It's amazing the philosophical backbone of the political left has remained Marxism. Now, I'm not one of those people that point at the USSR (or 'Communist' China) to point out the flaws of Marxism in practice. It goes without saying that what transpired in the USSR was some kind of communism but mostly a totalitarian nightmare and the new-liberals of this world have gotten tremendous mileage out of that confusion in order to legitimate their dodgy little creed of trickle-down economics and user-pays and each man for himself in unregulated free-for-all markets.
Marx and Engels have formed the centrepiece of Leftist thinking for so long that not many people even question the assertions or the inherent assumptions in the works of Marx and Engels. And so we sort of had to wait until somebody utilised big data to see if some of the things Marx and Engels talked about were indeed true. The good news is that they were very much true about the nature of capital. What they missed was the rise of technology and the leapfrogging growth in productivity - which is why capitalism won't sell-destruct quite the way Marx had it.
All of this is in Tomas Piketty's book 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century'.
It seems appropriate that we look at Piketty's claims today because Marx just isn't going get this done.
In short, the arguments have centred on two poles: the first is a tradition that begins with Karl Marx, who believed that capitalism would self-destruct in the endless pursuit of diminishing profit returns. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the work of Simon Kuznets, who won a Nobel prize in 1971 and who made the case that the inequality gap inevitably grows smaller as economies develop and become sophisticated.
Piketty says that neither of these arguments stand up to the evidence he has accumulated. More to the point, he demonstrates that there is no reason to believe that capitalism can ever solve the problem of inequality, which he insists is getting worse rather than better. From the banking crisis of 2008 to the Occupy movement of 2011, this much has been intuited by ordinary people. The singular significance of his book is that it proves "scientifically" that this intuition is correct. This is why his book has crossed over into the mainstream – it says what many people have already been thinking.
"I did deliberately aim the book at the general reader," says Piketty as we begin our conversation, "and although it is obviously a book which can be read by specialists too, I wanted the information here to be made clear to everyone who wants to read it.'
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"I began with a straightforward research problematic," he says in elegant French-accented English. "I began to wonder a few years ago where was the hard data behind all the theories about inequality, from Marx to David Ricardo (the 19th-century English economist and advocate of free trade) and more contemporary thinkers. I started with Britain and America and I discovered that there wasn't much at all. And then I discovered that the data that did exist contradicted nearly all of the theories including Marx and Ricardo. And then I started to look at other countries and I saw a pattern beginning to emerge, which is that capital, and the money that it produces, accumulates faster than growth in capital societies. And this pattern, which we last saw in the 19th century, has become even more predominant since the 1980s when controls on capital were lifted in many rich countries."In future, you'd hope the Left start from Piketty and not Marx and Engels. At least it's founded on real, comprehensive big data. It wouldn't be conjecture or theory, it would be empirically backed up. Because let's face it, the only way we're going to beat this neo-liberalism crap is to keep showing these idiot conservatives how it fails the majority of the people, the majority of the time.
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So, Piketty's thesis, supported by his extensive research, is that financial inequality in the 21st century is on the rise, and accelerating at a very dangerous pace.
The Greens In Their Predicament
The Greens find themselves in a political no-mans land as the political landscape itself shifts around them.
“We can continue to be led by a nice-guy, mainstream footy-playing doctor and negotiate incremental change ... Or maybe as a party of really smart, but often too-privileged-to-quite-get-it members, we should take a long hard look at ourselves and make some radical changes.”
Cunningham’s comments are significant because it’s incredibly rare for senior party figures to speak on the record about the Greens’ internal political tensions. The party often feels under siege from media attacks and, unlike in the major parties, public, on the record introspection after poor election results is almost never heard of. Cunningham said it was important to speak up because “we will never move from the 10% plateau unless we do a deep analysis of why we are stuck here”.
Di Natale is regularly described as a leader who shifted the Greens towards a more “mainstream”, moderate position. The truth is the party has long been on a trajectory that prioritises parliamentary deal-making. In 2010 the party was able to secure significant policy wins through this approach, though they were punished at the ballot box in 2013 and weren’t able to recover this election.
The problem the Greens face is that they have pursued a “steady as she goes” approach over the past decade while the Australian public has been simultaneously losing its faith in politics and rejecting the whole concept of political stability and business as usual. This is why the party has been unable to capitalise on voter distrust with the political establishment in the same way as Nick Xenophon and other minor parties and independents. They have spent the last few terms of parliament trying to become the political establishment while voters have spent every election since 2007 punishing whoever is in power.
