The Greatest Transformation - Eric Aarons responds to Shayn McCallum

above: A recent book by Eric Aarons - exploring the clash between Karl Marx and Friedrich Hayek.

In the following article former Communist Party of Australia leader Eric Aarons responds to our earlier article by Shayn McCallum. (Shayn's article can be found here: ) Aarons critiques 'social market' approaches to change, positing global warming and other environmental challenges as the most important issues facing humanity. While recognising the necessary role of some markets, Aarons proposes an egalitarian services-based economy, and an economy which goes beyond the treadmill of over-work and over-consumption. DEBATE WECOME!!!

nb also: In addition to our article here, a very detailed review of Aarons' larger, more academically-inclined book on the same theme of Hayek and Marx can be found here - where we welcome debate!!!:

SEE: http://hayekversusmarx.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/responding-to-eric-aarons-hayek-versus.html


Eric Aarons, Sep 22, 2012

This article is a response to Shayn McCallum’s article ‘State and Market – a Democratic Socialist Approach’ that appeared on a Tristan Ewins’ website. I do so because the concerns it deals with are close to my own – that is, seeking to formulate a substantive definition of what currently active people of the left should do or ‘stand for’.

My response is not intended as a polemic, though it is forthright and direct because I assume that neither Shayn nor I wants to smarm over difficulties or differences. I therefore begin with the title of his piece stated above.

Shayn poses ‘a mixed economy’ as one reasonable answer to the question posed by his title ‘State and Market’. But that term, which I also use, can’t take us very far or generate enthusiasm unless the nature of the mix is further clarified. I also use the term, sometimes with the proviso that the ‘mix’ must be devoid of the extremes evident in the continuing practices of capitalism and the type of socialism that came to prevail in the Soviet Union or Maoist China and blackened the very term.

But I believe that ‘mixed economy’ is not made adequate by adding the word democratic, or the phrase ‘devoid of extremes’. Similar problems arise with ‘economic democracy’. I agree that ‘The Social Market’, as devised by its founders and analysed by Australia’s Hugh V. Emy, Professor of Politics at Monash University, poses little danger to the existing system, or possesses any significant transformative power.

Thus we seem to agree that no expression has yet been found that contains the emotional and intellectual force possessed in the past by the ‘left’, and backed by the capacity to enthuse people into action by concretising general aims in specific strugggles. Shayn points out that much of social democratic (in Australia, particularly Labor Party) discourse is ‘excessively tenuous, somewhat vacuous’ and limits its criticism of [neo] liberalism to the details rather than its over-arching vision.’ That comment, I believe, is justified, but loses much of its force when Shayn himself fails to outline what the content of an effective critique of that vision would be.

I don’t feel lacking in that area, having written three books on the subject, the last beingHayek versus Marx (2009). The publishers insisted on that title because it was part of a planned series (mine came out as the 180th work in that series). But I eventually persuaded them to add the subtitle: And today’s challenges, the significance of which for discussions like the present one I explore later.

But I think it is essential to appreciate the vast difference between the retail markets that we visit almost every day, and the financial markets that played a crucial role in generating the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, to the present time, when it threatens to break out with even greater force at any moment in Europe.

The necessity of some markets

As Shayn clearly recognises, markets existed to one degree or another in practically every society later than the stone age. (For instance, the Conquistadores found extensive markets in some of the countries of what is now called Latin America). But Shayn neither distinguishes between different kinds of market, nor explains the reasons for the universal existence of some of them.

The foremost of these concerns has to do with what most of us perforce do every day, in response to the natural evolution of the division of labour. This compels us to engage in exchanges, usually of money from our wages, to obtain the mix of different commodities we need to live. These range from foodstuffs to transport, liquor, haircuts, entertainment and other items. One doesn’t need a vivid imagination to envision the difficulties, not to speak of the public outrage, that would result from any attempt to plan and institute an alternative, for example, one of state allocation of the same items or meals for all irrespective of the work they may, or may not have contributed in Mao’s ill-fated Chinese rural communes, while in competitive marketts, it is equals that are generally exchanged.

(I don’t think it necessary to pursue the many further variations that arise in areas such as whitegoods, TVs, computers, houses or cars, where the state may step in with requirements for performance standards, health requirements and the like.)

The Social Market

I agree with Shayn that the term ‘social market’ doesn’t take us very far. Its origin and meaning was well analysed by Australian academic Hugh Emy as the vision of some genuinely liberal-minded post-war German theorists, couched in moral as well as economic terms. It centred on the idea of ‘co-determination’ by owners and workers in businesses but ruled out any interference with ownership relations. It had some progressive content, but was by no means a transformative development.

Shayn rather airily dismisses cultural issues and contests, defining them as though they were lightweight compared with a physical presence or direct economic content. Without trying here to cover the full scope of culture, political activists need to realise that morals, values and attitudes, among other features of human behaviour and consciousness, are sources of action or passivity, which are surely of central importance in politics.

Without entering the field of values, for instance, I see little chance of constructing an effective critique of the neo-liberal vision which at present still holds (now less securely) a hegemonic position, or defining an effective social democratic one. Shayn instead speaks of confronting the ‘questions of class power’, that he then nominates in purely economic terms as ‘redistribution or the provision of social goods and services’.

I am far from dismissing the importance of this for a segment of the population of our country, a similar proportion of other economically developed countries, and massive numbers in the undeveloped. But I am convinced it is the wrong direction, at this particular juncture, in which to look for a liberating, emancipatory, transformative orientation.

Today’s main challenges

The general social conditions and forms of economic restructuring that would be involved in meeting those challenges, the first of which is Global warming, requires sober calculation, including of the time frame. Solutions need to be, or clearly becoming,politically possible within two or three decades, or the problem could take a disastrous turn, for example by the melting of the tundra in Siberia, Greenland and elsewhere which would release huge quantities of now frozen methane – an even greater ‘greenhouse effective’ gas than carbon dioxide.

‘Politically possible’ means that to be democratically effected there has to be near enough to majority support for the measures involved type. There are already in existence more than needed of what I call ‘if only’ plans – ones that pose preconditions having little chance of being realised, and which in any case are inadequately campaigned for.

Global Warming occurs today mainly because we are burning increasing quantities of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) to generate our ever-increasing energy requirements. The burning process produces carbon dioxide gas which has the physical property of acting like a greenhouse – that is, a kind of‘house’ device, usually made of glass that lets in the sun’s rays, or is internally heated to cultivate plants that need heat to grow, but doesn’t let the heated air inside escape. Carbon dioxide and other gases, in the quantities now being generated by burning, mix uniformly in the global atmosphere from whatever country they come, warming the world, from frozen poles and glaciered areas to the tropics, causing the escalating number of weather extremes we all see on TV or ourselves experience, and raising ocean levels by melting ice.

Earth’s resources are not infinite

The related major challenge of our times is first of all the growing threat to the sustainability of the supply base for all this burning of fossil fuels. It is clear that oil will soon run out, while coal and gas won’t last forever. Water is becoming scarce in many places, and large quantities of underground water are being polluted by the fracking of coal and shale beds to produce gas. ‘Rare-earth’ elements, essential for many sophisticated electronic apps are scarce. Phosphorus, one of our main fertilisers (and an essential component of DNA) is in short supply, as is potash.


Fish are becoming scarcer, and some of its best food species are on the verge of extinction, while ever-larger trawlers are built to pursue others still existing. New agricultural land is scarcely to be found and the productivity of large areas is being reduced by overuse and more extreme weather events.


Much more information is readily available, but is not acted upon. Nor are either the dangers, or the transformational possibilities flowing from victory in the struggle to overcome them sufficiently taken on board by the left including, regrettably, the trade unions.

The scale of all this

Geology Professor Mike Sandiford of Melbourne University gives us a striking measure of this scale:

Rivers and glaciers have moved about 10 billion tons of sediment from mountain to sea each year on average over geological time. Each year humans mine about 7 billion tons of coal and 2.3 billion tons of iron ore. We shift about the same amount again of overburden to access these resources, along with construction aggregate and other excavations. In short we are now one of the main agents shaping the earth’s surface. (Sydney Morning Herald, May 23, 2011)

The course of solving it will not only help to change the present unfavourable-to-the-left balance of political forces. It will provide us, and especially succeeding generations, with clues about the best course to further economic and cultural steps.

