Market Forces: the Left, the New Right and the Market

24 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW MARKET FORCES The Left, the New Right and the Market David McKnight The left should be taking the appeal of the New Right seriously. And it shouldn't ignore the positive commonsense images of the market which underly it. s the Left complacent about the Some take this a step further, threat posed by the New Right? arguing that those who ring the I Does it understand the basis of alarm bells about the New Right its appeals? More importantly, does have a Machiavellian intent to cover the Left realise that its own way of up the sins of the Hawke government thinking needs updating in order to by crying wolf at the "greater danger" understand and successfully oppose (which is not much d ifferent from a the threat posed by the New Right? rightwing ALP government, they imply). Among leftwing and radical Another response decries the people there is a school of thought label "new". arguing that its which sees conservatism as philosophy is not new at a ll but was, essentially a simple and easily in fact, practised. at great human understood phenomenon. Conserv cost, in the earliest days of atism functions as an ideology of the capitalism. , rich, privileged and dominant Decrying the "new" label members of society. It disguises its effecti vely counters the purpose of defence of privilege in a number of that tired word. a stalwart of every ways, by speaking instead of the advertising agency which ever national interest, the good of the wanted to revive an old product. But economy. the flag, the family and all these approaches beg some even the unemployed and the poor. questions: why does a growing The bottom line. so the assumption section of conservative thought feel runs. is that non-rich, non-privileged the need for an atavistic change in its or subordinate people have no real philosophy at the cost of a highly interest in what conservatism puts public brawl between wets and dries purpose of thts article. most left fo rward, nor is there any value in and among employers who are by no responses to conservatism. on their serious stud) of conservative t hought means united in support of the New own, relieve the Left of any need to because. put simply, "they're all Right approach to industrial studv the weaknesses of its own view bastards anyway". Why bother with relations? Why does a philosophy of politics and its own philosophy profound study of the philosophical which benefits the rich and powerful weaknesses which a r c being and political differences between Ian also strike roots among the un-rich exploited by the New Right. McPhee and John Howard when, at and un-powerful? Why does the Left and bottom. they're as bad as each other. But, most importantly for the mainstream labour movement seem AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 25 response contains more than a grain The various functions of the of truth, but the Left rarely examines contemporary state in advanced its own inability to respond capitalist societies can be emphasised adequately to the New Right critique quite differently according to one's of state regulation and its argument political predilection. For some for market determined outcomes in socialists, it!. monopoly of force in economic and social policy. defence of the capitalist social order is the main feature, though it may Socialism's heritage is only appear in the long term. For intimately involved with state others. it possesses regulatOr) regulation against the brutality and functions to curb exploitation and irrationality of the market. The promote social change in the short "golden age" of the free market was, term. of course, nineteenth century Yet the state is much more than England, which saw children this. It is a major employer, working in the mines, and men and employing about one in four women working fourteen (or more) Australians. It is a major provider of hours in ill-lit, dirty and exhau!.ting services judged necessaryforcivilised manufactories. life: education. health, transport, In common with the enlightened communications, water, and so on. rationalism and cult of science which The importance of this is that emerged alongside the industrial the mass of the population are revolution, socialism supported consumers of state services and the notions of the perfectability of New Right wins support by posing as humans and their social institutions. the upholder of the state consumers' "Natural laws" did not decree that interest and carving out a new humankind was doomed to be constituency for itself. It speaks to composed of millions of ignorant people at large, whom the Left define labourers and a tiny elite of wealthy, as "workers", as consumers of state cultured rulers.' services, consumers of goods whose The early socialists and trade prices are affected by tariffs, as unionists aimed to improve the parents of children at state schools. conditions of labouring men and as users of health care, as potential women by regulation through victims of crime, as telephone combinations of workers called subscribers. and even a~ consumers unions, and through state of trade union services. intervention. Socialism would be Against the traditional achieved by a political party of populism of the left and labour workers winning or seizing the state mO\'ement which had its hey-day to institute this. Resources would be from the time of the Depre:.~ion to co-ordinated and distributed the 'fifties, the New Right represents rationally, the economy planned and the modern, rightwtng populism of the education of workers by the state the consumer society. ( Bjelke would see a new age dawning. Petersen 's populism is different Socialism itself would have agam, with roots in the same arrived when the means of conditions and period which sa\\ production were in the hands of the Labor and the left build a worker whole people - that is, the state.2 small farmer populist ba~e in These conceptions, at various Queensland which lasted until the stages, spanned mainstream social Ia te 'fifties.) democracy, Fabian socialism and A great many thmgs could be unable to counter the slow drift to the those who believed a social said about the Left's attitude to the right? revolution was necessary to end modern state but, practically. for While the latter 4uestion is exploitation and win socialism. many on the trade union based crucial to politics today. too often the But, today, people in general, as left, the state is an employer. The knee-Jerk answer is to blame the well as the Left, have a long struggle of nurses, railway workers. Hawke-Keating leadership of the experience of state regulation, trade teachers and other public servants ALP whose strategy is a pragmatic unionism, the operation of the arc industrial struggles in much the mixture of compromises with, and market, and attempts to create same way as other indmtrial out-bidding of. the New Right. This socialist societies. struggles. Thus. the New Right\ call AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 27 for cutbacks may materially affect of overall health policy. which are recognised by people at the livelihoods of thousands of trade Yet, for a primarily political, not large who see things in more union members, an issue on which industrial, force like the Left, an contradictory and complex ways the Left in the unions can make overall view which ent;ti)s than is reflected in slogans such as common cause with the centre and recognising and resolving "defend Medicare". right. contradictory interests is essential if Unless it recognises the While the many far-sighted it hopes to project an alternative complexity of reality and appreciates unions have long tried to express their interests in ways which benefit the consumer (better schools, health most left responses to the New Right relieve the left of services, etc.) most unions don't. Mostly, this stems from narrowness any need to study the weaknesses of its own view of and conservatism, but it is debatable politics and its own philosophy whether there is ultimately an identity of interest between state workers and consumers of related VISiOn of SOCiety. some of the contradictory effects of state services. At least, in terms of Another example worthy of state intervention, the Left can be traditional indus trial activity, such as note is the recent push for the portrayed in such circumstances as a strikes, the interests are diametrically privatisation of Telecom. The high taxing group unmterestcd in opposed. But what of more common argument which won the day was not criticism of bureaucracy. conflicts? that which argued that it was m the The cruc1al point about the Left An example was the clash, some blatant self-mterest of would-be and the state is this: by automatically years ago in NSW, between nurses private owners of Telecom (and defending each and every aspect of and health workers defending their would cost many jobs), but that the public sector, it gives implicit jobs and opposing the closure of which mobilised rural Telecom support to the assumption that inner-city hospitals and the subscribers (and hence National socialism will be bureaucratic, 1 Marx1oJa.y 1M. 6/G BANG in til~ City s-is lremors as flll' as #fShgate. Out ol at1 unq,uiet grave, Kul Marx sl:irs • .• "transfer" of beds to the western MPs) who benefit from cross unresponsive and inefficient. suburbs. More hospitals, not subsidation because it is a state - The most positive part of the transfers and closures, was the o~ned monopoly. Left's attitude to the state has been answer, it was argued. On the other From another angle, 1n the development in the last decade of side were local councils and a defending Medicare against the far "workers' intervention" and popular feeling that the west was right charges of "nationalisation", corporate plans in which the workers hard done by regarding government the Left has rarely acknowledged take on the job of saving the public services.J that state-run health insurance is part sector from itself.

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