Australia : global sociopath

Ecological concerns have never been top of the list for Australian policy makers in recent years. Instead, they have struggled with issues of reliance on the export of primary commodities with declining terms of trade, dependence on the import of capital and shortages of managerial expertise. Their solutions, dictated by economic rationalism, have centred on policies of 'freeing up' market forces through reducing tariff protection for local markets, privatising government instrumentalities and deregulating financial transactions. Despite massive - and ever increasing historical evidence to the contrary, it continues to be claimed that such steps will lead to modernisation and growth of high tech industries, reduced unemployment and improved living standards. In fact, such tariff cuts have encouraged the shift of manufacturing operations to low wage, low cost areas overseas, leading to appalling exploitation of overseas populations and business closures and job losses at home, particularly in car production, clothing and footwear. In this article, Australia is identifed as a world citizen, with the 'directing mind' of the local power elite of corporate and political policy makers - we see an individual in urgent need of restraint and rehabilitation - for their own good and that of the rest of the global community. Here is an apparently sociopathic personality, unconcerned with the social wellbeing of others or, indeed, with anything other than their own most immediate and short-term interests; a powerful argument for super-national institutions of criminal law enforcement in the interests of the wider world community.