The way forward for the Left

Julius Roe

Abstract

In my view the most pressing question for the Left in Australia is how to build a movement with sufficient policy coherence, sustained activism and effective reach into the community to defeat the Howard government and ensure that the government which replaces it strengthens democratic, collective and community structures and moves in the direction of social justice.

The fundamental obstacles to this are well known. The biggest obstacle is the way in which the dominance of neo-liberalism and neo-classical economic theory has combined with the effectiveness of Howard in using the wedge politics of fear and division. This problem has been magnified by the lack of an effective opposition to the fundamental architecture that sustains the combination of conservative government, weakened collective and community structures and inequality. This architecture is sustained by the view shared by both major parties that there is no alternative but to simply accept that corporate-led globalisation and free trade fundamentally narrows the role of the State and its capacity to intervene in the economy and society to promote industry development, quality employment and social equity. It is also sustained by bipartisan support for the absurdly low levels of public debt (less than 5% of GDP in Australia when the OECD norm is ten times this) with the consequent starving of public investment in physical and social infrastructure. It also includes support for public private partnerships and the lack of an effective opposition to the concept of smaller government and less progressive taxation. Another important obstacle to progressive change is the conservatism produced by the extremely high levels of personal and private debt in the Australian community.