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John Quiggin 
@Ivor
Out of context. That’s from the Manifesto, and it was a founding document of the First International. Although they used the term “communist” the party saw itself as a party pressing capitalism to continue the bourgeois democratic revolution, as the text you quote shows.
That revolution has no pertinence in Australia. We are not a collection of feudal duchies and capitalism rules not merely this jurisdiction but most of the planet. Speaking of the union of all “democratic” parties in this jurisdiction would be ludicrous. There are no “landlord” parties.
The working people do need a mass party that reliably articulates their interests because at this stage there is no such party. For the record, I am a supporter of The Greens, which is a left-liberal party, composed largely of sections of the professional middle-class — which should indicate to you the absurdity of your charges of sectarianism. I’d be thrilled to see the rise of a substantial party of the left, with which we Greens could work. Indeed, it’s possible if one such arose, I might well jump ship and join them. It’s unlikely I’d be the only one. If it did, either way, I’d be advocating close collaboration.
@Fran Barlow
Strangely enough I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed by those refugees & migrants who have permanent residency &/or citizenship. Some strange psychology going on there.
Someone has set up a ‘Twitter’ hashtag #ChangeYourMindALP and is urging supporters to contact their ALP member using that. They seem to be advocating an end to mandatory detention and offshore detention as an ALP policy, but they also seem to be saying straight up that they support the ALP.
In my mind this is the same problem I alluded to above with ‘Labor For Refugees’.
What’s the point in sending a message: “I urge you to change your inhumane policies, but I’ll vote for you even if you don’t.”?
If you withdraw your support/vote AND tell them why, that might get a result (although looking at the Qld ALP – they simply won’t care).
@Fran Barlow
Classic sectarianism. All those who follow this line can coagulate in all their different groups well away from real struggle.
Obviously the specifics that occurred in the Nineteenth century will be different to the specifics of the 21st century – but the underlying message is the same – for Marxists. Opportunist attacks on the words of Marx demonstrate you have not understood the meaning of Marx.
I don’t know why you invented some accusation of me making “charges of sectarianism” against you. I was re
Stupid software – no preview, so who knows what it will throw up?
Repost – on a learning curve
Ivor :
@Fran Barlow
Classic sectarianism. All those who follow this line can coagulate in all their different groups well away from real struggle.
Obviously the specifics that occurred in the Nineteenth century will be different to the specifics of the 21st century – but the underlying message is the same – for Marxists. Opportunist attacks on the words of Marx demonstrate you have not understood the meaning of Marx.
I don’t know why you invented some accusation of me making “charges of sectarianism” against you. I was referring to
David Irving (no relation) : and Ikonoclast:
So I think we have all gained a lesson on how Trots talk.
The Greens are a similar party (in modern conditions) as those cited by Marx (referring to his own times). They have gained the support of at least one union – NTEU – and may possible expand this base.
In the past unions have supported other parties – eg Nuclear Disarmament Party and Jack Munday’s “Community Independents”.
You may not have realised, but the word “democratic” used by Marx was not referring to a label – it was referring to the essence of a political party, and, there is no reason whatsoever why we should not work towards common unity of all democratic parties along the lines expressed by Karl Marx.
Repost – on a learning curve with this blog’s software
Ivor :
@Fran Barlow
Classic sectarianism. All those who follow this line can coagulate in all their different groups well away from real struggle.
Obviously the specifics that occurred in the Nineteenth century will be different to the specifics of the 21st century – but the underlying message is the same – for Marxists. Opportunist attacks on the words of Marx demonstrate you have not understood the meaning of Marx.
I don’t know why you invented some accusation of me making “charges of sectarianism” against you. I was referring to David Irving (no relation) : and Ikonoclast:
So I think we have all gained a lesson on how Trots talk.
The Greens are a similar party (in modern conditions) as those cited by Marx (referring to his own times). They have gained the support of at least one union – NTEU – and may possible expand this base.
In the past unions have supported other parties – eg Nuclear Disarmament Party and Jack Munday’s “Community Independents”.
You may not have realised, but the word “democratic” used by Marx was not referring to a label – it was referring to the essence of a political party, and, there is no reason whatsoever why we should not work towards common unity of all democratic parties along the lines expressed by Karl Marx.
