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Labor and the 'empty ideology' of modernisation

By Tristan Ewins - posted Thursday, 5 April 2007


The headlines of The Australian for March 27, 2007 proclaimed boldly: “Rudd set for brawl with Left”. According to Steve Lewis, the journalist behind the booming headline, the sources of the looming showdown were many. Apparently Kevin Rudd has developed a set of proposals for the ALP Platform, including denunciation of “passive welfare”, support for Public Private Partnerships in the provision of national infrastructure, and the dropping of reservations concerning the casualisation of the workforce.

This last item is trumpeted by Lewis as involving the alienation of “left-wing unions such as the ACTU”. That the ACTU is a conglomeration of both Left and Right unions goes unnoticed in the writer’s rush to set the scene for a conflict between the fresh “modernising” leader and an apparently stale and pre-historic Left.

In casting the ACTU in the role, however, the author does suggest that the ACTU itself - and most likely its recommendations for industrial relations reform - is “part of the problem” and not part of the solution.

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From Rudd’s draft platform, Lewis also supposes that the “showdown” will encompass an agenda of free-trade and free markets, as against attempts by the Left to limit such sweeping agendas, and to adopt a more interventionist industry policy.

The author, despite providing no evidence, sees moves for a free trade agenda as essential to “[lock] in the high levels of public support for Labor seen in opinion polls”. The so-called “heavy hand of government intervention” is decried as electoral suicide: a stain upon the “neo-liberal” credentials of a would-be Labor government.

Perhaps Lewis simply supposes that the support of The Australian, conditional on the adoption of a Conservative and neo-liberal agenda, is essential in maintaining Labor’s standing.

Such attempts to set a supposedly “modernising” ALP Right against a “prehistoric” Left are really nothing new. Since the days of Hawke and Keating, columnists for Australia’s national broadsheet have championed successive rounds of privatisation, labour market deregulation, far-reaching tax cuts resulting in the reduction of the Federal Government’s revenue base, and attempts to introduce punitive welfare provisions and push for the extension of the “user pays” principle into just about every sphere of life.

Those of us broadly identifying with the Left of the Australian political spectrum could not exactly claim to be in a position to dictate the terms of debate in The Australian but we ought to be mobilising our resources to help shape debate in the broader public sphere.

Here, the identification of “the Left” need not simply be restricted to the ALP Left faction, or to minor parties to the Left of Labor. Ideally, Independents and many MPs towards the relative Right of the ALP ought to, in the broader sense, still identify as being part of “the Left”.

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But conservative commentators and columnists have long portrayed a conflict between a pragmatic, “modernising” Right, and a redundant Left, lost in the past, and unable to adapt to a changed world.

So what is “modernisation” and does it necessary involve capitulation to the neo-liberal ideology, and the abandonment of social-democratic goals? Such goals might be seen to include progressive taxation, social wage expansion, a mixed economy with a strategic role for the public sector, labour market regulation, and industry policy aimed at securing high wage jobs while driving export and import-replacement industries.

Overwhelmingly, “modernisation-traditional” binary oppositions comprise a tired cliché, trotted out regularly to ascribe a positive essence to those adapting their policies and priorities to reflect the dominant neo-liberal paradigm, and to those abandoning the roots of social democracy, as well as the roots of labourism in the trade union movement.

That the neo-liberal agenda harks back to an economic agenda and set of neo-classical economic assumptions which are older than social democracy itself is thought beside-the-point in the rush to “set up straw men”, and dictate the terms of debate.

In this debate, though, we should not accept the neo-liberal framework for debate, in which social-democracy is reduced to the “human face neo-liberalism” of the Third Way, and in which appeals to social justice are regarded as shibboleths to be demolished by “trailblazing”, “modernising” leaders.

And leading figures in the Right of the ALP should not, either, fall for the trap of adopting the mantle of “modernisation” without first thoroughly interrogating the premises of the neo-liberal agenda. Upon closer analysis, the “modernisation” agenda itself turns out to be a set of furphies rooted in Conservative ideology, and a desire to adapt to a “middle ground” determined by the opponents of social-democracy, rather than to actively shape the relative middle ground through real leadership in the public sphere.

In summary, any policy which favours the private sector above the public; which valorises “the market” as the ultimate arbiter of all social and economic relationships and outcomes; which favours capitulation to corporate agendas to minimise tax, slash public expenditure, and minimise labour market regulation, is portrayed as belonging to the camp of “modernisation”. “Modernisation” has become a more positive way of portraying policies that, in the final analysis, are better categorised as being either shamelessly opportunistic, or as being the domain of the most committed neo-liberal and conservative ideologues.

There was a time, once, when the Left was more boldly socialist, and when the ALP Right represented the ideals of traditional labourism and social democracy with greater purpose and clarity. And there are some in the Right and the Left today who still wish to be standard bearers of the traditions of labourism and social democracy. They recognise that while political parties must adjust to changed circumstances, they must also wage a cultural struggle through the institutions and the public sphere to actively determine and shape the relative “middle ground” rather than simply reflect, and become a pale imitation of their Conservative opponents.

