An Australian Response to Tony Blair: ‘Convergence Politics is not the Answer’

above:  Tony Blair urges Bill Shorten to 'return to the centre'

By Tristan Ewins

The ‘Weekend Australian’ (8/10/16) quotes former Labour British PM, Tony Blair as urging Bill Shorten to tack “back to the centre”. Typically, Blair holds that the occupation of ‘the centre ground’ is crucial to building a significant-enough constituency to carry an electoral majority. And that regardless of this ‘it is the right thing to do’. Furthermore, Blair contends that Australian Labor must not only “talk to its core constituency”. (ie: we might reasonably assume he means ‘the traditional working class’).

Blair also warns of the danger of unions becoming a small ‘c’ conservative force: mainly fixated on the public sector, and unable of grappling with the nature of today’s private sector – where unions have long been in decline.

Finally, Blair makes the usual assertion that parties of the ‘centre-left’ must be about ‘growing the [economic] pie’ – with the implication that ‘dividing the cake more fairly’ runs contrary to this.

British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is dismissed as ‘ultra-left’, with Blair raising his head as the champion of the globalist, cosmopolitan ‘third way’ ‘social democracy’ popularised by Giddens and others. Importantly: ‘globalisation’ is not some single, homogenous phenomena. There are desirable aspects of ‘globalisation’ as well. Though specifically, here, we are concerned with its neo-liberal guise; including how that applies to world investment and trade.

To briefly engage with some of Blair’s contentions before moving on:



There is truth in the observation that organised labour must ‘return to the private sector’. Indeed a strong foothold in the public sector could provide a base from which solidarity could be extended to less-secure private sector workers in the midst of industrial upheavals. Furthermore, Labor’s legacy of labour market deregulation must be reconsidered ‘at the lower end’ – with the aim of ending the exploitation of various workers in areas as diverse as child care, aged care, cleaning, retail, hospitality and so on.

Labor’s ‘natural constituency’ – the broader working class – is still very much in the majority (if one focuses on the social relation of wage labour, as opposed to peoples’ ‘self-identity’). Labor’s difficulty is not the dissolution of the working class: but the development within it of various conflicts and contradictions. Including conflicts of ‘consciousness’ and ‘identity’.

For example: there are residual delusions on the part of some white collar workers that they comprise ‘the middle class’ ; which are reinforced by social democratic reluctance to actually speak of ‘the working class’ – and elucidate what that really means today. Also: there is the supposition that ‘Labor’s base’ can be taken for granted – and that it’s ‘the swinging middle’ that really counts.

Class loyalties do not necessarily shift straight away – but over generations. Surely the United States shows the consequences where the US Democrats have long spoke only of ‘the middle class’, and could not bring themselves to prioritise discussion of ‘the working class’. They did not deliver workers from the ravages of deindustrialisation and ‘the neo-liberal version of globalisation’. And demagogues such as Trump have filled the vacuum. Trump does not represent workers’ interests; and this could be made apparent if only the Democrats would rise to the occasion. Similarly, Labor must overcome and heal the internal divisions within the Australian working class to promote a social democracy which appeals to the interests of the majority of voters.

Also admittedly: Unions are not ‘essentially progressive’ even if their class location positions them to effectively promote the interests of the majority of the labouring masses (as against a minority bourgeoisie). German unions, for instance, were central to mobilising the war-effort in Germany in 1914 ; and beforehand had turned against more radical elements who had traditionally led the Social Democrats, and who would come to oppose that conflict. That war decimated German social democracy, and also the German working class.

Revisionist socialist scholar and parliamentarian Eduard Bernstein also warned that specific unions had the potential to become ‘corporate interests’ who furthered their own dominance of particular markets and industries without prioritising the position of the broader working class and labour movement, and others amongst the disenfranchised and oppressed.