* * *

Inverting the meaning of Karl Polanyi’s striking title to his famous book The Great Transformation which he used with the subtitle The Political and Economic Origin of Our Time, I have called success in meeting fully the present challenges The GreatestTransformation.

This may seem exaggerated, but consider the fact that for the first time ever in history, all countries and cultures will eventually have to become involved, and that the vast majority of people will then have to be guided by the principle that excesses in resource consumption must be avoided.

Some may be alarmed at this and consider it to be going backwards. But I hold that it is true progress, liberating us from toils of consumerism which daily (and nightly) consume the time and energy of a growing proportion of the world’s population, while also keeping a large proportion of humanity in wretched poverty or on the brink of starvation.

Transformation, emancipation

Those on the political right, centred on the ideology of neo-liberalism, and their rabble-rousing foot soldiers, simply deny what is there to be seen and experienced. Maybe they simply fear change as such, perhaps believing that what now exists is the pinnacle of possible human existence, as Frances Fukuyama once asserted, but now, to his credit, has changed his tune.

Even those on the left, the core of which are the social democrats, and the Greens (who are to the left of them on some issues), aspire to something better and more constructive for the future, but have yet to develop a sufficiently coherent social philosophy.

And I am concerned that Shayn gives so little attention to these issues. Could it be that he holds the view common among a small section of the left, that no substantial progress can be made in any social field until the economic base on which it has arisen is first transformed? Such views have dogged the socialist cause almost from its beginnings, with Eduard Bernstein, for one, struggling with it through most of his life.

Of course, no one political strategy could meet every different set of conditions; but my judgment is that the issues stated above are tailor-made for a strategy of resolving pressing major issues, not instead of (perhaps) more basic ones, but rather as an essential step on the way to actually doing so.

Consumption is essential up to the point of sufficiency (which of course cannot be too narrowly defined) but taken beyond that to the very aim of life is a view and practice that is far from liberating. It binds a majority of people in the economically developed countries to a daily (and often nightly) treadmill that is now restricting rather than helping to extend our development as human beings.


Friedrich Hayek, who developed neo-liberal philosophy to its present (though declining) predominance, helped elevate consumerism to its present peak above more worthy and humanly satisfying aims by denouncing those who rejected his view ‘that the great ideal of the unity of mankind should in the last resort depend on the relations between the parts being governed by the striving for the better satisfaction of their material needs.’ (LLL2,111)

He followed that up by denigrating working people with the assertion that ‘their intuitive craving for a more humane and personal morals corresponding to their inherited instincts is quite likely to destroy the Open Society [capitalism].’ (LLL2, 146).

Let us wear this as a badge of honour.

Human development

One aspect of switching our view of progress from more material goods to greater human development is to expand and deepen our relationships with other human beings, family and otherwise. This activity is both pleasurable and emancipatory, cultivating our human sensibilities whose possibilities are inexhaustible, as are the possible accomplishments of our reason.


Furthermore, caring occupations require increased human participation, as do educational, and health services, and individual and collective cultural and artistic pursuits, while engineering and related developments to create more material commodities often cut employment, though capturing sufficiently more of the sun’s heat and electronic rays to replace burning for energy will keep the need for engineering and related activities, including science, fully employed indefinitely into the future.

The Services Society

Largely unnoticed and unremarked till recently is the fact that provision of services rather than material consumption commodities is by far the largest part of the economies of the developed countries.

Last year, two Reserve Bank economic analysts, Ellis Connolly and Christine Lewis, quantified the changes in Australia. Titled Structural Changes in the Australian Economy, it showed that 80 per cent of the total value produced in our country came from the service sector, and embraced 85 per cent of the total workforce. The remaining 20 per cent of value was produced by agriculture, manufacturing and mining which employed the remaining 15 per cent of the workforce.

I queried them about the inclusion of ‘construction’ (for instance, construction of massive office blocks) and they replied that they did so because it is listed in the Australia and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC). However, they did agree that there is no clear distinctions between industries that are ‘services’ and those that are ‘non-services’.

As a lay-person in this area I would estimate that a more realistic figure might be about two thirds services. But that figure, and the fact that only 15 per cent of the workforce, in manufacturing, mining and agriculture, produces no more than 20 per cent of all value indicates a major restructuring of society is already under way, I believe with great significance for proceeding to ‘the greatest transformation’ that humanity must accomplish before the end of this century. And building on a spontaneous/evolutionary development is generally far easier to accomplish than trying to create something so radically different that people may be more reluctant to embrace it, while it can also be more subject to violent reversal.

Consumption goods cannot be distributed equally because people and families are different, have different responsibilities, different incomes and different tastes, Services, however, from electricity, water and sewerage supplies, health and education and transport and communication services … are equally essential to everybody, indeed possess an egalitarian aspect that is desirable, but rare in present society. This fact is expressed in the so far unsuccessful attempt to globalize and privatise trade in services through GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services), leaving most services still locally supplied, with a major portion still in state hands.

The Australia Institute conducted surveys that revealed a majority would prefer better services over tax cuts. When asked which election promise was more likely to win their vote, 56 per cent of those surveyed chose better services to increased living standards compared to 44 per cent who said that tax cuts would sway their vote. Of all those surveyed, 63 per cent wanted services to benefit Australians equally.

As well as treasuring this egalitarian factor, we should remind ourselves e forget conditions of work have an effect on ways of thinking, ‘big industry’ significantly generating trade unionism and to a certain extent socialist thinking. This is not to suggest that trade union and socialist sentiment cannot arise among workers in, for example, caring activitie, only that they may have to be approached in a rather different way, as do workers in country areas compared with the city. The conclusion should be that understanding the ways of thinking of differently placed, differently formed, differently parented and differently educated people, is not simply the product of class economic relations.

Taken generally, we need to realise that politics is an art rather than a science where ‘theory’ alone is adequate to decide on policy and practical activity. Or, put somewhat differently, the common view in left, right, and to some extent in neutral or various other circles, that property or other economic relations have to come first – that these, often called material relations, must change before any significant society-wide alternatives can occur.

My contention is that in the concrete conditions of global warming and threats to planetary resource provision, tackling these problems should be the priority, and that succeeding in the endeavour to overcome them will do more than any other available way in which to clarify what economic changes can politically then be made. 

Mitt Romney - A Remedy or a Diagnosis?

above: The same of 'neo-liberal medicine' will be in order if Mitt Romney becomes US President

In this latest 'ALP Socialist Left Forum' article, Russian economics and political writer Boris Anisimov critiques Mitt Romney's economic prescriptions for America. Specifically, Anisimov criticises the ususal Republican agenda of austerity and tax cuts: but also looks more deeply to the price America may end up paying for re-industrialization. Debate Welcome!!!!

nb: Our Facebook Group posts updates whenever we add new articles and also hosts wide-ranging political debate. You can join our facebook group here - See: http://www.facebook.com/groups/102658893193637/

Boris Anisimov, September 9th

Who is this Mr. Romney: a new remedy for the old ailment or a new symptom of the old diagnosis?

In November 2012 we are anticipating the sequel to the much-talked-about drama serial known as the US elections. The air is going to be filled with celebration: flags, ribbons, ardent slogans from the pulpits and reciprocal exclamations from the crowd. Having completed the regular public debate ritual, US voters are going to line up in front of ballot boxes in order to entrust the urns with their most precious possession, namely their hopes for a brighter future. And judging by what is now happening to the American middle class, they hardly have anything else to entrust them with [1]. The danger of the middle class’ extinction is being seriously discussed in the US. One can think of some old truism about living in debt being fun until it is time to pay up. Households, corporations, banks, governments are all stepping up their debts while the resentment of the masses is growing bitter upon a realization at the outbreak of the on-going crisis that if there is a binge, there is going to be a hangover.

In times like this, the political farce gets unfurled in the most ruthless way. Any means which serves the purpose gets put to use. As highly-paid professional windbags publicly compete in slinging mud at one another, the voters, disunited into small interest groups, get distracted from the important matters and rail furiously for farfetched reasons.

I would probably say that the novelty of the current political season in the US is Mitt Romney, a well-to-do Mormon with experience of a businessman and a governor. The American political machine has once again demonstrated to the whole world its ability to come up with unexpected arrangements. The winner of the previous season, the African American under the non-Anglo-Saxon name of Obama, is no longer a thrill. He already acquired the status of a political old-timer and managed to lose some of his appeal. Now the public is presented with a new office-running novelty – a Mormon millionaire.

It is not his millions that became the talk of the town (well-to-do candidates for high political positions are common in the US), but his religion. Romney’s opponents did not miss the opportunity to ridicule his faith. However, any sound-minded individual understands that religion does not occupy the number-one position in a politician’s list of priorities – a politician is not paid for religious views but for protecting somebody’s interests.

It is also obvious that it is not theological preferences that will decide the outcome of the ultimate battle between Romney and Obama for the top position, but the future of the US economy. In crisis, this topic gets repeated more often thus implying that the number of economic promises pronounced from the lofty pulpits is going to increase. It would be interesting to count how many times during the debates each of the candidates will resort to some variation on the unofficial slogan of Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992 – “It is the economy, stupid». [2]

Any unusual phenomenon, which disrupts the conventional order of things, is either a precursor of a change or an inertial consequence of existing problems. I am wondering what Mitt Romney is all about from this standpoint. Who is this Mr. Romney: a new remedy for the old ailment or a new symptom of the old diagnosis?

Mr. Romney’s official site will dazzle you with promises [3], the main one being a sharp turn away from the «current course», by which policies of the present occupant of the White House are implied. Romney recognizes the need to boost employment, and puts this issue as his number-one priority in his economic policy.

So what is he suggesting?


1. Tax cuts;

2. Further deregulation;

3. Opening new external markets for US industries;

4. Producing more domestic energy in order to cut costs;

5. Greater “flexibility” of the labor market;

6. Retraining workers;

7. Government spending cuts.


Honestly, there is nothing new here – it is the “good” old neoliberalism, which is called neoconservatism in the US. It is all in line with the western economics manuals, which Mr. Gaidar and his bunch used for reforming us in the early 1990’s. That same economic policy with certain alterations is preserved in Russia until this day. The local “Chicago boys” – the Russian pro-western neoliberal monetarists, whose notorious heritage we can still see today – had quite a fancy for such a policy.

Interestingly enough, Romney and the Russian neoliberal reformers have the same flaws in their economic reasoning. Allowances must be obviously made to the United States’ position as the global hegemon. There is a growing suspicion that the program that Romney revealed only constitutes a portion of the real agenda because a set of mutually contradicting items in it make it unfeasible in its current form. What are the contradictions?

Taxes vs. Budget Deficits. Tax cuts for the sake of economic growth and lower unemployment make sense, but budget deficits due to tax cuts do not. Over the last decades, the US budget has been passed with a constant deficit, which gets monetized by the Fed. Many economists attribute the growing public debt in the US to the lack of funds due to tax cuts. The debt increment started accelerating astronomically in the early 1980’s, precisely when neoliberalism as politico-economic project came into existence. That very period was also marked by the advent of Republican Ronald Reagan at the White House where he convincingly played the role of a US president as he advocated tax cuts for the rich. And reaganomics – the economic constituent of the neoliberal theory – received this informal name after him.

In other words, upon taking office, Romney will be able to cut taxes only by increasing public debt, which contradicts his commitment to cut the latter and teach America to live within their means.

Austerity vs. Growth. Budget deficits can be lowered by cutting government spending. Romney’s reasoning that supports this initiative is based on the well-known maxim that one must live within one’s means. This very principle is noble and proper, but the way the Republicans are going to implement it does raise questions. Thus, Romney insists on cutting non-security spending while it is security spending, which takes up the largest portion of the budgetary expenditures. The second largest is the servicing of the government debt. In the US federal budget for the year 2012, the security expenditures planned at $881 billion make up 23.82% of the total expenditures, the deficit working out at $1,090 billion. We can hardly expect Romney to cut security spending at least because his promises to maintain the US geopolitical standing and thereby show the world an American equivalent of Kuzma's mother are going to require significant financing. On the other hand, it is possible to cut the expenditures on the police, firemen and teachers as well as social programs like the recently adopted law on the mandatory medical insurance [4].

I agree that government spending does not automatically lead to economic growth. But the problem is much more profound than what we hear about it from the American establishment in general and Mr. Romney in particular. It is not a matter of whether to run into more debt or not – it is a matter of whether households’ aggregate solvent demand is sufficient to finance a way out of the economic impasse or else the government will have to make up for the deficiency. In this case, there are no other options but three: to raise taxes for the well-off, run into more debt or “print” more money. The last option does not only threaten to push up inflation but also increases the budgetary debt load since the Fed in actual fact issues money by monetizing the public debt. If national governments could do it without the involvement of their central banks, the currency issue would be quite a stimulus for the internal demand, but it does not mitigate the danger of inflation. So whether Romney likes it or not, the US public debt is going to grow bigger.

Internal growth vs. geopolitical expansion. In words, Romney believes that internal resources will make economic growth possible. In accordance with the neoliberal doctrine, the main task is to restore the functioning of business. It is believed that once supply is restored, demand will follow suit automatically. Encouraged by another tax cut, entrepreneurs should allegedly start hiring, and the country’s economic motor should kick start itself – this is the so-called “supply-side economics”, which currently holds sway over economists’ minds. But there is an alternative approach. The “demand-side economics”, represented by various schools, underlines the impossibility to boost the economy by stimulating supply unless the solvent demand is ready to foot the bill. Economists who share this viewpoint are speaking of a widening gap in the US between the growth of average wages and the growth of productivity, which has become evident since the mid-1970’s [5]. The old Karl Marx called this phenomenon a crisis of over-production, the essence of which is quite simple – wages grow more slowly than productivity and cannot pay for the ever-increasing supply of goods and services [6]. And the US households’ growing debt load only confirms this concept. As a result, we see sagging sales, falling revenues, lay-offs, bad debts, banks refusing to lend, and finally a depression.

One can draw the same conclusion about the falling solvent demand in the US economy by analyzing the statistics of income distribution among the population.

Income Distribution in the US from 1982 to 2006 [7]
Year	Top 1 percent	Next 19 percent	Bottom 80 percent
1982	12.8%	39.1%	48.1%
1988	16.6%	38.9%	44.5%
1991	15.7%	40.7%	43.7%
1994	14.4%	40.8%	44.9%
1997	16.6%	39.6%	43.8%
2000	20.0%	38.7%	41.4%
2003	17.0%	40.8%	42.2%
2006	21.3%	40.1%	38.6%

Interestingly, the lowest rates for the majority of the population occurred at the beginning of the Great Depression in the late 1920’s and before the on-going crisis in the early 2000’s. And it is not a coincidence. The recent drop started in the early 1980’s upon the emergence of neoliberalism and is still continuing.
Can we expect that American debt-ridden consumers will start spending their evaporating incomes with renewed energy in order to bring up sales to the pre-crisis levels? This is at least naïve. According to economist Mikhail Khazin, the US household expenditures over the last 30 years have exceeded household incomes by 20-25% [8]. And Romney also seems skeptical about the internal economic growth in the near future since expansion by American industries into foreign markets has been put on his economic agenda. In other words, does that imply that, should internal resources turn out to be insufficient for economic growth, we are going to see new geopolitical crusades to expand markets and boost sales? Do the American elite realize that otherwise it will be difficult to restore internal consumption pre-crisis levels? I think they do.


