Guardian columnist Martin Kettle writes:

"40 years on, the left is yet to grasp the eclipse of socialism"

You can read the article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/russia.georgia

I think Kettle misses the point. Both "Left" and "Right" – whatever those terms mean today – have lost their way.

In Australia the Left has abandoned the cause of a fair deal for white working class and lower-middle class families while embracing a "save the gay whales" agenda. In fact almost any cause – be it Muslim radicals, asylum seekers, Tasmanian tigers or Aborigines – is more worthy than trying to do something for those racist, red neck hoons, white working class and lower middle class men.

But the "Right," which used to stand for civil liberties and the rights of the individual against communist totalitarianism and union bullying, has also lost its way. It now stands for just three things:

--Corporate power.

--More corporate power

--Still more corporate power

Where the Left plays the "you're a racist" card the Right plays the race card.

The Left stands up to the intrusions of Christianity into secular society while appeasing Islam.

The Right stands up to Islamic bullying and tries to use Christianity to control the voters.

Both "Left" and "Right" excel at circuses but don’t do well when it comes to bread and butter issues for working class / lower middle class families.

People on the Left feel virtuous because they're not on the Right.

People on the Right feel virtuous because they're not on the Left.

Both sides come across as self-righteous.

Interesting.

I had titled this thread:

BOTH sides are self-righteous [word that rhymes with bricks]

My final sentence was:

Both sides come across as self-righteous [word that rhymes with bricks]

LOL

And both versions are accurate, bricks or otherwise.

I do, however, believe that the Right should re-assess its knee-jerk assertions that any government or social activity which aims to help the disadvantaged is just a thinly-veiled attempt at reinstituting communism.

Steven....most insightful.

[The Left stands up to the intrusions of Christianity into secular society while appeasing Islam.

The Right stands up to Islamic bullying and tries to use Christianity to control the voters.]

Actually, quite accurate I believe. It never ceases to amaze me why the Left appeases/supports Muslims.. if they had the power, half of the 'left'.. (the gays and lesbians) would be hanging from cranes like in Iran.... so..I just don't get it.. am working on it though :)

The Right.. aah.. yes.. they might try.. but really I think it's the other way around.. Many of the Churches have their own ideas, and they might not include the usual 'right' corporate power model.. but the Polly's like to identify with them...

"Prosperity" Gospel churches would be the closest to the 'Right' model you shared. Corporate Jets? Joyce MEYER.. (you don't have shares in her do you ?)

No Christian of Biblical pattern would ever feel 'self' righteous... honestly.. they would claim they are sinners, who are imputed Christs righteousness in the spiritual sense because of his substitutionary death..

Jesus told a wonderful parable "When you goto a banquet..do not take the seat of highest honour.. or the host may come and say "Friend..one more honorable than you has come.. give up your place".. and then with shame you step away from that seat" No, when you are invited.. take the lowest seat ..then the host may come and say "Come friend.. you are worthy of more honor than that" and take you to a better seat.

"What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world...but loses his own soul" Jesus :)

You've made some interesting observations, Steven.

It's not easy to identify the Left in Australian politics today. Ever since the early eighties, Labor has continued to move to the Right and now cosies up to 'corporate power' in much the same way the Coalition has always done. As a result, there's a real lack of policy differentiation between the two. The Left in Australian politics is now more accurately represented by the Greens than it is by Labor.

I don't think the true Left has abandoned the working class, but standing up for the worker is not quite as straightforward as it once was. Environmental considerations have added a whole new layer of complexity to old allegiances. It's traditionally been the Left more than the Right that has championed the need to conserve the planet, and protecting both the worker and the environment seems to lead to a clash of competing ideals.

Hopefully, Labor can resolve this conflict by advancing the development of clean and sustainable industries with widescale job opportunities and thus satisfy both planks of its platform.

Interesting Steven.

Bronwyn made a good point - highlighted in the Franklin River protests where big business and unions joined forces creating formidable opposition for environmentalists.

The demographics have changed for Labor. Many 'workers' are now doing better than traditional 'middle class' occupations due to skills shortages and unionism.

The 'downtrodden' are no longer in building/manufacturing but more likely in the hospitality, retail or cleaning sector. Or working in Aged Care or Child Care.

This trend towards corporatisation of our communities grew at the expense of morality and the wellbeing of our fellow man. A kind of ruthlessness, self-interest and materialism that we did not see in the 60s and 70s. "A little bit for me and a little bit for him" has been replaced by an every man for himself mentality.

When did this Gordon Gecko "Greed is Good" mantra take hold? How, why and where did it spring from?

The first rumblings of 'economic rationalism' occured in government and business in the mid-late 80s and it snowballed from there.

The idea that government bodies were to act more like businesses and charge for their services (to other goverment bodies), money that is not their's in the first place but taxpayer revenue. This mentality disadvantaged agencies that provided services to the community rather than other agencies. Heaven forbid that a public service would provide services to the public.

