Today I was made aware of two articles providing very different assessments of the underlying causes of the mounting environmental problems that confront humankind. One provides a socialist interpretation in which capitalism (correctly in my view) is identified as the most environmentally destructure social and economic system created thus far in human history (available on the IS0-NZ website).
http://iso.org.nz/2012/10/31/how-the-1-percent-conjured-a-monster-storm/#more-808
The other is an interview in the NZ Listener magazine with the current Co-Leader of the NZ Green Party, Russel Norman, who states: 'capitalism was “humanised” between the 1930s and 1950s and “the next challenge is to green it”. It may surprise some people to learn that Norman is not anti-capitalist. “I support a market economy with an important role for the state. I am not radically different from an old-style social democrat.”
http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/politics/interview-green-party-co-leader-russel-norman/
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Sunday, 28 October 2012
Is Socialist Participatory Democracy a Feasible and Desirable Alternative to Capitalism and Liberal Representative Democracy?
People commonly think that there is no alternative to the status quo. Yet there is an interesting and important body of literature that focuses on the issue of whether a socialist and democratic alternative to capitalism is feasible and desirable. The next book in my democracy research programme will directly address this issue. It is tentatively entitled – The Future Socialist Society.
If you are interested in finding out more about the feasibility of socialist participatory democracy, then start your reading with these sources:
If you are interested in finding out more about the feasibility of socialist participatory democracy, then start your reading with these sources:
*A. Callinicos, “What will socialism be like?”
in Socialist Review, Jan. 1993, pp.18-20.
*A. Callinicos, “Socialism and Democracy” in D.
Held (ed), Prospects for Democracy,
ch.9, pp. 200-213.
*A. Callinicos, An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto, Polity
Press, Cambridge, 2003.
*P. Devine, Democracy and Economic Planning:
The Political Economy of a Self-Governing Society, Polity Press, Oxford,
1988, “Introduction”.
*E. Mandel, “In Defence of Socialist Planning”,
in New Left Review, no. 159, Sept-Oct 1986, pp. 5-38.
*D. McNally, Against the Market, Verso,
London, 1993, ch. 6 “Beyond the Market”.
*D. McNally, Another World is Possible:
Globalization and Anti-Capitalism, Second Edition, Arbeiter Ring
Publishing, Winnipeg, 2006, chs.1, 6 & 7.
*J. Molyneux, Arguments for Revolutionary
Socialism, Second Edition, Bookmarks, London, 1991, ch.7 “The Future
Socialist Society”.
Beyond this, more detailed discussions of particular aspects of socialist participatory democracy include:
E. Mandel, “Socialism and Individual Rights”
in Against the Current, vol. 6, no.2, May-June 1991, pp.41-42. In POLS
208: Democracy Readings.
A. Campbell, “Democratic Planned Socialism:
Feasible Economic Procedures” in Science
and Society, vol. 66, no. 1, 2002, pp.29-42.
P. Cockshott and A. Cottrell, “The Relation
Between Economic and Political Instances in the Communist Mode of Production” in
Science and Society, vol. 66, no. 1,
2002, pp.50-63.
M. Albert and R. Hahnel, “In Defence of
Participatory Economics” in Science and
Society, vol. 66, no. 1, 2002, pp.7-21.
P. Devine, “Participatory Planning Through
Negotiated Coordination’ in Science and
Society, vol. 66, no. 1, 2002, pp.72-87.
P. Devine, “Market Socialism or Participatory
Planning?” in Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 24 nos
3&4, 1992, pp. 67-89.
P. Devine, Democracy and Economic Planning:
The Political Economy of a Self-Governing Society, as above, Ch.6
“Democracy”.
D. Kotz, ‘Socialism and Innovation’, in Science and Society, vol. 66, no. 1,
2002, pp.94-99.
E. Mandel, “The Myth of Market Socialism”, in New
Left Review, no. 169, May-June 1988, pp. 108-120.
N. Geras,
“Seven Types of Obloquy: Travesties of Marxism”. In The Socialist
Register, 1990, 1-36.
C. Harman,
“The Myth of Market Socialism”, in International Socialism, 2:42,
1989, pp. 3-63.
G. Pearce, et al., “The Case for Socialism
Restated”, in NZMR, no. 303, November 1987.
