...like you.
I have been thinking about writing a bit about the WorkChoices stuff, but, to be honest, it’s a little daunting. I started to list a few points I could discuss and it ended up heading for ten pages. If I’m going to write that much, I should probably direct the energy to some uni work.
It did get me thinking about the reason people support it, that is, support tipping the scales back in favour of the employer.
The first group that might support it would be the employers, obviously, but it turns out that most Australians consider themselves workers so that doesn’t explain it all.
Then we have the one eyed Howard supporters who see their little man through weird reality distorting glasses.
The people with some knowledge of economics tend to support the idea that labour is a commodity and therefore should be treated in the same manner as any other input, such as materials or land. Those people obviously slept through everything past first year, though.
I figure it all boils down to the FYIAJ* syndrome. But that’s the problem with liberals, both small and big ‘L’, isn’t it? Even thought the Libs here are more of a conservative party when it comes to actually using your own mind, they like to be pretty liberal economically. It’s a pity this free for all doesn’t extend to human rights.
If you don’t make it, it’s your fault. If I make it, then all is right with the world, although I might buy the Big Issue from time to time to assuage my guilt.
Maybe, though, it is the economists fault? Having studied a bit of physics before this stuff, I do have trouble with the assertion that economics is a science.
Yeah, just like intelligent design.
One of the basic rules in the science world is, roughly, that you don’t get something for nothing. So how does economics come up with the idea that, in total, the world economy can always grow?
By assuming a closed system, which is obviously crap. If someone’s getting more, someone else is getting less. End digression.
I was looking around on the net and read someone use the quote, supposedly from Churchill, “if you’re not a radical in your twenties you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative in your forties you have no brain” to support a neo-Conservative argument.
Putting aside the idiocy of using questionable throwaway lines from dubious historical leaders to support an argument, the idea itself is garbage. The fact that Churchill probably only used it to justify his own politics doesn’t help.
Perhaps it is telling.
Clearly, the idea is that having compassion is not intelligent. Caring a bit about what happens to others is somehow stupid? ‘Bleeding heart’ *insert own label* is an insult. Apparently it means you are weak, naïve and unable to use your brain.
I don’t suppose this is anything new, but the gutlessness displayed by people in this country is. As long as they have a new tv, cheap childcare, a four wheel drive and a low interest rate, they really couldn’t give a shit.
And both major parties are equally culpable.
As someone more intelligent than me pointed out, Labor is compromising their founding principles to get elected – but they never compromise to the left. Going on strike will continue to be as close to illegal as it is possible to get under Labor.
It is not weak to worry about other people. Just because my job is secure and my family is doing well doesn’t mean I won’t join a union and sing out at the occasional rally.
Perhaps it is significant that coming up to ANZAC Day we all talk about the sacrifices the soldiers made to give us the way of life we enjoy.
I don’t hear anyone thanking unions (which are made up of workers, for god’s sake) for enabling people to have the bloody day off in the first place, as well as every other condition employers would prefer not to pay for.
Bugger it, I’m going to South America. I hear they’re having a socialist revolution.
¡Viva Chile!
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4 comments:
Staked another tyre on the tractor. Rear one this time.
I suspect this apparently inexorable move to the right is really a move to an emphasis on the individual at the expense of community. Over the last 20 years the movement has been picking up momentum. People aren't joining organisations as much, individual achievement seems to be more significant than achievements by communities etc. I could go on but wont right now.
The point is not that individual achievement should be diminshed but that there should be a balance between the emphasis on the individual and emhpasis on community.
It worries me that Labor doesn't seem to be running lines about the importance of community but I am assuming they are operating on the 'whatever it takes' approach. I can live with this but I would like some indication that they have some grasp on their founding principles - just so I can be a little more comfortable.
When I think of the manner in which Maggie's phrase "there is no society" (often said to be quoted out of context, and yet when you read the full text it amounts to the same thing) has come to be seen as an axiom of contemporary sociopolitical thought (at least the "thought" that gets acted upon), I find that it all boils down to notions of control. People have lost the ability to make the distinction between freedom and control, and in the climate of constant change and uncertainty they positively lust after control and some fucked up notion of certainty.
Freedom is not the ability to impose your will as you would choose. Freedom is the ability to live an untrammelled life; the controls we impose on things only serve to tie us to a system that takes more than it can give.
Think about the way house prices are so absurd (and bear in mind that we as a society made a conscious choice to have them go out of all proportion to their real worth). Babyboomers decided: "Don't worry that you can't afford a house, kids. I'll look after you." They chose to have that level of control over their lives (and that of their sprogs), denying their own children (and others not their own) of relatively pain free home ownership. So it is with IR: employers believe that if they could have total control over the labour force they'd have an easier time of making money. Not true; creating wage slaves will not make for a productive workplace.
It's funny you should mention economics, because all this economic rationalism strikes me as not really very close to economics at all. The golden rule of economics is "there is no free lunch", and yet there is this desire to achieve this magical meal by destroying unions when unions are a natural, organic creation of the market.
That's the thing: the promise of "bleeding heart" socialism was not a sandal-wearing-tofu-eating-Guardian-reading utopia, but rather a more efficient market that included all those human factors that were not easily quantifiable in dollar terms.
If you will excuse a digression: "weakness" is an accusation made by people with no soul. To quote the Great Mozza: "It takes guts to be gentle and kind."
Meanwhile: I'm all right Jack keep yer hands off my stack. *plays bass*
FYIAJ? There is no asterisk. You and Sher both seem to have issues with the *
It really is becoming a least worst option, I suppose.
In other news, our friends at LP used the word "orotundity" in a sentence, without the slightest hint of irony.
I'll admit I had to look it up (and, no, it doesn't mean "wankery" in Latin)
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