>One way to reverse this sad "alternativist" trend on the left is to use the
>central myth of the monied class - the neo-classical theory- and apply it to
>labour in the same way that its mouthpieces apply it to capital. The
>argument treating unions as public goods is one such attempt - which sadly
>went unnoticed by the US-ers on this list.
And don't stop there, treat corporations as public goods too. It only requires some minor tweaking of the legislative framework. After all, corporations are already accountable to the public in the sense that they are required to make their finances public. But perhaps that could be extended and expanded, so that corporations are increasingly required to be more accountable. Until eventually, corporations are forced to become public goods like charities, their very aims having to pass statutory public interest tests, audits of the net public benefit of what they do and so forth.
Its just a question of making this something the public demands and it would be hard for the corporations to mount a case that corporations have the divine right to act against the public interest.
This is the sort of radical reform that liberal political parties could forge into a popular political manifesto. If they had any interest in that kind of thing.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas