En Passant

My latest academic article has just been published and is available through this link to download.

Tax and the Forgotten Classes: from the Magna Carta to the English Revolution

Abbott’s instability, his thought bubble approach to policy, his climate denialist base within the extreme right of the Liberal Party and the looming economic crisis in Australia all make for a possible tumultuous period of rule for the current leader of the Opposition and his by and large unremarkable front bench if they win, as they will, the next election.

The key will be class struggle. How much longer can Australian workers not fight?

Tom O’Lincoln has just republished his wonderful book Years of Rage: Social Conflict in the Fraser Era. This is a Monet of a book in which the daub of detail creates a canvas of class conflict, stretching from Kerr’s coup through the 7 years of the Fraser Governments to the election of the Hawke Labor Government in 1983.

After the Titanic sank there was a rush to provide additional lifeboats on transatlantic ships and legislation was rapidly brought in to make this compulsory. The notion was that you should have sufficient lifeboat capacity for the passengers you are carrying. I think only capitalism could have evaded this until such a late point.

What would I conclude? The flawed “ideal city” of the Titanic sank into the abyss. Unfortunately the model survived on land.

Nationalise QANTAS under workers’ control to win real wage increases and secure jobs. Tax the rich to pay for it.

The response of the rest of the Australian community to the Queensland floods has been magnificent. Our hearts and wallets have gone out to the people affected. More importantly members of the local community have helped each other, looked after each other, cared for each other. The community response to the Queensland floods and our sense […]

We as a nation would be better off spending our money on safety at work and safe passage for refugees to Australia than wasting it on the likes of Ken Talbot.

Even in death, class matters.

For the last 30 years the unions have capitulated to capital. From the Accord onwards, class collaboration and the idea that what is good for the boss is good for the employee has been the guiding unstated mantra of most of the union bureaucracy.

Rape is rape. Why should a rich filmmaker be treated any differently to a working class man?

What a sick world. There is enough produced to provide two kilograms of food to every person every day yet over a billion people live in chronic hunger and poverty.