Whatever ? Voter Alienation in Australia’s Neo Liberal Capitalist Reality and the Need for a New Democratic Socialist Economic Model

 

In this latest article, ALP activist and democratic socialist, Geoff Drechsler argues against austerity and for a revived democratic socialist approach to economic management. He argues for the Left to assert itself on the economy - including in the form of economy democracy and full employment.

by Geoff Drechsler

One of the less discussed trends in Australian politics is 'voter disengagement' - the declining rate of voter enrolments, prevalent amongst young voters, and the steady increase in informal voting, particularly in working class areas. At the last federal election, in 2010, in the federal seat of Blaxland, informal votes accounted for 14% of the total votes cast, up from 9% at the previous election in 2007. Before the recent WA state election, one in three 18-25 year olds was not enrolled to vote. Looking specifically at young voters not enrolling, a similar pattern can be observed in other developed democracies, which have predominantly voluntary voting systems. In each new generation in these countries, voter turnout has been steadily declining generally for the last five decades or so. But after decades of economic growth here, why are young Australians so lacklustre about enrolling to vote ??

Could this disconnect be the product of the reality that 20 plus years of economic growth has not led to an increase in economic security, particularly for this group ? The two main political parties have both embraced key neoliberal economic tenets in recent decades, and irrespective of economic growth or not, this still results in greater fluidity in the labour market and less equitable economic outcomes across the community. Also, the high cost of living in major Australian cities then in turn has a multiplier effect on those in this predicament, and delay the events that usually mark the path towards adulthood - starting a family, purchasing a home and getting full-time stable work. Given the dearth of choice politically on economic policy, and the lived reality, the point of voting is maybe somewhat less obvious or attractive ?

Prosperity without Security

* Since 2008, the number of teenagers in full-time jobs has fallen from just under 270,000 to about 200,000 in 2012. In 2012 a quarter of 18-19 year olds were not in full-time study or work.

* Rates of part-time employment have increased significantly. The 2012 edition of How Young People Are Faring indicates that the number of teenagers in part-time work and who were not in education increased from 8.7% in 1986 to 30% in 2012. The proportion has more than doubled for 20 to 24 year-olds from 8.3% to just over 19% during the same period. This reflects a long-term pattern of replacement of full-time employment with more part-time jobs within the teen and young adult labour markets

* ABS data indicates that in 2011, a third of the 814,700 part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours were aged 15 to 24 years. Around 28% of underemployed part-time workers in this age group had insufficient work for a year or more (what the OECD defines as "involuntary part-time work").

Ultimately, it all comes back to economic policy, and the embrace, by centre left parties of neo liberal economics is linked to events at the end of the 20th century. Internationally, there is now a tendency on the Left to focus on social issues and policy because in the 1980s, the failure of the Soviet centrally planned economic model, and the inability of the Scandinavian nation state social democratic economic systems to make the transition to participating effectively in a globalised international economic system undermined the two most widely accepted “left” economic models almost simultaneously. Subsequently, many centre left governments have simply grafted left-wing social policy onto a basically orthodox right wing economic program, seemingly in the hope the former will ameliorate the latter. The absence of a credible "left" economic model has also allowed the Right to dominate economic debate for the last 20 years too. Seizing the opportunity, in countries that have had long term right wing governments during this period, including Australia, these conservative governments have manipulated predictable less equitable economic outcomes (and the inevitable resulting fluidity in the labour market......), and the subsequent insecurity that is generated to undermine the institutions of the welfare state (how popular is Centrelink ?) and promote individual solutions - 'work for the dole', making public sector workers self-employed individual contractors etc etc. This is all enabled by a general loss of faith in collective solutions in the community.