Monday, 22 October 2012
The fire last time: the rise of class struggle and progressive social movements in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 1968 to 1977
Abstract:
A dramatic upsurge in working class struggle, surpassing in magnitude the rise of the Red Feds from 1908 to 1913 and the 1951 Waterfront Front Lockout, took place in New Zealand from the Arbitration Court's nil general wage order in June 1968 to the union movement's defeat of the Muldoon Government's attempted wage freeze in 1976. This article describes and analyses these struggles and their impact on progressive social movements, particularly the anti-war, women's liberation and Maori protest movements.
The article was published in the Australian journal - Marxist Interventions (Issue No.3), 2011, pp.7-30.
It can be accessed at: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/mi/3/3.htm
Key words: Class struggle in New Zealand; New Left; 1968; women's liberation movement; Maori protest movement; anti-war movement; Muldoon; Marxism; 1970s; New Zealand, 1968-1979.
A dramatic upsurge in working class struggle, surpassing in magnitude the rise of the Red Feds from 1908 to 1913 and the 1951 Waterfront Front Lockout, took place in New Zealand from the Arbitration Court's nil general wage order in June 1968 to the union movement's defeat of the Muldoon Government's attempted wage freeze in 1976. This article describes and analyses these struggles and their impact on progressive social movements, particularly the anti-war, women's liberation and Maori protest movements.
The article was published in the Australian journal - Marxist Interventions (Issue No.3), 2011, pp.7-30.
It can be accessed at: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/mi/3/3.htm
Key words: Class struggle in New Zealand; New Left; 1968; women's liberation movement; Maori protest movement; anti-war movement; Muldoon; Marxism; 1970s; New Zealand, 1968-1979.
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Back to the Future? The Collapse of Ancient Roman Civilisation and the Future of Capitalism
My central argument in this article is that the collapse of Roman civilisation provides us with clues as to
what is likely to happen if capitalism collapses and is not replaced by
something better on a global scale. Rosa Luxemburg’s argument that ‘capitalist
society faces a dilemma, either an advance to socialism or a reversion to
barbarism’ is more relevant today that it was when she wrote these words in
1915 while serving time in prison for her opposition to the war (WWI). We must
learn from the past in order to collectively make a better future. The
alternative to a qualitatively better long-term future is almost unimaginably
bleak.
This article was published in New Zealand Sociology (Vol.27, Issue 1), 2012 (pp.74-87).
You can access this article at: http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/content-aggregator/getIEs?system=ilsdb&id=1302589
This article was published in New Zealand Sociology (Vol.27, Issue 1), 2012 (pp.74-87).
You can access this article at: http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/content-aggregator/getIEs?system=ilsdb&id=1302589
Monday, 15 October 2012
Classical Marxism, Socialist Democracy and Stalinist Dictatorship
One of the most
common objections to the argument that socialism and participatory democracy
constitutes a feasible and desirable alternative to capitalism and
representative democracy is the idea that socialism was implemented in Eastern
Europe and definitively discredited by the obvious deficiencies of the Stalinist
regimes such as the fact that these were dictatorships that brutally suppressed
democratic rights, were societies characterized by major inequalities of class,
gender and ethnicity, created forms of economic production that were even more environmentally
destructive than in the West, and the imperialism of the USSR. Yet many readers
of this blog may be surprised to discover how little support for
this kind of so-called ‘really existing socialism’ can be found in the writings
of the classical Marxists (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg).
In the unlikely event of their wish to
find textual ideological inspiration for their form of rule, Communist Leaders
would have sought in vain in the many volumes of Marx’s and Engels’s Collected Works. Least of all would they have found any notion
of single-party monopolistic rule. They
might have fared rather better with Lenin’s Collected
Works, but even this would have required a very selective reading (Miliband,
1991: 9).
The major reason
that Stalinist dictators could only use the texts of the classical Marxists in
the most grotesquely distorted way to justify their rule was precisely that
these regimes violated every basic principle of that tradition. In particular, for all the classical Marxists
democracy wasn’t merely an ‘optional extra’ for socialism: the establishment of
socialism centrally involved workers
taking power themselves and exercising collective and democratic control over
workplaces, resource allocation through democratic planning, and over the
institutions of society and the state.
