31 comments

1. Andrew SmithJune 4, 2024 at 7:10 pm

   A lot to cover in addition to how a mining heiress appears to have become the sort of public point person and alleged donor to these think tanks, NGOs and causes, with a whiff of ‘social-Darwinism’?

   Like in the US how (Atlas) Koch Network ‘owns’ the GOP for fossil fuel, mining etc. donors, locally this translated into ‘owning’ the National Party, to in turn wedge their Liberal colleagues on climate and transition to renewables? Explains the Teals?

   The same have been promoting ‘freedom of speech’ as a Trojan horse to denigrate and defame opponents with the help of RW MSM and commentariat, without penalty, while also using to claim victimhood on university campuses (‘red rag to a bull’) and another angle of attack vs. education, science and empowerment.

   Brendan O’Neill…. Koch Network and IDW ‘intellectual dark web’ linked SpikedOnline promoting freedom of speech (though one has been blocked by same on Twitter) with collaborators including Claire Fox who were in RCP Revolutionary Communist Party (founded by MCC’s Frank Furedi, Hungarian – Canadian); in my opinion they were right wing astroturfers from the start?

   Fox Breaks Cover – from Revolutionary Communist to Farage’s Right Hand Woman

   In a parallel universe is Toby Young’s FSU Free Speech Union which now has an Australian outlet, he also has Daily Sceptic (Koch linked), Covid &/or vaccine scepticism, eugenics, has contributed to RW media inc. The Spectator and years ago, Quadrant:

   ‘In 2015, Young wrote an article for the Australian magazine Quadrant entitled “The fall of meritocracy”. Under a section titled “Progressive eugenics”‘

   https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/03/toby-young-quotes-on-breasts-eugenics-and-working-class-people

   Wheels within wheels, but there are not that many movers and shakers around, yet have disproportionate influence by being platformed vs dissenting voices and analysis being crowded out, to bamboozle and confuse voters.

2. Lucy HamiltonJune 4, 2024 at 10:04 pm

   Fascinating stuff, Andrew. I presume you saw this from Monbiot in 2003? Furedi, Fox and the Trotsky right.
   https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/dec/09/highereducation.uk2

3. JulianPJune 4, 2024 at 10:32 pm

   Thank you Lucy, splendid work. I had been aware of some of the European networks but not the extent of the spider web. No doubt about it, these buggers mean business.

   Thanks also to you Andrew for your sterling efforts to educate and inform us of this festering menace. Your reference to the “disproportionate influence” exercised against dissenting voices is spot on – the misinformation and propaganda gathers apace.

   Thank you both – much appreciated.

4. Phil PryorJune 4, 2024 at 10:43 pm

   More and more, with what limited tme, energy, accuracy and assessment we can put in, the mad nightmare of right wing filth, perversion, anti-civilised, anti-jujstabouteverything actions and subtle intrusiveness is appearing, surfacing, ready to oppress, overturn, coerce, pervert. A Farage, a huge turdy vacancy and emptiness, is typical of this, people at all levels, all professions, all callngs and for all personal reasons of vanity, ambition, posturing wilfulness, are ready to forget all sense learning, past experience, duty, honesty, to fuck us all up and the planet and its future along with that. The seeds of Fascism were apparent to historians in the late nineteenth century. Marx led a vague mobbiness to seek an arrest to the eternal grinding murderous theft and domineering of the oppressors. But, new recruits are there, springing up like pox on a pervert’s prick, seemingly unstoppable, to ruin things, There is so little civilised sense in all this, from past achievements in education, philosophy, history, science, political discourse, diplomacy, trade and facing the genuine needs of a threatened future. IF we allow in such putrefying shit as Morrison, Trump, Farage, Johnson, Bolsonaro, too many others, Putin, Orban, and others who are deeply deficient, we are doomed to collective quasisuicide.

5. Andrew SmithJune 5, 2024 at 12:47 am

   Lucy, hadn’t seen Monbiot’s old article, but I think it just shows evidence of the long game in denigrating science and setting up their people years ago.

   On Spiked, Revolutionary Communists, Kochs, Tanton etc., and their promoters in RW MSM and commentary, they seem desperate to avoid the enlightenment values and simultaneously present as modern, moderate and reasonable vs. the centre and left.

   Sceptical US friends, with knowledge of old networks and grifters, always say follow the money; in the case of RCP at best middle class faux Marxists who had aspirations, to no be living in a ‘council flat’ 🙂

   As we speak, one sees similar efforts e.g. the nominally ‘left’ Novara Media in the UK, especially via Aaron Bastani who is linked to UnHerd, which in turn is ‘Koch Network’; after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine he claimed arming Ukraine was just helping ‘Na*is’, and he complained later of having a mortgage and now a baby….. also a whiff of the IDW

   ByLine Times: ‘Red Tory to Blue Labour – How Spiked and Unherd are Keeping National Populism Alive. Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar look at the reach and influence of an unlikely coalition of ex-Trotskyites, traditionalist Tories and communitarian Labourites’

   Red Tory to Blue Labour – How Spiked and Unherd are Keeping National Populism Alive

   ‘Maintaining the rage’ (first authentic with Whitlam, but on The Voice, used by Howard for ‘pensioner populism’?)

6. Steve DavisJune 5, 2024 at 9:01 am

   From the article — “Whether inspired by reactionary religion, like Philippa Stroud appears to be, or clinging to religion as a cultural symbol representing traditional values, these groups place religion in some form as a core element of their identity.”
   Once again Lucy has drawn attention to real concerns should religious conservatives increase their influence in the political sphere.