More recently though, due to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, free market capitalism, and its derivatives, have lost popular credibility as a result of this economic collapse, and failed right wing policy remedies for this. A practical example of this is the UK Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition government austerity program that commenced in 2010. It has all been in pursuit of some ephemeral notion of a 'balanced budget', based on the outdated notion of "the Treasury view"— that fiscal policy has no effect on economic activity. Two years into this austerity program, the UK started 2012 with the biggest trade deficit since 1955, and the government’s adherence to classic neo liberal economic policies has put the UK economy into recession. Fortunately, finally, it appears even the IMF is now questioning austerity budgets. Olivier Blanchard, the IMF chief economist's paper on austerity, at the last American Economic Association's annual meeting, concluded that austerity program's adverse effects are stronger than believed. There is even a new book that claims austerity is seriously bad for our collective health, and that cutbacks have already had a devastating effect across Europe and North America. It points to soaring suicide rates, rising HIV infections and even a malaria outbreak, researchers arguing that in fact governments' austerity drives are costing lives in The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills.

In contrast, in the post-war period, the one thing that has characterised successful left wing governments of all orientations, whether Chavez's Venezuela or social democratic Sweden has been a successful economic model. These have all also placed a strong emphasis on employment. In Venezuela, between 2002 and 2012, the government has increased social spending by 60.6%, and extreme poverty was reduced from 40% (1996) to 7.3% (2010). Part of this program is the intense political participation that the Venezuelan democracy incorporates, that includes 30,000 communal councils, which determine local social needs and oversee their satisfaction and allows ordinary people to be protagonists of the changes they demand. But also, the Venezuelan economy has low debts, high petroleum reserves and high savings and the Venezuelan economy has grown 47.4% in ten years, that is, 4.3% per annum, and reduced unemployment from 11.3% to 7.7% in the same period. In modern Sweden's case, high rates of productivity, historically low rates of unemployment and high standard of living for all of its citizens in the post war period in one of the world's most highly developed post-industrial societies. Both of these examples show that a viable alternative economic model that has refocused the economy's outcomes more equitably, delivered growth, jobs and development and consequently, unsurprisingly, then led to longer term electoral success. Even at a workplace level, there are numerous examples of successful enterprise level exercises in industrial democracy that have been economically successful, from Ricardo Semler's Semco in Brazil, to the Mondragon Cooperatives in Spain. Ricardo Semler has also been a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School too, demonstrating the widespread applicability of his ideas.

Alternatives

A viable democratic socialist economic model would be characterised by a mixed economy characterised by a leading role for different forms of social ownership, a proactive role for government and democratic planning, alongside market forces and a viable private sector, introduced incrementally as a consequence of electoral endorsements. The key long term aim of this program is to democratise key economic decision making and incorporate the aspirations of the majority of the population in regards to this process. Undoubtedly, full time permanent full employment being an overt public policy goal (again) is probably one expression of this.This in turn will also lead to more equitable economic outcomes, through moving beyond the pursuit of the profit motive being the sole economic benchmark of success. At a workplace level, alienation would be reduced as workers gained more control by encouraging cooperative and collective workplace industrial democracy process. And a rejection of failed free market orthodoxy will lead to more equitable outcomes that reduce income disparity between the richest and poorest and reverse the trend of Australia being one of the most unequal developed societies.

All of these changes listed above could utilise technological improvements to allow greater distribution of information and participation in workplace decision making in post-industrial white collar workplaces too.

Geoff Drechsler is a Labor Party and trade union activist.

Generation next: where to for Australia’s young people?

http://theconversation.com/generation-next-where-to-for-australias-young-people-10604

Youth face snakes and ladders on the path to full-time employment

http://theconversation.com/youth-face-snakes-and-ladders-on-the-path-to-full-time-employment-10677

 

Paul Krugman “The Big Fail" - NY Times 6.1.2013

 

Austerity kills, economists warn

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/economics-blog/2013/apr/29/austerity-kills-health-europe-us

ADVERTISEMENT:


AUSTRALIAN SOCIALIST

Volume 20, issue 1 of Australian Socialist is now available.