Reindustialization vs. outsourcing. As Boris Kagarlitsky writes in his book The Revolt of the Middle Class, the very notion of a middle class appeared in the middle of the 20th century as a result of the implementation of Keynesian prescriptions in the economic policies of the West. By redistributing a portion of incomes in the economy for the middle class’ benefit, the elite managed to ensure high consumption levels for various goods and services. The western ideologists did not miss the opportunity to demonstrate this achievement as evidence that the West was at a more advanced stage of socio-economic development in comparison with the Soviet “socialism” while, in essence, it was a left-center compromise caused by the fear of popular discontent following the Great Depression.

When the elite’s fears finally subsided, a gradual right turn started bringing about falling incomes and growing inequality among the American common folk. The «fattening» of the middle class was no longer in fashion. In order to cut costs, corporations began relocating production facilities to countries with low wages. This resulted in the United States’ love and hate relationship with China where millions of workers were ready to toil for peanuts while China’s internal solvent demand remained immensely low.

Now that the global demand is falling, China is trying to stimulate internal consumption, but this raises all production costs. So the US has already started talking about the production facilities moving back from China [9]. It is still too early to talk about the US reindustrialization. It is hard for me to imagine that the debt-ridden US middle class should consent to wages low enough to start attracting jobs in large numbers back from the third-world countries. Also, I cannot get rid of an impression that Romney’s initiatives to limit the clout of trade unions and improve workers’ re-training programs are all aimed specifically at labor cost reduction. The labor market’s “flexibility” – which, in essence, simplifies the hiring and firing of employees – can lower job security, intensify competition among the workforce and bring down wages as a result.

I think turning the US back into a leading industrial superpower in the near future will be quite problematic since a massive industrialization will require a significant reduction of the working population’s living standards. Is the American public ready for such a turn of events? Will they be able to increase spending and pay off their loans as their liabilities continue to rise merely because of accrued interest?

All initiatives aimed at reducing the middle class’ income in the US economy are likely to raise questions from the international community. As you know, the demand in the US is the largest in the world and “feeds” corporations in a lot of countries. Neither China alone nor all the BRIC countries put together have so far been able to offer the globalized transnational world consumption levels comparable with those of the US. If global consumption does not rise to the pre-crisis levels soon and continue to grow further, the danger of major financial meltdowns is going to remain acute because the world still has enormous amounts of debt previously extended in hopes that global demand should continue to expand.

When demand declines, economics manuals turn into worthless paper waste. The neoliberal economics deals mostly with the expansion of supply and believes that demand expands automatically. Our government and corporate strategies, educational programs, politics and ideology are all based on this view of the world. And Romney is one of the best representatives of this system. So, is Romney a remedy or a diagnosis? Alas, only a diagnosis. He is too symptomatic of his epoch to symbolize any kind of renewal. All his convictions on economics and foreign policies were voiced before. Carbon copied from previous republican candidates’ programs, they sound more like populist chants than a real action plan. Romney is obviously trying to win the favor of the American conservatives. You can hear him talk about “the American dream that built America” and “the spirit of entrepreneurship inherent in the American nation”, but all his talk of self-sufficiency is coupled with geopolitical rhetoric. Romney does raise the issue of the US public debt, which is now approaching $16 trillion, but fails to bring up the issue of the growing household debt, which financed the growth of corporate incomes over the last decades.

A politician who tells his or her voters that their incomes are going to decline does not stand a chance in politics. Instead, a politician must shine with optimism and make believe that he or she knows how to fix things. This is exactly Romney’s case. He is a slave to the American conservative ideology of success. In reality, he can offer even less than Obama, who is striving to pass some center-left initiatives. From the ideological stand point, Romney is hog-tied. The policies he was pursuing as Massachusetts governor were more socially oriented in comparison with what he is promising to implement if elected US president. He is now trying to prove his hawkishness, but is only turning the steadily impoverishing middle class away.

Boris Anisimov


P.S. The original article in Russian can be found at http://www.odnako.org/blogs/show_19857/

State and Market - a Democratic Socialist Approach

above: 'people power' - time to build a democratic economy

In this new essay Shayn McCallum explores the possibilities for a genuine democratic mixed economy; one profoundly more radical that the social market approach. Debate welcome!

nb: Readers can join our Facebook group too!! at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/102658893193637/

Current debates within the European socialist movement on the way forward for the Centre-Left, often seem to be centred on the unnecessarily narrow field of “state versus market”. Much of the debate revolves around questions of the “correct ratio” of state-to-market in the provision of public goods and services, with scant attention given to the political nature of either. Where an economic vision is articulated we see labels such as “decent capitalism” or the highly traditional “social-market economy” employed. Both of these terms however, borrow heavily from a terminology, and therefore a mind-set, which is not of the Left and which unnecessarily limits and restricts the thinking of social-democratic strategists and activists.


The work of George Lakoff and Drew Westen[1] into the neuro-linguistic dimension of politics reveals a great deal that is useful in considering the current weakness of the Centre-Left and its apparent loss of creativity and direction. In accepting the essence of the liberal world-view and limiting its criticisms of the liberal project to the details rather than the over-arching vision, social-democrats have been reduced to becoming the “annoying flea” of politics, creating little more than an irritation for the continuing (neo-) liberal agenda. It has proven relatively easy for conservatives and liberals in Europe and elsewhere to dismiss social-democratic complaints about the ruthlessness of capitalism as mere faint-heartedness or an unrealistic inability to face up to “what must be done”. What is worse, the social-democratic discourse reveals that they may suspect that their neo-liberal opponents might be right after all; thus, the unsure, excessively tentative, somewhat vacuous nature of much social-democratic discourse.


By adopting terms such as “good capitalism” to combat the “bad capitalism” of the neo-liberals, social-democrats are exposing themselves to the obvious response, common to both far Left and Centre-Right, that really “there is just capitalism” and adjectives such as “good” and “bad” are irrelevant or misplaced. For the hard-core economists of the Right, as much as the more economistic voices on the hard Left, speaking of “good” and “bad” capitalism makes as much sense as speaking of “good” or “bad” gravity or “good” or “bad” oxygen. The term is weak, ineffective and unambitious and fails to offer more than a limp moral critique of the system as it is. In fact, the charming vision of a virtuous, industrious society re-enshrined in the virtuous “real economy” of manufacturing and productive industry is not only a fantasy, it is, in many ways, a reactionary one at that. When ecological collapse is looming right behind the collapse of the unbalanced and excessive, increasingly-consumption driven, global economic system, producing yet more “stuff” is probably not the optimum way forward from where we are now. Short-sighted, populist attempts to revive the industrial revolution in the wealthy nations makes as much sense as trying to stop the Titanic from sinking by making the orchestra play more slowly. The era of unsustainable industrial growth, at least in the first-wave of industrialised nations, belongs to the past not to the future and this is, perhaps, one thing the “neo-social democrats” have got right.


The state we are in demands a much bolder response than a nostalgic appeal to the good old days of industrial growth. Terms such as “decent capitalism” or even the “social-market economy” are flawed, in that they create a conceptual framework that is inseparable from, and therefore unable to move beyond the basic framework of the existing system. In contrast, by adopting terms such as “economic democracy” or even “a democratic mixed economy” socialists would have the means to open up this currently truncated and inhibited conceptual framework and, potentially, take back control of the dominant discourse. Where capitalism, whether “good” or “bad”, is defined by certain structures and institutions that cannot, even must not be transcended or interfered with for fear of undermining the system itself (once the central goal of socialists not so very long ago) terms such as a “democratic mixed economy” at least open the door to the possibility of transcending the flawed logic of capitalism and “the market economy” altogether.


Not only “capitalism”, which, it should be pointed out, is a term originally coined by critics of the system and which has only recently been embraced by its aficionados[2], but also the term “market economy” (whether social or not) is a conceptual prison. The Delors-era social-democratic slogan of “we want a market economy, not a market society” is reminiscent of a caricature of a man being devoured by a tiger and, whilst half-engulfed in the tiger’s maw, pleads with the creature to eat only his lower half and no more. A market economy, in the sense implied by liberal theory, cannot but lead to a market society[3]. A “mixed” economy however, at least conceptually, has the potential of being a society “with markets” without necessarily being dominated by them.


