Possible Turning Point?

Of all the state ALP governments, Victoria's is the most adept at spin. Given this, and given the huge majority the ALP has in the lower house (notwithstanding a few lost seats in 2006), I figured they'd be a show-in for the 2006 election.

It may not be so simple. This week, we've seen public servants complaining about poor working conditions, the public complaining about poor quality from the public service, and everybody blaming the government.

Today, intensive care paramedics have resigned in the face of years of poor pay, and dangerously unsafe working conditions:

INTENSIVE care paramedics have resigned en masse outside the Premier's office, warning any resulting deaths are on his head.

The state's mobile intensive care ambulance paramedics are in a deadlock with the State Government over pay and have invited John Brumby to join them for a shift to experience life on the streets.

After months of negotiations, the state's 300 MICA paramedics have taken the unprecedented step of leaving hundreds of their resignation letters and shoulder insignias outside the Premier's office in the city this morning.

The resignations will take effect from early September with MICA paramedics returning to normal ambulance duties - unable to perform intensive care services for heart attack or car crash victims on site.

MICA paramedics face a $6000 fine for talking to the media, but one officer said the Brumby government had treated MICA workers with contempt and that its false promises were putting lives at risk. (source)

Curiously, the union are nowhere to be seen in the media on this issue, and the Herald Sun has deferred to the shadow health minister.

This comes in the wake of almost daily storied in relation to the state's child protection crisis:

The Premier today said at-risk children were being forced to wait because the government could not attract and retain staff.

But he denies any child is left uncared for while waiting to be assigned to a permanent child protection worker.

A whistleblower claims 2000 Victorian children alerted to the Department of Human Services (DHS) do not have case workers. (source)

So, it would seem that Brumby, and the government more generally, have been caught out lying by this whistleblower. It has been rare, over the years, to see the Herald Sun directly attack premiers. They've attacked particular ministers, or departments, but have used the kid gloves approach with Kennett, Bracks, and now Brumby. This could mark an interesting turning point in the run up to the 2010 election. The unions need to pull their finger out, as the Brumby government has treated them with contempt in recent times. Secondly, the Greens need to work on some grass-roots campaigning. There are plenty of (mostly) inner-city areas where the Greens could have a serious chance, if they work hard, and there's plenty of disillusionment in Melbourne's suburbs, where the working masses are fed up with labor, but don't necessarily want to get fucked in the ear by the Tories.

They're not quite lying...

...But they're hardly telling the truth.

Recently, I've had occasion to raise some concerns about what is arguably one of Australia's leading conservative blogs. The author of said blog is not an idiot, but holds some views that seem to me to be rather off the mark, particularly as regards modernism, feminism, and racism.

On this latter topic, I noticed these comments recently, in an apparent attempt to inflame white resentment:


Again we have the double standard. Whites are held to have wealth solely on the basis of inherited privilege...

The other problem with all the claims about white males being privileged is that it hides an underlying trend in which the real wages of white working class men have been falling since the 1970s.

It's a double whammy: you get paid less in real terms than your father did and at the same time you're told that you should be punished for being privileged - even though there are other groups doing better than you.

This is a deceptive bit of 'reframing', and both the far-right, and the more mainstream ruling elites do it all the time.

Let's take a look at the main substantive claim here, namely, that the wages of 'white working class men' have declined since the 1970s. Whilst it's technically true, it's extremely misleading. The author does not specify his source, but I presume he is referring to this data from the US, where 'real', inflation-adjusted wages peaked in 1972, only to enter steady decline thereafter, with a feeble, if temporary improvement in the late 1990s.

From this chart, we can conclude that it is not only the 'white working class' that has suffered, but all non-farm workers in the US, on average. We might just as easily claim that Black or Hispanic workers' wages have also gone down.

Now, many of the problems that conservatives note in society are genuine. There are plenty of things for people to be aggrieved about. The problem for conservatives is that they can't implicate capitalism in their grievances. This means that they are doomed to misunderstand our wages chart above. Our chart tells us that wages began to decline in the US in the wake of stagflation of the economy, the oil crisis, and the gradual abandonment of Keynesian welfarism for neoliberal economic policies.


We can see further that wages continued their decline under that cherished conservative, Reagan, whose assault on organised labour, and whose transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has since been known as Reaganomics. By the early 1980s in the US, the seeds were basically sown for the immiseration of workers thereafter, by way of the 'reforms' implemented by Reagan. No mention of this by the conservatives, however.

Furthermore, when wages peaked in 1972, union membership in the private sector was 28%. Today it is 8%. A quarter of all workers in the US earn wages that place them below the poverty line. The minimum wage in the US has repeatedly been attacked as a supposed barrier to employment. Today, it stands a third lower than it did in 1968. (source)

Meanwhile, the pay of CEOs was 26 times that of the average worker in 1965. In 1980, it was 40 times greater. By 2004, it grew to being 500 times greater (source). Clearly, as Mark Richardson said, 'some groups' are doing vastly better than others, however, this is on the basis of class, not race.

It's a shame, really, that rather than form a broad coalition seeking better rights for all, conservatives are all-too-often content to remain silent about their counterparts in power, and choose instead to scapegoat mythical 'liberals', or to indulge in the worst sort of race-baiting. Nonetheless, it has ever been thus, and this is why a better deal for all workers, white or otherwise, will never derive from the dead-end of conservatism.