   The threat to the reproductive rights of women, the threats to minorities and so on are very real when an organised group has the political power to enact legislation that is detrimental to those it sees as “others”. Because “others” in this case are all those outside the religious group. Ideologues do not govern for the social good, they govern for the good of the special interest group.
   But once again we have to look deeper.

   One of the main reasons that extreme conservatives are gaining in influence is that liberalism has given conservatives ammunition.
   Identity politics has gained ever greater influence, and has grown out of the alienation that is innate to the liberal system, combined with the fatally flawed liberal promotion of the pre-eminence of individual rights. (That’s “fatally flawed” as in fatal to a healthy society.)

   Liberalism, by giving a platform to everything from the unusual to the freaky, has given ultra-conservatives targets to fear. Fear that can then draw political support for the conservative cause from the general public. Support emanating from fear of the unfamiliar and the unknown.

   The fear that drives such support is largely baseless. Yes, the unusual and the freaky can cause harm, but so can those who are boringly normal, which is the group from which support is sought.
   There will be a woman killed by her partner in Australia this week, and the chances are pretty good that the killer will be boringly normal. To his neighbours at least.
   “The banality of evil,” as Hannah Arendt put it.

   But individualism has innate problems for social animals such as humans.
   Individualism, paradoxically, or should that be “in reality”, cannot survive alone. Those who wish to be “other” seek validation among similar “others”. That’s just the way we are.
   And this suits the liberal establishment almost to perfection.

   Because while we focus our efforts on the struggle for the freedom to survive as “the other”, we neglect the struggle for survival that should have our overwhelming attention. Stanford says “identity political formations typically aim to secure the political freedom of a specific constituency marginalized within its larger context.”
   Most of those involved in identity politics have forgotten, or were never aware, of that larger context. Many have been alienated from the larger context for so long they would even be dismissive of it.
   The larger group that we are part of and that should have our attention is the group that is regarded by the liberal establishment as a resource. We all know the regard that liberals have for resources — resources are there to be plundered.

   So the best way to combat the growing influence of extremism in politics is to nurture the reality of our common cause. The reality of our substantive co-identity. Our primary identity.

   There is no point in looking for our differences. Religious conservatives are saying “These people will harm you” and yet this article is also saying “These people will harm you”. There’s no point in looking for enemies to subdue as the article implies — that’s how liberalism operates and thrives. We will continue to be looked on as resources if we play the liberal game.

7. Lucy HamiltonJune 5, 2024 at 10:26 am

   I was re-reading some of the post-liberal right wing tosh from a few years back when the “conservatives” decided that NatCon (ultra reactionary social messaging, post-democratic politics, funded by fossil fuel et al) was the way now that the social “conservatives” understood that they were the “moral minority” not the Moral Majority. I suddenly understood where Steve got some of his ideas from – whether directly or filtered through. And this comment suggests that I hit on the correct path.

   “Identity politics,” I reiterate, is a slander used by representatives of hegemony to discredit the opinion of anyone who doesn’t experience life as a White/cishet/Christian-ish/man. Who would you like us to leave behind, Steve? Should we shut up about First Peoples? Should we leave Queer people to be targeted (literally in America, with bloody results) by the Nat Cons? Or maybe their point that women should get back in the home and breed without work, reproductive justice or access to divorce is a handy point on which to concede. We certainly shouldn’t protest for peace in Palestine because the Nat Cons despise Muslims. War with China is on their agenda, presumably for a different variety of this “unity” that Steve would like to see, as well as the profits.

   These people are not interested in debate. They are interested (as those same articles that filter through Steve’s opinion illustrate) in imposing the order dictated by their definition of God on the rest of us. The natural order they insist on includes a class hierarchy. It is a new feudalism.

   We can be united without letting the Nat Cons dictate terms for us.

8. Steve DavisJune 5, 2024 at 12:26 pm

   “Who would you like us to leave behind, Steve?

   Nothing in my comment suggested leaving anyone behind. Quite the contrary. I referred to “real concerns” about “threats to reproductive rights of women,…the threats to minorities” and to those the Right sees as “others”. How did you conclude from that any suggestion of a leaving behind?

   You said that identity politics is a slander used by the hegemon, as though I had been duped into referring to it. That was a real head-scratcher. It’s as though you imply that identity politics as a term has no legitimacy. That I had no right to introduce it. We all know that the Right de-legitimises any concept they see as a threat. That’s why I quoted Stanford to eliminate any perception of influence. You might have seen it used as a slander, but that does not detract from it.

   Your entire paragraph in which you ask “Should we leave queer people to be targeted…” is offensive, and unnecessarily so given that I support your broad aims.

   The paragraph that followed about the Right “imposing the order dictated by their definition of God…” merely reworded my statement that “Ideologues do not govern for the social good, they govern for the good of the special interest group.” So I’m really wondering what’s going on here.

   You concluded with “we can be united without letting the Nat Cons dictate terms for us.”
   I fear that this is just wishful thinking that misses the point. It would be nice if it was so, but we cannot be united within a liberal system that has forced alienated individuals to create identity politics so they can find respect, meaning, and purpose in life.

   We will continue to be alienated and isolated, and minority rights will continue to be trampled on, while we do nothing to change the economic/financial system that sees working people as a resource to be plundered.

