Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Re-affirming the politics of class

By Tristan Ewins - posted Thursday, 7 June 2007


It seems, today, whenever you hear a proposal for the progressive redistribution of wealth, through the tax system or otherwise, you are immediately subject to a tired war-cry. On both sides of the political spectrum, both Liberal and Labor spokespeople seem fond of the saying “there should be no return to the ‘bad old days’ of class warfare”, and we should not be engaging in the “politics of envy”.

These well-worn tirades are spoken with such regularity they appear to have become part of the “common-sense” of the political milieu. Their validity is accepted almost without question by journalists and others participating in the public sphere.

But how does such rhetoric sit with the reality?

Advertisement

In Australia, especially since the Hawke-Keating governments, the stigmatisation of the politics of class struggle went hand in hand with a consensual suppression of real wages that characterised the Accord.

While such moves improved the competitiveness of Australian capitalism, the decline in the wage share of the economy could not be properly compensated by tax cuts: which, after all, led to the decline of social expenditure and the social wage. The process of the Accord was one in which workers lost, and Labor’s promise of compensation via the social wage failed to meaningfully emerge.

Talk of the “politics of envy” is, in reality, a cover for the kind of politics that have represented real attacks on workers and the underprivileged. Distributive politics are not those of “envy”: they are those of social justice.

All over the world, stigmatisation of the issue of class has gone hand in hand with tax cuts for business and the wealthy, accompanied by a shift towards regressive structures of taxation, the erosion of the social wage and social programs, the shift towards “user pays”, and the implementation of “labour market reform”.

The Howard Conservative government’s agenda in Australia has gone so far as to fine individual workers tens of thousands for “illegal” industrial action.

The process commonly referred to as “globalisation” has also deterred governments from re-regulating finance markets and has led to a worldwide “race to the bottom” in wages, along with efforts to provide an “internationally competitive” taxation system.

Advertisement

There have been attacks on worker’s job security, income, access to affordable housing and to services in health, education, aged care: it seems perverse that those arguing for a shift to a fairer, more egalitarian system are accused of wanting to “take the nation back to the bad old days of class warfare”, and of playing “the politics of envy”.

The “bad old days of class warfare” are now: Conservative attacks upon our social rights and the quality of our services; upon the progressive structure of the tax system; and upon our rights to organise and withdraw labour.

Attacks on the interests of workers are also inherent in the drive to maximise share value at all costs: which has seen the withdrawal of services, mass redundancies, and the implementation of regressive fees by Australia’s banks. The refusal of companies like Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank to recognise social responsibilities underlines the folly of privatisation, and the need for a democratic mixed economy, including a healthy public sector providing services on the basis of need and much needed competition in industries that otherwise might be characterised by oligopoly and collusion.

Many Australians like to think of Australia as a “classless society”. We like to believe we can all get along, regardless of our differences. But despite such sentiments, it is the vulnerable who have been the most hard-hit victims of Conservative attacks on welfare, labour rights and the social wage.

What is missing here is any sense of class consciousness. The blue collar working class has declined, to be replaced by a white collar working class in the burgeoning services economy who lack the same sense of class identity, or the traditions of solidarity enjoyed by the old working class. Moreover, many workers today do not like to think of themselves as being working class despite experiencing the same exploitation and insecurity faced by others.

Despite this, however, the vast majority of Australian citizens have nothing to sustain them but their labour and, in the sense intended by Marx, are members of the working class.

The consequence of this is that while the working class does exist as a class in itself, the working class as a class for itself is increasingly marginal.

Regardless, those workers on average and higher incomes often forsake solidarity with the marginalised, including pensioners, single parents, the elderly, the disabled, and many Indigenous Australians.

The challenge for those seeking social justice is not only to mobilise the working class towards such ends as wage justice, safe workplaces, a shorter working week, and economic democracy, at home and internationally, but also to encourage within the working class a solidarity that includes those who may be said to belong to an “underclass”.

Such solidarity does not emerge inevitably as the consequence of the struggle between capital and labour. Rather than relying on this dynamic as some inevitable and deterministic force, as many Marxists were once wont to do, we need to embrace voluntarist politics. Such a politics would base itself in peoples’ deep-seeded desire for social solidarity and cohesion, and in feelings of compassion and mercy that cause them to identify with the plight of the poor and marginal.

Such politics, however, need to shift beyond the mentality of charity, and instead embrace an ethos of struggle and liberation: that politicises inequality and injustice rather than simply expecting charitable organisations to “pick up the pieces” after capitalism.

Against this, we have the real class war with which we are bombarded constantly by the media: negative images of the unemployed, the disabled, Indigenous peoples, single parents, and other scapegoats upon whom to direct blame for the underlying fiscal crisis of the state. The budget may be in surplus, but the failure of the state to provide sufficiently for public infrastructure, welfare and services is still a threat to its legitimacy. This is combined with the negative portrayal of militant unionists, and all who resist the un-ending assault upon labour, as “thugs” who are dehumanised in our eyes.

What the Conservatives call the “bad old days of class warfare” are still here: but this is not the fault of workers or those on the economic and social margins. It is time to shift from the defensive onto an offensive footing.

Rather than seeing tax cuts for the wealthy as “rewarding effort” and “providing incentive” we instead need to return to principles of distributive justice.

The labour market does not automatically provide socially-just outcomes through the laws of supply and demand, although strong unions can, through solidarity, win better wages and conditions than might otherwise be the case.

Labour market regulation is part of the answer, but without a progressive taxation system: in which a person’s tax is determined by their ability to pay, there can be no comprehensive social wage providing essential services and infrastructure in the fields of aged care, health, education, transport and welfare. As part of this process, even those on average incomes need to pay their fair share lest the tax base not be broad enough to provide infrastructure and services for all of us, including the most marginal.

Here, Labor’s commitment to not expand overall taxation as a proportion of GDP, acts as a policy straightjacket: preventing Labor from responding to the ageing of the population, or maintaining services and infrastructure in the event the mining boom comes to an end.

The $3 billion of savings identified by Lindsay Tanner, in the context of an economy now approaching a trillion dollars GDP, are not sufficient to provide clear differentiation between Labor and the Conservatives on such vital issues. The call by Tanner, Swan, Rudd and others for “fiscal prudence” belies an unwillingness to meaningfully respond to crises in health, education, aged care and welfare. The best hope, with such a policy agenda, is that the tax system will at least be progressively restructured around the current tax intake as a proportion of GDP, providing relief for the needy without undermining the revenue base.

Clearly, Labor cannot provide for everything on its “wish list” of social programs within the space of one term: that is, it cannot do this without embracing tax reform of monumental proportions. But in an economy valued at approaching a trillion dollars GDP, is it too much to restructure the tax system to provide about $10 billion of additional revenue (about 1 per cent of GDP) to be devoted to providing and expanding accessible higher education, improve the quality of public primary and secondary education, meaningfully address the hospital waiting lists crisis, and expand Medicare into dental care? Such a spending boost could also be used to adjust pensions in response to any emissions trading scheme, and rising power costs.

Such reforms hold the prospect of winning public support once their effects are felt, and once the benefit becomes plain. Similarly, providing savings through means testing the Private Health Insurance Rebate could win acceptance if only such savings were ploughed into the provision of additional hospital beds.

Labor is hemmed in by “convergence” politics: where the relative centre has shifted further to the right over recent decades; where conservative elites have taken the lead in shaping popular culture and consciousness. Labor seeks to hold the middle ground, but it is a relative centre that is determined by its enemies, not friends. Sometimes Labor even seeks to “outflank” the Conservatives to the Right. In this process, Labor’s Left compromises too much, failing to speak out as a matter of discipline, but in the process mostly losing any independent profile, cultural impact or voice.

This stifling of the Left’s voice raises the question of whether a portion of the Left would be better off organising outside the ALP, in a party similar to the Socialist Party in Holland, or the Left Parties in Sweden and Germany. Such movements hold the promise of holding leverage over the mainstream parties of social democracy, relativising the political field and winning vital policy compromises.

It is not a decision to be taken lightly, however, as the Left has much invested in the ALP over years of hard work, dedication and commitment, and does manage a degree of policy influence.

Nevertheless, we now have the situation where the Left “held its tongue” in the run-up to the 2007 ALP National Conference, in the hope that issues such as pattern bargaining would “slip under the radar”. Today both Rudd and Gillard are resolutely stating that pattern bargaining will not be tolerated under a Labor government, and that the Building and Construction Act will be retained until 2010.

These are the laws that threatened fines of tens of thousands for individual workers taking strike action - sometimes even as trivial as a stop-work meeting - while threatening jail for workers who refuse to answer questions put to them by the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

The outlawing of pattern bargaining, meanwhile, robs workers of the vehicle of solidarity necessary to secure standard wages and conditions industry-wide, without allowing competition to create a “race to the bottom.” And political industrial action such as the famous “Green Bans”, as well as general strike protest actions, will be banned under a Labor government.

Furthermore, Labor has committed to retain the Coalition’s reactionary “Voluntary Student Unionism” legislation: laws which have crippled progressive activism on campus, and all but outlawed student representation.

This can be considered alongside other matters such as the decision to pay for broadband rollout through the privatisation of the remainder of Telstra, and even then to do so in partnership with the private sector in a fashion that creates a partial private monopoly.

Considered in addition to Labor’s conservative economic policies, it is well worth asking the question: have the Left and the labour movement received enough (in terms of policy influence, not jobs) to buy their silence, and indeed - should we ever allow the movement to be stifled and debate silenced - for the sake of “unity at all costs”?

Without a credible alternative political formation to Labor’s Left that can represent the traditions of left social democracy, left liberalism and democratic socialism, there is no point in individual activists leaving the party only to find themselves in the political wilderness. But surely those on the Left must be considering their options in the face of Labor’s lurch to the Right.

Whether through the ALP or through the Greens, or a new party of the Left: for progressive activists the challenge remains of re-energising the working class as a class for itself, and of popularising policies of social justice, compassion and liberty. Perhaps, as always, a variety of strategies working in tandem hold the best hope of securing for the Left the policy and cultural influence it needs to win progressive social change.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

36 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

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.
.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Tristan Ewins

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Tristan Ewins
Article Tools
Comment 36 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy