Public Liberty Versus Private Control

You can see it creeping in everywhere around the edges of the public space. Just yesterday, the Senate of Canada presented its 300-page report on its plan for fighting the growing levels of poverty in Canada. In all, there were 74 recommendations on combating homelessness and poverty, but the Conservative government rejected the report. When the Senate produces something like this, it’s usually far more substantive than what most Common’s committees deliver, and the fact the Senate adopted the report unanimously gave it special weight.The report, titled, A Call to Action on Poverty, concludes that a troubling 3.4 million Canadians are trapped in poverty by government social programs that are no longer functionally connected, but actually “substantially broken.” Things have been this way for years, but with six provinces currently supporting poverty reduction plans, it was hoped the federal government would finally assume its own responsibility to work with its partners.But how can that happen in a realm in which deconstructing the highly successful federal model has become a primary goal of the present Conservative government? It is absolutely guaranteed that poverty will never be eradicated by corporate tax cuts or the privatization of services, but this is what we have in an age of extraordinary social challenges.The rigid right-wing ideology of the age is bent on pitting private liberty against public power. In favouring private market forces against public collective accommodations, it effectively rips the sinews from the great Canadian compromise that so benefitted the middle-class. While the ideologues assail the intrusion of governments against private choices, they turn the citizen into a self-absorbed consumer and convince him, or her, that government would strip away your private liberties if it could only get the go-ahead. That such an outlook goes completely against the history of our nation matters little to such a view.Public liberty demands public institutions that assist citizens in coming to terms with the fallout that frequently occurs when the free market is permitted to run its course unchecked. Poverty is one clear example. We have to deal with its presence in our national life as a citizenry and not a group of independent consumers. Asking what I want and asking what the community of which I am a part needs both involve my self-interest, but we are repeatedly encouraged to put our own individual interests ahead of anything else. The great defender of the collective and social interest is government; the champion of the individual is the free market. And we are being constantly encouraged to shrink government in order that we can acquire more.Ironically, the results don’t match up. While a few get fabulously rich, middle class families increasingly struggle. The great public resources meant to be available to all of us – the environment, government services, healthcare, etc. – are increasingly falling into the hands of the few, leaving us with social decline on a massive scale. Public stewardship will never come from private companies or concerns. Done right, a balance can be struck, but rampant privatization inevitably ends up benefitting the few over the many.The truth yet endures: private companies and interests can never be sovereign in a democracy; only citizens can. Hannah Arendt had it right when she argued that true political freedom is defined by participation in government rather than isolating ourselves from its reach. We are now discovering, hopefully not too late, that the right-wing ideology currently directing our state of affairs is actually diminishing our ability to shape our nation and find an appropriate place for Canada in the world. Privatization takes fighter jets over poverty eradication every time. Good citizenship chooses fights poverty and funds appropriate security at the same time. Our present schizophrenia is hardly adequate to address the great challenges of our time, including poverty.