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A Conservative Meme
Jul. 13th, 2011 04:01 pmDuring the hours prior to Dragonslayer officially opening, I was chatting with a friend and his acquaintance. The acquaintance mentioned that she was a member of the Conservative Party. Not just a supporter, or someone who votes Conservative, but someone who actually volunteers, helps during elections and goes to leadership and policy conventions.
Our chat about politics was short, due mostly to the fact that I can see how some debates are pointless. I did ask her why she was a Conservative supporter though since it was at odds with her own self-interest - being a female university student coming from a blue-collar background, I'd have expected her to be a socialist.
First, should government (of any party) be run like a business. On it's face it sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Looking deeper I'm not sure I agree with the underlying assumption - namely that businesses are the ideal model for how other organizations are run.
Tell me that government needs to be run with intelligence and planning; that it needs to make the best possible use of limited resources; that it needs to take into account its stakeholders; that it needs to do all of this while trying to accomplish clear, well-defined goals. That I'll agree with, and also point out that these aren't just something we want in business - it's something we want in any organization.
It's not that government should be run as a business - it's that both governments and businesses should have good organizational stewardship.
Another assumption is that other parties won't or can't do this. I think we just need to look at the past in this country, both federally and provincially to see that no party has a monopoly on good government. There were good ND governments and bad ones, good and and bad Liberal governments, and good and bad Conservative governments. Certainly the Chretien/Martin-era Liberals did their best to put this countries financial books in order. They also kept a firm regulatory grip on our banks, which is a big part of the reason why Canada wasn't clobbered by the Great Recession.
I don't think the Mulroney or Harper-era Conservatives did/do nearly so good a job. The reason why I think makes my next point:
Conservative governments are not run as businesses, they're run for business interests. Both the old (Mulroney) and new (Harper) Conservative governments are running deficits - either literal deficits by spending more than they receive in revenue, or infrastructure deficit by not adequately maintaining what we have to cut costs in the short-term. Both deficits will cost us more in the long-run. This was done primarily to give tax breaks to big business.
Now I have no problem with policies that allow businesses to grow our economy to the benefit of Canadians, but I think it's clear by what's happening in the States that companies are growing to the detriment of society and not for the benefit of it. Instead business has become cancerous, growing explosively in a way that robs the body of resources and ultimately kills it. In this analogy the body is our society.
In short, what's good for business is not synonymous with what's good for society. Government should be about doing what's right for all society, not just one part of society to the detriment of the rest. Implementing policies that do so go against the idea of good organizational stewardship (aka "running government like a business"). What's a better term for that in this specific instance? How about "Good Governance".
There was a time when government did manage business. Corporations existed for specific reasons (to build a bridge, or deliver a shipment of goods from a distant location say) and for a specific duration. They had lifespans. Now the only purpose for business is to make money for their shareholders (certainly a requirement for a successful business, but it behooves us to make sure they exist for more reason than just that).
So the next time I hear someone say "vote Conservative because they will manage the country like a business", I plan on making the following points:
Our chat about politics was short, due mostly to the fact that I can see how some debates are pointless. I did ask her why she was a Conservative supporter though since it was at odds with her own self-interest - being a female university student coming from a blue-collar background, I'd have expected her to be a socialist.
"So why Conservative? They really are the party of big business interests, and you're not on the Board of Directors of a large corporation - it's really not in your personal interest to be Conservative."Conservatives run government like a business. Certainly a lot of people agree with that statement, I'm not sure I do for a variety of reasons.
"Because they run the country like a business," she said
First, should government (of any party) be run like a business. On it's face it sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Looking deeper I'm not sure I agree with the underlying assumption - namely that businesses are the ideal model for how other organizations are run.
Tell me that government needs to be run with intelligence and planning; that it needs to make the best possible use of limited resources; that it needs to take into account its stakeholders; that it needs to do all of this while trying to accomplish clear, well-defined goals. That I'll agree with, and also point out that these aren't just something we want in business - it's something we want in any organization.
It's not that government should be run as a business - it's that both governments and businesses should have good organizational stewardship.
Another assumption is that other parties won't or can't do this. I think we just need to look at the past in this country, both federally and provincially to see that no party has a monopoly on good government. There were good ND governments and bad ones, good and and bad Liberal governments, and good and bad Conservative governments. Certainly the Chretien/Martin-era Liberals did their best to put this countries financial books in order. They also kept a firm regulatory grip on our banks, which is a big part of the reason why Canada wasn't clobbered by the Great Recession.
I don't think the Mulroney or Harper-era Conservatives did/do nearly so good a job. The reason why I think makes my next point:
Conservative governments are not run as businesses, they're run for business interests. Both the old (Mulroney) and new (Harper) Conservative governments are running deficits - either literal deficits by spending more than they receive in revenue, or infrastructure deficit by not adequately maintaining what we have to cut costs in the short-term. Both deficits will cost us more in the long-run. This was done primarily to give tax breaks to big business.
Now I have no problem with policies that allow businesses to grow our economy to the benefit of Canadians, but I think it's clear by what's happening in the States that companies are growing to the detriment of society and not for the benefit of it. Instead business has become cancerous, growing explosively in a way that robs the body of resources and ultimately kills it. In this analogy the body is our society.
In short, what's good for business is not synonymous with what's good for society. Government should be about doing what's right for all society, not just one part of society to the detriment of the rest. Implementing policies that do so go against the idea of good organizational stewardship (aka "running government like a business"). What's a better term for that in this specific instance? How about "Good Governance".
There was a time when government did manage business. Corporations existed for specific reasons (to build a bridge, or deliver a shipment of goods from a distant location say) and for a specific duration. They had lifespans. Now the only purpose for business is to make money for their shareholders (certainly a requirement for a successful business, but it behooves us to make sure they exist for more reason than just that).
So the next time I hear someone say "vote Conservative because they will manage the country like a business", I plan on making the following points:
- Any government should govern and govern well, which is different from running it like a for-profit business.
- Governing well shouldn't be about solely answering the desires of big business. Sometimes the best thing for the country is telling big business "no".
- As for which government has governed best recently, it's the Chretien/Martin Liberals. The Harper Conservatives have the opportunity to do better, but I fear that they will do much worse - their minority-government policies give me no reason to think otherwise.
