Australian Left Review No.95 Autumn 1986
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Autumn 1986 iNumber 95 $2.50 1 19B8 M* 1 '38i; w B Left n f e ' ^ r e nee Re o bci r l . an dLsie 3ft C, erenc S [‘e e n i:T |\\h e i h t je ft bnrereTfce I1 he Left'- in Chi Q: r e n c a ^ e t h fie Le 5T Ri b w B i l Left. Dcial\ ISO. 3ft C nc n, ree he 3w Bror, n Dcialism The L’sT t 5ft Conference "R Tribune BACK COPIES Attention libraries, schools and tertiary institutions! Twei ly oacK copies of h LH, dating from May 197b. .ire available as a set for $1800- Sinyle copies are also available: Numbers 70-90 $2 Earlier editions $1- All post free. Write to ALR. PO Box In its 60 years, Tribune has been A247. Sydney South 2000. illegal, praised, quoted, raided, Spring 1983. No. 85, daily, sued, abused, searched, Kimberley Land Rights* Metal Industry crisis * US copied, busted...but we have never bases • Unemployment in been silenced. the 1930s • $2. In the last few months Tribune has carried interviews with arms expert Andrew Mack on the disarmament talks. NDP senator Jo Vallentine, political economist Ted Wheelwright, singers Margret RoadKnight, Jeannie Lewis and Robyn Archer, playwright Stephen Sewell, the Women's Housing Company, Shorty O'Neill from the National Federation of Land Councils and many others. Summer 1983, No. 86, Life If you want a genuinely broad left under Labor • Philippines Eurocommunism • Land weekly newspaper, you can't be left Rights • Reviews • $2. without it. Autumn 1984. No. 87, Organised crime in NSW Uranium and Labor • Subscribe! Interview with Noel Counihan • $2. Subscription rales: Two years S45, One year $28, Si\ months S15, three months SS. Institutions S.*5. Students, pensioners, unemployed: One year SIX, Six months $10, three months $6. Prisoners free. I enclose S .................for a . subscription. Name: IlftM \ddress: ............................................................................. Winter 1984. No. 88. Nicaragua • The Accord • ........................................... Post code . Feminist Strategies • Issues for working parents Bank card No. L I □□□ □□ J I □□□□□□ $ 2. Sign ........................................................ Date Note: Copies of ALR numbers 67, 69, 73, 76 and 83 Send to: Tribune Circulation, 4 Dixon St, Sydney 2000. cue hi very short suoply Number 9 5 ______ Autumn 1986 Printer and publisher 2 • Briefings Red Pen Publications P/L, 4 Dixon Street, Sydney 2000 Broad Left Conference Superannuation Editorial Collective Reporting from Marvellous Melbourne Brian Aarons, Eric Aarons, Hilda Debate at the Marxist Summer School Andrews, Malcolm Andrews, Steve Catt, Mike Donaldson, Gloria Gartori, Cotin 8 • Money, Men and the Motor Car: John Wlshart Griffith, Juliet Hollingsworth, Ian Llsser, David McKmght (Sydney). The Grand Prix comes to Adelaide and John Bannon wins both the race and the Sfieril Berkovitch, Louise Connor, Jim election, Crosthwaite, Philip Edmonds, Hans Lofgren, Pavla Miller, Antra Nelson, 12 Behind Marxism Today: An Interview with Martin Jacques Ken Norling, Derek Paine, John • Schmid, Henry Zimmerman. Louise Connor speaks to the editor of the popular English magazine Marxism Today. Accounts and distribution Hilda Andrews and Malcolm Andrews 16 • The Left In Crisis: Lindsay Tanner (Sydney), Olga Silver and Derek Payne (Melbourne). With the serious decline in support for the left, socialists need to reassess seriously their policies and strategies. Design and Layout Colin Griffith, 20 * The New Right Is New: Trlcla Caswell Typesetting Gone is the pre-modern moralism of Santamaria, replaced by the hard-headed and Gloria Garton influential logic of economic rationalism. Correspondence and enquiries Australian Left Review, Box A247, Sydney *24 • Greening the Left: Trevor Blake South PO. Sydney 2000. With the coming of the Broad Left Conference and the Getting Together Conference in Easter, socialists and environmentalists can only ignore each other to their mutual detriment. 28 • Rethinking Socialism: Eric Aarons A new vision of socialism is needed both to incorporate the diversity of radical movements and to inspire confidence for the future. ALR welcomes contributed articles and reviews within the framework of an open 3 3 • Manufacturing Matters: Rob Smith concept of marxism Contributions should be typed, double-spaced, on A4 paper or smaller. Manuscripts which are Despite the current high growth rates, the prospects for long-term growth are poor noi clearly typed andeasily legible will not unless unions pressure the government to direct investment in industry. be considered for publication. Unused manuscripts will be returned if 42 • Reviews accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope Maximum word length for Sound of Trumpets by Jim Moss articles 4,000 words, and for reviews 1,500 Health and Safety at Work by John Mathews words. Steel City Blues by Julianne