   So when you say we can be united, I must ask, united under what banner? What sense of purpose exists for which we all feel a common cause? For which we all feel solidarity?
   What will unite the farmers resisting mining industry encroachment, the LGBTQ community fighting police force hostility, the overworked, underpaid aged and disability care workers, the indigenous groups fighting institutionalised racism, the unemployed that are given too little to assist the transition to employment and penalised for failure? I could go on forever, but you get the point.

   All these groups do have a common cause, and if change is to be brought about, they all must recognise that commonality. That is the only thing feared by the hegemon — across the board recognition of the source of the problems and the will to resist. One thing that does not strike terror into their hearts is the isolated many pointing the finger of fear.

   Your concluding sentence from the article began ” If we don’t watch them, we cannot…”
   That’s another thing of which they have no fear.
   As Karl Rove once said ” “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

   We have only one choice. Take away their power.

9. wamJune 6, 2024 at 7:40 am

   patience may see the social media:
   reveal the wort5h of renewables
   show the damage from greenhouse gases
   expose the right by their excesses,
   oops luck and the share button???

10. Lucy HamiltonJune 6, 2024 at 9:56 am

    Looking forward to see what else the slippery term of “liberalism” can be responsible for in Steve’s definition.

    We were forced to fight for rights that had been denied various groups (which the Right refers to as “identities” for the purpose of denying their validity) because the goals were a long, slow bumpy path to being seen as equally human with equal human dignity. We continue to have to fight for them because neofeudalists don’t want any but one identity – affluent white/cishet/”Christian” men – to have any impact on the shape of society. So I assert: “identity politics” is a term without validity. Civil rights movements continue with an eye to different groups’ concerns. People belonging to these groups (unlike middle class and above, white, cishet, “Christian” men) continue to be targeted for political and social right-stripping because of the neofeudalists.

    Please note that sub groups within the left have had to, at times, fight the white men there for recognition that these sub groups are valid and suffer in different ways.

    That’s why I subscribe to intersectionality. We can fight the class war together with a recognition that there are a range of different obstacles facing people in different groups. We can’t achieve justice without that awareness.

    We agree about taking away their power. I am just amused that you are borrowing their talking points to argue it.

11. Steve DavisJune 6, 2024 at 12:05 pm

    “Looking forward to see what else the slippery term of “liberalism” can be responsible for in Steve’s definition.”
    Lucy, you’ve had ample opportunity to refute my claims as to the detrimental effects liberalism has on society, opportunity from a series of articles, but you choose not to.

    “We were forced to fight for rights that had been denied various groups (which the Right refers to as “identities” for the purpose of denying their validity) because the goals were a long, slow bumpy path to being seen as equally human with equal human dignity.”
    Apart from your questionable assertion that “identities” is a creation of the Right, how is your point any different to the Stanford explanation I gave above?
    Or to the Britannica version — “Identity politics, political or social activity by or on behalf of a racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, or other group, usually undertaken with the goal of rectifying injustices suffered by group members because of differences or conflicts between their particular identity (or misconceptions of their particular identity) and the dominant identity (or identities) of a larger society. Identity politics also aims, in the course of such activity, to eliminate negative misrepresentations (stereotypes) of particular groups that have served to justify their members’ exclusion, exploitation, marginalization, oppression, or assimilation to the point of erasure.”
    Stanford and Britannica are mainstream sources. “Identity politics” is a mainstream concept no matter what efforts are made by the Right to undermine it. To assert that the term has no validity, as you do, is worrying.

    “Please note that sub groups within the left have had to, at times, fight the white men there for recognition that these sub groups are valid and suffer in different ways.”
    Of course, but it’s an irrelevant point. We are all products of the era in which we live. Your insistence on this point, (you’ve brought it up elsewhere) ignores the fact that the left as a whole has a proud record of fighting for the rights of minorities and the disadvantaged, whether that be a struggle against racial discrimination, or for equal pay for women and so on. Why do you keep bringing it up? When you look for difference, you look to divide.

    “We can fight the class war together with a recognition that there are a range of different obstacles facing people in different groups. We can’t achieve justice without that awareness.”
    That statement is so lacking in substance that it’s in danger of floating away on the breeze. It’s a motherhood statement that no-one on the left would disagree with.
    It neglects to explain how the different groups will unite. What will draw them together. Awareness of the problems of others is only half of the answer. Awareness of the common enemy that will engender solidarity is of equal or greater importance. The fight for justice will not even be fought, let alone won, without a society-wide recognition of the source of the injustice.

    “I am just amused that you are borrowing their talking points to argue it.”
    Apart from the fact that I’ve borrowed nothing, you’ve tried twice or more now to link me to the Right. Good luck with that.

    “We agree about taking away their power.”
    The way this discussion is progressing, that comes as something of a surprise. So I have to ask, just what do you see as their power? I’m not referring to their propaganda power as we can never compete with that. I refer to the ultimate source of their power. Just what do you wish to take from them?

12. ClakkaJune 7, 2024 at 3:39 pm

    Thanks Lucy for your informative two-part articles.

    I gained much from your naming of the various actors, within the context of your stories. And hours of additional reading to illuminate the context, the historical timelines and the threat. Not being an academic in social / political sciences, nor journalist in the same realm, does not preclude me from having a well honed ability to read, research and comprehend complexities, and the nature of us all. For I too am experienced, an educated-enough human, who is not lazy, complacent, and like most, significantly concerned for the direction of the (apparently) new undermining of universally beneficial political discourse and action.

