WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.800 Well, good afternoon, everyone. 2 00:00:02.740 --> 00:00:09.240 I think we have a very, very special hour ahead of us this afternoon 3 00:00:10.540 --> 00:00:13.600 because we'll be being addressed by Clive Hamilton 4 00:00:13.600 --> 00:00:16.700 and his book, Growth Fetish, 5 00:00:17.540 --> 00:00:20.500 had more impact on me when I read it 6 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:23.260 than anything that I've read for a very long time. 7 00:00:24.560 --> 00:00:27.380 The book is, I think, revolutionary. 8 00:00:27.380 --> 00:00:27.840 Revolutionary? 9 00:00:28.680 --> 00:00:30.540 It's interesting to see the press it's got 10 00:00:30.540 --> 00:00:32.800 and the press that Clive has got as its author. 11 00:00:32.940 --> 00:00:36.140 I think Clive perplexes many people, 12 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:38.000 and it's nothing to do with him. 13 00:00:38.020 --> 00:00:40.040 It's more to do with the reception that he gets. 14 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:43.160 And the reason for that perplexity, I think, 15 00:00:43.180 --> 00:00:49.260 is that people expect that Clive will see the world the way most of us do 16 00:00:49.260 --> 00:00:52.960 in terms of dichotomies, left and right of politics, 17 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:54.460 and being an economist, 18 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:56.400 particularly perhaps they expect that view 19 00:00:56.400 --> 00:00:57.360 more than they do. 20 00:00:57.380 --> 00:00:58.060 They expect in others. 21 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:00.780 But Clive manages to confound them every time 22 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:03.480 because he comes up with his own special take on what's important 23 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:06.000 and what the dichotomies and polarities are. 24 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:09.880 And I think this book brings that special gift to something, 25 00:01:10.440 --> 00:01:12.920 an area of human endeavour that's really important. 26 00:01:13.180 --> 00:01:15.600 And it really focuses very much to me 27 00:01:15.600 --> 00:01:19.020 on that simple question of sort of happiness or contentment, 28 00:01:19.100 --> 00:01:20.660 what it means to be human, 29 00:01:20.740 --> 00:01:24.240 not the sort of subject perhaps you'd expect to find an economist writing on. 30 00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:26.440 But then Clive Hamilton's no ordinary economist. 31 00:01:26.440 --> 00:01:29.380 Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to give you Clive Hamilton. 32 00:01:36.020 --> 00:01:39.520 Well, many thanks, Tim, and to you all, 33 00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:44.020 and the organisers for inviting me to the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. 34 00:01:44.520 --> 00:01:49.700 I want to take up some of the themes that I develop in Growth Fetish. 35 00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:54.460 I want to start by making this strong point. 36 00:01:55.220 --> 00:01:56.300 Until recently, 37 00:01:56.440 --> 00:01:59.480 there's never been a time in human history 38 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:02.100 when each of us, everyone, 39 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:05.320 could hope to live a truly fulfilling life. 40 00:02:06.440 --> 00:02:08.060 From the earliest days, 41 00:02:08.200 --> 00:02:10.560 the hopes of ordinary men and women 42 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:12.020 were severely constrained 43 00:02:12.020 --> 00:02:15.300 by their cultural and material circumstances. 44 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:20.480 For most people, the binding constraint was economic. 45 00:02:21.660 --> 00:02:23.560 And the most they could reasonably hope for 46 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:26.420 was to achieve a modest but secure economy, 47 00:02:26.440 --> 00:02:27.360 and to have a decent life. 48 00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:28.960 And to have a decent life was to have a decent life. 49 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:29.000 And to have a decent life was to have a decent life. 50 00:02:29.320 --> 00:02:31.780 But also for most, 51 00:02:32.500 --> 00:02:35.320 cultural and social limits imposed at birth 52 00:02:35.320 --> 00:02:36.500 were also binding. 