In Australia, meanwhile, (with a much different phenomenon) some right-wing unions have promoted agendas of privatisation and economic neo-liberalism; and some (such as the right-wing ‘Shop, Distributive and Allied’ union – or ‘SDA’) have at times abandoned their own members’ interests in order to secure industry coverage (and hence political power within the Labor Party) due to collusion with employers. Sometimes unions are seen as vehicles for political power and political careers, as opposed to being primarily vehicles for workers’ interests, and social democracy.

That said: these instances should not be taken as ‘typical’ of the Australian labour movement. Despite legitimate misgivings about The Accord years and their aftermath, for example, Australian unions waged a vigorous campaign against the Howard Government’s regressive ‘Workchoices’ industrial legislation. They are still capable of representing and mobilising their members, and of waging successful campaigns.

With regard the old shibboleth that neo-liberal economic policies are required to ‘grow the pie’: something ‘traditional social democracy (supposedly) is not positioned to do’ , we might make another series of observations. The Nordics have demonstrated that it is possible to build a robust public sector and welfare state; with saturation levels of unionisation ; and a culture of solidarity. In the ‘golden age’ of the Swedish ‘Rehn-Meidner’ economic model, this combined effective full employment with low inflation, and the extension of welfare and social services. If not for a series of tactical errors, economic democracy might also have been entrenched through the ‘Meidner wage earner funds’ initiative during the 1970s and 1980s.

In fact, today it is ‘the systemic imperatives of capitalism’ and capitalist Ideology that stand in the way of fulfilling the personal and social needs of humanity. Amidst greater abundance than has been known ever before in human history, we are informed repeatedly that we must ‘tighten our belts’. Welfare and social services are progressively cut. Education is for ‘industry needs’ and not ‘the development of human potential’. And of course ‘the user must pay’ (though this is taken to mean students; and not the corporations who benefit from the various skills and aptitudes which are developed). Improved life expectancy is seen as a ‘curse’ rather than a ‘blessing’. So the retirement age is pushed upwards incrementally. The elderly are made to feel they are ‘a burden’ , and working class people are expected to exhaust their assets and savings to pay for ‘aged care’ which denies them dignity, comfort or happiness.

Alongside an increased age of retirement, the intensity of labour increases. Capitalism demands growth into new markets to preserve its own stability; but with ‘globalisation’ (just for now interpreted as the expansion of international trade; though it has other interpretations) reaching its limits, markets for consumption depend on increasing the sheer volume of labour (and hence purchasing power). Though casualisation shows it does not always work out that way (‘capital mobility’ is another aspect of globalisation; as is the rise of a ‘global culture’ that emerges via improvements in communications technology; Marx himself had observed the emergence of a ‘world literature’ as early as the 19th Century).

Where technology does not improve productivity, instead productivity is tied to that intensity of labour. In Australia today improvement of wages and conditions are largely ruled out without such productivity improvements. Hence for a great many wages and conditions stagnate or are rolled back. Organised labour is vilified. The working poor are even played off against the vulnerable welfare-dependent with ‘the politics of downward envy’. In response the Left must promote a politics of respect and solidarity.

A move back towards a social democratic mixed economy could stabilise national economies and the world economy over the short to medium term as a consequence of superior cost structures. But this is eschewed for reasons of Ideology, power, and private greed. Instead trade agreements are deployed to break down any ‘barriers’ preventing the fullest possible exploitation of potential markets by multinational corporations. ‘Natural public monopolies’ could stand to be criminalised (ie: sovereign governments could be sued); as well perhaps as ‘market distorting’ initiatives which may promote economic democracy (for example, any scheme providing assistance to co-operative enterprise of various sorts). Amidst all this ; and even after the cataclysm of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis – Tony Blair and ‘The Australian’ are still trying to sell us ‘neo-liberalism with a human face’.

