Chuck ‘em in jail!
Election fever is hitting Queensland, and Law and Order is high on the agenda. And the problems Indigenous kids present are front and centre. And the economy as the campaign rollings along… Labor are not able to run the economy, look at the cost of living, inflation, interest rates, housing costs.
Taking a leaf out of the recent Northern Territory campaign which saw Labor representation reduced to two seats with LNP the promise to deal with youth crime, by reducing the age of criminal accountability to 10 years and on the economic front to reduce restrictions on the destruction of the environment by promoting broader farming reliant on ground water sourced irrigation the campaigning is reduced to simplistic sloganeering, tough on crime and the economy.
March next year it is election time in Western Australian and the Liberals are taking heart and looking closely at the campaign run in the NT to reclaim previously lost ground. A simple message: Labor is weak on crime and the economy, so we criminalise kids and ‘drill, baby drill’ drill to exploit natural gas, jobs, jobs jobs, (profits, profits, profits for those who have already got the most) and bugger the environment.
And hot on the heels of the state election will be the Federal election with Dutton leading the charge in a quest to regain ground lost last time around, a fairer distribution of GST, Western Australia gets way too much, the economy, drill baby drill some more, let’s go nuclear and lets get real tough on crime… especially poor people who resort to crime, bring in the army to bring to heal rampaging kids in Alice Springs or Townsville or Broome, but leave the corporate criminals alone, those who don’t pay taxes on their million dollar incomes, those giant corporations who provide so much employment but manage to off shore their profits to tax havens while demanding infrastructure, roads, ports, airports, the billionaires who fund pet projects in preference to paying taxes.
Tough on crime is problematic. How tough do we need to be to reduce crime? Especially uncontrolled kids stealing cars, doing drugs and drinking alcohol?
Does lowering the age that a kid can be called a criminal and face sanctions including youth detention the answer?
Youth detention in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, Queensland have been in the news in recent times, but is an issue in all places around the country.
Kids being abused, beaten while in detention, locked away in solitary confinement with a minimal amount of sunshine time has seen the detention centre in Western Australia, Banksia Hill almost destroyed as kids rioted, that forced the government to open a unit in an adult prison for kids. That worked really well, as the recent coronial inquest into the death by suicide of a young man demonstrated. The staff in the adult prison were not trained in dealing with kids, and were negligent in their duties. And a son, a brother, a friend died needlessly.
And then just last week another young man in youth detention suicided.
How tough on crime do we need to be? Or could it be that there are some specific issues these young, mainly Indigenous young people face which need to be focussed on?
Could it be that kids who are disengaged in schools are giving some serious clues that they may be facing some issues?
Could it be that in this wealthy nation we could throw a bit of money to establish some intervention programmes, like taking those kids out of the school environment, where they hardly attend (absenteeism is a pretty good indicator that there are issues) and perhaps guide them through some of these issues, get them ‘work ready’ through finding suitable TAFE or apprenticeship programmes, have empathetic councillors available to walk and talk them through some of the life issues they face, oh and possibly, just maybe find a means of engaging their parents in such an endeavour? Maybe even connect them with their Indigenous cultures with time on country with an elder to take them through an understanding of who they are?
The problems faced by Indigenous people is that they have not really been listened to in the past. (What a good idea it would be to find a means of listening to them rather than have them be told what is needed… something like giving them a VOICE!)
I recently picked up a book first published in 1997 (and recently updated). The newest edition included a foreword which highlighted the need for an Aboriginal voice to be heard since successive governments rewrite the rules of engagement to suit them, rather than to listen to those who need most to be heard. The book is called Grog Wars, by Alexis Wright, dealing with alcohol issues and domestic violence in Tennant Creek. The conflict between the business needs of the hotels, bottle shops and night clubs, the claim of a ‘human right’ to drink being restricted from some members of the Tennant Creek community through restricted trading hours, especially on pension days, the marketing strength of the alcohol drink manufacturers, the resistance to understanding Indigenous needs and the deafness of politicians to try to understand the damage alcohol was doing to the town culture and the Aboriginal communities of Tennant Creek. It is an ongoing issue, not just in Tennant Creek but throughout Australia.
