I believe liberal democracy, at least as practiced in Western advanced nations, is a farce. I’m sure readers have noticed. In fact, I suspect many would agree.
Some, however, may object to that.
Well, I’ll attempt to substantiate my claim. To that end I’ll use a local example. Overseas readers are free to judge whether that kind of thing could happen in their own places of residence.
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Let’s consider a short post by Neville Spencer for the Green Left Weekly website. In Australia, the GLW is probably among the most radical Left outfits. By itself, that makes me a bit of a sympathiser. In fact, radicalism like the one GLW displays has caused much angst among the Tree Tory dominant faction in the Australian Greens.
In “Low Wages: ‘a Deliberate Design Feature’” (March 15) Spencer deals with the causes of Australian wage stagnation. On March 8, he writes, federal Finance Minister Matthias Cormann (COALition), in interview to Sky News, candidly explained to the interviewers that slow wage growth was “a deliberate design feature of our economic architecture”.
Journalist Laura Jayes, one of the interviewers, summed up Cormann’s argument as she asked him: “0.4 per cent wages growth in recent times, as you say it’s in line with inflation, but a deliberate design in the economy? Are you saying perversely that it is low wages, slow wages growth has actually allowed us to keep the unemployment level as low as it is?”
Spencer adds that the following day Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds (COALition), also on Sky News,
“Was asked by David Speers if she agreed ‘that flexibility in wages, and keeping wages at a relatively modest level, is a deliberate feature of our economic architecture to actually drive jobs growth’, Reynolds responded: ‘No I don’t believe that, absolutely not. And for Bill Shorten to even suggest that, I think, shows a fundamental lack of understanding about economics’.
“When Speers interrupted to point out that it was her cabinet colleague, not Shorten, who had made the claim, she responded: ‘He’s absolutely right.’ ”Although hardly news, to remind readers, as Spencer does, that politicians -- particularly COALition politicians -- are a bunch of shameless, snake oil salesmen (and women) is important. From such cast of buffoons one can only expect a farce: liberal democracy in Western advanced nations.
That’s an obvious conclusion.
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Astute readers, however, may have observed something else in Spencer’s post. Something hiding in plain sight. Remember: GLW is about as radical Left as it gets in the Australian political landscape.
What is Spencer’s radical critique?
He begins by noticing that Australian politicians take “a society governed by the free market as an absolute given”. That perspective, he adds, is “trapped within the confines of market ideology. Unfortunately, this is exactly the perspective of nearly all of our politicians and media”.
Instead, his solution to wage stagnation is that:
“The unemployed are given jobs which then has the effect of both increasing incomes and producing more goods and services to be purchased with that income.
“But this is plainly not a solution that could emerge from the free market. The only reason this obvious solution is not pursued and is seldom even mentioned is because of the grip of market ideology on our society.”So, to solve the problems free-market capitalism ideology creates, Spencer proposes the solutions managed capitalism ideology offers. He never used the term “Left Keynesian”, but the solution he sketched is the Left Keynesian solution. (It says something about the Tree Tories that even this sounds too radical to them.)
Now, don’t get me wrong, Spencer’s solution would be better -- for a while at least -- than what we have now. I won’t argue otherwise. But what would stop anyone from replying to him, paraphrasing his own words, that he takes “a society governed by
He never questions capitalism. In fact, the word “capitalism” does not appear once in his post. His solution is to tweak capitalism: to patch the old rickety machinery here and there. One could add, therefore, that his perspective is “trapped within the confines of capitalist ideology. Unfortunately, this is exactly the perspective of nearly all of our Left”.
To the historical failure of managed capitalism, which -- as many of us witnessed with our own eyes in our lifetime -- degenerated into the free market capitalism Spencer, Left Keynesians, and “nearly all of our Left” rightfully decry, one can propose an enduring, truly radical, solution: to leave capitalism behind. To decommission the old, decrepit machine and replace it with something new: socialism as the ownership of the means of production, in a true worker democracy. That is the solution and one could add:
“The only reason this obvious solution is not pursued and is seldom even mentioned is because of the grip of capitalist ideology on our society.”
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The point of this post is that the Left must ditch critiques based on nebulous concepts like “ideology”. Ideology-based critiques have become popular with the Left. However, they are vacuous, and, what’s worse, could be easily co-opted to fit the purposes of any “ideology”. It shouldn’t take too much effort of imagination to justify Nazi/Fascism, for instance, or absolute monarchy, feudalism or whatever on “ideological” grounds (I’ll leave that as an exercise to the readers).
Now, that’s the icing on the farcical liberal democracy cake.
Unless you guys can come up with something more modern, I think the old-fashioned materialist conception of history is the only game in town, comrades. (And I’m looking at you, MMTers.)
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