From the outset it is also worth observing that historical traditions other than ‘modern third way social democracy’ have also claimed the ‘centrist ground’ (for instance Catholic ‘social Centrism’ in Germany, and the Swedish ‘Centre Party’). Defining ‘the centre’ is fraught with possible confusion. As opposed to a linear ‘left-right spectrum’ a ‘political compass’ accommodates both economic egalitarianism AND personal and collective liberties. But Blair is employing a more ‘traditional’ left-right spectrum.

Hence Blair’s ‘centrism’ is confusing: sometimes comprising a mish-mash of liberal and authoritarian positions. Hawkish foreign policy; rejection of class struggle; embrace of economic and cultural globalisation; according to some interpretations implementation of ‘punitive welfare’ and labour conscription; and effective rejection of a traditional mixed economy in favour of privatisation and what we have come to know as ‘neo-liberalism’.

Also importantly: ‘the Centre’ is always RELATIVE. A political party which makes a habit of ‘passively occupying’ ‘the middle ground’ rather than striving to RE-DEFINE and shift it resigns itself to a passive or even reactive response to social issues and conflicts.

Under Hawke and Keating – who Blair praises profusely – Australia moved decisively to the Right on many fronts– embracing small government, privatisation, deregulation, dilution of progressive taxation, rejection of class struggle; widespread deindustrialisation ; and so on. Whereas Blair followed Hawke and Keating, Australian Labor in turn followed Blair. The consequence was a ‘rightward-spiral’ which was the undoing of social democracy and labourism as we had known them.

In a further article in ‘The Australian’ by Troy Bramston (8/10), poet, W.B.Yeats’s ‘The Second Coming’ is taken very much out-of-context. The title proclaims “Things Fall Apart – The Centre Can’t Hold’. Bramston is very much with Blair, fearing the decline of the ‘centre-left’ as a consequence of a more unambiguous left-turn by Corbyn. Corbyn (and perhaps by implication, Shorten) are portrayed as wanting ‘a return to the past’ rather than ‘progressing forward’. Ironically this implies the in-some- ways similar notion of a ‘progressive teleology’ as proposed by Hegel and Marx; and more recently by Fukuyama. ‘Neo-liberalism’ is upheld as ‘the progressive and objective direction of history’: in a way which denies historic choice; and the meaningful contestation of history by social actors.

The problem with Blair is that his position is very much one of ‘convergence politics’. ‘Convergence on the centre’ actually dissolves genuine ‘centre-left’ politics as we once knew them. Whereas democratic socialists once claimed ‘the centre left ground’ – roughly halfway between liberal centrism and the unambiguously revolutionary Left traditions; today ‘convergence on the centre’ is the undoing of meaningful democracy. It is the undoing of meaningful choice.

As French social theorist Chantal Mouffe has insisted ‘convergence politics’ ‘empties out’ democracy by denying real choice and democratically-mediated conflict as a consequence of ‘a rush to the Centre’. It is worth briefly considering her position – and that of critical theorist, Jurgen Habermas – to critique the ‘Blair-ite Third Way’ from different perspectives.

Whereas Habermas supposed a ‘deliberative democracy’, with the pursuit of a ‘perfect speech situation’ – or ‘communicative rationality’, Mouffe does not believe rational exchange and engagement can resolve all differences and conflicts. Still strongly-influenced by Marx, though, Habermas continues to suppose a ‘historical telos’; which will be realised through ‘communicative action’ (ie: rational engagement, argument and deliberation by social actors). Importantly, as opposed to Blair, Giddens, etc, Habermas was optimistic enough to suppose that this process would ultimately lead to socialism (realised via communicative rationality and not only through ‘traditional’ class struggle; hence some divergence from Marx’s original position).