Law and order probably means building more prisons and juvenile detention centres to further disenfranchise the most marginalised members of our communities, effectively criminalising their poverty. I do wonder if by being tough on law and order, politicians would welcome restrictions on alcohol in all the parliaments… and perhaps even drug and alcohol testing as is carried out in many work places. Barnaby Joyce may have a bit of a problem with that, his is just the first name which comes to mind, but I am confident that he is not alone in liking a bit to drink now and again… and then there are those rumoured to enjoy other substances.
Maybe, just maybe, by being a little more creative in dealing with social issues such as drug and alcohol abuse and family violence the Law and Order debate can focus on how to help people deal with the ‘shit life syndrome’ which is so often the cause of the addictions and subsequent behavioural issues.
Now, what about the economy, how can it be demonstrated that Labor are pretty useless when it comes to ‘the economy’? They stand in the way, placing too many obstacles in the path of unfettered development. (Don’t mention that there have been budget surpluses during the current Labor government).
Is ‘the economy’ all about development, changing the environment, using the environment as a resource to develop new industries, new crops to grow, more resources to drill and dig up, despite the ever growing recognition that the environment is under threat, climate change is bringing home these problems we were warned about?
It would appear so.
On the ABC’s Four Corners programme a couple of weeks ago, the development of new crops including cotton are the new economic drivers in the Northern Territory. Cotton is a thirsty crop, and irrigated water is a limited resource. The license to use the water for the cotton crop is almost limitless, and it is free; the agreement does not apply a charge for the water drawn from the aquifer. The cotton industry in Queensland and Northern New South Wales has been the major cause for the destruction of the Murray Darling River system.
Indigenous people – the traditional owners – have expressed their concern that the draw of water from the aquifer is damaging the flow of ground water in the streams and creeks which have sustained life over many thousands of years, but the flow is reducing, and the water quality is compromised meaning that traditional food sources are being compromised.
If water quality is compromised because of the destruction of its course, it means that the development of new agriculture is nor sustainable in the long term. A bit like mining really, when the ore body is gone, the mine closes, the employment generated disappears and the environment has a giant hole in it. Or the aquifer no longer sustains life not just for cotton or what ever other new, thirsty crop was grown, but the natural environment is destroyed. The vegetation which for countless eons has sustained life dies.
Again, listen to the Indigenous voice: their song lines which tell the story of the land, which have been the songs of survival in the harsh environment for many thousands of years. The land is sacred, and the Indigenous people know it intimately.
Ah, the economy. Live sheep exports are coming to an end and the sheep farmers are not happy. Labor’s doing. Yet the market for the meat of those animals will not just disappear. Again, a bit of creative thinking... perhaps new abattoirs can be built in regional centres, and packaged meats can be shipped to the markets. Oh, an airport close by and aircraft loaded with frozen meats can deliver same day to anywhere in the world. Employment opportunities in regional areas. Not such a silly idea, is it?
Especially not such a silly idea when the alcohol-fuelled crime rates in regional areas are a significant problem, the ‘shit life syndrome’ problem where people resort to drugs and alcohol and get into trouble because there is no employment, no sense of self worth through being able to afford to live a normal life, from being dependent on the welfare cheque rather than a wage or salary, of having too much time with nothing to do, to get into trouble, to have to build more prisons and youth detention centres because we are tough on crime, law and order is the go! Lock ‘em up, even kids as young as 10.
Election slogans with no substance, looking for quick fixes for complex problems make for easy wins from a disengaged population. But do not form the basis for tackling the problems we face.
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27 comments
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Harry Lime -
Bert -
Arnd -
Steve Davis -
Terence Mills -
Arnd -
wam -
Arne -
Arnd -
Arnd -
Terence Mills -
Bert -
Charlton -
Clakka -
Arnd -
Arnd -
Steve Davis -
Arnd -
Steve Davis -
Arnd -
Steve Davis -
leefe -
Arnd -
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GL -
Arnd -
Steve Davis
Return to home pageHeels, Bert ,Heels..not to be pedantic,but I agree with your articule.
Thanks Harry.
Oy vey, Brother Bert!
That’s true enough …!
