I recall Owen Harries once writing about the emergence of a stateless elite of business people and what that might mean for the political economy. At the time I thought he was barking up a marginal tree but now I get it.
He was talking about “business” psychopaths:
More than two dozen peak business organisations have written to every member of the national cabinet, warning a complex and inconsistent approach to borders is causing enormous harm to the economic recovery.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison echoed the frustrations, lamenting the dislocation and economic hardship some border restrictions are causing.
“That’s why borders in principle, within the federation, are not a good idea,” he told Parliament.
God bless borders. Without them, the Australian economy and people would be in far worse shape. The PM and his “business” cronies would by now have spread the virus to all corners of the continent, there’d be thousands more dead, and the economy would be rocked by compulsive lockdowns as tens of thousands of infected foreign students poured in.
I’m in “business” and am disgusted by this psychopathic lobbying. What kind of cowardly ideology chastises a community for making taxpayer-supported financial sacrifices to save thousands of lives and countless incomes of fellow countrymen?
That this is attacked as weak by media and lobbies soaked in diffused responsibility is the ultimate dog act of gaslighting and irony.
The truth is “business” (as it is portrayed by lobbies and their media outlets at the AFR and The Australian), as well as the Morrison Government, are ignominious wretches; refusing to make the slightest financial sacrifice in the name of their country without squealing like stuck pigs.
It makes me want to punch “business” square in the face.
Which was, no doubt, Owen Harries’s point.
