Do you know about - social Democracy - Not Dead Yet - A Response to Clive Hamilton
File Weekly Unemployment Claim! Again, for I know. Ready to share new things that are useful. You and your friends.Clive Hamilton's regular Essay, "What's Left? The Death of group Democracy" provides a searing critique of the Alp, and of the politics of "aspiration" and endless economic expansion that have come to dominate the political field of belief and governance.
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Hamilton argues forcefully that the "model of deprivation" which fuelled group democratic belief for much of the 20th century is now irrelevant, as a corollary of wide affluence and the marginalisation of poverty to a minority of about 20 per cent of the Australian population.
And yet while absolute poverty is no longer as common as it once was, our new-found wealth, Hamilton argues, has far from made us happy. Indeed, he suggests buyer culture creates a profound emergency of alienation where "shopping has come to be the dominant response to meaninglessness in contemporary life". Alienation, rather than injustice, is seen as the core group question confronting affluent societies, and it is from addressing alienation by curbing the excesses of the market from which Hamilton sees the "new politics" as deriving.
Hamilton develops ten theses and a series of policy proposals he sees as forming the possible core of a new movement. He criticises the conversion of "wants" into "needs", where "expectations always stay in improve of incomes" and condemns the process by which identity is reduced to patterns of consumption.
Further, Hamilton notes the pressure in today's buyer society to work longer hours "at the cost of ... Personal relationships", and argues instead for a "partial withdrawal" from the market. Possibly with this in mind, he notes the practice of "downshifting": the "voluntary reduction of incomes and consumption" adopted by those who have chosen to work part-time, in an effort to balance employment, family, and authentic personal development.
He proposes labour market re-regulation as part of the solution, along with kind maternity, paternity and carers' leave, and the curtailment of advertising to children. Security of the environment straight through standard taxation (presumably a carbon tax) and replacing Gdp with "genuine well-being" measures of improve are also part of this agenda.
Much of Hamilton's thesis is to be applauded. In today's political milieu it is rare for alienation to be regarded seriously, and Hamilton is exact to link alienation with hyper-consumerism and the "spell" cast by linking consumption with identity. Hamilton's emphasis on the sanctity of house is also refreshing, cutting the ground from underneath the neo-liberal conservatives who have taken this area as their own.
Interestingly, Hamilton does not go as far as to explicitly call for an valid reduction in the working week - say, to 35 hours as in France - which one would assume to be a natural prolongation of his argument.
Despite the strengths of Hamilton's discussion against market-driven alienation his critique of group democracy fails to catalogue for the relative success of social-democratic movements in Europe, where universal welfare states and mixed economies continue to thrive, despite growing affluence. While Hamilton labels group democracy as "redundant", group democratic aspirations along with group provision, subsidy of, or group consumption of health, instruction and aged care services, support a great degree of force. What is more, rather than a standing achievement that need only, as Hamilton argues, be "fine tuned", Australia's welfare state is enduringly endangered by the politics of group fostered by the conservatives.
While almost half of the country's people is now covered by incommunicable condition insurance, generously subsidised by the government, almost half is not. Despite an "affluent society" many Australians naturally cannot afford exorbitant incommunicable condition insurance premiums. Meanwhile, some who hold incommunicable condition insurance do so despite their inability to afford it, to avoid a group ideas that, as a consequence of waiting lists and a perceived "lack of care", has come to embody the kind of "private affluence" and "public squalor" that so concerned Galbraith.
The same might be said of group education, which faces real marginalisation. Nearly half of all Australian families with secondary school-aged children feel the need to send their children to incommunicable schools, avoiding the neglected group system. Clearly, defending and extending the welfare state is a core object of a still-relevant group democracy.
The author's critique of group democracy assumes the tradition is exhausted. However, the "second way", as Hamilton labels former group democracy, has far from outlived its usefulness. Equality of occasion in instruction can only be restored by increased funding to group schools and universities, aimed at lowering student-teacher ratios, addition subject choice and enhancing infrastructure.
Health care ought be based upon universal insurance with no area of care uncovered, (including dental services, ambulance services, home nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, podiatry, chiropractic care, hearing aids, glasses, sense lenses, prostheses and surgical expenses). Quality aged care ought be established as a right due to all Australians. The labour market ought be properly regulated, rather than deregulated in the hope "the market will clear".
Meanwhile, unemployment should be tackled straight through targeted manufactures assistance and labour market programs, expansion of group services and the harnessing of superannuation funds. Such demands form the core of a former group democratic schedule and, far from being irrelevant, could finally garner majority support.