Casuistry

Welfare and related industries in Australia routinely shaft their employees, in terms of pay, workload and working conditions, and occupational health and safety. There are many reasons why I think this occurs, and I may save those for a later post. There are also reasons why I think such workers constitute a kind of proletariat, despite this term traditionally being associated with workers on the factory floor.

In any case, Jesuit Social Services have apparently victimised a union and OHS rep, a matter you can read about here. The most 'progressive' or radical thing that all workers can do is to seek more control in the workplace. To that end, union reps and OHS reps are essential, and it is vital that they be permitted to do their work. For a worker in a 'caring profession', protecting oneself and one's colleagues is every bit as important as assisting one's 'clients'. It is disgraceful that a purportedly Catholic service believes otherwise.

In Defence of Unions

Please note – this is a very long post. Bored readers are encouraged to wait a few days, when I will write some shorter fluff pieces.

This post is a response to a debate I had with Damien, examining the merits of unionism.

This is a multi-layered issue. At the most immediate and local level, the Federal Government’s Workchoices legislation appears to be deeply unpopular. Given that this piece of legislation is the major Federal policy initiative since 2004, and since it is also the major area of policy difference between the two parties, I think it is reasonable to say that the 2007 election hinges on how Australians want their industrial relations.

My opinion on the matter was that Workchoices served a number of interests for the Government, including centralisation of control on industrial matters, reducing the ranks of the Labor Party's financial support base (unions), maintaining corporate profits at a time of low unemployment by keeping down wages and conditions, and keeping wages from growing, and thereby slowing inflation. Contrary to much of the leftist blogosphere, I believe that blue-collar workers have recognised the threat to working conditions that Workchoices represents.

Consequently, I believe that Labor will be handed this election (narrowly) as a result of Howard’s foray into class warfare, and not because a few Liberal ‘Wets’ have decided that asylum seekers are important, after all.

In addition to the specific issue of Workchoices and the 2007 election, this debate has touched on the merits of unionism as a whole, and has implications for broader issues of the regulation or deregulation of the economy.

To present some context to the debate on ‘union power’, I will try to represent Damien’s theses fairly:
- ‘If unions get power and boost worker’s wages it boosts the cost of living (inflation) as businesses pass costs on to consumers. Plus now that labour is more expensive with greater union power it means that businesses can afford to employ less and so the unemployed stay poor.’
- ‘People on benefits from working Australians are also the most likely to be the poorest in Australia. So no.1 cause of being poor is no job. Giving them welfare handouts doesn’t cut it.’
- ‘Statistically there are well over 1 million Aussies that are either unemployed or would be ready for more work in 4 wks time if they could get it. That means we need to increase job supply…This may drop wages, penalties etc but then these benefits were only there excluding those that don’t have the benefit of work in the first place. This is especially true given the most unemployed are low skilled and low educated and so would benefit from some entry into the workforce at a lower pay.’
- ‘In fact, more than half on the minimum wage are from high income households, so dropping it will not greatly effect the poor.’
- ‘Economists predict that a 2% drop in real wages corresponds to a 1% drop in unemployment.’
- ‘[T]he enemy is wage increase which is not accompanied by productivity increases and the pre-1993 period made the increases easier to snowball.’
- Over recent years as the labour market has grown in flexibility so too has been a corresponding growth in productivity. Part of this has come from less reliance on awards and more on AWAs etc.
- ‘You can increase training to the hilt but it is no good if employment is too expensive for businesses to come to the table.’
‘There is nothing ‘magical’ about this whole process. It makes sense that a decrease in wage cost will provide more incentive for greater output from a business which means a greater demand for more employees.
The drop in union influence in Australia in recent years has seen greater productivity, real wage growth and unemployment decrease - see Access Economics report “Work Place Relations - The Way Forward”’

Addressing all of these points in detail would take something longer than a mere blog post, but I will try to sketch a few points in response.

Background
It is curious that it is precisely now that the attack on unions has been ramped up, precisely at a time when many superficial readings of contemporary economics say that neo-liberal doctrine is the only game in town. Furthermore, it is should us as odd that the Howard Government introduced anti-union legislation precisely at a time of very high employment. Whilst employment levels have continued to increase, it is difficult to say that they are doing anything other than following a pre-existing trend.

Let us recall that unions emerged in response to the deregulation on 19th Century industrial capitalism. Each attempt at regulation of Western European industry was met with protest, and suggestions that industry would collapse should it have to incorporate child labour laws, limits to the working day, etc. Of course, capital ultimately did a good job of absorbing these faux-crises, and continuing to generate profit. The horrendous conditions of 19th Century industrial England, ably described in Das Kapital, had improved considerably within a couple of generations, thanks in large part to the trade union movement. In this sense, the union movement, far from being ‘anti-business’, actually served to maintain capitalism, merely taking the edge of its nastier aspects. For this reason, many early leftists regarded trade unionism as ‘counter-revolutionary’.

Today in Australia, union membership has clearly declined. About 50% of all Australian workers were unionists when Hawke came to power, compared to approximately 17% now. Nonetheless, it is worth remembering that unions are the largest political organisation in the country, with a membership that dwarves that of the combined numbers of all political parties. Australians will express, by democratic means, just what they think of workplace deregulation.

Deregulation & Unemployment
When we look at the behaviour of employers under conditions of deregulation, I see no reason to believe that ‘market forces’ serve anything other than the interests of employers. The tendency of employers to reform their behaviour, whether in terms of industrial relations, or, more recently, the environment, typically results as a consequence of pressure from within and without, and is usually met with significant resistance.

