The dangerous charm of Michael Chaney

Last night, the ABC TV program Lateline included a segment where presenter Emma Alberici interviewed one of the senior members of the Australian ruling class, Michael Chaney.

Unlike some of the buffoons belonging to that class, Chaney is urbane, charming, personable, pleasantly-spoken, articulate and oh so reasonable.  His formative years were spent at Aquinas College, which, together with his family, can take credit for grooming and nurturing these qualities.

Speaking of family, Chaney’s father Sir Fred was a member of the reactionary Menzies Cabinet, while one brother was a conservative Senator, and another is a Supreme Court judge.  Michael Chaney is in business, is Chancellor of the University of WA and heads a federal government advisory body on international education, so the family embraces capital, politics, education and law in its areas of influence.

The Lateline segment can be viewed here (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3748800.htm) and there is also a transcript of the interview.  It is worth watching at least a portion of the segment just to get a feel for how smooth, how unassuming, modest and refined is our ruling class member Chaney.

But perhaps I’m concentrating too much on the person.  After all, if this were a diatribe against Clive Palmer or Gina Rinehart or Twiggy Forrest a myriad of bourgeois voices would demand that we “play the ball and not the man/woman”.  So what did he say?

Firstly, Chaney was asked for his opinion on the National Insurance Disability Scheme.

“Well, you know,” he began, “there are many causes that people would like covered. I mean I don't think many people in our community would deny the worthiness of that cause. The Opposition supported it, the Government supported it. The question is whether these sorts of things can be paid for….”

Despite his acknowledgement of bipartisan support for a “worthy cause”, Chaney took a bash at the “size of government”, a favourite hobby-horse of the corporate-financed Centre for Independent Studies of which he happens to be Director.

Returning to the topic, which he again stated to be one of a number of “terrific ideas”, Chaney effectively put the kibosh on the NDIS, saying: “no one would argue with many of them, but we need to be able to pay for them, and you can't just keep spending money without getting the revenue.”

I was at this point busy picking myself up off the floor. 

We shouldn’t be having this “terrific idea”, the NDIS, because the government can’t get the revenue to pay for it.

And who has been running campaigns against the pollution tax, against the resources super profits tax, and campaigning to reduce government expenditure from 35% of GDP to 30% of GDP if not Mr Chaney and his cronies in the ruling class?  And who would howl like a wolf in the night if, in order to increase its revenue base, the government adopted a financial super profits tax?

Perhaps the Chairman of the National Australia Bank.  Now, who might that be?  Oh, it’s the saintly Michael Chaney in another of his roles as finance capitalist. 

The banks are raking it in, as this opening paragraph from yesterday’s Murdoch rags made clear:

 “AUSTRALIA'S big four banks are tipped to pocket more than $13 billion - a record high half-year profit - after refusing to pass on interest-rate cuts in full and sacking thousands of staff.”

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/big-four-banks-set-for-bumper-profits/story-e6frede3-1226631870846

And if we were not all convinced by the avuncular tut-tutting “great-idea-but-pity-you-can’t-have-it-‘cos-we-won’t-let-you-tax-the-super-rich”, Chaney sealed the fate of the NDIS with a dire warning about Australia heading for a crisis of Cypriot proportions:  “ In the end you end up like the countries we're seeing now in Europe that have very high levels of debt and very few ways of getting out of it.”

Emma demurely asked whether such a scenario was likely, and Chaney smilingly assured her that unless “hard decisions” were taken, we’d end up like that “basket-case, Ireland”.

That provided Alberici with a hook into other areas of “hard decision”, like increasing, rather than lowering, company taxes to pay for the Opposition’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme should they win government in September.

“Is that something the economy needs right now?” she asked, doing such a great job of really putting her interviewee under pressure.

“Well, no, it's not,” replied the patient and always helpful Chaney. "But it's another example of what I was talking about.”

And just as helpfully he added that “we need rationalisation of the red tape that faces companies trying to do business in Australia. And also reforms in other areas I think like workplace relations.”

Oh, they dare not whisper its name, but give ‘em time, and they’ll have a re-christening of WorkChoices!

To achieve these items on the ruling class agenda Chaney proposed a more powerful and more “independent” version of the Productivity Commission.  The quotation marks are warranted because such institutions may be independent of the government of the day, but they are never independent of the ruling ideology in which is distilled the core values and outlook of the ruling class.

And as for the people, they can just be pushed aside, said Chaney, but much more nicely and reasonably.  In fact, he prefaced that little piece of fascism by citing the example of one of neoliberalism’s most eloquent advocates, the ALP’s Paul Keating:

“In the early '90s the treasurer, then Paul Keating, gave the Reserve Bank independence over the setting of interest rates. One of the most sensitive political variables that you could imagine. He did it, I believe, because he realised that's what the economy needed.”

