Watching the policies of the current Australian Liberal Party since their election in September 2013 I have found myself with one overriding question. What does the Australia that we are trying to create look like? The Government openly propounds economic liberalism, small government and reduced public spending in order to promote economic growth. But economic growth to what end?

Surely without a clear coherent vision of what we want Australia to look like we are just blindly following a methodology without the ideal in place that created it, like buying the ingredients to a meal without deciding what meal you wish to create. The overriding belief appears to be “as long as people are getting richer then everything will be better”. All the people need is more money and they will be happy and fulfilled. Is this the goal, more money at any cost?

Let’s break this down, why do we want more money? Money itself is simply a vehicle to have other things, any remotely reflective person knows this. It’s numbers in a bank account and has no real value apart from what you do with it. I have never seen two friends relaxed, smiling and laughing while comparing bank balances. Surely the modern goal of economic growth was to provide freedom to the masses?

Let’s define this freedom that we wished the masses to have. This was freedom from economic insecurity, the ability to buy food, pay the rent and bills and not end up on the streets. This was freedom from pain and disease, the ability to get medical treatment and buy medicines when required. This was the freedom to get an education and this was the freedom from violence and crime. This was also freedom from oppression, from having to work 12 hour days for little money and no holidays. I note that many of these freedoms appear to be reduced not heightened as a result of Neoconservative and Neoliberal policies. The wealth divide in the UK, USA and Australia gets bigger, not smaller each year. Controlled distribution of wealth ensures freedom not a wealthier top 1%.

Once the masses are saved from the oppression of poverty, we continue to work towards greater comfort. I would like to look at this increased comfort in a little more detail. Now don’t get me wrong, I like my comforts! I like the fact that I have air conditioning, my nice car, I love my smartphone, or more specifically what it does. I love the fact that I can afford to spend time with my friends, eat great food and drink fine wine, and visit foreign countries. But this all seems contrary to some other truths. I came from a working class family and was taught that I had to work for whatever I wanted, and I take a huge amount of pride in the fact that I did work hard, often in jobs I hated to get where I have got to. It doesn’t take much to have me harping on about the hardships of my youth, (my apologies to everyone who has had to experience this), because it is a source of pride to me, as it is to many others. Any pride I take in the money I’ve made – and this is by no means substantial by modern western standards – is because I made it, not because I have it.

Australians are proud of their history and the hardships that were traditionally endured on one of the most inhospitable continents on the planet.  Americans are proud that their ancestors fought hardship and the British to establish their democracy. The ancient Greeks wrote not about wealthy people and the luxury they lived in, but hardship, tragedy and the heroes that endured it.

In life it’s adversity that defines us, builds character and strength and also brings us together. Having to save for a while to buy a new TV or car didn’t do anyone any harm, built self-discipline and made us appreciate what we had more. I believe that we pay for everything in life in more than just money, and losing the psychological advantages of enduring hardship should be remembered as a non-monetary cost of increased comfort.

I guess the trick is to check which comforts we so desperately want. A washing machine can reduce the amount of time spent washing clothes and a car can reduce the daily commute to work, both therefore create more free time. But a better car, a new hi fi, games console or TV are amusements. These things are not really enhancing our lives more providing us with distractions from it. And while I have no objection to these amusements, and enjoy them myself, if we end up working longer hours to pay for them that would seem illogical.

I do believe in the free market economy, it gives people the ability to fulfil their ambitions. I agree the competition that it promotes leads to innovation and better ways to do things, and too much government intervention stifles progress. But Capitalism and Socialism are not opposites, rather different ends of the same scale. The 70’s in the UK saw a swing too far to the left which resulted in uncontrollable inflation and ultimately a reduction in the freedoms discussed above. But a swing too far to the right, which appears to be happening now in many countries also results in a reduction in those freedoms. When large corporations make huge profits in an unregulated market and become powerful enough to have disproportional influence over government policy we are heading back towards oppression of the masses and minority rule.

Modern media seems to sell us rich people as role models or heroes of some sort. But when we look back through history the people we revere are not because they were rich – although many were – it’s because they were heroic, because they overcame challenge with nobility and courage. The great leaders that we hold aloft as examples from history are not the ones that made more people rich, but the ones that made more people free, the ones that fought tyranny and held lofty ideals. I struggle to find these lofty ideals in the current politics of Australia and the UK. Interestingly in the USA we have recently seen healthcare and other reforms implemented by the Obama administration, that if they are not reversed by the next, inevitably Republican government will in the future be held aloft as an example of good government.

I don’t think that money is the goal unto itself, and therefore economic growth should be designed around creating more freedom not having more stuff. I recognise that in the not too distant past more money did create more freedom by lifting the masses, the majority of which lived a life of hard graft and struggle, out of the constant search for the next meal or a roof for the night. Nowadays it seems to be a self-perpetuating cycle where money creates a need or desire for more money for which we work more and are less free. We seem to have got caught up in the detail and forgotten what the goal was. As a society, were we working towards having more money or was the goal equality of opportunity?

Next time the government promotes economic growth at all costs, with a loss of social services, with a loss of social safety nets and with the erosion of democratic process and option, make sure you ask why.