The basic principle of classical Marxism,
considered as a political movement, was written by Marx into the preamble of
the first International: ‘The emancipation of the working class must be
conquered by the working classes themselves’ (see the excellent discussion by
Geras, 1986: 133-144). For all the classical Marxists, including Lenin, the
struggle for socialism is a struggle from
below by the mass of workers (and other oppressed groups) within
society. For Marx and Engels, as well as
the major figures in classical Marxism who succeeded them, socialism is a
movement for the self-emancipation of the working class and that process
centrally involves the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism in order to
establish a new form of society governed by the workers themselves. It is precisely in this sense that socialism
is ‘a movement of the immense majority, acting in the interests of the majority’.
Classical Marxism did not simply reject
liberal democracy, rather it argued that the liberal or bourgeois form of
democracy was too limited and restrictive.
Socialist democracy would both incorporate key elements of liberal
democracy – citizenship rights, freedom of political expression and assembly,
regular multi-party elections – and ultimately transcend it by democratizing
the whole of society, not just the political sphere. In this regard, Draper is entirely correct to
insist that Marx defined socialism in democratic terms and democracy in
socialist terms: ‘Marx’s socialism (communism) as a political programme may be
most quickly defined, from the Marxist standpoint, as the complete democratization of society, not merely of political
forms’ (1977: 282).
This classical Marxist conception of
socialist democracy transcending liberal democracy is neatly encapsulated in
Marx’s critique of parliamentary democracy.
For Marx bourgeois democracy of this form constituted a ‘democratic
swindle’. As Draper observes Marx
considered that:
The ‘democratic swindle’ was a swindle
not insofar as it was democratic but, on the contrary insofar as it utilized
democratic forms to frustrate genuine democratic control from below. The phrase itself comes from a reference by
Marx to the country which, he well understood, was the most democratic in constitutional form at this time: the United States. It was, indeed, ‘the model country of the
democratic swindle’ not because it was less democratic than others but for
precisely the opposite reason (1977, p. 306).
This central
insight is also evident in the analyses of bourgeois or liberal democracy by
Luxemburg, Trotsky and Lenin. For the
major figures of classical Marxism, liberal democracy was to be overthrown by
revolutionary and insurrectionary means, but this centrally involved the
incorporation and expansion of many of the democratic rules and procedures
associated with liberal democracy. It
is, therefore, surprising that so many contemporary socialist scholars argue for
a rapprochement between socialism and liberalism. It is, to be frank, to display an astonishing
ignorance of the intellectual history of the classical Marxist tradition (see
for example McLellan, 1989).
This is an absolutely vital point. If it is accepted that democracy is
definitive of the classical Marxist vision of socialism, if democracy is indeed
at the very heart of this vision of socialism, then it follows that the
Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia were not, at least in this sense, socialist. There are four key texts within the classical
Marxist tradition which lend considerable weight to this view: 1) Marx’s
analysis of the Paris Commune in The
Civil War in France; 2) Luxemburg’s critical discussion of the Bolsheviks
in her pamphlet The Russian Revolution;
3) Lenin’s State & Revolution; and 4) Trotsky’s analysis of Stalinism in The Revolution Betrayed.
Marx
In a famous passage in the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels
spoke in vague terms of a revolution in which ‘the first step ... is to raise
the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of
democracy’ (1968: 52). The abolition of
private property was clearly understood by Marx and Engels to centrally involve
the exercise of effective control by the proletariat over the means of
production: ‘All production [is] concentrated in the hands of a vast
association of the whole nation’ in which ‘the free development of each is the
condition for the free development of all’ (ibid: 53).
The revolutionary uprising of workers and
brief establishment of the Paris Commune in 1871 had a decisive impact on Marx
and Engels’ ideas concerning the political form of working class
self-emancipation. They considered that
the commune was:
a thoroughly expansive political form,
while all previous forms of government had been emphatically repressive. Its true secret was this. It was essentially a working-class
government, the produce of the struggle of the producing against the
appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work
out the economic emancipation of labour (Marx, 1968: 290).
The establishment
of the Commune showed that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of the
ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes’ (Marx, 1968:
285). Rather the working class had to build
a thoroughly democratic ‘political form’ characterized by a number of
principles which became central to the classical Marxist vision of socialism.
