Tristan's careful article is unlikely to get terribly many responses because it lacks rhetorical arrogance and doesn't make bold conjectures.

Most people will find the cautious, pragmatic, "a little from column 'A', a little from colum 'B'" approach quite agreeable.

If I may elaborate some further general principles which are not in contradiction with the intent or content of the original article:

a) Public income is best derived from natural resource rents (e.g., land tax, mineral royalties, spectrum fees etc) and taxes on labour and capital should be reduced to a minimum. Such an approach is beneficial for the environment as it discourages waste, takes off the onerous fetters on production and is just insofar that a person owns the result of their labour and investment and prevents rent-seeking monopolies.

2) The degree of efficious public ownership or regulation is dependent on a function of the relative necessity of the good or service (and as such the elasticity of demand) and the potential to develop positive (or negative) externalities. The more than a good is a genuine commodity with discrete benefits the less the government should be involved.

I support the "a little from column A, a little from column B" approach. It is indeed a case for just about all of the parameters that matter, that they be a balance of competing interests rather than polarised positions.

“Too much planning renders a city ‘sterile’, uniform and predictable.”

The wrong sort of planning can render a city (and a society) somewhat sterile and bland. But I don’t think we can have too much of the right sort of planning. The right planning regime could help ensure a high level of dynamism and ‘fertility’.

“Under capitalism, also, consumption and growth become ends in themselves.”

Too right! And this is where we most urgently need to counter the notion that without a considerable rate of growth, we’ll fall into stagnancy or recession. The truth is that if we keep expanding, we’ll eat ourselves out of house and home, so to speak.

It befuddles me entirely as to how anyone can talk of balance with respect to society or environment without prominently mentioning this point – our most glaring point of imbalance.

As we head into harder times, with ever-rising fuel prices and the consequent ever-rising prices of everything else, it is going to be of the utmost importance that the balance between market forces and government regulation move towards the latter.

Strong governance, that helps protect the vulnerable and distribute wealth a little more evenly, is going to be vital.

This will necessitate a strong rule of law, which will need effective enforcement. There are many laws now that are not effectively policed, allowing some to get away with brazen offences while others cop it sweet for lesser things. So, a considerable boost in police and other regulatory personnel will be needed.

As unpalatable as it may seem to some, I think that a more socialistic and at the surface, a more restrictive regime, is going to be highly advisable as the personal stresses exerted by changing grass-roots economics start to cause aggressive, unscrupulous or desperate people to exploit the battling average citizen.

If we want a "Good Society" we really have to stop knocking Gods Word and trying to squish it under foot.
It wont go under foot by the way.
God's behind it.
The Holy Bible is the only book that fully teaches loving God... and our neighbour as ourself (Mark 12:28-31).
Anything other preaching, or thesis, is towards the flesh (men doing it mens ways...i.e. leading to failure) and will end up in sexual immorality and social chaos.
All of the nations that have knocked The Word, and the missionaries who brought it, are third world nations with too many problems to mention.

There is plenty to think about here. IMO, the essential overall theme when talking about a mixed society is the yin-yang balance. Or every action causes a reaction. If we are to achieve the optimistic outcome that Tristan poses, then money is going to have to be made available for it. As money is a limited resource, that means taking it away from something else. If we are to police the law fully and properly, this is going to cost as well. The government has only so much money to allocate to all the activities it has to maintain.

One of the important elements in the solution is that we have to find ways of making things like houses etc cheaper to construct en masse. Another is that we need to be more original and make products that have value and that other countries are prepared to pay for. A further one is that we have to start making sure that our expenditures actually solve problems rather than create them. This is where the real hard work is as it often means attacking the status quo.

I think the first step towards establishing a "Good Society" is to take power out of the hands of the corrupt ruling political class whose only agenda appears to be to steal as much wealth as possible from the rest of us in order to line the pockets of merchant bankers, corporations, land speculators and property developers.

The latest and probably most blatant of many examples is the defiance, by the NSW government backed by the corporate newsmedia, the NSW Business Chamber, of the NSW Labor party, the unions and public opinion in order to sell off NSW's publicly owned electricity assets. I have put some of my thoughts in a short article "Iemma defies Labor conference, unions and public in push to privatise NSW electricity" at http://candobetter.org/node/470

If we don't stop this trend of handing all of our collective wealth across to our greedy selfish elite, then we stand no chance in an overpopoulaite world with diminishing resources, particularly energy of achieving a decent society.

Unless the likes of NSW Premier Iemma and NSW Treasurer Costa are stopped, we stand not chance whatsoever of establishing a decent society.

The writer cautiously supports the market economy, albeit with some concessions to appropriate intervention.

Not surprisingly, because in these days it is nearly impossible to argue against the sacred cow that has become 'The Market'. It is like arguing against a deeply rooted theology. The Market IS the Holy Bible of today. Both sides of politics revere the market.

Whether we like it or not, progressive privatisation of government assets and services has rendered 'the market' the dominant thing that governs the society we live in. It has become like a chronic life-long disease we just have to live with, so our language accommodates the disease.

Yet I remain defiant. The Market theology is poison to our future. That's not to ignore the reality of the market place, but when I see those on the left of politics arguing for a nicely moderated market, I see the free marketeers rubbing their hands. Their relentless pursuit of an unfettered market is almost complete. (They can deal with the unfettered bit, so long as the theology is accepted.)

First of all we saw basic government services converted into business enterprises. Then we saw those enterprises sold (privatised). Then we saw public funds used to prop up privatised enterprises that couldn't make it on the market.

Then we found that environmental and social considerations are not dealt kindly by the free market.

Too late! By then we had seen all the arguments that 'the market' could not work effectively or efficiently if hampered by government intervention. And we even saw a range of laws that forbade market intervention (purportedly in the interests of fair competition).