Just to frame this concept so it can emerge from the level of rhetoric to the level of a concrete example, economic history reveals a myriad of examples of economic systems which employed markets without being dominated by them and without exchange and commerce occupying the central place in economic life. Indeed, for much of human history, commerce has existed as one among many forms of economic activity and it is only in the modern age that it has acquired such a uniquely pervasive influence. Feudal economies, for example, were essentially war-driven economies based on the control of land and commerce remained a highly secondary pursuit. Merchants were tolerated and or encouraged as a means to an end and it wasn’t until the vast influx of wealth from the new world, from the 1500’s on, began to undermine the feudal power structure and grant the rising merchant class a significant degree of political influence that the road to modern capitalism was opened[4]. Likewise, in the Islamic Middle-East, trade was an important pursuit and markets held an important place in the life of the cities yet, even here, the dominant economic engine was the demands of a militarised state. There was no market economy to be found in the Middle-East, although very sophisticated markets played an important role in the urban economic order. No matter how important markets may have been to pre-modern economies, these were always merely one part, mostly a subordinate part, of the broader economic and political context.


As Polanyi points out[5], economic relations are always embedded in (and have been historically subject to) broader social and political contexts. Capitalism therefore, may be perceived as an attempt to dis-embed the economy and grant it a central, autonomous and superior role in the construction and maintenance of society. This is, however (according to Polanyi at least, and history is yet to prove him wrong) an unworkable fantasy. The idea of the self-regulating market is just as mythical and untenable as the idea of a fully-planned, efficient communist paradise. In reality, all economies embody a variety of co-existing production and distribution systems and most have varied property forms. Even the most “capitalistic” economies, such as the U.S., clearly demonstrate these variances. The state and large corporations are intertwined in ways that make a mockery of Smith’s “invisible hand”. Capitalism, in short, means “the rule of capital” and markets are merely a vehicle to be used when profitable and to be ignored whenever a liability[6].


This definition of capitalism permits the, otherwise absurd, position of advocating free markets against capitalism. This highly optimistic approach can be found in the works of David Korten[7]and the theory of mutualism associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, together with various theories of “market socialism”. Indeed, there are a number of political approaches which separate the market as a mechanism from the rule of capital. Although this “socialist reading of Adam Smith” is perhaps naïve and overly rooted in a near extinct class of smallholder artisans, farmers and entrepreneurs, the idea of a separation of the market from the rule of capital, although problematic, is not totally unreasonable as the existence of socially-embedded market mechanisms long precede the emergence of the capitalist political economy. As has been mentioned above, the self-regulating market is an ideological fantasy and does not approach the reality of capitalism which is increasingly exercised through highly-organised, bureaucratic trans-national corporations that employ markets as a tool. The problem of “markets against capitalism” however, is that the competition inherent to a market system inevitably creates winners and losers and leads to an evolutionary dynamic that, in a very short period of time, undermines the basis of the market itself (which is the essence of Polanyi’s critique of free-market ideology). A market-centred economy, regardless of its ideological foundations, appears inevitably to tend to support the emergence of capitalism at some point (a process somewhat demonstrated by real-world attempts to implement “market socialism”[8]).


Capitalism therefore, defined as the “rule of capital”, is, in every sense, at odds with popular sovereignty. If social-democrats accept “decent capitalism” as a goal, they are essentially pleading for capital to be decent as they are not capable of advancing any meaningful counter-power, such as powerful, well-organised trade-unions or citizens’ alliances to ensure this. In fact, the “decent capitalism” of the post-war Keynesian era, that forms the basis for this vision, was “decent” precisely because capitalism was compromised and partly balanced by a rising wave of democratisation. This democratic revolution was, unfortunately, undermined by circumstances and partially abandoned in the late 1970’s, at which point the neo-liberal counter-revolution seized the initiative. After WWII, capitalism was forced into an open-ended compromise with democracy, from the 1980’s onwards it has been busy undoing the bonds imposed by that era.


Just as it is impossible to serve two masters, it is also impossible to simultaneously uphold the power of capital and the sovereignty of the people. The unsatisfactory compromise offered by liberalism is to separate the political from the economic, leaving the economy to the abstraction known as the market (in truth, organised corporate interests) whilst parliaments elected by the people handle what remains of the political. In short, according to the theory, the “market” will see to employment, prices, wages and the distribution of essential and non-essential goods and services, whilst “democracy” need content itself with rulings on issues such as the permissibility of gay marriage, the criminalisation of flag-burning, gun ownership, abortion or other details of the social, cultural and political milieu. In such an environment, politics becomes a matter of flavour and preference with cultural issues substituting for questions of class power, redistribution or the provision of social goods and services[9]. That social-democrats have allowed themselves to be led down this path is a sad indictment of the robustness of socialist thought and strategy in the current era.


As Thomas Meyer points out[10], economic issues, issues of public welfare and economic justice give democracy its substance. If the liberal celebration of “negative freedom” (i.e. “freedom from” as opposed to “positive freedom” being the “freedom to” act or access something[11]) leads to little more than the “freedom” to be unemployed, homeless, ignorant or uninsured, there is good reason for adopting a more balanced and sober attitude. There is no point speaking of “freedom” unless people have the basis on which to enjoy that freedom and this can only be assured politically, by means of an active, participatory democracy that embraces all areas of public life.


Thomas Meyer roots his approach to social-democracy in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and there is some merit in referring to this document. The Declaration attempts not to align itself overtly with any particular political or economic theory or ideology although it is quite explicit in its advocacy of a political and social democracy entailing a raft of full social and political rights. Indeed, the resulting document proves, in its fundamentals, incompatible with either capitalism or communism (as practised in the Soviet Bloc or China) but highly compatible with either democratic socialism or social-liberalism and, indeed, it was on this terrain that the post-war Western European political order was established. The emergent order was a compromise between socialism and capitalism which, although capitalism was always the dominant force, arguably also contained the (historically unrealised) potential also to evolve in a more socialist direction.

It is worthwhile remembering that liberals such as Keynes, although by no means socialists, were also very much disenchanted with capitalism, although they grudgingly tolerated its continuation as the least-bad of the available alternatives. The aim of Keynesian demand-management was the general welfare and it saw capitalism as a tool, a means rather than an end. Keynes’ economics were, therefore open-ended and evolutionary and, arguably, contained the seeds equally of what could become either a democratic socialist or a social-liberal approach.


Although the benign capitalism of the “social market economy” may have resembled, in practice, the social-democratic ideal of a “democratic mixed economy” in truth the intentions were, and are, different. The social market may be “social” but the market is the indispensable, central mechanism of the economy, albeit modified where necessary by the need for a degree of social justice (again, to the degree that it does not “distort” the market mechanism). The “democratic mixed economy” however is an open-ended evolutionary project which stresses democracy as its primary feature. Its goal is not mere benevolent capitalism but a terrain on which new, emancipatory forms of property and production are able to evolve and emerge. It does not seek to overthrow capitalism in a frontal assault, nor necessarily to entirely eliminate market mechanisms from the economy, but rather to tame them, then subordinate them to the general good where possible. The difference, in brief, is that the “social market” is conceptually rooted in the market and therefore limited by the demands of the market whereas a “democratic mixed economy” is conceptually rooted in, and limited by, the demands of democracy and social justice. In the former, the limits of the social are determined by the market whereas, in the latter, the limits of the market are determined by the social.

Of course, in the real world, assuming the basis for a new compromise could be created, there would be a competition in politics between the visions of the “democratic economy” and the “social-market” which was, indeed, the ideological cleavage separating the Centre-Right and Centre-Left in the post-war Western European political economy. The democratic Left begins from the assumption that its own vision must be fought for amidst a plurality of competing visions and approaches. Any democratic political project must be open-ended and subject to both advances and reversals. It is a pity that the large sections of the Centre-Left abandoned its own vision before it had even achieved the bulk of its goals, although there is still a chance it will find its way back home.