First, the overthrow of the bourgeois parliament and the establishment of
directly representative and participatory institutions. Second, the establishment of a new workers’
state composed of workplace, district, and regional assemblies with a
multi-party national assembly. Third,
these assemblies to be held accountable to their constituencies by: (a) the right of recall (delegates to these
assemblies were ‘to be at anytime revocable and bound by the ... formal
instructions’ of their constituents (Marx, 1968: 288)); and (b) frequent
elections. This meant that ‘instead of deciding once in three or six years
which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament,
universal suffrage was to serve the people ... (ibid: 289)’. Fourth, the standing army and other
‘repressive organs of the old governmental power were to be amputated’ and replaced
by a popular militia (ibid). Finally,
the Commune sought the abolition of private property but this did not, for
Marx, mean that it would be simply replaced by state ownership: it centrally involved the exercise of effective control over the means of
production by the associated producers through democratic assemblies. The relations of production which were definitive of Marxian socialism centrally
involved democratic working class control of the means of production which were
to become ‘mere instruments of free and associated labour’ (ibid: 290-291).
Luxemburg
Clearly it is not feasible to provide a
detailed critical survey here of Luxemburg, Trotsky and Lenin’s changing views
of socialist democracy, nor of the evolving differences between them. Of the
three, Luxemburg is most commonly recognized as being unequivocally committed
to a radically democratic and pluralist vision of socialism. In this vein she argued that:
We [revolutionary socialists] have always
distinguished the social kernel from the political form of bourgeois democracy; we have
always revealed the hard kernel of social inequality and lack of freedom hidden
under the sweet shell of formal equality and freedom — not in order to reject
the latter but to spur the working class into not being satisfied with the
shell, but rather, by conquering political power, to create a socialist
democracy to replace bourgeois democracy – not to eliminate democracy
altogether (1970: 393).
But socialist
democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the
foundations of socialist economy are created:
‘it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy
people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist
dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the
destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism’ (1970: 394).
For Luxemburg socialist democracy was
characterized by ‘general elections’, ‘unrestricted freedom of press and
assembly’, and by the existence of a number of competing political
parties: ‘Freedom only for the
supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however
numerous they may be – is no freedom at all.
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks
differently’ (ibid: 389).
Lenin
These statements appear in Luxemburg’s
blistering critique of what she called the ‘Lenin-Trotsky theory’ of socialist
democracy. In this regard, it is widely
accepted that many of Lenin’s central ideas, particularly the concept of a
vanguard party, and decisions following the October revolution, created the
pre-conditions for the emergence of the Stalinist dictatorship during the
1920s. There are indeed some complex
issues here and it is undeniable that both Lenin and Trotsky committed grave
political errors during the Civil War period.
But there can be no denying (at least by those capable of making an
honest assessment of Lenin’s writing on the issue prior to October 1917) that
Lenin envisaged socialism as essentially a form of proletarian democracy.
For example, in State and Revolution Lenin is critical of the highly restrictive
form of democracy in capitalist society. This critique still has considerable
resonance today.
In capitalist society, providing it
develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete
democracy in the democratic republic.
But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by
capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a
democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich
... in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population
is debarred from participation in public and political life (1968: 323).
The establishment
of socialism, by contrast, involved ‘an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for
the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags ...’
(ibid: 324). In a similar vein, Lenin
argues that ‘democracy is of enormous importance to the working class in its
struggle against the capitalists for its emancipation (ibid: 332)’ and ‘the way
out of parliamentarism is not, of course, the abolition of representative
institutions and the elective principle, but the conversion of the
representative institutions from talking shops into “working” bodies’ (ibid:
294). So wrote the leader of the
Bolsheviks in August and September of 1917.
Trotsky
The final example I wish to cite in defence
of my argument that democracy is central to the classical Marxist vision of
socialism is Trotsky’s path breaking analysis of the degeneration of the
Russian Revolution – The Revolution
Betrayed. The significance of this
book can hardly be overstated. It
represents the first attempt to develop an historical materialist explanation
of the revolution’s degeneration and the rise of Stalin’s dictatorship by one
of the leading figures in that revolution.
Despite its faults, and the analysis is flawed, the book
affirms the classical Marxist tradition by highlighting the extent to which
Stalin’s rise to power involved a fundamental break with the basic principles
of that tradition.