But Bert: your “solution” – namely, that if only “we” brought a little more compassion, and a little more integrity, and a little more empathy to dealing with “their” problems, all could and would be well, is just as inane as the attitudes that established mainstream politicians and administrators continue to exhibit – namely that doing the same thing over and over again, only a lot more of it and with even greater determination, intensity and ruthlessness, will eventually produce different and much improved outcomes.
The notion that actually tackling the problems that have been allowed to build up over the last 250 years and longer, will require a complete root-and branch and line-by-line re-negotiation of all areas of the social contract … – that notion seems way beyond you, too.
We do need to review and re-orient all economics, from expansion and growth-dependent global corporate finance capitalism, to some sort of steady-state needs-based arrangement.
We need to re-orient all law and jurisprudence, from the current hapless punitive and retributive “just desert” approach to a restorative approach based on identifying needs and developing capabilities.
We need to re-shape all attitudes, expectations, structures and dynamics of our political system, from our current arrangements that lumps a mere 226 representatives (at the federal level) with the powers (and responsibilities) of discussing, making and amending the rules by which all other 26 million Australians have to conduct their lives.
Et cetera…
The changes that we really need, so as to enable us to respond to the challenges and exploit the opportunities of the emerging Anthropocene, go way beyond a little tinkering with the ideas that enabled us – global humanity – to barely make it through the last few decades of the Holocene.
It certainly requires a lot more than just an extra little bit of compassion and honesty.
Though I agree: that would be a useful start!
Well said Arnd.
No amount of goodwill can bring about progress while we remain addicted to a financial system based on debt.
This system creates a society dominated by debt.
A society dominated by debt cannot be a society of freedom, nor can it facilitate personal growth and development.
Liberal economics produces a class of oligarchs, who then assume that their wealth is equivalent to wisdom and that this gives them the right to shape the world.
As a result the news media is awash with stories about their exploits, aims and ambitions.
This is just institutionalised worship of narcissism and promotion of shallow values.
Society is brainwashed into accepting our slow passage down the gurgler by the ridiculous notion, pushed at every opportunity, that there is no alternative.
There is only two ways out of this.
It seems that in Queensland we will see the LNP slither into office in October, based not on policies but on the slogan that they are not Labor.
The LNP are using juvenile crime as their major point of difference but they fail to offer a policy that resolves or changes the status quo. But clearly the LNP are impressed with what occurred in the NT and they are quite happy to demonise Aboriginal kids if that will get them into office.
It has to be said that the new Queensland Premier Steven Miles is not cutting through with the public and seems to have a problem articulating policies or generating confidence – he urgently needs media training. By contrast the LNP seem to have adopted a policy of not having any policies and expect to gain office on the basis that they are not as bad as Labor.
It is worth noting that SKY after Dark, who are broadcast throughout regional Queensland free to air, are putting a lot of energy into damaging Labor but not necessarily supporting the LNP as a better alternative.
Something that was very evident in the TV coverage of the NT election night was that SKY were well ahead of the ABC in the quality of their presentation. It is clear that SKY are taking on the ABC in the bush and see themselves as the news broadcaster of record : that is worrying.
Terence Mills:
Miles needs more than just media training. Actually, the whole Labor Party, state and federal, needs more than just media training. They are in most urgent need of a spine, for starters. And a brain!
But judging by past performance, that is bound to remain a utopian pipe dream.
Society sees nothing wrong with accepting white people having the individual right to be good, bad or ugly but believes Aboriginal people are all the same. (and Asian)
Black, white or brindle, the killer is grog.
ps
With 60% of us voting no for Aborigines having input into the formation of laws that only apply to Aboriginal people and the bandit (a cunning dollar man, relying on the quasi intelligent service scratchers, especially of the climate variety, to donate the Electoral Commission, both federal and state, cash, on a whim, suggesting a repeat of the NT election.
Labor, to mitigate the loss needs to have a consistent KISS approach to interviews with answers to questions beginning with prepared slogans like their surplus bashing the rabbott and the lnp.
Steve:
That is exactly right (and it is interesting to note in passing that most religions, and certainly the three dominant monotheisms, contain extensive injunctions against usury).
