Is one the price of the other?
Let’s continue considering all those things that we recognized capitalism having given us… How has that played out for us, the human component of this experiment?
Essential services – water, power, gas and telecommunications. In Australia all these services were centralized and Government/State owned – not many remain so. An excellent example of socialization of costs and risks and privatization of profits. Utility companies, literally and legally, hold the population to ransom.
Water is traded for profit by government and industry with devastating consequences for many farmers, remote communities and natural habitat…
Even though most state power is privatized and the cost to produce renewable energy has dropped below conventional energy, the Federal government continues to support the centralized fossil fuel based power industry. We have incentives at state level but still most folks with solar panels on their roof do not get to access any of the power they generate, it all goes into the grid and they get to buy it back at a premium.
Now onto gas, yes it is extracted in a variety of locations around the coast of Australia, and yes it is plentiful – YET – almost all the gas produced is exported, creating supply shortages domestically, which means we pay more for gas than our export partners. This manufactured shortage has been used to force development of the highly contentious coal seam gas industry. Where’s the logic?? Ask the cartel, oh, and the government…
Finally – the telecommunications sector – the mobile voice and data markets have finally settled down, offering a variety of packaged options that at least seem to provide value for money. This has taken a couple of decades, initially in the mobile sector, extortion was the name of the game. Now it’s the NBN that’s leaving a nasty smell in the room – politics and corporate interests combined to generate this stench. I call this the Malcolm/Murdoch trash heap. A simple solution was dumbed down, made more technically complex, more costly to maintain and demonstrably slower so that a politician could be seen as not to be in agreement with the opposition and a media magnate could protect his streaming service. Profit wins again and again and again…
Mainstream entertainment has been profit driven for decades. Courtesy of many commercial participants, instead of taking a risk on something new/innovative we’ve been suffering thru remake after remake… books, comics and stage shows made into movies – movies made into stage and tv shows, tv shows made into movies and stage shows, stage shows made into movies and tv shows… – new generation, new version – just like us they’ve lost sight of the fact that we’re suppose to be evolving… Television stations became networks and networks became media empires comprising multiple news and entertainment platforms – centrally controlled and with an agenda – to maximize profit and influence both political and social outcomes – to further maximize profits…
Social Media and other web based services/platforms – the great disrupters of our time – are un-ashamibly driven by growth and profit – at least their honesty is refreshing even if they appear to be bereft of any other ethical qualities. They place growth ahead of profit. Their plan, to gain absolute market dominance by eliminating the threat of competition – it use to be that monopolistic practices were frowned upon/illegal?? Unfortunately both the legal and tax systems around the world have been caught off guard by these global monsters – they cannot be controlled. And we the people, we are their prey. They don’t just want our money they want our data, and from that to deduce/profile our very essence and sell that information to governments and organizations whose singular desire is to exploit us – to actively control/influence our thoughts and actions…
Depressing…? And have you picked up on the strengthening overt relationship between government and corporate/industrial interests. Western democracy was typified by a separation between both church and state and industry and state – democratic governments are suppose to represent the people not vested interests… TBC in Part 3.