Is recession inevitable in Canberra?

I’m sorry – I should post an in-depth complex refutation of Marxism in an internet forum devoted to Canberra affairs? I don’t think that I’ve ever been that bored.

It’s hardly ducking the argument. I gave you a simple example above (and question to you) in post 34. It’s a very good start at why Marxian analysis is no longer valid.

Regardless of how cute it is that someone is still banging on about ‘class warfare’ and ‘the tyrrany of the State’. It would be a lot more helpful to actually engage with *contemporary* thinking on economic and social issues.

Jim

Instead of just saying Marx isn’t relevant, perhaps you could explain specifically why and where this is so.

it looks to me like ducking the argument. Old ideas, therefore don’t discuss. Label anything old and that ends the discussion. This seems a pretty authoritarian way to determine debate. But if you could concretise your arguments I’d have a better handle on what you are saying and arguing.

For example is the labour theory of value no longer relevant? (maybe marginal utility theory does explain everything. maybe the transformation problem is right and proves Marx completely wring. maybe the structure of the working class is so different now to 150 years ago that Marx’s insights no longer apply?)

Is the surplus value idea wrong? Is there not a tendency for the rate of profit to fall? Is stalinism really socialism or not? Is the realm of production undemocratic?

I could go on, but if you just give me some reasoning behind your assertion both of unsutiablity and therefore reasons for not discussing (eg even if currently unsuitable does that rule out all discussion for all time) that would be fine.
Thanks.

People’s living standards have risen dramatically in the last 20 years in this country, primarily because of economic reform and good management. I’m still not sure how workers are supposed to stand up for their living standards. Any chance you could elborate a bit?

Passy said :

I’d just like to see workers standing up for their interests – jobs, living standards etc – in the here and now.

Paradoxically as the attacks on living standards worsen, the power of workers to fight back is lessened since there are less of them (more unemployed) and profit is low.

Which ‘workers’? The CEOs of big companies? The upper-level managers? The mid-level managers? Maybe the programmers on short-term contracts backing up sporadic employment with share portfolios?

You’re basing your rhetoric and analysis (to the extent that there is a difference) on a simplistic notion of a class-system that hasn’t existed for a good number of years.

Chrispy

Afraid not t a podcast.

Also I am not arguing that revolution is around the corner. Far from it. I’d just like to see workers standing up for their interests – jobs, living standards etc – in the here and now.

Paradoxically as the attacks on living standards worsen, the power of workers to fight back is lessened since there are less of them (more unemployed) and profit is low.

And extreme right wing ideas could get an audience. It would eb simple to blame aborigines, or muslims, or big unions and big business for the problems of teh economy, and such scapegoating would get an audience.

Passy said :

A resurgent working class fighting for better living standards for themselves is going to want and fight for better living standards for all, I hope.

Jumping Jesus on a Pogostick. I consider myself to be pretty left-wing, but not for a second would I think of arguing that a ‘socialist revolution’ would deliver better living standards.

Living standards in this century have improved largely due to economic factors filtered through governmental reform.

I don’t want to be dismissive, but I really have to agree with seekay – you’re using an aged and insanely out-of-date theoretical apparatus to try and interpret complex contemporary phenomenon, and it just sounds really really silly. Like if someone wanted to analyse the GFC using the literary criticism of Lionel Trilling as a template.

Sure, Marx and his ilk provided some great analytical tools and some sociological insight into the workings of the high industrial era in Western Europe. But when anyone tries to apply this carte blanche to 21st Century Global Socio-Economic situations, it’s hard to take it seriously.

dexi

I and most workers would like to see that too. But the social power of these groups compared to workers is pretty small.

A resurgent working class fighting for better living standards for themselves is going to want and fight for better living standards for all, I hope.

Thanks seekay. This seems to be very dictatorial approach. Because you say something is entirely discredited we cannot discuss it. OK, so what can we discuss?

Christianity? Neo-liberalism? Until last year Keynesianism was dead too but seems to have come back from the grave. Should we discuss it or not?

In France the most popular politician is a trotskyist with over 23 per cent voting support. Presumably he should not be allowed to discuss his ideas since they should lie buried in Mexico.