I've often wondered why I don't feel compelled to vote for the Greens more often, given what I understand about the environment. Part of it is that I've never been able to shake my distrust of the Greens in areas other than the environment. Worse still, the absolute lack of compromise on the ETS from Bob Brown in 2009 essentially made the subsequent events worse for the environment, not better. The fact that no deal could be struck between the ALP and the Greens essentially meant there would be no ETS at that time. It was the one moment when the Greens were faced with an enormous environmental issue and they were the party that were supposed to be the big help - and they squibbed it. And they've been in denial about it ever since whenever I've talked to any Greens supporter, there's always been a convenient excuse why saintly Bob Brown wouldn't deal with Kevin Rudd and how Rudd's ETS just wasn't good enough. Except it's a bit like they turned up at the World Series Game 7, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded with 2 outs, and you're down 3 runs - It's do-or-die - and they begged out of their at-bat.
Other things sort of bothered me over the years. At one point they were espousing zero economic growth, which is like turning all of life in Australia (or the world) into a Zero-sum game. You just have to check with Tomas Piketty and he'd tell you what a bad idea that would be. There is also the matter of just how much politics they like to play when simple issues demand a more straight response. These include things like campaigning against things like the airport in Wilton or WasteCONex. I sure didn't hear good things about the Greens politicians in their dealings with the people fighting the bad ideas. They're all for limiting carbon emissions but they won't countenance carbon capture on spurious logic grounds. Even the recent dealing in the Senate where they fixed a deal with the Coalition so they effectively cut competition didn't make them look too good either. They didn't look to keep the bastards honest, they went and joined the bastards right there.
The underlying problem is that the Greens don't seem to have realistic alternatives for what they denounce, which make them very unhelpful. This is probably because the roots of the Greens lies in protests and while there is a lot to protest in this world, part of politics is to come up with solutions that work for the most people. At their worst, the Greens go back to protester grandstanding on many issues. It's really difficult to decipher whether the Greens are actually about policy or simply there to provide a brand for people who like trees and animals but hate big business. And that's where they fail politics. It's as if they never grew out of the mindset of trying to save the forest one tree at a time. Right now, the world's entire environment is at risk, and they still want to do it one tree at a time, on principle.
The social policies outside of the environment issue for the Greens aren't particularly spectacular and vote-winning. If the Greens were genuinely progressive then it would be a lot easier give them the vote. As it is, my Senate vote went to the Australian Sex Party because their platform actually is progressive and secular with nary a trapping of the protest vibe. Compared to the Sex Party, the Greens look the picture of the Regressive Left.
Other things sort of bothered me over the years. At one point they were espousing zero economic growth, which is like turning all of life in Australia (or the world) into a Zero-sum game. You just have to check with Tomas Piketty and he'd tell you what a bad idea that would be. There is also the matter of just how much politics they like to play when simple issues demand a more straight response. These include things like campaigning against things like the airport in Wilton or WasteCONex. I sure didn't hear good things about the Greens politicians in their dealings with the people fighting the bad ideas. They're all for limiting carbon emissions but they won't countenance carbon capture on spurious logic grounds. Even the recent dealing in the Senate where they fixed a deal with the Coalition so they effectively cut competition didn't make them look too good either. They didn't look to keep the bastards honest, they went and joined the bastards right there.
The underlying problem is that the Greens don't seem to have realistic alternatives for what they denounce, which make them very unhelpful. This is probably because the roots of the Greens lies in protests and while there is a lot to protest in this world, part of politics is to come up with solutions that work for the most people. At their worst, the Greens go back to protester grandstanding on many issues. It's really difficult to decipher whether the Greens are actually about policy or simply there to provide a brand for people who like trees and animals but hate big business. And that's where they fail politics. It's as if they never grew out of the mindset of trying to save the forest one tree at a time. Right now, the world's entire environment is at risk, and they still want to do it one tree at a time, on principle.
I've tried to imagine what a Greens' budget would look like and I couldn't. Would they nationalise Telstra again? Probably not. Would they raise taxes to the rich and go after multinationals? probably. Their Health and Welfare policies would be full of motherhood statements while Education is a question mark. Defence budget? Huge cuts. I don't know if they'll invest in any industries except renewables but I can't imagine them reforming the structure of energy industry. Another words, it's actually a lot hazier than you think. Part of it is again, things like the economy are not high on their agenda to begin with. You know who really needs to read Piketty's big book? The Greens.
The social policies outside of the environment issue for the Greens aren't particularly spectacular and vote-winning. If the Greens were genuinely progressive then it would be a lot easier give them the vote. As it is, my Senate vote went to the Australian Sex Party because their platform actually is progressive and secular with nary a trapping of the protest vibe. Compared to the Sex Party, the Greens look the picture of the Regressive Left.