    I am old enough to have a lay person’s view of the onset of a new more virulent form of rot from the days of Thatcher and Reagan, and to notice the privatizing of almost every public utility (for a song), accelerating inequity and demise of the ‘middle class’ and the engorgement of the (concealed) aristocrats and kleptocrats to a top-floating fetid bunch of turds constituting the 1% owning 98% of wealth. Who, of course without the political assistance of their mates at the trough, wouldn’t know how to run a street stall. Due to their incompetent, arrogant, greedy, self-entitlement, the whole world’s economy stagnated, whilst the ordinary folk stood askance. Confidence, education, and the ability to count plummeted to dogma, hegemonic rivalry, pubescent point scoring and closed-circle swap meets propped by off-line bank tellers and sell-out bean counters, whilst the tangible world slipped by on slimey bling, playing in toxic piles of waste and stranded assets. Bankruptcy by liquidity stalled, nothing built or moving but the writhing maggots at the top.

    The big problem they faced was, how to explain themselves. A gap was obviously for the taking, and out of the ‘council flats’ stepped the feckless misanthropic alsoran political and scientific academics, historians, and journalists to provide strangulated, dreamed up, illogical word-salads to sanitize the kleptocracy and provide ammo to the dickhead, trough-slurping politicians that were too proud to admit failure, but needed an excuse to maintain their sinecure, come what may. The reading of the Wikipedia article on Fukuyama brought home how some can get stuck on their own BS, whilst others can continue research and observation of cause and affect and make change, sometimes even diametrically, as required.

    I’ve certainly had substantial experience in conflict resolution and mediation. And to have any chance of it being successful, one has to do the hard yards, and know the ‘facts’ and ‘counter-facts’ top down, bottom up. Then one can have proper ears for listening. One must also understand the gangs and sub-gangs, who is paying and who stands to benefit, and the fundamental objectives of all participants, so that one may have a chance of posing the right question to the right participant at the right time. And when to be silent.

    Suffice it to say that should a matter move to a process of ‘discovery’, on all occasions there will be messy stuff, where members of a group / sub-group will be at loggerheads or have differences over matters, sometimes the slightest of nuances, even though they have the same ultimate objective – such is point-scoring. In conflict resolution and mediation, such messy stuff can be a ‘gold mine’ for the driving of an inquisitorial wedge to obtain an outcome whether right or wrong.

    As for the nature of power, it is said, know thine enemy and keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Apparently so as to know the shifting ground upon which they travel, and the twists and turns they may make to stay close to power (and fortune).

    Ironically, power has a way of defeating itself, for the meddlers in that sphere will be brought to point-scoring and thereby corruption. To the extent that any power can endure it would appear to be a sublime thing, maybe recognized or not, but not something to be taken or taken away.

    It would seem that those that seek to take power will often become enervated by the strains of trying to make reason out of their ambition, so it being the nature of them, they will seek external opportunity to make their move. And of course, increasingly over the past 40 years we have been wending our way towards great change away from the devastations of the industrial revolution – to what paradise we remain unsure, so those vested in that era, have continued pumping false nostalgia. And as in their face, the world continues to change, so to does the language – we are now all aware of the nature of tipping points – but not necessarily the quandries of time, linear or exponential.

    Whoopee, time for glory and infamy. What could the power-seeking opportunist grab onto? Time to drag out and pump up the feckless misanthropic alsoran political and scientific academics, historians, and journalists ….. Oh yeah, it’s obvious, wars. ‘Climate Wars’ and ‘Culture Wars’, woohoo, and now we’ve got mass (hysterical) media and its all wearing thin. The opportunity is close to passing, because many are educated and watching and counting. So the inevitable losers seeking to take power are becoming increasingly shrill …… Loud and sus.

    I guess that telling the stories and identifying them and their conga-line of flunkies and their m.o. is the best path. It provides information for those that might seek it. They can then make up their own mind. What else to do? For if one seeks to take away someone’s power, doesn’t one then become like them, a power taker?

    A while back, a long way from the halls of power, I was having a yarn with a bloke from the regions doing a bit of heavy lifting. He brought the conversation to a dead stop, when he said, “I don’t worry, because we’re always gunna be ruled by someone, and that’s it.” Whatever …. and he gets to vote!

    Thanks Lucy, looking forward to your next article.

    PS: I also enjoy PP’s comments. Wish I could carry off that style with the heavy lifters in the regions.

13. Steve DavisJune 8, 2024 at 11:30 am

    “Our civilization is crazy because the systems which govern it are crazy, …” Caitlin Johnstone 8.6.24.

    I’ve been making the point for some time, that to arrive at any semblance of balance or justice in modern society we have to change the system under which we operate. That system is the economic/financial system.

    We have watched as our economic/financial system became integrated into our social system to a point where it now dominates most of our thinking. Dominates to such an extent that we see this as normal; as natural. To the point where many cannot imagine a world without it.
    The study of economics was initially known as political economy, because it was rightly seen as something separate from general social considerations. Endless propaganda has ensured that this is no longer the case. The economic takeover is now complete.
    To ensure that this remains the case, an endless barrage of useless information keeps us living in The Matrix. I turn my computer on in the morning and the first thing to pop up, unrequested, is a market report.

    But this system is the source of most problems from the local level to the global, because it facilitates the endless accumulation of wealth. This naturally creates a class of plutocrats who because of their wealth, have almost unmatched power to influence government policy to their advantage. That advantage of course, involves the preservation and enhancement of of the system that created them. They achieve this by channeling legislative and judicial processes towards favourable outcomes.

    Pointing the finger at various nasties from the Right, or even worse, to just watch them, does nothing to change the system, or to weaken the position of those who work relentlessly to protect their position. It could even be argued that it helps them, by diverting attention from their actual power source.