But please let us all know the subjects we are allowed to discuss. The ones you proscribe we can then rubbish as discredited without having to do all those horrible little things like address the arguments intelligently. Those you do not proscribe we will presumably be allowed to discuss intelligently. Thanks for your guidance.

“I wanted to have a sensible discussion.”

Well then, don’t peddle an entirely discredited ideology that should have been mouldering in the grave with its father for the past century and a quarter.

Passy said :

I wanted to have a sensible discussion. When the crackpots have finished with their insults can the adults get a chance to ahve a discussion (to borrow from Jim’s comments earlier on another thread.)If these crackpots are the conservative cream then the curdle has turned to crap.

ok then in all seriousness, this lefty scum says let’s slash the defence budget. by a HUGE amount. it’s the only portfolio budget that increases year in, year out – and what quality outcomes do we see? very expensive submarines and planes that don’t work or are completely outdated.

and yes i do agree also with jim jones’ sentiment about the lack of a real strategy to deal with an inevitable zombie invasion.

neanderthalsis said :

If you want socratic dialogue, you need to address the replies.

Socratic dialogue: some old dude bangs on about stuff until everyone gets sick of him and there’s a public execution.

Passy, is there any chance of getting a podcast for those of us who can’t make it?

Personally I don’t believe there is any way to avoid a resession, but I think that the share market won’t fall much further. Housing is likely to be hit next as people move into their parents house because they lost their jobs. Following that there might be a semi-revolution but I won’t hold my breath.

Maybe I missed your comments neanderthalis in being told to go to North Korea, having my mental health constantly queried (although in blunter terms than that) and being described as,among other things an effete student and a soft cock. My apologies. I’ll try to have a look and get back to you (although I thought I did respond in general terms to most of the sensible comments. Certainly I wasn’t deliberately avoiding you.)

Interesting you mention the Socratic method. I tried to use that (or a version of it) when I taught tax law at the ANU. Most students thought it worked well.

The principle appears to me to be that the bosses will try to make workers pay for the economic crisis.

What exactly is meant by this? Reduction in entitlements and/or sackings? Are there other ways in which workers will pay?

I think we’re actually getting down to something more interesting now.

Boith Piratemonkey and Thumper make essentially the same point – that cutting PS jobs will undermine the stimulus package.

i think the stimulus package is more about politics – rudd being seen to eb doing soemthing – than actually doing something.

Lindsay Tanneer did previously talk about taking a meat axe to teh PS. Now he talks about squeezing the lemons. Ominously he said that the ps grew from 212,000 to 247,000 in teh last few years udner howard. BTW, this was a bad thing, to Tanner.

The efficiency dividend, year in year out, forces Departmetns to cut and crimp, including on staff. If the Governemtn were serious about increasing aggregate demand they’d axe the efficeincy divdend. But last eyar they “temporarliy’ increaaased it by @ per cnet. If I were Tanner I’d be tempted to make the temporary increase permanent.

And the Rudd government has been arguing that a person’s wage increase is another person’s job loss. So one target, using that logic, would be the ps wages bill. You cna keep you job if you accept a wages freeze.
look, these are my guesses, based on trying to put myself in the shoes of tanner and rudd and gillard. they may be wrong. But the logic of the bosses doign that ina crisis appears inexorable to me.

The principle appears to me to be that the bosses will try to make workers pay for the economic crisis. The Rudd Government is the boss of 247,000 PS employees. They won’t be immune from this ‘logic’. The detail will be in how they do make their own employees pay.

Passy said :

I wanted to have a sensible discussion. When the crackpots have finished with their insults can the adults get a chance to ahve a discussion (to borrow from Jim’s comments earlier on another thread.)If these crackpots are the conservative cream then the curdle has turned to crap.

I posted a number of sensible rebuttals of your trotskyish diatribe in the other thread and got no reply. If you want socratic dialogue, you need to address the replies.

toriness said :

such dramatic words in that flyer! the author should pen a book on armageddon.

and who is this small dyke of trade with china? i thought penny wong had the climate change portfolio?

Hahahahahahaharoflmao. Classic toriness.

bloodnut say:

“I hit (more) so i could tell you to go back to selling green weeklies.

but you already do.”