A quick digression.  Although they speak English, capitalists often try to neutralise the language, or maybe it’s neuter the language, by disguising the class content of meanings. An acceptable interpretation of the word “economy” here would be “the financial elite and the giant mainly multinational corporations”. Re-read that last sentence in the previous paragraph and it will be clear why Keating is a poster boy for bankers and financiers. But we have rudely interrupted Mr Chaney….

“It needed to be free of political considerations and one of the problems we have today, I think, is that every decision that's made seems to be coloured by how will this look politically, how will it affect voters and so on. We need some sensible, long range planning, of people who don't have those sort of interests at heart and who have the national interest at heart.”

Ah yes, Hitler’s and Mussolini’s concept of the “national interest” pursued without reference to “voters” and their “sorts of interests”.

I took a bit longer to get up off the floor at this point and missed some minor pleasantries between host and guest about market solutions to climate change, and the possibilities of floating liquefied natural gas technology, but at least I was in time to hear Alberici courageously broaching the issue of Section 457 visas.

After all, the Federal Court this month had heard allegations that foreign workers were paid less than $3 an hour to work on oil rigs operated by Woodside Petroleum off Western Australia.

As a nice person myself, I have to acknowledge that someone as busy running the country as Michael Chaney cannot be expected to have known about the wages and working conditions of every 457 visa worker employed on a Woodside oil rig, but he surely cannot be unaware that one of his own companies is embroiled in the scandalous rorting of this scheme.

Did Alberici go him at this point? Even Leigh Sales might have by now affected a quizzical stare and made some pointed comment.  But not Alberici. She was too busy trying to compete in the charm stakes. And Chaney?  For disingenuity he has no peer.

“I haven't had personal involvement in this but anyone I've talked to who's utilised the 457 program has been really enthusiastic about it in terms of filling skills gaps.”

I had taken to bracing myself against another fall, so I only gasped a few times as he continued:

“…I've seen the comment that rorts have resulted in a reduction of wages in the IT industry. … how could you pay anyone less who's working alongside someone else, what would that do to the culture of the company? So I can't really understand that point. But, you know, the Minister says there are rorts and if there are rorts they should be fixed up. People should be prosecuted if they're rorting and we should continue with what is a terrific program.”

Hey Mr Charm, your company is facing the Federal Court, and you don’t know about it???

After another denial of knowledge about 457 visa rorts, and a pleasant sideswipe at Minister Brendan O’Connor (“if there are some rorts they should be taken care of. You know, I'm not sure what motivates people in politics, I've given up long ago trying to second guess that. But I'm sure the Minister's genuine in his concerns about some rorts but I suspect they're not material”), it was time for host and guest to blow each other kisses (figuratively speaking) and say goodbye.

Which is what we will do one day to the ruling class, but without the kisses.

Put Clive on the Titanic and push him towards an iceberg...

 

Queensland mining billionaire Clive Palmer has announced plans to resurrect the United Australia Party (UAP).

This is quite consistent with his bizarre fascination with the building of a replica of the Titanic.

Both the Titanic and the UAP were disasters that promised much but eventually sank without a trace.

In the case of the original UAP, right-wing and pro-Empire social democrats joined forces in 1931 with conservatives who had fallen out with the Nationalist government and created a party whose slogan was “All for Australia and the Empire”.

The UAP won government in 1932 and attacked the working class during the 1930s Depression.  It pursued a pro-fascist appeasement policy, particularly under its new leader Robert Menzies.  He praised Hitler and bought into a huge fight with wharfies and other workers over the issue of exporting scrap (“pig”) iron to the Japanese militarists for their war of conquest in China.

The UAP became unpopular, especially after the outbreak of the Second World War, and only stayed in office after the 1940 election with the support of two independents.

Menzies (“Pig Iron” Bob) resigned as leader and was replaced by Fadden whose 1941 Budget was denied when the independents voted with Labor.

The Governor-General then asked Labor’s John Curtin to form a government.

 

Amazing, isn’t it, that a billionaire who fights against proposals for his industry to pay even the weakest of mining taxes, has the personal wealth to splash around with rebuilding the Titanic and financing his own political party.

But history is repeating itself here, both as a farce and a tragedy.

The original UAP was scorned as a corrupt party too closely tied to wealthy backers.

