Barry Jones has identified one of the ALP’s problems and that is the disappearing rank and file member. One reason that the members might feel disenfranchised might be found in the actions of the ALP leadership when a rock star was parachuted into a safe ALP seat.

The rank and file might be further bemused to know that Carmen Lawrence is viewed as a credible wellspring on which the ALP should build its future. That demonstrates clearly that the ALP ‘think tank’ hasn’t a clue as to how to rid itself of that albatross. And talk about heart and soul. There’s a young lady in WA who would have welcomed some heart and soul from Lawrence.

If that’s not enough to offend the ALP rank and file consider how they must be feeling today. One of the ALP’s living treasures, self-declared pansophists and who just happens to be the world’s greatest treasurer seemingly approves of jihad and those who propose and sponsor jihad.

Barry Jones has sounded a tocsin but who is listening.

Sage, Has things partially correct as usual, however returning to the main subject. The Federal ALP will never win another long term in Federal Government untill it does two things. 1. Learns to negotiate between the factions and come up with a comprimise that all can happily live with, i.e. policies that contain essential elements of both factions, [by the way every political party has factions, even the Liberal's which has become very apparent in NSW recently] 2. That an overall plan, that is every portfollio has specific pocily projected outcomes, that will be beneficial to the majority of Australians, much like Gough Withlam took to the 1972 election, with Shadow Ministers out there everyday explaining the benefits of their policies, which cover every aspect of political life.[Shadow Ministers are a Whitlam ceation which like so many of his other policies have stood the test of time]

Much like John Hewson's "fightback" it must be an intergrated set of policies which follow nature in essence, "everything related to everything else" this is not an easy task, however it is a task the public have the right to expect from any and every political party.

John Howard survives on the division of the community "bosses v workers" "rich v poor" etc, this country has always worked much more efficently when we all work together, united. This is the challenge for Federal ALP, if they hope to win they will need to do this as today's ALP bears no resembalence in either appearence or policy to the men who stood under the "tree of knowledge" all those years ago, advocating a fairer go for working class people. The ALP MUST REMEMBER WHY IT WAS CREATED AND RETURN TO ITS ROOTS IN PHILOSOPHY, or be content to remain the largest "pressure group" in Australia. No party can implement policy from the oppossition benches. Whitlam was once asked if he minded his Ministers acting like Prima Donna's, to which he replied, not at all so long as I am the Prima Donna Absoluta, this is the attitude that is required.

I stopped being engaged with ALP politics when at a public meeting a Senator (who is still there) said quite plainly that it was people like him who made policy and the decisions and not rank and file members like me.

Let's face it the internal structures of the ALP are designed to ensure the salariat who run it (union officials included) control their ever diminishing universe. One improvement might be to limit paid employees of politicians , the party and affiliated unions from standing for office for say 12 months from when they leave their job.

I agree with more internal democracy. How about electing State and National Councils with affiliated Union members being able to vote as well ? This may help to break the hold of faceless cadres and power broking union leaders and at least ensure a broad cross section of teh community would get to vote.

Of course this is not very likely while there are State Labor Governments. The elites of the State parties will block anything democratic until they are dislodged. The problem is there will soon be no-one to dislodge anyone as ALP membership is all but non existent.

Wistful thoughts of socialism seem such a waste of time. Some ideas I think we could follow :
1. Working people own most corporations through their super funds and mortgages. How do we democratise business and ensure they operate in our interests and not for a small managerial class ?
2. State solutions to problems have failed thru bureaucratic inertia - we need to create a new civil society , both to deal more efficiently with social problems but also to create a more dynamic layer of interests in society. The State alone will always become tyrannical.
3. We need to come to terms with the environment debate.
4.We need to stop the neo marxist class struggle twaddle like supporting anti woman Islamist murderers.
5. We need to get happy and have a positive agenda that moves beyond traditional statist socialist solutions.

Lunch time is over!

