The evil of Conservatism
By Christian Marx
The world is in crisis. Endless wars, famine, rampant racism, assassinations, coups, a corrupted media landscape, increasing attacks on workers’ rights. All of these calamities are not happening in isolation. They can all be linked directly back to the political ideology of conservatism.
Conservative politics – in a nutshell – is designed to protect the old and wealthy establishment. Not only this, it is calculated to claw back as much of the wealth within society as possible, thus pushing millions of people in Western countries into poverty. It is a form of legalised theft. Below are some of the evils of conservatism.
Scapegoating Minorities: This is a tried and true conservative trope. In order to weaken resistance against their attacks on peoples’ social and working rights, attacking the powerless and those who are different, is a key conservative strategy.
This is done to divide those who are opposed to conservatism into sub-factions who will fight against one another and blame each other, instead of blaming the cause of all the social and economic dislocation.
Media Monopolies: The very wealthy own all the mainstream media and they ultimately all have the same goals … to protect their power and wealth. They utilize their media to push the economic dogma of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism pushes for the erosion of state services, workers’ rights, radical privatisation, the decimation of unions and the persecution/demonization of left wing political thought. See here for a comprehensive assessment of neoliberalism.
Attacking the Unemployed: This ties in with the first key point. Although the scapegoating of minorities tends to target those from a different religious or cultural background living in Australia, local minorities are also targeted, as well as those who are unfortunate to end up on welfare. The irony of attacking these unfortunates is that many are a direct result of the laissez faire economics of the free market. Specifically, globalisation, and bringing in non-nationals for exploitative wage deals, thus undercutting the local workforce and destroying the Australian manufacturing sector.
Peter Dutton, from the far-right LNP is in negotiations to weaken these 457 laws even further!
Dismantling Social Systems: A universal trait among conservatives is to try and attack and destroy social safety systems, such as healthcare, unemployment benefits, disability benefits, etc.
Free market zealots – aka classical liberals – believe in the survival of the fittest principle and only place value on wealth creation. They see no benefit in saving lives or enhancing the quality of life in a non-profit way.
An extreme version of this can be seen in the United States, where millions have no affordable healthcare and tens of thousands a year die needlessly, simply because they can’t afford the exorbitant health costs in the for-profit sector. Universal healthcare which could save millions of lives at a fraction of the cost of private for-profit care is labelled as “communism” by the elites.
Stealing Public Utilities: This may sound like hyperbole, but this is exactly what conservatives do and, in some cases, even some so-called left-wing governments. The idea is to starve a service of funds and make it unworkable, causing outrage among the public. The corporate run media blames it on socialism and the string-pullers in parliament organise for their corporate friends to buy the failing system at a heavily reduced cost. Thus, a once great social service used to benefit the people is stolen and prices immediately skyrocket and the quality of service suffers.
Right now, the biggest catastrophe in Australia is the privatised training system. Tax payer’s money is being siphoned into these corporate-owned entities and the service is abysmal.
And in the U.K. the Tories are trying to destroy the National Health System. Savage cuts are now putting lives at risk and many doctors are desperately speaking out.
Endless Wars and Coups: While modern day “left” wing parties have been involved in some pretty atrocious war mongering (see the Tony Blair government on Iraq), it is mainly a common trait among conservative governments. Every country the U.S wants to destroy for their own sick financial and geopolitical gain, the conservatives have been in lock step with Uncle Sam. No matter how dubious the intelligence or how flimsy the evidence, conservatives love a good war. It fosters false patriotism and provides a perfect scapegoat for the next bogeyman, and in many cases helps push the financial interests for the shady conglomerates who run our political system.
War-mongers such as Murdoch push this dogma. In Murdoch’s case he has a vested interest in the Middle Eastern wars via his company, Geanie Energy. You won’t read that information in any mainstream publication!
Unfortunately, Australia will continue to go down the toilet if the majority do not seek alternative media avenues. Mainstream media has an iron clad, rigid narrative that when analysed does not benefit the majority of Australians in any shape or form. Mainstream media is propaganda and extreme omission in order to shape public perception and support for classical liberal economics. Don’t be duped. Truth is the mightiest hammer and it does not emanate from the festering crap known as the mainstream media! Tread your own path!