In his book, If Money Talks, What Does it Say?: Corruption and Business Financing of Political Parties,  Iain McMenamin  observes:  “The Liberal Party’s interwar predecessor, the United Australia Party, was very much dependent on ‘self-constituted committees of wealthy supporters’ (p. 84). 

The Wikipedia entry on the original UAP describes it as “compromised by their reliance on large donations from business and financial organisations”.

This latest display of “I’m-rich-enough-to-buy-all-of-you-and-bugger-paying-taxes” egoism is further proof that Australia’s working people need to stop carrying the rich, buy them all tickets on Clive’s rebuilt Titanic, and give it a huge push in the direction of the nearest ice-berg.

Pyne uses Anzac Day to revive racist cultural war

Federal Opposition spokesman on education, Christopher Pyne, has stated that a future Liberal government would review elements of the new Australian Curriculum that presented a "black armband view" of Australia's history.

He said that the federal coalition wants to "restore the importance of the Anzac story in school history classes"

By attempting to score brownie points with racist and conservative Australians, Pyne has only revealed his own ignorance of history, including the Anzac tradition.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women, having been subjected to the violence and frontier warfare of colonisation, nevertheless served in the Australian armed forces in every conflict in which they have been involved.

Once these conflicts were over, these sae ATSI service people were thrown back into civilian life as second class citizens.

 

According to the website

http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/anzac-day-coloured-digger-march :

They were not only denied the recognition afforded to non-indigenous soldiers but also the same rights their comrades in arms were granted. They did not receive a war pension, were not allowed to join RSL clubs and some men even came back to find their children had been taken from them.

The nephew of Australia's most famous Aboriginal soldier, Captain Reg Saunders MBE, said when his uncle came back from serving in Korea, "he couldn't even get a beer in a pub, let alone a pension, and he wasn't permitted to become a citizen until 1968".

 

Precisely because ATSI people and their supporters have brought the black history of this country out into the light of day - the so-called "black armband view" that Pyne decries – some justice is now being done to the service record of Indigenous Australians.

For example, in South Australia, the RSL, Reconciliation Australia and the Council of Elders of South Australia, with the support of the state government, have commissioned a sculpture of a black serviceman and a black servicewoman to be erected at Adelaide’s Torrens Parade Ground.

Among those involved in this project is Bill Hignett, a Vietnam veteran and union organiser, who is a member of Reconciliation SA.

Hignett, and others like him, give the lie to Pyne’s attempt to pit the spirit of Anzac Day against due recognition of past and present injustices to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

A black service person with a chest full of medals is fully entitled to wear a black armband in memory of the victims of the colonial wars for the conquest of his or her traditional lands.

MUA members demand safety before profit

(Above: MUA members show a line of the dead)

Around 100 members and supporters of the Adelaide branch of the Maritime Union of Australia demonstrated outside the offices of BusinessSA, the SA affiliate of the national Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) on March 26.

They demanded BusinessSA get out of the way of a national stevedoring code of practice which would enshrine health and safety provisions that might put a stop to industrial accidents and deaths in the industry.

(Above: MUA State Secretary Jamie Newlyn addresses the rally)

Since 1990, 17 maritime workers have been killed at work.

Unlike factory workers who go to work at the same site each day, who have had OHS induction, who know the danger spots and the dangerous practices, and who have access to an elected health and safety rep who is familiar with the workplace routines, maritime workers go to a different "factory" virtually every day.

That "factory" is the next foreign ship in port.  Its layout may be different, its loads different, its routines different.  That is why it is dangerous work.

But none of that matters to BusinessSA or the major stevedoring companies.

BusinessSA and ACCI are attempting to remove some of the hatchmen provisions.  Crane operators on building sites are in radio contact with a "dogman" who acts as their eyes and ears.  The hatchman acts in the same capacity on board ships.  The bosses think the position is expendable.

They want the operation of ships' cranes to be exempted from a new cranes code of practice.

They want the proposed National Stevedoring Code of Practice to only have the status of "guidelines", thus removing much of its regulatory powers.

ACCI and BusinessSA are the embodiment of "corporate greed" and they are attacking basic safety conditions on the waterfront by consistently blocking the stevedoring safety code.

Naturally, they had police on hand outside the BusinessSA headquarters to ensure their own health and safety - and denied access to a deputation of MUA members.

Maritime workers have a history of struggle and will be well-supported across the working class.

Solidarity was shown by the presence of several other unions, including the Rail Bus and Tram Union, and the Australian Education Union.

..............

Further reading:  This is another example of capitalist "maggots" who create dead flesh.  See my poem "Maggots" for comment on similar bastards in the construction industry.

