Predatory government is one that preys on people. An American economist, James Galbraith, has written a book called The Predator State. That state, he said, was one that is taken over by people whose interest is to enrich themselves. Predatory government has existed for a long time. Even kings and queens enriched themselves through slavery. But, there is a modern way as well. How do predators make it work?

First, they deregulate so that government no longer has the power to set standards that protect the public interest from self-interested private motives; or predators become government regulators themselves whose conflict of interests on boards or in ministries allow them to put public office in the service of private gain.

The next thing they do is privatise. They either get government to sell them public assets paid for by the taxpayers, but sold cheaply, sometimes with government loans; or they privatise government itself by taking over some of the arms of government and as, say, board members or CEOs of these agencies, their actions cross the line between public function and private motives.

The third thing they do is liberalise. This includes privatisation but, more broadly, it involves anything that opens up a domain to benefit those with special advantages, say, of size, who can compete in those domains so that they can benefit the most, even by buying the business of others who cannot compete, becoming dominant players in the process.

PILLARS OF NEOLIBERALISM

These three phenomena - deregulation, privatisation, and liberalisation - constitute the pillars of the neoliberal movement that, more than anything else, has opened up modern society to new forms and scale of corruption that have never been seen before. These three phenomena are not bad in themselves.

They can be very good when used to make operations more efficient, but these efficiencies must serve the public good. It is a vulgarisation of these processes when neoliberal ideologues use them to serve special interests. Political scientists study power and always ask who rules/governs in order to see if special groups of people control the power to benefit especially.

Much is being written in the American press now about the large-scale fraud schemes that have triggered trillion-dollar market failures worldwide; the trillion-dollar bailouts that are otherwise called corporate welfare; and the need to restore regulation and responsible state management of economic activities so that global crises of the kind we are witnessing do not happen again.

It is not just a financial crisis either. Predatory government allows special interests to plunder the environment and to extort great profits through inflated prices, like energy and food prices. The overlapping economic, ecological, and humanitarian crises we are witnessing have much of their roots in predatory government.

The World Bank and multilaterals like to point their fingers at developing countries to say how corruption hinders economic growth. Corruption is bad and harmful but no level of corruption in the Caribbean can bring down the world economy the way that corruption in the western governments and economies have now done. The multilaterals like to talk about good and honest governance. But they should be advising their own governments about how to be honest. The catch is that they can't. They cannot impose conditions of good governance as a condition for trillions of dollars to bail out failing economies.

GOVERNMENT CAPTURE

Businesses do not have the force of governments to plunder so they capture governments and use the money of good citizens to bail out bad businesses; and promote bad business practices or provide special advantages and super profits to business. All of this is called being 'market-friendly'.

Market-friendly policies are precisely the kinds of policies that neoliberalism insists upon. The Jamaican record shows that these businesses might pay very little taxes in return. Businesses love governments that allow them to get away with paying little or nothing. But, it is a dangerous game.

Countries like Jamaica cannot bring down the world economy. But, their governments can be predatory to the point of bringing the economy down. In the midst of our crises we hear that the Ministry of Tourism has spent $40 million to sponsor a private festival. We hear of members of government boards in conflict of interest cases brought before the contractor general, such as at the Jamaica Urban Transit Company.

We hear of regular breaches of procurement guidelines and of people approving financial business without the authority to do so. We hear of lack of transparency in leasing assets, like in the case of Nationwide News Network.

We hear of a junior minister being investigated by the serious crime squad in a matter involving millions relating to the award of contracts. We hear of big sponsors of the ruling party's elections getting privileged positions to buy Urban Development Corporation (UDC) property. We hear of the millions spent by UDC to buy private property without proper justification or procedure. In the midst of all of this our government is the most expensive with the largest Cabinet ever.

GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS

Predatory government happens when government is too close to business and to its special and influential friends. Democracy is supposed to protect the public interest by requiring government and business dealings to be transparent and subject to accountability so that business and friendship are not abused. However, when the watchdog mechanisms of democracy don't work, then there is no protection of the public interest.

For example, business buys influence when there is no campaign finance regulation. The present government had stood against this kind of regulation in the last Parliament. Those mechanisms don't work when a party promises parliamentary approval for appointment of boards but goes ahead in government to appoint persons who have proven unfit because of conflicts of interests. Democracy fails when the backgrounds and stories about the connections of people who offer themselves as candidates are not checked beforehand.

Predatory government happens when the predators cannot separate private interests from public duties and the ethics of private motive prevails over public ethics. We must be sceptical of the view that certain people can be brought over directly from the world of private profit straight into public office when they are not used to restraint, accountability, and sacrifice for the good of others.

Part of the problem of American politics is the close nexus and many crossover points between government and business, and the heavy dependence of government on private money. There is constant confusion over where private motives end and public motives begin.

Predatory government happens when businessmen find it cheaper to buy politicians than to compete in the market, and when the market is not democratic in the first place, so that there is no accountability. Effective democracy is the best antidote to private government.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or columns@gleanerjm.com.