    While we look for figures on the Right to hate, the misery and chaos they cause continues, and this will be seen in the future as being partly down to us.
    Down to us because we stood back and complained while the greedy and the grasping chuckled at our impotence. At our ineffectual protests. But more importantly, at our missing the point.

    Because there is one thing they fear.

14. JulianPJune 8, 2024 at 4:06 pm

    Steve, would this article resonate with you, and if so, how do you see the author’s suggestion/s applying here?
    [ https://consortiumnews.com/2024/06/07/us-economic-pundits-their-wall-street-vibes/ ]

15. Steve DavisJune 8, 2024 at 4:52 pm

    Julian, thanks for the link.
    The article was full of little stand-alone gems, such as Reagan attacking his own government, and “Gone was the 1930s understanding that government was needed to protect the people from corporate power. Gone was the idea that in hard times government should put people to work. Gone was the idea that Wall Street needed strict regulations ”and “Greed is good wasn’t just a joke from a movie, it was the dominant governmental theory of economic growth”

    The author referred to the healthy US economic indicators but then contrasted that with the mistrust people in the US have in government, almost as though he accepted the figures.
    He missed an opportunity to show how these indicators are misleading, manipulated. For example, I forget how many times Thatcher changed the definition of unemployment, yet still left office with unemployment higher than when she took office.

    His conclusion was very good — “ Expecting the political establishment to reform itself is folly. It takes pressure from a mass movement to force meaningful change.”

    But his final sentence was wishful thinking. “Today, labor unions are the only organized groups with the resources to stop corporate dominance of politics and government before our cherished democracy is sold to the highest bidder.”
    Labour unions will be important in that struggle, but cannot do it alone as he already conceded with the call for a mass movement.
    Union leaders can be and have been bought off, unions can be and have been infiltrated, agents provocateur can be and have been used to disrupt movements for change. A society-wide movement is the only way forward.
    But a very good article, thanks again.

16. Douglas PritchardJune 8, 2024 at 5:21 pm

    SD and JP.
    I cant be as eloquent, or as informed as you both, but a couple of things bothers my gut feel for our financial system which does not often get mentioned widely.
    Firstly we are urged constantly to have our GDP/output etc on a growth trajectory, because without growth we will all starve and die, and get vapourised by the commies, and that would never do.
    That thought process is not sustainable as any mathematician will tell you.
    The climate will fold, and wealth inequality will go gang busters.
    Secondly i once read a book on the evils of interest, and by the time i had finished it I was convinced that our financial system would hold together for only so long and then…… well …..the end of the world as we know it.
    I cant see any possible changes on the horizon, no matter how bad things get

17. Steve DavisJune 8, 2024 at 7:20 pm

    Douglas, your instincts are good; that’s all that matters.

    You’re right of course, we should be worried about a system that cannot remain stable without constant growth. And that’s not the only source of instability in the liberal system.
    It was the Australian economist Barry Hughes who pointed out another weakness in the liberal system when he reminded all who would listen that; “Only when the pursuit of self-interest remains the preserve of the few does the system remain workable.”
    The plutocrats know that or sense it, hence their hatred of community solidarity that aims for a more equitable distribution of wealth.

    You’re also correct about the dangers of interest. Check out the economist Professor Michael Hudson; this is one of his favourite topics. He has his own web-site, and is also featured at Geopolitical Economy.

18. Steve DavisJune 9, 2024 at 8:24 am

    Doug, I put you onto the wrong track with interest, it’s debt that’s a favourite topic of Michael Hudson.
    But the two are related.

    He points out that the protection provided by the system for creditors while giving little in the way of protection for debtors, is transferring wealth upwards and weakening the entire economy.
    And we see that, with the Reserve Bank using interest rates in a desperate effort to stabilise the economy while doing nothing to stop the destabilising factors.
    In a financialised economy as we and other Western economies are trending towards, (a FIRE economy) by raising interest rates the Reserve Bank protects the wealthy (the system) by making mortgagors shoulder the burden. This ensures that the pursuit of self-interest is tightly controlled, in line with Barry Hughes’ comment.
    As you point out, economies run in this way cannot last.

    The fact that the Reserve Bank has interest rates as the only tool in the cupboard, shows how precarious the whole thing is. And with economics awards and prizes being given to those who dream up new ways to milk the system, we really are in fantasyland.

    Economics awards should be cancelled until they come up with ways to manage healthy low-growth or no-growth economies. We cannot have perpetual growth in a world of finite resources. They are trying to delay the inevitable.

19. ClakkaJune 9, 2024 at 4:59 pm

    Indeed, to me, low-growth or no-growth economies are central to reform, and it’s no small irony that any move toward that equilibrium is jumped on by those wielding the levers of our broken financial system, and its lame-brained automotons of politics and bureaucracy. A system where debt and interest have increasingly been fashioned to serve the plutocrats (and kleptocrats) rather than unincorporated citizens.

    It is not to say that a capital distribution system is bad, or that corporations are bad, but regulation that fails to hold them and their respective functionaries and members responsible and liable for maintaining equity in service to the population as a whole. And the same as for competition, it should not be directed towards dominion, but rather to population-wide mutuality, where only efficiency and equity are the measures, and where demand differentials are driven by natural events and circumstance or by invention.