 

* Accord Politics

* Right to Strike;

* 457 visas

* Left Unity

* Obituary (Pip Duncan)

* Theory of Value

* History of Palestine

* Power of bankers

* Hugo Chavez

* Irish Political Prisoners


To obtain a copy, please send a cheque for $4 made out to "Australian Socialist" (or postage stamps to a value of $4) to:


PO Box 437; Jamison Centre PO; Macquarie ACT 2614

and include a clear return postal address.



Labor‘s Socialist Objective in the 21st century - principles for economic democracy and equity ?

From the author, Geoff Drechsler:  The following is an open letter to Australian Fabian News. I posted it here in the hope it will generate some discussion on some of the issues raised in the book 'Looking for the Light on the Hill: Modern Labor‘s Challenges.' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

by Geoff Drechsler

 One of the 'more' curious aspects of the current debate around modernising Australian Labor is the recurring proposal to abandon the party’s socialist objective, and commit Labor wholeheartedly to a neo liberal economic model. Troy Bramston‘s Looking for the Light on the Hill: Modern Labor‘s Challenges takes up this theme also. This is 'curious' because we are presently witnessing the greatest failing of free market neo liberal economics since The Great Depression, largely stemming from a lack of regulation and governance. So, it is a strange time to be advancing a position supporting free market economics, particularly in a debate about the future of a social democratic party, when one looks at the concrete realities of the current situation.

In this debate, the reality is that the choices being presented are between the principles of economic democracy and of equity of the socialist objective or a neo liberal agenda of privatisation and deregulation that has progressive social policy grafted to it, with the aim that the latter will mitigate the effects of the former. Since the late ‘80s, there has been a shift to the right in terms of economic policy by social democratic governments internationally, and all these experiences have shown the reality that such programs have meant less equitable outcomes for Labor’s people, and led to declining electoral support.

Locally, this approach is exemplified by the recent activities of the current Queensland state government and the former NSW government. Both have driven supporters away electorally, and are unlikely to deliver equitable outcomes in the long term.

Many of the opponents of the socialist objective use warnings of some grim imagined Sovietesque economic basket case, that they claim would be the practical manifestation of any implementation of the socialist objective too. This is disingenuous.

As a social democratic party, participating in politics in an advanced industrial country like Australia, it would be much more instructive to look to the labour and social democratic parties of Europe and their experiences, in regards to economic policy and programs.

In this debate, one country’s experience is informative, Sweden, because the Swedish social democrats developed an alternative economic model that achieved economic growth and equity in the post-war period. And the Swedish social democrats understood that free market economics were incompatible with the interests of working people and social justice, so attempted to develop their own economic model, rather than rely on existing mainstream economics. Just like the first Labor activists in Australia who drafted the original socialist objective here. The Swedish social democrats goal of economic democracy centred around 2 themes-industrial democracy and collective capital formation, which it was envisaged would lead gradually to the transformation of private ownership of the means of production to social ownership.

The Swedish economic model is also interesting because nationalisation as a strategy was rejected early on, and Sweden has also never had a large public sector either.

Practically, this alternative economic model lifted Sweden out of the Great Depression earlier than other advanced economies and, in the post-war period, led to high rates of economic growth and lower rates of unemployment than comparable economies. The Swedish social democrats themselves experienced an unprecedented period of electoral success over the same period.

The end result is a country with a high standard of living, more equitable distribution of wealth and a modern dynamic developed economy. All in all, an economic program worth further examination in any debate around the socialist objective.

We need to see this debate in terms of the need for an economic model that meets both the party’s economic and social goals, and clearly free market economics has already discredited itself, as recent history shows. Sadly, one only needs to look to the US to see the shrinking middle class, the product of a sustained neo liberal economic agenda over the last few decades.

A quote from Keynes’s is probably an apt conclusion at this point-“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually slaves of some defunct economist.”