The Left and the Right have been corporatised, both buying into globalisation and free trade. Where are the original thinkers and the courageous to contest or debate the current thinking?

The Left lost credibility when they starting selling off publicly owned assets despite the will of the people to retain them and moved further to the Right in economic policy platforms.

This is not meant sound pessimistic because there will be a backlash against self-interest, history shows that any extreme regime, whether it be Communism or the extremes of Capitalism is in danger of extinguishing itself. Change will start first at the grass roots just with ordingary people choosing not to take part in the cycle of greed and debt.

Interesting thread Steven.

Good points.

Here's a simple analogy ...

In us all ...
We have a left and a right and a
head in the middle. The head decides
what is good for the left and the
right, which is the one common body.

So in politics, we need a good head
that decides what is good for
everyone. Not the left or the right.

A united body under a good head will
benefit all.

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary)

There are so many misconceptions about corporations I don't know where to start.

In a trivial sense, Ambrose Bierce is correct. A corporation does enable investors to reap individual profits without having individual responsibility and THIS CAN BE A GOOD THING.

Who would invest in an enterprise if they were individually liable for every error of judgement, every misdeed, every act of stupidity of every employee?

Imagine if you had to go to prison because your super fund held some stock in a company whose CEO committed fraud.

Imagine if you were personally liable for debts incurred by a company in which you owned a small number of shares.

The joint stock limited liability corporation is what makes large scale enterprise possible. It provides a way for investors to invest a portion of their capital in RISKY enterprises without exposing themselves to ruin. If the enterprise succeeds they reap rewards. If, as happens often, the enterprise fails, their loss is limited to what they have invested.

HOWEVER,

Secondly, corporations actually have no power. PEOPLE exercise power using corporations as a vehicle.

Thirdly, people with power often misuse it to the detriment of everybody else.

Here we come to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. There are PEOPLE who made more money in one year of writing sub-prime mortgages than most of you will see in a life time. What they did was detrimental to the well being of:

--The shareholders;

--Other employees;

--Their customers;

--The economy generally

But they, the senior managers, the bond traders, the mortgage brokers, the directors, made huge amounts of money which they get to keep

It is very hard to prove they did anything illegal for the simple reason that they probably did not.

I have no simple solutions to this sort of thing. In regulating the activities of people who run corporations we need to be aware of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

As an example of what MAY be abuse corporate power consider this case reported in The Guardian.

DRUG GIANTS ACCUSED OVER DOCTORS' PERKS

See:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/23/health.pharmaceuticals

"Drug companies are spending millions of pounds every year on all-expenses-paid trips to conferences around the world for doctors and other hospital staff, in what critics say is a massive marketing exercise dressed up as medical education."

Consider the following:

--Doctors do not have to accept these perks. Before we paint the Big Pharma as the sole villain we should consider the doctors as well

--Does this actually cause doctors to prescribe inappropriately? Honestly, I don’t know. I suspect it varies from doctor to doctor.

Should the practice be banned?

Absolutely!

BUT THERE IS ANOTHER ISSUE HERE.

Britain's NHS is notoriously stingy when it comes to investing in the skills and knowledge of their medical employees. Very often the ONLY way doctors get to learn about new medications is through drug company promotions of the sort described here.

So if this practise it to be banned the NHS should pay for doctors to attend a few medical seminars every year. It could prove to be cheaper in the end.

Perhaps the drug companies and the doctors are the villains.

Perhaps they are merely reacting to the counter-productive behaviour of the NHS.

Perhaps a bit of both.

Real life is rarely as cut and dried as the self-righteous, know-it-all pundits would have us believe.

Foxy,

Here's another analogy. A bird with only one wing flies around in tight little circles (or, more realistically, crashes to earth).

Pelican,

"Change will start first at the grass roots just with ordingary people choosing not to take part in the cycle of greed and debt."

True. Collectively, Joe Public has more power to change the dominant paradigm than he actually realises, but will only use it when he gets mugged by reality.

stevenlmeyer,

"... corporations actually have no power. PEOPLE exercise power using corporations as a vehicle." and "Real life is rarely as cut and dried as the self-righteous, know-it-all pundits would have us believe."

Spot on.

When it comes to the injustices you mention, one can count on life itself to apply its own checks and balances (through the Law of Reciprocal Action) down to even the tiniest detail. People in the financial system who have perhaps not broken the written law but have done something immoral - through either a direct or indirect action - will eventually have the fruits of their deeds blow back on them. With interest.

RobP wrote:

"People in the financial system who have …done something immoral…will eventually have the fruits of their deeds blow back on them."

I see little sign of this happening – mainly because the really smart ones take the money and leave the financial system before the brown stuff hits the fan.

Consider this.

