Hi Shadow Minister

The Stalin and Mao regimes did a remarkable job of pulling their countries out of the Middle Ages. And we mustn't forget the communist leadership in the defeat of fascism. Post-war generations owe a massive debt.

Capitalism is a dinosaur not Marxism. Marxism is at the early mammalian stage. It doesn't have much of a present but does have quite a future ahead of it as the gap widens between what capitalism can deliver and the possibilities in a 21st century industrial society.

Shadow Minister, Conroy represents no left-wing tradition or outlook known to history. He would not even regard himself as a leftist. He would share your view of the evil Marxists. Which may give you something to think about: Marxists also don't like him for his attempts when in power to restrict freedoms, especially the Internet filter proposal.

David
Your foolery has been completely demolished here http://mises.org/Books/mespm.PDF.

I suggest you make an effort to get out of the intellectual kindergarten you have chosen to immure yourself in.

Running away from the humiliating demolition of your entire economic theory that your received here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16764&page=0
only proves that you're intellectually dishonest as well as stuck in a time-warp of early 19th century economic theory that happens to be demonstrably wrong, which is why you can't answer my questions and just run away. Grow up.

To Barry York.

I take serious exception to your claim that censorship is a product of "right wing thinking". All totalitarian governments, both of the left and the right, have censored the press as a way of controlling their populations. Almost all 19th century governments could have been called "right wing" and all of them supported press censorship in one form or another. Newspaper editors had to watch what they published or they would find themselves in jail.

The socialist left were once a new force in world politics and they unsurprisingly opposed everything that the right wing status quo supported. The Left claimed to be the champions of press freedom, until they got into power themselves and messed things up, at which point they too realised that the press needed to be muzzled. They had become the very people that they once claimed to despise.

Their problem was, that in the west, freedom of the press had already become a done deal. Thinking people had realised that the freedom to express opinions and debate political and social problems was the foundation stone of a free, secular democracy. Here in Australia the push to remuzzle the press was begun by the Gillard Labor government as a way to protect their holy ideology of multiculturalism. Critics of multiculturalism had to watch what they said or they would find themselves in court like Andrew Bolt. The Left were the new reactionaries.

Even in Socialist sanctified Sweden, Muslims are now such a serious problem, with nightly car burnings, a rape epidemic, and no go zones for Swedes, that the once overly tolerant Swedes had become alarmed. But Swedes who need to know how bad their society has become have taken to reading Norwegian and Danish newspapers because the socialists in Sweden are so desparate to hide the truth about multiculturalism, that there is almost a complete ban on the press saying anything negative about it.

LEGO, Just as Conroy cannot seriously be regarded as left-wing, so too the Gillard government was hardly left-wing. Her party has no need to even pretend to be socialist let alone implement policies that Marxist-influenced leftists could support. Bailing out failed capitalists anyone? Internet filter? DEFINITELY NOT left-wing policies.

Since the decline of the Left in the early 1970s (the highpoint was 1968), a pseudo-left has filled the vacuum, which has made it very easy for the right to win the debate. The rise of this pseudo-left is part and parcel of the shift to the Right in our general political culture. You - and others here - are experiencing the difficulty when confronted by a genuine left-wing outlook. On the issue of press freedom and free speech, you are on the same side as leftists who prefer the colour red to green, and who, like you, support general notions of progress.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad there are people like Chris Berg, classical liberals, of the IPA, as he does a very good job on all this. The censorious pseudo's are way to his Right, as I like to tell them. I even participated in a public debate with Chris, on his side, against two individuals who supported Finklestein. There is barely an audience for my kind of 'red left' point of view anywhere, including the ABC (which prefers the right-wing-conservative/pseudo-left paradigm). I set up my blog in the hope of changing this situation

DM,

Marxism is a failed philosophy. It is so far against human nature that it requires a brutal tyranny to get it to function, and even then performs vastly less efficiently than capitalism producing grinding poverty, ecological destruction and human rights violations that exceed that even of Hitler.

What rescued the Chinese economy was not Mao, but the capitalism that replaced the iron food bowl.

BY,

If you look at the general politics in the country, Conroy being an ex union hack in the labor party is definitely left of center, perhaps not as "left" as those on the fringes, but not in any way center or center right. Big central government was the hallmark of Juliar's regime and was more socialist than liberal.

The internet filter is not right wing politics either, and there have been far more attempts to limit freedom of the press by the left than the right.