Sport: The Last Refuge of Community in Our Society ?

above: Indigenous Australian football players

Firstly: Happy New Year both to regular and new readers. :)  The following article - our first for 2011 - is an exploration by past-contributor Geoff Drechsler - of the decline of community in modern society (especially Australian society)  - and of the potential place of sport in rectifying this.

AND BEFORE YOU CONTINUE!!: If you enjoy this article PLS join our Facebook group - to link up with other readers, and to receive regular updates on new material.
see: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=58243419565

article by Geoff Drechsler

Revolutionary killjoy, Leon Trotsky believed that sport was an inappropriate diversion for the toiling masses from the erstwhile business of politics. Comrade Leon would be in a philosophical quandary if he ran his eye over 21st century Australian society. In our atomized society, we compete against our co-workers for the next step up the corporate ladder, then do a solitary Iphoned commute to get home. Under these circumstances - where we are more likely to live alone than ever before, organised sport may in fact be one of the last refuges of community in Australian society.

Now hold on - you’re thinking: 'what about the destructive front page rock star drug habits of professional football players?' What of the corporate machine that now ruthlessly markets sport ? And even the shameless genital exposure that seems a regular post match weekend event ? While all BBQ stoppers, they are far removed from the more 'middle of the road' Saturday afternoon reality for the suburbanites of the quarter acre block, where every weekend, people pull on a jersey, or guernsey, or goal attack bib together, whether slipping into full forward or goal defence. Think of another time when we work so tirelessly together, in unison, in an egalitarian way ? (And devote weeknights to it together so we get better at it as a team). Pretty much, we start participating as soon as we enter the school system too, whether we make the team or just have a kick around at play lunch, and the shared centrality of the clubrooms in our weekly ritual even offers a forum for community education.

In other aspects of our life, like the world of work, things have changed for most of us. Gone are the road crews and production lines that required us to work together as a team - with the need to get along over the long term in our “job for life”. "In" are the workstations where we work alone at our PC in a 9 to 5 world populated by individual performance assessments, individual work contracts - even eating lunch at our desk on our own…….

In parenting it is now rare to pass a crying infant around extended kin - who in the past all probably conveniently cohabitated under the same roof.  Instead we tough out the sleepless nights and greet the dawn on our own. To unwind, we retreat, alone, into the online world of the first-person shooter, PSP and online poker...  And yes - I know social networking is a form of interaction between people - but the intermediary is a soulless liquid crystal monitor.

While different sports certainly have an obvious social class bias (compare the down to earth 'Marngrook-ness' of AFL to the private school elitism of rugby union), all still encourage a togetherness that's quite alien to other aspects of our social life now.   (nb: 'Marngrook' was the name for the indigenous Australian game which many believe to have been the inspiration for Australian Rules Football)

Who would have thought that a whole lot of guys sitting around in the nude, drinking stubbies together on a Saturday afternoon, could be a social movement ?

The other aspect of sport that reinforces the togetherness is the phenomenon of mass spectating that occurs in Australia. The MCG is one of the largest sporting arenas in the world (Old Trafford, Manchester United’s home ground, the crème de la crème of English Premier League, the biggest league in the most popular sport on the planet, only holds 75,000). So this is the other dynamic of sport as community, spectating or “barracking”. (What other language has the equivalent expression to Australian English’s “footy mate” ?) You only have to spend any time in a country town to see organised sport also operates in this way, where sporting fixtures offer those members of the community who don't participate directly, an opportunity to come together nonetheless, watch and socialise. And our glorious weather encourages both.

So cast your mind back to last October, when you were throwing another banger on the barbie last at a Grand Final party, or more recently watching the seeming (seaming ?) demise of the Australian national test team with mates, and take a moment to ponder that that might be your community.