You are a 25 year old unmarried financial trader. By taking risks with your employer's money you can make millions. Enough to set you up for life.

If your gamble works you're rich.

If it fails you're a young, articulate, well-educated 26 year old with no responsibilities looking for a job. No big deal.

For you it's a gamble with a huge upside and little downside. You'd have to be a saint to resist the temptation and few of us are.

But here's the thing. If you are REALLY smart you can WIN EITHER WAY.

It's literally heads I win, tails I win.

You bet one way with your employer's money. If the bet comes off you get a bonus of, say, $10 mn. No exaggeration. Those sorts of bonuses are paid. Call this gamble 1.

Secretly, and privately, you bet the other way. Call this gamble 2.

If gamble 1 comes off you collect your $10 mn bonus. You've made a loss of maybe $5 mn on gamble 2 so you're $5 mn ahead.

If gamble 1 goes bad you lose nothing. Your employer may lose $100 mn and you may be out of a job but so what?

On the other hand gamble 2, going in the opposite direction, pays off $5 mn. So now you're $5 mn ahead.

This is illegal but if you're clever about it the chances of being caught are slender.

Suppose gamble 1 comes off. You're $5 mn ahead and still have your job. The following you it turns out the securities you bought, that paid off so brilliantly the previous year, are sub-prime mortgages with a value of zero.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO GIVE YOUR BONUS BACK. Your company has suffered but you're still $5mn ahead.

stevenlmeyer,

I suppose the biggest example of stealing the community's money and getting away with it, is the Government through taxation or the banks through charging interest on loans. At least those two do something for the money they take/make.

There will always be some self-serving and opportunistic rogue traders who do well in a particular financial paradigm - and the example you give exists only in one paradigm - but what happens in the next big one? By then, the $5 million man may have used his money to set up a small business, which eventually goes under, is bought out by somebody else, or is just sold in a fire-sale because the value for that kind of business has dropped in the market. Or else he spends it, thus helping to create a job for someone as well as to pay more tax back to the Government through the GST.

I'm pretty sure that, one way or another or in a range of ways, his ill-gotten gains will eventually come back to those in society who created his gains in the first place. And if there was malevolent or indecent intent in his original actions, that will come back to him personally as well.

stevenlmeyer

"It is very hard to prove they did anything illegal for the simple reason that they probably did not."

The only reason that predatory lending might not be strictly illegal in today's financial environment is that the banks' previous lobbying and donating to government had succeeded in removing the regulation that once prevented such practice.

Illegal?

Maybe not.

Immoral, unethical, deceptive, fraudulent, dishonest, underhand, greedy, predatory, callous, reckless?

Yes.

Bronwyn,

It may well be all of the above.

However even if, say, predatory lending practises were to be made illegal, proving a particular lending practice was predatory would be difficult.

Sub-prime mortgages are a case in point. In the US sub-prime mortgages are simply mortgages for people whose credit history and income is such that they do not qualify for Federal mortgage insurance.

A number of mortgage brokers convinced banks that they would be able to select people who could service their loans even though they did not qualify for Federal mortgage insurance.

Guess what Bronwyn?

For many years it worked. Many people today own their own homes because of the operation of the sub-prime market. If you believe home ownership is a good thing than the development of the sub-prime market was a good thing.

Then everybody got greedy. The careful selection of candidates for sub-prime mortgages went out the window and we had a free for all. In addition the originating banks were able to unload their sub-prime problems through the aggressive sale of CDOs

So at what point does a regulator intervene?

It's not easy. Intervene too soon and you kill a market that enables poor people to own their homes. Intervene too late and catastrophe.

I have no sympathy for banks but these are difficult issues.

Just saying the banks are evil does not solve it. We need a banking system.

stevenlmeyer

"In the US sub-prime mortgages are simply mortgages for people whose credit history and income is such that they do not qualify for Federal mortgage insurance."

Unfortunately, the reality is that those in question were far less innocuous than that. They were marketed to be affordable to begin with, but contained a sharp jump in rates after two or three years. This crucial information was buried in the fine print of the contract and rarely, if ever, revealed by the agents operating on commission to the banks who sold these loans.

"For many years it worked. Many people today own their own homes because of the operation of the sub-prime market. If you believe home ownership is a good thing than the development of the sub-prime market was a good thing."

The sub-prime lending was always going to "work" for a limited time. The smart operators you referred to earlier knew they had time to jump ship before the proverbial hit the fan. (Sorry about mixing metaphors and inadvertently creating messy tongue twisters but the descriptions are very apt.) Once the number of loan defaults reached a critical mass and triggered a downturn in house prices, the whole elaborate scheme came unstuck as it was always bound to.

"Just saying the banks are evil does not solve it. We need a banking system."

Of course we need banks. We need a return to a banking system which is monitored by well considered regulation, not the current free-for-all, where there are not enough checks and balances to curb the excesses of human greed and cunning which will always be part and parcel of the industry.