    The over-arching measure should be the maintenance of environmental health and diversity. With financial abstractions serving only agglomerative power quests and the supremacy of financial and corporate institutions eliminated. As for investment in ideas and the spreading of risk (eg. insurance), these do not have to be matters requiring competition, but rather could be covered by a population-wide taxation contingency and distribution only to maintain equity. It would seem to be a myth that competition is the main or only thing that provides stimulus, it could be said that art, culture and seeing humanity prosper provides greater stimulus.

    Whilst the manic population growth of the 20thC & 21stC has gone unabated hand-in-glove with growth economics, it will likely revert to a sustainable balance upon reform to low-growth or no-growth economics.

    In all this we of course are brought to notions of freedom, globalization, democracy, totalitarianism and autocracy, and the idea of separate States and ties to culture. Now that the world is globally aware, means that globalization is on the march, come what may. Given that it means that different cultures understand both their uniqueness and the things that bind us all. As we have seen in the dissolution of the USSR, and subsequent rearrangements, we have also seen that the influence of competitive growth economics on the hands of man forming and formalizing States and Treaties from 19thC onwards is not something that can’t be undone. It would seem that cultures and geography plays a more important role than economics unless agreed otherwise by the folks on the ground. It seems division by Imposed economics is seldom if at all successful.

    It may be that there is a mass movement already afoot, but it wants for a better language for expression, and organization. It would appear that the despots and flunkies of captured-by-growth economics and exploitation are well aware of it, and in fear have formed a coalition of screech to counter the movement.

    However, given the discernable failures of the system extant, it seems the uprising is underway. The hyperbole of the sensation-seeking captured mass media is less and less affective, and governments are on notice. Necessity being the mother of invention, and that folk are more and more aware of approaching tipping points, great change seems imminent, and surely mistakes will be made followed by corrections of significance.

    Politics so often drags the chain, but in times of great change, the unremitting spotlight is on its practitioners, and they must perform decisively and effectively or they’ll be out. Whether they can find the positivity and language to to decouple from corporate-capture growth economics, and how long it takes is the big question it seems is difficult to forecast, albeit it seems to be underway on tenter hooks.

    The mind-blowing dilemmas and horrors going on in the USA in this presidential voting year are one thing, but Oz (like all other countries) is by no way immune. After weeks of trying to scalp Giles, over this weekend it ought be no surprise that the LNP has no shifted to shrill attacks by Ted O’Brien et al on Labor and Chris Bowen and their complex energy policies and climate change abatement commitments regardless of the inherent difficulties. They are testament to stupidity and recklessness and their increasing preparedness to blag Oz’ reputation, invent local alarm, and go full bore with Trumpist anti-science, authoritarian dross, coupled with extreme imposed corporate-capture growth economics – all when they haven’t got a plan, a policy or mechanics of implementation to rub together. Many have started pulling their pronouncements to pieces, let’s hope Labor is on its toes to sink the LNP’s pirate ship.

    Here’s a scientific view

20. Steve DavisJune 9, 2024 at 5:58 pm

    Clakka, well put.

    You just about covered everything!

21. Steve DavisJune 11, 2024 at 9:52 am

    In her articles here and at Pearls and Irritations Lucy has adopted a non-stop focus on small-time players from the conservative/religious Right.
    She says we must watch them. As though Tony Abbott or Victor Orban are the Devil incarnate.

    Meanwhile, the real movers and shakers carry on doing what they always do. Doing what they do best. Weaving a spell from lies and illusions to divert attention from the main event. To get us looking at the small-time players instead of the system they serve.

    Take, for example, an article published just a month or so ago in The Economist, that fountainhead of liberal illusions for almost 200 years. It was a masterpiece of misdirection, even introducing an element of panic.

    “The Liberal International Order Is Slowly Coming Apart — Its Collapse Could Be Sudden and Irreversible.”
    To be fair, the article did point the finger at the US for most of the problems. What the article did not mention however, was the role played by The Economist in supporting US control of global economic/political policies and institutions since WW2.
    But despite what appears from the headline to be a somewhat chastened, newly enlightened approach by The Economist, the article shows that half-truths and illusions are still its stock-in-trade.
    In the second paragraph we see this.

    “For years the order that has governed the global economy since the second world war has been eroded.”
    We must ask, governed the global economy on behalf of whom? For the 1% of course. For the target audience of The Economist.

    “Today it is close to collapse. A worrying number of triggers could set off a descent into anarchy, where might is right and war is once again the resort of great powers.”
    Where might is right? Where war is once again the resort of great powers? There was no concern about great powers running amok during the tenure of Bill Emott as editor when he editorialised in favour of the invasion of Iraq.

    “Even if it never comes to conflict, the effect on the economy of a breakdown in norms could be fast and brutal.”
    Oh dear, we the 1% might suffer some pain. And “a breakdown in norms” is code for an inability to enforce the liberal agenda. The entire focus of the article was the protection of those with power without even mentioning those with power. A masterpiece of misdirection.

    According to wikipedia “The editorial stance of The Economist primarily revolves around classical, social, and most notably, economic liberalism.”
    Most notably? This supports my argument that when push comes to shove, when the right to unlimited accumulation of property is threatened, that’s when the brutal realists, the “bovver boys”, the hard men of economic liberalism take control of the crisis until order is restored, and feel-good nonsense about rights and freedoms and dignity can be fed to the grateful masses once more.

    When the US and NATO stomp around the world, those on the conservative/religious Right certainly cheer from the sideline, but they are not the ones committing murder and mayhem. They are not the ones with power. They are bought and paid for voices for those with power.They are not the ones we need to watch.