Geoff Drechsler is a veteran Australian labour movement activist

When the Labor Party Dreams – Class, Politics and Policy in NSW 1930-32,

above: The author of the book under review - Dr Geoff Robinson.   Dr Geoff Robinson is an Australian political scientist and historian.  He teaches at the Geelong campus of Deakin University and blogs on Australian and international politics

A review by Geoff Drechsler of a book by Geoff Robinson

Robinson, Geoff, ‘When the Labor Party Dreams - Class, Politics and Policy in NSW 1930-32’, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2009


It seems so unfamiliar for Australia. The means: strikes, rallies, angry public meetings. The end: imagined utopias of plenty. Fast forward to now: stage managed sound bites; free market feast followed by unemployment famine as capitalism lets the world down again and people start to ask why. The author, like many others in his generation of political activists, thought that Australian history was limited to the ho hum of federation, but this book shows that there was a time when the great philosophical clashes of the 20th century played themselves out in Australia: when Australia was a programmatic pacesetter for the international Left, rather than a reluctant follower. And that all of this unfolded within sight of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Geoff Robinson’s “When the Labor Party Dreams - Class, Politics and Policy in NSW 1930-32” by Australian Scholarly Publishing is an excellent account of the period of the last Lang government: a period of Australian history that has attracted many attempts at examination and consideration, be they in print or documentary or drama.

Geoff Robinson's book stands out primarily for two reasons. The first is that Geoff has a background as a Labor activist. He has been inside the belly of the beast, and he employs new historical methods to get down to look at the sympathies of different social groups. The result is a history of the every day: the experience of the masses rather. And he avoids being mesmerised by high politics. In the past, the larger than life Jack Lang has loomed large over other efforts to look at this period and overshadowed attempts look at the day to day.
Most significantly, this book addresses a key theme that still challenges left governments around the world today: and that is the contradiction of a government that wants to change capitalist relationships of production and accumulation, while operating within the capitalist system itself. On one hand capitalism and its failings drive a desire for change amongst the Left and its working class supporters. But on other hand capitalism and its successful operation are linked to material prosperity and employment. After all, redistributive taxation relies on production for its success. The Lang government is very important because it represents the most conscious effort by any government in Australian history, so far, to change prevailing social and economic
arrangements. This sets Lang apart from the contemporary incrementalists in modern Labor.

The acceptance by modern Labor of the market driven privatisation / deregulation "small government" model, which is universal across the Australian political spectrum now, makes contemporary Labor’s position on economics indistinct from the position of their conservative opponents. The key policy differences now lay in environment, social and IR policy. In the 1930s, economic policy was one of the key areas of policy difference between the two major parties, particularly in NSW. Lang, and NSW Labor more generally, were unconvinced that free market solutions would mean socially just outcomes for their constituents or create the kind of society they wished for. The Great Depression had also only emboldened advocates of socialist ideas in the party, who had been active since the 1920s. But we should remember not to see the world through rose tinted glasses though, Prime Minister Scullin, Lang's Federal Labor contemporary in the ‘30s, opted for very orthodox economic solutions himself in the face of the same crisis.

The other contrast between Lang’s government and contemporary Labor is that Lang had few qualms about favouring supporters, or would be supporters, while in power, as opposed to the softly softly consensus politics of contemporary Labor.

Many of the conservative detractors of government intervention in the economy have always painted the activist approach as some Sovietesque grand monopolistic endeavour that seizes whole sectors of the economy. It’s worth looking at the practice of other Labor governments in the early twentieth century, many before Lang, can still be see today in institutions such as Medibank Private, was a desire to achieve 'fairer' outcomes in the context of the operation of the market. This was usually in the form of a tripartite board or non-monopolistic government backed competitor. The interesting thing about this approach was that the stakeholders that NSW Labor played to were not always the most obvious: and sometimes it faced the dilemma of multiple sympathetic parties with competing interests too. For example, in agriculture, NSW Labor favoured the producers and the consumers and tried to squeeze ‘unproductive’ middle men.