At this point, it is perhaps appropriate to remember the approach of Eduard Bernstein for whom the “movement (was) everything, the end nothing”. The end, for modern socialists, is perhaps not “nothing”, in that it helps to have a landmark in the distance by which we can measure our progress, although, the nature of social-evolution is such that there usually is no identifiable end that can be discerned as one victory endlessly opens the path to new struggles. The goal of the Centre-Left therefore ought to be to ensure that the direction of evolution be towards greater freedom, equality and solidarity. Getting trapped in the historical cul-de-sacs of specific systems or institutional frameworks, whether it be “state-socialism” or “decent capitalism”, is the passport to extinction. Socialists need to imitate life itself and embrace constant evolution, but they must never forget the direction they wish to evolve in if they are to avoid the fate of the dinosaurs and dodos of the past. In time, terms such as “democratic mixed economy” are bound to pass their use-by date and develop into hidebound clichés as reality continues to extend its limits and social-democrats, if they are even continuing to call themselves by that name by then, will once again need to adapt or die, but always, hopefully, on the path to ever more democracy, ever more equality, liberty and fraternity.


[1] Lakoff and Westen’s work strongly parallel and even largely duplicate each other. The most comprehensive exposition of their approach can be found in:
Lakoff, George (2008): The Political Mind: why you can’t understand 21st-century politics with an 18th-century brain, Penguin, NY
Westen, Drew (2007): The Political Brain: the role of emotion in understanding the fate of the nation Public Affairs, NY
[2] Professor Fred Block points this out frequently in his work on capitalism and social-democracy and particularly compellingly in a Miwon lecture he delivered to Kyung-Hee University, Korea on September 26 2011, entitled; The Origins of the Current Crisis of Global Modernity
[3] Articulated most clearly by Karl Polanyi, especially in his magnum opus The Great Transformation. See
Polanyi Karl (2001 (1944) The Great Transformation, The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston,
Beacon Press
[4] These ideas are explored widely in Polanyi’s writings on economic history and can also be found in Eric Hobsbawm’s writing on the era as well as in a number of other sources. There is a wide range of literature dealing with the Islamic Middle-East however, among the best is probably the 3-volume investigation on the political-economy of the Ottoman Empire by Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert., see
İnalcık H & Quataert D (1994) An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, CUP, Cambridge
[5] Polanyi Karl (1944) op.cit.
[6] This is also mentioned by Polanyi but also widely commented on by a very wide range of other sources positioned on all points of the political spectrum. It was even acknowledged by former U.S.president Dwight D. Eisenhower in his musings on the “military-industrial complex”.
[7] David Korten is a leading proponent of a non-capitalist market economy. Most of his work embraces the central contention that capitalism is actually not a market system and that a “true” market economy is the solution. In many respects, his work is reminiscent of classical Proudhonian mutualism.
[8] Examples of this may be cited as the collapse of Yugoslav market socialism as well as the rather makeshift “goulash socialism” of communist Hungary but also the feeble market reforms of perestroika or state-capitalism of China and Vietnam. It remains to be seen how the emerging reforms in Cuba are likely to take shape.
[9] For an enthusiastic embrace of this process, see Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat
Friedman Thomas (2005) The World Is Flat: a brief history of the twenty-first century FSG NY
[10] Meyer, Thomas & Hinchman, Lewis (2005 (2007) The Theory Of Social Democracy Cambridge, Polity Press
[11] The distinction between “positive” and “negative” freedoms here are based on the categories introduced by Sir Isaiah Berlin in his famous essay Two Concepts of Liberty.

Labor Left - Doug Cameron Speaks Up

above: Labor Senator and Left Convenor Doug Cameron

In this week's Left Focus Post we talk about Labor Left Senator Doug Cameron and welfare/social wage initiatives; As well as Labor's survey of supporters and members. Have your Say!!! 

Tristan Ewins

PART ONE: Doug Cameron Speaks Up

There was an Interesting statement from Doug Cameron in The Age yesterday – with the prominent Labor Left Senator and Left Convenor arguing for $11.5 billion in tax reform to provide for the National Disability Insurance Sceheme, ‘world class’ Aged Care and Gonski education reforms.

This is *very* welcome even though it is only half as much as we have long campaigned for at Left Focus. The priorities of NDIS, Gonski and Aged Care are very welcome. But arguably we need *more* ambitious and open voices on the ALP Left - arguing for a more ambitious agenda. $11.5 billion – or 0.75% of GDP - in new social programs would be the greatest ‘steps forward’ Labor would have taken in years. (which says something, because in the ‘big picture’ it would be a modest initiative)

But a quick look at the math demonstrates that $11.5 billlion is not quite enough. Ultimately the NDIS will cost about $7 billion; and Gonski would Cost $5 billion. And if presumably we're *serious* about improving Aged Care and removing regressive user-pays mechanisms - several billion would be necessary there also. So let's say we need at least $16 billion to achieve our ends here. That would require tax reform to the tune of 1% of GDP - 25% more than what Doug Cameron is proposing. If Labor were to achieve this then we would be bedding down some very serious reforms.

Yet if we wanted to be more ambitious still - and arguably more electorally viable (not less) - then let's assume we also require more Federal funds to bridge the fiscal gap and prevent the slide towards privatized infrastructure - including the private energy infrastructure which is driving a Cost-of-Living crisis. And Cost-if-Living is *the* big issue out there.

Even in the context of increased purchasing power those saying that ‘Cost of Living is not an issue for Labor’ need to take a second look. Consumer purchasing-power has had a temporary boost as a consequence of low interest rates and a high dollar. But this is in the ‘big picture’ of a declining wage share of the economy. It’s also in the context of an increasingly bi-polarised workforce – with many in poorly paid, insecure work.

So firstly: the high dollar and low interest rates mightn’t last. Secondly, with the cost of energy having skyrocketed by 40%; with massive increases in the cost of water also; people on low incomes are hurting immensely; and people on middle incomes are hurting as well.

The reason this is so objectionable is because we have consumers hurting across the board – but it is NOT NECESSARY.

Over at the ‘Labor Green Alliance’ Facebook Group, Labor supporter Matt McLeod has made well-intentioned claims that Cost-of-Living is “an opposition play”, and that we would be better off targeting assistance to the poor, and reining in “middle class welfare”. My response is simply that we can do ALL these things.

A simple shift to public finance of new energy and water infrastructure would mean many things. Firstly competitive Federal Government borrowing rates would instantly and dramatically reduce the cost of raising funds for new infrastructure. It would also mean that the cost of new infrastructure could be staggered over many years through the gradual repayment of competitive public-sector loans. Hence inter-generational equity. And in such a way, also – in the context of progressive taxation – the method of payment, here, would also be much fairer than if left to ‘the market’.

Cost-of-Living pressures CAN be ameliorated greatly with a rejection of privatisation. If we (Labor, the Greens, progressives more generally) “vacate the field”, though, we can be certain that the Coalition will fill that space with ingenuous and deceitful claims about the Carbon Tax. And if we don’t have our own credible narrative in response – then they will ‘tear us apart’ on this issue even if they’re lying through their teeth.

I'm not sure how much it would cost to bridge the fiscal gap re: infrastructure but I do know this. An increase of Federal taxation by 1% of GDP would provide the necessary funds for Gonski, Aged Care, the NDIS. On top of that action is crucial on the cost-of-living front. Perhaps this means the best policy would be to embrace an increase in progressively-levied taxation as I have argued for here for some time. (ie: 1.5% of GDP; or $24 billion in a $1.6 Trillion economy)

As a minimum we need $16 billion for the first three initiatives. Doug Cameron has taken a big step forward the other day with his announcement. But we need more ambitious mainstream voices in the ALP to turn this into reality!!! And we need to 'get the message through' to the Right that this is not 'day-dreaming'. It is absolutely essential that Labor *deliver* clearly and unambiguously ahead of the next Federal election. We need something that will shake voters out of their cynicism and disengagement – In a good way, not a bad way, of course.