Politicians will change policy when sufficient voters demand change – and judging by this ANU study we aren’t there yet.
My problem with asylum seeker policy, whether Labor, Liberal or other, is that its not addressing the real problems.
Why is there conflict in so many countries? Is it as simple as there are just too many people in societies that don’t have the the cultural skills to cope?
Could it be that some would rather we didn’t talk about the causes because the conclusions you’d have to draw would be like those on climate change, inconvenient?
@Megan
‘Faceless men’ is not ALP terminology, it’s anti-ALP terminology, a slur.
@Fran Barlow
If people object to a policy forced on the parliamentary party by the extra-parliamentary party, I think it’s franker and more genuine for them to state their substantive objections to the policy.
And if people object to a policy adopted by the parliamentary party overriding the extra-parliamentary party, I think it’s franker and more genuine for them to state their substantive objections to the policy.
I don’t mean to say that the internal structures and processes don’t matter, but it seems to me that the majority of complaints about them come up in the context of specific policy decisions, and that those complaints about processes are a smokescreen when the real issue is not people’s alleged concerns about process but their dissatisfaction with outcomes. I very seldom see complaints about process when people are satisfied with outcomes.
@Donald Oats
Thanks. It’s hard to know. The medical professionals I know are sometimes conflicted, because:
a) Most think e-cigs are less bad than regular ones, and that nicotine addicts would be far better off switching to them if they can’t quit. The companies and think tanks are spruiking that like crazy along with the the totally-unproven idea that e-cigs will help lots of people quit. Let us say that the idea that big tobacco will push e-cigs so that no one is nicotine-dependent, so they can go out of business … does not seem likely.
b) but the problem is the number of people likely to add it to tobacco and even worse, the number of kids that can be addicted at their most vulnerable time.
The challenge is to craft public policy that allows for a) without also causing b) and so far I have yet to see any … but Oz does relatively well on tobacco control, why I ask here.
I just heard a story, which if true gives me hope.
A worker at a steel fabrication plant in Melbourne received a work order to manufacture a steel security gate. When he realised it was from Serco for Maribyrnong detention centre he decided he couldn’t do it as that would be supporting an inhumane process.
He called the manager and explained his position. The manager heard him out and said that he supported the action and told him to contact the client and reject the work, which he did.
During the day several people from his organisation came to speak with him offering 100% support. Serco called back and asked him to reconsider because they had taken the job to three other businesses and they had turned the job down for the same reason.
As much as I despise the ALP, I see in the Guardian that Anna Burke is calling for the abandonment of ‘offshore detention’ and closure of Manus and Nauru.
@Megan
Lovely story, if substantially true …
since the talk on the other non-specific thread seems to be speculation on counterfactual usa history i’ll post this here.
keeping the peace on the streets of kiev, maybe yesterday, maybe last sunday.
the first letters on the building, as i make it out with my crude cyrillic/anglo transliterator, spell “library”.
they are standing under the flag of the “oun” – the organisation of ukraininan nationalists.
the oun is a ukrainian radical nationalist fascist organisation founded in 1929. in world war 2 they sided with the nazis & murdered every jew & russian they could find. and mutilated the corpses.
earlier this week the sevastopol police chief declared his officers would not follow “criminal orders” from the regime in kiev and set up road blocks on the four highways leading into the city to guard against extremists. -a.v.
Caught on the radio today a news snippet which concerned drought relief packages for farmers. Barry O’Farrell spoke a good line, something along the lines of “we don’t eat were it not for them” and pledged substantial assistance. Colonial socialism is still very much alive and well.
@Tim Macknay
Thanks, Tim, bad URL fixed, added note that IPA not (yet?) Into e-cigs.
Plain packaging: yes, I’ve noted that non-profit American business groups were hassling both Oz, as by NAM or US Chamber of Commerce and nownow NZ over plain packaging.
This is especially interesting, given that American tobacco companies have very low market share Down Under, but then, NAM and US Chamber of Commerce have long had many appearances in the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, including $.
@J-D
Very much so.
