Many would be surprised at how little people care about 'inequality' as long as they control their own destiny and have access to land. So the best way forward is for decentralising power into the hands of local communities, let them rise or fall on their merits.

The man is nuts , what's all this about democracy? Does he want sweaty workers to choose our masters? Taxes are for peasants to pay and not the gentry. And education? Heaven forbid , what is he coming at , street urchins knowing what the newspapers' editorials are discussing? SMH is quite correct , no chaos and anarchy.

This one little statement, "the promotion of collective interests over private ones" just about sums this garbage up. The man obviously still believes in communism. He believes it will work if done his way.

Why is it that those people who hold their hands out for a cut of taxpayer funds each fortnight, always believe there is lots more of it to give to everyone? Could it be suppressed guilt at ripping us off?

This piece is the perfect example of why we should always get the airy fairy academics the hell out of anything of any importance. Expensive as it is, better for them to waffle on to each other with their day dreams, than let them try to implement any of them.

How many did communism kill in eastern Europe & China? That's their fool idea of social justice. When academics start suggesting that the university sector has become bloated & excessively expensive, it will be time to listen to them. Meanwhile, please keep their musings in the funny farms that produce it.

That the Sydney Morning Herald refused to print this clowns waffle has lifted them somewhat in my estimation. Did you notice, he even quotes Hewson, & then expects to be taken seriously God help us. I wonder how long we paid this bloke?

Stuart Rees is a well known public cretin of long standing. Again in this post, he proves it quickly.

First sentence, second line: "...social analysts insist that citizens have lost faith in democracy." Really? Which "social analysts"? On what evidence does their insistence rest?

Second sentence, first line: "...public dismay about capitalism and democracy..." Evidence for that?

Anyone who quotes Hewson as an authority has serious questions to answer about his own credibility.

Oh, and he didn't like the results of the Brexit poll, the US presidential election and fears "the prospect of right wing successes in Europe".

Humans 3, Rees 0.

If even the Lefty losers at the SMH won't publish Rees's communist crap, why does OLO?

Still, it's another fine example of the Left's totalitarian instincts.

So, sweaty workers shouldn't get to choose their masters?

Tote that there cotton boy and put your back into it! Lay-a-bout, good for nothing cannon fodder and grunt!

Justice? Well ah say corn pone, it don't come as cheap as it use ta?

Get up offen that lazy blubber rahz! Ah don't pay you a dollar a day boy, to sleep on my time!

I think we've had enough of privilege routinely and regularly usurping democracy to last for several lifetimes and the only way to put master servant thinking back in it box is at the ballot box and the very next opportunity!

Then elect folks with a very different vastly more democratic mindset, without ever once abandoning pragmatic economic principles! And then invest in cooperative capitalism, our own people and their better ideas!

Then use that fair and egalitarian template coupled to sound common sense to grow a turbocharged truly massive economy that serves us all, as opposed to (a few asbeens, wannabes, troglodytes and dinosaurs) the privileged only!?

We need fair dinkum tax reform and brand new pragmatic energy and water policies etc. That unite one nation rather than divide it, with the spoils of defeat being fought over in some mindless game that ended in kindy and the sandpit, allegedly!

Enough of that eternally counterproductive (me, me, me) fundementally flawed, divide and rule stuff! And selling our heritage and our economic sovereignty to the lowest bidder!?
Alan B.

Stuart

That's not a re-think you fool, that's just the same old sh!t sandwich, not even re-packaged.

*Think!*

"This social justice, human rights perspective is non-violent"

So none of the policies you advocate are going to be enforced?

The increased foreign aid you advocate is going to be voluntary, and only you and everyone who agrees with you, is going to pay it, and nobody who doesn't consent will be forced to?

Correct? You renounce government foreign aid? Or you advocate violent aggression against person and property?

Which?

*Think!*

So if a majority vote for slavery or rape, you can't see any ethical issue with that? It would then be a "right", according to your theory of ethics and jurisprudence?

Yes? No? Which?

*Think!*

What are the limits of legitimate government action? It obviously includes attempting to control all carbon and reduction reactions on the planet, and hence all human action - a creed of unlimited government power.

Yes?

*Think!*

Show us the process of reasoning by which you justify getting paid by forcing people under threats of prison and rape to submit to the confiscation of their property so as to fund your propaganda, with your blatantly dishonest pretensions to give a sh!t about "peace".

If you want to know why Trump got in, take a good look in the mirror

Seems like a reasonable enough analysis of the situation that we are in.
Certainly no worse than the simplistic reductionist garbage promoted by the IPA.
Speaking of voluntarily chosen collective alternatives to the now dominant every-one-for-himself, or the there is the no-such-thing-as-society but only the immediate self interest of every individual and their immediate families I quite like these references which I came across via the American Conservative website. A website which features writers and websites from across the ideological spectrum, including Tomdispatch and James Kunstler A website which makes the usual "conservative" propaganda hacks here in Australia look like adolescent barbarians. Speaking of Kunstler check out his essay 2007 When the Wheels Finally Off (of the air conditioned nightmare)

http://www.platformcoop.net
http://solidarityhall.org

The second site is a conservative Catholic site. I particularly liked their posting on Henry Miller Excerpts On A Traumatized Existence.
Miller was of course one of the early perceptive critics of the intrinsically dehumanizing program of global capitalism, especially via his book The Air Conditioned Nightmare.