Both Habermas and Mouffe are radical Leftist democrats, however; and BOTH Habermas’s ‘communicative action’ and Mouffe’s ‘Agonism’ reject ‘centrist convergence’. What is notable with Mouffe’s position is essentially that history is not assumed as ‘having a fixed direction’ (or ‘telos’). And as opposed to traditional Marxism, neither are particular social actors (such as the working class) assumed to have any ‘essential and fixed historic mission’. For Mouffe history is contested by social actors who articulate ‘counter-hegemonic strategies’. History is not pre-determined but rests on our CHOICES. Though Mouffe does accept that despite this capitalism has systemic imperatives and ‘logics’ that no isolated individual can challenge.

Here ‘meaningful choice’ – central to democracy – must mean a robust pluralism. But as opposed to older notions of class struggle, Mouffe’s ‘post-Marxism’ insists that:

“within the ‘we’ that constitutes the political community, the opponent is not considered an enemy to be destroyed but an adversary whose existence is legitimate.”

And most preferably these assumptions must cut both ways! (though it will not always be the case) Importantly, Marx argued for the dissolution of the bourgeoisie as a class; that is the dissolution of particular social relations – as opposed to the wholesale murder of human beings as occurred under Stalinism. But Mouffe insists an ongoing and legitimate place for pluralism, and hence appears to reject Marx’s notion of communism as ‘an end destination’ (or to put it in Marx’s own words, ‘the end of pre-history’).

So Mouffe assumes mediated conflict as being central to meaningful democracy. And the silencing of dissident voices by ‘third way, cosmopolitan, neo-liberal globalism’ could perhaps even lead to a technocracy – governance by ‘experts’ – and rejection of the proper place of democratic conflict.

Effectively siding with Blair, ‘The Australian’ has predictably embraced ‘neo-liberal globalism’.

Shorten has ‘been taken to task’ for a very modest step back towards traditional social democracy and labourism. Under Shorten there has been talk of enforcing corporate taxation and effectively tackling ‘corporate welfare’. There is talk of holding the banks accountable. ‘Small government’ is no longer explicitly endorsed (though neither is ‘big government’). “Trickle-down” is rejected.  In the ranks of Labor there is some talk of tackling obscene superannuation concessions which feather the nests of the unambiguously wealthy (to the tune of tens of billions annually) at the same time as vulnerable pensioners are vilified by the Conservatives for the sake of ‘budget repair’. But Shorten still insists on ‘budget repair that is fair’.

None of this is particularly radical! But as the Anglosphere and parts of Europe continue to turn Left in the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis the voices of Conservatism and neo-liberalism have become more shrill. Modest reversions to ‘traditional social democracy’ are ‘fought tooth and nail’ as they ‘set a bad example’ which may provide a ‘turning point’ away from neo-liberalism, and the prioritisation of corporate interests in economics and trade policy. Bernie Sanders has seen the rise of a distinctly Left politics ‘into the US mainstream’. Accused of ‘ultra-Leftism’, in fact British Labour Opposition Leader, Jeremy Corbyn is also reverting to more-traditional Labour perspectives on the mixed economy, rights of labour; affordable education; and support for progressive tax; with a commitment to the NHS (National Health Service); as well as a rejection of ‘Hawkish’ foreign policy. This ought not be seen as ‘going backwards’ – because (contra-Marx) there is no objective definition of what ‘progressing forward’ actually means anyway.

With his warnings of ‘impending doom’ for British Labour – as well as the need for a ‘policy correction’ by Shorten in Australia, Blair does not seem to perceive the shift Leftwards in parts of Europe, and even the ‘Anglosphere’ itself. Ironically it is Blair who is ‘looking backwards’: to the 1990s – when ‘the historical moment was his’. Similarly ‘The Australian’ looks back to the ‘reform era’ where Hawke and Keating to a significant degree liquidated much of what had before-hand passed as labourism, social democracy and democratic socialism in this country. That’s not to say ‘Third Way’ theorists cannot strategise such as to set the agenda once more. But such success in the past is no guarantee of success today or in the future.