This being the case, what kind of policies should Labor adopt at its 2007 National Conference, and who is it who ought to be comprising the support base of such an agenda?

In the first place Rudd’s reported support for Public Private Partnerships should be scrutinised carefully. A scenario in which ownership of any new broadband infrastructure reverts ultimately to the public sector is obviously preferable to one which sees the ultimate and ongoing private ownership and control.

But in Victoria and NSW PPPs have been disastrous. They have not provided value for money, and have simply served to line the pockets of private investors. As John Quiggin has noted, the cost to motorists involved in constructing the Scoresby Freeway could amount to $7 billion over the long term: almost three times as much as if it was financed directly by government.

It is not only those on the Left of the ALP who are now beginning to recognise that PPPs represent an exercise in fleecing taxpayers, quite regardless of the ideology of “partnership” that underlies such projects.

This, in turn, raises the question of why the ALP Federal Caucus has seen fit to privatise the remainder of the public shareholding in Telstra and appeal for private investment in order to finance the layout of broadband infrastructure. The aversion to debt - at all costs - is itself a costly shibboleth: one which undermines the provision of essential infrastructure, and leads to the adoption of costly PPP models of finance that simply do not provide value for money.

The ALP can afford to debt finance infrastructure, and it ought not to see itself as being locked into a neo-liberal economic framework in order to demonstrate its economic credentials. The Conservatives have quite demonstrably failed to provide the infrastructure that citizens and business all require, and Labor should not shy away from taking these arguments up to the Government.

The consequence of this, then, ought to involve moves to finance the re-socialisation of Telstra infrastructure, and to provide new broadband infrastructure through sustainable debt finance without resort to a PPP model.

This is an argument that must be made robustly at the Conference, and in which members from across Labor’s political spectrum should come together to give meaningful voice to aspirations for a democratic mixed economy, and the most equitable and effective means of financing necessary public infrastructure.

Furthermore, support for renewed labour market regulation - including restoration of a comprehensive system of awards, should not be limited to a fringe of the Labor Left. Spiraling social inequality, delivered through a sparingly regulated labour market, does not need to be thought of as some unavoidable cost of “modernisation”. Those who stand to lose most from a deregulated labour market are the industrially weak: especially casual workers, the unskilled, and those without strong union support.

A single, minimal set of basic standards for the entire workforce as part of a simplified system will not be enough to stem reductions in the pay and conditions of the most vulnerable Australian workers. Members of both factions, as well as the non-aligned, must take a stand on the question of industrial relations at the April Conference - rather than abandoning the vulnerable to the whims of the market.

Meanwhile, concern for the most vulnerable ought to lead Labor to reverse the attacks of the welfare rights of single parents and the disabled that have occurred under the Howard conservative government.

Similar sentiments should also guide Labor to complement any carbon tax or emissions trading scheme with compensation for low income individuals and families - as well as those on welfare.

Finally, support for progressive tax reform, including the provision of tax credits for the working poor, ought not to be seen as being the exclusive reserve of the Socialist Left.

According to The Australian, Kevin Rudd is set to abandon Labor’s commitment to providing an earned income tax credit for low income Australians.

While Rudd has provided the impetus for massive gains in the polls for Labor, Conference delegates need not presume this gives him the prerogative to unilaterally set policy. Indeed, perhaps The Australian is going too far in proclaiming Rudd’s support for a radical free trade agenda: Rudd himself has made a point of distancing himself from the neo-liberal ideology.

While the Left should properly be pursuing far-reaching tax reform, there is no reason why a compromise agenda involving tax credits, indexation of PAYG tax thresholds, progressive restructuring of the Medicare Levy, and the introduction of either a wealth tax or inheritance tax, ought not be considered across the Labor spectrum. Calls to cut into Company Tax should also be met with scepticism given the cost to social programs that would necessary follow any shortfall in revenue, and the relative competitiveness of Australia’s existing regime compared, for instance, with Company Tax rates in the United States.

In promoting a “showdown” between Right and Left at the April National Conference, The Australian is trying to create a “self-fulfilling prophecy” in which a neo-liberal agenda arises triumphant: championed by Labor’s Right faction and valorised by an empty ideology of “modernisation”.

Obviously, there are some in the Right who will find such a scenario appealing: revelling in the apparent pragmatism of capitulating on just about every issue of principle conceivable. If in this process the Left must meet a section of the Right mid-way, in order that part of the Right find cause to break ranks, surely this is better than a futile gesture, or even worse - a pre-Conference stitch-up that minimises debate as part of a media stunt.

The real challenge for Labor’s Left will be promoting a compromise which encourages a section of the Right to break away, building a shared majority for a real agenda of reform.

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About the Author

Tristan Ewins has a PhD and is a freelance writer, qualified teacher and social commentator based in Melbourne, Australia. He is also a long-time member of the Socialist Left of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He blogs at Left Focus, ALP Socialist Left Forum and the Movement for a Democratic Mixed Economy.
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