In any event, putting aside the integrity of the processes by which the party at large establishes policy — and seriously, it looks very doubtful — as a matter of principle one can argue that those who are “faceless” really ought to be supreme, assuming that the parliamentary wing is a mere expression of the aspirations of the membership/stakeholders.
The idea that the parliamentary wing ought to be able to run its own show is far less nominally democratic a concept, assuming that’s the argument being run here.
This is an argument about authenticity — the living beating heart of populism. The assertion by the right is that “authenticity” is conferred by the popular vote and that this delegate authority renders all other duty null and void. That’s one possible iteration of populism, but really, it’s talking not about the parties and their business but the business of the parliament. The other is that the members and unions are the authentic source of authority for the parliamentary party’s conduct, and that this takes priority over all else.
Mapped onto all that is the issue of individual conscience — a kind of Burkean conservatism in which the individual member abandons even his own constituents to do right for the nation as a whole, as s/he sees it. Interestingly, it actually offers a neat marriage between a kind of metaphysical nationalism and current right wing libertarianism.
Reid’s “faceless men” taps at least two of these memes and piles on the scorn with which the elite ridicules mere ciphers before the mass of the populace.
No wonder it caught on as a catchcry.
@Fran Barlow
I am aware that people can and do argue for the supremacy of the extra-parliamentary party over the parliamentary party. I am also aware that people can and do argue against it. I’m not taking a side on that here, but I am pointing out that both sides have arguments that are not entirely specious and can at least arguably invoke concepts of ‘democracy’, ‘representativeness’, ‘authenticity’, and the like. Neither side is obviously and flagrantly in the wrong, although clearly it’s impossible to agree with both of them in the result, at least not fully.
The internal structure of the ALP has changed to some extent since the ‘faceless men’ slur was first coined, but its application then was to the thirty-six members of the Federal Conference. Those thirty-six men (they were then all men) were chosen by the six State Conferences, and the majority vote at each of those State conferences was cast by delegations from unions (not all unions, only those affiliated to the party). The union delegations to State conferences were (as they still are) typically nominated by union officials without reference to the union members, and voted as those officials instructed. This should be borne in mind in assessing how democratic or representative or authentic the arrangements were in fact.
Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Declare that Power Comes Out of the Barrels of their Guns
@alfred venison
That was predictable. There was a darkly hilarious interview on RT about an hour ago with former US ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst.
He was making the point that violent overthrows of democratically elected governments is sometimes OK. At one point the interviewer asked how the US would have viewed the situation if “Occupy” had tried that. He threw back the insult that the US is a real democracy.
I well remember the violent dismantling of “Occupy” here in Australia, as well as the far more violent suppressions in the UK and all across the US. Eerily similar tactics used in all cases.
Top bloke.
He came across as a person on some serious reality-altering drugs. At one point he mocked the RT host for talking about democracy and she pointed out that Russia actually is one.
@Megan
By what standard are you judging that Russia is an actual democracy?
apparently not predicable enough to john kerry or john maccain or nuland or merkel/
the fascists were all over the maidan and have now come out of the woodwork & are challenging the “moderates” all over the place.
the fascists fire bombed the kiev synagogue last night.
threatened parliamentarians are quitting for the safety of themselves and their families.
the fascists are firebombing parliamentarians homes, threatening their families, demanding party membership lists.
the fascists are demanding a place in the gov’t and the “moderates” are giving it to them.
the fascists are calling for resignation of the entire electoral commission & for their men to be present for the count next month to ensure “accuracy”.
the “moderates” have disbanded the riot police.
yanuovich is free and now in russian about to give a press conference – mrs t is as corrupt as the rest – all politicians are corrupt – no one under 25 trusts a politician.
the fascists are hunting for journalists who “lie”.
gun carrying fascists are threatening people in local gov’t assemblies.
they are forcing priests at gunpoint to kneel & pray for their dead.
they are beating up old ladies in the street.
http://www.corbettreport.com/
i know about rt too megan thanks you’ll need your google translator on for these guys but they have some good stuff too:-
http://elynitthria.net/
First, we need to look at the global Realpolitik. The three great powers currently are USA, China and Russia. Russia is a combination Chekist-Plutocratic state. China is a One Party-Plutocratic state. USA is a Plutocratic state with “soft pretensions to democracy”. None of the USA’s globally important decisions (homeland affairs and foreign affairs) are made democratically. Some of the constituents of the EU might be broadly democratic but the EU itself is not democratic. It is a technocratic economic structure designed to serve, you guessed it, the plutocrats. You can call plutocrats “oligarchs” if you prefer.
