What doors would a 'Western Civilisation' degree open?

Amongst all of the fire and fury about the Australian National University’s decision to decline an offer of private funding for a course in Western Civilisation, a couple of key questions are yet to be asked. The first is simply, what job would a student of Western Civilisation be qualified to do?

After 20 years of neoliberalism, most universities now define themselves by their ability to design undergraduate courses that the employees of tomorrow will need. Course titles, curriculum content and even assessment tasks are all designed to signal to students and employers that graduates are ‘job ready’. But has anyone ever heard of a skills shortage for those well versed in Greek literature?

Don’t get me wrong, just as universities tried to argue throughout the nineties and early 2000s, I think a liberal arts education provides both high level cognitive and communication skills, along with an historical and intellectual context that can help see modern dilemmas more clearly. Having a large number of university graduates who can read critically, write clearly, and see through bullshit arguments is good for society. It’s probably good for the economy too, but there is no need to lean on that crutch to win a democratic debate.

But if Tony Abbott or John Howard, both of whom are board members of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation that was trying to fund the degree at ANU, were passionate advocates of the importance of generalist arts degrees back the 1980s and 1990s, they did a great job of hiding it. So, again, what job will all these experts in Western Civilisation pursue when they finish their studies? Banking? Mining? IT?

Tony Abbott was honest enough to suggest an answer to this question. Writing in Quadrant Magazine, Mr Abbott explained both the lengthy process he engaged in to persuade Paul Ramsay to bequeath billions of dollars to found the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and the goals of that institution.

Mr Abbott wrote about his confidence regarding “the difference that could be made by small numbers of committed and capable people”. But of course the only way a small number of people can make a big difference is if they work together, which, presumably is why Mr Abbott was at pains to point out his belief in what he calls O’Sullivan’s law that “every organisation that’s not explicitly right-wing, over time becomes left-wing”. But again Mr Abbott informs us that “This is a serious risk for the Ramsay Centre but I’m confident that this fate will be avoided”. No wonder the ANU was nervous.

The second big question is about the Ramsay Centre’s judgement and self-awareness. Namely, how on earth can an organisation that mounts a lengthy national attack on our national university, pretend that it does not seek to have influence over that institution? After the ANU expressed concern that the Ramsay Centre might seek excessive influence that would impede academic freedom, the university was openly criticised by a prime minister, a former prime minister, a raft of front benchers and prominent national commentators. Put simply, the ferocity and power of the attack on the ANU is the clearest proof that they made the right decision.

Having spent decades telling the public, and the leaders of public institutions, that GDP growth and the size of the budget deficit is all that matters, the political right in Australia is now coming to terms with consequences of building a society that values cash over culture.

But rather than rebuilding our faith in the academic and cultural institutions that neoliberalism destroyed, Mr Abbott is determined to provide a subsidised education in the liberal arts to a small handful of students selected by a privately-funded institution as being worthy of such an education.

There is no reason for Australian universities to feel so poor that they need to rely on philanthropic funding. The introduction of university fees was supposed to provide those institutions with the generous funding that neoliberalism told us could no longer be provided from our taxes. But after 27 years of economic growth, and after 30 years of fee-paying students, apparently our universities simply can’t afford to provide the quality education they could provide before our country got so rich and before students were asked to pay so much.

Of course it is not just universities that have failed to thrive despite their enthusiastic embrace of neoliberal ideas about user-pays and consumer choice. This week the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) concluded that competition in the Australian energy market is failing because consumers do not have access to the information they need to make good choices about which electricity ‘plan’ they should be on. Who would have thought that multiple companies offering dozens of ‘plans’ to provide exactly the same electrons to consumers would lead to confusion and price-gouging? Bizarrely, the neoliberal solution to this ‘failure of competition’ is to create a new layer of bureaucracy and oversight for the ‘free’ markets which, we were once told, wouldn’t need regulation or oversight.

Similarly, just a fortnight ago the Productivity Commission informed us that the neoliberal experiment in superannuation as not just failing dismally but draining billions of dollars per year out of the retirement savings of ordinary Australians and into the pockets of those who design complicated and expensive financial products. It’s as if there is a pattern.

Ironically if more students had gained critical thinking skills from liberal arts degrees—and far less students had left university with simple checklists like ‘markets good, regulation bad’—to help them understand the world, then perhaps Australian governments wouldn’t have rushed so quickly to implement simplistic reforms to our education, finance and energy sectors, that were based on ideology rather than evidence.

But we are through the looking glass now. Tony Abbott and John Howard think we need more arts students. Our Resources Minister Matt Canavan used to work at the Productivity Commission and espouse the need for ‘small government’, but now wants to spend billions of dollars subsidising coal mines. Malcolm Turnbull, the former merchant banker, used to believe that market based mechanisms were the best way to tackle climate change, but now wants to spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars building big dams. And of course most of the ‘free traders’ in parliament now support regulating the trade in live sheep.

27 years of continuous economic growth has done wonders for our national wealth but it has done enormous harm to our public debate and the critical thinking skills of many of our leaders. Mr Abbott and Mr Howard are right to believe that we need to invest heavily in a generalist education, but we need to think a lot bigger than they and Mr Ramsay were thinking. If we are to restore our democracy we don’t just need to send a few dozen conservatives through a culture war course, we need to reinvest in all of our schools, universities and cultural institutions. It will cost more than the few billion Mr Ramsay left behind, but it will deliver far more than Mr Abbot could ever dream of.

Richard Denniss is chief economist at The Australia Institute @RDNS_TAI. His Quarterly Essay, Dead Right: How Neoliberalism ate itself and what comes next, is available now.