Yes, let's end the age of entitlement!

Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has renewed his call for ending the “age of entitlement”.

It is a sentiment with which we thoroughly agree.

However, we suspect that there might be some slight disagreement between ourselves and Mr Hockey on just what is meant by an age of entitlement.

 

We would most probably agree that the term refers to people who believe that they are entitled, without any effort, to be on the receiving end of an endless flow of money, privilege and reward.

But before we pop the champagne corks and clink glasses with good ol’ Joe, toasting our shared commitment, we had best ask a few more questions.

Is rejecting the “age of entitlement” aimed at that class of parasitic financial investors who do nothing but make money out of money?

Is rejecting the “age of entitlement” an attack on the whole exploitative bourgeois class who take unto themselves the surplus value created through our labour power?

Is rejecting the “age of entitlement” a refusal by parliamentary cretins to line their own pockets through all sorts of lurks and perks such as attending friends’ weddings or travelling interstate to purchase property under the guise of doing electoral work?

 

No, and we won’t bore ourselves by going into the detail of Newstart Allowances, bushfire compensation, workers’ compensation, drought relief, CentreLink benefits, penalty rates, public libraries, Medicare, aged care, rental assistance, public education, pharmaceutical benefits schemes or free air.

Hockey has in his sights precisely those entitlements that we, the majority, have clawed out of the entitlements that the rich, the arrogant few, believe are theirs as our social betters and owners of property.

He is not about ending the “age of entitlement”; rather he seeks to extend the selfish entitlements claimed by the parasitic rich by pushing down on us.

Yes, we want the age of bourgeois entitlement ended, and we will fight to establish anti-imperialist independence and socialism so as to bring to an end the class structures that, since the times of slavery, have guaranteed underserving entitlements to the exploiters and robbers at the top of the pyramid.