There are few truly ‘free’ markets to use as examples. Chile under Pinochet is arguably a case in point. Whilst Pinochet’s apologists hailed his economic ‘reforms’, many figures have suggested that, during his reign, the wealthy became very wealthy, whilst everybody else became poorer. It has taken the people of Chile a long time to recover from Friedman.

Little wonder, then, that employers’ advocates cry out for more ‘deregulation’. Yet there is still a persistent mystical strain in free-market thinking. Correlation is frequently mistaken for causation. For instance, when Damien says that ‘It makes sense that a decrease in wage cost will provide more incentive for greater output from a business which means a greater demand for more employees’, this is by no means self-evident. This is every bit as deterministic as vulgar Marxian economics, with the added obfuscation of a supposed causal link between incentive for ‘greater output’ and lower wages.

Similarly dubious assumptions are made by other agitators for deregulation. In a virulently anti-union paper, Gerard Jackson tells us that:

In the free market there is always a tendency for every factor of
production
to receive the full value of its product, especially labour. If
unions set wage
rates above the value of labour’s marginal product then
unemployment is
inevitable.

Again, there are some enormous assumptions made here – note the use of the terms ‘always’ and ‘every’. Absurdly, Jackson seems to miss the fact that if labour, as a ‘factor of production’ received its ‘full value’, then ipso facto the employer would cease to generate profit! No union in recent memory has set wages above the value of ‘labour’s marginal profit’, as this would self-evidently lead loss and downturn. The reality, of course, is that labour is almost never paid its ‘full value’. It is a question of ‘how much’ rather than ‘if’.

The extent to which labour is shortchanged is determined primarily by employers, and always with the profit motive in mind. When we speak of unions acting to shore up reasonable wage rates for workers, we are not speaking of paying workers beyond their value, since this logically cannot happen. We are merely talking about unions acting on behalf of their members to lessen the extent of the ‘shortchanging’ by which their labour is valued.

With the foregoing in mind, it cannot be held that unions ‘cause’ unemployment. Damien, and a variety of economists, repeatedly makes the weaker claim, namely, that unions maintain unemployment. By supposedly ensuring higher wages, unions act as a deterrent for businesses considering new staff.

This claim is as difficult to prove as it is to refute, as any statements here can only be based on the sketchiest of correlative evidence. There are always many factors determining unemployment – finding a single culprit is unlikely.

To submit this argument to a bit of reductio ad absurdum, the logical outcome of this thinking is an economic system like China’s, a much-feared ‘race to the bottom’.

Given that areas of staff shortage are generally for skilled, rather than unskilled employees, it seems unlikely to me that lowering pay and conditions will greatly assist employment of this latter group. A thousand lowly paid attendants of some sort will not fill a single vacancy in IT, teaching, medicine, etc. In reducing the pay and conditions of the lowly skilled, we are, in effect, depressing economic conditions, and run the risk of creating a ‘working poor’, all the more since Australia is experiencing conditions of relatively high employment. Let us note, also, that if Australia’s high employment rate has emerged as a result of ‘deregulation’, it has been that of the Hawke/Keating years, not Howard’s Workchoices. In an economic downturn, the latter legislation may facilitate great unemployment, given that employers are given the right to dismiss workers relatively easily, with few obligations by way of recompense. If the workforce has become increasingly casualised, surely this is in spite of the efforts of unions, rather than because of them.

I remain unconvinced that there is a substantial link between unions and the maintenance of unemployment. There is no evidence that this link exists in Australia. In countries such as Italy, where there are major differences in unemployment between regions, we also find that there are major differences in union membership between regions. The impoverished South is also the least unionized; the industrial North has a large, and, at time, militant union base.

In the US, the situation is different. Industrial law ensures that unions remain relatively weak. This weakness coexists with relatively low levels of unemployment in the US (I’m generalizing here, obviously the US is a big country). Nonetheless, even if we made the unsubstantiated assumption that deregulation and de-unionisation were responsible for this low unemployment, we still have to face the fact that the ‘working poor’ that has been created as a consequence by no means places the US in a better overall economic position. To be sure, employers are in a better position to profit, but the deregulators still need to explain why an unemployed Australian will almost certainly be in better economic health than a low-income American, and will quite likely have more money to put back into the larger economy. This is especially true when we observe that one of the artifacts of ‘deregulation’ in the US has been to drive down minimum wages in real terms over the past few decades. Hardly a success story, in other words.

In short, I don’t think that anyone can conclude satisfactorily that unionism maintains unemployment. Furthermore, I think we can conclude that ‘deregulation’ and the weakening of the union movement will almost certainly correspond with diminishing wages and conditions for those who are employed.

In some respects, this is a moot point for Australians. Workchoices, consisting of 1,200 pages of legislation, is the precise opposite of ‘deregulation’. None of this should surprise anyone who knows the Howard Government for its widespread use of corporate welfare and agrarian socialism. There are many compulsions built into the legislation, which even goes so far as to limit employers’ abilities to work constructively with unions in hammering out agreements.

Obviously, there is nothing in this legislation that remotely resembles a ‘level playing field’, or that allows worker and boss to be equal partners at the negotiating table. A boss can remove conditions and fire almost at will. The worker, on the other hand, does not even have the right to withdraw his or her labour! This is true even if the worker is attempting to negotiate for an AWA. Workchoices and deregulation are, I in this sense, two separate arguments. The main shared feature is anti-unionism.