53 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:40.480 One's life course was powerfully conditioned 54 00:02:40.480 --> 00:02:44.000 by one's class, gender and race. 55 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:48.640 And in that period, there were two dreams of liberation. 56 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:52.020 Religious ecstasy in another life 57 00:02:52.020 --> 00:02:54.020 seemed attainable for everyone, 58 00:02:54.780 --> 00:02:56.160 and political authority 59 00:02:56.160 --> 00:02:58.900 was comfortable with this opium of the masses. 60 00:02:59.500 --> 00:03:00.820 The second dream, 61 00:03:01.500 --> 00:03:03.200 a society of equals, 62 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:04.900 was much more threatening. 63 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:09.280 Socialism promised prosperity in a classless society. 64 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:11.200 By means of revolution, 65 00:03:12.220 --> 00:03:13.580 it would abolish both the material 66 00:03:13.580 --> 00:03:15.020 and the social constraints 67 00:03:15.020 --> 00:03:18.760 on the full realisation of ordinary men and women. 68 00:03:20.440 --> 00:03:21.580 In the end, 69 00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:23.420 it was not socialism 70 00:03:23.420 --> 00:03:25.780 that broke down the barriers of poverty 71 00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:26.140 and globalisation, 72 00:03:26.160 --> 00:03:28.480 but capitalism itself. 73 00:03:29.700 --> 00:03:30.660 In recent decades, 74 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:32.620 in the rich countries of the world, 75 00:03:32.780 --> 00:03:34.960 the forces that held in check 76 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:36.200 the hopes of the masses 77 00:03:36.200 --> 00:03:38.300 have for the most part fallen away. 78 00:03:39.780 --> 00:03:43.020 Despite continuing and pervasive money hunger, 79 00:03:43.620 --> 00:03:45.880 most people in rich countries 80 00:03:45.880 --> 00:03:47.960 live lives of abundance 81 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:50.380 in conditions that their grandparents 82 00:03:50.380 --> 00:03:52.160 would have regarded as luxurious. 83 00:03:53.580 --> 00:03:55.280 In the post-war decades, 84 00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:58.060 not only did incomes treble, 85 00:03:58.200 --> 00:03:59.500 or quadruple, 86 00:04:00.200 --> 00:04:03.440 but mass education saw class barriers, 87 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:05.280 if not be abolished, 88 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:06.780 but certainly diminished substantially. 89 00:04:08.060 --> 00:04:09.220 And the liberation movements 90 00:04:09.220 --> 00:04:11.280 of the 60s and 70s 91 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:13.240 tore down the oppressive structures 92 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:15.460 that confined the aspirations 93 00:04:15.460 --> 00:04:17.300 of women and minorities. 94 00:04:18.260 --> 00:04:19.280 The sexual revolution 95 00:04:19.280 --> 00:04:21.540 freed us from our Victorian inhibitions. 96 00:04:22.540 --> 00:04:23.540 The women's movement 97 00:04:23.540 --> 00:04:25.660 freed women from role stereotyping. 98 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:28.600 Gay liberation allowed free expression 99 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:29.600 of sexual preference, 100 00:04:30.340 --> 00:04:31.660 and the civil rights movement 101 00:04:31.660 --> 00:04:34.060 eliminated institutionalised racism. 102 00:04:35.240 --> 00:04:38.000 The rejection of traditional standards, 103 00:04:38.260 --> 00:04:40.060 expectations and stereotypes 104 00:04:40.060 --> 00:04:42.160 was a manifestation 105 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:44.060 of the deeper human longing 106 00:04:44.060 --> 00:04:45.340 for self-determination. 107 00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:47.320 Democracy, 108 00:04:48.280 --> 00:04:50.100 combined with the arrival 109 00:04:50.100 --> 00:04:52.440 of widespread material abundance, 110 00:04:52.840 --> 00:04:54.520 at least in the western rich countries, 111 00:04:54.720 --> 00:04:56.140 for the first time, 112 00:04:56.140 --> 00:04:57.480 provided the opportunity 113 00:04:57.480 --> 00:04:59.080 for the mass of ordinary people 114 00:04:59.080 --> 00:05:00.540 to pursue self-realisation. 115 00:05:01.440 --> 00:05:03.500 The political demand for democracy 116 00:05:03.500 --> 00:05:04.840 of earlier generations 117 00:05:04.840 --> 00:05:06.840 became a personal demand 118 00:05:06.840 --> 00:05:10.160 for freedom to find one's own path, 119 00:05:10.400 --> 00:05:12.580 or as the sociologists sometimes put it, 120 00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:14.120 to write one's own biography. 