Hitting the streets

My rush off was to Civic and a political meeting.  It was held in King O'Malley's, out back, above the bar, in the Snug Room.  Noisy as, but the beers were good.  That's apt for a centre-leftie get together.  Just a few people from the Canberra branch of the Australian Fabians.  The Fabians have a long history as a democratic socialist (~=Labor) grouping in England with members including the likes of George Bernard Shaw, HG Wells, Annie Besant, Ramsay MacDonald, Emmeline Pankhurst, Bertrand Russell, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and Havelock Ellis.  It was a disappointingly small turnout but an intellectually astute one, with economist and convener Lachlan presenting on 2020 as the year that (nearly) killed neo-liberalism.  We'll see, I guess.  There may not be much belief anymore, but there are influential parties that benefit from it, so I expect all bets are off.  Given attendance and our current government (and maybe Aussie voting habits), change doesn't look too imminent.  Outside, it was different.  Lots of people, for Covid-free ACT times, Christmas, Friday night, lust and the rest.  Lots of noise and partying.  Some music from guitar/singer Matt Dent singing and strumming against a recorded accompaniment.  Nice for the beery hot circumstances.  Suffice to say it's the busiest I've seen all year, if not in the Snug Room.

Matt Dent (singer, guitarist) entertained at King O'Malley's.  The Canberra Chapter of the Australia Fabians cogitated in the Snug Room.

Killer factoids

Labor is the only party that’s cut spending in real terms in the last ~50 years. That’s a killer factoid. It came from Stephen Koukoulas when he spoke to the local branch of the Australian Fabians. SK worked in banking, is a macroeconomist, was economic advisor to PM Gillard. More about that factoid. Labor/Coalition have governed about equal time since 1970. This fact is despite the accepted wisdom that the Libs are the better economic managers. SK said the Libs would cut, but then they would reallocate. It’s an example that “people don’t face facts” which was the base argument presented. The session’s title was “Why values matter : evidence and ethics in Australian politics”. Right up my alley. I imagine this is really a question of political philosophy rather than macroeconomics, but then economic facts are much of the evidence in question. It was a discussion rather than a presentation and lots of questions from the audience led to a rambling outcome, but SK is informed and there were gems on show as well as a few questions that challenge an economist’s view on the world.

What themes arose? Why is cost of living seen as in crisis when wages have exceeded inflation for the last 10 years? SK suggested views are formed by frequent (petrol, electricity) rather than infrequent (TVs, blenders) purchases and changing comsumption patterns (takeaways and meals out increased from 3% of household expenditure to 8% over the last 20 years; think today’s workplace coffee culture). 23 years since the last recession is “incredible”. Australia is the fifth richest country per capita in the world (after Luxembourg, Qatar, Switzerland, Norway); its GDP per head is double that of NZ. Has it made us complacent? Despite the hype over the carbon tax, only 2.5% of household expenditure goes to electricity (although some additional component must appear in other bills). Price signals are very efficient at changing behaviour. Recessions actually hurt people. There’s a recent article in the Lancet on poorer health within 1 year of the GFC in Greece, Ireland and some other countries. Does business confidence rise with the Liberals? Yes “but they can’t do it for too long” and “talking down the economy before the election did hurt the economy” and there is a challenge in replacing mining. Complex messages aren’t always easy to explain; slogans can be more effective in influencing. As for the economy, it’s horses for courses (eg, fiscal austerity is not good when the economy is weak). There is confusion over gross/net debt and it’s used politically (an example was given). There’s a perception that mining, agriculture, manufacturing are better because you can see them, but in 20 years we will mostly be doing services. Messaging is necessary but it requires policy. Labour had clear messages in 2007 (“country that makes things”, “greatest moral challenge of our time”, etc). Keating was a master with the ability to tell interesting and difficult stories, but “he had enough of the people that matter on side”. Now Labor has “blind criticism”. About the first months of the Abbott government, SK is “disappointed how bad they are” by “hurting the economy and constraining future economic growth”. Was it just about the message? Yes “but you need to have some substance underneath it”. Perhaps the best, most challenging question was about supporting the car industry for national resilience and diversity of skills and capabilities, given Australia is the 15th largest ecoonomy and could sustain it.

