Institute of Public Affairs Cheerfulness

The Institute Of Public Affairs, a mouthpiece for the views of large companies, is strikingly upbeat about the modern world. Its latest publication, in a cheerful article titled Richer, Better, Cheaper, proclaims that free markets are making the world a better place, concluding that products are becoming cheaper, better, and more accessible for everyone right across the income spectrum.
 

Much as I wish to join in with their happiness, I find it hard to reconcile with the almost daily proposals to make things more expensive, on the basis that we can no longer afford things which in the past were free. There are proposals to introduce a new charge for visits to the doctor. There are proposals to introduce a charge for visits to hospital emergency wards. Infrastructure Australia says we should start charging motorists to use the roads, and get rid of the “entrenched culture” of treating infrastructure as a free public good. There are claims that we can no longer afford to keep Medibank Private or Australia Post in public hands, and no longer afford to keep Qantas in Australian ones. Furthermore it is none other than the Institute of Public Affairs which advances or supports such ideas.

 
It seems to me that if we can no longer afford things which we used to be able to afford, then perhaps ordinary Australians are not getting richer after all. Not that this actually worries the IPA, which represents the wealthiest Australians, who have most certainly been getting richer.