Unionism and working conditions
I looked at some of the references provided in favour of the pro-deregulation, anti-union argument. I think that any attempt to correspond ‘reform’ in the economic sphere with reform in the industrial sphere must be met with strict limitations, but here is a brief look at some papers.

The 1998 article by Peter Dawkins argues for lower unemployment by way of lower wages and, to a much lesser extent, sustained economic growth. Whilst Dawkins says that there is ‘strong evidence’ that constraining wage growth will lead to increased employment, much of the paper is merely assertion. Dawkins himself acknowledges that, in the case of skilled workers, constraining wages (to minimise inflation) is actually likely to be antithetical to ‘market forces’ in a period of growth! Dawkins seems to presume that there are various disincentives to working, yet does not consider that reduced wages for unskilled workers may increase the disincentive to work. Moreover, he proposes that, in order to offset the impact of lower wages on the poor, we would need to implement a flat tax rate of 50% or more, particularly for higher-income earners. Again, this is hardly deregulation, and I can’t see Dawkins’ arguments winning much sympathy from the free-marketeers.

The article by Access Economics’ Charles Richardson, commissioned by the Business Council of Australia (itself a kind of union) is, like many in this field, entirely partisan in its sympathies. We would no more expect it to advocate against the interests of capital than we would expect ACTU media releases to argue against unions.

Overall, the paper reads more like a manifesto than an argument. A number of wild assumptions are made throughout the paper. For instance, consider the statement ‘fairness is better achieved through taxes and transfers than industrial relations policy’. Firstly, this statement is far from controversial, and is not exactly demonstrated by Richardson. Secondly, what precisely is Richardson proposing in concrete terms? A system of increased welfare to offset what would necessarily be a less fair industrial system? Notably, Richardson dismisses Australia’s long history of unionism, and workplace regulation (not all of which is directed toward ‘prosperity’ ends) as ‘mistakes’. This apparently ignores the fact that precisely these measures have given Australia one of the best standards of living, and standards or working, in the developed world.

In this climate of supposed deregulation, it should also be noted that, whilst workers are discouraged from collective bargaining, small businesses are encouraged to do the exact opposite. The Government’s own advertising material, aimed at business, avers that collective bargaining ‘enables businesses of all sizes to work together co-operatively’, and adds ‘flexibility’, ‘efficiencies’, more ‘power – without compromising individuality’, and ‘greater control and support when it comes to making the deal’. Are we supposed to believe that these benefits do not likewise exist for workers, as well as businesses?

These double standards are particularly galling when one considers Workchoices. AWA’s were already readily available to all workers under pre-existing legislation, but simply had a ‘no disadvantage’ test to dissuade employers from excessive shafting of workers. Even a year ago, they applied to only a tiny proportion of the workforce – about 3.1%.

Unskilled, poor and female workers are the most likely to be shafted under the new legislation. AWA’s tend to lower wages, and the above Griffith University study showed that women on AWA’s were working more than those on a collective agreement, but were receiving 5% less pay. When the Government were kind enough to share their figures with us, we learnt that 45% of AWA’s strip conditions to which workers would have been entitled under an award:

‘Conditions were stripped from the vast majority of the agreements examined,
and these included shift loadings (removed in 76 per cent of the agreements),
annual leave loading (59 per cent), incentive payments and bonuses (70 per
cent), and declared public holidays (22.5 per cent).'

This in a country where Australians already work long hours, already sacrifice much time with loved ones, and already have a poor ‘work/life balance’. One might have expected the free-market economists to place some value on these things also. Another study foung the new ‘no disadvantage test’ was ‘failing adequately to protect employees from a deterioration in their terms and conditions of employment’. Naturally, the Government no longer releases such data.

Unless the Government hopes that increased devaluation of females in the workplace will be some sort of backhanded incentive to more procreation, I can’t see the economic or societal benefits of such a manouvre. And this is another point that is missed by those with a narrow focus on ‘market forces’ and economic rationalism. Deregulation of the workplace can have a range of unintended consequences beyond the economic sphere, whilst unionism brings many non-economic benefits. At the broadest and most abstract level, a functioning union provides a democratic voice for workers and their interests, interests that are not worth less than those of business or various other lobbyists. It is no coincidence that from Saddam’s Iraq, to the former military junta of Indonesia, to Communist Poland, to contemporary Colombia, people with money and power violently persecute unionists.

At a more practical level, it requires fanciful leaps of the imagination to expect that workers’ OHS issues, for instance, can be ‘self-regulated’ by industry (or even Government, for that matter), or that any effective OHS system can emerge spontaneously simply by employers getting together and feeling charitable one day. Increased deregulation of the economic end of the workplace will correspond with increased deregulation of the OHS aspects too.

It is woth mentioning in passing that, for the individualists out there, there is nothing ‘individual’ about AWA’s whatsoever. An academic study found that AWA’s are used for 3 reasons: to foster employee/employer relations, reduce labour costs, and promote union avoidance. Far from offering more choice to workers, these authors found the opposite:

‘While it is possible for employers to utilise individual contracts to
foster closer ties with individual employees, the literature widely notes that,
in practice, there is generally not much that is “individual” about individual
agreements. In fact, individual contracts are often referred to “…as standard
packages, individually wrapped”. … [T]he widespread rhetoric of
“individualisation” has, in the practical sense, been accompanied with a general
trend towards greater standardisation of the employment contract.’