Daffy

Ho hum, more lies and anti-human hate propaganda from the socialists still dreaming that unlimited aggression and violent power will usher in a paradise.

When you have bothered to understand what the issues are, you'll be in a position to comment, and not before.

People have not "lost faith in democracy"; they have lost faith in politicians and their (politicians') abuse of democracy.

'Professor' John Hewson? Would that be the same John Hewson who lost the unloseable election? The failed politician now claiming wisdoms and knowledge that he was never able to demonstrate in politics? Sir Michael Marmot? A raving socialist recently paraded on Q&A (get the message?) who blames people's failures, ineptitudes and sheer laziness and sense of entitlement on 'injustices' perpetrated by the evil free enterprise, capitalist system bogey.

Rees himself punts for EVEN MORE regulated working conditions and SUBSTANTIAL welfare. Perhaps he and the people he refers to without revealing what their biases are were all drugged out of their senses during the time such socialist bulldust as they preach now was going down the gurgler for the failed rubbish it was.

Rees's "militarism" is bizarre: "If militarism is regarded as the means of providing security, then $50 billion spent on 12 new submarines and an untold amount on unproven and hugely expensive joint strike fighters might be justified. But if citizens' securuty is obtained by non-violent means - as in educational and job opportunities and the the means of obtaining an affordable home - then expenditure on an arms race fuelled by the fascination with the latest weapons, should be strictly limited". What on earth is he talking about? Defence spending is an essential that has nothing to do with personal "citizens' security...obtained by non -violent means" i.e job security and affordable housing.

As an entrenched academic, Stuart Rees is a menace to democracy, and he does not know the meaning of the word. I don't think that his SMH knockback will be his last. He is well beyond his use-by date.

The authors messiah complex is showing. "Good" people think like this! But the world with its inhabitants is a grubby place. The God of man is self interest.
But popular rage is now the consensus. It's a rage against the set pieces of left wing ideology; with its call for social justice.
Arise Donald Trump! There is panic and hysteria in the streets. It is unjust to oppose justice. God forbid, what will happen now to multiculturalism, gay rights, women's rights, racism?
Who cares?

Hasbeen.

"This one little statement, "the promotion of collective interests over private ones" just about sums this garbage up. The man obviously still believes in communism."
I think that's a case of you putting 2 and 2 together and getting 22.

If you actually look at the context of what he actually wrote, you'll see he was merely making the point that two fairly prominent people who had studied the link between economic conditions and health and social factors had concluded that advancing collective interests was the best way to improve the latter. And one of them is arguing for more democracy as a way of achieving this.

Claiming that amounts to communism is stretching the definition of "communism" far beyond what any self described communist would accept. Certainly the number of people "killed by communism" in China and Eastern Europe is totally irrelevant. The Scandinavian countries would be a far better comparator.

Stuart Rees is just another increasingly irrelevant Social Justice Warrior who hates the free market secular democracy he chooses to live in. And who continues to advocate for a socialist totalitarian tyranny controlled by "intelligent" people like himself, which failed miserably in every society which had the misfortune to ever embrace it. One wonders how many times does socialism have to fail before the "intelligent" academic caste figures out that it never works?

The only surprising thing about Stuart Rees's article, is that he said that the SMH refused to print it. Since the SMH is chock-a-block full of journos who think like Rees, one would have thought he would have been a shoo-in. But I suppose the SMH editor who needs to sell his newspaper to the public has already figured out that too much socialist propaganda, and articles sprouting evangelical moralising and contempt for ordinary people, does have a negative effect on sales. Keep up the good work of telling Australians what morally reprehensible deplorables we are, Stuart. It helps Pauline Hanson, Nigel Farage, and Donald Trump immensely. No one is ever going to accuse Social Justice Warriors of being "popular."

What is this insanity of a "just" society? Is it a society where 50% of armed forces personnel are females? 50% of politicians are female, aboriginal and ethnic? How about "aboriginal only" study rooms and water bubblers in our universities? Crime has a very significant ethic and cultural component, Stuart. Could I suggest that if you and your friends advocated for preventing the importation of those cultural and ethnic groups who are very disproportionately represented in serious crime, it might just win you a bit of support?

Next comes the expected support from Stuart for the right of every person from the third world who hates free speech, free markets, secular democracy, and female equality to just walk into Australia and have the good old Aussie taxpayer keep them forever. You probably love Muslim illegal immigrants , Stuart, because they think like you do. Which is probably why their countries are complete cesspits.

Adian makes rational common sense, makes an effort to seem reasonable!