121 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:17.960 The constraints of socially imposed roles 122 00:05:17.960 --> 00:05:19.120 have weakened. 123 00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:21.980 Oppression based on gender and race 124 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:23.100 is no longer tenable, 125 00:05:23.780 --> 00:05:25.220 and the daily struggle for survival 126 00:05:25.220 --> 00:05:26.120 has weakened. 127 00:05:26.140 --> 00:05:26.780 For most people, 128 00:05:26.860 --> 00:05:27.300 it's disappeared. 129 00:05:28.620 --> 00:05:30.220 The democratic impulse, 130 00:05:31.260 --> 00:05:32.480 which until the 70s 131 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:34.280 took the form of collective struggles 132 00:05:34.280 --> 00:05:36.200 to be free of political and social oppression, 133 00:05:37.300 --> 00:05:39.200 has segued into something else. 134 00:05:40.340 --> 00:05:41.820 A search for authentic identity, 135 00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:44.120 for self-actualisation, 136 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:47.860 for the achievement of true individuality. 137 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:49.560 At last, 138 00:05:50.320 --> 00:05:51.200 here was the opportunity 139 00:05:51.200 --> 00:05:52.980 for people to aspire 140 00:05:52.980 --> 00:05:54.800 to something beyond 141 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:56.120 material spirituality, 142 00:05:56.140 --> 00:05:56.360 to be free of insecurity 143 00:05:56.360 --> 00:05:58.480 and freedom from political oppression. 144 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:01.500 But it was not to be. 145 00:06:02.580 --> 00:06:04.080 Before we had an opportunity 146 00:06:04.080 --> 00:06:06.480 to reflect on our newfound freedom 147 00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:08.340 and to answer the question, 148 00:06:08.540 --> 00:06:09.740 how should I live? 149 00:06:10.500 --> 00:06:12.040 The marketers arrived 150 00:06:12.040 --> 00:06:13.980 with their own answer 151 00:06:13.980 --> 00:06:16.120 to humanity's quest 152 00:06:16.120 --> 00:06:17.480 for true identity. 153 00:06:18.620 --> 00:06:20.560 Over the last two or three decades, 154 00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:23.100 the agents of the marketing society 155 00:06:23.100 --> 00:06:25.020 have seized on 156 00:06:25.020 --> 00:06:26.120 the primal service 157 00:06:26.140 --> 00:06:27.020 of the social media. 158 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:28.280 They have been 159 00:06:30.440 --> 00:06:30.740 ! 160 00:06:56.140 --> 00:06:56.780 They have been the main 161 00:06:56.780 --> 00:06:58.160 source of the social media 162 00:07:00.580 --> 00:07:00.740 ! 163 00:07:26.340 --> 00:07:28.440 We need an 커 164 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:55.020 ! 165 00:07:45.260 --> 00:07:54.780 an 166 00:07:54.780 --> 00:07:52.240 an 167 00:07:56.140 --> 00:07:58.340 liberation movements of the 60s and 70s, 168 00:07:58.880 --> 00:08:01.400 the values of the marketplace spread in their stead. 169 00:08:02.140 --> 00:08:05.840 The counterculture tore down the social structures of conservatism 170 00:08:05.840 --> 00:08:09.320 that, for all of their stultifying oppressiveness, 171 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:10.980 held the market in check. 172 00:08:12.200 --> 00:08:15.580 Now, many of the cultural leaders of the protest generation 173 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:18.200 work for advertising agencies 174 00:08:18.200 --> 00:08:21.200 and major corporations for the benefit of capital. 175 00:08:21.500 --> 00:08:23.080 There's even a name for them, 176 00:08:23.080 --> 00:08:26.220 Bobos, or bourgeois bohemians. 177 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:30.980 The women's movement sought liberation, 178 00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:32.740 but settled for equality. 179 00:08:33.640 --> 00:08:34.960 For all of the gains, 180 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:37.900 gender equality has meant, above all, 181 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:40.040 unfettered opportunity for women 182 00:08:40.040 --> 00:08:43.620 to create themselves in the images invented for them by the marketers. 