Well said Bronwyn.

Of particular annoyance is the knee-jerk response that when an institution such as banks is deservedly criticised; "Just saying the banks are evil does not solve it. We need a banking system."

Well, state the bleeding obvious. Of course we need a banking system, one that is fully accountable. All deregulation has achieved is a top-down power relationship with its customers, that is neither sustainable (greed) or beneficial (people losing their homes).

Yet as soon as the word 'regulation' is uttered out come the self interested who see communism under any system that benefits the majority of people rather than the wealthy elite.

Extract from: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/80581/economic_meltdown%3A_the_consequences_of_legal_bribery/

"The problem began in the 1980s, when -- under political pressure from the banking industry -- the Reagan administration and Congress stopped regulating the nation's financial institutions. Commercial banks and savings-and-loans used their political clout -- especially campaign contributions -- to get Congress to loosen restrictions on the kinds of loans they could make.

One of government's important roles is to establish ground-rules, and to regulate companies and industries, to save them from their own short-sighted greed. Government is necessary to make business act responsibly.

Without it, capitalism becomes anarchy."

Bronwyn, Fractelle

Despite the jump in rates, most people who originally obtained sub-prime mortgages kept their homes.

I agree, though, that the impending jump in payments should have been made more prominent.

You are correct that mortgage brokers and others made huge profits out of the system. See my posts of Saturday, 23 August 2008 12:57:58 PM and Saturday, 23 August 2008 3:44:12 PM on this thread.

In fact it is these PERVERSE INCENTIVES that are at the heart of the banking crisis. Unless these are addressed no amount of regulation will help.

While we may all agree that more regulation is necessary, try and get agreement on the details. I've been there, done that, it's difficult.

We also need to remember, frustrating as this may be to contemplate, that Australia is a bit player. We cannot move our banking regulation too far from internationally accepted norms without paying a heavy price. Many people don't like this reality but it won't go away.

For my part I think that regulation of INCENTIVES, rather than banking practices per se, are the best option for ensuring more responsible banking. The idea that you should be able to take the money and run before your errors of judgment, foolishness or recklessness comes to light is the root cause of most of the problems in the banking system.

One way of doing this is to pay all incentives, including director's fees, two or three years in arrears. By 2010 or 2011 we should be able to judge whether decisions made in 2008 were a one year wonder or really in the interests of the stakeholders.

The best part of attacking incentives is that it is something Australia actually can do on its own. The only people who will lose out big-time are inadequate directors who may see their fees docked

An address to the golden door
I was strumming on a stone again
Pulling teeth from the pimps of gore when hatched
A tragic opera in my mind...
And it told of a new design
In which every soul is duty bound
To uphold all the statues of boredom therein lies
The fatal flaw of the red age

Because it was nothing like we'd ever dremt
Our lust for life had gone away with the rent we hated
And because it made no money nobody saved no one's life.

So we burned all our uniforms
And let nature take its course again
And the big ones just eat all the little ones
That sent us back to the drawing board.

In our darkest hours
We have all asked for some
Angel to come
Sprinkle his dust all around
But all our crying voices they can't turn it around
And you've had some crazy conversations of your own.

We've got rules and maps and guns in our backs
But we still can't just behave ourselves
Even if to save our own lives so, says I, WE ARE A BRUTAL KIND.

Cuz this is nothing like we'd ever dremt
Tell Sir Thomas More we've got another failed attempt
Cuz if it makes them money they might just give you life this time.

It is not truth that Left and Right are same or it's not easy to identify the Left. There are many and huge differences between them and we can see them from miles! I will write some of the differences between them.
1. The Right cares mainly, if not at all, for his/her personal or family benefits, the Left cares not only for his/her personal-family benefits, but in high degree, for the social-general benefits too.

2. The Right mainly does not care for democracy, peace or human rights, he/she cares for them if he/she has visible current benefits from them and for the time he/she enjoys these benefits. The left is active promoter from democracy, peace or human rights.

3. The Right is more religious, more closed to new ideas the left is closer to agnostics or atheists, more open to new ideas.

4. The Right is nationalist or extreme nationalist, the left is less nationalist or internationalist.

5. The Right is against the Trade Unions, the left is a supporter from the Unions.

6. The Right violates, ignores, underestimates or does not promote women rights, the left is active supporter from women rights.

7. The Right not only does not care for social justice but usually is against it

8. The Right prefer less laws, less limits, less taxes, weaker public sector the left prefer more laws, more limits, more taxes, stronger public sector, more social justice.

9. The Right is more aggressive in his/her relations with others (persons or countries) the left promote the understanding, cooperation and mutual benefits.

10. The Right is hard, combative the left is soft, sensitive, a bleeding heart.

I could write a whole book for the difference between left and right!

Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide