What a steaming pile of wishful thinking. For the sake of the world, let's hope the Left is left interred.

@Calwest: Who would the Right wage war against if the Left was interred? Abbott would have an existential crisis.

Nice one, Jan B.

But, actually, I don't see Abbott waging war against anyone, more's the pity. If he did the ABC would be privatised, Greg Hunt wouldn't have a job because there's been no global warming in 18 years and 18C would have been repealed.

Damned if I see how how the media prediction of the possible rise of a real Left lunatic shows that the Left is afraid of itself.

Anyway, the media gets its political predictions wrong 9.9 times out of 10.

One of the qualifications of the maniac Corbyn the author did not mention, is his chumminess with Islam.

As I said in the QandA thread - the reality is that the politics once espoused by 'Liberal Wets' and even by Menzies (take progressive tax and a mixed economy) are now decried as 'extreme' by the Conservatives; and even by a significant part of Labor. For crying out like critique the specific policies rather than trying to bypass any need for that - by appearing to so-called 'common sense'. (in the Gramscian sense, the hegemonic Ideology)

sorry for the typos btw

The problem with this analysis is that it assumes that the partial retreat from Keynesianism was motivated entirely by ideology – people abandoned their attachment to social democracy and embraced so-called “economic rationalism”. While I don’t deny there was an ideological element involved, the main reason mainstream policymakers moved away from heavy reliance on Keynesian interventionism was the perception that the theory did not explain how the economy actually worked, and the policies were responsible for the economic train wrecks of the 1970s in Australia and the UK.

It is worth Reading Ian Macfarlane’s Boyer Lecture on the breakdown of the Keynesian consensus in the 1970s.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/boyerlectures/lecture-2-from-golden-age-to-stagflation/3353140#transcript

Aiden’s conclusion gets to the crux of the matter:

“Whether or not Corbyn can win the BLP leadership ballot remains to be seen. Whether he can then go on to win an election is an even bigger question”

It is taking a huge gamble to say “there is an appetite among contemporary voters for progressive ideas.” That’s not what the recent British elections suggest. Labour should also look to its history. The much-maligned Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to have won an election since 1974. Michael Foot took Labour into a socialist wilderness, and it took many years to find its way back to electoral respectability. Corbyn could well do the same.

Tristan
Last time I looked, we still had a progressive tax system and a mixed economy. Can you quote a single influential Australian conservative who labels these "extreme"?

The mainstream debate on these issues is about matters of degree, not absolutes

Rhian ; The Conservatives label any attempt to enhance progressive redistribution via the tax system as 'class warfare'. That's pretty similar to labelling those kind of policies 'extreme'. The Conservatives - and indeed some in the ALP - signal their intention to 'broaden the base'. And even some in the ALP buy into the whole 'class warfare' angle. The Conservatives' actions - diluting the progressive nature of the tax mix - and showing an ideological preference for regressive taxes like the GST - suggests their perspective and their agenda pretty clearly. They've also made it clear they are impatient with any meaningful mixed economy. They just privatised Medibank Private ; and already their screws are being turned on consumers.

As for the 1970s - its the Oil Shocks that changed everything. And the perceived Ideological need to have a radically different (and hostile) narrative from the Soviet and Eastern bloc. Neo-liberalism was an Ideological assault on the rights of labour, the welfare state and the mixed economy. We still live with the consequences - and not even Labor will step up to the plate and question any of this.

Hi Tristan

Again you are confusing relatives with absolutes. Opposing a MORE progressive tax system is not the same as opposing A progressive tax system. Perhaps they think it’s already progressive enough.

Base broadening is usually pursued because it’s economically efficient. It’s not necessarily regressive – broadening the base of the land tax, for example, would arguable make it more progressive. Broadening the income tax base could very well be progressive. Broadening the GST base would, in isolation, be regressive, but this could be offset by compensating changes in benefits and lower-level tax thresholds (my preferred policy).

And “class war” is much more commonly the language of the left than the right.

Read MacFarlane’s piece. The acceleration in inflation and rise in unemployment in Australia preceded the oil price shocks. The oil price exacerbated stagflation, but didn’t cause it.

hi Rhian. I think the opposite is true re: 'Class warfare'. The Conservatives use the term to stigmatise redistribution and class struggle. And the 'relative Left' - ie: Labor mainstream - speaks constantly of 'reconciliation'. ie: they are on the run and are too scared to argue that sometimes workers and the vulnerable have to fight for their rights.

re: Tax - I think its quite clear the Libs want to cut income and corporate tax and replace them with more GST. They say they will compensate. But the reality is people lose track of how much GST they're paying. While they're more acutely aware of paying income tax. That means because of 'downwards envy' the compensation will be neutralised over time. AND the Conservatives know this. They don't like redistribution. Like Hayek they're willing to leave it to the marketplace as if labour market relations are 'essentially just and natural'. That's their Ideology.

re: a broader tax base. We cannot get away with ONLY taxing the richest of the rich. That won't get us the resources we need for Aged Care Insurance, Medicare Dental etc. Insofar as we need to hit the upper middle class - yes we need a tax mix as broad as that. And the middle class needs to pay its fair share too. What they get through collective consumption (via tax) is social insurance, social goods, infrastructure, services - at a much better rate than if they'd have to provide for themselves via 'the market'.

Hi Tristan

The Coalition has sometimes used the phrase “class war” as you describe, and Tony Abbott used it to describe one of Labor’s budgets, but a quick google shows it’s far more often used by the left.

Re tax – I agree that the middle classes need to pay their fair share of tax. I’d also argue that some of the middle class welfare introduced by Howard should be unwound. But even if the Coalition would prefer lower company and income tax, it doesn’t mean they oppose redistribution. So far as I know, they have never proposed a flat tax or poll tax. Again, it’s a matter of degree.

I doubt many Liberals are full-on Hayek supporters. It’s a bit like people who attack Labor for being “really” motivated by a hidden Marxist agenda. They are not, and trying to paint the mainstream as the extreme just misrepresents them and makes sensible debate difficult, because it does not engage with what people actually think, or the reasons why.

Hi Rhian,

Yes, yes. But Tristan really IS a full-on Marxist.

Rhian

I appreciate your arguments and those of Tristan's, but to diminish the ideological basis of the opposing sides is not very helpful.

Yes, there were factors other than the OPEC demand for oil price justice that started the momentum towards the crises that plagued the Western economies during the 1970s (the build-up of fiscal liquidity post-WWII, the rebuilding of the war-devastated European and Japanese economies; excessive and wasteful Cold War military spending; regional wars to destroy the spread of communism in Asia, socialism in Latin America and pan-Arab nationalism in the Middle East; the release of the US dollar from the gold standard; and a vast expansion of affluence-driven consumer spending throughout the West).

However, the ideological framework to 'explain' the crises of 1974-5 by putting much of the blame on profligate social spending by left-wing ‘Keynsian’ economic ideology endures to this day. For example, much of the narrative surrounding the fall of the Whitlam government still stubbornly refuses to attribute its demise to global economic factors that were well and truly outside of its control.

Clashing economic theories aside (which I don’t altogether discount), the history of the last 200 years shows a fairly common 30-year cycle of left-right control of the narrative. The current cycle, dominated by what is often referred to as ‘neo-liberalism’ (which is just the latest label attached to the right-wing worldview), is not only coming to an end, but has left the global economy in what can charitably be called a ‘crisis’, but less than charitably called ‘a mess’.

Jeremy Corbyn may or may not win on Saturday (and the anti-Corbyn political-media establishment is doing everything in its power to ensure he doesn’t), but his meteoric rise in the Labour leadership contest is only a symptom of a rising tide against the excesses of 30 years of right-wing neo-liberalism. Gravity is pulling the pendulum back to a centre ground of social justice-based global economics.

Watch this space.

The reason why successful mainstream media opposes Left wing economics Aiden, is because they reflect mainstream thinking, which takes it for granted that the Left are a bunch of fringe group idiots. Left wing economics will not, has not, and never will work. How many times does it need to fail before "intelligent" people like yourself can figure that out? Are you are Greek who voted for Syrizia?