Market destroys local jobs

Around 100 members of the National Union of Workers (NUW) and the Association of Newsagents Cooperative Ltd (ANCOL) gathered outside the South Australian parliament to protest against the loss of local jobs to two multinational companies based in Victoria. Members of the Australian Education Union also joined the rally.

The NUW  workers were employed by local stationery supplier KW Wholesale Stationers.  KW Ancol runs a warehouse owned and operated by a cooperative of around 380 independent newsagencies across SA.

For nearly 40 years, the SA government has awarded the contract for stationery supplies to SA public schools to KW Ancol. 

Now, however, under Labor Premier Jay Weatherill’s  “left” leadership, the government has put the contract out to tender.

The cheapest tenders came from two interstate-based multinationals who engage labour through labour hire companies and who undercut the SA award rates paid by KW Ancol.

In the pre-neoliberal days when governments at least paid lip-service to some sort of social function, government tenders were often directed to achieving social goals, such as local employment.

In today’s world, where competition policy rules the roost, and the market determines the outcome of government contract tenders, anyone who can push wages down, casualise labour, and deliver a cheaper service wins the race.

David Garland, from the NUW, said “It is shocking that a Labor Government is contributing directly to the growth of temporary forms of employment by the way they are doing their own business”.

AUE President Correna Haythorpe reported complaints already coming in from schools about the poor quality of service provided by the multinational contractors.

Politicians from all sides expressed support for the local workers and their employer: Family First, the Greens, the Liberal Party, two ALP members of parliament, and an Independent.

Time to get real on mining tax

It’s time to get real on the mining superprofits tax.

The big miners have used their loopholes and their lawyers to minimise their obligation to pay taxes.

This is after Gillard came to their rescue when Rudd was planning to tax all mining and at a much higher rate than contained in the current tax.

Rudd’s Resources Super Profit Tax (RSPT) was a 40% tax on the ‘super’ profits made from ‘the exploitation of Australia’s non-renewable resources’ including gold, nickel and uranium mining as well as sand and quarrying activities.

All of the latter were exempted under a deal struck by Gillard after her coup against Rudd. 

The current Mineral Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) applies only to coal and iron ore.

The tax is lower (30%) and a company now has to have annual profits of $75m compared to Rudd’s RSPT threshold of $50m.

One of the loopholes is that companies can deduct from profits various allowances including royalties paid to states and territories and company valuations of plant and equipment.

The effect of all this is that a tax originally designed to bring in $3bn in its first year of operation (the RSPT in the 2012-13 year), increasing to $9bn in 2013-14 was emasculated so that its projected revenue was only $2bn and, with all the loopholes has only managed to raise $126m (or $0.126bn) in its first six months.

It’s now time to get serious and demand that the original RSPT scope and rates be reapplied.

We’ve got austerity measures being introduced all around the country for lack of government revenue, and the big miners just kicking sand in the government’s face.

Please follow this link to the Spirit of Eureka website and sign the online petition accessed on the right hand side of the page for an increase in the mining tax.

And if we get enough people to be really serious we can move on to nationalising the major miners and passing on all of their profits to society.

James "Purlie" Wilson

James "Purlie" Wilson



OK, she’s nearly three
but when she called with delight,
after running around the headstones
lichened and leaning
in their carpet of Hampshire green
This would be a great place to live!
I knew she didn’t quite grasp the
context…

Backtrack a week to Strathaven, Scotland
where, on a fruitless search for dead family,
we found the grave of James "Purlie" Wilson
Martyred in the cause
of freedom and emancipation
of working people
on August 30, 1820
never before heard of
how he lives for me now!
I grasp the context in my fist…

22/11/2012


http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMArticlesJamesWilson1820Martyr.aspx

On Alan Jones and other human deformities

I am indebted to Dennis Parker of Yongala for his Advertiser Letter to the Editor, which begins:

“So we find Alan Jones can’t stand Julia Gillard and Julia can’t stand Alan; I wholeheartedly agree with each of them.”
Having said that, this US phenomenon of the “shock jock” – and by extension, shock cartoonist, shock columnist, shock TV presenter – needs to be condemned.

And they need to be condemned by exposing the class interests behind their promotion.

Nothing suits the ruling class better than to have the people arguing amongst themselves instead of as a solid mass against the rulers.  Divide and rule.  Encourage male contempt for women; heterosexual hatred of gay, bi-sexual and transgender persons; mainstream Aussie rejection of Asians and blacks; waged people’s resentment of “dole bludgers”; the free citizen’s anger at “boat people”….the list goes on.  Only one thing is excluded: the united determination of the people to get the ruling class off their backs and into the dustbin of history.  That they will never encourage.