So history does not stand still. Over a quarter of a century after the fall of the Soviet Union neo-liberal triumphalism is beginning to wear thin. The Stalinist nightmare is fading from living memory; and the Democratic Left is finally re-emerging from behind its long shadow. Bernie Sanders has brought the American democratic socialist Left ‘into the mainstream’. McCarthy-ist hysteria is largely in the past. And despite defeats, parties like Syriza and Podemos have heralded the return of the Democratic Left after years utterly eclipsed by a ‘Third Way consensus’ in European social democracy.

Again: Amidst all this Shorten’s tentative shift to the Left is very modest. And hand-wringing by Blair and ‘The Australian’ that Shorten Labor must ‘return to the Centre’ clearly demonstrates how narrow a political milieu certain interests, as well as ‘the media establishment’ would have us choose from. ‘Convergence on the Centre’ denies politics; denies pluralist, democratically mediated conflict; and denies real democratic choice.

Nonetheless; Mouffe’s ‘Agonism’ suggests the possibility of a new pluralist democracy – where the democratic Left and the democratic Right accept each others’ ‘right to exist’ – and indeed their ‘legitimacy’ in the sense that voters and citizens must always be posed with real choices in order for democracy to flourish. And that certain liberties are necessary to overcome alienation; and socialists perhaps should even think of their adversaries here.

Perhaps therefore the Left could accept a place for Conservatism in a pluralist democracy; and on the basis of an inclusive public sphere; a more ‘level playing field of ideas’. But in Australia the monopoly mass media is dominated by figures such as Murdoch and Rinehart. The monopolists think they are in control and beyond effective challenge. Hence they do not discern any compelling pressures to accept a more inclusive public sphere; or say ‘active-critical’ civics and citizenship education curricula which also promote ideological and political literacy, and hence informed and participatory citizenship. Some would argue when the opportunity comes the advantage must be pressed. And so long as the Conservatives are not willing to accept the democratic and authentically pluralist principles promoted by the likes of Chantal Mouffe – then perhaps they have a point.

Also ‘social rights are human rights’. No less essential than civil liberties. And ideally should be constitutionally enshrined. Even though these matters should nonetheless be deliberated upon freely. There is the challenge of balancing the aim of ‘pluralism’ and hence ‘openness to change’, while striving for a ‘baseline consensus’ of liberal and social rights which is acceptable to the various social actors. Habermas believed this (and ultimately socialism itself) could be achieved via ‘communicative action’.

In many parts of the world ‘the tide is beginning to turn’. PERHAPS once again the future belongs to radical social democracy.

Revolutionary Reformism

nb: immediately below this contribution of Lev's is another essay by Wes Bishop. Wes considers the question of reform or revolution from a liberal perspective. It's well worth the read.

Introduction to the problem

The debate of revolutionary or reformist approaches to social change have been argued through the ages and has become most pertinent since the bourgeoise revolutions and in particular with the development of democratic reforms during the latter half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. The debate certainly gained prominence with the the unification of the revolutionary Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany, led by Bebel and Liebknecht, and the reformist General German Workers' Association originally established by Lassalle. One of Marx's greatest works, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), in which he firmly established his 'third phase' (libertarian socialist) thinking, is a response to that unification. In the turn of the twentieth century the debate continued on one side of Eduard Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism (1899) and Rosa Luxembourg's critique, the equally bluntly titled Reform or Revolution (1900).



To give a very simple summary, the revolutionary perspective argued that socialism can only be won through the forced overthrow of the ruling class, whereas the reformist perspective argues that socialism can develop over time with the gradual institutionalisation of more democratic rights. Related topics include political disposition of varying degrees of conservatism versus radicalism; debates over the psychological effects of State institutions, from insidiously corrupting to subtly influential; of political realism between principles and pragmatism; of class relations, conflict and the capacity of different classes to implement social change; in political organisation, between vanguard elites versus mass parties, and, on the highest level, the debate over the foundations of society itself whether natural, technological, institutional, relations, or ideas.