183 00:08:44.580 --> 00:08:47.000 Whether a woman is a dutiful housewife 184 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:48.960 or a kick-ass careerist 185 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:51.220 is a matter of indifference to the marketers 186 00:08:51.220 --> 00:08:53.060 as long as she continues to speak. 187 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:56.040 On the other hand, 188 00:08:56.040 --> 00:08:57.580 커 189 00:09:23.020 --> 00:09:25.140 for the ties of social tradition. 190 00:09:26.020 --> 00:09:29.680 In the face of revolutionary changes in social attitudes in the West, 191 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:32.860 consumer capitalism has remained unruffled. 192 00:09:33.880 --> 00:09:35.560 Indeed, each new social revolution 193 00:09:35.560 --> 00:09:40.120 has provided an opportunity for it to rejuvenate itself. 194 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:46.040 The economics profession has a lot to answer for. 195 00:09:46.860 --> 00:09:49.060 It's provided the intellectual cover 196 00:09:49.060 --> 00:09:51.700 for the penetration of market values 197 00:09:51.700 --> 00:09:54.440 into areas of social and personal life where they don't belong. 198 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:59.620 When market values rule, calculation drives out trust. 199 00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:03.120 Self-centredness displaces mutuality. 200 00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:06.140 Superficiality prevails over depth. 201 00:10:06.680 --> 00:10:08.760 And our relationships with others 202 00:10:08.760 --> 00:10:12.360 are conditioned by external reward and, above all, by money. 203 00:10:13.420 --> 00:10:15.440 In a world of ruthless competition, 204 00:10:16.220 --> 00:10:18.060 where market values prevail, 205 00:10:19.060 --> 00:10:20.600 playing fair seems naive. 206 00:10:21.720 --> 00:10:23.280 When a cricketer walks 207 00:10:23.280 --> 00:10:26.520 or a mountaineer sacrifices the summit, 208 00:10:28.340 --> 00:10:31.420 our admiration betrays our despair 209 00:10:31.420 --> 00:10:34.500 at the usual state we've descended to. 210 00:10:35.560 --> 00:10:36.760 Let me consider some examples 211 00:10:36.760 --> 00:10:39.980 of how market values and the spread of economic thinking 212 00:10:39.980 --> 00:10:43.220 has corrupted much that's decent in us. 213 00:10:44.420 --> 00:10:47.040 One of the earliest and most aggressive exponents 214 00:10:47.040 --> 00:10:49.040 of this economic imperialism 215 00:10:49.060 --> 00:10:53.740 was Gary Becker, the Chicago economist par excellence. 216 00:10:54.660 --> 00:10:57.800 Who, in an article published in one of the profession's 217 00:10:57.800 --> 00:10:59.040 most prestigious journals, 218 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:02.200 applied the principles of microeconomics 219 00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:03.040 and consumer behaviour 220 00:11:03.040 --> 00:11:05.880 to what he called the market for marriage. 221 00:11:07.340 --> 00:11:09.800 Becker defined marriage as an arrangement 222 00:11:09.800 --> 00:11:12.840 to secure the mutual benefit of exchange 223 00:11:12.840 --> 00:11:16.200 between two agents of different endowments. 224 00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:19.040 In other words, 225 00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:24.340 other words, people marry in order more efficiently to produce what he called household commodities, 226 00:11:24.520 --> 00:11:31.340 including, quote, the quality of meals, the quality and quantity of children, prestige, 227 00:11:31.760 --> 00:11:39.420 recreation, companionship, love and health status. The rational person will base any 228 00:11:39.420 --> 00:11:45.300 marriage decision on quantifiable costs and benefits. The gain from marriage, he argued 229 00:11:45.300 --> 00:11:50.840 in his article, has to be balanced against the losses, including legal fees and the costs 230 00:11:50.840 --> 00:11:57.340 of searching for a mate, in order to determine whether marriage is worthwhile. Becker went 231 00:11:57.340 --> 00:12:02.800 on to analyse the effect of what he called love and caring on the nature of the equilibrium 232 00:12:02.800 --> 00:12:08.760 in the marriage market. And to do this, he defined love as a, quote, non-marketable household 233 00:12:08.760 --> 00:12:15.060 commodity, noting that more love between potential partners increases the amount of caring and 234 00:12:15.060 --> 00:12:15.280 that the effect of love on the marriage market is greater. And to do this, he defined love 235 00:12:15.280 --> 00:12:15.420 as a, quote, non-marketable household commodity, noting that more love between potential partners 236 00:12:15.420 --> 00:12:21.540 This, in turn, reduces the cost of policing the marriage. Policing, of course, is needed 237 00:12:21.540 --> 00:12:27.560 in any partnership or corporation because it reduces the probability that a mate shirks 238 00:12:27.560 --> 00:12:33.180 duties or appropriates more output than is mandated by the equilibrium in the marriage 239 00:12:33.180 --> 00:12:41.220 market. No need to put a padlock on the fridge if your partner loves you. After pages of 240 00:12:41.220 --> 00:12:44.720 differential calculus, Becker reaches a triumphant conclusion. 