Adelaide’s “talkback king” Bob Francis was removed from the airwaves for four weeks last June for saying “Bugger the boatpeople, I say.  As far as I’m concerned, I hope they bloody drown out there on their way over here…”

A fortnight later Francis got his wish with the drowning of over 90 asylum seekers when their boat capsized in Indonesian waters about  110 nautical miles northwest of Christmas Island.

There was no statement of contrition or regret from Francis.  He remains on air because it suits the ruling class to have him continue to foment disagreement and disunity amongst the people.

Then there are people like cartoonist Larry Pickering who publicly harass Gillard from a sexist and misogynist perspective.

Pickering’s claim to fame was a series of satirical cartoons which were made into calendars during the era of Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke.

Pickering’s cartoons of Gillard naked and sporting a giant dildo are not satire: they have a meaner and nastier flavour.

 

They have moved past humour and are simply an expression of one man’s savage dislike of the woman, and a throw-back to earlier labelling of her as “lesbian” - as though lesbianism was some disgusting crime.

Pickering recently took Gillard to task for her response to allegations concerning her time as a lawyer with Slater and Gordon.  He listed 24 questions that he wanted her to answer under the heading “What a cunning stunt”.

This a rhyming slang for an insult based on the four-letter term for vagina.

Pickering is clearly bitter as a result of a divorce that has left him bankrupt, is anti-women (“I have run out of brood mares”, he says at the end of the same article) and has been exposed as a con-man and fraudster.

Yet misogynists and nutters rallied to his defense, applauding his vile rants and cartoons.

Murdoch continues to publish the reactionary Andrew Bolt whose loony ravings embraced racism for which he enjoyed a day in court.  Gina Rinehart found him so palatable that she is widely believed to be behind Channel Ten’s decision to give him his own show.

The same channel has promoted the obnoxious Paul Henry as part of its breakfast show.  He makes Bob Francis and Larry Pickering look almost sane by comparison.

Now back to Alan Jones.

His comments about Julia Gillard’s father dying of shame were cruel not just to Gillard but also to her grieving mother Moira.  That has apparently escaped Jones’ notice, for his pathetic faux apology made no reference to her.

While it is good to see major corporate sponsors temporarily withdraw support from Jones’ show, it is also testament to the power that the ruling class has to sustain divisive and reactionary commentary in normal times and explains why there are no normal people putting forward a progressive perspective in the mass media.

Those working people who follow the opinionated, belligerent put-downs offered by the “shockers” will always be “the stupid victims of deceit and self-deceit” (Lenin) until they start to ask of such put-downs, “Who does this serve?”  and “Which class stands to benefit from the divisions being promoted by this sleaze bag?”

Because in a class society, every type of thinking carries with it the characteristics of one or other of the great social classes confronting each other in daily life.

Portrait of a thug

The man who will possibly be Australia’s next Prime Minister has made an art form out of denouncing unions for their “thuggery” and “intimidation”.


In his case, the old adage that it “takes one to know one” rings only too truly.

Journalist David Marr has recounted the story of Barbara Ramjan, a candidate for the position of president of the Sydney University Student Representative Council in 1977.

Abbott, who had contested the position as a right-wing Catholic candidate and was beaten by Ms Ramjan, approached her in a rage.

She said that she thought he was approaching to congratulate her, but that he invaded her body space, placing his head an inch away from hers, and then proceeded to punch a wall with blows to either side of her head.

Abbott told Marr he had no recollection of the incident. Denial is the first refuge of the bully, although strictly speaking, and cleverly, Abbott has not denied the incident.

“It would be profoundly out of character had it occurred,” he said.

The second refuge is to seek safety in the members of your gang.

Hence comprador journalist Greg Sheridan and right-wing commentator Gerard Henderson both springing to the defence of their mate.

For Sheridan, the Abbott he knew at that time was “never a violent person”.

According to Henderson: “A reading of Marr's essay reveals that Ramjan's claim is based on her memory alone of an event that allegedly took place 35 years ago. There are no witnesses. And there is no contemporaneous record of the occasion - not even in the student press.”

Unfortunately for this gang of three – Abbott, Sheridan and Henderson – there is now a witness and a person with a contemporaneous knowledge of Ramjan’s claim.

The witness, a student at the time, said he was outside the Student Representative Council's offices photocopying when "Abbott's famous flying squad of goons crashed down the stairs, threw me against the wall, kicked in the doors of the SRC, and started creating havoc".

The man, who emphasises that he was not involved in the SRC election, said it was extremely scary, as they were clearly looking for a fight. But he was so angry he followed them into the building.

