Class in Australia: further comments to my article

I have an article in The Conversation examining conservative responses to class in Australia. My inspiration was the rather clunky Anglo-Marxism of John Strachey and Harold Laski in the 1930s. They argued that as capitalism was in a phase of decline it could no longer afford the reforms that social democracy had offered – hence […]

Alfred Chandler and Amazon

What parallels can be drawn between contemporary transformations in the Internet and the corporate reconstruction of capitalism (to use Martin Sklar’s phrase) in the past? Says Xavier Rizos The internet took off there nearly 20 years ago with the wide dissemination of Netscape, the first web browser. Among the founding myths of this new economy […]

The (partial) unoriginality of Marx’s anticapitalism

Much commentary lately on the Pope’s critique of capitalism. Some even describe it as ‘Marxist’, this is silly, but so also are many of the evocations of the Marxist legacy on the left. Marx wasn’t the first or the last critic of capitalism. The originality of Marx’s work does not lie in his moral critique […]

Secular stagnation? Paul Sweezy in Australia

I have an article in Online Opinion on Labor’s post-election prospects although my comments applicable to the entire left including the Greens. One topic I touch is the implications of slower economic growth for politics. In recent weeks we have seen a revival of the ‘secular stagnation’ thesis that due to a shortage of investment […]

Capitalism and machine politics in Geelong

Celebrity photographer and nightclub owner Darren Lyons is en route for the a victory in the Geelong Mayoral by-election with about 30%, ahead of his nearest rival Stephanie Asher with 12%. It is a compulsory preferential ballot but with 16 candidates it would be extremely unlikely for Lyons to lose from here. The City of […]

American persistence and the future of social democracy

It has been a popular meme in recent years that American power is in decline. China’s rise is impressive, although some predict a Chinese crash. However a recent report by HSBC on the world economy in 2050 casts doubt on the assumption of American decline and sheds some light on the prospects of social democracy. […]

Has American liberalism a future?

An extract from my soon to be published Alfred Deakin Research Institute Working Paper on American liberalism: American liberalism has been shaped by both the crises and triumphs of capitalism. In the 1970s Democratic President Jimmy Carter like Grover Cleveland in the 1890s was unable to effectively respond to an economic crisis and thus encouraged […]