All in all, the evidence points to a widespread deterioration of working conditions subsequent to Workchoices and its ‘deregulation’. There are economic benefits, of course, but the evidence strongly suggests that these are reserved solely for employers.

Productivity
I thought it may be useful to look at unionism under the aspect of productivity, and specifically, to challenge the myth that unionism equals reduced productivity, This is supposed to occur because unions impose work rules and conditions that make employers less efficient. There is significant evidence opposed to this myth.

For instance, Ron McCallum of Sydney University reported that, in the mining industry at least, there was no evidence that productivity was improved by moving workers onto individual agreements, and that managers largely sought such agreements for ideological, rather than economic reasons.

US researchers, among others, have argued that collective agreements give workers an incentive to improve productivity, by granting them a greater share in productivity gains:

The economics
literature points to the fact that
unionization
and high productivity are
certainly compatible. A recent study
surveyed a
broad swath of the literature,
concluding “a positive association
[of
unions on productivity] is established for
the United States in
general and for U.S.
manufacturing” (Doucouliagos and
Laroche, 2003: 1).5
Earlier research also
came to similar conclusions. Brown and
Medoff (1978:
373) found in looking at
manufacturing industries that
“unionized
establishments are about 22 percent
more productive than those
that are not.”

Furthermore, the gains of productivity, which are not equally distributed at the best of times, are particularly inegalitarian under a de-unionised workplace system. In the three years from 2001 in the US, the above paper shows that corporate profits jumped by over 62%, whilst labour compensation grew by 2.8%. CEO’s are regularly given productivity-related wage bonuses, to the tune of millions, whilst such bonuses are supposedly ‘harmful’ to the economy if given to workers. This makes mock of arguments that contend that the economy is best served by anti-unionism. To say it again, a small minority receives economic gains – the rest work for them.

There are other economic and productivity benefits to unionism, such as lower turnover, which, in turn, means lower training and hiring costs.

Some papers have argued that the jury is still out on the positive correlation between unions and productivity, but, even here, where productivity gains are not achieved through unionization, it appears to be more reflective of the particular union (and workplace) in question than an inherent impossibility of the thing occurring.

International comparisons yield more evidence to suggest that the economic benefits of de-unionisation are dubious, at best. For instance:

‘The dramatic drop in unionization in the United States from 1979 to 2005 did not lead to faster productivity growth than in the seven largest European countries with union density greater than 60%. In fact, those countries' average annual labor productivity growth of 1.7% equaled productivity growth in the United States. Output per hour worked is higher in the Netherlands, France, and Belgium, where more than 80% of employees have union contracts (compared to the United States' 12% unionization).’

At the very least, we can safely conclude that unions do not harm productivity, and are likely to improve it.

Conclusions

I think I’ve outlined some good reasons to believe that unions are beneficial, not only to workers, but to the Australian economy as a whole. Many of the counter-claims do not, in my view, withstand scrutiny.

I understand the theory underlying the presupposition that unions drive up inflation, but in practice, I’m yet to see evidence for this happening in contemporary Australian politics.

Furthermore, the argument that unions are contributing to unemployment is also suspect. Even if we accepted it as true, it is the wages of unionized workers that is providing the unemployed with their sustenance. I assume that those who are pro-deregulation prefer private charity to public handouts. If this is the case, why do they wish to impede the ability of workers to distribute wealth privately?

Lowering of conditions and wages is likely, above all else, to result in the creation of a ‘working poor’, and create a concomitant drop in living standards. This is not desirable in Australia, a country which, for all of its faults, comes closer than most to being egalitarian, and being relatively free of overt class antagonisms.

I do not accept the notion that half of low-income/minimum wage earners are from high-income households. Those who are from such households are presumably the children or spouses of high-income earners, and not the sole providers to a family. In any case, undercutting the working conditions of women and children will eventually lead to reduced employment of breadwinners. Even now, we are all familiar with the phenomenon of employers working casualised teens to the bone from the age of 15, only to abandon them at 21.

Finally, the claim that productivity, so central to economic growth, is hindered by unionism is not supported by evidence. On the contary, the converse may be true.

We can readily understand why the likes of the HR Nichols society, or the Business Council, might advocate anti-union, de-regulatory policies. These groups are merely acting on behalf of their own interests. It is considerably more baffling that it should be thought appropriate for workers to be prevented from acting in their own best interests.

Many of the foregoing points are merely academic. Despite Howard’s claims, ‘union bosses’ have negligible influence over Labor policy. See the current nurses strike in Labor’s Victoria should you need any evidence of this.

Finally, I’d like to respond to one of the intertubes’ more belligerent commenters, who attempted the following counter-arguments to my earlier posts:

This argument a variant of “Capitalism needs a level of unemployment to work
properly”, which is of course total utter bullshit.
As the economy grows and
more capital is invested in business more employment is generated until there is
a shortage of labour and what occurs is an equilibrium where everyone is
employed. This however doesn’t destroy the market place as businesses will
continue to compete for a persons labour.

The benefits to employers of unemployment are obvious. The notion that economic growth creating a state of ‘equilibrium’ strikes me as almost theological. It is as if embracing ‘economic rationalism’ is akin to Jack planting his magic beans in the ground – miracles will just happen, take my word for it!

Since when do you run an economy on feelings? Of course labour is a
commodity. I still don’t get why it is an axiom with left that economic
rationalisation is a bad thing.