And after all of that..... now we are reduced to talking up the market economy, or at least locking it in our language as the mainstay of economic, social, environmental and spiritual health - with a few nips and tucks of course.

Dear readers,

To an extent Gecko is right - to suggest that I make some - ableit reserved - compromises in the face of economic liberalism...

There is a role for responsive markets - and, as I argue, competition is a force that can spur innovation.

But to argue for a 'democratic mixed economy' is more than just a token alternative to the neo-liberal orthodoxy...

To an extent, I argue for a return to the Keynesian social democratic consensus - and the model of the mixed economy that characterised so many economies in the wake of WWII.

But the 'democratic mixed economy' goes further...

I suppose the potential for a far bolder involvment of democratic and social enterprise - for instance: public ownership of mining interests - ableit as part of a competitive and international market...

Furthermore, readers should note a preference for initiatives such as 'citizens investment' or 'community development' funds - that break with the logic of share value maximisation above all else.

Such initiatives could also become powerful weapons in the cause of economic democracy.

And also - I recognise the need for strategic public monopoly, and for the intervention in markets - to prevent oligopoly and collusion...

Yes - there is no 'clean break' from the market economy...

But readers should understand that what I propose is much more than a variety of 'weak half measures' or 'acquiesence in the face of neo-liberalism'. If anyone doubts this - I urge them to read the paper again...

As always - comment and debate from readers is welcome. :-)

dear fellow participants.

The major flaw in all 'market' related solutions to social organization, is the degree to which it is connected to,and orchestrated by, a powerful oligarchy of vested interests.

No, I haven't suddenly 'found Marx'.. its the same old thing I've been 'rhetorically and arrogantly'(Lev.. u reading ?:) espousing all along.

Human nature, and greed. But more.. self preservation.

The clearest evidence of how the 'market' when tied to insufficiently restrained/controlled capitalism is harmful and self defeating, is found in the huge speculation being done by Hedge funds now, in the commodity of 'oil'.

There was a time when Hedge Fund activity is reported to have been as little as 5% of the oil market activity, but now, according to a news report this morning, it's something like 50% and thus, has not only the interest in manipulating it for base profit..but also the POWER.

The "Good" society, in material or economic indicators, is a fallacy.
If you dig deep enough, probe far enough, you will eventually uncover the sad mess and mass of seething poor humanity that it relies on.

Thus, the only means of achieving a "Good" society is for it to become a 'GODLY' society. Israel was established with legal guidelines for caring for the poor..so, we need to become more 'God....ly'

All the prophets raged against the shameless capitalism which emerged periodically in Israel, and was usually associated with fertility gods and idolatry and cult prositution.
"Repent...for the kingdom of God is at hand" said Jesus.

Thanks Tristan

I think through a mixed economy you are trying to manage two essentially antagonistic forces - labour and capital. I would see an alternative being a society in which labour and capital no longer exist. You mention Marx's idea of exploitation - the extraction of surplus value (including profit) from workers. A mixed economy does not address that.

The market is built on wage slavery. So too under capitalism is state intervention. The capitalist state owning major elements of the economy reinforces the fundamentals of captialism; it doesn't challenge them.

Let's assume however your discussion about transitional arrangements is in effect a plea for a radical Government implementing polices (eg nationalisations) which you see as setting in train a process that actually challenges the capital and labour divide.

I am unsure if there exist any countries where that is currently occurring (except perhaps Bolivia and Venezuela, although I doubt either have the economic base to establish such a reality and in any event they are top down changes rather than bottom up ones.)

I think Allende might have adopted a similar strategy to the one you are suggesting. The ruling class won't allow actions that challenge their role in society without a fight. Allende paid with his life and the Chileans with the loss of their democracy through misguided views about the parliamentary road to socialism.

Maybe you are not going that far. If not, then what is the difference between what you are suggesting and what we have now? A few more nationalised companies? Do they abolish wage slavery?

I look at the food crisis (both the long term one where 1 bn people are starving or severely malnourished) and the present one (where another half a billion could be tipped into that category) and think that the market is the problem, not he solution. There is enough food to feed everyone on earth adequately. People are starving because they can't afford to buy on the market. That is to my mind a real indictment of captialism and I don't see a mixed economy addressing that.

Define 'good.' And necessarily by extension 'bad.'

What the concept means and how it is measured.

Then what informs the basis of measurement.

Then whether it is possible to universally and absolutely define the concept in a way that universal (objectively true) to everyone. That is accepted in a way that is essentially incontravertably true, like 'the sun makes light.'

Sans the logically flawed and inherently self refuting post-modern relativist narratives.

If you can do this, you might be eligable for a Nobel prize.

Apologies to all for my unintended repetition and spelling mistakes in my first post.

---

Passy wrote: "There is enough food to feed everyone on earth adequately."

This is the "by bread alone" argument of left-wing cornucopians who have, in the past, irresponsibly disputed the need for population control. We need more than just food to have a dignified existence.

Also, it has to be acknowledged that growing 'enough' food through industrialised methods for 6.5 billion humans as opposed to the 1 billion that lived on the planet around 1850, has been at an unacceptable cost to the world's environment. It has required solar captured captured over tens of millions of years in the form of fossil fuels and converted into fertiliser. When humankind's endowment of fossil fuels are exhausted, there is no way that we can hope to maintain the world's current level of agricultural productivity.

Also, our industrialised agricultural system has required the destruction of rainforests and bio-diversity and the unsustainable mining of nutrients from the soil, which had, in past eras, been recycled back into the soil.