    It is crucial to understand that when Karl Rove said “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” he was deadly serious. This is actually what they are doing. Creating their reality for our consumption. And the conservative Right are merely a part of that manufactured reality. They are pawns. They are being used. And when the time is right, when the conservatives have served their purpose, “we’ll act again, creating other new realities…”

    They can do this because they have power.
    The only way to stop them is to take away their power.

22. Andrew SmithJune 11, 2024 at 7:02 pm

    Steve Davis, they are not small time and include the Anglosphere, Europe, Atlas – Koch (e.g. IPA, CIS etc.), Murdoch led RW media and ageing electorates to stymie progress, and especially the EU (see Brexit).

    ‘The Koch-funded Atlas Network is also targeting Europe. The influence of the Atlas Network – a web of libertarian and ultra-conservative think tanks funded by billionaires such as the Kochs – has been well documented in the US, the UK, and more recently Argentina following the election of Javier Milei. Its growing presence in the EU has been less examined……The Atlas Network is a reflection of a wider alliance, in the US, between economic libertarians – with their anti-climate, anti-regulation and anti-social justice agenda – and ultra-conservatives which focus on issues such as abortion, migrants and minority rights.;

    https://multinationales.org/en/investigations/the-atlas-network-france-and-the-eu/

23. Steve DavisJune 11, 2024 at 8:46 pm

    We can look for enemies on the Right until we’re blue in the face; it will achieve nothing.

    What’s the point in worrying about what libertarians and ultra-conservatives might do to Western society, when those with real power have been causing havoc, completely unrestrained, since at least 1999 with the bombing of Yugoslavia. And the chaos continues.

    Those with real power are out of control, are on a murderous rampage, so to focus on what the Right might do to us indicates a lack of awareness and empathy that is most unattractive, to put it mildly.

    Those with real power will continue to plunder and maim, and the ultras will continue to indulge their fantasies at the margins until their power is taken from them.

    Their power comes from their control of the financial system.
    That should be our focus.

24. Steve DavisJune 13, 2024 at 8:05 am

    I’ve made the statement a few times now that the only way to correct the damage caused to society by liberalism, is to take away liberal power.
    Their power exists in their control of economic/financial affairs, which they operate to protect and enhance the parasitism that lies at the heart of the liberal system.
    Unable to continue plundering the world’s resources through colonialism, through a combination of luck and planning they were able to transform their domestic national economies into financial colonies, through the banking system.

    Our highly successful public bank, the Commonwealth, was transformed over a period of decades into a Reserve Bank which is legally owned by the Australian people, but ideologically owned by the private sector. By liberals.

    This quote from the Reserve Bank web-site obscures who it is that really controls the Reserve Bank, but still let’s the cat out of the bag — “There have been several changes to the roles and functions of the Reserve Bank of Australia since the 1980s, though its overall objectives have remained the same. Direct controls over banking activities gave way to market-orientated methods of implementing monetary policy. The Bank adopted a policy of inflation targeting in the early 1990s . While the Bank remains accountable to parliament and the Australian people, its political independence in conducting monetary policy is central to its mission and effectiveness as a modern central bank.”

    Market-oriented policy? Political independence? Accountable to Parliament? The intended impression is one of disinterested neutrality. What a joke.

    The role of the Reserve Bank is “to contribute to the stability of the currency, full employment, and the economic prosperity and welfare of the Australian people. It does this by conducting monetary policy to meet an agreed inflation target, working to maintain a strong financial system and efficient payments system,…”
    There’s a major problem with that. There’s three distinct aims/roles there. Some aims/roles are in conflict. Full employment cannot be achieved when raising interest rates to stabilise the economy results in unemployment. So in situations of conflict, which aim will win?

    This from the ABC 25 June 2023 might give us a clue — “Last week, deputy governor Michele Bullock (now governor) said the RBA’s goal was to get the unemployment rate up to 4.5 per cent by the end of next year. It’s currently 3.6 per cent.” Well blow me down, who woulda thought. And all to fight inflation. We can’t have inflation cos then the great unwashed will demand pay increases, who knows where it might end!
    So in situations of conflict, which aim wins? The aim that protects the powerful. *See note below.

    But problems with fulfilling the bank’s charter are compounded by having the Reserve Bank Board dominated by members with a background in economics or business.

    Economics students internalise, as a matter of faith, that what’s good for business is good for society. They bring that faith to board meetings. The minority members (2 union and 1 community background) don’t stand a chance.
    The result is as we saw above — we now have market-orientated methods of implementing policy. Not people orientated. Not community orientated. Market orientated. Our economy now serves “the market”, that undefined and indefinable entity about which we know little apart from some tosh about its beneficent invisible hand. You couldn’t make this stuff up. Our economy is run from fantasyland.

    We would think that a charter for a reserve bank would be a clear and concise set of principles, which it appears to be. But appearances are deceptive. The Reserve Bank in its wisdom has created its own definition of one of its charter requirements; full employment. From the ABC 21st March 2024 — “The RBA uses a technical and more narrow definition (than the government) : it says full employment is the level of unemployment that’s consistent with stable wage or price inflation.”
    In other words, full employment is not related to employment statistics. Full employment is whatever keeps the powerful happy. What did I say about our economy being run from fantasyland?

    But it gets worse. From the ABC 25th Sept 2023 — the government “doesn’t want to disrupt the RBA’s methods. It accepts that the RBA uses a narrower concept of full employment.” If you needed proof that the Reserve Bank is not answerable to the Parliament or the people, it’s right there.

    We could start taking power back from the powerful by taking back control of a Reserve Bank that is not complying with its charter.