Finally, it has always struck me as paradoxical that self-identified conservatives should be comfortable with the commodification of everyday life, and with the instrumentalisation of all human relations, where each individual is merely a means to somebody else’s end. One cannot worship two gods, and acolytes of the god of the marketplace inculcate consumerist values in everybody from a very young age. The conservatives look at the decay of contemporary society, with its grappling with fundamentalism, the trivializing of all human relations (including marriage, and parenthood), the reduction of humans, particularly women, as mere objects or ornaments, where any ‘experience’ is a mere consumer item, ready-made for purchase, where we see the prevalence of depression, and narcissistic pursuits of quick self-gratification. Having observed and decried these things, they find it easier to blame this on the sinister machinations of far-left ideologues than submit out social and economic systems to even a minutes’ scrutiny. Worship of the neo-liberal market place precludes both conservatism and radicalism – it is, strictly speaking, ‘liberal’.

The Politics of 'Legacy'

It seems that even Melbourne's Herald Sun may be beginning to turn against the Liberals. In today's opinion section, Bernard Salt has a go at Howard for his alleged bias toward Sydney (as opposed to Melbourne). Whilst not groundbreaking stuff, such complaints are somewhat symbolic, given that Howard's rival, Costello, holds a 'blue-ribbon' Liberal seat in Melbourne. Ian McPhedran also criticises the Government's handling of Doctor Haneef.

The Herald Sun is not the most conservative of the Murdoch tabloids, and, to be sure, a couple of anti-Government articles do not count for much in the bigger scheme of things. Nonetheless, the context of these articles paints a different picture, when we consider that the polls once again point to a significant Labor victory, and even the bookmakers are concurring.

Once again, the question of the Liberals' leadership emerges. We might speculate that the polls would be more favourable for the Government had the leadership changed some time ago, but any change now, by an incumbent Government just months from an election, would be tantamount to conceding defeat.

People will no doubt engage in a few 'psychologisms', and aver that Howard has merely clung onto power for the sake of his own 'legacy'. As influenced by psychoanalysis as I am, I think we ought to resist any analysis of current events that boils things down to matters of individual psychology, and instead, rigorously pursue a political interpretation. In any case, as I have said elsewhere, Howard's Liberal Party colleagues give a much better assessment of his 'character' than I ever could.

So what is the political 'legacy' of Howard, as opposed to the speculative psychodrama? This is an enormous question, so I will just touch on a few points.

Howard rose to power in 1996. Whilst Culture War revisionists like to paint his predecessor, Keating, as some kind of arch-leftist, this was not the case. Keating was one of the most conservative Federal Labor leaders that the country had seen, though was portrayed by the media as indulging a range of 'minority groups', such as Asians, Aboriginals, artists, and environmentalists. It is no coincidence that the period of his demise saw the rise of Pauline Hanson's ironically-titled 'One Nation' party, built on a platform of Asian immigration, and also saw a relatively 'moderate' Liberal party move increasingly toward the politics of dog-whistling, and race-baiting. These latter phenomena are part of Howard's legacy as much as anything else, and are now incorporated into the standard political vocabulary of both major parties.

Howard is no 'statesman', even in comparison to Australia's previous Prime Ministers, on both sides of politics. He has ushered in the era whereby oratory is little more than a jingoistic soundbite, though, in fairness, he has been assisted in his cause by a compliant media. To return to what Slavoj Žižek said about Bill Gates (in The Ticklish Subject), Howard attempts to be seen as neither a 'patriarchal Father-Master', nor a 'corporate Big Brother', but rather, as a kind of 'little brother', a clumsy, bespectacled, tinpot 'patriot', whose ideological agenda is belied by his supposed 'ordinariness', and apparent opportunism.

Much is made of Howard's 'economic credentials', though the recent biography of Howard seems to further undermine this piece of mythology, given Howard's poor record as Treasurer. The best that can be said of Howard's fiscal abilities is that he has 'managed' the economy well, particularly for those who were already wealthy from the beginning. At the same time, a significant underclass of the chronically poor has been firmly sedimented in both rural and metropolitan regions during the Howard years, and the Government has shown no indication that it intends to change this state of affairs (other than by punishing 'bad' parents). Housing prices are, of course, a disaster, particularly for young people hoping to buy their first home, and interest rates are high by the standards of the rest of the developed world. At least investors would appear to benefit.

Then there is the Orwellian state of perpetual war to which Howard has enlisted Australia, a country little more than a US colony in economic and military matters. Howard, supposedly 'in touch' with the battlers, completely ignored the many thousands of ordinary Australians, from churchgoers, to unionists, who protested the so-called 'War on Terror'. I don't recall quite the same numbers of Australians protesting for the war.

In matters of foreign policy, Australia tends to take America's lead. Domestically, Howard encourages all immigrants to 'assimilate' to his version of white, middle-class, conservative Australia, and appeared to have a sanguine view of both the Cronulla riots, and Alan Jones' role in agitating for them. For this reason, Australia has been seen as racism in Europe and Asia for the past few years. Our Government is quick to condemn regimes run by friendless tyrants, such as Mugabe, but falls silent on human rights abusers whose allies carry a bit of international clout.

Political discourse has been reduced to the lowest common denominator. Whilst dissent is tolerated by the regime, it is quickly isolated by the acquiescent media, and repackaged as 'hatred', or some other pathology. A sane person cannot, apparently, be critical of the Government. When, for instance, Howard cobbles together a hastily-conceived 'intervention' into Aboriginal communities, anybody who forwards an alternative proposal is quickly denounced as an endorser of child abuse. The laughable standard of 'debate' in the mainstream media is echoed in Parliament, where 'Mr Speaker' ensures that Opposition questions go routinely unanswered, and Liberal abuse passes for political comment.