Of course, there is no suggestion that the following is anything but a brief sketch to the problem, a somewhat frustrated expression of personal experiences in both reformist and revolutionary politics, a discussion of the purpose of a revolutionary approach, and a conclusion that hopes to transcend some of the common problems through 'revolutionary reformism'. The notion of transcending, or overcoming, or even better still to use Hegel's phrase from the dialectical method Aufhebung is quite deliberate, in contrast to the erroneous assertion of a 'synthesis' through partial adaption of the thesis and antithesis. As much as Trotsky argued against "No common platform with the Social Democracy, or with the leaders of the German trade unions, no common publications, banners, placards!" from a revolutionary perspective he was also prepared to argue in favour of co-ordinated action "March separately, but strike together! Agree only how to strike, whom to strike, and when to strike!" ("For a Workers' United Front Against Fascism", 1931).

In decades of political involvement I am yet to see Trotsky's dictum seriously taken up by self-proclaimed revolutionary organisations in advanced capitalist states. Determined not to dirty their hands with actual governance, they are hopelessly split on relatively minimal differences and prone towards infiltrating social movements for the purpose of recruitment, rather than social change itself. The revolutionary assertions bring no comfort either; political programmes which are ill-considered and idealistic. By the same token, equal condemnation but of a different sort, can be levelled at reformist organisations. Highly institutionalised, they typically avoid involvement in extraparliamentary activism to engage in the byzantine labyrinth of State power for minimal and specific changes rather than seeking the systematic basis for the problems to begin with; as Henry David Thoreau remarked in Walden (1854): "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root".

Revolution for What?

For all the discussion involved in the debate of revolution or reform, rarely is the meaning of revolution, the purpose of revolution, or the the causes of successful revolutions addressed. An exception to this is Hannah Arendt, whose classic study On Revolution (1963) is required reading. We understand, of course, the term revolution from its origins in astronomy but often the metaphor of a cyclical returning is avoided. This should not be the case, for the purpose of the cycle is a returning to fundamental values, the "organising principles of society" (to use Jurgen Habermas' term from Legitimation Crisis, 1973). Correctly identifying what these organising principles are should determine if change is essential and therefore determine, likewise, whether revolution is a necessity.

The usual Marxist-inspired evaluation of this question is that our society is a capitalist one, where the means of production are held in private hands and that this is the foundation of everything else that follows. Marx's famous distinction between the social relations of the economic base and the legal and political infrastructure (c.f., Contribution to A Critique of Political Economy, 1859) is the foundation of such an analysis. The argument is that regardless of varying degrees of liberalism in a society and modest victories by reformists, it is still fundamentally a capitalist one, which ultimately must be overthrown by revolution. Despite its merits and insights, there is fundamental problems with this analysis. The "economic base" is a conflation between the social relations of natural resources and those of human labour; an error in differentiating between the two results in a confusion of economic classes and, as a result, political economy.

This is no superior source to understanding political economy of course, than the classical school of economics who dedicated significant time to the question. The debate which ran from the French physiocrat Turgot, to Adam Smith and finally to Henry George was ultimately unambiguous; that individuals can belong to multiple economic classes that are workers, capitalist and landlord, their contribution to production is labour, capital and land, their receipt is wages, profit and rent. Moral justification was sought - and found - in the return to wages and profit, but not in the case of rent. Yet the conflation of land and capital into a single unit of analysis by both vulgar Marxists and the equally vulgar neoclassical economists blunted this insight in favour of revolution and war that dominated the first half of the twentieth century.

