the workers?

What about the workers?

Papua New Guinea A False Economy by Kenneth Good, Anti-Slavery Society, London. 106 pp. $12.00 The publisher of Dr Good’s critically titled history of PNG’s development is a society formed last century to assist the effort to abolish the African slave trade. That cause won, it turned its attention towards the emancipation of indigenous peoples everywhere.

Based in the UK, it continues to seek the publicising of hu man rights abused, evaluating the actions of governments in accordance with relevant UN conventions.

So why is PNG, independent from Australia these past twelve years, considered a suitable candidate for the society’s study? It is hardly a country where authorities brutally abuse the citizens.

Mt Hagen can be fraught at night, but it is a far cry from El Salvador.

Perhaps the society endorsed Good’s contention that tra ditional PNG life was unequal, the colonial period more so, and post-independence has been a time when rich peasants and an urban elite make hay at the nation’s expense. But if so, there is no sign, for “The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necesarily represent those of the Anti-Slavery Society”.

Going it alone, then, the author, an Australian formerly at the University of PNG and now in Zambia, contends that PNG’s people have got a raw deal from “post-colonial de pendence” (economically, on Australia; diplomatically, by liv ing in fear of the Indonesian generals). The “New Ruling Class” (the educated in towns, and the better-off rural capital ists) have done well from filling the white man’s shoes.

Good’s anger derives from his theoretical Marxist view of the world, one which sees people in all pre-revolutionary

countries being exploited by a more powerful, privileged elite.

In the earliest phase of PNG’s human development to Mar xists, “feudal” society, although Good avoids such terminology “Hereditary chief systems developed in parts of the coun try, but the most characteristic institution of political leadership and centralisation was the so called big men”.

With regional variations, big men began to dominate the wealth and power of their people, and of course to subju gate the women. “Ideologies of male superiority and female inferiority were expressed with particular virulence in the High lands”.

In some places, Bougainville and Buka in the North Solo mons for instance, whole clas ses emerged which “reach the point of clear-cut stratification . . . aristocrats, commoners and intermediaries”.

Then came foreign colonials Marx identified imperialism clearly whose village admi nistrators, the luluais and tultuls were “carefully chosen by colo nial officials on the basis of their influence in their communities, that is, on their power prior to colonial penetration”.

Good explains how the kiaps (patrol officers) identified men who already possessed powers “The first luluais were gener ally men who had made their name as warriors and big men in their communities.”

He goes on to chart the relevance of this tendency to the emergence of a plantation economy, run first by whites and later by privileged local landowners and entrepreneurs.

The coffee industry receives close scrutiny, as do mining, fishing and timber. In no case is the author happy with the financial benefits accruing to the common people or the state.

Special criticism is directed at the post-independence elite, both the national and provincial

parliamentarians who have lost few opportunities to make personal profits, as well as the bureaucrats with their desire for the perks of office.

“The state in PNG is in reality less a wealth-creating agency than with the exception of coffee and cocoa a wealth consuming one. . . During 1981, when world commodity prices were falling, the national government managed to con sume no less that 40 per cent of the country’s GDP.”

He laments the degree of corruption, pointing fingers at both politicians and public ser vants. For a leftist, he seems oddly less fussed by the habits of the private sector. There is also the structural problem of the parties and the political system which fail to “offer or ganisation and leadership to the mass of the rural population: there is no political party which seeks to further the interests of the peasantry and the urban working class”.

He finds it disappointing that no strong voices are urging a cutback in export cropping in favour of domestic food pro duction. This is yet another sign of the country’s neo-colonial domination by outside forces.

Further dismal news is the plight of the Irian Jayans, colo nised by an alien regime and lacking the support they should rightly get from their fellow Melanesians in PNG.

This slender but biting volume ends with two appen dices. The first is the national doctrine known as the Eight Aims which Good evidently supports; the second is the address made by present Prime Minister (then Deputy PM) Paias Wingti to the 1982 Waigani Seminar in Port Moresby, of which the author takes an extremely dim view.

He feels a “back to basics” strategy would be most appropriate, with power and wealth redistribution a govern ment priority. He does not

believe that the private sector, however profitable, will greatly help the majority of people, nor that the trickle down of govern ment expenditure can ever reach many of the have-nots.

The book is a thought-pro voking companion to the wide ly-read Development and De pendency which Good pro duced with Mortimer and Amarshi in 1979.

It is unavoidably a little dated, however, due to the fall of the Somare coalition. For instance, Mr Wingti’s perform ance in office could be evalu ated interestingly in the light of the 1982 speech. One also gets the feeling that distant Zambia might be a hard place in which to write a study of PNG, even if it shares some economic char acteristics.

This challenge from the Left deserves an argued response from the other side, ideally by the “think tanks” of govern ment or private enterprise. It is a debate which at present is

conspicuously muted

Robin

Osborne