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by Bob Ellis
BOOK REVUE :First Abolish the Customer, 202 Arguments
Against Economic Rationalism.
Economic rationalism has swept through our lives and is
heralded by many to be equivalent to a Second Coming - you've
heard the words. Author Bob Ellis, a most honourable possum
stirrer, gives us some perceptive logic and stories about
this groundswell of fundamentalist philosophy.
Economic rationalism at its
heart is a refusal to spend money on the unnecessary. If a
company can make a bigger profit by shedding this or that
worker, it should do so. This is regardless of how much the
worker has done for the company in the past, or for how long
he has done it, or whether he has worked well or loyally or
selflessly. If he is now superfluous to company needs, or
a drain on company profits, or a threat to the overall profit
level or company shareholders - if he is, in short, not longer
worth his hire - he should go, however untidily , and seek
work elsewhere or go on the dole.
This attitude is not too hard to understand given human tendencies
of the past five thousand years.
What is remarkable is the belief- a belief all economic rationalists
publicly share - that this decisive, sudden process of sacking
people is good for society, or good for the economy as a whole.
By sacking people in their hundreds of thousands, the theory
at its heart asserts, you create employment and stimulate
spending.
A moron could see the opposite is true. But not an economic
rationalist.
The Sistine Chapel was a project of Pope Julius ll who proposed
that Michelangelo paint on its extensive ceiling a copious
dramatisation of the Creation, Fall and Salvation of Man.
Michelangelo began with reluctance, suffered backache, drips
of paint in the eyes and the chronic ailment of all good artists,
procrastination.
When will there be an end? cried Pope Julius from the floor,
far below.
When it is finished, growled Michelangelo.
Soon he was a year over the deadline, though soon is perhaps
not the word, and Pope Julius began to climb the scaffolding
and hit at him with a stick. It took two years longer than
planned and in terms of the Vatican coffers was a financial
catastrophe.
But... in the four hundred and fifty-six years since its completion
the majestic awe-inspiring result, regarded widely now as
the greatest work of art on the planet, has immeasurably enriched
with the dollars of admiring tourists the exchequers of not
only Italy but also the Catholic Church worldwide. It went
over budget, but it didn't matter. It proved, over time, a
financial success.
'First Abolish the Customer, 202 Arguments Against Economic
Rationalism' is Published by Penguin Books Australia Ltd.
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