Ukraine’s future will be largely determined by those four blocs mentioned above. This is because each of the blocs is an empire (or proto-empire like the EU) and behaves at all times like an empire. Ukraine is a land that borders two empires. As such it wil be compelled by the powers to become either a compliant vassal/tributary state to one bloc or the other or a contested zone. Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are other examples of contested zones. Civil wars and/or proxy wars tend to flare up in contested zones: often the flames are lit by the major world empires.
The other parameter is resource shortages and poverty. There is a high correlation between these and unrest. We are entering a period of resource scarcity. Those nations able to bid or fight for scarce resources will get “first dibs”. Those nations struggling economically will tend now to turn into failed states. The Ukraine has both of the above counts against it. I am not hopeful for Ukraine.
@J-D
Admittedly a low one. They have elections. They are no less of a democracy than the US.
@Megan
There are maybe a dozen countries in the world that have no elections at all. If you want to describe all the rest as ‘democratic’, you are obviously free to do so, but I suggest that it’s more typical for people to use the word as if it means something at least a little more specific than that, and therefore I predict that people are going to misunderstand you.
Speaking of elections, the WA Senate re-election will be held on April 5.
@J-D
Specifically, what I found hypocritical in Mr Herbst’s snide comment is the fact that the US is no more democratic than Russia.
It’s impossible to see the USA as democratic after Florida. Anyone who does is delusional.
Tim Macknay:
Thanks, I made some fixes in the blog post.
I wrote some longer comments here, but they seem lost or stuck.
Oz has done well with plain packaging, although I note US groups like Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers objected and are now hassling NZ over it. This is especially interesting in NZ, given that BAT and Imperial have most of the market, with Philip Morris International ~6%, and that was made separate from US anyway.
Hopefully you won’t see much of this, although a good outcome would be to make nicotine vaping fluids into prescription drugs for those who are just too addicted to quit. The (modest) evidence is that they are less bad than regular cigarettes. The challenge of course is the real goal: more kids and young adults.
@Jungney
I’m delusional, Jungney. I’ve voted in every election in the U.S. since becoming a citizen. I thought (perhaps erroneously) that I was participating in a democratic process. You think that Australia is more democratic? Please explain if you do.
@Megan
When you describe it as a ‘fact’ that the US is ‘no more democratic than Russia’, it does seem a little as if you are appealing to a notion of ‘democracy’ that means more than just ‘having elections’. However, if you’re still sticking to that standard, then it’s possible the US is more democratic than Russia, if it has more elections.
@Jungney
By what standard are you judging when you say the USA is not democratic? Clearly it’s not the standard previously enunciated by Megan, since by that standard the USA is plainly democratic.
I remember the Florida recount and the disruption and exclusion of black and disabled voters in 2000. I also remember the 2004 election, the Ohio count and the Diebold voting machine scandal. Both elections were stolen, very obviously stolen if you are anything like a perceptive observer.
Look up micheal parenti stolen elections.
American conservatives and patriots themselves argue very proudly that the USA is a republic not a democracy.
“The word Democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution…and for good reason. The United States is not a Democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic and it is essential that the American people understand this reality. If we continue to allow the untruth that the United States of America is a Democracy to flourish we invite the demise of our government and our nation; we invite the cessation of the American Experiment and doom future generations to a fate unknown.” – The New Media Journal.
They then delineate what the difference is in their eyes. Their descriptions of “evil democratic tyranny” are hilarious as they actually describe how the modern US acts all the time.
“In fact, our Founders and Framers understood a Democracy to be a dangerous vehicle that, given time, would devolve into mob rule or government by majority; a government where the minority had little or no voice; a government unrestrained in it reach into our lives.” – The New Media Journal.