You do seem to have it in against liberalism, though – and to a degree that I find somewhat problematic. I certainly wish you drew a clearer distinction between, on the one hand, classical liberalism as discovered/developed in the 18th and 19th centuries in response to very specific historical circumstances and dynamics, and which had some very distinct progressive and even revolutionary dimensions; and on the other hand neo-liberalism, its farcical and misshapen late-20th century bastard spawn, which is not in any way progressive, but merely the out-and-out reactionary pursuit of the interests of the wealthy and their paid sycophants, enablers and enforcers.
Finally! Spellcheck got its version of my name out in public. Well done!
That’s weird. My reply to Steve, under my wrongly spelt name, was awaiting moderation, and now seems lost altogether.
I swear (cross my heart and hope to die) that I did not use any rude words!
Another feature of the upcoming election in Queensland is the growing division on support for the Brisbane Olympics in 2032.
Paris has been a success and LA in 2028 will probably have some Hollywood flare but there are those in the National party cohort of the Qld LNP who are vocally opposed to Brisbane hosting the Olympics which they see as a costly Labor frolic driven by a Brisbane ‘Latte sipping’ elite.
Queensland being geographically and demographically diverse, from Cairns to the Gold Coast, presents a particular challenge in getting folk across the state to support and pay for what is seen by many as a Brisbane extravaganza .
Watch this space !
Terence,
KONSERVATIVE capitalised is based on FEAR, Fear that some underserving twat may get something more that what I (the capital K Konservative) an willing to cede.
Especially if that undeserving twat happens to have a different skin colour than mine, if the hair is curly or red or something other than what I want it to be.
And, look back on the education the great multi billionaires want…. NOT THINKERS, education should be no more than preparing a worker for tightening screws on a production line. Only the elite, those I choose, should be educated to actually THINK and the most important thing to think about is how to keep the wealth of we produce to the benefit of US who sit in boardrooms, fly around in our private jets and hold important conference on our beautiful yachts.
And the only good politician is one who will ensure they pass the legislation we write, to ensure that any privilege we have is protect by LAW.
So the absolute best election campaign has to be that we are NOT LABOR. Bloody dumb arses should bew able to understand that
Perhaps they should include in that slogan that neither are they GREEN.
If Oz was functional there’d be more work available and, as Steve notes, the economy is so debt-driven (and therefore super-inflationary) it is dysfunctional. There is no clear and easy pathway for disadvantaged youths to get a job rather than rely on theft. But the political class, media and legal system aren’t that keen apparently. Consider who is most advantaged by hyper-inflation, isn’t it that group of parasites? There’s a tv show Dogs Behaving Badly(?) with a Brit treating problem dogs in a day or two via positive feedback at the right time. Dogs can be fixed in a weekend but not humans? Does it serve a purpose to have crime getting out of control as a vector of fear that by default suits the ruling class? What better way to trick people out of their rights than appeal to fear? The plan? Follow a calculated step by step process to an authoritarian bubble-wrapped version of Obeyville. The main problem is political, not youths set up to fail by the social systems designed to go nowhere.
Yes SD and Arnd,
That most of the world institutes or aspires to (what I call) ‘suicide capitalism’ is opportunistic and stupid. Not that capitalism is bad, but one ought be VERY careful in managing and regulating it, as it is inclined to constantly reveal surprises, usually wrought through corporatization.
I certainly agree with the aforementioned alcohol and drugs scenario, they along with ‘sports’ are the usual soporifics of strained and discombobulated societies.
In the long run, money and obsessive accumulation and weapons and ‘freedom’ will be utterly irrelevant as we continue to worship them whilst we wreck the environment and the people. It’s not just climate change and fossil fuels, but almost the entire emanations through and post industrial revolution.
