What laugh.

To begin with, Tristan, you can not trust the Labor party to "democratise" the economy when it refuses to "democratise" itself. I was once a member of the Labor Party (my branch leader was former MLA Rodney Cavalier) and Rodney himself explained to me how there was no democracy in the Labor Party. "The branches can pass as many resolutions as they want", explained Rodney "the executive just ignores them."

The reason why the Labor Party is dying in terms of branch membership is because branch members know that the Labor leadership could not give a fig about what their own branch members want. Those who oppose such concepts as gay "marriage" or multiculturalism (like me) left long ago. We realised that our only role in the Labor party was to hand out leaflets at polling booths, come election time. From my own experiences, I have observed that the only ones doing that now are people hopeful of getting appointments to lucrative posts within local councils.

It is hardly surprising that Tristram is still trying to socialise industry. From memory, Tristram once wrote an article on OLO defending Marxism using the hoary old excuse that "Marxist" countries were never really Marxist. Marxists were really nice people who opposed wear and greed and all that nasty stuff. But unfortunately for Tristan, reality trumped Quixotic idealism, and Socialism became the most efficient form of totalitarianism after Islam.

I lived through a time when all Socialist countries were giant prison camps, and our "intelligent" tertiary educated elites were all claiming that they were idyllic societies. My own uncle Norm was a committed commo all his life, and he dreamed of visiting "the workers paradise." (his own words) Some people are just dreamers who need to idealise some sort of human created perfection, and no amount of cold reason or self evident reality can disavow them from their compulsive emotional needs.

Socialism does not work, Tristan. How many times does it need to fail before you can flash on that?

LEGO - How about addressing the actual arguments from the article? You can throw around the 'S word' as much as you like trying to frighten people away. But to begin I am arguing for a democratic mixed economy - and not a 'traditional command economy'. Secondly you don't have to be a socialist to support these kind of policies. A mixed economy with a substantial role for natural public monopolies was supported by Conservatives - including Menzies - for decades. The point - ironically - is that natural public monopolies are good for capitalists. Consumer associations are naturally good for consumers. And strategic government business enterprises are good for competition - and hence also good for consumers.

We really have to move on from the ossified paleolithic views of LEGO. Australia is multicultural and we have gay marriage and capitalism is destroying our climate and economy.

Capitalism is an abhorrant economic system only imposed by previous regimes of colonialism, fuedalism and slavery. Its modern practice is to bankrupt nations - Greece and Puerto Rico are the latest examples: bankrupt states (at least 32 in USA;) bankrupt cities (Detroit, San Bernardino etc); and bankrupt families. It survives in the West merely as a glossy patina over a humongous underworld of homeless, poverty stricken, unemployed and destitute overloading the available shelters, charity kitchens and food stamp programs, and millions incarcerated in prisons.

This gloss only lasts a few decades.

What sort of society do you want - a capitalism such as in America where one child is shot every hour?

LEGO seems particularly uninformed about all the damage capitalism and its alter ego, fascism, has reeked all through the Third World.

LEGO also seems uninformed about the amount of debt capitalism necessarily piles up just so capitalist markets can operate. This is now 200 trillion dollars and several nations need more. If this amount was in a pile of 1 dollar coins it would reach from the Earth to the Sun three times.

And the trends are that all this is about to get a lot, lot worse.

It is now clear that we need an alternative to capitalism and Australia has the right to defend the rights of its citizens by developing a form suitable for our conditions, unencumbered by the poorly conceived and disruptive comments from the likes of LEGO.