The following review by Kate Galloway appears in the Alternative Law Journal:
Antony Loewenstein; Melbourne University Press, 2013; 261 pages; $32.99 (paperback)
In this extensively researched book, journalist Antony Loewenstein takes the reader on a world tour. From the remotest parts of Australia — at the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, Christmas Island and James Price Point, to Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and finally Haiti — Loewenstein prosecutes his argument that, worldwide, ”˜vulture capitalism’ is thriving on the misery of those dispossessed and impoverished by disaster.
Perhaps the biggest problem with this is that there is no incentive to stop the misery — as this would impinge on profits. For example though Australian detention centres are bursting at the seams, the more asylum seekers who arrive by boat, the more call there is for the services of Serco, the current provider of detention facilities to the Australian government. While detainees were referred to as clients (until the recent direction of the new minister, Scott Morrison, that they be called ”˜illegal’ arrivals and ”˜detainees’) it is of course the Australian government that is the client of Serco, and its shareholders who are the stakeholders in a profit-making venture.
The book reads journalistically, and Loewenstein is adept at setting the scene in each site he visits. The reader is brought along with the pace and mood, as the author engages with company officials and locals alike. While very readable, the message is strongly brought home about the context for this ”˜disaster capitalism’ and its effects, sustained ”˜when the lines between the public and private realms are rendered invisible’.
For those in favour of small government, there may be an argument as to the ”˜efficiency’ of privatisation of services. However the scale and pervasiveness of the profit-driven model of service delivery chronicled in this book calls on us to question the very nature of what it is that governments are there to do. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the Panguna mine on Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea. As a result of the mine’s operations and dispossession of local people, the very sovereignty of PNG itself has been challenged through a bloody separatist movement. Now lying idle, the mine’s operation has caused significant environmental damage and social disruption. How this model of public/private partnership can be sustained is debatable at best.
This book will appeal to those who care about justice and who question the devolution of the role of government as a consequence of neoliberal ideals. Importantly, through the six case studies, it offers a cohesive argument against blurring the public/private enterprise divide in the interests of a sustainable and just world.
KATE GALLOWAY teaches law at James Cook University.