At present, via the means of our modern ‘enlightenment’, at last count there are 78,000 toxic chemicals in commercial use today, and a significant number are persistent in the environment. Do we remember and talk about the birth defects brought on by the use of DDT and dieldrin (ant-rid and paper whitener)? Do we talk about the prevalence of autism and the effect of Oz’s ‘dirty’ fuels? Do we talk about the govt pumping out left over Agent Orange as a free herbicide (containing deadly 2,4-D and 2,4,5 -T)? Did the ‘farmer’s slur’ not ring alarm bells about use and proximity to sheep and cattle dip? Is there an answer to the lead poisoning and acid rain from the smelting processes? What about the toxicity of liberation of iron dust during mining? Is there anything that can be done about deadly persistent PFAS in the environment – millions of tonnes worldwide since 1950s? What about depleted uranium and other residual toxins remaining in war zones? And yeah, and the pseudo estrogens used in many (and most soft) plastics, and there’s PVC’s airborn toxic emissions and in incineration its release of dioxin. Oh, and paraquat deadly herbicide has raised its ugly head again – 70 countries have banned it and thousands are suing its maker Syngenta, yet Oz has not banned it, and more than 10 million kg of it was sold in Oz 2022-23.
It is notable that all these (and most) of the gene-bending substances end up in soils, water and air – so the answer is not blowing in the wind. The huge unaccountable multinationals insist that it’s done, and successive govts allow us all to be poisoned. Not just by their words, but by their inadequacy and stupidity. Of course it’s the children that are most vulnerable, as naturally they love to play outside in ‘fresh’ (?) air, but also in the water and dirt, so their little systems are extra exposed and also via the toxified food chain, and as progeny of generations of gene-bending. In such circumstances as have been imposed, just what do we expect of them? To lock ’em up just exacerbates the evil and cruelty already wrought on them.
Rather than attend properly and scientifically to these issues before release and commercialization, politics dithers on about mental health, blows billions into the reactive health system, frets about the economy, and continues to be about low-brow populist tinkering, whilst staggering sums are diverted to tax breaks and grants for the dotty blue-rinse set, local oligarchs and the raiding ducking and weaving multinationals.
And so we continue to assimilate children into our ‘suicide capitalism’ and ‘death cult’.
Stupidity and madness.
I’ll have another shot at replying to Steve:
That is indeed most of our contemporary predicaments, neatly rolled into one sentence.
Though I think that Steve is unduly critical of liberalism, both in politics and, as in the above comment, as pertaining to liberal economics. I consider it very important and highly useful and instructive to distinguish between, on the one hand, classical liberalism, as it emerged, was developed or was discovered in the 18th and 19th centuries in response to very specific historical circumstances and dynamics, and which did include very distinct progressive and outright revolutionary aspects; and on the other hand neo-liberalism, as it came to prominence in the latter part of the 20th century, and which is true liberalism’s misshapen reactionary (and not just “conservative”) bastard spawn.
Of course, most neo-liberals will self-identity as classical liberals – but that, at best, betrays a serious deficit in mental acuity. It is a bit like saying that America’s (and I am talking about the US and their reactionaries specifically) rise to the world’s foremost industrial power coincided with the development of the reciprocal steam engine as industrial power source – therefore, returning to the reciprocal steam engine as major power source will once again put the US at the pinnacle of industrial power, and magically negate the industrial prowess of Japan, Korea and China. This is clearly not how things work – but this is how neo-liberals all over the (western) world – including the neo-liberals in the Australian Labor Party – have assured all the rest of us things will work, if only we have strong enough faith and work hard enough.
All this takes me right back to the days of my apprenticeship in late-70s W.-Germany: there was a car driving around in my home town that had emblazoned on its sides in big letters the exhortation: Germans! YOU MUST WORK HARDER and SLEEP FASTER! Back then, I thought it was funny! Nearly fifty years later, I can only face-palm. Or cry.
Clakka, thanks for the endorsement, and yes, the issues that you enumerate need attention – the kind of attention that it simply can’t be afforded under the existing economic ground rules.
I beg to differ. Capitalism is bad – which is a statement that does depend on the exact definition of the term “capitalism”.
As I was forced to recognise over thirty years ago now – the term “capitalism* is almost ubiquitously, yet totally erroneously equated with market liberalism. As in “Free Market Capitalism”, which expression is a textbook case of an oxymoron.
If we truly wanted to establish and enjoy the productivity and outcomes of market liberalism, we’d forthwith reform our economy to operate on the (yet to be specified and agreed upon) principles of “Free Market Socialism”.
The details are reasonably complex and even convoluted. Too involved to outline in an online discussion post. But we could go for it. That we do not is a political choice, not historical or economic inevitability, as our political and commercial masters have us believe!