Trotsky observed that ‘The present regime
in the Soviet Union provokes protest at every step, a protest the more burning
in that it is repressed. The bureaucracy is not only a machine of compulsion
but also a constant source of provocation.
The very existence of a greedy, lying and cynical caste of rulers
inevitably creates a hidden indignation’ (1972: 284-285). This situation was likely to lead to the
revolutionary overthrow of the Stalinist regime. However, this revolution was not simply a
matter of ‘substituting one ruling clique for another, but of changing the very
methods of administering the economy and guiding the culture of the country’
(ibid: 289). Trotsky’s commitment to the
restoration of democracy can hardly be doubted:
Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to
Soviet democracy. A restoration of the
right of criticism, and a genuine freedom of elections, are necessary
conditions for the further development of the country. This assumes a revival of the freedom of
Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and a resurrection of
the trade unions. The bringing of
democracy into industry means a radical revision of plans in the interests of
the toilers (ibid).
Unfortunately, the
power of Trotsky’s critique was severely undermined by his insistence that
state ownership of the means of production combined with centralized planning
meant that the Soviet economy was in some sense ‘socialist’. This involved a conflation of property
ownership and relations of effective control.
The notion that a ‘political revolution’ was all that was required to
re-establish genuine socialism in Russia ignored the reality that a fundamental
transformation of the relations of production was required.
In sum, it is a central contention of this
article that a fair and open-minded analysis of the writings of the classical
Marxists will demonstrate that democracy was absolutely central to their vision
of socialism. There are, of course,
major differences between them on specific issues, their own positions were
often complex and sometimes inconsistent, and there are important problems with
some of their conceptual formulations.
In addition, during the Civil War period both Lenin and Trotsky had an
unfortunate propensity to justify measures that were enforced upon them by
desperate material circumstances through the erection of highly dubious general
principles. Consequently, it is
important to recognize that arguing for the democratic credentials of classical
Marxism does not commit one to: (a) the
assumption that because Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg or Trotsky wrote something that
it must be true (arguing from authority);
nor (b) that the classical Marxist conceptualizations of socialist
democracy are entirely adequate and non-problematical.
Any open-minded observer cannot help but be
struck by the dramatic contrast between the classical Marxist vision of
socialist democracy and the brutal reality of Stalinist dictatorship. It was not
socialism which collapsed in 1989 but an historically specific form of
bureaucratized state capitalism — a system which in reality always bore far
greater similarities to the fascist regimes in Germany, Italy and Spain than it
ever did to the underlying political principles of classical Marxism. However, as Callinicos observes, this
insistence on the centrality of the principles of working class
self-emancipation and socialist democracy may appear to some as an evasive
defensive manoeuvre, an attempt to dissociate the revolutionary socialist
tradition from the catastrophe in the East.
This accusation fails ... to strike
home. In the first place, it is just a
matter of fact that there is a demonstrable difference between Marx’s — and
Lenin’s — conception of socialism and the theory and practice of the Stalinist
regimes. It is an entirely appropriate
response to right-wing polemic to insist on that difference. Secondly ... it was this conception of
socialism which informed the strategies and interventions of those who actually
led the October Revolution. It is an
entirely legitimate form of historical interpretation to appraise the outcome
of that Revolution in terms of its makers’ self-understanding (1991: 18).
References
Anderson, P. (1976) Considerations on Western Marxism. London: Verso.
Blackburn, R. (1991) ‘Socialism after the
Crash’. In R. Blackburn (Ed.), After the
Fall: The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism. London:Verso.
Bobbio, N. (1991) ‘The Upturned Utopia’.
In R. Blackburn (Ed.), After the Fall:
The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism. London:Verso.
Callinicos, A. (1982) Is There a Future for Marxism? London: Macmillan Press.
Callinicos, A. (1989) Against Postmodernism, Oxford: Polity Press.
Callinicos, A. (1990)Trotskyism. Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Callinicos, A. (1991)The Revenge of History: Marxism and the East European Revolutions.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cliff, T. (1991) Trotsky: Fighting the Rising
Stalinist Bureaucracy: 1923-1927.
Vol. 2 London: Bookmarks.
Draper, H. (1977) Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, Vol. 2: State and Bureaucracy. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Geras, N.
(1986) Literature of Revolution.