The highly FLAWED ideological imperative and carved in concrete conformation bias is alive and well in most other posts?

Dial it in, hit repeat and sit back and watch as the world, our economy, and anything else worth keeping, goes to hell in a hand-basket! To a virtual man they seem to think, in order for the "PRIVILEGED" class to be better off, the mugs, rubes, cannon fodder and grunts need to be worse off?

When nothing could be further from the truth. And nowhere better demonstrated than in rural Australia and small recession proof, co-op supported, country towns, prior to the Coalition's destructive dismantle!

With drought reducing production and harvest outcomes, resulting in overstocked sale yards, fire-sale stock prices, workers with reduced incomes, that then, if enduring. results in empty shops and business premises, with the obligatory for sale or rent signs in vacant windows!

Then as it always has, the drought breaks, the pastures recover as do stock prices and production and harvest outcomes/workers incomes!

Then the businesses reopen, sometimes with cashed up new chums, who often take time to blend in and accept the fact that rural Australia in particular, succeeds, when it cooperates!

Unlike the (the ethnic in the woodpile) Collins street farmers and other (dog eat dog) fat-cats, whose eyes are like a till when the dollar sign is rung! Cer-chung, cer-ching!

[Want to see what they look like? Go to a bank auction that's selling up a generational foreclosed farm and look for the portliest, brow mopping examples?]

Who invariably, adopt profit first and foremost practices, designed to kill/severely wound social cohesion and the unique cooperation paradigm; that makes living in rural village Australia, fair dinkum democracy in action and Australian to the very core!

Take a drive and visit Maleny in the sunshine coast's hinterland and take a butchers, to see what "democracy" looks like!

"THINK"!

It's those who work and produce who create all our wealth, not the (tax avoiding?) anti democratic parasites, who LEAN all over them!
Alan B.

Aidan, the fact that he copied those lines from someone else simply proves he has none of his own, & has to borrow others work.

That he borrows from two fairly prominent people, both lefties only proves how bereft of real thought he is. Simply a "B" grade follower, with doubtful ability to even understand what he is following.

It is definitely communism by the side door, by one or many without the guts to try to do anything by the front door. Conniving slime.

This one little statement, "the promotion of collective interests over private ones" just about sums this garbage up. The man obviously still believes in communism.

No, he just knows that this stuff is simply Agenda 21 being rolled out.

Hasbeen, do you seriously believe that? Or are you just trolling?

Anyone who's been to uni would ridicule the notion that referring to the work of others proves a lack of original ideas.

Tell me: do you think Sweden is communist?
If so, what exactly do you think is inherently bad about communism?
And if not, why do you think this guy's a communist when most of what he's advocating has already been tried there?

Other posters have poured sufficient scorn on this article. I would point out that the writer assumes that a thriving economy is mutually exclusive with a society that concerns itself with social justice.. well no, social justice requires money. Support for the aged and handicapped requires money. A thriving economy generates that money. One reason for the Brexit result and Trump victory was stagnating economies. A lot of American voters have not gained an after-inflation increase in wages for years. No wonder they are angry.

The author's solution to these problems would be to throw out the old system and replace it with something Marxist where everyone, including the old and handicapped, are poor together. So the Berlin wall never fell, right?

curmudgeonathome,

" I would point out that the writer assumes that a thriving economy is mutually exclusive with a society that concerns itself with social justice."
What did the writer say that led you to that conclusion?

ISTM he wa making the opposite claim: he regards social justice as "a catalyst" for a thriving economy, and is worried about the economic effects (as well as the social effects) of our neglecting it.

Of course social justice requires money. But we have money. Australia is a rich country!

"The author's solution to these problems would be to throw out the old system and replace it with something Marxist where everyone, including the old and handicapped, are poor together."
And the basis for that claim is..?
(I'm guessing it's Hasbeen's comment, since there's nothing in that article itself to give that impression. The author is calling for reform not replacement, and for increasing prosperity not destroying it).

It's not surprising the SMH rejected that article as it was IMO badly written, with little supporting evidence, and different issues conflated. But most of the criticism on this site either ignores what he wrote completely, instead substituting what they assume his views to be, or views it through a dogmatic ideological prism, not even bothering to properly consider his ideas before dismissing them.

Thankyou Stuart for contributing this as we, the people move into a very uncertain 2017.
If militarism is regarded as the means of providing security, then $50 billion spent on 12 new submarines and an untold amount on unproven and hugely expensive joint strike fighters might be justified. But if citizens’ security is obtained by non-violent means – as in educational and job opportunities and the means of obtaining an affordable home – then expenditure on an arms race fired by the fascination with obtaining the latest weaponry, should be strictly limited.
Surely every person now realises the earth is warming with climate change humanity's greatest historical challenge to our existence. War is the road block with so much money spent on building weapons and the chaos of war preventing those affected from engaging in the transition away from fossil fuels.

Likewise, Stuart, thank you for this timely article.