I think it's well past time that socialists acknowledged that even with the equitable redistribution of resources and all the efficiencies possible in a theoretically achievable democratic and non-bureaucratic form of socialism, that the task faced in preventing the collapse of our global life-support system, let alone our civilisation, is extremely formidable, given the vast demands of 6.5 billion humans on a critically damaged world environment.

I suggest that any socialist who seriously cares about the future of our planet read Sandy Irvine's excellent and comprehensive "Trotsky's Biggest Blindspot" (20 pages) at http://www.sandyirvine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ (as pdf), http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Latest/Misarmed.html and http://candobetter.org/node/392

(This is not necessarily intended to restart the debate here on population, immigration etc. I'm happy to continue that argument elsewhere.)

Ahh, trade215,

I can provide a universal definition of 'good', but it's not objective. Nor is it subjective either. Rather it's an intersubjective definition.

"The relative goodness of an action is a function that the action reached an informed consensus among those involved."

Which does, in part, match with Tristan's desire for an increased degree of democratic input into economic decisions.

Dear friends;

re: the issue of exploitation, expropriation of surplus value...

One of the most glaring difficulties in tackling exploitation is - as I say in the paper - that ordinary people ought be afforded the right to invest their savings as they wish...

This, though - by a Marxist definition - places even popular pension funds in a position of exploiting workers... (*despite the fact that the stakeholders in such bodies - are workers themselves)

The falling rate of profit, here: by a Marxist definition - is unavoidable - as the organic composition of capital increases... Part of the strategy that I suggest, though - is to give a much fairer deal to workers - by giving workers - and citizens - collective capital share - to compensate for reduction in labour's share of the 'economic pie'...(eg: citizens investment funds - or the like)

This is more than 'tinkering around the edges'.

In the end, though - as I argue - exploitation is a 'Gordian knot' - so long as there exists a market, and the right - even of workers - to invest their savings as they will...

But this is not to say that class stratification - and the arbitrary power of the wealthy - cannot be overcome...

A mixed democratic economy offers citizens significant and democratic control of sections of the economy: this from a variety of measures which I have explored in the paper (eg: GBEs, Co-operative enterprise, social infrastructure, collective capital mobilisation etc.)

And with a regime of progressive taxation - inheritance tax, wealth tax, progressive income tax etc - the whole edifice of class rule can be seen to crumble away... And in its place - a democratic society and state - over which citizens are sovereign...

And yes - there will be resistance...But the state is not merely an 'instrument'. In itself - it is riven by contradiction...And herein rests the hope the such contradictions can be capitalised upon - in the pursuit of justice and social change...

Tristan

I find a lot to disagree with in the article; but put that to one side. A "good" society depends on "good" people. The critical issue is how people with volition and actions based on ignorance, delusion, greed and ego can develop wisdom, insight, compassion and egolessness. Anything else is window-dressing, shuffling the deck-chairs.

Tristan

You mention the falling rate of profit, and I agree that tendency is hot wired into capitalism. How does what you are suggesting address that tendency? It reinforces it because for example the return superannuation funds get is dependent on the extraction (or redistribution once extracted) of surplus value from workers.

I wrote something recently, daydreaming about a radical/revolutionary Government in power through parliament, made up of ALP leftists, independents, Greens, socialists and left wing trade unionists.

But I could imagine this occurring only as a consequence of massive class struggle and a swing to the left in the population as a result. Without that mobilisation by the masses no left wing Government would survive.

That's why I had the first action (among many) of the radical Government being the abolition of the standing army and its replacement with workers' militias. And the next step would be to cut the working week to 30 hours without loss of pay. This would address the increased share of GDP going to capital that the policies of the last twenty to thirty years have produced.

Anyway, it was a flight of fantasy but I don't rule out the possibility of a genuinely radical/revolutionary Government coming to power. But one its tasks I believe would be to transfer power to the class that put it there - radicalising workers. This would be done like th Paris Commune and Russia in 1917 with the establishment by workers of workers councils where workers had the right to automatically recall there elected representatives. Then the task of restructuring the economy from production for profit to production for need could begin.

Your articles are always thought provoking. Keep them going.

By the way, I wrote to some ALP people I know saying when you leave the ALP after Iemma's betrayal and perhaps after the union leaderships' betrayal too don't quit politics. Look to the revolutionary left like Socialist Alternative. ( See www.sa.org.au). What is your take on electricity privatisation and Iemma's contempt for the membership of the party?

Margaret Thatcher said "We want a society where people are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the state is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the state. "

As far as a "Good Society" goes, it don't get better.

Especially her caution to presume a State with more authority than necessary is going to solve all the pains or act in the best interests of the electorate.

Government act in the best interests of the politicians seeking re-election and the bureaucrats whose softer careers are paid for by more exorbitant taxes.

What we get from government is an expensive panacea.

It is cheaper to pay directly for our own mistakes, than leaving some lying politician to make bigger ones in our name.

Alternatively, we make, for ourselves fewer mistakes and achieve more personal success and reward through taking calculated risks on the opportunities which free enterprise presents us.

Socialist levelling is achieved by forcing everyone to aspire only to mediocrity; a poor substitute when compared to a life under a free enterprise system, which is full of opportunity and possibility.

Col Rouge says:

"Socialist levelling is achieved by forcing everyone to aspire only to mediocrity; a poor substitute when compared to a life under a free enterprise system, which is full of opportunity and possibility."

Actually capitalism treats those who sell their labour power as mediocrities by denying them the rightful return for the value they create.

And I doubt the 2.5 bn who live on less than $2 a day, and the billion or so on $1 a day, many of whom are starving or malnourished, would agree if they could with Col.

Certainly the 30,000 babies who die each day from preventable causes don't even get the chance to disagree.

Back to the article. Tristan makes the point that parliament contains contradictions. True, but in the end analysis all the parliamentarians are committed to the profit system.

The parliamentary institution is a creature of capitalism. Its members are committed to that system. In any event even if the place was full of lefties, this argument about socialism through Parliament was rebutted, in my humble opinion, by Rosa Luxemburg in her pamphlet Reform or Revolution.

The Paris Commune and the October revolution show a glimpse of an alternative institution - workers councils where representatives have the right to automatically their representatives if they do anything the workers disagree with, and who are paid the average wage. This was the beginning of real democracy and opened up the possibility of democratising production, something capitalism cannot do.

Tristan

Mick Armstrong has written an article in Socialist Alternative called "What kind of a party should the left build?" Ignore one or two slips into hyperbole. Other than that I think it puts the alternative to what you are arguing quite well.

The link is:

http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1668&Itemid=125

“Actually capitalism treats those who sell their labour power as mediocrities by denying them the rightful return for the value they create.”

Wrong, capitalism pays for work supplied and then the processes of marketing and distribution, provision of funding capital etc each have to be paid for too.

The billions you suggest who live on little are infinitely better off than the millions who the “goal of socialism” (communism) starved to death under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot Mugabe and every other socialist inspired despot.

And even when not being starved, people in the socialist states were denied access to the same food supplies which the capitalism encouraged to be available through the market system.

Just ask an ex national from behind the iron curtain. Some were brought to tears just to see plenty of grocery shelves with a variety of food stuffs available for sale and no queues or fights to buy them.

“Certainly the 30,000 babies who die each day from preventable causes don't even get the chance to disagree.”

And how many of those live where democracy thrives or are they under some yoke of despotism?
Starving under a socialist despotic system is no different to starving under a fascist one but starving under a democratic free market economy is far rarer.

“This was the beginning of real democracy and opened up the possibility of democratising production, something capitalism cannot do.”

“Real Democracy” places the wishes of the individual first.

Socialism corrupts that process by imposing the levellers obsession upon all and forcing some to be less than they might otherwise become.

That is the ultimate tragic, the waste of human potential, to deny those who can aspire to more to forego that potential for the sake of socialist and communist “equalness”.

Now Passy, like to have another try?

I like to eat at better restaurants than the “everyone-equal socialist swill hall”.

It is called competing for consumer choice (giving people what they want instead of telling them what they are allowed). Try it, you might find you like it.

Col Rouge, if socialism is such a dead loss, why do you think Henry Kissinger wrote the following words to President Nixon in 1970:

"The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on -- and even precedent value for -- other parts of the world, especially in Italy; the imitative spread of similar phenomena elsewhere would in turn significantly affect the world balance and our own position in it" ?

- quoted on page 481 of "The Shock Doctrine"(2007) by Naomi Klein.

Daggett “why do you think Henry Kissinger wrote”

Not sure Daggett, you will have to ask Kissinger.

Maybe because he recognized how “attractive” the lies of communism appeal, at an emotional level, to the lazy and indolent, like those who prefer a siesta to dealing with the issues of their lives.
Regarding the Italians, well they are an example of a people indoctrinated by the powerful authority, hence the number of general elections since WWII and the dark and infernal influence of both the Mafia and the Church of Rome.
The power of an authoritarian government telling them what to do in the secular world is no different to the role played by the Church of Rome, in the spiritual world.

That is the same Kissinger who produced the policy of detent with China.

The same Kissinger who was awarded the nobel prize in 1973.

You may criticize Kissinger, in the west we are respected as individuals sufficiently to do that.

Conversely, the same rules do not apply under the leftie system.
The lefties just starve the critics to death and cover up their corpses.

That is just one of the things which makes the western system superior to that of the murderous leftie swill.

Are there any other differences you want me to compare, like quality of life, freedom of religion, ability to feed the population?

How about this – freedom of speech
You and I can freely debate different political views here in Australia on the internet, living under the western capitalist-democratic system whereas, in China, a left wing communist country (regardless of the veneer of market capitalism) we would not be allowed by decree of the state, under penalty of imprisonment.

The same evil governmental control of individual thoughts applied to people in USSR under every leftie despot since and including Lenin. Remember the gulags and the psychiatric prison wards?

firstly - Passy...

The contradictions witin the state run deeper than the parliament. Remember - the 1917 Russian Revolution would never have succeeded were it not for deep divisions within the Russian armed forces... And in the 1919 German revolution, many of the Berlin police - as far as I can recall - joined with the revolutionaries.

But re: the Paris Commune - when the class struggle escalates to this point - the consequence is often disaster... The Paris Commune, in particular, was isolated - and the civil war which followed involved atrocities - of terror, starvation, retribution by Thiers upon the Communards...

Better to have a process of change - stemming from civil disobedience and/or 'winning the battle of democracy' as Marx put it... And long counter-hegemonic cultural, economic and political struggle... After all - 'revolution' is not a strategy - it is the process of change itself...

And the lines between reform and revolution can be blurred - with 'revolutionary reforms' arising from the struggle in all its complexity... But if this struggle can produce channels for change - which do not involve brutalisation or Terror - then surely this is the preferred road... Take, for instance, the 'Third Road' to socialism envisaged by Italian communist Togliatti - who drew upon the theoretical framework of Antonio Gramsci... There is a rich vein of Marxist thought which supposes alternative roads to change that that often referred to as 'Jacobinism'...

nb: I'll try and get around to reading Mick's paper later this week.

And Col - democracy is not the be confused with liberalism - although the two go well together... Demcracy is 'rule by the people' - but where this takes the form a majority rule - then it may also involve limits upon the liberties of some individuals... Best, I think, to have a blend of social, liberal and democratic rights - 'liberal social democracy' perhaps...Democracy is necessary for social peace - but so are liberal and social rights... The key is striking the right compromise...

Col Rouge, of course I had realised that only Kissinger himself would have been able to definitively answer my question, but I had hoped that his observations would stimulate you to reflect upon the over-the-top diatribes that you regularly post to these forums.

It seems to me that Kissinger not only feared that Chile would become socialist, but that it would succeed to such an extent that people in other countries, including Italy, would want to emulate the feared Chilean example. Also, it seems that Kissinger did not share your confidence that any country adopting socialism would automatically be transformed into a dreary regimented police state.

Col Rouge wrote: "Maybe because he recognized how 'attractive' the lies of communism appeal, at an emotional level, to the lazy and indolent, like those who prefer a siesta ..."

"Regarding the Italians, well they are an example of a people indoctrinated by the powerful authority, ..."

So, what you seem to be saying is that Chileans, Argentinians, Uruguayans, Brazilians and Italians are too stupid to be able to work out for themselves what is in their own best interests, and so need to be told at gunpoint or in torture chambers. So you would no doubt be in complete agreement with Henry Kissinger when he also wrote:

http://antinewworldorder.blogspot.com/2007/03/quotes-you-dont-hear-about.html
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

Col Rouge wrote: "The same Kissinger who was awarded the nobel prize in 1973."

This is the man who carpet-bombed Cambodia killing roughly half a million Cambodians and made the ascendancy of the Khmer Rouge out of the devastation inevitable. I can't speak for the committee who made that decision, but as far as I am concerned Kissinger belongs behind bars.

Col Rouge wrote: "You may criticize Kissinger, in the west we are respected as individuals sufficiently to do that."

Just as long as we all remain 'responsible' in the eyes of Kissinger or his co-thinkers.

Col says:

"... capitalism pays for work supplied and then the processes of marketing and distribution, provision of funding capital etc each have to be paid for too."

Lenin described Marxism as a combination of English economics, French socialism and German philosophy.

Marx didn't invent the labour theory of value. Crudely, all exchange values are determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time going into them. This holds true too for workers, whom capital treats as a commodity. The amount of socially necessary labour time that goes into the reproduction of the worker (his or her immediate needs plus raising a family etc to produce the next generation of workers) determines the exchange value of the worker.

Workers create value greater than the value needed to reproduce their conditions of life. This surplus value is then expropriated by the owner of capital as his or hers and disbursed in various unearned forms such as profit, rent, dividends and interest.

Now Col, you might disagree with me. But Marx didn't invent this. It came out of the great English bourgeois economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Marx refined and extended the analysis. thus was in the days when captialism was a young and vibrant society and the capitalist class needed to understand how its own system worked, in particular where profits came from. Of course, sa the bourgeoisie grasped the truth that all profit is created by the labour of workers, they then began to develop alternative economic theories to hide this truth because ti contains a revolutionary component. Capital needs labour. Labour does not need capital.

Col mentions Kissinger winning the Nobel peace prize in 1973. Apart from his bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, he was also up to his eyeballs in providing support to Pinochet for his successful coup on September 11 and the consequent murder of 3000 leftists in the days after.

Tom lehrer, a famous singer satirist declared on hearing that Kissinger had won the Nobel peace Prize that he could never sing again. Why? Because, he said, satire is dead.

Tristan

Togliatti's practice shows the problems with the approach you suggest. From 1943 onwards the liberation forces in Italy dug the grave of Mussolini and had the chance, nay the historical duty, to take power in Northern Italy. That they did not was due to Togliatti, who, on return from a long period in Moscow, actually got the liberation forces to swear allegiance to the king. He got one Ministry from memory.

Refoundation is the modern day example of that disaster. They too entered Government with the best intentions. They then voted for example for the invasion of Afghanistan.

This on-going sell out is not because the people involved are bad or stupid or whatever. It is in my view because the project itself is fundamentally flawed. Workers cannot simply lay hold of the capitalist state; they have to smash it. (Guess who?)

To use Gramsci's analysis to justify the failures of the PCI is in my opinion not appropriate. His strategies and arguments were aimed at revolution, not reform.

I'll come back to the Jacobins if I have time. And energy.

There's another article on Marxism: Revolutiona dn the State. It might be worth reading too, tristan. i find it intersting and informative.
It too can be found in the same edition of Socialist Alternative as Mick Armstrong's article. The link is:

http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1660&Itemid=125

Tristan

I disagree that the parliamentary path is peaceful. The ruling class will not surrender its power without a fight, unless it faces an overwhelming force which it knows it cannot defeat.

Chile in 1973 is one example. For the ruling class democracy is less important than profit. So they will overturn democracy (in fact democracy won in the main by the struggle of working people) to retain the profit system and their place in it.

As Rosa Luxemburg wrote "people who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal". It was the "peaceful" labor party types who murdered her in defence of the profit system. (The SPD was the Party who voted for the German ruling class and their war in 1914, overturning years and years of internationalist and anti-war rhetoric. Why? Becuase the parliamentary road and its logic sees them accept the profit system as the basis for running society.)

Passy,

I think the bridge we need to cross right now is not the argument about whether or not socialism can be achieved through parliamentary reform. It is not even about whether or not socialism is better than capitalism, rather it is about whether or not, as a society, we are entitled, through our elected governments, to impose any constraints whatsoever upon market forces or to provide necessary social services and a social safety net.

It seems to me that virtually all of the Australian far left went missing in action on that question since at least before the downfall of the Whitlam Government.

In my view, this made it far easier for the neo-liberal counter-revolution to achieve its sociopathic goals in manners not altogether dissimilar to what has been described in parts of Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" (e.g. the subversion of parliamentary democracy Bolivia in 1985 under the guidance of shock doctor Jeffrey Sachs).