241 00:12:45.520 --> 00:12:51.940 Since love produces more efficient marriages, quote, love and caring between two persons 242 00:12:51.940 --> 00:12:55.180 increase their chances of being married to each other. 243 00:12:59.700 --> 00:13:03.000 What Becker's wife thought about this analysis isn't recorded. 244 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:09.600 But in 1992, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was sufficiently impressed 245 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:13.540 to award him the Nobel Prize for Economics for this and related work. 246 00:13:16.400 --> 00:13:22.880 We gasp, but aren't pre-nuptial arrangements a reflection of the economic approach to marriage? 247 00:13:23.820 --> 00:13:28.260 Have not the economists and the accountants managed to insinuate their ideas into the 248 00:13:28.260 --> 00:13:34.720 way we form and conduct our relationships? If Gary Becker's barmy ideas infected only 249 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:38.640 the thinking of academic economists, then we wouldn't have too much to worry about. 250 00:13:39.040 --> 00:13:45.260 But, driven by growth fetishism, over the last 20 years or so, the economic way of thinking, 251 00:13:45.280 --> 00:13:51.780 like a virus, has invaded public and private spheres where previously it was alien. 252 00:13:52.420 --> 00:13:59.740 Let me give another illustration of the almost as disturbing example as Becker's analysis 253 00:13:59.740 --> 00:14:07.060 of marriage. In the early 1990s, the chief economist at the World Bank was an economist 254 00:14:07.060 --> 00:14:14.720 named Lawrence Summers. You might remember he was later appointed by President Clinton 255 00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:16.380 to be the Secretary of the Treasury. 256 00:14:17.760 --> 00:14:19.680 At the time, in the early 90s, 257 00:14:19.680 --> 00:14:21.600 the World Bank was taking an intense interest 258 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:23.540 in global environmental problems 259 00:14:23.540 --> 00:14:26.580 and was proffering advice to developing countries. 260 00:14:27.500 --> 00:14:29.740 In a leaked internal memo, 261 00:14:30.860 --> 00:14:33.920 Summers argued that rich countries 262 00:14:33.920 --> 00:14:36.720 should ship their toxic wastes to poor countries, 263 00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:39.860 writing that the economic logic 264 00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:42.120 behind dumping a load of toxic waste 265 00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:44.440 in the lowest-wage country is impeccable. 266 00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:47.780 And that underpopulated countries in Africa 267 00:14:47.780 --> 00:14:49.760 are vastly underpolluted. 268 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:54.880 How do we know this? 269 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:57.420 Because in poor countries, Dr Summers wrote, 270 00:14:58.120 --> 00:15:00.940 the foregone wages from illness and early death 271 00:15:00.940 --> 00:15:03.240 are so much less than in rich countries. 272 00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:06.660 In other words, the life of an African 273 00:15:06.660 --> 00:15:10.120 is worth much less than the life of an American. 274 00:15:10.260 --> 00:15:12.160 And it has to be conceded, I think, 275 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:13.840 that economically speaking, 276 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:16.500 Summers' logic is impeccable. 277 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:20.020 It's just that we shouldn't think about these things economically. 278 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:25.940 Well, we marvel at Larry Summers' chutzpah, 279 00:15:26.700 --> 00:15:28.420 but what's the moral difference 280 00:15:28.420 --> 00:15:31.180 between dumping our toxic waste in Africa 281 00:15:31.800 --> 00:15:34.440 and refusing, as the Howard government has, 282 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:36.780 to ratify the Kyoto Protocol 283 00:15:36.780 --> 00:15:38.500 and reduce our greenhouse gases 284 00:15:38.500 --> 00:15:40.320 unless poor countries do likewise? 