Actually I sell the magazine Socialist Alternative(www.sa.org.au).

One common point among commentators seems to be that workers won’t strike to defend jobs or wages. This appears somewhat true in Australia at the moment. It does not make it an eternal truth. The same could have been said around the world perhaps six months ago.

France had a general strike in January and has another planned for 19 March. The most popular Opposition politician there is a trotskyist from the New Anti-Capitalist party,Olivier Besancenot. He has from memory 23 per cent support. French ‘exceptionalism’ doesn’t explain this. France has been ruled since the second world war by conservatives (except for Mitterrand, who became conservative) and with brief Socialist Government interludes.

There was a general strike in Greece recently.

120,000 workers in Ireland demonstrated the other day against government policies.

Mass demonstrations in Iceland over the economic crisis forced out the Government. Similarly in Latvia, and Lithuania might go the same way.

As Marx wrote: All that is solid melts into air.

Maybe the trade union bureaucracy can hold back those workers in Australia wanting to take action. Certainly there is no tradition of struggle in Australia (apart from minor blips) since Hawke’s election in 1983. The memory of successful industrial action has almost disappeared from the class.

Sackings and wage cuts however may make people re-evaluate previous strategies.

One of the problems for the bourgeoisie in times of economic crisis is that union membership is so low. If there is a spark anywhere it could ignite major non-unionised sections of the class. There are all these non-unionised workers who haven’t become brain dead from the ACTU poison of class collaboration.

Sharan Barrow telling them not to strike, to act responsibly, won’t cut it with them, partly because they won’t even know who she is. And partly because the reality of keeping their jobs might force them to strike or occupy and they don’t have the ACTU – capital’s industrial police – telling them not to.

The class struggle is going on around us all the time. It is all one way at the moment, as bosses like Country Pacific today sack workers in their thousands. And minimum wage workers look like their wages will be cut in real terms to pay for the bosses’ crisis of profitability.

It may be that workers somewhere in Australia decide at some stage to emulate the Waterford Crystal workers in Ireland and occupy their workplaces. Who knows? But I think there is a real possibility that the old certainties or truths that existed during the boom times are gone and industrial militancy is one option some workers may turn to.

Certainly I don’t think there are structural changes in Australian society that render that possibility unlikely.

To misjudge the enemy is the worst mistake a general can make. To imagine the last war is the present one runs a close second.

“This means that at some stage class struggle could break out in Australia.”

I would like to see a struggle for a greater share of Australia wealth for the indigenous, frail, old and non wage earners. Workers seem to have it pretty good. Its the undervalued Australians that struggle.

“Small dyke of trade with china?” Wha?

We have one of the largest (in area) countries on earth yet only 20 something million people live here instead of 200 million or 1 billion. The natural resources that come with such are land mass are huge. We have huge percentages of world reserves of some very important resoucres. Take this into account and each and every australian is astonishingly rich without even lifting a finger compared to much of the rest of the world.

The current global financial crisis is a re adjustment. A massive one yes. But the world will always need what we have. We play our cards right and all will be fine.

As for public service cuts? Isn’t the government spending 42 billion to keep jobs in the private sector humming along? I would have assumed they will lead by example with keeping people in jobs. Meaning canberra is set. Those who loose jobs to help efficency are just going to get jobs elsewhere in the government. Efficiecny isn’t a bad thing.

We bloodied the face of the bourgeoisie … oh, sorry, that’s tomato sauce.

The only class struggle I’ve actually seen in Australia is a CFMEU bloke pushing a businessman out of the way for a meat pie in the Qantas Club.

Australia will be affected by the global economic crisis, of course. But how we manage ourselves will determine how greatly we are affected.

My view is that yes, this is globalisation at work. We are seeing a shift away from the old world dominance of markets towards developing markets. We are seeing a market correction. Each time another government throws money at a problem it can’t stop, I shudder.

Australia should have been able to do very well out of this had we invested our surplus in productivity-enhancing infrastructure. Instead, we’re spending the money on things like school halls ie a nice short-term burst, but it’s not in Australia’s long-term interest as an ongoing boost to our economy.