London: Verso.
Geras, N. (1990) ‘Seven Types of Obloquy:
Travesties of Marxism’. In The Socialist
Register, 1-36.
Gouldner, A. (1970) The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology, New York: Basic Books.
Halliday, F. (1991) ‘The Ends of the Cold
War’. In R. Blackburn (Ed.), After the
Fall: The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism. London:Verso.
Harman, C. (1988)The Fire Last Time: 1968 and
after. London: Bookmarks.
Harman, C. (1990) ‘The Storm Breaks’, International Socialism, 46, 3-94.
Hobsbawm, E. (1991) ‘Goodbye to All That’.
In R. Blackburn (Ed.), After the Fall:
The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism. London:Verso.
Lenin, V. (1968) ‘The State and
Revolution’. In V. Lenin, Selected
Works. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Luxemburg, R. (1970) ‘The Russian
Revolution’. In M. Waters (Ed.), Rosa Luxemburg
Speaks, New York: Pathfinder.
Marx, K. (1968) ‘The Civil War in France’.
In K. Marx, Selected Works in One Volume,
Moscow: Progress Publishers
Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1968) ‘The
Communist Manifesto’. In K. Marx, Selected Works in One Volume, Moscow:
Progress Publishers.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1976)The German Ideology, Moscow: Progress
Publishers.
McLellan, G. (1989) Marxism, Pluralism and Beyond. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Miliband, R. (1991) ‘Reflections on the
Crisis of Communist Regimes’. In R. Blackburn (Ed.), After the Fall: The Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism.
London:Verso.
Molyneux, J. (1985)What is the Real Marxist Tradition? London: Bookmarks.
Trotsky, L. (1980)History of the Russian Revolution, Vol. 1. New York: Pathfinder
Press.
Trotsky, L. (1972) The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where is it
Going? New York: Pathfinder Press.
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Useful Books and Articles on Neoliberal Welfare Reform in New Zealand from 1984 to 2008
http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/view/action/ieViewer.do?dps_pid=IE6395643&dps_custom_att_1=ilsdb&dps_dvs=1349916963118~132&dps_pid=IE6395643&change_lng=en
Abstract: This article describes the background, context and the key features of the Fifth National Government’s neoliberal policy agenda. The neoliberal justification of this agenda is considered and subject to critical scrutiny. The weight of evidence suggests that the Government’s neoliberal policy agenda will mainly benefit the wealthiest 20% of New Zealanders, while disadvantaging low- and middle-income earners. It concludes that neither the 1999 nor the 2008 elections constitute major turning points in New Zealand’s political history because neither government has removed any of the central features of the neoliberal policy regime.
Sources focusing on neoliberal welfare reform from 1984 to 2008:
B. Roper, Prosperity for All? Ch.9, pp.195-199 and Section 9.3, pp.212-218.
J. Boston, “New Zealand’s Welfare State in Transition” in J. Boston et
al. (eds), Redesigning the Welfare State in New Zealand: Problems, Policies,
Prospects, Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1999, ch.1.
C. Cheyne et al., Social Policy in Aotearoa/New Zealand, ch. 8
“From Social Security to Social Assistance”.
J. Kelsey, The New Zealand Experiment, ch. 11.
M. McClure, A Civilised Community: A History of Social Security in
New Zealand, 1898-1998, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1998,
pp.232-56.
M. O’Brien, Poverty, Policy and the State: Social Security Reform in
New Zealand, Policy Press, Bristol, 2008, ch.8.
C. Rudd, “The Welfare State” in Rudd and Roper
(eds.), The Political Economy of New Zealand, Oxford University Press,
Auckland, 1997, ch.13.
D. Bedggood, (1996), ‘From the Cradle to the
Grave? The New Zealand Welfare State’, New Zealand Sociology, vol.11,
no.2, pp.143-182
J. Bedggood, “Domestic
Purpose Beneficiaries and the Community Wage: Her Brilliant Career” in New
Zealand Sociology, vol.15, no.1, 2000, pp.75-99.
J. Boston and S. St John, “Targeting versus Universality: Social
Assistance for All or Just for the Poor?” in J. Boston et al. (eds), Redesigning
the Welfare State in New Zealand: Problems, Policies, Prospects, Oxford
University Press, Auckland, 1999, ch.6.