Given urgent questions, this was interesting if a bit rambling. I absolutely agree with the requirement of evidence and get upset with misleading and simplistic arguments and spin abouding in our political process. I would have liked to chat further, but an hourly bus beckoned. Not that it would have made much difference. We still have what we have and climate change and inequality and the rest are still threatening … ever more urgently.

Stephen Koukoulas spoke to the Canberra branch of the Australian Fabians on “Why values matter : evidence and ethics in Australian politics”.

Blasts from the past

The Fabians still exist and we attended a meeting to hear Lindy Edwards, ADFA academic, ex-journalist and ex-political advisor to Senator Stott-Despoja, speaking on ideology in politics and how ideologies influence political ideas and actions. It’s the concern of her new book, The passions of politics, and the talk was to launch the book. To my ears, it’s a satisfying, historical view of politics that seems informed and with meaning.

It’s a common theme that our current politics is disheartening and I can only concur. Political philosophies, ideologies in politics, provide a base and a direction for decisions in place of the politics of immediate political wins and confused paths that comes with focus-group and shock-jock-responsive politics. Lindy had embarked on her book to make accessible the big political ideas, revive Australia’s history as radically democratic and egalitarian, and, on a personal note, to help her decide just what she believed in. She thinks that important ideas are simple but forgotten. She outlined three waves in the history of recent ideological thought: Marxist, Liberal and the dissolution of ideologies under Post-modernism. Amongst her evidence was the absence of ideologies in favour of political mechanics in current teaching in university politics and a more specific observation that a major political conference in the US that she had registered for (large! ~7,000 participants) had no sessions with titles that mentioned ideology. In contrast, communications from the current US presidential election highlight ideological matters as guides for voting and, anyway, we just have gut-feelings of ideologies underlying many policies. She argues there’s a disconnect here between practice and academia. Ideologies are historically and geographically specific and display multiple strands, but they have relevance for current politics, they inform policies and they are often shared across nations. She identifies Social democracy as one of three major ideologies (the others being Conservatism and Liberalism). Political ideologies have assumptions about human nature, share approaches to coordinating society and ideals of the good. I liked that she argued that political parties and policies are a balance of all three ideologies; no-one is pure; no one approach is without its weaknesses and strengths. The key marker of Social democracy is that it organises society through “collective deliberation on the common good”. This has dangers of elites taking control, loss of individual autonomy, deciding who’s in and out, and conflict from different meaning systems. Conservatism and Liberalism have their own problems, and all politics is always a matter of mix or balance, anyway. She wondered whether the Western ascendancy of recent centuries was fragile and prone to failure. Also whether Social democracy is the least stable of the three ideologies and whether it was durable outside the socio-economic circumstances of the last century-or-so. She argued that ideas, to gain support, must explain social reality, be consistent with existing beliefs, serve our interests and appeal to a notion of “the good”. She mentioned that the Ancient Greeks had thought about these very requirements. She said the challenge for Labor / Social democrats is to build a mass movement that supports social justice and that this social justice must support the interests of individuals in the movement. The problems to be encountered are in changing the economic structure and a splintering battle for justice. It’s here that she wondered if Social democracy is just a product of a specific era or set of circumstances.

Inevitably some interesting chatter arose from questions. Industrial social democracy was about economic equality between men, so those men may lose in new formations of Labor. Can democracy even functions without ideologies? Very interestingly, she noted that Gillard and Abbott are our first pair of leaders who were student politicians and asked whether this is why we have the point-scoring politics we now have. Megan and I came away chattering about ideologies and the state of current politics and political philosophies and with a copy of Lindy’s book. This was a frustratingly brief visit to a very large topic. Ideology has a bad name, but as political philosophy it’s admirable and a worthy concern and, if Lindy’s right, essential to an effective democracy. I particularly liked the notion of mix or balance between ideologies; that policies, parties, individuals balance political approaches in developing and applying their policies, and that all ideologies have strengths and weaknesses and that their prominence and development are functions of historical conditions. The local Fabians were a disappointingly small and mostly greying group, but the session was worthy and informed and this was a stimulating intellectual outing. Dr Lindy Edwards spoke to the ACT Australian Fabians on ideology in Australian politics and its implications for Labor.

The passion of politics : the role of ideology and political theory in Australia / Lindy Edwards. Sydney : Allen & Unwin, 2013.