When considering Lang historically, we need to remember to look beyond the volatile domestic political situation and the precedent of his sackingm by Governor Game, the first of two sackings of elected governments in Australian history. We need to remember the international historical context too. At this point the famous ground breaking Swedish and British centre left governments that led later to the rise of the post-war welfare state were only just struggling to consolidate their hold on power. Meanwhile the Soviet Union was still in its first decade, the horrors of collectivisation and other catastrophes not known to the wider world yet. The failure of orthodox economics had also led to the rise of Keynesian economics too during the same period. And after all, Australia did have the first elected left government in the world in the late 19th century - so Lang’s actions were followed all over the world. Though the Depression was heartbreaking for millions of working Australians, Australia had been the richest country in the world at the end of the nineteenth century, and still enjoyed relatively high living standards in the 1920s. Despite the affluence at this time, Australia was still a hotbed of union activity and left wing politics.

The other forgotten aspect of the history of Lang and his government is that it also represents the most successful 'minor' party in Australian history. While Lang and his supporters came very much from the labour mainstream, under the extreme challenges of the Depression, they chose to break with Federal Labor nationally and follow their own course.

Lang's failing, ultimately, came from two things: first his failure to build a broad enough coalition to maintain power. The organised working class was a significant player in 1930s Australia - but union membership, even amongst working class Australians still hovered around the 40% mark. Though in some sectors, like agriculture, it was almost non-existent. The largest economic players, and employers, were in the public sector but most workers worked in small factories in the private sector and identified their employer’s success with their own material well being. His inability to deal with the bugbear of unemployment, a key issue for his core constituents, also didn't help the longevity of his government. This highlights the challenges of a left wing government under capitalism again. While Lang ultimately failed, the fact that he and NSW Labor were courageous enough to try make their utopias a reality sets him apart from the stuff of modern Australian politics.

nb: If you enjoyed this article pls join our Facebook group - to link up with other readers, and to receive regular updates on new material.

see: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=58243419565

above:  Photo of the book under review

From the Past to the Future - Unearthing Labor’s Socialist Tradition.

nb:this article concerns the socialist tradition of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) dating back to the 1920s and 1930s; the issues should be of interest to a broad audience...

by Geoff Drechsler

Sometimes it seems as if Labor’s socialist past is the victim of the strangest of conspiracies – a curious intellectual alliance of the boosters for moderate politics within the Labor movement, who engage in mild historical revisionism to excise Labor’s radical past, as it sits uncomfortably with the incrementalism and compromise they prefer, and the last remaining revolutionaries, who are loathed to admit that the party they have spent their political lives deriding as a ‘sell out’ actually has a radical past.

This short article will outline one historical example of Labor’s socialist past. While there are numerous examples of this, ranging from the utopian socialism of many of the original founders of the Labor Party[1], the adoption of the ‘socialist objective’ during the ‘20s, to the implicit transformational nature of Chifley’s famous “light on the hill” speech to the inherent internationalism of Labor’s longstanding opposition to foreign wars, this article will consider the ‘socialisation units’ in the NSW branch in the ‘30s.

The example of the ‘socialisation units’ in NSW is important for a number of reasons. Most significantly, the ‘socialisation units’ were an anti-capitalist mass movement. They enjoyed widespread support within the party and in working class areas, and they had an outward looking propagandist strategy, educating and agitating for their program in the general community through a newspaper, public lectures, study circles and reading groups. (It was common for socialisation unit members to doorknock their suburb) Secondly, in the terms of the party and the NSW Labor government at the time, they were in the mainstream of party debate and activities. Later, their ‘socialism in our time’ position competed with party leader Lang’s more limited socialisation of credit position in party forums.

The socialisation units were active between 1929 and 1935, and began from an earlier move to establish a “Labor Propaganda Army” (LPA), supported by branch agitational units, at the 1928 NSW party conference.