"I saw Abbott throw a punch at Barbara Ramjan, but didn't see it land ... when next I saw her, she was in an extremely shocked condition, leaning against the wall ... I thought he had actually struck her, but I can see that was simply my assumption and rationalisation.

"If Ms Ramjan says the punches were aimed next to her head, I can't actually in fact contradict that ... simply I saw Abbott swinging punches, and certainly indulging in serious argy-bargy. I saw him swing a punch, I saw her in great distress."

The witness wishes to remain anonymous but says he is willing to sign a statutory declaration about what he saw, if necessary.

And a Sydney barrister, David Patch, has corroborated Ramjan’s claim

Mr Patch, who won the SRC presidency in 1975, said he had been Ms Ramjan's campaign manager in 1977, and she had told him about the Abbott incident immediately after it happened.

He wrote in the Age: ''I did not see the incident, but I was nearby. The count had just finished. Barbara found me. She is a small woman, and Tony Abbott was (and is) a strong man. She was very shaken, scared and angry. She told me that Tony Abbott had come up to her, put his face in her face, and punched the wall on either side of her head.

''So, I am a witness. Barbara's immediate complaint to me about what Abbott had just done had the absolute ring of truth about it. I believed Barbara at the time, and still do.''

The wall-punching event was not an isolated one, he writes. ''As President, Ramjan chaired SRC meetings. She did not want to be called 'Mr Chairman', but preferred 'Chairperson'. But for an entire year Abbott called Ramjan 'Chairthing' whenever he addressed her at SRC meetings.

''The gender-based disrespect for her office and her person is remarkably similar to the disrespectful way that Abbott treats the Prime Minister, and her office, today.''

As if this is not enough to establish that Abbott was, indeed, a violent person, yet another person has come forward with details of an incident in which an argument over a woman's right to abortion led to a threat, by Abbott, to punch his head in. And guess who intervened to stop Abbott?  None other than Greg Sheridan!

So this is the character of the man who described the militant but disciplined construction workers picketing the Grocon site in Melbourne as “absolutely out of line, thuggish and illegal”.

It is the man who is being sued for defamation by the Victorian CFMEU’s John Setka who was described by Abbott as a self-confessed thug who intimidated people in the building industry by visiting them at home and acting aggressively towards them.

No wonder Abbott can speak of such behaviour with intimate familiarity.

The man is a grub and a thug who has no right to lead a fly to a cowpat, let alone a political party, or the nation.

The slavers resurgent

The bourgeoisie never misses a chance to remind us of their utterly repugnant class nature.

(Above: cartoon by John Kuldeka www.kuldeka.com.au)

It is reported today that the recipient of inherited wealth, billionaire mining magnate Gina Reinhart, is calling for Australian workers to be competitive with Africans.

“Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, has urged Australia to become more competitive, warning Africa is a cheaper investment option, with workers willing to take jobs for less than $2 per day,” says one report.

“Ms Rinehart says in a video presentation there is unarguable evidence Australia is becoming too expensive for multinational companies that are running rulers over their pipeline investments and comparing them to options around the globe.”

Now there’s something for a bleeding heart to really haemorrhage over: the sad sight of multinational corporations fretting over their profitability.

Reinhart may as well suggest outright slavery if she really expects workers in Australia to compete with poverty-stricken workers in Africa.

Maybe competing with them will also require any striking Australian workers to accept being murdered in cold blood Sharpeville-style - and then charged with murder for deliberately getting their bodies struck by bullets from an innocent police force.

We can expect such deranged right-wing rantings from Reinhart. Wealth was not all she inherited from Daddy.

Just as selfish and ignorant are the comments of Adelaide engineering services and property developer Mark Dayman.

The said gentleman named “government regulation, taxation regimes and the sheer size of government as inhibitors to business opportunities in the state.”

“The ideas are to make government smaller, to outsource things to business sectors and not-for-profit organisations that can deliver services that government (currently) deliver,” he said.

So, anything done by government that could potentially return a profit to private business, as opposed to general revenue, should be handed over to business; any service provided to the community by government at a cost currently covered by state taxes and charges should be given to charities and volunteers.

In this way, this miserly bastard believes, “you can encourage businesses here as a lower cost centre.”

Well damn you man, just come out and say it - scrap welfare and services and bring back slavery!

(Just to make this Dayman more attractive to the general population, let it be known that he is heavily involved in coal seam gas extraction….mongrel!)

This long-dead German guy once said that capitalism continually forced the working class to lower its living standards to that of one level mass of broken wretches.

Apologists for capitalism countered that capitalism was a system that spread wealth to all.