If, instead, the left had vigorously defended the worthwhile achievements of the Whitlam era and the institutions of Parliamentary democracy that have been largely gutted by successive neo-liberal governments of both the Labor and Liberal variety (read "Silencing Dissent"(2007) edited by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison), then we might well stopped the neo-liberal counter-revolution in its tracks and the discussion that you wish to conduct now might not seem so academic and abstract.

Dear Passy; other friends and readers,

It seems like you have me at an advatage - as I am no expert on Italian history...

But I think it was Billy Bragg who said "You can borrow ideas, but you cannot borrow situations"...

It was Lenin-in State and Revolution-who said 'the state must be smashed'...

The state Lenin faced, though, was of a different order to the forms of state apparatus facing socialists and social democrats today...

And even in Russia, it was divisions within the state apparatus- within the armed forces-which helped provide a situation of 'dual power'-upon which the Bolshevik seizure of power rested...

In Russia,it was years of horrific trench warfare that tore down the legitimacy of the state apparatus-and caused it to divide against itself...

Modern liberal democracies are even more complex. The legitimacy of the state can rest upon its democratic liberalism. Surely Chile was a disaster-but we have other stories also:the rise of socialist parties in Holland and Germany;social democratic hegemony in the Nordic countries...

Of course, unless the social base of the armed forces is broad - then there may be situations in which the state apparatus could divide - and we could be left with the kind of phenomena as fascist Spain...

So - ingraining liberal democratic values in the very internal culture of the armed forces - is essential...

Then there is the whole question of class rule... Marx saw all history as "the history of class struggles"... But history is really more complex than this...There is the question of ethnicity and religion; of nationalism and ideology...

Class struggle is one 'engine' which propels the process of history...
But often there is no single, undivided 'ruling class' - as relates of ownership of capital - about ethnicity, nation, culture, religion, ideology...

So the process of change is much more complex - and there can be all manner of alliances between various social, economic and cultural forces - in building a Popular Front - in which social democratic forces will exert leverage for real change....

Thanks Tristan. I understand the point about complexity. I understand Russia in 1917 had different social, economic and political realities. But in a sense a working class revolution in a backward peasant based society is more difficult than in and advanced Western country.

As to complexity, on 13 May 1968 (40 years ago tomorrow, ie Tuesday) ten million French workers went on strike and challenged the rule of capital. that they were not successful was because of their political immaturity and the objective role of the French Communist Party being the retailer of labour to capital. In other words the PCF had a material interest in the continuation of capitalism and the mass strikes threatened it as much as it threatened de Gaulle (who fled for a day to West Germany.)

See for example an article of mine on this: http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1671&Itemid=125

I too am no expert on Italian politics. But sites like www.marxists.org.au, www.sa.org.au, www.socialistworker.org.uk and so on have lots of useful information and texts one can borrow from.

I agree too with Billy Bragg. many years ago I went to one of his concerts where he praised the accord - yes it was many years ago, and I booed him. Anyway a piece of irrelevance.

Aren't Holland and the Nordic countries that you mention as examples of something to emulate now ruled be neo-liberals (perhaps in coalition in Holland with extreme right wingers? Not sure.) Is that the heritage we want?

Anyway, I agree we might differ on the way forward but we can as different currents on the left work together for common immediate goals.

Not sure about Popular Fronts since they bring in forces that are in fact antithetical to workers' interests (and generally give control of the campaign to those forces on the basis of compromise to keep them in the fight/action/campaign.) It would depend on the circumstances.

Daggett, I think Tristan was talking about reforms, but reforms which began a process of challenging the rule of capital. Or have I misread you Tristan?

Holland is no socialist utopia - but alongside Denmark and the Nordic countries - there is a virtual consensus that a substanial welfare state and social wage must be preserved.

And countries like Denmark and Finland are also accepted as economic 'success stories' - refuting absolutely the lie that social democracy (real social democoracy - not the 'Third Way)- must lead to economic 'failure'. Also - even in such countries - where the relative Right is brought to power - the social democratic hegemony is such that they can only 'chip away' at it slowly.

This is not socialism in the Marxist sense - but it is a great step forward from the neo-liberal consensus in much if the 'Anglosphere'.

Finally, the Left - sometimes in coalition with Green parties - is increasingly holding mainstream social democracy to account...

In Holland the "Green Left", Labour and Socialist parties - together held a sizable portion of the vote...The numbers aren't there yet - but there is a substantial support base for truly radical politics...

Similarly - the Social Democrats depend on the Greens and Left parties in their quest for re-election - but even out of government - Sweden: with somewhere in the vicinity of 85% union membership - will not tolerate conservative and neo-liberal social and economic policies... Even when out of power - the hegemony of the Left is such that it determines the broad poltical framework...

Briefly - I'm not sure you should have booed Billy...The Accord could have been the herald of good things - if only it had followed the Swedish path that Carmicheal, Kelty etc wanted...Unions should have held firm and demanded it...

Finally - re: challenging capitalism...I've made clear I want a compromise between markets and planning...And I also make clear that I want economic democracy - and a storng public sector.

Ideally I would like economic power to be so broadly held that we could no longer speak of a 'ruling class' - in the sense Marxists usually talke of the bourgeoisie

Dear readers/participants...

everyone reading this - pls note that another article of mine probably should be published here soon. (within the next week or two) I'm pitching it as "Social Contract and the Struggle for Social Justice" - but that might change by the time it's published. Hoping to hear from you all then too.

Thanks Tristan.

I enjoy your articles and the discussion that follows. It is a pleasure to disagree with you!

