A Modest Member of Parliament [Bert Kelly], “Tell us what to do next, they bleat,” The Australian Financial Review, January 17, 1975, p. 3.
Reprinted in Economics Made Easy (Adelaide: Brolga Books, 1982), pp. 149-51, as “Free Enterprise (1).”

A newly elected member of Parliament soon acquires a repertoire of conventional cliches on which he can draw without effort if he finds that conversation is flagging or a meeting is falling flat. One such clarion call on which I have relied for many years is, “We believe in free enterprise.” If said with feeling, it usually evokes some tired applause and at least you know it’s not getting you into trouble.

And in these days the idea of private enterprise is more popular than ever because the results of government interventions are so blatantly bad. So I use the phrase continually and am gradually making up some leeway in the popularity stakes.

But sometimes I wonder whether people are as keen on private enterprise as they say they are. Even farmers, who are its most dedicated and vocal adherents, are often ready to ask the government to step in if wool prices tumble or if drought or fire ravages the countryside.

Many other sections of the community are also not nearly so devoted to the idea of private enterprise as they imagine they are. For instance, you often hear captains of secondary industry proclaim, in ringing tones, that if they could only get more tariff protection then they would really show their private industry paces. What they are really saying, of course, is that if they could only be subsidised enough by either the government or the consumer, then they would show how independent they were.

Eccles says that he is frequently surprised by either the innocence or the ignorance of many secondary industry leaders. Either they do not know, or they forget, that high tariff protection is a subsidy paid to them by the rest of us and by exporters in particular. Eccles says that if this lesson was really hammered home to some of our captains of industry then we would hear less eloquence from them about the virtues of private enterprise.

But this dependence on either the government or the consumer has lately taken a more dangerous turn. For instance, if tariffs are lowered to the extent that it endangers a particular industry, then that industry’s spokesman will castigate the government and complain that the government should, in such a case, give the threatened industry guidance (or even direction) as to which alternate product it should manufacture.

For two reasons, it would be wrong for the government to accept this responsibility.

  1. First, it would mean an intrusion by the government into decision-making by business, and that would run directly counter to the oft proclaimed belief of industry in private enterprise. Governments aren’t good at making business decisions.
  2. More dangerous would be the fact that once the government had directed, or even suggested, that an industry switch to produce a particular product, from there on that industry would be ready to blame the government, or to lean on the government, if it got into any kind of trouble. In short, the industry would have the government by the wool for ever.

You continually hear secondary industry leaders bleating that the government won’t tell them what to do next — what new investment they should make. A Labor Government may give way to this temptation, but if they do, they will regret it.

*****
A Modest Member of Parliament [Bert Kelly], “Free enterprise like premarital chastity,” The Australian Financial Review, June 4, 1976, p. 6. Reprinted in Economics Made Easy (Adelaide: Brolga Books, 1982), pp. 151-53, as “Free Enterprise (2)” under the date June 4, 1975.

All Members of Parliament have idols which we worship ostentatiously in public but which we quietly ignore in private. One of these must surely be our much vaunted belief in free enterprise. When I am on the hustings, or indeed when I am performing anywhere in public, my dedication to this sacred cause is beautiful to behold. And when I am declaiming on the subject at my political party meetings, the few members who happen to be awake at the time have even been heard to say “hear, hear” with bored voices and once or twice have clapped in a desultory manner.

The respectability of this subject received an addition fillip recently when a speech by that great whiz-kid of big business, Mr Rod Carnegie, was delivered to the Institute of Directors on 15 March. These paragons of free enterprise were so moved by Mr Carnegie’s message that they paid for it to be printed and circulated to Members of Parliament so that we could imbibe once more the pure milk of the free enterprise philosophy.

Unfortunately, neither Eccles nor I were invited to the distinguished gathering, so I am unable to describe the fervour with which such sound sentiments were received, and I must rely on my imagination to fill in the details. But I have no doubt that everyone present was happy to hear their philosophy spelt out with such elegance. They probably gave their haloes an extra polish, folded their tired hands across their tummies and, replete with good works and fine food, had a little doze. Then they went home and hoped to forget all about it.

And I can understand why. They know that free enterprise is a good thing to be eloquent about, as is motherhood, but very few really believe in it any more.

At that distinguished directors’ luncheon, I wonder how many captains of industry were thinking, as they clapped so loudly, how next they should approach the Industries Assistance Commission (I.A.C.) in order to get yet another consumer subsidy paid for by exporters. Perhaps there was a director of B.H.P. there, thinking of asking for a temporary duty on cold and hot rolled strip steel, the raw material for other industries which would either have to pay the subsidy or pass it down the line for exporters to pay. Is this what they mean by free enterprise, the enterprise to wring another subsidy out of some poor struggling drought-stricken cocky who hasn’t the brains to know that he is being clobbered by the biggest and best people in the country? And his ignorance of what is happening to him will be fortified by the fast footwork of some (and only some) of the primary industry leaders who are prepared to sell the long term interest of their farmers by coming to a convenient compromise with the people who are raping them, saying with pathetic impotence, “Well, we can’t help it happening, so we may as well make the most of it.”

Or perhaps others in that august gathering were planning their next move if the I.A.C. recommends that a particular industry be eased out by a reduction of duties, by formulating their ringing reply, “We will accept this only when the government tells us what we ought to do next, tells us an alternative use for the resources previously employed in the protected industry.” Perhaps, in their hearts, they can see the nonsense of their demand coming from the disciples of free enterprise, but one of the things they soon learn is to quickly douse such doubts in a bucket of eloquence. But what kind of a free enterprise system would we have if the captains of industry are told by the government what they should do next? Would they not be blaming the government, and asking for help, every time the wind blew cold?

No, the belief in free enterprise is like the belief in pre-marital chastity; it is nice to talk about but only a few really believe in it any more. And perhaps Mr Carnegie doesn’t either. Not really, except at luncheons.

Note for Economics.org.au readers:
This last sentence did not appear in Economics Made Easy, which was funded, launched and had a foreword by Sir Roderick Carnegie. I am not suggesting this was the reason the last line was edited out; it could be that after this public prodding, information about Carnegie was brought to Bert Kelly’s attention, or it could be that Bert Kelly was just continuing the same prodding you can see at the beginning of Carnegie’s speech and edited out of Economics Made Easy because readers may misinterpret Kelly’s humour, or many other possibilities.