The Myth Of Individual Responsibility

One of the tenets of right wing political belief is that the individual is ultimately responsible. The myth of individual responsibility means that no matter the racial persecution and injustice suffered it all comes down to the singular human unit. Thus, there is this expectation that the person will rise above all obstacles to achieve their destiny. Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price wave their hands and say look at me, look at me! Meanwhile, many in their conservative camp feather their nest at the expense of those without a voice at the big table. Keeping business taxes low and reducing government spending on minorities and their concerns is top of the agenda for conservative political parties in the main.

Personal Responsibility Inside An Economy Set Up By Insiders

This myth of individual responsibility is a great ‘get off the hook’ financially for many batting for the dominant white cohort within nations and communities. Demonising socialism at the same time allows these wealthy folk to cut their ties with sections of their own country and cities. It provides them with justification for an attitude which espouses, “I am looking out for myself, my family, and maybe people like me.” Neoliberalism was an economic strategy thought up to canonise the manipulation of financial markets in favour of hand picked winners. Nepotism writ large in determining those companies given inside running via tax minimisation and a monetary policy designed to benefit them. Neoliberalism championed zero government intervention in the market despite the creation of a proliferation of oligopolies, duopolies, and billionaires. Qantas, the Big 4 Banks, Woolies & Coles, Telstra, PwC, Ey, Deloitte, KPMG, the gas cartels, the mining corporations, and they have set the prices. Poor people were promised a trickle down effect which never really materialised.

The Individual & Right Wing Myths

Australia looks to the United States in many ways, especially its political brethren on the right. They aspire to the might and fight of the Republican Party, the GOP, where blatant greed and racism does not hide its light under a bushel. Peter Dutton dreams of an Australia, where gun toting, God Fearing white folk can strut their stuff unhindered by pesky lefties. Fresh from a victory over the Voice referendum, where the bald ex-copper led his conservative forces to an overwhelming stamping out of First Nation’s hopes for something better. Peter, and his mates, like to point out the social dysfunction and child abuse happening in outback Aboriginal townships. This, in their world view, where individual responsibility reigns supreme, renders these dark skinned people less than and unworthy of recognition in our constitution. Coppers are trained to keep troublemakers in check and police the problematic via force. The myth of individual responsibility is blind sided to the root causes of such dysfunction and focuses on meting out punishment for transgressions of the law. The right wing political parties of new world post-colonial states like Australia prefer to live in the here and now. They do not like to waste their energy on looking back at how the natives were subjugated by settlers and the armed forces. Historical appreciation is only for broad outlines about Captain James Cook and the founding of white Australia. Throw in a generous dose of the brave ANZACS at Gallipoli and that is about it really. Joining the dots from the invasion in 1788 up until now is beyond the ken of most LNP politicians and their backroom mates. Personal responsibility trumps circumstance, even for the most marginalised Indigenous people living in outback Australia.

White Racists On YouTube

Videos purporting to share secrets about the bad Abos are popping up on YouTube. White racists donning the guise of respectability are making speeches about the need to do something about these terrible social problems. At the same time, these chaps campaigned aggressively to defeat the Yes vote for an Indigenous Voice to parliament. Despite the fact that it is their Aboriginal Affair’s policies over many decades that have got us where we find ourselves today. Indeed, Peter Dutton had 10 years in federal government to do something positive for First Nations people and deal with their problems. Oh, he must have been looking the other way. Empowerment is something we have not tried in Australia and is what the Voice was all about. Strangely, Peter Dutton and Advance Australia were not in favour of this approach in the 21C. Apparently, it would divide the country. Pull the other one, Peter! A climate change denying businessman, Simon Fenwick, funded the No campaign to a large extent. He made his money in America and is bringing home some of the things he learned over there. Right wing political messaging was rife in the No campaign.

Disinformation, downright lies, and lots of fear mongering about Aboriginal groups taking your property. Allusions to higher taxes and special treatment for Indigenous Aussies sparking plenty of downward envy.