I don't agree with the comment you made about the Accord. The Accord was an example to my mind (and I know this will sound predictable) of class collaboration in which certain sections of the trade union bureaucracy were incorporated into the state decision making process at the expense of better wages and conditions for their members over time. During the period of the Accord the balance of shares of GDP shifted towards capital. ( I don't have the figures handy but the shift then was remarkable from memory and has continued to this day.)

The Accord then laid the groundwork for the destruction of rank and file movements and control or influence, and coupling that with a weak leadership unprepared to strike or support strikes for better wages and conditions, union membership plummeted and continues to drop.

The Accord laid the ground (together with the ruling class policies of Hawke and Keating) for the rise of Howard. He was the logical extension of the class collaboration at a union and at a political level.

I understand the mixed economy argument; I just don't see how that addresses exploitation (ie the expropriation of the surplus value workers create) or avoids the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

Anyway, Tristan, I look forward to discussing your next article. I'm writing one on food which I think, if it is any good, may be published in June on OLO, assuming the Financial Review doesn't pay me big bucks and snaffle it up before then!

Friends - just thought you might be interested in a 'letter to the Editor' I submitted to The Age yesterday. Unfortunately they refused to publish.

Still interested in your comments, though...

Dear Editor,

The most vulnerable: including the disabled, aged pensioners, students, the unskilled, carers, the unemployed - have been hit hardest by spiralling increases in the cost of living.

Such increases include hikes in the cost of petrol, of food, and of housing.

Labor is constrained by its promise to restrain taxes as a proportion of GDP. But implementation as soon as possible of an emissions trading scheme is technically not a tax - and could literally reap in billions.

The Aged Pension should rise from 25% of Average Weekly Earnings to at lest 30%. And other pensions should follow likewise after this example.

The ends of social justice can be furthered also by raising the minimum wage, restructuring the PAYG income tax system, and providing tax credits for the low paid.

The conservatives have posed, recently, as champions of pensioners. If the Opposition is true to its word, though, then it should offer support for a bi-partisan consensus: for compassion, decency and justice.

And if Labor is true to the faith that the Australian public have placed in it – then It must act immediately.

Tristan Ewins

Tristan,

Thanks, I agree with your letter, except the bit about the carbon trading tax (see http://candobetter.org/node/510).

I agree with your point about the merits of European style social democracy (although I don't consider it a perfect solution). Many of the far left seemed to have a propensity to view all capitalist systems from as equally bad. In some cases (although I can't substantiate this with documentation) I recall an attitude being put to me in the 1980's that neo-liberal globalisation was in fact to be welcomed as it was considered that this would make the contradictions of capitalism more acute and hence would actually make the achievement of socialism more likely. I would be interested to see if anyone would be prepared to either confirm or dispute this impression that I gained.

Whilst your article raises interesting points, it fails, as I said, to address some of the hard political questions including 'politically incorrect' considerations such as population and immigration (see http://candobetter.org/population http://candobetter.org/immigration ). Unless these are tackled head on, we stand no chance of achieving a sustainable society, let alone a "Good Society".

We are the market. We're employed to produce the commodities for sale. We're more or less forced to sell our right to socially own the wealth we create, when we accept wages in exchange for our skills and time. We do this 'to make a living'. If we socially owned the means of production and produced for our own needs, we would live in a much more democratic society, a good society in short. An increasingly commodified society is not a good one for the overwhelming majority nor is it healthy to be treating Nature as a commodity to be bought and sold for profit.

A good society would be one in which we had more free-time. Being tied to the employers' workplaces for longer and longer hours is closer to wage-slavery than it is to living the good life. Why are we working longer and longer hours when productivity has increased by leaps and bounds over the decades? Should we be able to enjoy greater and greater free-time because we can produce so much more per working hour than in the past?

just re: The Accord...

The Accord saw a decline in the wage share of the economy - which was compensated via tax cuts...

Regardless of these cuts, though, workers clearly lost - for the cut in taxes was accompanied by a decline in the social wage (eg: social medicine and education) - and also the introduction of user pays mechanisms...

By this reckononing - because accompanied by declining social expenditure - I do not consider the tax cuts a 'social wage' in any meaningful sense... (even so - tax credits and a more progressive tax system would be welcome...)

Superannuation gave workers something in return - but discrimianted against women, casuals and the low paid...

And there is the danger that it might see the Aged Pension marginalised in the future... Those dependent upon it may suffer austerity - as the better off (with sizable superannuation investments) - resent the resonsibility of helping the less-well-off...

What was necessary was a scheme that compensated workers in the form of collective capital share... But not just following the logic of share value maximisation... Instead - such a scheme should have been democratically managed, linked to a fair and equitable pension system, and based on the principle of social need...

This is the kind of Accord that Carmichael and others envisaged... But is just shows - when the ALP resorts to half measures - to please business - it is workers who lose out...

Finally - I am waiting on confirmation that my next article - on liberal democratic compromise, civil disobedience etc - will be published this week...

Everyone who discussed this article - feel welcome to discuss my next article too...

most sincerely,

Tristan

Thanks, Tristan. I look forward to your next article.

You wrote: "Superannuation gave workers something in return - but discriianted against women, casuals and the low paid...

"And there is the danger that it might see the Aged Pension marginalised in the future... Those dependent upon it may suffer austerity - as the better off (with sizable superannuation investments) - resent the responsibility of helping the less-well-off..."

It was copied from the privatisation of retirement income in Chile as part of the neo-liberal program that Hawke, Keating, Carr, Iemma, Costa, Bracks, Brumby, Beattie, Bligh, Kennett, Greiner, Howard, Costello et al all worship, that was first implemented in 1973 under the guns of General Pinochet's military dictatorship. ("Australia's Neo-liberal Path" by Kenneth Davidson, p3, Dissent Magazine number 23, Autumn/Summer 2007)

I have no idea why the Labor Party feels proud of this supposed 'reform'. It was implemented it the most incompetent way imaginable, allowing fund managers and salespersons to help themselves to our money. Because it was done as they were casualising many of the jobs, many find there retirement funds in a large numbers of different funds all incurring large management fees.