Reinhart and Dayman are on the side of Karl Marx on that one!

Great struggle by construction workers for rights on site

Construction workers are conducting a magnificent fight for their rights at work against the Grocon company.


Grocon boss Daniel Grollo has reneged on a verbal agreement with the CFMEU and has denied workers the right to wear union apparel and to elect their own shop stewards and safety officers. His rules are enforced by thugs previously employed as bouncers.

Workers have maintained an organised blockade of the Grocon site in Melbourne for the past  week.

(Above: the spirit of organised labour - If provoked, we will strike!)

When Daniel Grollo called in the cops to break this up, the workers maintained a tight collective discipline, held their ground against capsicum spray and horses, and forced the cops to retreat.

(See http://youtu.be/cMiaVB0OO1Y ) 
As far as the copper in charge was concerned, the behaviour of the workers was “not unreasonable”.

Yet the capitalist press and right-wing commentators have dragged out all the old clichés about industrial thuggery and union lawlessness. They call for a revival of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the building bosses’ own Schutzstaffel or SS police.

That is to be expected.

What really infuriates - although no less to be expected – is the unhelpful role of the social-democrats. Having originally come into office on the backs of a powerful community movement in support of the ACTU campaign “Your Rights at Work”, these neoliberal “Labor” politicians had every mandate they needed to tell Grollo to pull his head in and to allow workers to enjoy rights at work.

Instead, they play the role of the “responsible” labor lieutenants of capital, bemoaning “unlawful” union behaviour and hinting darkly at punishment of the major construction union, the CFMEU.

There will be no easy victory for construction workers.

They will need to persist through difficult times and to withstand police and political intimidation.

But they are not alone.

(See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Iu1TASSCQ&feature=colike for a rally by Sydney CFMEU members outside a Grocon site in that city)

They have friends everywhere in the ranks of the working people.

Class society? The gaps just get bigger

This graph was quoted today by bourgeois economics commentator Robert Gottliebson.

It shows why we have an Occupy movement, and why we need a communist movement.

In respect of the sharing of the wealth created by the labour power of the working class at the point of production, and subsequently realised through sales in the process of distribution, the position of the overwhelming majority of US citizens has remained unchanged between 1917 and 2008. It’s basically the same in all other advanced capitalist countries.

The very thin blue line at the bottom (appropriately) represents the average annual income of the bottom 90% of the popluation.

There are three other colour categories for the top 5-10%, the top 1-5% and the top 1% respectively.

What is significant following the adoption of neoliberalism (privatisation, deregulation, attacks on workers sand their unions, financial speculation) is that the gap between the bottom 90% and the top 10% has exploded, and within the top 10% almost all of the growth in income and wealth has accrued to the top 1%.

That’s why Occupy’s claim to be the voice of the 99% against the 1% resonated so loudly and so widely.

To be successful, Occupy in whatever form it takes shape in the future, must move from the successful use of percentages for the purposes of sloganeering, to the adoption of revolutionary tactics and strategies based on class analysis.

That is the only analysis that makes the transformation from capitalism to the next stage of society possible.

Archie and Occupy

As a barometer of the effectiveness of a genuine mass movement, Archie comics is somewhat surprising.


A friend found a recent issue which featured the Occupy movement.

Needless to say, by the end of the story, the local rich guy (Veronica’s dad) apologises for calling in the cops to suppress an occupation of a local park, whilst spoiled rich-bitch Veronica gets to go out with the “cute guy” who has organised the protest.

With everyone reconciled, the message can be put that Riverdale (Archie’s community) is not divided into the 99% and the 1%, but rather is 100% united and American!

Well, I didn’t say it would be realistic, did I?

Productivity - for whom and for what?

In their insatiable quest for maximum profits the ruling class has a single-minded focus on raising productivity. Bourgeois economics defines productivity as a ratio of outputs of production to the inputs required for its creation. While national productivity is thus a measure of the effective utilisation of many inputs including investment in plant and machinery, costs of resources, costs of labour power, management expenses, and taxation and so on, the immediate target of the ruling class in its push to raise productivity is always the cost of labour power.

Marx identified two components of capital in the process of production: variable capital (wages - the price of labour power) and constant capital (capital invested in plant, equipment and materials). He described the ratio of the one to the other as the organic composition of capital as it was, in effect, a ratio between living capital (wages - the cost of a commodity that can create new value) and dead capital (the cost of those commodities which cannot by themselves create new value).