285 00:15:41.680 --> 00:15:43.620 In the lead-up to the Kyoto Conference, 286 00:15:46.140 --> 00:15:52.180 in 1997, small island states in the Pacific 287 00:15:52.180 --> 00:15:55.060 expressed their alarm at scientific projections 288 00:15:55.060 --> 00:15:57.940 indicating that several of them would be flooded 289 00:15:57.940 --> 00:15:59.120 by rising sea levels. 290 00:16:00.100 --> 00:16:03.460 The Australian government's chief adviser on climate change 291 00:16:03.460 --> 00:16:05.780 told a conference in London 292 00:16:05.780 --> 00:16:08.520 that it might be more efficient to evacuate 293 00:16:08.520 --> 00:16:11.320 small island states subject to inundation 294 00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:13.820 rather than require industrialised countries 295 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:15.960 like Australia to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. 296 00:16:18.700 --> 00:16:21.020 The values of the market have, of course, 297 00:16:21.020 --> 00:16:22.420 colonised universities too. 298 00:16:23.340 --> 00:16:25.600 In the 1850s, Cardinal Newman 299 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:28.920 affirmed that knowledge is capable of being its own reward 300 00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:31.580 and wrote of the attributes of mind 301 00:16:31.580 --> 00:16:33.880 that arise from a liberal education as 302 00:16:33.880 --> 00:16:38.840 freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation and wisdom. 303 00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:41.980 Few would challenge this in principle, 304 00:16:41.980 --> 00:16:46.280 yet all around us we see the idea undermined 305 00:16:46.280 --> 00:16:47.840 by the commercialisation of universities, 306 00:16:48.420 --> 00:16:50.520 the commodification of knowledge 307 00:16:50.520 --> 00:16:52.880 and the transformation of academics 308 00:16:52.880 --> 00:16:54.420 into industrial drones. 309 00:16:55.400 --> 00:16:57.480 The intrinsic rewards of knowledge 310 00:16:57.480 --> 00:17:00.420 are today belittled and mocked. 311 00:17:01.040 --> 00:17:04.320 I received a letter a year or so ago 312 00:17:04.320 --> 00:17:08.340 from a student from Sydney 313 00:17:08.340 --> 00:17:09.820 who, after gaining a TER, 314 00:17:09.860 --> 00:17:11.960 a tertiary entrance rank of 98 points, 315 00:17:11.980 --> 00:17:14.720 decided to study classical Greek 316 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:16.120 at the University of Sydney. 317 00:17:17.140 --> 00:17:19.840 She wrote that through her studies 318 00:17:19.840 --> 00:17:22.900 she is exploring what it is to be human. 319 00:17:23.740 --> 00:17:26.520 But she's been told by friends and family 320 00:17:26.520 --> 00:17:28.980 that she's wasting her time studying classical Greek 321 00:17:28.980 --> 00:17:30.540 and that, as she wrote, 322 00:17:30.660 --> 00:17:32.940 it's all very well to indulge in the humanities 323 00:17:32.940 --> 00:17:33.920 while you're young, 324 00:17:34.040 --> 00:17:36.800 but sooner or later you'll have to do something practical, 325 00:17:38.120 --> 00:17:39.580 like accounting, I suppose. 326 00:17:40.440 --> 00:17:41.580 In other words, 327 00:17:41.980 --> 00:17:43.240 the purpose of a university education 328 00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:45.760 is to obtain the highest paid job one can. 329 00:17:46.540 --> 00:17:49.780 As more students than ever crowd onto our campuses, 330 00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:52.660 the reorientation of our universities 331 00:17:52.660 --> 00:17:55.460 to vocational and commercial demands 332 00:17:55.980 --> 00:17:59.760 promises to produce a nation of highly educated fools. 333 00:18:03.100 --> 00:18:05.180 In a survey by my institute, 334 00:18:05.320 --> 00:18:07.860 the Australia Institute of Academics in the Social Sciences, 335 00:18:08.300 --> 00:18:09.520 we were told repeatedly 336 00:18:09.520 --> 00:18:11.780 that university teachers feel compelled 337 00:18:11.780 --> 00:18:14.120 to make their courses more vocational, 338 00:18:14.300 --> 00:18:16.360 that is, more market-oriented. 339 00:18:17.060 --> 00:18:18.560 The change, they say, 340 00:18:18.660 --> 00:18:20.960 has generally diluted the intellectual content. 