Ultimately, "social relations" are political rather economic. Economic systems rise from political systems rather than the other way around. In this sense, the liberal-bourgeois revolutions of the eighteenth century, specifically the French and American, provide insight to this question by looking at their results. Even considering the particular objective circumstances (the French republic surrounded by enemies, the American with but a modicum of local opposition), the relative success and failure of the two can be assessed in terms of their approach to liberty and the way they sought to establish a new society. In general, the more successful elements where those which ultimately provided the greatest respect to "negative freedom" and left firm foundations for the individual to engage in their own "pursuit of happiness" - such deliberate limitations on government and opportunity set as constitutio libertatis providing a novus ordo saeclorum (these being chapter headings from Arendt). Without this orientation, revolutions that impose a supposed 'general will' of society onto others by an elite inevitably end in disaster; "Thinkers prepare the revolution; bandits carry it out." (Mariano Azuela, The Flies, 1918). Unless the State, as Lenin pointed out in his 'almost anarchist' text State and Revolution (1917), begins to wither away from day one with its machinery smashed, the old diseases of control and authoritarianism will arise again (an unfortunate prediction with the Soviet Union).

Although those on the political left are often loathe to admit it, the most successful revolution of modernity has been that of the United States. When neo-conservative forces attempt to impose their will on the populous, they find that the constitution stands in their way. Sometimes they do have victories - such as the subversion of the Second Amendment, which was designed to minimise the influence of a standing army and imperialist wars. Often they must dig in their heels and make clearly ridiculous interpretations, such as the application of obscenity laws as a 'public health' issue over the First Amendment and, even more so, the Dredd Scott case where the courts determined - at least for a while, as it helped lead to the U.S. Civil War - that the Founding Fathers could not have possibly meant negroes were to be included in the opening of the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."). Undoubtedly one day there very well might be a U.S. government that so ignores the constitutional rights of the people that violent action may be needed to remove such an administration from office; but even the possibility of such an event does not deny the strength of the lasting institution of a constitution founded on the principle of liberty.

Liberty and Commonwealth

The purpose of political action is freedom, whether that is in the negative sense, reducing the ability of the State to interfere in the free and consensual relations of autonomous citizens, or in the positive sense, whereby the government provides freely available enabling infrastructure, both social and physical, to its citizenry. As fiscal policy, provision of the latter does not necessarily require the reduction of the former, although it is certainly the case at the moment. The abolition of the landlord class, and the socialisation of resource rents at a freely-determined market value can certainly provide positive freedom without the current (effective) corvée labour of workers and investor to the coffers of the State. It also provides the most workable incentive structures to ensure environmental sustainability.

Likewise, the purpose of all political organisations is to create the conditions where they are no longer needed. Justified cynicism may be given to Pitt The Younger's remark that one day parliament would complete all the laws necessary and thus dissolve itself, but as a task for political radicals the spirit of this intent is requisite, as the strength of liberty depends on the involvement of the public. 'Vanguardism' by a cadre elite, is insufficient to guarantee that a revolutionary spirit is not hijacked by authoritarian opportunists, regardless of perceived advantages in a division of labour. It is not therefore "the Party" that should seek to achieve power on behalf of the masses, but rather such political parties should be engaging in a constant campaign that they masses become their own vanguard, led by their own "organic intellectuals", to use Gramsci's phrase. Ideally, the Party should cease to exist after a revolution; if it has fulfilled its revolutionary potential, the people will know how to manage their own affairs.

In conclusion, with a interesting management and economics intepretation, Mario Ferrero's recent essay Revolution or Reform? Socialism's Dilemma as Rational Choice Problem (in the journal Homo Oeconomicus, 2004) is worthy of reference. It argues that the revolutionary party is a producer cooperative that requiress a parallel commercial reform sector to provide worker incentives and consumer trust. Success in the reform sector, along with a sorely lacking proper use of public democratic institutions (Georg Lukács's The Question of Parliamentarianism, 1919 is critical reasoning in this regard) creates loyalty and attachment to those more radical proposals not yet implemented. In a liberal-democratic state (and not dictatorships which do require revolutions), with their supposed organising principle based on personal freedom and social democracy, there is far greater opportunity for extending these principles to their logical conclusion.