Christian Marx is a political and social activist interested in making the world a fairer place. He has a Bachelor of Social Science and has a keen interest in sociology, politics and history. He was one of the organizers of the March in March rallies in Melbourne and is the founder of the progressive news and information page, “Don`t Look At This Page”, and is also a co-founder of “The Global Revolution” website.
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Return to home pageGiven that every societal structure is a mere invention, a construct – you’d have thought we humans could have come up with a better way of doing things by now! I dunno – one that shared resources around a bit more so nobody had to go without basic food and shelter.
Great distillation of the disintegration we now find ourselves enduring.
Driving this, I would contend, is a group or groups of people with pathological levels of both greed and self importance, the symptoms of which the rest of us endure unfortunately.
Interestingly, three nations, two of which have former British colonial influence, the UK, USA and Australia seem to be most afflicted by this trend.
One nation bucks the above trend, New Zealand, their recent election of Jacinda Ardern may have been a factor in that result, however as others have identified elsewhere, New Zealand is devoid of Rupert Murdoch’s toxic influence.
From the little that I know of several European nations where they are taking very deliberate steps to both alleviate and remediate inequality, also seem to be those nations with high scores on the recently released corruption index, whilst our score declined markedly.
Denmark, Norway, Finland and Switzerland all rank very highly. From a position of limited knowledge these nations seem to be pursuing more egalitarian social agendas.
Clearly demonstrating a causative link between Murdoch and our current decline may not be entirely impossible, it is however one substantial factor amongst many toxic influences currently ruining our nation.
Christian Marx , quote: “Unfortunately, Australia will continue to go down the toilet if the majority do not seek alternative media avenues. ”
I cannot express my views with my English better than Noam Chomsky with these two great quotes from him:
The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.”
and
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
I’d agree that it is mostly a US oligarch led movement with the UK and Australia following, while it is also linked to conservative Christianity, corporatism and nativism of 1930s Italy and Germany (again popular with US oligarchs). However, the difference is that post WWII they learnt how to fly under the radar (after the embarrassment of the Nazis) till recent years when demographics, i.e. ageing and decline of their core WASP (and wannabee WASP) constituents requires lines to be drawn in the sand, now (‘white Christians’ whoever they are, being bred out of existence due to ‘(un) sustainable population growth’ wink wink).
It’s as nativism or racism has always been, about class and power for the top people versus playing off the feeble minded, non WASPs, working classes, minorities, immigrants, unions, middle class with job insecurity or stress etc. Formerly known as the ‘science of eugenics and racial hygiene’ but nowadays using modern methods of media manipulation, PR, astro turfing and dog whistling, to name some methods.
The real concern is if they are committed to their ’cause’, with increased diversity and empowerment of people in or from developing world (‘brown people outnumbering white people’) what will they do to conserve ‘their’ world? Putin, Orban, Erdogan et al. have already signalled a return to authoritarianism using legitimate but compromised state and other instruments to try ensure their long term power and security e.g. aggressive gerrymandering, intimidation of media and legal system, hollowing out education curricula, co-opting nationalism, religion etc..
Agree with the above. So, what can we do about it? Or will they eventually implode?
babyjewels 10February 23, 2018 at 7:37 pm
Agree with the above. So, what can we do about it? Or will they eventually implode?
Education is the pacific way but it is a slow process and first the way to educate has to change, the students have to be independent minded, and not take for the truth what the system have tell them to learn.
Conservatism Neo Liberist style is running to pefection at the moment.Create fear,confusion and division of the people and you are in box seat.And most importantly dumb down the media you control the people.
Australia could have the world’s highest living standards and have a healthy democracy – but it doesn’t.
In the Australian aquarium we the sardines are being eaten by baracuda’s and sharks and are at their mercy. These predatory fish are the various power blocs that have formed. The fossil fuel/mining power bloc using Abbott as figurehead toppled Turnbull who thought we needed to tackle global warming back then. Turnbull on the other hand is allied with the world’s investment bank scammers led by Goldman Sachs. The bonking beetroot was Gina’s poodle as well as for the rest of the mining industry, big cotton and the rest of agrobusiness. Pyne is now the champion of the profligate defence project industry where a few hundred billion will now be mostly squandered. Another shark is the state security apparatus, another the gambling sector, another is privatised utilities, another is health insurance, another is media and entertainment, another superannuation funds management, another is the property developers and speculators and many more.