341 00:18:22.520 --> 00:18:24.280 Nearly 90% said that their universities 342 00:18:24.280 --> 00:18:25.820 place greater value on courses 343 00:18:25.820 --> 00:18:27.400 that attract full fee-paying students 344 00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:28.580 than on other courses. 345 00:18:29.240 --> 00:18:31.340 The preference for money-spinning courses 346 00:18:31.340 --> 00:18:33.660 is at the expense of courses 347 00:18:33.660 --> 00:18:35.800 of a critical or speculative nature, 348 00:18:36.520 --> 00:18:39.360 that is, those that contribute more to the social, 349 00:18:39.520 --> 00:18:41.520 cultural and cultural values of Australia. 350 00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:43.880 Many of them said that increasingly, 351 00:18:44.340 --> 00:18:47.320 the ability to pay is more important 352 00:18:47.320 --> 00:18:49.160 than the ability to pass. 353 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:50.860 Wrote one, 354 00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:54.080 the universities are no longer communities of scholars, 355 00:18:54.340 --> 00:18:57.220 but institutions which are aiming to satisfy 356 00:18:57.220 --> 00:18:59.800 rather undefined and unexplored market needs. 357 00:19:00.420 --> 00:19:03.440 This will inevitably constrain freedom of inquiry, 358 00:19:03.820 --> 00:19:07.360 often in non-transparent and non-coercive ways. 359 00:19:08.800 --> 00:19:09.500 The other thing that I think is important, 360 00:19:09.520 --> 00:19:11.880 the spread of cheating and plagiarism 361 00:19:12.520 --> 00:19:15.200 is entirely consistent with the instrumentalist approach 362 00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:17.500 to education of the new enterprise university, 363 00:19:18.520 --> 00:19:20.260 promoted by the economic rationalists. 364 00:19:21.900 --> 00:19:24.300 Perhaps the universities should be more honest about it 365 00:19:24.300 --> 00:19:27.020 and discard noble mottos such as 366 00:19:27.020 --> 00:19:30.700 First to Learn the Nature of Things, ANU, 367 00:19:31.760 --> 00:19:33.480 Although the Constellations Change, 368 00:19:33.740 --> 00:19:36.480 the Mind is Constant, University of Sydney, 369 00:19:36.620 --> 00:19:38.280 and Seek Wisdom, 370 00:19:38.360 --> 00:19:39.420 UWA, 371 00:19:39.520 --> 00:19:42.360 and replace them with Shakespeare's observation 372 00:19:42.360 --> 00:19:43.720 in Timon of Athens, 373 00:19:44.520 --> 00:19:48.280 The learned pate ducks to the golden fool. 374 00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:52.060 Some academics have resisted, 375 00:19:52.060 --> 00:19:54.280 and for their troubles they have been accused 376 00:19:54.280 --> 00:19:55.000 by Alan Gilbert, 377 00:19:55.220 --> 00:19:58.440 the campaigning Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, 378 00:19:58.560 --> 00:19:59.680 of being Luddites. 379 00:20:00.740 --> 00:20:03.540 Well, if in the face of rapid change, 380 00:20:03.800 --> 00:20:07.720 academics are behaving like 18th century handloom weavers, 381 00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:11.100 it's because the managers of the enterprise universities 382 00:20:11.100 --> 00:20:13.640 are behaving like Lancashire mill owners. 383 00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:24.860 The values of the market are transforming not just our minds, 384 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:26.320 but our physical bodies too. 385 00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:29.880 Huge industries are devoted to changing our shapes, 386 00:20:30.040 --> 00:20:32.480 our visages, and our lifespans, 387 00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:35.560 all in pursuit of the notion of happiness 388 00:20:35.560 --> 00:20:37.360 that the market has given us. 389 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:38.820 In the USA, 390 00:20:38.980 --> 00:20:43.120 in what's described as the latest vanity craze sweeping the nations, 391 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:47.480 Botox parties provide a congenial environment 392 00:20:47.480 --> 00:20:50.060 in which the guests drink champagne 393 00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:53.140 and take it in turns to have Botox injections 394 00:20:53.140 --> 00:20:55.240 to paralyse facial muscles. 395 00:20:56.580 --> 00:21:00.240 Botox is described as the wrinkle-free fountain of youth. 396 00:21:01.140 --> 00:21:04.760 But this is child's play compared to the plot 397 00:21:04.760 --> 00:21:07.700 of a new US television program called Extreme Minds. 398 00:21:07.700 --> 00:21:07.820 커 399 00:21:10.280 --> 00:21:35.000 ! 400 00:21:10.280 --> 00:21:35.700 ! 401 00:21:07.820 --> 00:21:15.720