Saturday’s socialist speak out
Posted by John, April 21st, 2012 - under Saturday's socialist speak out.
Right wing columnist Andrew Bolt has called me one of ‘Breivik’s useful idiots’ for writing in an article in July last year on my blog that ‘There is little in the political concerns of right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik that would be out of place in Coalition Party meetings or the mainstream media and especially on the shock jock radio shows.’ It comes from an article I wrote last year which asked Is Anders Breivik just John Howard with a gun?
Opposition Treasurer Joe Hockey has signalled a Coalition crackdown on welfare currently going to the poor and working class. No mention of business welfare.
Julia Gillard has decided to cut and run from Afghanistan as the Taliban continues its war against the invaders.
The nationalist hype around ANZAC day grows ever louder as reports indicate that, surprise surprise, the Australian government and Defence leadership abandon returning soldiers.
Julia Gillard unveiled an aged care package which at first blush looks half way decent, with for example pay rises for workers in the sector but which also appears as if it is based on a user pays philosophy to some extent and so will suffer from all the restrictions on satisfying human need such an approach entails. I’ll give this more thought and hopefully write something on it later in the week.
I gave a talk on neoliberalism and Universities and one question that came up has got me thinking. If education is so important to helping train the next generation of educated workers and thus lay the groundwork for continuing profits, why is capitalism not spending more on education rather than dumbing it down? I hope too to come back to this later in the week.
In the US the Republican freak show is coming to an end with the slightly less freaky but trying hard Mitt Romney set to win the nomination. I was going to write that Romney makes Obama look good but the fact that the Republican nomination process couldn’t produce a half way decent candidate to challenge the President (although some polls show Romney neck and neck with Obama) might save this fake progressive.
In France Jean-Luc Mélenchon from the Left Front has set the Presidential campaign alight with promises to increase the minimum wage by 20%, tax all income over 360,000 euros at 100%, return the pension age to 60, withdraw from Afghanistan and NATO and nationalise some of the major companies (to name a few).
Once he got a bit of publicity and people understood his anti-capitalist stance he shot up in the polls from 6% to 15% support and recently held rallies of over 100,000 in Paris and Marseilles.
There is no Australian Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
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Comments
Comment from John
Time April 23, 2012 at 7:49 am
Thanks Heidi.I’ll get back on this if I can. I appreciate you taking the time to respond. my initial thoughts are the illogicality of capitalism – its short term versus long term needs clashing and short term winning out in times of declining relative social surplus. Some comrades are arguing that in fact the changed nature of work doesn’t require well educated workers in the main either.
Comment from Heidi Claus
Time April 22, 2012 at 10:36 pm
Hi John, I’ve been thinking about the education spending issue too, and I think the predominant factor is the general neo-liberal agenda of privatisation, making people pay for quality education. Those who can pay for higher education do better generally, their class position being the dominant factor in their success in the education system anyway. Those who can’t pay get a poorer and poorer deal, but for these poor and working class students, their outcomes are also largely determined by thei general socioeconomic position anyway. The regimented and limited education on offer from a system squeezed to breaking point is enough (for capitalist needs) in a contracting labor market, and if the people’s expectations are kept low, it helps ease potential social unrest as well.
I think we also need to consider technological development and its impact on the type of workers that are needed, and also the level of education needed to create demand for certain products, for example, Australian consumers, it is said, are technology hungry, but if you dumb down our education, you limit the demand potentially. And obviously lower paid workers consume less, but that’s not just due to low standards of education.
But overall, I think like all the measures being taken by the capitalists to deal with the crisis, it is sowing more long term problems into the system than it is solving. There sill likely be a need for more highly skilled worker in the future, and already Australian bosses can’t get enough in some sectors, and the cost of repairing education will be far greater than it would have been if improvements, or at least maintenance had been the policy. And like in Chile, governments underestimate students and their potential for radicalisation in the face of an education system that is a disgrace, like it is in Chile, like it almost is if not already in the U.S., and like it is fast becoming in Australia.