It will take more than the Wall Street crash to end capitalism

The Wall Street crash had to come, with the USA's extraordinary triple balloon of debt - household real estate debt (working class debt), government debt (in the trillions and rising to pay for the Iraq war) and the balance of trade deficit. There is a sudden wide opening for making the case for socialism, for democratic working class planning of the economy. This article explains it well.

"Capitalism is a system which works by way of periodic economic and social tsunamis that leave in their wake tremendous destruction in many millions of lives. A manic-depressive system which, like its equivalent in individual psychologies, plunges from crazy heights to destructive, paralysing depths.

'The Market' has been elevated to the place in the social and economic theology of the ruling class occupied in religion by God. It is a harsh and relentless, and sometimes a very cruel and destructive, God, to be sure; but also one who essentially looks out for human beings and continuously bestows a tremendous stream of gifts on us."...

"One of the great lessons of the 20th century is that there is no such thing as an insoluble crisis for capitalism. Given time, given the chance to hold on tight, given the lack of a politically coherent alternative to itself, it recovers. Economic devastations, immensely tragic for vast numbers of people and even for individual capitalists, can, paradoxically, clear the way for capitalist economic revival. The manic-depressive system climbs out of the trough and begins a rise to peaks from which it will again, in time, plunge down. The cycle goes on." Unless a socialist movement is built to stop it! There is another pressing consideration which socialists, anti-capitalists need to integrate into the critique of the crash, and that is the inability of the "market" to reduce carbon in the atmosphere.

So - now we look for the points at which working class people could see that collectively we could assert more rational, beneficial decisions for humanity if we had the power, and not the system that allows capital and traders of capital to gamble with our future.

Of which stories am I a part?

I first came across this question posed in a book called Leadership for social change. Alan Johnson quoted A MacIntyre, who I have since discovered is a Scottish philosopher. Here is a paraphrase of this part of MacIntyre's view, which is consistent with the meaning Alan Johnson gave it - "So basically, to answer the question of what I as an individual should do, one must first know of which stories I am a part, and what my roles in those stories require. Hence, the conception of an individual's good is embedded in the histories in which the individual himself is embedded. The narrative unity of a life, then, is the unity of the narrative which is an individual life. MacIntyre writes: "To ask 'What is the good for me?' is to ask how best I might live out that unity and bring it to completion." Only this way can my life as a whole be intelligible, and only thus does it constitute a unity."

This seems to me a powerful help in understanding why not many people are choosing to be socialist activists in Australia right now, and why people who do begin to engage in left politics might decide on the path of careerism rather than democratic mobilisation. As less people live out a socialist tradition, a rank and file working class tradition, the story is less visible, the practices and values that comprise it are harder to learn, and harder to share. I just came across Teo-lohi's post here and explanation of MacIntyre adds depth to the original reference I read. Teo-lohi also explains the connection of the story with practice and values. MacIntyre may well not be writing about dissent, rebellion or revolution (feminists have criticised him for not recognsing the power behind certain practices) but I would argue that dissent, self-organisation against power are also practices, with values, and stories, a conception of history or at least historical possibilities. In fact this helps me to make more sense of what are referred to as internicine and sectarian differences on the left. These differences actually reflect different stories, about humanity, history, the path to liberation and the role that each group sees for itself in that history/ narrative, though these differences can be difficult to make explicit, transparent.

MacIntyre may hold completely different values from me, see himself in a different story, but he does see the individual as part of a collective story - a person in a human, social, collective context. To me that is an important clue - how as socialists can we bring to life the story that people could be part of, without clutching at horror stories as the Stalinists have, of USSR, China, Vietnam, fantasy stories Cuba, Venezuela etc, or being stuck in very old stories unlinked to any current continuing practice - Paris Commune, 1917, Barcelona, Hungary 1956, etc.

MacIntyre also throws another light on meaninglessness of post-modernism. How are people to see themselves as part of a story, if there is no more narrative / history to be part of, and to change?

Why not give a proxy for the NRMA AGM - CO2

The NRMA makes an attractive offer "You will go into the draw for the chance to win one of 40 Caltex StarCash cards worth $500 each just by;

* appointing a proxy to attend and, if required, vote on your behalf if you are unable to attend the meeting, or
* by attending the 2008 AGM in person."

The more I think about it - the worse this seems, so I wrote to the NRMA...

"I want to appoint a proxy. I would appoint a proxy if I could find out other NRMA members apart from the Board Members who will be attending, and who are making a commitment to represent concerns that correspond to mine. The MyNRMA website is sufficiently advanced, with a member login system, to provide members an online forum for stating the concerns that they would raise at the AGM, and offering to represent members via their proxies, but I cannot find this on MyNRMA website. This would be the democratic way to promote a higher level of membership participation in the AGM. A possible petrol voucher to persuade me to give my proxy to a current Board member (it's pretty impractical for me to find anyone else with any clout to give my proxy to) on the other hand is not democratic - more a bribe with a tiny bit of largesse from those who already run the NRMA and control its resources.