Arnd, you are in good company with your regard for classic liberalism.
Michael Hudson, for whom I have the greatest respect, has a similar view.
He nominates Mill, Smith and Ricardo as being the main theorists of classical liberalism, and as having that progressive outlook. I’m yet to be convinced.
I’m prepared to let Mill off the hook as he turned to socialism in his later years. To me, this possibly means that he woke up to the manipulative aspects of liberalism and decided it was beyond reform.
I’m not prepared to give Smith and Ricardo a free pass however, despite their progressive positions. Smith in particular was awake to the devious side to liberalism, but they both wrote in such general terms that they facilitated the liberal propaganda machine that now controls the world. TINA and all that. Accepted almost without question.
There’s even an Adam Smith Society for these parasites, for crying out loud.
If my memory is correct classical in its original sense referred to that belonging to or pertaining to a particular class, which fits classical liberalism perfectly — the economics of and for a particular class.
Sorry, I had to put that in, even if it’s wrong. Couldn’t help meself. 🙂
Steve:
It’s a cute little snark, and I’ll award you one and a half points. No more!
I may not have made myself clear enough: all I meant to say was that they developed doctrines which were progressive and even revolutionary for their times. But not for our times, now, 150 to 200 years later. Of course, their insights are now dated and superceded. Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine was a brilliant invention, back in its day. But not now. Now, even the famous Cray Supercomputer is dated.
Karl Marx recognised this dynamic in the Communist Manifesto in the mid-1800s:
But that was hundreds of years ago. Now, the very mechanisms in politics and economics, which once were cutting-edge revolutionary, have become obtuse, ham-fisted, cloying impositions.
As I said in a previous comment, the reciprocal steam engine was, once upon a time, a marvel of engineering progress, that enabled railways to travel at hitherto unimaginable speed. But try to power an Airbus A380 with a coal-fired steam engine. It just won’t get off the ground, no matter how hard you hammer shut the emergency valve.
All it will do, eventually, is blow up, with great loss of assets and life.
True, and yet Arnd, the work of Marx has not become dated, as you imply.
One does not have to be a Marxist to make a significant contribution to the political/economic debate, but if you stray too far from Marx, the shallowness will eventually be evident.
Steve,
Ahh! Two things: first, I didn’t actually intend to imply that Marx’s ideas have dated, and second, I actually think they have. Especially in view of the failed grand experiments of Bolshevism, Maoism etc.
It was a curious experience to grow up in what was then W.-Germany, discover the persuasive logic and outright elegance (as a good mate of mine here in Australia put it only a few years ago) of dialectical materialism, Marxist-style, and yet peek across what arguably was the most heavily guarded and enforced territorial border in all of human history, and look at the heavy-handed oppression of “real existierender Sozialismus” effected in the name of that theory.
I consider original Marxism a brilliant synthesis of practically all philosophy that came before it, and definitely greater than the sum of its parts! But like any other human, Marx was not infallible and did allow a few very consequential errors and mistakes to corrupt his opus.
Some of those mistakes are explainable, because Marx, like all the rest of us, was a product of his times and circumstances – or, in other words, even for Marx himself, “Being determines consciousness”.
But, and as I discovered in my second reading of his ideas, he also pulled a few howlers, of a kind that a man of his genius and erudition should perhaps have been able to avoid, no matter the circumstances of his life.
But he didn’t, and here we are!
Arnd, I did not craft my comment with enough care — it was, as I see now, ambiguous and you read it as opposite to my intention.
Apologies for the confusion.
I agree, Marx was human and prone to error as we all are, but his economic analysis has stood the test of time. Because he analysed the foundations — grundrisse as you would know better than me. And as I say to critics of those of prodigious output, (critics of Chomsky come to mind) we cannot expect perfection from those we admire. To do so is infantile.
As I understand it, his Grundrisse was unfinished, possibly because he allowed himself to be sidetracked by disputes with rivals, which if so, is a great pity.
The value of Marx can be seen in the hatred he still engenders in liberals!
He put a mirror up to them, and they don’t like what they see!