Another area of concern is Hamilton's extraction of the belief of "class" and his disdain for the goal of group proprietary as an "indefensible anachronism". He argues forcefully that "As affluence increases, class ceases to be a beneficial category". This line of discussion is flawed for a estimate of reasons. To begin with, Australia remains a heavily stratified society. Agreeing to a narrative from the National Centre for group and Economic Modelling (Natsem), in 2002, the top 20 per cent of Australian households owned more than half the total household wealth. Meanwhile, "the poorest 20 per cent of households possessed almost nothing, while the lowest 40 per cent owned just 8 per cent of total household wealth".
By and large, many of today's real battlers are consigned to the outer suburbs where housing is cheap, rates are low and services, along with transport, are poor. Despite Hamilton's claim that only 20 per cent of Australians sense true poverty, there are still massive gaps in wealth and prosperity.
Furthermore, as Hamilton recognises, class refers to deep-seated structural concerns of power, not merely concerns of identity. "Structure" in this sense does not imply any lack of human agency. In Australia, the wealthiest 20 per cent of individuals "[own] almost 90 per cent of all shares": as clear an indication as any that class remains as relevant a kind now as ever.
Ownership of the means of production is still a "great divide" between the wealthy and most lowly Australians. This group has critical consequences for any process of economic democratisation. Despite Hamilton's claim that work no longer forms the core of most peoples' identity - this role, instead, having been taken by consumption - work is still at the core of most people's daily lives, and its democratisation ought to remain a compelling goal for all group democrats and democratic socialists.
Furthermore, as workers, most of us still face not only alienation but also relations of exploitation. It may not be fashionable these days to speak of "expropriation of surplus value" for fear of being labelled an "unreconstructed Marxist", but it can still be argued that most workers do not receive the full proceeds of their labour.
While there is no realistic "final" way out of this bind, improve could be made straight through a "co-operative incentive and support scheme" designed to encourage co-operative proprietary straight through finance, guidance and taxation incentives. Re-expanding the group sector would mark a reassertion of democratic operate over the economy, and the capture of any surplus for group ends. group proprietary remains defensible for these reasons, and others, along with the need to supply competition in oligopoly markets, to supply critical services on the basis of need, not profitability, and the need to supply first class infrastructure in areas of "natural group monopoly".
Furthermore, while Soviet-style, bureaucratic socialism is dead - relative flexibility of capital flows is preferable to a stifling "command economy" - the same need not be said for the scheme of a "democratic mixed economy" where the flow of capital is itself democratised straight through Meidner-style wage earner funds, and where co-operative enterprises proliferate throughout the economic system.
While there remains a need for the resurrection of a radical, former group democratic agenda, we might nonetheless ask: is there any point expecting such a process to occur via Labor? As Hamilton justifiably argues "The fading of a substantive distinction between the conservative and group democratic parties means that both are more likely to attract careerists and opportunists".
Reform of the Alp will not be easy, but a good start would be compulsory disclosure of factional membership in elections for conference, direct selection of National discussion candidates, the provision of policy speeches by all discussion candidates, and all discussion decisions to be taken as being binding.
In this way, lowly party members would gain leverage over decision-making processes, occasion the way for a movement for group democratic renovation from below. The Alp needs to come to be a party governed from the "bottom up" not from the "top down", shifting power from the careerists to the rank and file. By empowering the Alp rank and file, what is more, there also lies the hope of mobilising them into the broader struggle led by alliances such as the "Now We the People" movement. Construction a bloc of military strong enough to regain real change remains the most urgent task confronting the broad left today.
Traditional group democracy is neither dead nor irrelevant, but in the wake of the "Third Way" and its impact on Labor thinking, has well found itself relegated to an unfashionable margin.
In the process of its revival, however, the group democratic movement could do worse than to heed the guidance of Hamilton, enchanting to support a new politics that looks beyond consumption to supply the scope for developing real meaning in people's lives. While economic increase need not be abandoned thoroughly as a core goal, and continued productivity gains will sound competitiveness, this should always be weighed against the group costs.
A good place to start would be by adopting a 35-hour week and extending compulsory annual leave. Rather than internalising the belief that there is no alternative to neo-liberalism and insipid Third Way politics, group democrats and democratic socialists need, now, to return to their radical roots. Only thus can they avoid the productive "liquidation" Hamilton suggests in "What's Left? The Death of group Democracy".
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