I’m used to complaints about ‘state-centered solutions’ by now – and it really is the fashion to decry anything to do with socialism or the progressive use of state power. A ‘negative essence’ is ascribed to the state – as if almost anything associated with it is, by its very nature, inferior, wrong – even oppressive. A lot of this comes from the rush of the Western Left to disassociate itself from the kind of socialism that existed in the Eastern Bloc – but today it goes even further than that. Even traditional social democracy is ‘decidedly unfashionable’ – as is everything that mitigates against the neo-liberal ‘New Right utopia’ we’re living in. The stigma associated with the state is evidence of the power of the neo-liberal ideology, and the inability of many would be left liberal to stake out a position independent of its influence.

What is so ‘essentially’ wrong with using the state for progressive/redistributive ends? What's wrong with a robust welfare state, social wage and tax-transfer system? What’s wrong with Medicare and the PBS? What's so ‘essentially’ wrong with the idea of a democratic mixed economy – including a robust public sector – except that this goes against the hegemonic ideology? What was wrong with having a public bank that could provide credit to government, provide competition in the banking sector, and provide equal access to services across the country? What’s wrong with the same principle being applied to Medibank Private and Telstra? And how else do people think we’re going to get first class fibre optic cable rollout? What was wrong with the SIO and GIO providing competition in the insurance sector? What’s wrong with the state providing for infrastructure such as roads, rail, schools out of the public purse – instead of the finance sector having to ‘have its cut’ in so-called Public Private Partnerships – that are really the most wasteful means of providing any kind of infrastructure? And what’s wrong, in principle, with GBEs providing competition to the private sector, and a stream of socialized revenue that becomes available for public purposes?

continued........

continued from above........

Finally – what’s wrong with the principle of class struggle? The wage share of the economy has been falling for years. More and more we live in a stratified society. What’s wrong with the principle of those who are poor, oppressed or exploited struggling for justice? And what’s so wrong with the idea that this can be a force for change – for positive change?

Westernred – you’re going to great pains to remain fashionable – but I for one would like an answer to the questions I raise.

Tristan

The suggestion that factions should seek mass membership thereof.
Is this not implying the creation of yet more political parties?

Tristran,
To answer your question "what's wrong with democratic socialism" the answer is "nothing, unless you happen to be "wealthy" or think you are. I met a married couple a few years back they were in their late 50's or early 60's they had jobs, no kids, the bloke was a storeman, and the woman was a clerk. They were living in a house left to the woman by her dead first husband, they had a small, fairly modern house, and they classified themselves as "middle class" people have visions of grandeur they were/are nothing except DINKS workers.

This typifies the common problem with the working class, they get a few bob in the bank, and all of a sudden they are of the illusion they are something that they are not. Which is why so many of them vote tory. They don't have enough sense to stop and think, "where did this pay, and these conditions come from?" and must be of the assumption they were "heaven sent" they certainly don't recognise that generations of fellow workers fought and sacrificed to gain this for them.

I have not yey met an employer who has willingly given a pay rise, unless of course it is to an executive or a C.E.O. and would be interested to hear from anyone who knows of such an occurance, I'll bet there are not many! The working class are there own worst enemy, they don't seem to realise, especially in today's climate, that what you have today, can be taken away tomorrow, and there is not a damned thing you can do about it. They actually vote against themselves, talk about masocism.

Shonga, you're spot on.

How can we possibly indulge those old hegemonic/ Marxist platitudes like 'democratic socialism' (DS) when most Australian aspirational voters (take Shonga's excellent example) really see a Labor government as trying to hold back their 'success'. (no matter how minimalist it is)

They may or may not have a memory of membership in a working class structure, (one that DS infers should happen being it’s so bloody ideologically pure in thought), but it doesn't work in the real world.

They'll march on May Day but secretly vote for Howard in federal elections.(sssh!)

The Socialist Left back in the 70/80's laughed at this ever happening, such was their belief in those hoary old ideals of comradeship and the ‘bruverhood’.

Shock horror, they were wrong.

And all that these old dinasaurs (and apprentices) can do now is forensically-analyze 'Howard’s subtextual political meanings" in the hope of re-discovering their own long lost belief and faith. It’s pathetic.

And even for those ex Laborites who know this analysis better than most - why would they want to vote for a Federal Labor party that "Stands for nothing and falls for anything".