Hence: $16 billion for Gonski, NDIS and Aged Care. And more for action on Cost-of-Living via public finance of infrastructure.

And no butchering of existing worthwhile programs to pay for it!

For Cameron's initial statement see:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/reforms-need-tax-rise-20120802-23ig4.html

Part Two: ALP Member and Supporter Survey – Have you had your say?

above: Labor Julia Gillard has been promoting a survey of Labor members and Supporters

I also just answered the ALP Survey and thought people might be interested in one response I made to the question: "What policy changes would you like to see?"

I wrote the following: (And I would urge progressives to visit the ALP website and have their say also)


My Policy suggestions for the Gillard Labor Government.

Break with 'small government' policies and rhetoric. Gradual expansion of progressive taxation including a more robust MRRT, cutting back dividend imputation, cutting back on superannuation concessions for the wealthy, implementing a 1% Company Tax levy - like Abbott is proposing - but instead diverted into Gonski implementation, and further restructuring income tax. (this also backs Abbott into a corner as he would be reticent about implementing a *second* levy upon business)

Public finance of new infrastructure - roads, ports, public transport etc - Commit to keep NBN public; Speed up NBN construction ahead of next election.

Implement Gonski Education funding recommendations

A much more liberal National Curriculum - with education for broad ideological literacy and active citizenship.

Re-calibrate "modernised Awards" so no worker is worse off.

Extension of industrial liberties when industrial action is taken in good faith.

A real increase in the minimum wage - neutralising past wage freezes and increasing the minimum wage

More funding for mental health and residential age care; more money for Carers including of the Disabled and the Aged; No User Pays for Aged Care.

Further reform of pensions - especially improving Newstart; A less onerous eligibility test for the Disability Pension

No welfare income management

A Treaty with indigenous Australia involving a long term settlement including compensation and recognition in the Constitution

Media diversification policies - robust funding to build up media diversity - perhaps an associated levy.

More direct public investment in renewable energy infrastructure

Re-socialisation of essential infrastructure - with natural public monopolies in energy, water, future communications infrastructure, transport etc.

Experiments with economic democracy - including co-determination and low-interest loans to establish co-operative enterprise - including producers and consumer co-operatives.

Many of these policies implemented ahead of 2013 election so we have a firm record to stand on - a very strong record of reform; and reforms that will last.

Have you had YOUR say in the ALP Survey? Visit the ALP website and have your say today! And PLS Think about supporting some of the policies I’ve suggested here too!

See: http://laborsurvey2012.surveyanalytics.com/

Australia: The Consequences of Privatised Infrastructure

In this article Tristan Ewins considers the problems associated with privatised infrastructure: especially privatisation of roads. He critiques the abandonment of the mixed economy by Labor, and urges a return to such a model - but also the extension of a more progressive "democratic mixed economy'. Debate welcome!

Readers are also welcome to join our Facebook group which hosts regular debate, and publishes notice of new material at the blog. See: http://www.facebook.com/groups/102658893193637/

Tristan Ewins

In Melbourne’s “The Age” on July 17th the headlines proclaimed “Tolls urged on existing freeways”. Apparently advisory body “Infrastructure Australia” is frustrated with ever worsening infrastructure log-jams. Whether we’re talking about ports, roads, public transport or new utility infrastructure (gas, water, electricity) – the trend for many years now has been towards infrastructure privatisation – usually in the form of Public Private Partnerships. (PPPs)

In fact both Labor and Liberal governments have been guilty of jumping on the “PPP bandwagon” – to the benefit of their friends in the private sector for whom PPPs were often akin to “a license to print money’. Now ‘Infrastructure Australia’ is urging either public finance of new infrastructure – or privatisation of existing infrastructure and imposition of user-pays charges in order to provide the funding for new roads especially.

Tim Colebatch – also of ‘The Age’ has explored the associated issue in depth. Colebatch poses the question as follows: Australia has a choice in how it pays for an estimated $700 billion in socially and economically necessary infrastructure over the coming decades. See: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/heres-a-way-to-get-700bn-of-infrastructure-we-need-20120716-226gi.html

In fact we have three options.

a) We can continue to allow the infrastructure backlog to accumulate – actually damaging our productivity and quality of life – especially for families in emerging suburbs where transport infrastructure is negligible.

b) We can impose user pays charges upon existing roads or privatise them outright

c) We can actually raise taxes and invest in infrastructure the old way – via public borrowings and infrastructure bonds

In fact the neo-liberal Ideology is so entrenched now that the prospect of public investment in new infrastructure might be viewed by some as kind of radical. This is patently ridiculous - but we have an entire generation who have known little except PPPs and other forms of privatisation. The combination of mixed economy and welfare state – for decades taken for granted during the post-war period – is now thought of as belonging to the ‘political fringe’. Indeed our friends in the hard Right of the NSW branch of the Labor Party might now consider the model of traditional social democracy as “extreme”. Even Anna Bligh’s government in Queensland – Bligh herself hailing from the Left (!) – privatised energy and rail assets – in a move that led to extensive defections from Labor and Queensland unions to the Greens. And now the neo-liberal ideologues are pursuing a new wave of privatisation at a level that once upon a time would have been considered outrageous. Yet the arguments for a return to the mixed economy are clear and they are sound.

Tim Colebatch raises the spectre of Australia and its various state governments losing their AAA credit rating were we to lift our borrowing ceiling. But what if said borrowing was clearly established as being fiscally sustainable by raising taxes to the level necessary to service and repay the debt? And if increasing a nation’s debt ceiling results in a reduced credit rating – regardless of said states’ structural capacity to service the debt – does this make sense? Or is it an Ideological prejudice that ‘locks in privatisation’? Indeed: Can global or regional social credit provide an alternative? Such questions need to be posed now more than ever.

The problem is that the alternative to higher taxes and higher public investment is much more worrisome. So public finance of infrastructure is preferable for a number of reasons.

Firstly the Federal and State governments can borrow at a more competitive rate than any private sector operator.

Secondly, the argument that PPPs ‘pass on risk’ is fallacious – as when PPPs fail governments inevitably have to step into the breach and pick up the pieces.

Thirdly, privatised infrastructure involves user-charges that operate like regressive, flat taxes. Not only are the increased cost-structures of private finance passed on to consumers: but low and middle income groups are disproportionately affected.

The following is most crucial: Under privatisation most citizens pay much more in their capacity as consumers than they would in their capacity as tax payers with public finance. Privatised infrastructure is bad for equity purposes – with the increased cost structures flowing on to business as well as consumers. The consequence of this is thatinfrastructure privatisation is bad for capitalism in addition to being bad for equity.

We need only look to the costs of energy infrastructure privatisation in Australia to grasp the consequences of infrastructure and utility privatisation for a spiralling Cost-of-Living. Private investment in new energy infrastructure is being passed on in the form of consumer charges that have largely seen energy prices in Australia rise by 40 per cent over the past five years. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-21/australians-pay-highest-power-prices-says-study/3904024

Full privatisation of infrastructure is obviously the greatest threat – as compared with imposition of tolls on public-owned infrastructure – as user charges become entrenched permanently, rather than comprising an ‘emergency measure’.

But how and why has the ideology of privatisation taken hold – even within the ALP itself? What are the consequences? What is the alternative?

For decades progressives and social democrats have been on the back foot when it comes to privatisation. It is the author’s opinion that many younger members of the Australian Labor Party cannot imagine what a real mixed economy would look like; or conceive why it would be desirable; or conceive anything outside of the neo-liberal framework. Within the ALP there is even scepticism with regards reform of tax and meaningful extension of the welfare state and social wage.

Even on the ALP Left there is an ‘ideological drift’: a loss of a sense of perspective and purpose as the substance of democratic socialist policy is increasingly seen as ‘unspeakable’ even in internal forums.