Friends;

Just writing to let you all know that my next article should be up on OLO by Wednesday this week.

The title I'm running with (although it might be changed) is:

"liberal compromise and the struggle for social justice"

And the blurb:

"Exploring the dynamic between liberal democratic consensus and the struggle for justice - through civil disobedience, popular mobilisation, political democracy..."

Hope to hear from you all in the discussion...

most sincerely

Tristan

ristan ""Exploring the dynamic between liberal democratic consensus and the struggle for justice - through civil disobedience, popular mobilisation, political democracy..."

ah I can barely stop from yawning in anticipation.

Although, the civil disobedience bit has promise, maybe rent a few heavies to intervene between the "civilly disobedient" and our softies in blue. For some reason those revolting revolutionaries do not seem to learn from their poor communication skills that the real world would be happy to see them sporting "black and blue" but barred from accessing the medical and other services which real tax payers finance.

A good society would be one where the product of social labour was controlled by real producers, not parasites who merely own most of the wealth created by the working class. Bottomline: the workers produce the social wealth and taxes are part of this wealth, taxes which run the capitalist State.

Col - if you really view liberal and democratic rights with contempt - I have to wonder why you bother at all. To understand our rights is one important means to retaining them. I suggest you think twice before being so cynical next time... And before judging people - try putting yourself in their shoes first. (if indeed you can)

Tristan “Col - if you really view liberal and democratic rights with contempt”

I value “liberal and democratic rights” but what you are preaching is not liberal-democracy. It is socialist despotism, dressed up to be almost palatable through the liberal use of sentimentality.

“try putting yourself in their shoes first. (if indeed you can)”

I have always observed the uncouth leftie swill have great difficulty in imagining themselves in the shoes of others, you might claim it is because they have none of their own (shoes that is), I would claim they are just thick.

And I am not judging people, any more than your comment judges me.

Ultimately, whatever the swill pursue it will be in vain, they lack the tenacity to see things through to a conclusion,
That is why I prefer to leave people to manage their own lives, the ambitious and the indolent each to their own.
It is why I choose to mix with those who are moving forward, driven by their own energy, ambition, aspirations and motivations, rather than mixing with those who look, enviously from the sidelines, as them with the get-up-and-go, got up and went.

Socialist mediocrity is never a goal, except for those who are less than mediocre.

'The Good Society' would not have the flattening homogenity of today's totalitarian workplace. Yes, you do lose the right of free speech and assembly once your time and skills have been sold, once you walk in that door to work for your employer. Yes, the goods and services you produce are not yours to decide upon, except after they're marketed as commodities for you to buy with your wages. Yes, commodities become cheaper when you increase your productivity. Yes, most everything is increasingly becoming commodified, including the Earth.

Is this what we want....a little more cheapness?

In fact, it is dubious, whether industrialised production does make many goods cheaper. Christopher Cook, author of "Diet for a Dead Planet" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5W_9Qi1ydM) has shown that industrialised food production in the US creates more infficiencies than it creates efficiencies by the time you add up the costs of transport, processing, packaging, refrigeration, storage, distribution, marketing, retailing, etc.

On top of that much of the food in the US is manufactured in horrific Dickension conditions using immigrant workers whose bodies are usually wrecked in less than 12 months. Also, we destroy our soil quality and the nutritional valued of even unprocessed food is steadily declining.

GMO food is cheaper to produce and that's why it's being touted by the powers that be. Cheaper means using less labour time and sometimes that's good in terms of getting the end product more quickly and in greater quantity to the consumer. But, somtimes using less labour time aka increasing the productivity of labour, leads to industrial accidents and a more dangerous workplace. It can also lead to the production of commodities which qualitatively poorer e.g. GMO food.

If democracy is part and parcel of 'the good society', why is it that when most people would rather consume non GMO food, GMO food is going to be produced and consumed?

As far as making commodities cheaper goes, is there "more to life than increasing its speed?"

Mike B)

Mike B),

I agree that we need to slow down the pace of life, but even on the basis of hard economics, (that is, in a broader sense than what usually passes for economics) I think the case against industrialised food production, including GMO (genetically modified (organisms(?))), still stands up.

Even at the pure economic level, I think we would find that localised production and consumption is cheaper if we remove all the overheads I mentioned above - transport, processing, packaging, refrigeration, storage, distribution, marketing, retailing, etc.

You should check out the broadcast at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5W_9Qi1ydM and read Christopher Cook's book if you can get hold of a copy. It was a revelation to me.

---

I am not familiar with all of the case against GMO. There may be an outside chance that one or two GMO's may just be worth the trouble, but intuitively, it seems highly unlikely that tampering with genes will do more good than harm. To place the hopes for the salvation of humankind in such a magic bullet as opposed to what has been created by hundreds of millions of years of evolution of plant species (modified by hundreds of years of plant selection by humans) seems like folly.

Also I don't agree with the big seed companies such as Monsanto using these technologies to exert control over the world's farmers.

So, you can count me against GMO for the foreseeable future.

I think most people would prefer to eat organic food. I think the reason most people don't eat organic food is insufficient wages. I think a good society would include satisfaction of desire as well as need. I don't think that can happen within the wages system; because wage labour implies not control of what is produce by the producers. Their is market influence, in that, if workers don't want to eat something, they can shop elsewhere. But this is hardly a conception of the good society. This is just a formula for continuing to live under the rules of capital; a political-economy where wage labour is denied control and ownership of the social product it creates in the workplaces of the nation.