Unless Greg Combe steps up and throws a Jersey on we’ll be watching the Bomber kick a hat trick next year. And you don’t need convoluted and overly complex political theory to explain and understand this

"Fasionable"!Tristan, you have made an old man happy!

I was short handing a bit. The State should set a framework and that would rightly include social wages, transfers, appropriate tax rates etc.

My concern is with the distribution of power and the protection of public assets. For example, and I know this is a bit grey legally , but if Medibank Private is a state asset then the State can dispose of it, on the other hand if it was set up as a mutual society it would be the members that owned it. Simiarly the State could fund housing through housing associations. The point is to disperse power and create alternatives to the State and capital. Unions have survived because they institutions outside the direct control of the State, and will continue to do so. I don't suggest that all State controlled activities should be treated like this but all could be sujected to a test.

As far as things like banks and the like go, what is the point ? There are community banks, and the internet. Even State banks close branches.

Equally I could ask why should we do any of the things you suggest, or that I should agree that they were good ? I would argue that excessive reliance by Unions on the State in the 1980s reduced Union power and coincided with an explosion in casual low paid work at the expense of permanent work. The Accord delivered a social wage at the cost of reduced union power for which we are now suffering. Given that many enterprises have been lost, like Qantas, Telstra, Commonwealth Bank etc, seems to support my case that an objective for the left should be to distribute power more widely into society.

What is class struggle ? Can you point to the Australian huddled masses ? If you can then tell them to get a job!

You should know that socialism never took in the ALP and never will.

Tristan, I have not read it but it is sitting in my library.

My take on so called 'new' politics, is that it is the politics of devolving power - of giving decision making back to people and away from centralised government.

I think Jones' view of the rank and file is in fact the most wrong direction - why not use primaries - and make involvement far wider and far more democratic, far more representative. Jones to my eyes is a 'traditionalist' not a genuine 21st Century man. I would suggest a good deal of the thinking on the Left is still stuck in notions of bigger government rather than devolved power.

See these articles:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=159

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4370

Perhaps read my review of Vital Signs as well: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5041

I don't think anyone in Coming to the Party has understood this change - at least from the very brief skim I gave it.

Tristan,

there is nothing wrong with any of these things, indeed most of them would be desirable - but the average working person considers themself to be a small time capitalist on the make and behaves as though ideas such as the notion of collective good and public purpose were irrelivent in a world where individual self interest and material greed are king.

Most people I know have chronic "affluenza" and are much more concerned with being able to purchase the latest model plasma screen than they are with rising ineqaulity, decaying social services and public infrastructure and an increasingly cold and selfish society that lacks any sense of a common purpose. Their chief desire is always to move up the ladder so that they can earn ever more money, so that they can purchase ever more expensive housing and consumer goods - working longer and harder to accumulate more and more of what they often don't need and seldom use.

Shonga is right - the working people are their own worst enemy with no thought for, or interest in the long term. Example: in my town there is a large industrial plant, employing around fifteen hundred people. When the resource boom took first took off, the company offered everyone a generous pay rise to sign individual contracts - and the entire workforce immediatly de-unionised, with dollar signs in their eyes. Not a single union member remains. I have asked a number of them if they thought the boom might end someday. They supposed it would. I asked them how they thought their contracts would fare when the company is no loger able to simply name it's price to the chinese. They hadn't given it much thought.

Maybe a good stint under an IR sytem that treats peoples labour and wages as nothing more than market commodities will drive home the importance of the things mentioned in Tristan's article.

Fozz,

Your post is an example of why the Labor party is in disarray. A growing disconnection with the aspirations of ordinary people, coupled with a smug, undergraduate belief that only they see the way ahead.

The Labor party seems to waver between two positions.

1. Being survey driven to the point where they have absolutely no core beliefs, but simply change policy depending on the latest poll results; and
2. Deciding that they know what is best for society irrespective of the wishes of the population as a whole.

It is a curious mix of arrogance and cowering fear of the media and public opinion.

Getting back to your post, it is interesting that the whole undertone of your argument is that society is in the grip of some terrible afflication which they do not understand, yet (of course) you are able to rise above it and lead them to the promised land.