Without being regularly reinforced through a vigorous and participatory counter-culture traditional Left ideals are fading. Liberalism is filling the void. By while liberalism is part of the answer, it is not sufficient to meet the ‘social question’ which provided the original source of inspiration for Labor. While worthwhile causes such as the rights of refugees and the right of those of queer sexuality are important, any critique of neo-liberal capitalism is relegated to the far margins. Such a critique could advance to cause of moving back towards a mixed economy - including natural public monopolies, as well as government business enterprises which actually enhance competition while providing cross subsidies for disadvantaged consumers. And more particularly progress could be made towards a democratic mixed economy, which could also be marked by co-operative and mutualist enterprise and co-determination.

The power-brokers do not seem to understand that the firmer the control they exert over the grassroots, and the more grassroots initiative is obstructed, the consequence is the decline of the ALP as a movement, and the loss of democratic socialist ideology, culture and identity. At this rate all that will remain ultimately is a patronage machine – which is how some people seem to like it. The disillusioned flock to the Greens – and yet even amidst the current crisis of support for Labor, the Greens’ mass electoral appeal remains largely confined to inner suburbs. Labor remains a crucial electoral bastion that must be contested by progressive forces.

There has been a steady line of retreat since the 1980s on the Left - from a perspective favouring economic democracy, to a rearguard action in defence of a robust mixed economy, to neo-liberalism and a minimal public sector sustained by some residual ‘natural public monopolies’ – and finally now the almost absolute expunging of the public sector from even those sectors of the economy where it is in capitalism’s own interests to contain its cost-structures via public ownership.

We need, now, to return to the theme of the democratic mixed economy: in a sense to ‘save capitalism from itself’ – not necessarily because all facets of capitalism are worth saving – but to prevent the human suffering that comes in the wake of capitalist contradictions. And over the long term we can still aspire to the extension of political, social and economic citizenship – culminating in a qualitatively better social order.

For now a hybrid system can provide the best mix of socialist efficiency and fairness, and market-facilitated innovation and choice. This is the democratic socialism the Labor Left – and the Centre-Left more broadly – needs to return to. It demands a robust counter-offensive against neo-liberalism – not merely another faltering rearguard action in the face of this latest ideological and public policy assault. It requires pro-active advocacy in favour of a democratic mixed economy. And it requires the implementation of these principles by Labor in the field of public policy.

Gonski - Just do it!

[Public Education] IT’S BROKEN...FIX IT...

Above: Julia, implement Gonski now!!! 

The following article by Jenny Devereaux explores the case for implementing the Gonski Education recommendations which would deliver an additional $3.8 Billion for state education in Australia. This is crucial to restore confidence in state education and avoid its marginalisation over the long term. Arguably such major initiatives are crucial if Labor is to seize the initiative and inspire on the basis of real achievements. PM Julia Gillard - Implement Gonski now!!    DEBATE WELCOME!


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By Jenni Devereaux

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is on the defensive where the Government’s commitment to the Gonski Review is concerned.

Responding to a question on the implementation of the Gonski recommendations during her recent Q&A appearance, she said that we could expect the Government “to say something in response to Gonski in the months ahead”:

... in the meantime, we’ve got all of our education reforms flowing, including almost doubling the amount of money going into school education with special arrangements to inject money into disadvantaged schools and special arrangements to inject money into the care and support of kids disabilities.

There’s a lot one could say about the wider question of the ALP’s education reforms, but let’s look just at the question of Gonski and school funding since the ALP took office in 2007.

The Gonski Review was commissioned in April 2010 by Julia Gillard, then the Federal Minister for Education. Acknowledging that Australia’s system of schools funding is “one of the most complex, opaque and confusing in the developed world”, she said the Review was expected to conclude in 2011, with new funding arrangements in place for the next schools’ funding agreement beginning in 2013.

Gonski and his review panel consulted widely, commissioned a body of research on key issues around the funding of Australia’s schools, and received more than 7000 written submissions. The report was delivered on time to the government in December 2011 and publicly released in February.

As widely expected it confirmed that Australia’s system of schools funding is unfair and inequitable. Not only  does it lack coherence and transparency, it is also unsustainable, and contributes to widening resource gaps between schools and sectors and schooling outcomes for students from different backgrounds; so much so that students who live in disadvantaged areas are up to three years behind their peers in more affluent areas.

In short, several decades of funding arrangements largely driven by political accommodations rather than educational policy imperatives have entrenched a deeply flawed funding system which delivers a disproportionate share of Commonwealth funding to Australia’s private schools at the expense of our public schools and the majority of students who attend them.

Gonski found that Australia is investing far too little in education and, in particular, in public schools. The Report recommends a $5 billion a year increase in funding (2009 dollars) with $3.8 billion to public schools which are in the greatest need, and major changes to the way money is allocated to schools to ensure it is better targeted to the meet the needs of students.

· A School Resource Standard [SRS] which sets a per student dollar amount for primary and secondary students (Primary – $8,000 & Secondary - $10,500 – in 2009 figures);

· A series of loadings depending on the size and location of the school; the concentration of students from low SES backgrounds; students with a disability; Indigenous students; and language background/proficiency of students;

· Capping the SRS for private schools at 90% which will reduce according to their capacity to attract fees – potentially to 20-25% of the SRS.

Despite Gonski’s insistence that “Australia will only slip further behind unless, as a nation, we act and act now”, there has been no commitment by the Government to deliver the urgently needed additional funding, while the Coalition says there should be no changes to the existing system until at least 2017. Rather, the Government says, more consultation is required.

While there is no question that the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments have significantly increased schools funding, there are two significant problems with Gillard’s Q&A response in this regard.

Firstly, a substantial proportion of the increased funding has been of a short-term nature. The $16 billionBuilding the Education Revolution infrastructure funding program has now wound-down, and a number of short-term programs being funded through National Partnerships Payments [NPPs] are in the process of being wound-down.

Secondly, the underlying Commonwealth funding arrangements for public and private schools remain. The most recent analysis of these arrangements by Dr Jim McMorrow, a leading schools funding analyst, is based on the May Federal Budget. It shows that Commonwealth funding for public schools is projected to decrease in real terms for each of the financial years from 2011-12 to 2014-15. While it is projected to increase in 2015-16 due to the re-introduction of some NPPs, the overall effect is that public schools would receive $673 million less in real terms in 2015-16 than they received in 2011-12, a cut of 12%. In ‘per student’ terms, this would see each public school student receiving $385 (or 16%) less.

The reduction is mainly due to the cessation of short-term programs like the NPPs; programs from which public schools have received more than their enrolment share of funding because they are targeted to schools and students with higher concentrations of low SES backgrounds and those needing greater literacy and numeracy support. These are the schools and students hardest hit by the effects of the Budget; the very schools and students who would benefit most from the implementation of the Gonski recommendations.

By contrast, Commonwealth funding to private schools is projected to increase in real terms by more than $1.3 billion (or 15%) by 2015-16; a $495 (or 7%) for each private school student. And the reason for the increase? 

“The assumptions built into the Budget estimates and projections that preserve and protect the Commonwealth’s current funding scheme for non-government schools. In particular, the ongoing indexation of general recurrent grants ... at a level that exceeds increases in the real costs of schooling overcompensates for the non-government sector’s share of the budgeted reductions in National Partnership and DEEWR-administered programs.” (http://www.aeufederal.org.au/Publications/2012/JMcMorrowBudget.pdf)

This highlights both the “fragility and vulnerability” of public school funding and the “inequity of an indexation measure which applies increase to non-government schools regardless of relative need” and is what the Government’s lack of commitment on Gonski is defending and protecting. No amount of talk about education reform and (short-term) funding increases can justify that.

McMorrow argues cogently that the Budget analysis both encapsulates the very problems identified by the Gonski review, and demonstrates the urgent need for the recommended reforms including replacement of the existing indexation measure with a more equitable measure and better targeting real increases to the needs of schools and students. This requires new legislative arrangements in place before the current inequitable funding arrangements end in 2012. The Government needs to be reminded, as Gonski says, that “Australia will only slip further behind unless, as a nation, we act and act now”.

Jenni Devereaux is a Federal Research Officer of the Australian Education Union.