-seated crisis in Australian manufacturing industry.”

This is no more than most Australian businesses deserve.

These businesses have, over the years, sacrificed their independence and freedom in order to benefit from government handouts and assorted privileges. But the tiny strings attached to these handouts and privileges have multiplied into a net, and, like Gulliver in Lilliput, the businesses are trapped — except in their case, it’s a net of their own making. The longterm consequences of yesterday’s short-term gains have arrived.

There is no point in business leaders saying that government interference in the economy must be accepted as a fact of business life, and businessmen must learn to live with it. You can’t live with a cancer indefinitely. It kills you in the end. The refusal of just about all business leaders to face up to this fundamental fact is one of the most deplorable and unforgivable aspects of our present economic, social and political crises.

Average working people can claim that they didn’t know better. Business leaders can’t.

There is, however, one thing worse than the business leader without the guts to stand up and fight, and that’s the person who accepts the system willingly and uses it to make a quick dishonest buck. And the only thing worse than that is business leaders with neither guts nor honesty, which is most of them.

If it wasn’t for the fact that they will take innocent people with them, we could happily stand by and watch a ruthless and just Nature mete out the punishment most Australian businesses so richly deserves. Instead we just have to stand by unhappily, but occasionally smiling and ever so occasionally laughing out loud.