Land Of The Free

In America, land of the free, the myth of the individual reigns supreme. Every now and then someone rises out of the morass of 340 million souls to achieve extreme wealth and success. What are the odds? Pretty poor really. Myths, however, do not depend upon stats, just ask the Jesus believers. It is all about telling a good story. Human beings take great comfort in narratives, which purport to give them hope and opportunity. Think about the settlers who trekked west in search of better lives and the number of souls who died along the way. There were enablers and developers making money from the travellers willing to risk everything on the basis of a dream. What were the odds of survival? Pretty poor really.

The Selfish Myth Of The Individual

Many of us buy into these stories about individuals overcoming adversity to reach their goals. The media is never shy of reporting these accounts and sold plenty of newspapers on their coat tails back in the day. Personal conquests against the odds are almost as saleable as a good gory murder. Human beings do not like facts and figures, they find them sterile, rather a juicy story embellished to the hilt is much more our cup of tea. Politicians and their minders know this to be true and base their electioneering stratagems upon such stuff. Tales of gender identity malfeasance by transgender athletes provide rich pickings out in suburbia. As do made up narratives about Aboriginals exploiting the generosity of governments by taking endless handouts at the tax payer’s expense. This myth is hardly hampered by the fact that these Indigenous communities live in dire poverty without hope for jobs or economic opportunity.

The myth of individual responsibility and its popularity among the well off and favoured stand out in our treatment of those with a disability. Despite all the progress we have made in the 21C in terms of sophistication and human rights, we still wont employ people with a disability. The figures for this have barely budged in 20+ years in Australia.

Employers employ people like themselves over anyone else. Diversity is a dirty word when it comes to hiring folk.

“Working-age people with disability have a lower employment rate (48% or 984,000) than those without disability (80% or 11.3 million) (Figure EMPLOYMENT.1). Working-age people with severe or profound disability have a much lower employment rate (24% or 120,000) than those with other disability (56% or 863,000) (ABS 2019).”

• (https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/people-with-disability-in-australia/contents/employment/employment-rate-and-type)

Whether it be old fashioned social Darwinism at work? The facts tell us that those people who look and sound different are far less likely to get a guernsey on the team in Corporate Australia and in small business OZ too. These people are seen as other people’s responsibility by firms in this country. Maybe the myth of personal responsibility makes their disability their own fault? The business world is the real world, the jungle, where sentimentality always runs last to economic necessity in any race. Always back the horse called self-interest in any race. The economy stands apart from all other considerations. We can see it in recent times where we survived a global health crisis via governments subsidising employers and individuals. However, the market’s response to this was to raise prices and inflation ratcheted up around the world. Suddenly, governments couldn’t help people struggling with rampant cost of living pressures because it would be inflationary. Rents, food, and energy prices have gone through the roof and people are struggling. There is a housing crisis in Australia and the nation is becoming unaffordable for vast swathes of the population. Central banks have pushed up interest rates to combat inflation, which makes things worse in the short term – and when you are poor you only exist in the short term, financially speaking. A health crisis is one thing but an economic crisis gazumps this.

Even in the 21C, humanity cannot humanely deal with economic crises, it seems. Hairy chested autocrats turn away and murmur their mantra about personal responsibility.

According to right wing conservative policies minority groups like those living with a disability, First Nations people, refugees, and LGBTQI folk can remain in their economic ghettoes. Out of sight is out of mind and the best place for all these people who don’t really matter. The important thing is the economy and the dominant white cohort, where division does not exist. This is because the ideal Aussie is white, Anglo, and male – and we all should aspire to this category. Making special efforts on behalf of these ‘other’ people is divisive and a waste of public money. If we say that racism doesn’t exist then, of course, it doesn’t. If disabled people quietly live lives of neglect and exclusion on the fringes of society – that is how it has always been. Don’t rock the boat Australia. More importantly, it is your individual responsibility to succeed or fail in life.

Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom. 

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