And the concerns I would like to have raised? Although I am a motorist and NRMA member, I don't WANT to be a motorist to the extent that I am. I am rather a citizen who needs to travel, and who is concerned about many issues, especially the urgent matters of global warming, environmental sustainability and inequality. I would rather see the NRMA advocating better transport in general, including public transport and bicycle transport, and making the case for much, much more investment in public transport, instead of prioritising advocacy of measures to make it easier for the driver of the private vehicle to continue making more use of a private vehicle. Greener private vehicles yes, but public transport would make a much bigger difference to CO2 emissions.

Until I can find a suitable proxy, I will not be appointing one."

Policy before position would be ideal in local politics

Last weekend’s local government election reminded me of the debacle of the previous Leichhardt Council mayoral appointment. I talked to Labor Councillor Robert Webb outside the Orange Grove booth on Saturday. I told Robert how outrageous I had found it when Labor kept the Greens out of the Mayor's position 4 years ago, by doing a deal with the Liberals (and Community Independents). Why didn't Labor share the Mayor with the Greens, I asked. Oh they were impossible to negotiate with, we tried, he said. At the Council meeting to elect the Mayor 4 years ago, I had also asked Green candidate for Mayor, Jamie Parker - what are you proposing to Labor? Why don't you stand up in Council and make a last open appeal? He didn't. I asked Robert - why were the terms of the negotiations not made open? It would help the voter, such as myself, to make sense of what was going on? He shrugged and said that the Liberal Mayor couldn't do anything that Labor didn't want in any case. I said that wasn't the point.

I left the conversation with Robert with a dawning realisation - the negotiations between the parties over Mayor had most likely been negotiations over position, not policy. Who would get the position for how much time? If the negotiations had been over policy - then it would have been easy to make them public. If the negotiations had been over policy - it would be a break from what appears to be current standard ALP practice. If the negotiations had been over policy, then voters would be able to make informed choices about who to support, on the basis of policy.

It looks as though the Greens may have the numbers to be Mayor this time, unless it gets drawn out of a hat against them. And it may be that they feel very keen to get pay back from last time. It may be redundant to be trying to work out how Greens and left Labor Councillors, such as Darcy Byrne, might work together on LMC this time round.

However - it is clear that Greens are winning supporters from amongst traditional Labor voters.

I think there are 3 reasons for this
- Labor Governments at both levels, are running policy agendas that are barely distinguishable from the Liberals, they do not stand up to capital and privilege for working class people, the social good, the greater good.
- the role of mobilised trade unions, and social movements, is weak and even more weakly reflected in the ALP as an independent force from Labor Governments (with the exception of the electricity privatisation issue in NSW, and an ambiguous Federal result from the anti-WorkChoices campaign, in that Labor was elected, but provisions of WorkChoices continue to be used, and Gillard’s new draft IR provisions are anti-union and anti-employee).
- the Greens are not beholden to justifying the unjustifiable acts of any serving governments or ministers.

I think the most productive pathway for left ALP members in relation to the Greens, is to engage in open policy dialogue, actually seeking to build local movements and activism in alliance with Greens, and to attempt to defuse competition among councillors for positions, and "bureaucratic level" (as it were) hostilities. What the ALP has in its favour over the Greens is that it has an organised working class social base - but this is being eroded on many fronts, and is an advantage that can only be preserved if that activist base is rebuilt, reengaged by leaders who stand for policy and principle. Competition for positions is a secondary concern to rank and filers who care about social progress, and is a central part of the turn off from politics by young people, in my opinion.

The Greens appeal because of their apparent policy commitments. The weaknesses in the Greens policies are many, especially on the economy, capital and class, in my opinion - but the weaknesses are not so obvious because the Greens are not in a position to enact policy, and because they are not engaged by anyone from the left, in policy debates that explore these weaknesses.

I think that the strengths of the Greens and the strengths of left Labor COULD combine to rebuild a progressive movement and a renewed left IF the movement of the rank and file, and policy and principle were the guiding motives, and issues of position, organisational and factional allegiance were subordinated. (Gary Moore's 15 Sept letter to the SMH expressed a similar caution). It would be hard work - it wouldn't be smooth - but it is a project that I could commit to if there were others also committed to it. I think that John Kaye's work in NSW Parliament on electricity privatisation, and the co-ordination between his efforts and Power to the People are the example of a positive way for left/rank and file Labor and Greens to relate. Where there are Greens who do not have John Kaye's instincts, then it should be possible to make open proposals to try to draw Greens in that direction so that Green supporters can see the limitations of some of their representatives.

