Has Rudd bought the intelligentsia?

In 1996, so he tells us, Robert Manne voted for John Howard. He is now the lead intellectual cheerleader for Brand Rudd. It is worth reflecting upon this as a particularly curious case example of the relationship between the Rudd Government and Australia's intellectuals.

For the most part criticism of Kevin Rudd is frowned upon on Australian campuses and when it does appear it is largely narrow. Rare it is to find fundamental critical analysis of the type engaged in during the Howard era. The contrast requires explanation, especially given that the policy gap separating Rudd and Howard is not nearly so stark as to warrant it.

It is worth considering the case of Manne for it is commonly acknowledged that he was the leading critic of the Howard government within the Australian educated intellectual classes. A move from lead critic of one government to lead cheerleader of another should naturally arouse the curious among us.

Take, say, his latest essay, published in the Murdoch press, where he takes it upon himself to tell the Left what it should do with itself.

He states that, "responsibility for thinking our way through the diabolically difficult current world crises - international financial breakdown, global and domestic inequality, catastrophic climate change - will have to be assumed by the alternative party: the inheritors of the post-war tradition of the social democratic Left".

By "alternative party" Manne means alternative to neoliberalism. He contrasts the "social democratic Left" with the "far Left". He states that the election of Barack Obama promised to usher in a new era. The people of the United States seem to understand the difference between promise and reality much better than our august thinker.

Manne opens by making an important assumption, namely, "the Western far Left took an intolerably long time before it grasped the truth about communism. Its reputation never recovered from this dismal decades-long failure of moral and practical intelligence." He ultimately concludes, "on the central, bafflingly complex economic issues of the day, the voices that are worth listening to are not the far Left but the contemporary social democrats - Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman not Noam Chomsky or Naomi Klein".

These two statements from Manne are indelibly linked.

Manne wants us to believe that the "far Left", which we ought to take to be synonymous with the "non-democratic Left", seeks to use the current crisis in order to advance a totalitarian agenda. Notice this is one of the underlying theses of the essay he was "surprised and gratified" to receive for publication in The Monthly from that "intellectual in politics", Kevin Rudd. The "far Left" threatens a return to something akin to communism hence the linkage.

It is curious, however, that he should put Chomsky and Klein within such a context. Let us start with the former of the two: for Manne, like his old pal Keith Windschuttle, has good form when it comes to misrepresenting Chomsky. During his sojourn at Quadrant Manne had written that Chomsky was basically a Pol Pot apologist, that he was thus one of the "western far Left" that had taken too long to grasp "the truth about communism".

In fact, Chomsky had compared the manner in which western intellectuals and the media were treating Pol Pot's atrocities in Cambodia with the coverage being provided of the atrocities committed by Indonesian forces in East Timor. The latter was basically ignored while the former was difficult to miss.

Chomsky, unlike Manne, was more interested in the crimes for which his own state bore some actual responsibility for. Manne, by contrast, has spent most of his career focusing on the crimes of others in the service of polemical games directed at those in Australia who shared the same conception of moral agency as Chomsky.

It is true that in a recent essay published by The Boston Review Chomsky writes, "it is a propitious time to revive such efforts, though it would be necessary to overcome the effects of the concerted campaign to drive our own history and culture out of our minds". But these are not the efforts that Manne would have us believe they are. In The Boston Review essay Chomsky writes favourably with respect to anarchosyndicalism, but communism and anarchosyndicalism are not one and the same. Chomsky has also stated that the most important task now for the Left is to use the state to tame markets. His most important statement to this effect was made while visiting Australia in the 1990s.

Chomsky has been an anti communist and an anti bolshevik throughout his life, as Manne well knows. Chomsky had regarded the Bolshevik revolution as a "right deviation" that, moreover, destroyed socialist movements and autonomous workers' organisations in Russia immediately upon its consolidation of power. Chomsky has stated that if Bolshevism is a part of the Left then he would disassociate himself from the Left. For Manne to again, effectively, tar Chomsky with the red brush beggars belief.

Klein might well be a socialist, but hers is a socialism that has no relation to the debates of the 1930s or 1950s. In being a young person and new social movement activist such debates carry little weight and resonance with Klein; if anybody is a part of the "democratic Left" then surely it is Klein. Manne does cite Slavoj Zizek as declaring himself, post financial crisis, to be a "Stalinist". This declaration is neither here nor there. Zizek was surely speaking with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.