Left wing politics today is about appealing to the unproductive and counter productive, to vote for them by giving them public money fleeced from the productive. The trick to getting into power therefore, is to increase the unproductive until they become an absolute majority. What the Left needs is a growing pool of people entirely dependent upon their leftist governments for their economic survival. So the Left will advocate any program which increases the unproductive and counter productive, and screws "the rich" (read ordinary worker taxpayers). Who in the left cares if Aussie women are gang raped by Muslim race hate rape packs? Or our suburbs echo every night to the sound of gunfire from ethnic gangsters?

Thus we get "baby bonuses" which ensures a steep increase in aboriginal people, who are our most dependent and unproductive. We get open borders which will ensure a flood of boat people, who can be relied upon to vote labour forever, who need to get housing, money, medical attention, English language skills, job training, and prisons, and be a burden on the "rich" taxpayers.

Climate change is another rort. Screw the productive with new "environmental" charges which will rake in billions, so that the Left can buy the votes of their unproductive constituency.

The problem is Greece, Aiden. Sooner or later, as Margaret Thatcher so presciently pointed out, the Left runs out of other people's money to spend. And the funniest thing about Lefties, is that they not only want to screw the productive for every penny they have, they will oppose any idea which the productive have that will make money, on the grounds that it must be doing some environmental evil somewhere.

I consider myself strongly influenced by Marxism ; and I also consider myself interested in learning more about Neo-Kantianism. Marxism was never really big in theorising ethics for example. And the Post-Marxists and Democratic Revisionists point to some of the problems with Marxism as well. But yes there's still a fair bit worthwhile in the Marxist tradition. Will say more later.

How is it that people think 'right-wing economics' 'works' when it leaves a trail of poverty ; with an underclass and working poor?

You talk about non-productivity - But surely one of the best indications of 'productivity' is full employment. Which the Swedes achieved for decades alongside a strong welfare state and strong unions.

Underlying 'right wing economics' are a number of assumptions.

a) that there should be no 'distortion' in the way of regulation or redistribution
b) that the 'market' is always right when 'undistorted' - so there's no point arguing about the unjust position of the working poor.
c) that capitalists 'create wealth' and not workers
d) That the vulnerable (eg: the disabled, sole parents) should be left to their own devices because supporting them comprises a 'distortion'.

That outlook is morally bankrupt. We're talking real people - human beings - who should not be 'sacrificed' for the sake of some economic model.

Also the Great Depression showed where laissez-faire can take us. The GFC showed this too - Without governments bailing the system out all those 'productive' capitalists (including speculators) would have been well and truly stuffed.

LEGO - you talk of 'the Left running out of other peoples' money to spend.'

Well first opposition to redistribution rests on the assumption that market-mediated distribution is 'essentially just'. So if a textiles worker is doing outwork for $4/hour 'that must be just' because 'the market has decided it'. By contrast I think government must intervene to right these wrongs.

Secondly a 'social insurance model' potentially helps everyone - and provides everyone with a safety net. What do you have against social insurance?

Finally tax can be a form of 'collective consumption'. And often we will get more for our money via collective consumption re: tax than we would as private consumers in the 'marketplace'. An excellent example is the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

That's without even getting to the ethics of social solidarity - and the immorality of letting your fellow human beings 'go under' when things go wrong because of sickness, accident, job loss etc.

Hi Killarney

The first oil price shock hit Australian prices in the December quarter of 1973. At that time, inflation was already high and rising rapidly. It was 9.9% in the September quarter 1973, up from 5.7% a year previously and a massive increase from the typical rates of about 2½% in the 1960s. Male wages rose by 11.8% in the year to September 1973. Subsequently, Australia experienced high and rising inflation and unemployment simultaneously, and to greater degree and for longer than could be explained by oil prices alone. Whitlam’s massive fiscal stimulus coincided with rapidly rising unemployment, reaching successive post-war highs. The oil shocks exacerbated an inflationary spiral already well under way. The subsequent fiscal stimulus and other Whitlam policies made things worse still.

These facts, rather than an ideological conversion, are what caused policy makers to rethink the previous Neo-Keynesian orthodoxy. I don’t deny there is an ideological element to both sides, but the change in economic thinking at the time was not based just in ideology, but bitter experience.

You could be correct that the ideological tide is turning to the left, in which case Corbyn could well be just what UK Labour needs. But the recent election there doesn’t suggest so. The fear of many is that a Corbyn-led Labour Party will be unelectable, and that will be bad news for UK democracy.

