Thread by @timdunlop

Ppl are rightly kicking up a fuss abt the apparent conflict of interest with the committee looking at franking credits, but there is nothing particularly novel about it. This is how neoliberalism works: govt isn't reduced, it's bent to serve the interests of the wealthy. The few.

In this case, we can see the strings a little more clearly than usual & who is (allegedly) pulling them, but this stuff goes on all the time. Whether it's the mining tax, the terms of ref for the banking RC, privatisation of public assets. A few benefit at the expense of the many

We end up with cutbacks in public services, increased monitoring and disciplining of those who rely on such services, and the inevitable fraying of the life in common, which the few then seek to insulate themselves from with the wealth they have accrued at our expense.

The thing is, at the end of the day, you *can't* insulate yourself against that sort of inequality. But the few are reluctant to admit it. So they cling to every advantage (like franking credit 'refunds', ffs) in the hope that the decay will not touch them. But it will.

Societies can survive many things, but the inequality that's been building for 40-odd years now is the destroyer of worlds. Throw in climate change - which is just a side of effect of the same thing - and it's a minute to midnight.
So who will realise first: the many or the few?

BTW: this is more or less what I write about in the latest book, including some ways to respond in areas of media, government, wealth work and education: goo.gl/4dDJ9j