The standard has, for centuries, been punishment, punishment and more punishment, yet still we have crime and recidivism. Punishment obviously doesn’t work (especially the styles we favour), so maybe it’s time we tried something else. Rehabiitation, early intervention, youth diversion … there are programs out there which have far better success rates than imprisonment, so expansion of such concepts seems like a no-brainer.
Yes, Marx still acts the revolutionary fox amongst the neo-liberal pigeons.
A large part of the belligerent confusion over Marx’s ideas, analyses and critiques must be sheeted home to hapless “Marxists” who misunderstood and misrepresented Marxism so badly, that Marx was prompted to declare that he himself was not actually a Marxist. Go figure!
Funny you should mention Chomsky, or “Uncle Noam”, as he was referred to during my short time at the Jura Bookshop in Petersham. Chomsky famously made the point that he does not really understand “dialectics” – and I think it shows. Then again, I think that there is a fair bit of unessesary hifalutin nonsense attached to that term by overbearing intellectual salon socialists.
Once you get to the finer points, these sort of discussions seem almost inevitably to descend into “People’s Front of Judea” vs “Judean People’s Front” vs “Popular Front of Judea” (the old guy sitting by himself over there) discord. Not sure what to do about that, really!
Very true.
As much as I admire Chomsky, I cannot see why he had little time for Marx.
Perhaps it was because he admired Bakunin and Proudhon, with whom Marx fought.
I see Marx and the anarchists as having the same goal, the withering away of the state, with the argument being about how to get there.
Does that resonate with you?
When you are basically a policy free party (except when it comes to helping rich mates) then run with the tiresome hoary bullshit of crime, CRIME, CCRRIIMMEE… Not forgetting to ramp up the other equally annoying catchprhrases of fear, anger, violence and “Only we can save you because we’ll be tough on the crime sweeping the state.”
Steve:
Yes, absolutely!
I think many anarchists are way too spooked by what had been made of Marxism in the Eastern Bloc, China and North Korea to allow themselves to get close enough to that philosophical outlook to appreciate the power and dynamism of its inner symmetry. And that is patently understandable. But a pity, nevertheless.
Then there are those “anarchists” (on the British libcom site, for example) who should rather be counted as council communists of one stripe or another. Not that I have any particular problems with council communism – but it’s not anarchism, and the conflation is unhelpful.
Exactly as you say, both orthodox Marxists and anarchists posit the establishment of a classless as well as stateless civil society as desideratum. Were they clearly differ is that orthodox Marxists insist that all political as well as commercial power needs to be concentrated in the hands of state authority, from whence it will whither away on its own – which I think was an entirely plausible stance to take in the latter half of the 1800s, but which, as we know now. did not actually eventuate. For many and complex reasons.
The original anarchists (Bakunin, Kropotkin et al), on the other side, sought to devolute political and commercial power directly – which, if I try to look at it from an 19th century perspective (what, with European nations still being firmly in the clutches of feudalistic power structures), even I would say is delusional. So, realistically speaking, I think that in some ways, the fascist excesses of state authority in the early half of the 20th century were kind of baked into history, and practically unavoidable.
But for us, now, almost two hundred years later, I do not think that the most effective path to a classless and stateless society leads via concentration of all political and commercial power in the hands of state authority.
I hold that we now should indeed aim for the deliberate devolution of those powers to the general populace – especially since neo-liberalism has already done a lot of the heavy lifting as far as taking political power from state authority. Except that neo-liberalism has done so at the expense of concentrating all commercial power in the hands of a few private operators, who exercise it completely beyond any public control or accountability. That needs fixing – and whilst 30 years ago I thought that fixing this mistake will be a long drawn out and difficult but nevertheless mostly peaceful and ordered process, I now have to admit that I badly mislead myself.
People generally, and those who hold power and influence within the system as exists especially, seem far more obtuse and resistant to considering real systemic change than I assumed back then.
Arnd, many thanks.
I have not focused on the means to get there, to the extent that you have, but I appreciate your thoughts on it.
I rest my hope in the belief that anarchist principles have a strength of their own that rest in the human psyche. That therefore cannot be eradicated. And that therefore, will prevail.
I see that in the emergence of such things as community-based renewable power projects.
Projects such as that emerge from failures of the established system.
As the system fails further, more and more diverse activities based on anarchist principles will be seen.
I hope.