En Passant

The latest AFR Rich List charts Australia’s wealthiest and illustrates why we have one of the fastest growing inequality rates in the world, writes John Passant in Independent Australia.

The 2017 Rich List is out and no amount of “philanthropy” from those who pay little or no tax can disguise Australia’s disproportionate wealth divisions, I write in Independent Australia.  

In light of the real reasons for Latham’s sacking or departure, I suggest the Financial Review hire a female columnist from the left. I can think of no one better than black feminist socialist and unionist Celeste Liddle. She blogs at Rantings of an Aboriginal feminist. Have a read. If not her then there are literally thousands of left wing women who could do a millions time better job than Latham did, including many of my comrades in Solidarity. However they have higher standards than me so they might not accept writing for the bosses’ newspaperand giving it the occasional left wing cover.

The reform impasse arises because the essential social democratic desires of the working class, born of the necessity to sell our labour power to survive, conflicts with the needs of capital to extract even more surplus value from us in the form of profits and the like, a profit which we create but which the bosses purloin as our unpaid labour.

Given I write about real issues I’d make a better columnist for the Australian Financial Review than Mark Latham, although my socialist analysis would send many of your readers into apoplexy.

A letter of mine in today’s Australian Financial Review in defence of the CFMEU building union and safety on site. http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/safety_the_top_priority_for_unions_Yk2q2HAF0tkhZYO1J7nH7L

A good first start to independence and to building it on the ground would be for Fairfax workers to strike against the planned 1900 job cuts.

Most politics, ‘debate’ and commentary today is about discerning the difference between the shit sandwiches on offer. It doesn’t deal with the obvious. It’s still a shit sandwich, whether it is Gillard or Abbott selling it.

With news that the Financial Review has sacked Keynesian John Quiggin (whose columns I enjoy very much for their insights and facts), it seems clear their trickle to the right is in danger of becoming a flood. It is a pity my union, the MEAA, is not strong enough to defend John specifically and more generally to stop the tsunami of Murdochization now happening at the paper.

I laughed out loud when I read the editorial in the weekend Australian Financial Review claim that Wayne Swan is arguably the most left-wing Treasurer since Jim Cairns