Fabianism is one of things that should NOT be "celebrated". Fortunately, most people these days have never heard of it. Whitlam was a Fabian. That should be enough to put anyone off.

WTF?

ttbn's critique of this article comes down to "Whitlam bad" as if that is enough to convince others that Fabianism has had its day.

The author states "The Fabians do have solutions. Fabians believe that we are all in this together. On the 27th of March we invite you to participate in a webinar dealing with the question of a Universal Basic Income."

Universal Basic Income is an interesting topic and if it is the Fabians that are pushing the discussion forward then good for them.

It makes a pleasant change from the droning on about how terrible Australia's future will be because we live in a different world than we did 40 years ago.

What we need to see, is an Australian chapter of the John Birch Society.

They stand against everything us moralistic Right Wingers stand against Viz:

…Abortion, birth control, divorce, drugs, homosexuality, crime, violence, secular humanism, teenage pregnancy, teen suicide, environmentalism, feminism and pornography…

Bring it on!

The author cannot be serious or at least cannot be taken seriously. He wrote "Co-operatives, community currencies, the transition town movement, scrounging, co-housing and much more" are successful alternatives to capitalism but clearly is just plain wrong. All of these alternatives are fringe economic practices, in total, representing a fraction of one percent of the global economy. Further, all of them rely on capitalism to provide a strong economic basis on which these fringe practices can be played with.
The author needs to get serious and provide just one example of a genuine and successful alternative to capitalism.

Tis appears to be a duplicate of an article published last year, which was the actual 140th anniversary of the Fabians

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=22887

I cannot agree with Bernie Masters' assertion that Co-operatives are not successful alternatives.

They are, by necessity, capitalistic but also incorporate "...the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, cooperative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others."

Wherever possible I buy from co-operatives as I agree with what they stand for and I think they they play a small but important role in the economy.

Over the years, I have also known a number of people who have chosen to live alternative lifestyles. Of those that lived this way for a number of years (50+ in some cases) all (or someone's partner) have come from extremely wealthy families. They were essentially paid by their families to live this way. Good for them I guess.

Now that the parents are passing away these life-stylists are inheriting enormous amounts of money and assets. Returning to the harbour-view mansion is now very appealing.

Anecdotally, there seems to be a degree of discontent at the moment particularly with younger adults about their role in our capitalistic society.

It will be interesting to see if this discontent will develop into a different type of capitalism.