Initially, in 1930, the backers of the LPA succeeded in having a ‘socialisation committee’ established by the NSW annual conference to propagate the principal platform of the party – the socialist objective.

The purpose of the new socialisation units was 'to carry the message of a saner, better and more efficient social system through socialisation to those hundreds of thousands of misguided victims of capitalism.' The people who proposed these new units had a five part strategy:
'1. By addressing public meetings either open air or indoor. 2. By distributing leaflets on Socialisation which the Committee hopes to publish. 3. By organising units or groups for the above purposes. 4. By donations to the printing or propaganda fund which the Committee hopes to establish. 5. By any other means…'

Local socialisation units were established in party branches and trade unions (success being found more often in the former rather than the later). They produced a newspaper from April 1931, Socialisation Call, which was a weekly insert in the Labor Daily initially. The newspaper had a readership in the 10s of ‘000s and the widespread public lectures could attract several hundred on a good night. They even had a segment on radio station 2KY. By the 1931 annual conference, there were 97 socialisation units operating[2], by the time they peaked there were 178 units amongst 250 Labor Party branches around NSW[3]. In some cases the socialisation units were bigger than the original branches that sponsored them. There were instances of people specifically joining the party to, so they could join the socialisation units, and thousands of workers participated in this new movement. The range of activities was broad enough that it included a socialisation orchestra and a socialisation drama group. Socialisation units also spontaneously manifested themselves outside of NSW but not in any organised way.

The membership of the Units was not simply a passive voting base for Labor, or fundraising machines. Volunteers, according to the Units, 'must be able to realise that their job is to be one of the worthiest in the party, one full of honour and responsibility, and that only active, convinced enthusiasts need apply'.

Nationally, during the same period, Scullin was elected with the largest Labor vote in Australian history in 1929, at the onset of the Great Depression, but was subsequently defeated at the following federal election, which ids still a first for an Australian Labor government. This was due to the unpopularity of his government’s economically orthodox deflationary strategy that sought to deal with the Great Depression by cutting government expenditure (and public sector wages and pensions). Lang’s advocacy of the alternative “Lang Plan”, which advocated repudiation of interest payments to overseas creditors until the Great Depression eased,[4] during the same period, ultimately lead to his expulsion from the party, and the establishment of two Labor parties in NSW. This did not diminish his popularity amongst Labor supporters, as he still addressed rallies of 100,000 in central Sydney. Later, after Lang was sacked in May 1932 by the governor general, Lang would address rallies of up to a quarter of a million.

The high point of the socialisation units was the 1931 Easter Conference, where they succeeded in getting the conference to adopt a motion calling on the state Labor government to fight the subsequent state election on a program of implementing socialism within three years (this even made The New York Times). The conference passed this resolution, but it was amended the following day when the conference reconvened after some intense lobbying. By this time, the socialisation units were characterised by two distinct schools of thoughts – the democratic socialism of the leadership group and the revolutionary socialism of some rank and file members. [5]

The socialisation units’ decline began in 1932 when Lang and his Inner Group considered they constituted a genuine threat to their pre-eminence within the NSW party, as the socialisation units turned their focus to the trade union movement and appeared on the cusp of holding sway over conference. Lang and his supporters began mobilising against the units, and they were ordered disbanded at the 1933 party conference (though the same conference also passed a motion supporting the socialisation of credit as an immediate policy aim of the ALP).

So what are the lessons from this for Labor activists in the 21st century ?