We should note that Manne's position is much closer to Bolshevism than that of either Chomsky or Klein. Central to Bolshevism, and its non democratic nature, was the notion that an elite vanguard should be entrusted with holding political power. For Manne the task before us is to choose which group of intellectuals we should follow, rather than to actively participate in political processes ourselves. Manne, like much of the intelligentsia, is an elitist.

Manne, in his historical rendition of neoliberalism and social democracy, neglects to mention a very important point. During the neoliberal era there has been a good measure of policy convergence between the neoliberal Right and the social democratic Left. In fact, because of this convergence "social democrats" like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder have played important roles in both bringing the current economic crisis into being and cementing neoliberal hegemony. The best mainstream explanation for this convergence in Australia remains Mark Latham's invocation of the Michels thesis in the first chapter of his diary. Yet Manne would have us believe that social democrats have always constituted "the alternative party" to neoliberalism.

Indeed, the underlying thinking behind the Michels thesis was previously used by the libertarian Left to point out the inherent bias that social democrats had towards policy convergence with conservative centres of power, for instance during the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) (Social Democratic Party of Germany) support for German militarism at the outset of World War I. Contra Manne it might be argued that the depredations of communism and the social democratic convergence with neoliberalism could be construed as reasons to re-examine the case that was made by the libertarian Left against both doctrines in times gone by.

Krugman, Stiglitz and Shiller are good economists who have many interesting things to say. But Manne would have the Left accept new Keynesian economics and then leave things at that. Manne provides no reason why the broader Left should not accept the more leftish post Keynesian economics of a Steve Keen, Hyman Minsky, who advocated the socialisation of investment and whose parents were Mensheviks, John Eatwell or Lance Taylor. They all provide a more thorough rejection of neoclassical economics and all predicted the present crisis in its essentials.

In fact, even on Manne's own terms his thesis is nonsensical. Consider Obama's plan to relieve banks of their toxic assets. The harshest critics of this plan have been precisely Stiglitz and Krugman. Why? Because they argue, correctly, that the dynamics of the plan actually are a form of socialism for the rich. Obama and Manne's social democratic pals continue to engage in policy convergence.

In the US when the Democrats control the White House and Congress the Republicans continue to rule. In the UK when Labour controls the Commons with thumping majorities the Tories continue to rule. In Australia when the ALP controls Federal, and most State, Governments the Liberals continue to rule.

Because the social democratic Left has been, and continues to be, convergent with prevailing doctrines and institutions of power it follows that Manne's position is not a position that is founded on principle.

What is really going on here?

When Manne tells the Left that it should follow the "social democratic Left" what he is really saying is, follow Kevin Rudd. This conclusion follows because, when looked at in terms of principle, there is no such thing as "the social democratic Left". All that remains is Rudd, Obama and Gordon Brown.

Gushing references to Rudd appear throughout Manne's recent writing. To paraphrase Jim Cairns when speaking of Junie Morosi it would appear that Manne has "a kind of love" for Kevin Rudd.

Robert Manne has edited a book that goes by the title Dear Mr Rudd, which includes a nifty cover photo of the subject to boot; like many a cover page of Manne's The Monthly. One wonders what Manne's new "perfect editor", a devotee of psychoanalysis, would make of this. Perhaps Freud was onto something after all.

I propose that the second edition of Dear Mr Rudd should be more accurately entitled; Dear Mr Rudd, Can I Please Kiss Your Ass?

Despite the allusion to Freud, Australia's intellectuals more likely mute their criticism of Kevin Rudd on material grounds. The promise of greater university funding and the appearance of having a seat at the table of power, provided by the 2020 Summit for instance, has seen Rudd largely buy the intelligentsia. Because intellectuals are some of the most cynical and contemptible people in society when Rudd disappoints them on both scores, as it seems he will given that appeasing big business matters more for him, we should not be in the least bit surprised when the intellectual classes start dumping on him.

We might form a conjecture towards explanation of our contrast. Australia's intellectuals, for the most part, did not oppose Howard on moral grounds. John Howard did not like them, never did like them, and gave them nothing. Rudd promises real benefits. Hence the contrast.