Surprisingly, for a 'conservative' Government, Howard has overseen significant growth in the Federal public sector. Part of his legacy has been to ensure that this sector is also heavily-politicised, from the cowboys running DIMIA, to stacking the ABC board full of hard-right cultural warriors. Perhaps public sector growth is necessary, as it is inversely proportional to political responsibility. Public servants make for suitable, and relatively anonymous 'fall guys' when faced with scandals such as AWB, or children overboard, none of which our Government considers as part of its jurisdiction.

Howard has nominally moved toward some recognition of 'climate change', but then, even that exemplar of the 'loony left', Rupert Murdoch, has publicly acknowledged that this issue is important. At this point, the climate change denialists should be pleased that Howard's commitment to this issue remains strictly rhetorical.

The Culture Wars and History Wars have continued throughout Howard's reign, despite the fact that the 'conservatives' are given air-time for increasingly vacuous and intellectually bankrupt views. Moderate commentators and academics such as Robert Manne are denounced for being left-wing extremist 'elites' - apparently, social class is now conceived along educational lines. Part of these 'wars' has seen a refusal to acknowledge one iota of Aboriginal suffering, and, when travelling abroad, it is not difficult to find foreigners who no more about the plight of Aboriginals than does the average Australian. Howard despises 'symbolic' gestures, such as an apology would be. An elementary grasp of any trauma theory would inform us that symbols are intrinsic to the 'working through' of any trauma, though symbols do not, of course, reverse trauma. It is for this reason that Vietnam Vets, suffering from their war-time experiences, campaigned vigourously for a 'symbolic' recognition of their status as 'traumatised', eventually succeeding in having PTSD made into an 'official' medical/psychiatric diagnosis. For Australia's Aborigines, it is not even worth considering additional services or resources - even as regards mere 'symbolic gestures', for Howard, such people, (and their subjectivity) are beneath recognition. New 'conservatism' is 'big-government' and authoritarian, and, naturally, being conservative means never having to say you're sorry.

Howard's IR laws are probably not worth mentioning, given the ink that has already been spilt on them. Among other things, these laws are intended as a bit of union-busting, partly as a result of Howard's ideological leanings, and partly because the unions constitute Labor's support base. The 'user pays' mentality has crept into a range of other areas, such as VSU, Telstra, and the increasing privatisation of the health and education sectors. Australia's great tradition of socialised public services, many of which were world class, appears to be drawing to a close. Perhaps we can look forward to the privatisation of roads and the like.

Howard quietly managed to change electoral laws, so that voting is now more difficult for the young, the transient, and the imprisoned. This will not be of concern to Liberals, given that these demographics probably would not vote Tory in any case.

Civil liberties have been eroded under Howard. The anti-terror legislation sits dubiously in relation to presuppositions of 'innocence until guilt is proven'. The re-introduction of sedition laws are of particular concern, given that such laws have been used (historically) to criminalise peaceful and democratic dissent. It seems to be a case of 'One more sacrifice, Australians, and we shall "win" this war on terror'.

Howard has cultivated the myth of his 'battlers'. Fortunately, for Melbourne, at least, this remains only a myth, as most of the working class reside in safe Labor seats. I cannot speak for the rest of Australia at the present time, but it is obvious that, if a working class person votes Liberal, they are not only being bent over a barrel, they are providing Howard with the lubricant. The backlash against IR laws may yet shatter this myth, as it is not only the 'elites' who are nauseated by Howard's relentless propaganda, with happy, AWA'd workers invading our television screens. In this era of the decline of Marx, 'Workchoices' should at least serve to drive home a few naked truths about capitalism, namely, that workers are merely commodities, cogs in a machine, means to (somebody else's) ends.

The only principled and courageous policy direction that Howard has taken is his stance on gun control. This is the only instance of him being prepared to finally challenge the whims of a minority, for the benefit of society as a whole. To be sure, underworld figures still have guns, but, more importantly, guns are more difficult to obtain for lone psychopaths (such as Martin Bryant, or Julian Knight), and feature less prominently in 'domestics'.

Many of the issues above are beyond any simplistic left-right distinction. Many Australians, of all political stripes, are concerned with such topics. That such ideology, of limited appeal, should have been relentlessly pushed by Howard only serves as a testament to how unrepresentative our 'representatives' in the political class have been.

Clearly, Howard has left a 'legacy' for all to see. Most likely, his decision to remain as leader was not prompted by history's memory of his deeds, but rather, was a cold political decision, based on raw numbers in Caucus, as well as in polls. Howard has won several elections (albeit, very narrowly, in 1998 and 2001), and there is no reason to believe that he will be replaced prior to the next election.

Whatever happens at the election, Howard will be gone in the near future. As we have seen, the Australia that he leaves behind is diminished in virtually every respect, other than in its preponderance of imported plasma televisions.

The Failed Doctrine

It is customary for leftist solutions to concrete problems to be dismissed as little more than the dew-eyed ramblings of cloistered academics. In particular, unions are dismissed as 'irrelevant', the by-product of a long-dead industrial reality, and socialism is dismissed as self-evidently absurd. Faith in the 'market' as an all-purpose 'solution' is one of the few dogmas that brings a whole range of anti-leftists together.



With this in mind, I was struck by two recent articles illustrating the costs of the supposedly 'free' market.



China is in the process of 'freeing' up its markets for the exploitative labour of migrant workers. We have seen recent reports of slave labour literally occurring at the hands of indifferent, budding capitalists. In addition, last week a strike-busting squad, armed with shovels and other weapons, lead a vicious attack on workers. The workers were protesting the fact that they had not been paid in four months.



One of the victims of the assault is currently brain-dead, but is being kept artificially alive, lest his assailants face murder charges:




Of course, the employers had their reasons for withholding workers' wages:

Mr Xiang says most of the six seriously injured were, like him, singled out
by the Fuyuan thugs because they were team leaders. His dead colleague, Mr Lei,
was a safety monitor for Qiutian Construction, the subcontractor that brought in
the workers.
Qiutian says it has been unable to pay workers because Fuyuan
has refused to compensate it for losses suffered last summer when the site
flooded. Qiutian says that legally the developer is responsible for losses
caused by acts of nature.

This is, apparently, 'capitalism with Chinese characteristics'. Such things were not uncommon in Western capitalist countries not so long ago. Today, union-busting in Australia takes place via legislation, and is held by the Government to be in everybody's best interests, other than self-serving 'union bosses'.

Courtesy of our American friends at Crooks and Liars, I noticed this article (also being featured at Larvatus Prodeo). In contrast to the allegedly destructive Bolivarian socialism of Venezuela, free-market utopia Colombia has made the news once again for its treatment of union members:

The bus had just left Drummond Co. Inc.'s coal mine carrying about 50
workers when gunmen halted it and forced two union leaders off. They shot one on
the spot, pumping four bullets into his head, and dragged the other one off to
be tortured and killed.
In a civil trial set to begin Monday before a
federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., union lawyers have presented affidavits from
two people who allege that Drummond ordered those killings, a charge the company
denies.
Multinationals operating in Colombia have admitted paying right-wing
militias known as paramilitaries to protect their operations. But human rights
activists claim the companies went further, using the fighters to violently keep
their labor costs down.

Colombia is being treated as a mere colony for US Corporations, as are some of its northern neighbours. Yet pointing out the fact that corporations do not always act in humanity's best interests is virtually anathema in the mainstream press, and likely to result in accusations of 'anti-Americanism', or, still better, 'socialism'.

The existence of Stalin and Mao appears to be enough for some to dismiss any leftist doctrine - critics simply cite a figure of those killed under the relevant dictators, and consider the matter finished. When will the same critics turn their attention to the failed doctrine of capitalism, starving millions for the profits of a few, and crushing the resistance of those who stand in the way?

It is not that capitalism is inherently 'evil', (even if moralising had anything to do with it). The raison d'etre of capitalism is simply to generate capital. The inevitable by-product of this generation is that more or less people will be exploited, starved, and, in the cases we see above, killed.

But at least our plasma screens are relatively cheap.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Distracted from class warfare, and instead waging the war against sleep, the Very Busy and Rather Tired Revolutionary has been occupied recently with gainful employment, scholarly pursuits, and attending to an ailing Ms Revolutionary.

In lieu of a substantive post, here are some snippets from the wonderful world of the Internet:

The Good

I was going to post on this delightful picture, taken from the latest Liberal Party love-in:

but Ms Fits beat me to it. Still, captions are welcome.

Omni Brain has an intriguing clip from You Tube, morphing the face of Woman from 500 years worth of paintings. Should be of interest to art fans, and also, possibly, to the psychologically inclined. Gaze and beauty and all that.

Still on the topic of women, a rather amusing study has been conducted, courtesy of the, err, soft sciences.

The Bad

The News Ltd media are still assuring us that, if Labor wins the next election, then the unions are coming to eat your babies.

Evolutionary science tells us that, between the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man came the rightard. Those rightards who have adapted to the 21st Century and mastered the use of opposable digits seem to think that arming 11-year olds will help reduce crime. God bless. I'm sure they'd feel the same way about armed and 'educated' children in Africa and the Middle East.

The Ugly

The Russians, or at least their authoritarian leaders, are making mischief once again, this time, in response to purported US mischief. This has been highly publicised in the Australian media of late, with a surprisingly measured and non-hysterical response, for now, at least. The same cannot necessarily be said of our Northern friends. The backdrop to this latest missile crisis is, in short, characterised by Russian tension with the former Eastern Bloc countries, flagging negotiations between Russia and the EU/Germany, and attempts by Britain to extradite and prosecute a suspected murderer. We shall see what happens.

In the US, pornographer Larry Flynt is offering $1 million to anyone who can provide substantiated evidence of a sex-scandal involving high-ranking politicians. Let's hope a similarly community-minded scheme is introduced here - the likes of Pru Goward can 'clear the air', and we might finally be able to rid ourselves of an unflushable turd of a PM.

Finally, even a stopped clock can be right twice a day. It seems that The Australian is finally having a moment of (accidental) substance in one of its op-eds/blogs. Gary Hughes has invited discussion on the topic of a number of serial killings from Perth a few years back. If you have the time, follow the links; the discussion is frankly, at times, disturbing. Everything from Freemason plots, psychics, and alien abduction have been mentioned in connection with these killings, and a number of amateur sleuths have popped up offering theories. Some of these characters seem to have take a rather unhealthy interest in the matter. Still, it makes me wonder if there are any similar vigilantes/detectives in the People's Republic of Melbourne who are trying to solve cold cases.