Perhaps society has moved beyond the problematic dualisms that seem to underpin all leftist philosophy. People no longer believe in simplistic notions of rich v poor, educated v non-educated, etc. The mdoern economy has allowed nearly everyone, irrespective of background, gender, ethnicity or belief to rise above their station in life and aspire to more. That is why they resist the equalising and rationalising effect of leftist policy. If someone has worked hard for their small piece of the world, who are you to decide that they should share it with someone else?

The Liberal party, for all their faults, have been able to capitalise on this new mood and run with it. The Labor party, in contrast, has misinterpreted the movement and therefore wavers between attempting to resurrect old hoary policies that are now discredited, or moving forward by attempting to take on every new fad that happens to come along.

Of course, I won't even get into the systemic structural problems faced by the Labor party with regard to their factional system, their continuing ties to the union movement, their obsession with choosing 'famous' candidates, and the complete lack of intellectual talent.

I think it is true that today the working class is divided - and so-called 'wedge politics' play their part here. With a Labor Party that no longer feels comfortable approaching its politics from a class perspective, many working people feel alienated, and gravitate towards the Liberals' exploitation of popular fears and insecurities. I do not think, though, that this 'proves' the futility or invalidity of class politics. In fact, this situation is partly the product of a Labor Party that is not willing to appeal directly to working people on the basis of their class interests.

re: 'Affluenza' - post-materialist politics are getting quite a foothold on the Left these days - but as Kim Carr reminds us in his article - appearing on the same day as this article - housing has never been so inaffordable as now. This is compounded by the rise of insecure work, and the casualisation of the workforce. Not that some flexibility isn't a good thing - but it is to be bemoaned that many workers have to work several casual jobs to survive - and have trouble meeting rent let alone affording their own home. Many Australians still live in poverty - and many others will have trouble providing for their own retirement at a time when the prevalence of superannuation may marginalise the public pension system, with pensions being driven down.

more to come..........

re: Westernred'scomments-'Community banks' generally do not provide the same standard of service - and citizens everywhere should enjoy services of equal quality. A strong public sector strengthens the hand of democratically accountable government - and hence of the public in general. Expansion of the public sector - and of the co-operative sector - can be seen as a remedy to exploitation. Apart from intellectual fashion, there is no reason to suppose that economic democracy must take shape in the co-operative sector alone - to the exclusion of the public sector. Health care, aged care and education, in particular, should not be run for profit - these services should be provided as a universal right, with the resultant redistribution of opportunity and basic quality of life that comes with a strong social wage. Sometimes,as is the case with communications infrastructure,duplication is foolhardy and wasteful - and development will not occur it the private sector unless it is made suitably profitable. Government Business Enterprises also hold the hope of enhancing competition - especially where such enteprises run on the basis of a public charter, rather than on a corporatised basis.

re: Corin's comments -

I see no problem with the hand of a central, yet democratically accountable (through the ballot box and through the public sphere) government, having a fair degree of economic power - as opposed to the power of hulking transnational corporations - who have no intention of 'devolving power'. As against the trend today, I believe in a democratic mixed economy. But this means that there are many options - of which government ownership is one important option of many.

If Corin wants to 'devolve' economic power - then why not support wage earner funds - established on a regional basis and controlled by communities in partnership with unions - to invest in both profitable enterprises, and in projects of social benefit to the communities concerned? Combined with co-operativism, establishment of works councils and a strong public sector, this would promise a broad democratisation of the economy.

Tristan,
It is easy to see you still, like I hold to the pricipiles of the 20th century, Logic and Common sense, however many other posters have moved on to U.S. controlled logic, which is illogical.

Sometimes you just have to stick to your guns when you know you are correct. We will see on the 30th of the month whether or not the working class have been screwed egough to revolt, the irony here it that you and I may actually have better assetts and bank blances using our 20th century philosophies than the people who are argueing with us, and ultimately against them selves, it's a crazy world, and there is no improvement in sight, I have no trouble whatsoever with "Democratic Socialism" and neither do other parts of the world.

The problem in this country is that "the world" is viewed by in an ever increasing U.S.A. way, which has almost taken all Australians used to hold dear, kindness, compassion for your fellow Australian etc, in favor of a new Fairlane or a BMW, greed corrupts humans, to the point where looking at the globe through the most recent State of the U.S.A.the working class have been brainwashed into believing that they no longer exist. Reality will arrive soon, and it will arrive too late for workers to reverse this malay if they are not careful, those of you mwho know what and who you are, see you on the 30th at hopefully the largest rally this country has ever seen.

Tristan, except the electorate wants more control over its own lives and its families. I do support devolving power to regions. But ultimately policies like differential school vouchers will gain the upper hand as people say - why can't I have more control (my family over where my kid goes) - the differential sum giving a larger sum to the vulnerable to invest.

Also primaries are far more democratic than rank and file balloting. Mixed primaries may provide the best mix of interests. I take it that Gillard and Jones are simply displeased with the outcome of factional power - they are not in my view true democrats promoting democratic reform. Only a far wider base and far wider involvement (wider than membership) will do that.

Jones just wants to shuffle the deck in his favour! he is simply being dishonest about his reasons - souching it pary interest.

If the ALP followed Jones (and Tristan) and rank and file only - it would become like the Labour party in Britain in the early 80's. If we replace current preselection - it must be with something more representative of the wider community.

I said this recently at Club Troppo:

" Indeed I think the idea of ‘membership’ is a factor in the decline of peoples willingness to become involved in politics. ‘Middle’ ground people want a say in the direction of the ALP - they don’t want to devote their soul to the ALP.

I’d also suggest that Labor Unity will eventually embrace mixed primaries as a mechanism to stop the rampant Left from controlling the ALP - yet at the same time promoting democratic ‘engagement’: give it 10 years you’ll see. i.e. if you give up the current pre-selection system, you have to replace it with something that sees the ALP become more engaged and still embracing the centre-ground: In short the kind of Barry Jones garbage about engaging with the rank and file would see the ALP walk off a cliff of unelectability in much the same way as Labour in Britain did in the early 1980’s. "

Within deteriorating Western culture, Australian society and the ALP, the dominance of the "Right", genuinely reactionary and opportunist with no "consciousness/conscience" now dominates.
The scavenging mentality is so tailor-made for conditions within that historically-emerged shell of a nation Australia is; post colonising AUSFTA and thus for the ALP Right.
No "vision thing", just a half-world of gangsterism, "deals" and scrapping over the crumbs. Nothing of compassion, creativity and cooperation, just an expediency and parasitism that feeds off deteriorating education and other social infrastructures; the ABC, SBS, CSIRO, environment, heritage etc. No challenge is made to the dominant neo-liberal ideology that goes with this nation's downfall.
Few glimpse beyond habitual conflict, consumerist dummy-sucking, commodity fetishism, ego tripping, control freaking and emotional self indulgence. But reification works through precisely that resulting alienation and frustration that actualises our modern "aspirational" cargo-cult. Neo liberalism not only destroyed Howard and Costello as men and blinded Latham and the Roosters. It now apparently decays the likes of Emerson, Tanner and Gillard, who now uphold and promote what they might have once challenged.
From that point, neo liberalism, there is no barrier to fascist nihilism and self replication.
Being bereft of any higher consciousness, the "Little Howards"- the Lennons, Tripodis and other careerists will never allow control of the ALP to devolve back to the community. It is in their unself- reflexive conditioning to cling to power, existing as living manifestations of what passes for the modern community.
Truth and compassion, as "political correctness", are sanctioned out of the discursive currency, as a sort of shame, by it. The dominant characteristics of narcissism, self absorption, victimhood and entitlement, just won't tolerate the outward. Australians will now only realise what they have lost AFTER they have lost it, like the people of classical Athens or Rome who also lost their civilisations through complacency.
THEN, too late, the significance of both the ALP Right and ten years of Howardism, will finally be understood.

justgoing back to a previous comment re mass membership of factions:

TheALP is a VERY broad church. And the official forums of the ALP do not exactly allow for free and open debate of progressive policy and causes. In fact, I remember years ago being hounded by Trotksyists who bemoaned my 'illusions' in the ALP: a party they saw as a "prison for the Left". Sadly, though, unless socialists in the ALP are willing to create their own forums for debate, discussion, mobilisation - they will be swamped by the imperatives of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party - which is to come down hard on any discussion that might be controversial. Labor for Refugees would never have come into being if not for the determination of some to creation a forum - in fact a movement - outside of official Party channels.