Rights at work for construction workers

Sign up for rights on site - http://www.rightsonsite.org.au/ . Not too many people have high expectations of the Rudd Government getting rid of anti-union laws. Construction workers fighting for their rights need our support. If there is a future for an active workers movement in Australia, that can buck Labor conservatism, then this campaign could be one of the catalysts.

It’s the socio-economic inequality stupid…

In the first national assessment of literacy and numeracy (pdf) in Australia, results released Friday 12 September, the results were predictable.

The Northern Territory has highest proportion of indigenous students, in the lowest income bracket in the country, and NT has the lowest results. Whereas the ACT , where the population is uniformly better educated and comfortably off scored the highest overall results.

The stated aim of the tests are to identify schools in need of more funding and assistance to improve their results. Will this funding be additional $ in the education budget? Will it be provided by dismantling the system set up by Howard which rorts school funding in favour of many wealthy private schools? Or will $ be reallocated from high scoring public schools to low scoring public schools?

The new NSW Education Minister Verity Firth says how happy she is with NSW results - results achieved by NSW school teachers. Will the NSW Government stop undermining the staffing system which delivered these results?

And most importantly - what will be done to address the general social inequality underlying the unequal results across the country? It's not fair to place all the pressure on the education system to change problems created by the economic and political system.

How special does your school make you feel?

This school yard is the main recreation space at this school. What do you think of it? Would your opinion be different knowing that this indoor pool belonged to the school across the road?

Would you feel special if your parents could afford to send you to the school with the pool?

NSW ALP Conference can call Labor Government to account

When Michael Costa and Morris Iemma both left the NSW Government on Friday 5 September, it was the culmination of their failure to privatise NSW electricity generation in the face of a huge vote against taken by NSW ALP State Conference in May. No NSW Labor Government will be in a hurry to defy State Conference again. For the first time in living memory the NSW Premier and Deputy Premier were both from the "left" faction, although Nathan Rees formally declared himself "unaligned" in order to take up his new position as Premier. On Friday and over the weekend it seemed to be a good moment for supporters of public ownership, union rights and public services to press on and intensify all campaigns for improvements from NSW Labor. By Monday new Premier Nathan Rees was making it clear that he would 'not be raising taxes to fix the state's economic woes, but has labelled government departments "absolutely ripe for reform". Mr Rees's new cabinet team will tomorrow be briefed on the grim economic outlook that has put the state's triple-A credit rating at risk.' according to the Sydney Morning Herald. This is a critical moment for Unions NSW under the leadership of John Robertson. They can claim a lot of credit for the defeat of privatisation of electricity generation, and of the Howard Government at the last federal election. How will they react to Rees declaration of intent to cut the public sector and cap pay rises below the rate of inflation?

No education revolution

What are all the forces pressing Labor governments to pursue education policies to further intensify inequality and competition at all levels from kindergarten to university? Ross Gittins calls the Rudd government's policy "change without change". Rudd won't redistribute from the rich schools, Gillard won't declare a quality public education system to be a common good. What are they left with for an education revolution but computers and increased competition accompanied by a good deal of union bashing?

And union bashing it is - Peter Hartcher, editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, cheers Rudd on in his article Pugilistic Prime Minister has picked a classy fight. Today on ABC radio I heard Heather Ridout of the Business Council lamenting that NSW is so far behind Victoria which has given power to hire and fire to school principals, and is making all TAFE funding contestable. These are all mechanisms that put more power in the hands of specific education managers, but it will be the power to manage a more constrained budget and respond to more scrutiny and external demands with insufficient resources, i.e. to pass on the costs of improvement to teachers and other support staff within their jurisdiction.

So now Verity Firth is the new NSW Education Minister. I might like to hope that she will pull back from Della Bosca and Coutts-Trotter's dismantling of the teacher transfer system, and at least return to the endorsement that new Deputy Premier Tebbutt made as Education Minister - that the transfer system guarantees staffing for hard to staff schools. But - even if Firth were to withdraw the changes to the transfer system - the direction of government policy is set. Look at the national picture too.

Hartcher does make some points which do reflect parent's experience of schools - that poor teachers hang on as teachers, and that many teachers find parent questions to be an unwelcome intrusion. Many Teachers Fed members are also parents and are also aware of this problem. What can we propose? We know that teacher education and qualifications are vital, and that other support schemes such as mentoring and reduced face to face loads early in a career all help. But there are also some immediate conflicts of interest between teachers, parents an students in the system. These are very hard to face up to directly, in an education system that makes parents and students into customers or consumers making market choices rather than citizens concerned for the common good. But it is teacher unions that are best placed to re-shape the relationship by looking for ways to engage parents and students as fellow citizens of the education system, even though this would require teachers collectively to sometimes support students and parents who may have complaints.

Back to public education as a public good - yes Back would be forwards!