Socialist Party Australia
 
Home Whats on Political theory Marxist theory FAQ Reviews Links


What message should be coming from ACTU re Howard's attacks?

Vote Labor in next election
Get Churches+politicians onside for media campaign
Organise a massive industrial response



Results
Polls

Votes 72



CWI website

Marxist.net, CWI marxist archive


Click here to download our paper in pdf format



What's behind Mark Latham's policies?
Posted on Sunday, February 08 @ 05:33:52 CST by spno

Australian politics Editorial statement from SP paper, The Socialist, February-March 2004

Mark Latham’s dream run in the media since being elected leader of the ALP has generated a sense of hope amongst workers. Many now believe that ALP has a chance of beating the Coalition and even that the ALP itself might show a change for the better.

But what’s behind Latham’s policies that the bosses’ media are promoting so favourably, what are his policies, and whose interest do they serve?

First some background: Labor hasn’t been in power since 1996 when workers revolted against the Keating Government and the party got its lowest ever primary vote. The 13-year Labor government of Hawke and then Keating had carried out a programme of privatisation, spending cuts and opening up the economy to global capital. The 1996 election result was a revolt of workers and middle class against these policies which were the same policies undertaken by Labor/Social Democratic and Tory governments throughout the world.

Historic compromise over
In the post-war boom from 1945-75, the ruling class was prepared for the State to take a share of the surplus value created by workers (via taxation) and use that to finance a social security safety net. The welfare state was posed as an alternative to socialism. The end of the post war boom saw capitalists face falls in their rate of profit. The growing global mobility of capital undermined the ability of Labor governments to tax it to finance a welfare state. The use of Keynesian economic policy and the presence of a welfare state was not longer tenable. All governments competed in a bidding war of low taxes, ever new privatisation opportunities etc to attract the footloose global capital necessary for investment. Neo-liberalism (economic rationalism) became the new ideology of all capitalist governments - both Labor/Socialist and Tory.

The Howard government took the policies of Labor to new heights with a GST, the Workplace Relations Act, and deep spending cuts—coated in 1950s social values. However its counter-reform agenda has now stalled partly by his inability to score decisive victories over the trade unions and partly because of voters maintaining a check on him via the Senate. In opposition, the ALP under Beazley and Crean—for opportunist reasons—was forced to partially reflect the concerns of the working class over cuts to Medicare; access to university; and spending cuts. Only the Tampa incident and the scape-goating of refugees by Howard won him the 2001 Federal election.

Latham’s return to the Past
On the extreme right in the ALP, Mark Latham argued for new policies in a series of articles in the capitalist press under headlines such as “The poor need capitalism” and “It’s time for Labor to jettison the Left” and most clearly in his 1998 book Civilising Global Capital (CGC). “Internationally, left-of-centre parties are...grappling to frame an adequate response to the economic leverage of footloose capital. The development of a policy bridge between globalised economic events and localised electoral issues remains unformed. Yet without the resolution of these tensions it is difficult to perceive how social democracy can ensure the basis of a socially just system of economic distribution.”

He argued that the only way Labor governments could reform global capital was through the enhancement of the skills of the workforce (labour being immobile according to Latham). This would attract global capital and give a government some leverage over it. However labour based on information technology is the most mobile of all labour. Even when a worker with these skills is based in one country, their labour can be utilised in other parts of the world. For example, a computer programmer in Sydney can work on projects in New York or London, as can a designer or even (in a few years) a surgeon.

In reality Latham’s puny vision of how the labour movement should ‘civilise’ capital is a cover for his renewed attacks on the very existence of the social security welfare net of the post-war period - and not just extra cuts. His policies represent the interests of a ruling class who can no longer afford to be taxed to finance the welfare state and, especially after the collapse of Stalinism, do not (for now) have to put on their best image in the face of a militant workers’ movement.

Latham’s extreme policies
His policy prescriptions include expanding a HECS-style payment from education to social security (pg 227 CGC). He argues for case management contracts for parents: “Sanctions should be applied to those transfer payement recipients unwilling to accept their proper responsibilities as home educators.” For over 100 years the workers’ movement have won the right for free education as a social right - now Latham wants to return to the 19th century ideas of “self improvement”. Families struggling with unemployment or underemployment and low Centre Link payments would be hit again by a Latham government if they weren’t good enough “home educators”.

He also has argued for the unemployed to receive shares instead of money. One economist showed that if just 2 million people were given $10,000 each to buy shares this would only provide an average income of about $8 a week. This would be at a cost to the taxpayer of $20 billion.

Latham hides his reactionary ideas behind crude verbal attacks on Bush and Howard (although he has tamed himself somewhat since his election as ALP leader) plus mystification using terms such as “managing public commons”, “reciprocal social responsibility”, and “the need to build a post-Fordist welfare state”.

Latham’s victory represents a new turn by the Labor Party towards the 19th century pre-labour movement ideas of individualism and charity. Workers need to see beyond the image and to the content of his ideas. It marks a surrender of old fashioned ALP social justice reformism that for decades posed as an alternative to socialism.

The Socialist Party will build a socialist alternative to the right-wing ideas of Latham. We call for workers to vote Socialist and then Green in the Federal election, and only then put Labor ahead of the Coalition. The long term goal however is the creation of a new workers’ party to put class issues and socialism back on the mainstream political agenda.

 



Web site engine's code is Copyright © 2003 by PHP-Nuke. All Rights Reserved. PHP-Nuke is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL license.
Page Generation: 0.046 Seconds