In his lengthy investigation into the economic laws of motion of modern capitalism Marx indicated that, as a general trend, the share of constant capital in the total outlay of capital increases, and that labour input per product unit declines. Furthermore, he revealed how the competition between capitalists required the lowering of the prices of commodities and that this was substantially brought about by investment in newer and more productive equipment and the application of newer and more effective technologies. This meant a rise, over time, in the organic composition of capital which would lead to a declining rate of profit; for every new increase in profits from sales, an even larger corresponding increase in constant capital investment becomes necessary. The obvious corrective to a decline in the rate of profit is a reduction of variable capital.

For example, if at the start of a production process a business has a variable capital cost of 8 units, and its investment in plant and its ongoing cost of materials amounts to 4 units, then it is producing at a rate of 200% on its outlay. However, if a rival firm is established after technological advances make cheaper and more efficient plant available to it, and/or the rival becomes supplier of materials to its own production process, then it will undercut the older competitor assuming the cost of labour power remains the same. The original firm is forced to invest in new plant and new technology to make its products more cheaply and efficiently, but the new constant capital costs are in addition to the old constant capital costs and so the denominator increases to 6 units. If wages remain the same, the rate of profit drops to 133% - still enough to cover costs but not enabling the previous rate of profit to be maintained. There can only be a return to the previous rate of profit (200%) if the cost of labour power can be reduced to 5.2 units.

Please don’t accept that very superficial analysis as in any way doing justice to the majesty and sweep of Marx’s Capital and other writings.

Just keep it in mind as we return to the question of productivity as a concept in capitalist economics.

By way of newspaper headlines and ”serious” TV, the ruling ideas of society about productivity never give any real airing to management responsibility for declining productivity.

Instead, the discussion is always about “labour productivity” or the amount of goods and services that a worker produces in a given amount of time.

Hence the Murdoch rag The Australian on July 3: “Productivity first, not wages: Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson turn on union family”.

Hence a national enquiry prompted by the most reactionary circles of the ruling class and their assertion that the industrial legislation embedded in the Fair Work Act is denying employers the right to a more “flexible” workforce.

All of this is despite the fact that productivity according to bourgeois economists has a whole range of inputs and that it can actually rise as wages go up. It can also actually rise as constant capital costs increase and profits drop. It is possible as Gerry Harvey bemoaned on the weekend, to have increasing manufacture of wide-screen televisions at the same time as there is a decrease in demand. The problem is therefore not low productivity but overproduction. (Harvey seems to have accepted that the problem is not on-line sales from overseas suppliers – his position last March – but overproduction.)

But for all their gnashing of teeth, the bosses have very little to complain about in terms of productivity. According to the IMF in 2011, Australia ranked fifth highest out of 34 OECD economies in terms of productivity – behind Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland and Denmark. There is never celebration of our high levels of national productivity. Indeed the Financial Review had the following little in-joke for its mainly business and financial circles readership:

For its particular readership, this cartoon is designed to provoke agreeable chuckling (“Yeah, that’s right, let’s get on with it…”). In a working class paper, it would provoke outrage.

Productivity can vary between sectors of the economy, as the following graph shows.

The mining sector has seen the greatest increase in productivity and, beginning during the Howard years, a no less dramatic decline. A little later in the Howard years, a decline set in in the accommodation and food services sector. But four other sectors, construction, manufacturing, retail trade and financial and insurance services have all seen relatively steady growth for close to a quarter of a century. So there is clearly no basis for using gloom-and-doom stories about productivity for launching attacks on workers’ wages and conditions via a return to the draconian Howard-era industrial laws. Today’s are bad enough!

(The negligible impact of Labor’s Fair Work Act on productivity, revealed in the graph above, led one letter writer published in the Fin Review to observe: “In the absence of discernible effects(of the FWA) on national productivity, the spotlight will then fall squarely upon what it should: the extent to which management sloth, incompetence and commercial turpitude have contributed to the nation’s problem.” - Mike Martin Fin Review 10/8/12. We won’t hold our breaths waiting…)

Data from the University of Sydney’s Workplace Research Centre on the relationship between labour productivity and real wages (ie wages expressed in terms of what they can actually buy over a defined period of time) confirms that it is not wages that lie behind the so-called “problems” with productivity:

ABS data also shows that starting from a common index point of 100, wages have actually declined in terms of their share of national income, whilst profit’s share has substantially increased:

And Alan Kohler has shown recently, using data from the US bank Morgan Stanley that Australian corporate profits are doing very nicely compared to countries in the Group of 10.

It is in their very real interests that Australians not be hoodwinked by productivity sob-stories into thinking that there is a problem, and that they are to blame. There is a problem – the compulsion to increase productivity not to meet real social need but to put the competitors out of business.

We need a system that connects productivity to social need not to private profit.