The predatory fish sometimes compete but usually they cooperate in their goals.
Before the forty year neo-liberal era we had a semi functional democracy and the predatory fish were not as callous and lived in general balance with the sardines. This ecosystem more or less benefited from the presence of each organism but now this ecosystem has become unstable and unsustainable.
We the sardines apart from disobedience and insurrection only have our own networks, unions, associations, activist organisations and a heavily compromised democratic system to protect our interests and we better start using them.
Many may think a Labor government will suffice but I’m not voting for the neoliberal duopoly that brought us here.
Yes, AB, we better start using our own networks. It would be nice though to have a Labor government that is a true ‘labor’ government!
Talking about the ALP, have any of you read the article in The Guardian, “Wayne Swan warns centre left against running ‘tame’ economic agenda” ?
Is here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/24/wayne-swan-warns-centre-left-against-running-tame-economic-agenda
Thanks for the link, Freethinker. It says the following in the first sentence: “The progressive left needs to “set the economic agenda and to ruthlessly organise to implement it” or risk being over-run by the populist right, which is in the ascendancy because of a global crisis in governance, according to the former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan. . . . ”
I think I’ll go on reading this. Thank you, thank you very much, Freethinker! 🙂
And this: WHERE HAVE WE COME FROM AND WHERE TO NEXT: HISTORICAL POLICY SUCESSES AND NEW POLITICAL DIRECTIONS
https://swanmp.org/news-media/speeches/speech-where-have-we-come-from-and-where-to-next
Thanks Freethinker for the links to Wayne Swans call for a more equal Australia. Good as far as it goes and politically well worded but although he mentions full employment there is no mention of using the only realistic method of achieving it – fiscal policy or harnessing the power of central bank currency issuence.
Trade policy was also not mentioned so most of our manufacturing industry is doomed. Moderate tariffs of only 15% are enough to retain an automotive manufacturing industry due to high levels of automation for example. We do not need totally free trade to gain sufficient market access for our mineral and bulk rural exports.
The fact that Swanny is retiring and that even this moderate proposal faces internal opposition from Shorten and Bowen is not encouraging but well done to him for making his worthy case.
To be fair the Greens also fall short on fiscal policy, full employment strategies and trade policy.
The external realities of a rat shit neoliberal mass media, a greed obsessed and militant corporate oligarchy and a willfully ignorant electorate make the challenge difficult but adopting a worthy policy platform is an essential first step and as Swanny mentioned a people’s movement is also needed.
Australia has been sucked dry since day one. This country has much wealth but we the people never shared in it. Australia is the Golden Goose for big business, bankers and selfish Politicians for their own vested interests. One of their great rorts is Privatisation to make billions and keep us all in line. Now they’re going to sell off the Snowy Mountains scheme to the federal Goverment. This has two irresistable items, Power and Water. You just watch the Government sell it off once they own it. Mal and his Golden Sachs Banker mates will be drooling!
I always remember this quote from a long time ago. Nothing has changed.
W. HUGHES, Prime Minister of Australia, Saturday Evening Post, June 19, 1919.
“The Montefiores have taken Australia for their own, and there is not a gold field or a sheep run from Tasmania to New South Wales that does not pay them a heavy tribute. They are the real owners of the antipodean continent. What is the good of our being a wealthy nation, if the wealth is all in the hands of German Jews?”
Yes Kesyer, that was my first thought also. Pour large amount of cash into it (benefit select construction firms), hold for 5-10 years and then either float it like Telstra (benefit mainly foreign shareholders) or run it into the ground so that it will be forced to market at a firesale price (benefit crony capitalist mates), just like this little beauty:
“It might rank as the deal of the century — but an appalling result for New South Wales taxpayers.
In November 2015, the NSW Government offloaded Vales Point Power Station — an old, polluting coal-fired plant on the shores of Lake Macquarie — for $1 million.
Last week, as politicians loudly debated the latest energy plan . . . Sunset Power quietly released its latest financial reports — revaluing the Vales Point Power Plant at a cool $730 million.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-24/coal-power-station-sold-for-peanuts-becomes-730-million-asset/9077582
ICAC anyone?