With factions - if the Left cannot build the forums for robust internal debate, and promotion of socialist ideas - no-one will - and socialists will ultimately find the ALP a suffocating environment. Part of this process is forming dicussion forums - such as particpatory online journals, egroups, public meetings - and partly this is about building a movement within the ALP to campaign for socialism - that is organised to take the campaign into the branches and unions - and fight to change the policy direction of the ALP. This process must come 'from below' - as the Parliamentary leadership is too concerned with the day to day reactions of the media - and this short termism leads to opportunism.

Since factions are the real force behind decision-making in the ALP - is also stands to reason that internal democratic processes and greater participation - would lead to a broader democratisation of the ALP. I know that unless I can influence SL leaders through faction decision-making processes - I have no hope of making a difference at a branch level. Branch members are treated with contempt - and only find a voice when they collectively organise - and this ultimately means becoming involved in a faction.

Tristan

Tell me, Corin - what's the 'rampant Left' doing that you find so offensive and threatening? Is it just because you think the Right, being bereft of values of its own, might be more open to schemes for education vouchers and cutting the minimum wage? But really - what precisely are the policy prescriptions of the Left that you have a problem with - and who is making these prescriptions?

Tristan

Tristan, simple - I prefer incentives to gifts - incentives in the long run promote better opportunities. The Left are often believers in passive welfare: indeed the idea of the helpless working class (needing a constant state intervention of help) is a fundamental difference between us. I believe in stragetgic intervention and the so called 'ladder of opportunity'. I'd suggest that that work incentives are better than passive welfare as an example. That choice in education is a right, able to be delivered to more people by differential payment, and that these policies will define Labour in the 21st Century. That HECS has been the best policy for getting working class kids into Uni: see 30% of kids going as opposed to 15% before it. This can only extended further by continuing HECS and expanding it. I welcome Emerson's 'learn or earn' views but think that the best method of delivery is actually using carrots like tax credits and wage restraint as opposed to sticks like time limiting social security.

A suppressed AWB-type report involving botched ppp's, then an appallingly corrupt water deal draw a plea from the "Age's" doyen pol-economy columnist Kenneth Davidson, for the Bracks monstrosity to finally put the national ALP and the people of Australia ahead of its own secret misconceived agendas.
Meanwhile, Mike Carlton in the SMH bewails on-going anti- Muslim McCarthyism, portraying ancient warhorse Malcom Fraser as again being forced to carry his bat against the bogons, for the underdogs. Meanwhile, the likes of Rudd, who SHOULD be leading the charge for human rights, instead indulges in a "me too race to the bottom" featuring the misrepresenting and scapegoating of a certain clumsy local Muslim leader.
Meanwhile, the pervasive neolib myth of "passive" welfare is trotted out yet again, this time by that ghost, Emerson.
People like you, Corin, always ignore the fact that the unemployed do not ASK to be unemployed. They are forced to this state by neoliberalism. Like Aborigines, they are entitled to a compensatory factor as far as I am concerned, on top of the miserable subsistence component, for the disruption caused to their lives by greedy capitalism and its weak, corrupt politician toadies. The alliance continues to SABOTAGE all attempts at reconstituting the level playing field so essential in market theory, in favour of cozy monopolies and an eventual corporate fascist style state.
Corin, please read today's "Age", concerning privatised bottled water. Then, ask yourself who should be paying for what and why this NOT so, in a supposedly Labor state. Then go and find out about Gunns, Cubbie Creek in QLD and think about the PPP infrastructure failures.
I know the press and media are red hot anti opposition of any kind and are attacking public information Media. Time is running out. But, if ALP leaders continue negotiating away their principles for a fitful illusion of ephemeral power and prestige, or sly backhanders, the real battle is already lost.
All you going to get is more people like Bracks and Lennon following the likes of Howard and Murdoch into their Faustian sewer, without forgrounding a "principles first" aproach.