Hi Tristan

You are attacking a caricature that bears little relationship to what your targets actually say and the policies they actually implement. Name any mainstream politician or policymaker who believes there should be no regulation or redistribution.

'reduce greenhouse gases by requiring polluters to pay for their emissions.'
Muddled. The coal based generators of electricity simply passed on the tax. The carbon tax was designed tp reduce consumption.

Rhian ; our Conservatives may not be taking it to the utmost extreme all at once. But they are about ever-smaller government - where government is already very small by international standards. And they are for further labour market deregulation and fewer industrial rights and liberties. And they are about a less progressive tax system.

When you consider what was accepted in Menzies' day (a top rate of over 60 per cent) compared with now - It is clear that today's Conservatives in Australia don't seem to have any notion where their quest for smaller government, lower and more regressive taxes, lower welfare, more user pays - would ever end. The logical end-destination seems to be the Hayekian utopia....

Neo-liberalism is the dominant Ideology. It is easier for a Liberal to get away with having a thing for Hayek than for a social democrat to promote redistributive reform, a robust mixed economy, economic democracy, a better welfare state, social wage, social insurance etc.

Ask a Liberal Wet from 30 years ago what they would think of the economic policy consensus today then they would think of it as extremism. Margaret Thatcher was very much defining the 'Conservative mainstream' when she said 'there is no such thing as society'. That's still their thinking today. Hockey and co with "the end of the age of Entitlement." But coming up on $50 billion a year in superannuation concessions slanted overwhelmingly towards the rich....

It boils down to naked class interest in the end. Governing for the upper middle class and the wealthy - while there is 'divide and conquer' playing on peoples fears of refugees. And they dare to call any progressive initiative 'class warfare'.

BTW Maybe the far Left still uses language of class war. But in 'the mainstream' its overwhelmingly a term used to stigmatise any kind of progressive redistributive initiative from Labor. Since Hawke it's all been talk about 'reconciliation' - where in the background the poor, the vulnerable and the working class are in fact stuffed over.

Hi Tristan

If conservatives’ main objective is ever-smaller government, they have done a very bad job of it. Commonwealth Government spending as a percentage of GDP has fluctuated in a narrow band of 23-27% for the past 40 years. It is currently 25.9% of GDP, which is higher than any year of the Rudd-Gillard governments except 2009-10. The forward estimates show spending expected to remain above 25% of GDP, which would make Abbott one of our highest spending PMs ever. Incidentally, Thatcher also presided over an increase in government spending as a percentage of GDP, despite her small government rhetoric.

I’m not sure conservatives are about a less progressive tax system, but it’s not an unreasonable assumption. But it’s one thing to say they want the system to be less progressive than it currently is, and quite another to imply they don’t want it to be progressive at all, which you said earlier.

On what basis do you say, “It is easier for a Liberal to get away with having a thing for Hayek than for a social democrat to promote redistributive reform, a robust mixed economy, economic democracy, a better welfare state, social wage, social insurance etc”? I can’t remember ever hearing a Liberal say they “have a thing” for Hayek; nor have I met a social democrat who is reticent about advocating redistributive reform etc.

Hi Rhian ; Ok I'll concede that under Costello there was an increase in middle class welfare. And a lot of the spending legacy from Rudd remains. Because the Government knows if it pulls the rug out from under all spending right now it will hit the economy hard. But their long-term orientation is clear - as they keep moving to cut tax. They also would have implemented much harsher Budget measures had they not been blocked in the Senate.

YES!! Oh, YES!

At time of writing, Jeremy Corbyn has just won the leadership ballot with 59.5% of the primary ballot - a win that is unprecedented in British Labour history.

What to expect now?

The history of popularly elected leftist leaders does not inspire confidence - destabilisation, smear campaigns, stubborn uncooperation, military coups ... the usual tactics employed by those whose massive power and influence impose zero tolerance on any form of politics that challenges their control of corporate business as usual.

The UK Labour and media establishment has been particularly vindictive in its determination to prevent Corbyn from getting this far, while the Tories have tried to remain bemused observers of the Blairite Labour party imploding on itself.

For better or worse, the politics of the UK directly influences the politics of the Western world - including Australia's.