Perhaps the one thing Passy and I can agree upon (aside from being Dragons supporters) is that developing world economies becoming more on par with the first world economies is not such a bad thing.

Passy – there’s no question that the GFC will effect Canberra (and the public circus).

“This means that at some stage class struggle could break out in Australia.”

This is, IMHO, about as likely as a zombie holocaust.

We’re at a point of political-economic history at which reform occurs, not revolution. The trends of reform are already highly visible. The pendulum has shifted away from the tendency to deregulate and all talk is about greater government regulation and intervention.

Nobody revolts on a full stomach.

Passy said :

I wanted to have a sensible discussion…

Presumably one our two of the readers out there would welcome that sort of discussion…

I am not pushing an agenda…

A discussion – then what? No following agenda? Or will you supreme pontification sublimate my free thought and render me alternatively socialst?

Very Jehovah’s witnessy if you ask me – crackpot.

Passy, you mention that a public service wage freeze is a real possibility. Has this happened before? I ask because the department that pays me is about to negotiate a new certified agreement.

I wanted to have a sensible discussion. When the crackpots have finished with their insults can the adults get a chance to ahve a discussion (to borrow from Jim’s comments earlier on another thread.)If these crackpots are the conservative cream then the curdle has turned to crap.

VYB, I take your point about Australia going OK at the moment. I just don’t see how that is going to hold up into the future. If asking that question is scaremongering, then i must plead guilty. But surely discussing the issue and the possibility is what informed citizens should eb doing? I can’t for the life of me see how raising the issue is scaremongering.

Of example, Rudd seems to be in a bit of panic. $42 billion is a lot of money (but just slightly more than we are about to spend on new submarines.) Those on low wages may well not get a pay increase at all this year.

Even Conservative estimates are that unemployment will hit 7 per cent, and that ignores underemployment. The Australian Financial review (not known for its scaremongering) says that by June next year there will be an extra 300,000 people looking for work, 2/3rds of them school leavers or graduates.

The mining boom has collapsed. Credit is tightening.

Alan Kohler says that the Australian stock market is now in October 1929 territory. he is not a scaremonger.

And it is possible Rudd et al will attack the public service, perhaps leading with a wages freeze.

Surely the future of the economy and society is something worth discussing rather than just lambasting it as scaremongering?

Presumably one our two of the readers out there would welcome that sort of discussion.

I am not pushing an agenda. I want people to hear different views. My ideas may not appear very relevant at the moment (although I think there is a bit of a growing audience for them).

Relevancy changes over time. What were once dissident ideas can become the new orthodoxy, especially in politics. Why choose today as your benchmark for relevancy? If all politics is frozen in time we’d still have John Howard. Or Menzies or Billy McMahon or Whitlam or Lenin and Trotsky. Or maybe we’ll be condemnded to have the toxic bore (or should that be boar) with us for all time?

The point is that change is the only constant. (Sorry to regurgitate management speak, but it was the nearest cliché I could grab that captured my thoughts.)

What’s more disturbing than the economic crisis is the complete failure of the Australian Government at all levels to develop plans to cope with the inevitable zombie holocaust to come.

such dramatic words in that flyer! the author should pen a book on armageddon.

and who is this small dyke of trade with china? i thought penny wong had the climate change portfolio?

Australia is weathering the ‘Global Financial Crisis’ well at the moment, without widespread job losses. The govt, for their faults, are being fairly sensible, and it’s unlikely they’ll do anything to increase unemployment in the short term.

Frankly, I think Australia is the place to be, financially speaking. Australia has nothing like the problems of many other countries, especially in terms of govt debt, unemployment, access to resources, financial regulation enforcement, etc.

This sort of story is little more than fearmongering to push an agenda that doesn’t seem particularly relevant to most Australians.

The peasants are revolting, the peasants are revolting. That’s right, they stink on ice… (thanks Mel Brooks)

Yeah, let’s all take a flex day and stand up to the Man!

I hit (more) so i could tell you to go back to selling green weeklies.

but you already do.

“Class struggle in response to the economic ferment can break out here in Australia (even Canberra).”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Hail the revolutionary and proletarian triumph of the ten millionth people’s bicycle!