Introduction
Why Does This Matter?
This book analyses discursive constructions of the market, consumers, producers, efficiency, competition, and productivity, and their application to the Australian wheat industry. Drawing on the work of Rose (1993, 1996), Miller and Rose (1990, 2008), Dean (1999), Higgins (2001a, b, 2002a, b, 2005), and Higgins and Lockie (2002) in particular, I analyse the discursive construction of these rationalities. I argue that policy makers have sought to construct the rationality of the market-based society as a reality, through the shaping of knowledge, values, and identities which accord with this reality.
Policy discourses construct knowledge as the result of quantitative analysis. In this sense, to quantify something is to know it. This construction of knowledge has significant implications for how we understand and interpret the world. In addition, it influences what matters in relation to policy, particularly policy which is portrayed by policy makers as evidence based. Furthermore, policy discourses have sought to shape what we value as citizens and as a society. For example, quality of life, as an overarching policy ambition, has been subtly replaced by living standards, which are portrayed as consumption-centric and can be appeased by firms in liberalised markets. In this regard, what we value, or what policy discourses suggest we should value, is achievable through the construction of an environment where firmsā involvement in our lives is enhanced and markets are portrayed as the co-ordinator of these firms. Thus, a ābusiness-friendly environmentā is framed as a good development for society. Coupled with these shifts is the construction of identities as an important facet in the neoliberalisation of Australian society. For example, citizens are reconstructed as consumers. This claim is not novel. However, I argue that it is central to the reality of markets and firms, the rationality of neoliberalism.
The development of the ābusiness-friendly environmentā, and the rise of the technology of the consumer, I suggest, has been central to the neoliberalisation of Australian agriculture. In addition, farmersā construction as individualistic and entrepreneurial business people shapes what it is to be a āgood farmerā. This creates a reality where increased private investment in Australian agriculture is portrayed as common sense. Furthermore, the construction of firmsā identities is also important to this narrative. Firms are cast as being central to the betterment of society, as having an interest in societyās welfare above all else. This portrayal is clearly misleading in the modern society, where the shareholder and their interests have been constructed as the primary concern of the firm (Morgan 2014; Fairbairn 2014; Lazonick 2012).
Whereas the deregulation of the wheat industry was framed as being in the interests of wheat farmers, this policy shift has created an environment where wheat farmers and their communities are disenfranchised and undermined. Instead, wheat export market deregulation has been introduced to encourage transnational agri-food firms to extend their participation in Australian agriculture. This policy environment has been designed to nurture the interests of these actors, in the flawed assumption that their increased power and control over Australian agriculture will benefit Australian society. In justifying policy change such as wheat export market deregulation as āin the national interestā, policy makers obscure the effect of policies such as this upon people and communities. In the case of wheat export market deregulation, and related policies such as structural adjustment and AgricultureāAdvancing Australia, the broad aim is to maximise industry efficiency and productivity, which is assumed to lead to greater contribution of agriculture and industries such as wheat to the national economy. However, these policies also reduce the importance of farmers and communities, distorting and externalising the negative social consequences of these policy shifts. Farmer exits are referred to vaguely as adjustments, which are the necessary consequences of these policy changes, which, in any case, only impact farmers of lesser competence. The social impact of these shifts is masked as short-term pain, without acknowledging the potential for farmer exits to undermine rural communities and social capital of rural towns. Furthermore, if there are benefits to these shifts which accrue to the nation, it is unclear which sections of the community receive these benefits and what these benefits might look like. It could be argued that this is measurable through a greater contribution of agriculture to Australiaās gross domestic product (GDP ). This argument presumes that consumers might ultimately benefit. However, this implies that the benefits to consumers (however unclear or unequally shared) outweigh the real and perceptible negative consequences for rural Australiaāmost particularly, farmers, their families, and communities reliant upon the farming population. The obvious beneficiaries of agricultural and related-economic restructuring are transnational firms and their shareholders, whose access to Australian markets allows them to expand their geographic footprint and therefore develop new markets and sources of supply, as well as institutional investors, whom the Australian government is encouraging to increase their investment in Australian farmland.
Beyond the Australian wheat industry and agriculture, this work contributes to research highlighting the flawed arguments and assumptions which have underpinned the restructuring of Australian society in recent decades. The processes and technologies which I highlight are not confined to the Australian wheat industry. Policy discourses have shaped perceptions of how we know, what we know, and what we value. These constructions have shaped policy to focus on increasing efficiency, competition, and individualism. The resulting ābusiness-friendly environmentā, which is claimed to improve peopleās well-being, is characterised by the transference of power away from the public towards corporations.
My research highlights this process in relation to farming. This study focuses on farming, specifically the wheat industry, to show how technologies of agency and performance have been used to operationalise the reality of markets, consumers, and competition. However, the policy tools which have been used to make this shift happenāquantification, individualism, firms as efficiency maximisers, efficiency maximisation and living standards, consumer choice and freedomāare endemic throughout Australian society. These constructions are buttressed by the argument that increased allocative efficiency, increased private firmsā participation in society, and maximised resource productivity are in the national interest. In this regard, the national interest is crystallised in constructed indicators such as the unemployment rate, GDP, and multifactor productivity growth. The process by which GDP is increased, the legitimacy of this indicator, or the distribution of the gains which improved economic performance GDP is claimed to reflect are portrayed by policy discourses as secondary concerns. Is this in the national interest? I suggest that it is not.
Throughout this work, I argue that policy discourses have changed what matters, in relation to Australian farming, the welfare of farming communities, and policy governing the farming industry in Australia. Policy discourses have changed what counts as legitimate, credible knowledge and, in the process, have changed what counts as legitimate, credible policy objectives. This changed reality has been operationalised by technologies of performance and agency, which have facilitated a shift from the public to the private. This shift is not necessarily a transference of power from the state to corporations, or a retraction of the stateās powers. However, this shift is encapsulated by a shift in power from the public to the privateāa creation of privatised spaces, where public spaces once existed. The market is constructed as a producer of information, as a decider of what is fair and what is not, and as an organiser of society. The key participants in markets, consumers and firms, are integral to this construction. Critically, policy makers have constructed a corporatised society, by assuming that in the relationship between these market participants, consumers have the power. This assumption is incorrect. Consequently, this reconstruction of society has shifted power from the public to private interests, which I argue is not in Australian societyās interests or the interests of the nation.
Contribution of This Work
Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, successive Australian governments engineered extens...