    *Note. ABC 16th May 2024 — “Australia’s headline unemployment rate rose to 4.1 per cent in April, up 0.2 percentage points from March.” That would have got the congrats and champers flowing at the Reserve Bank.

25. Harry LimeJune 13, 2024 at 8:51 am

    Yes,Steve Davis it is, and has been a joke for a long time.I suspect that Jim Chalmers feels the same way, despite his mouthings of support.As we know,the government doesn’t run the country,vested interests do.Maybe when Chalmers displaces Albo,he might have a crack at chasing the money changers out of the RBA temple.

26. GLJune 13, 2024 at 11:21 am

    As long as the major parties are beholden to big business and the corporations much searing hot air will be blown and nothing much else. Except that is around election time. Then the promises will flow like burst dam until the elections are done with and then it’s back to the usual big time inertia.

27. Steve DavisJune 13, 2024 at 12:43 pm

    Harry, I know little about Chalmers, but his appointment of a Bank of England figure as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank gives me no confidence at all.
    The appointment was apparently in response to a review that found that the Board needed more diversity of viewpoints, so what did he do? Appointed another economist, and from the banking sector no less. More Establishment ideology — just the diversity we needed.

    The RBA review was instigated by Chalmers, who appointed a panel of three experts to carry out the review. All were economists. How’s that for diversity of opinion? And what was a major recommendation from the panel? That the RBA make more use of experts.
    Yep, more stuff from the “You couldn’t make it up” department.

    As one panel member explained in an article in The Conversation; “the review defined expertise broadly. It said that although the change would very likely mean more academic expertise on the board, other experts were likely to include business leaders and professional economists.”
    Lord help us. Until we take back control, we’re stuffed.

28. Harry LimeJune 13, 2024 at 2:52 pm

    Steve,uttered more in forlorn hope than belief.Nothings going to change for the better until there’s a mighty political upheaval.We’ve already had a beginning,and the way Labor and their oppostion are behaving,it almost guarantees more is on the horizon.

29. CanguroJune 13, 2024 at 3:23 pm

    SD, not to as it’s said pour cold water on a good idea, but ‘take back control’? Really? Tend to agree with the next bit though, ‘we’re stuffed.’ I’m never going to be an armchair analyst of any note wrt matters in this arena whether in regard to political or economic or social phenomena but I can sure see which directions trends are moving in and I think have enough nous to determine what’s more likely than not, so I’m willing to wager any amount you choose that taking back control isn’t on the cards in any real sense anytime soon. Just saying. And in saying just saying, I’ll admit that I enjoy life as much as the next person, I’m not embittered or cynical or full of angst or otherwise raging against the dimming of the lights… au contraire, I hope I can get as much out of this spin around the circle of life as is possible, but yes, I admit, things don’t look promising for poor old Homo sapiens, the intelligent bipedal ape.

    As if global warming and its burgeoning consequences aren’t enough, we’ve now been alerted to an ancillary artefact, [chuckles ironically], one that ought to have been entirely anticipated. Today’s Guardian article on this soon to be released documentary, The Grab, – which will no doubt make for a fun viewing – reinforces as it were the fact that those with the most will do their very best to ensure that they retain that position and the rest of us can go and get stuffed. Maybe at that point we might just perhaps see the masses surge in a belated effort to ‘take back control.’ Methinks it will be, tragically, too little, too late.

30. Steve DavisJune 13, 2024 at 5:03 pm

    Canguro, thanks for the comment.
    You’re right, taking back significant control is not on the cards anytime soon, but it’s a matter of awareness.

    People the world over want change, but don’t really know what it is they want, except in very superficial ways, hence the move to the Right in Europe. If we asked 100 of those who moved to vote Right why they did so, we’d probably get 100 different answers.

    Until we recognise the heart of most of our problems, nothing will change in any meaningful way.

    The system is so entrenched that it’s likely that only incremental change is possible, but a good start here in Australia would be to force governments to make sure the Reserve Bank complies with its charter.
    Over time, the Reserve Bank operations/roles/aims have been separated out or farmed out to different sub-committees, but guess what? There’s no committee for ensuring full employment. That tells us what the priorities of the Reserve Bank actually are.

    The third and final aim outlined in the Reserve Bank charter is to ensure “the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia.” There’s a committee to look after just about every problem big business might face, but no committee for the homeless. It’s a joke.

    A campaign to enforce Reserve Bank compliance with its charter is achievable.

31. Steve DavisAugust 25, 2024 at 11:59 am

    If anyone is in any doubt that the Australian Reserve Bank sees its role as being to serve market forces instead of the Australian people, or that Jim Chalmers is a besotted fan of the market, adrift somewhere in fantasyland, see this from the ABC today.

    “In case you missed it, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he will no longer push ahead with the idea of abolishing the federal government’s power to overrule a decision by the Reserve Bank Board. He says he’ll keep the power in place, and he’ll now just try to restrict the circumstances in which it can be used. “We are prepared to limit the parliament’s override powers to emergency situations, to rare instances,” he announced on Friday.”

    To show just how deep into fantasyland Chalmers has wandered, he revealed that it was actually Coalition members of the Senate Committee who objected to him going the whole hog and legislating complete Reserve Bank independence as recommended by a Reserve Bank review.
    Fair dinkum, yer couldn’t make this stuff up.

    As the article today notes; “It’s been strange watching Coalition and Greens MPs, and former RBA governors and treasurers, trying to remind Labor that it would be unwise to relinquish democratic control over a central bank.”

    Strange? I’d say more like sickening.