Sounds like the contemporary US to me: “where the minority have little or no voice” – “a government unrestrained in it reach into our lives.” Isn’t this exactly how the US operates now? What voice do minorities like blacks or hispanics have? How does their government act but spy everywhere at home and abroad with unrestrained reach into peoples lives?
When US “Republicans” (not just the GOP) speak about the defence of the minority, they mean only one minority and that is the rich, privileged minority. They don’t mean other minorities and heaven forbid that the majority should run the country. They call the majority “the mob”. They have complete contempt for the common people, for ordinary people.
Russia is not better than the US. Nor is China. All three are systems ruled by secret agencies and/or corporate and oligarchic power. Where elections are held they are figleafs, covers, for the essentially plutocratic and chekist autocracies. Three totalitarian blocks ruling the world! Orwell’s “1984? was remarkably prescient was it not?
The moderation algorithm is seriously broken. There is hardly any point in trying to comment on this blog any more.
Hmm, I wonder,
http://www.michaelparenti.org/stolenelections.html
will this post?
the link you were able to post is dead, how ironic.
remember what the anarchists used to say? maybe they still do, well, i do: if voting could change anything they’d make it illegal. voting is not meant to change anything fundamental, they are for letting off steam by giving the masses the appearance that their opinions matter. the masters have elections so the masses don’t rise up and hang them from the near set lamp posts. -a.v.
-a.v.
@J-D
If you are arguing that the US is more democratic than Russia, how would you support that argument?
Apropos of nothing, would someone kindly remind me of the name of the eponymous adage which states, approximately, that well-written parody will often be taken literally?
@J-D
One vote, one value in free, unmilitarized elections where the electors are the bearers of equal citizenship rights in a system of universal franchise in which all candidates have equal access to the means of communication.
Among genuine political philosophy it is uncontroversial that the Republicans hijacked that election mainly in Florida but, as ikonoklast’s link argues, in other states as well.
@Ron E Joggles
Are you thinking of “Poe’s Law”?
@JKUU
I’d certainly say that what passes for the electoral process in the US is in context on the whole far more likely to skew influence towards the privileged than is the case here.
The US is a far more socially inegalitarian place than here, and of course elections are run by politicians. Redistricting is also at the whim of those in power. Often, at local level there’s no contest at all and continuity in membership of the houses is about 90%. Judges are political figures as they are often elected. Voter suppression is a commonplace thing and frames their politics.
I don’t assert that there’s much democracy here either, but there are slightly stronger firewalls between the executive, judicial and administrative arms of the state and as far as can be told a rather higher participation rate — albeit that this is often a form of plebiscitary dictatorship, as in the US.
fran, I would have thought primaries in the usa would have met with your approval as a guard against elite control.
Both Australian and US histories are replete with failed utopian democratic projects. These projects were often driven by a despair at the impossibility of parliamentary democracy. In Australia, William Lane’s failed ‘New Australia’ attempt in Paraguay, was initiated in 1892. In the US political utopias are regarded were established the first experiments in democratic socialism; the vast majority of utopias were closed religious communities, some surprisingly successful and many were concerned to establish a community of absolute (usually patriarchal) equality between members of the community. Most have collapsed over time.
So, democracy is a difficult undertaking whether in closed communities or in an open and now global culture. John Keane makes the point that the current massive scale and complexity of nation states makes any form of direct democracy impossible without introducing absurdity (like Ca.’s plebiscites, which are an attempt to hold on to some form of direct participation).
Keane argues convincingly for what he calls ‘monitory democracy’ in which citizens are employed, outside the state apparatus and reporting to parliament, but not accountable to it; committees monitor adherence of the state to democratic process and goals. The criteria for selecting citizen monitors would reflect dominant democratic aspirations of the day.
This is exactly the project needed to transform our so called democracies from plutocracy, correctly identified as such by Ikonoklast, into genuine democracies. It is, however, a process that requires creating citizens capable of actively engaging with democratic aims and processes. Right now the minimal number of such people is our most pressing problem.
@Jim Rose
Certainly not, they are one of the key vehicles for elite control.
@Megan Thanks Megan, that’s the one!