R. Stephens, “The Changing Social Security System” N. Lunt, O’Brien, M.
and Stephen, R. (eds) New Welfare, New Zealand, Victoria, Thomson, 2008,
ch.4.
M. Baker, “Low-income Mothers, Employment and
Welfare Restructuring” in N. Lunt, O’Brien, M. and Stephen, R. (eds) New
Welfare, New Zealand, Victoria, Thomson, 2008, ch.8.
S. St. John, “Working for Families: Work, Families and Poverty”, in N.
Lunt, O’Brien, M. and Stephen, R. (eds) New Welfare, New Zealand, Victoria,
Thomson, 2008, ch.9.
Saturday, 6 October 2012
The Political Economy of Climate Change (2): Useful Books and Articles
In my humble opinion, and I'm open to other suggestions, the single best book on climate change is:
Neale, J. (2008). Stop Global Warming: Change the World. London: Bookmarks.
Other books well worth looking at include:
Bellamy Foster, J. (1999). The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic
History of the Environment. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Bellamy Foster, J. (2000). Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature.
New York: Monthly Review Press.
Boardman, P. R. (2010). Governance of Earth Systems: Science and Its
Uses. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Burkett, P. (1999). Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective. New York: St. Martins
Press.
Burkett, P. (2006). Marxism and Ecological Economics. Leiden, Boston and Tokyo: Brill.
Callinicos, A. (2003a). An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto. Cambridge
Polity Press.
Dale, G. (2007). Corporations and Climate Change. International Socialism, 116, 117-
138.
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Friday, 5 October 2012
Alternative Music Videos 2011
Here is a selection of music videos that I liked a lot in 2011.
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The Jam – That’s
Entertainment
The Go Team- Buy
Nothing Day
PJ Harvey – Good
Fortune
Shapeshifter –
Electric Dream
Hole – Miss World
Patti Smith –
People have the power
The Pheonix
Foundation – Buffalo
Bjork – Hyperballad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Beu3ZLr-UEA
The Adults-
Nothing to Lose
Peter, Bjorn &
John – Young Folks
The Go Team- Do it
all right!
The Clash- London
Calling
Johnny Cash
Gillian Welch and
David Rawlings- Wayside
Nirvana- Lithium
Live at Reading Music Festival 1992
Sonic Youth-= Cool
Thing
Rage Against the
Machine- Take the Power Back
Don McGlassan-
Miracle Sun
The Pheonix
Foundation- This Charming Van
Jimi Hendrix- Star
Spangled Banner
Janis Joplin –
Summertime
Shapeshifter- Twin
Galaxies
Budspells- Rukus
Fly My Pretties-
Lucky
The Go! Team –
T.O.R.N.A.D.O.
Jess Chambers –
Stringing Me Along
Pixies- Monkey
Gone to Heaven
Lou Barlow-
Legendary
Cat Power – Maybe
Not
Band of Horses –
Marry Song
Shapeshifter-
Bring Change
Cat Power – Metal
Heart (Live 1998)
PJ Harvey- White
Chalk
Band of Horses-
Funeral
Die! Die! Die!
The Go Team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0eso4ARXzk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI_XR9vimxQ&feature=related
Budspells- Rukus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVjK_cbHfAQ
Tiki Tane- Dub
Soldier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fezoOhb0po
Minuit– $25
Don McGlashan–
Will not let you down
The D4- Party
Thursday, 4 October 2012
The Political Economy of Climate Change (1)
If you are not yet worried about climate
change, then it's time to start. According to Michal E. Mann, director
of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University:
"There are a number of areas where in fact climate change seems to
"There are a number of areas where in fact climate change seems to
be proceeding faster and with a greater magnitude than what the models predicted," Mann told AFP.
"The sea ice decline is perhaps the most profound of those cautionary tales because the models have basically predicted that we shouldn't see what we're seeing now for several decades," he added. See more at:
"The sea ice decline is perhaps the most profound of those cautionary tales because the models have basically predicted that we shouldn't see what we're seeing now for several decades," he added. See more at:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10829994
and for a discussion of whether the artic ice melt constitutes a tipping point in global warming see:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/23-0
and for a discussion of whether the artic ice melt constitutes a tipping point in global warming see:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/23-0
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