Many of those who currently advocate ‘mainstream’ positions exclusively within the labour movement are motivated by a misplaced belief that a Labor Party with a left wing agenda is unelectable and that a left wing agenda will never attract mass support. History does not bear this out. As Andrew West has pointed out (“Centrists Don’t Make Landslides”, New Matilda, 23 May, 2008), when Kevin Rudd was elected in 2007 on very much a minimalist program, he achieved a two-party preferred vote of 52.70%, with Labor’s primary vote at 43.38%. By comparison, Gough Whitlam in 1972, who sought to strike a contrast between himself and his conservative opponents in every way in policy terms, and was viewed as much more likely to shake up the status quo, also achieved the same two-party preferred vote of 52.70%, with a primary vote of 49.6%. The strangest long term legacy of the Whitlam reform agenda is the ‘Whitlamite voting cohort’ of 35 – 49 year old men, who are still so enamoured of Whitlam’s progressive social polices that it appears that they have influenced their voting preferences permanently, as these voters upset the normally observed voting pattern of the old favouring the Right, and the young favouring the Left in Australia, by continuing to vote progressively as they age.[6]All of this suggests there is room within the Australian political discourse to pursue more radical positions.

More recently, social commentators Hugh Mackay and David Chalke[7] have argued that their research leads to the conclusion that the voting public are wary (weary ?) of neo-liberal solutions. The most common manifestation of neo-liberal economic solutions, in Australia, is privatisation, which remains perennially unpopular with voters. The debacle around the planned privatisation of NSW’s state electricity assets, with rank and file party members and the community being unconvinced by then Premier Iemma’s privatisation plan, also suggests there is more political space on the left side of the Australian political debate that Labor could utilise. Queensland Premier Bligh’s current privatisation plan seems only to be fairing a little better.[8]

The example of the ‘socialisation units’ is one historical example of the potential for a mass movement that outwardly advocates positions that seek to tackle capitalism’s failings. Most importantly, it shows that these kinds of ideas are a central part of Labor’s history and have motivated previous generations of Labor activists. In order to achieve a fairer and more inclusive society, this should encourage us to be freethinking enough to see beyond policy solutions that are based exclusively in the mainstream. Mainstream ideas primarily seek to perpetuate the status quo, as Scullin discovered too late in the 1930s too.


NB – If you want to read more about this period of Labor history, you should seek out the following article “‘Bucking the machine’: Clarrie Martin and the NSW Socialisation Units 1929 – 35” by Nick Martin, and the definitive book is Lang and Socialism – A Study in the Great Depression, Robert Cooksey, Australian National University Press, 1971.

We are also building our own movement for a democratic economy - and those who are sympathetic are welcome to join another Facebook group of ours: "Movement for a Democratic Mixed Economy"...

see: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=152326549326

And readers are welcome to join our Left Focus group at Facebook - to discuss our material, and keep track of new posts...

see: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=58243419565

[1] One example of which was at Mallacoota, in the state’s far east in the late 19th century, by writer, socialist and poet, EJ Brady.


[2] Formed by branches or groups of branches. 70% were in the Sydney metropolitan area, 10% in the Newcastle area and 5% in country districts


[3] 20% of party branches outside of Sydney had a socialisation unit or participated in one.


[4] It also called for the abolition of the Gold Standard, to be replaced with a "Goods Standard" where the amount of money in circulation was linked to the amount of goods produced, and the immediate injection of 18 million pounds of new money into the economy in the form of Commonwealth Bank cedit.


[5] An example of the revolutionary tendency is manifest in the Payne Report (prepared by Tom Payne) in the wake of the 1931 conference declared - 'social revolution, which means… complete destruction of the capitalist state apparatus… a dictatorship of the working class' following a 'revolutionary conflict between the classes'. Despite its controversial radical remedies, it was still discussed and debated at branch and unit meetings across New South Wales.

[6] “Voters across the genders see Super-Kevin as leader” p4 Weekend Australian, September 5 – 6, 2009
[7] Hugh Mackay and David Chalke (“The nail in the coffin”, Herald Sun, August 9, 2007)
[8] Premier Bligh’s local ALP branch, South Brisbane, moved to expel her from the party in June.
“South Brisbane ALP branch votes to expel Anna Bligh from party”, The Courier Mail, June 05, 2009
“Unions launch campaign protesting state asset sell-off” ”, The Courier Mail, July 28, 2009