Privatization: when corporations and government profit from human suffereing

So this is how privatization and contracting out of public services works.

Serco the operator of Australia's immigration detention centres, is paid nearly $400 million by the Federal Government to run immigration detention. But Serco breaches its contract so much that it has been fined $4.5 million for contract breaches over a 2 month period (November and December). Information suggests that Serco were fined $2 million dollars in November and $2.5 million in December for breaches that include poor practice, incompetence, inappropriate treatment of detainees, incidents in centres, and escapes.

But the Government refuses to release any detail of the breaches, citing commercial confidentiality.

As Antony Lowenstein points out  rather than demand that Serco improve the treatment of detainees, or even rescind Serco's contract for constant breaches, the Federal Government simply pockets the money Serco pays in fines.

The immigration department has fined the company that runs its detention centres for contract breaches, including a series of breakouts.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship contracts the UK-based Serco to run its detention centres. The latest contract – worth about $370 million – was signed in 2009.
“Under the contract between Serco and DIAC there are provisions for the imposition of fines and sanctions against Serco for lax practices or incompetence,” a DIAC spokesman said.
The fines reportedly exceeded $4 million, but the department has refused to reveal the figure.
“The details are commercial in confidence,” the spokesman said.

 Here is yet another example of Serco's incompetence. Just what is Serco's risk management strategy for managing a disturbance in detention centres? Call the Police.

This extract is from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Concerns whether NT Police would have the capacity to deal with a large-scale disturbance emerged on Friday, after it was announced late on Thursday that a new 1,500-bed detention facility would be developed at Wickham Point, on Darwin Harbour - opposite the CBD - to house single men.

The move, along with plans to almost double the bed capacity at the Darwin Airport Lodge Detention Centre, will take Darwin's immigration detention capacity to 2,900, eclipsing Christmas Island's 2,600 capacity.

 

NT Police Association president Vince Kelly told AAP he understood that Serco, the private security company that manages Australia's immigration detention centres, had no real plans to handle a major disturbance other than to telephone the police.

"It would seem that there has been no contemplation of the impacts this might have on the NT police, or about the capacity of NT Police to deal with a large-scale disturbance involving 1,500 people who are held in these facilities," he said.

"The safety of NT police officers is something that should be considered."

Missing in action: An economic vision for the "common wealth" not corporate wealth

For US author David Korten the lesson of the US Congressional elections is that financial and corporate interests have strengthened their hold over US politics. Korten argues that no US President or party is willing to break their hold over democracy. The result is that neither party has a credible vision for the economic future of the nation.

Korten argues that the banking and financial industries and their corporate allies are the big winners from the US congressional elections and now hold an even more dominant role over democracy. This is despite the fact that they were the  cause of the economic crises that has devastated the US economy and left over 15 million people unemployed. 

In the latest elections the banking and financial services industry and their corporate allies used their massive spending power to ensure the election of candidates that serve corporate interests.

Korten calls for a fundamental economic restructuring and a long term vision for a New Economy that

• is based on sound market principles
• is rooted in community and life values rather than financial values  and is built from the bottom up
• is accountable to community interests
• is aligned with values of solidarity, compassion and caring for others
• locates the power to create and allocate money in people and community rather than the banking and financial industry
• ensures that sustainable living and sustainable livelihoods for working people are the highest priority of economic policy rather than increased corporate profits, reduced taxation and growing wealth for the already well off.

Public sector reform=bosting corporate profits

George Monbiot on exactly what "public sector reform" really means in David Cameron's vision of the UK Big Society. 

Lesson to be learned- when Conservatives and Liberals, like Colin Barnett, talk about reforming the public sector this is what they mean:

"Public bodies whose purpose is to hold corporations to account are being swept away. Public bodies whose purpose is to help boost corporate profits, regardless of the consequences for people and the environment, have sailed through unharmed. What the two lists suggest is that the economic crisis is the disaster the Conservatives have been praying for. The government’s programme of cuts looks like a classic example of disaster capitalism: using a crisis to re-shape the economy in the interests of business"

Challenging corporate power requires challenging economic orthodoxy

"We need to develop a new way of conceiving the economic process. In calling for an end to economics, I am not suggesting that we should dismiss everything that economists have learned about the economy. Some economic insights are useful. Our goal should be to build up an understanding of the economy in a context that transcends the narrow context of economic theory that characterizes modern economic theory. In doing so, we may lay the groundwork for an economy that transcends our outmoded capitalist way of life." 

Michael Perelman Railroading Economics

Stephen Marglin calls it the "dismal science". Michael Perelman writes about the ideological straitjacket of modern economics. James Galbraith describes contemporary economics in terms of a god that failed, a governing creed whose fallacies have been exposed by events of recent years.  In his book Economia Australian Geoff Davies writes that we have all become so accustomed to the current economic regime that we fail to see how absurd it is. He is right.

Contemporary economics provides the intellectual justification for corporate power. If we are to expose and challenge corporate power then we must also expose the fallacies at the heart of contemporary economics and economic theory. With that goal in mind I am currently reading the books pictured, all of which present a radical and sustained critique of contemporary economics. They challenge the idea that market and market forces are a solution to our social, environmental and economic problems.

These books don't just expose discredited contemporary economic orthodoxies, they also document the destructive effects of those orthodoxies in the real world (rather than the theories of economists and business leaders). These authors more importantly set an  alternative and radical economic agenda for the future.

The books pictured include:

  

Stephen Margeli (2008) The Dismal Science

Michael Perelman (2006) Railroading Economics

James Galbraith (2008)  The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and why Liberals Should to

Geoff Davies (2004) Economia: New Economic systems to empower people and support the living world

James Gustav Speth (2008) The Bridge at the End of the World

Barry Lynn (2009) Cornered:The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Dynamics of Destruction