Schultz. Australian Left Review 1 K B R IE F IN G S C'~ S r- SP- S P P S S P BjelkePetersen gevernment, neither because "unity is strength" but BROAD LEFT the Accord, nor Labor's carefully because, in advanced capitalist CONFERENCE nurtured relationship with business, societies, the contradiction between nor even the strength of the ACTU, labour and capital is intersected, has been of much use. overlain and mediated by other The statement issued by sponsors Yet all three have been part of the central contradictions such as those of the Broad Left Conference chemistry of Labor's electoral concerning patriarchy and the nominates two strategic issues for success but, meanwhile, the labour environment. discussion. First, the emergence of a movement and the idea of unionism The meaning of socialism in the more extreme and ideologically itself have suffered major defeats. West has itself been revitalised and confident right wing and, second, the Some on the left blame the altered by the emergence of these challenge of winning reforms and Keatings, Burkes and Hawkes of the movements (as well as by the farreaching changes in a period of labour movement for the rise of the experience of "actually existing Labor governments. New Right, and see "misleadership" socialism"). It's no accident that It is sometimes hard for politically of the unions, and the Accord, as the those dogmatists who denigrate committed people of the left to admit root of all evil. But this is absurd. The "middle class" issues have a that their opponents are making New Right stems from a crisis of shrivelled up authoritarian and gains, but this is what is happening conservatism which has its roots in colourless vision of socialism. now, despite Labor holding office in the social crisis of the 1960s and To talk about such an alliance, and four states and federally. 1970s, in the economic crisis of the nod in its direction, is easy. Much mid-seventies, and further back in the harder is to develop an attitude ruling class' historic compromise among the left that instinctively during World War II. (See Summer ’85 responds to day-to-day issues in a issue of ALR for an extended way which uses the insights of the discussion of this.) social movements as well as the Nevertheless, the actions of the experiences of the labour movement. new style of Labor leadership skew This approach is needed because the political agenda towards the alternative is the enshrining of the conservatism in a way which assists differences between the different the right to make its message all the movements rather than seeing their Some on the left believe that the more credible. intersection. To discuss what to do defeat of the Liberals in the recent But if the right of the labour about unemployment now means South Australian and West Australian movement and the A LP do little to looking at options about the nature elections, and the lukewarm media stop the drift to the right, what does and place of paid work in our lives, its response to John Howard are the left offer? relationship to unpaid, domestic conclusive evidence that the New Here, the calling of the Broad Left work and child rearing, leisure, Right is of little consequence. Yet a Conference may offer a "shot in the consumerism, education, culture, close look at the WA elections shows arm" if it results in a new confidence technological change and the the deeper processes at work which for the left and radical movements. environm ent. In these fields, have given the right ascendancy. But confidence which is not founded traditional socialist theory can be In WA, the issue of land rights is a on the realisation that the left faces a useful, but on its own it is inadequate. touchstone for progressive and long and hard battle to build mass Finally, there are problems to be reactionary attitudes because the support will be confidence which will faced by the left about its own mining companies, business, and the crumble. Mass support means strength, its beliefs and practices. Liberal Party have effectively support for campaigns, not only mobilised latent racism into a within the safe confines of the labour powerful force, before which the movement or the social movements, Burke government has bowed. but within the wider society. This, while Labor won re-election, Mass support emerges not just it has done so on the terms of the when the left sets its slogans and right, and this process is being policy documents correctly, but replicated in all Labor governments. when it taps deep feelings within It's true that Labor should be careful society at large and when it begins to if it has to make policy against the set the political agenda. This has The left in Australia is now weaker drift of public opinion, although this been so in the case of the nuclear and more fragmented than it has is usually an excuse for inaction. But disarmament movement and, been for fifty years.