Re:Australian politics

[Philip Ferguson <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg writes:

>I suppose I am just getting back to an overall picture, that the ruling
>class has transformed itself into something with very much less hegemony
>than it had before,

Greg, I would say the opposite is true.  That the ruling class has *more*
hegemony in Oz than in the 60s, 70s and 80s.  What has happened is that the
*ideology* of the ruling class has changed - from Menzies-type conservatism
to liberal pluralism.  This has thrown a lot of the left, because they have
such a static view of capitalism, presume that the ruling class always has
the same ideology and mistake liberal pluralism for some kind of leftist or
socialist outlook.

I would argue that liberal pluralism is actually the ideology most
appropriate to, and underpinned by, the existing state of capitalist
society.  It is a reflection of the socially fragmenting effects of the
market reforms of the 1980s and, simultaneously, the most effective way of
managing the fragmentation.  It's also good for a bit of the old niche
marketing - look, for instance, at the rise of the 'pink dollar' and how
Aussie and NZ capital have really embraced this.  Liberal pluralism is also
a reflection of the exhaustion and retreat of much of the left and the old
labour movement, and the way the middle class has disempowered the working
class and pushed it out of mainstream politics.

>I am not so much
>perplexed as bemused, but we really have to get a theoretical handle on
>what is going on, because this sure is not the same old story as it has
>been puffing along since the 1890's.
>
>Sorry Gary I suppose that is my point, there has been a historic shift, it
>has been going on for some time and is now unavoidably present and
>basically I have not seen anything that seems to have the slightest idea
>what it is all about. Trotting out the old stuff and dressing it up to fit
>the occasion looks ludicrous to me and before any one jumps on me with
>accusations of revisionism, what we need is some good old fashioned (read
>Marx) Historical Materialist analysis, and not regurgitation of past
>battles which have limited, if any, applicability at the moment.


A couple of years ago I wrote a thing in 'revolution' magazine called 'New
Identities for Old?', including a section on the relationship between the
falling rate of profit and the rise of identity politics.  It appeared in
'revolution' #4, which you can access in pdf form on the website
(www.revolution.org.nz) and which I expanded into a paper for an
Australasian Political Studies Association conference, and even managed to
get it published in the Conference Proceedings.  (Most of the APSA papers,
incidentally, were a wonderful example of the new ideology of the ruling
class.)  I can photocopy you a copy - or see if I still have it somewhere
on disk and send it to you or anyone else who is interested.

Phil