@Fran Barlow
Frankly, Fran, I find your response long on unsupported generalities and short on specifics. So let me start with a generality: I’ve lived/worked/voted in both the United States and Australia, and it’s been my experience, overall, that there’s little difference between the “quality of the democratic process” in both countries. That’s not the same as saying that the quality is high.
On to specifics. In the past ways you’ve championed ways to improve participation in governance by the general public. Your arguments for a sortition process are good in principle, but the devil is in the implementation. In short, what you propose is unconstitutional (see s.7 and s.24 of the Commonwealth constitution). This places a barrier on your ideas that can only be lifted through constitutional amendment – a difficult process. Instead, let me take up Jim Rose’s suggestion of primary elections, because these can be instituted by amending the Commonwealth’s electoral laws (and not the constitution).
I hope you all don’t mind but I’d like to repeat a comment about primary elections I wrote in On Line Opinion in January last year:
“Candidates for election in Australia are selected by political parties — the pre-selection process — not the electorate at large. A way to increase the “directly chosen by the people” component in elections both for the Senate (s.7) and the House (s.24) would be to move one step back in the whole process and institute Primary Elections of candidates, as is done in the U.S. Primaries winnow a field of candidates prior to an upcoming general or by-election. They were specifically instituted to take the power of candidate nomination away from party leaders and give it to the people. A quick example of how this works (it varies among states): There’s an election for State governor in New Jersey this November. The incumbent is a Republican and several Democratic challengers have announced at this time. When you register to vote in NJ you may (but don’t have to) declare a party affiliation. Primary elections take place in June, when voters choose their affiliated party’s candidate to run in November’s Gubernatorial election. This month [January] marks the last date by which a voter may choose, delete, or change a party affiliation.
Among the states more generally, primary elections may be closed or open, or somewhere in between. In closed primaries (like NJ), you may only choose among the candidates of your party affiliation, In semi-closed primaries, the unaffiliated may vote as well. In open primaries, a registered voter may vote in any party primary regardless of his/her own party affiliation. In my opinion, the primary election process works well, and I’ve participated since first registering to vote. Because of primaries, I would say that voters in the U.S. have the potential to enjoy much greater participation in the entire election process compared to the situation in Australia. Of course, only about half the eligible voters in the U.S. get to the polls at all.”
Here’s an update: I failed to vote in the Gubernatorial primary because there was only one Democratic candidate left by the time of the election. However, I did vote in the U.S. Senate primary, which cropped up when the incumbent died unexpectedly. My choice lost, but I sucked it up and voted for the successful primary candidate in the November elections. I did feel that I was empowered by the primary election process. However, I do agree that primaries, like any other electoral process, can be subverted by special interest groups. This does not detract from their overall desirability.
Fran levels a number of other criticisms of the state of democracy in the U.S. These would need more time to discuss – perhaps at a later time. In this response I wanted to draw attention to a process, primary elections, as a means to increase the political power of the people at the expense of the entrenched party system. Moreover, primary elections can easily be instituted in Australia by amending federal electoral laws. Cynics would say (I and agree): good luck with convincing the major parties to go along.
@Megan
I was not taking a position on whether any country is democratic or on how democratic any country is, because to me it’s meaningless to do so without an agreed standard of what we mean by ‘democratic’, and as far as I can tell you and I don’t have that. You have said that you are judging whether a country is democratic by whether it has elections, and my comments on that, to repeat myself, are as follows:
that people typically use the word to mean something more specific than that, so to use the word that way without first explaining yourself is to invite misunderstanding; and
that if the word ‘democratic’ is used to mean only ‘having elections’, then the only sense I can make of references to one country being ‘more democratic’ than another is that it has more elections.
@Jungney
By the standard you indicate, democracy doesn’t exist anywhere, probably never has, and probably never will. People typically use a less exacting standard for the application of the term, so if you don’t explain your interpretation of it in advance you invite misunderstanding.
@J-D
I see your problem (and admittedly it’s partly my fault), you thought that when I answered
I was setting out a complete standard for defining the word “democracy”. I wasn’t doing that. To make it clear, I should have said something more like: “..a low one. At least they have elections.”
I wasn’t giving an exhaustive definition, just citing one of the basic elements.
As you don’t take a position one way or the other it is difficult to work out what the point of your original question was.