We are moving into 'interesting times'.

Hi Tristan,

This might be a bit a cheap shot, but would you suggest that, in the old Soviet Union, in say 1987 after seventy years of workers' state, there were fewer poor there than in the US ? Okay, it's hard to say now, sin e the Mafia of the old KGB has taken over power and divided resources up amongst themselves. But how many old babushkas will we have to see on TV still hoeing their little patches, with a few chooks and pigs, from dawn to dusk, until they drop ?

Back to Corbyn, the Left's gift to the Conservatives: if I were in the slightest conservative, I would suggest that they are home and hosed for the 2020 elections. The Labor Party will either disintegrate, or stay together - and wither away together.

This next weekend's elections in Greece might point the way: I predict a win for a New-Democracy-led coalition, which will eventually, after huffing and puffing, include Tsipras' Syriza Party, followed by a splintering of the Left. Very depressing.

Anti-austerity - 'we shouldn't ever have to pay our bills!' - is not a long-term solution. Live beyond your means, build up debt, and you either have to work (and be taxed) your way out of it, or take a massive cut in living standards. One way or the other, the credit card has to be paid off.

As for Corbyn, I haven't heard him often but everything I've heard has been the words of an idiot. But I suppose the Labor Party is now stuck with him until 2020. Any more brilliant ideas like this one, and Cameron will still be Prime Minister in 2030.

Joe

The USSR wasn't exactly my ideal ; But material living standards were very high in some Western countries (interpreted as material abundance) because of the ruthless exploitation of economic spheres of influence. Including in the Middle East and Central and South America. In the US as well there was a highly stratified class system. If you were in the classes of the destitute and the working poor you probably wouldn't appreciate that abundance so much. Finally, Western social democracies did alright - especially the Nordics. Corbyn is no communist - he is more of an old school democratic socialist. And the only reason democratic socialism is considered 'unviable' is because of the power of Ideology - mediated through the monopoly mass media for decades now. With many of the world's social democratic parties just 'rolling over'. Strategic re-socialisation, a more progressive tax system, a stronger social wage, a fairer welfare system, sharing the burden of assisting refugees across Europe - shouldn't be seen as 'extreme' policies.

Perhaps you're right, Tristan, in the old Soviet Union, there was a highly stratified 'party vs non-party system', whereby highways lanes were reserved for Party members. Not sure if that ever happened in the US. I've heard that Putin now has a dozen or so fabulous palaces. Do you reckon he might have more than Obama ?

As an aside, I get a kick out of this notion (that I'm sure Corbyn will flog) of the 99 % against the evil 1 %: I suggest that it might be more of a matter of the top 50 % (MINUS the evil 1 %) trying to rally the bottom 50 % to, as usual, fight its battles for them. I suspect that every revolution has actually been along those lines: the professionals trying to rally the lumpens against the evil plutocrats, to fight and die for them, and for their manifest destiny of more efficient rule.

Sorry, Tristan, as a sort-of-Marxist, I still tend to see things in class terms. You suggest that Corbyn is al old-fashioned social democrat - like Tony Benn, I suppose, people who learn nothing from experience, as the world goes by, and doesn't ever come back, for the convenience of social democrats.

Joe

Loudmouth,

Cameron's previously announced his intention to step down before the next election.

A democratic socialist (such as Corbyn) is quite different from a social democrat.

While the most confident Conservatives will no doubt be rejoicing, I expect more of them to cautiously watch the opinion polls.

One thing in Corbyn's favour is he appears to be a consensus seeker rather than trying to lead from the front.

Where did you get the idea that Anti-austerity means 'we shouldn't ever have to pay our bills!'? Austerity in the current economic climate is just stupid: it shrinks the economy for no tangible benefit. In Eurozone countries (which are forced into it) it REDUCES the ability to pay future bills. But Britain is financially sovereign, so has the ability to pay the bills whether or not it implements austerity. Individual debts must of course be honoured, but there is no sensible reason to aim for a position of no debt.

I expect the government's chances at the next election will depend largely on whether they manage to advance the economy to the stage where austerity does become a sensible policy (that is, where the private sector is strong enough to pick up the slack). They haven't managed it in five years, largely because austerity hindered their progress.