Introductions..
Thanks to the SMPBI for the opportunity to write as your Australian correspondent.
My intention is to produce something for the website each month, written about a contemporary topic from the perspective of ‘Australian socialism’.
The term – Australian socialism – is open to interpretation. So, by way of introduction, this article will focus on what Australian socialism means – and why it’s relevant to readers outside of Australia.
The Left landscape down-under
In this country today there are no less than ten groups calling themselves socialist or communist. But what’s the nature of their ‘socialism’? Well, as in the UK, there’s some variation. There are a couple of orthodox Marxist-Leninist parties, some democratic socialists and a host of Trotskyite sects. There are also numerous anarchist groups, whose memberships overlap with these other leftist organisations.
Despite the apparent variation, these parties are united by the internationalism of their outlook.
They espouse, variously, open borders, the suppression of traditional Australian culture and a global approach to environmentalism. They all embrace - to a greater or lesser extent - the socially liberal, ‘woke’ agenda driven by the mainstream American left. Where they occasionally appear to concentrate on local issues (as in the campaign for an Aboriginal Voice to parliament) their objective is a copy of foreign arrangements; the New Zealand treaty with Māori people, or Canadian arrangements with indigenous tribes.
As well as taking a universal approach to their understanding of socialism, these groups are inordinately focused on events around the globe. Their outrage is directed to the treatment of African Americans by US police forces, or to the plight of trans people in Guatemala (Figure 1). The problems faced by the Australian working classes are mostly presented through an international frame of reference, or simply overlooked.
Figure1: Local Antifa use Aboriginal customs to protest the death of the American, George Floyd.
Even the avowedly anti-colonial Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) – similar to your own CBGB (ML) – has the world stage as its focus. As I write, the top three articles on the CPA ML’s Vanguard webpage are to do with issues in Niger, Greece and the Solomon Islands.
It has become more accurate to regard all of these groups as liberal-globalist, rather than socialist, considering their universal (and broadly liberal) understanding of socialism and their international focus.
How did this situation come about?
The condition of socialism in Australia today would come as a surprise – and a disappointment – to those who developed its ideas in an Australian context from the mid-1800’s through to the 1970’s.
Economic conditions for workers have been steadily deteriorating for 40 years and working-class communities have been fractured. Social and cultural changes brought about by ‘flexible’ working arrangements, the need for both parents to work, and multiculturalism have hollowed out the solidarity which once existed in working class areas - and led to the decline of organised labour.
Despite these conditions, the so-called socialist and communist parties of Australia (and I include all the liberal globalist entities listed above in this category) have failed to build any mass support for themselves – or even for their agendas – among the working class.
This should come as no surprise, since their agendas are now largely set by copying international trends, eagerly adopted with minimal adaptation to local conditions by their undergraduate member-base. These agendas are far removed from the bread-and-butter concerns of working Australians.
While many commentators have noticed a spike in woke attitudes and behaviours since 2016, the reality is that this bourgeois, globalist tendency has been building since the appearance of the New Left in the late 1960’s. The same intense focus on international matters can be seen running from the Vietnam War, through countless African civil wars, to Niger and the Ukraine today. The same obsession with ever-more-marginal personal identity issues can be traced from gay liberation to third wave feminism, to trans rights (Figure 2).
It’s no coincidence that the social liberalism and individualism of the hippy movement in the 60’s and 70’s have evolved, via the New Left, into what passes for ‘socialism’ in many quarters today.
Figure 2:The New Left in Australia in the 1970’s. Middle-class hippies with an agenda no different from their counterparts in Paris or New York.By diverting socialism down this liberal rabbit hole, the New Left has simultaneously achieved two big wins for capitalism. Firstly, successful efforts to establish wins for marginal minority groups have diverted attention and effort from addressing the broad economic issues of the day. Consequently, the labour share of GDP has declined from almost 60% in the 1970’s to less than 45% today (see figure 3).
Figure 3: The labour share and capital gross operating surplus (capital share) of GDP in Australia; 1960-2023.
Secondly, by attracting a higher proportion of middle class and tertiary educated people to broadly leftist movements, the traditional working-class base of these movements has been eroded. This is particularly noticeable in the case of the Australian Labor Party, which until the early 1970’s still reflected the objectives and socialist trajectory of the Australian labour movement up until that time. Compounding the problem, the more recent focus on fringe issues by far-left parties has attracted trans, queer and other marginal people to the left, further alienating the straight, cis-gendered white working classes who built organised labour. A catastrophic decline in trade union membership has resulted (see Figure 4).
Figure 4:Proportion of Australian workers in trade unions; 1980’s to 2022.
The situation in Australia is dire.
There is a need for a fresh take on socialism; what it means and what it needs to do. This fresh take must make socialism relatable to the working people of the organic Australian nation. It must focus on fixing the economic and social problems affecting workers. It must recognise the forces actually contributing to these problems - and call out both the mainstream left and right for obscuring the true nature of these forces. It must, like the Roman god Janus, look back into our history – and forward to our future, to rebuild Australian socialism in the trajectory of its pioneers, in a form appropriate to the 21st century.
Figure 5: Janus – looking back to history and forward to the future.
How is Australian socialism different?
The socialism promoted by a small group of us here, today, is different in three respects.
Firstly, our socialism recognises the evolution of the socialist idea on Australian soil. From William Lane, through heroes like W.G Spence, Frank Anstey, Jack Lang, Russel Ward and Arthur Calwell – there was a distinctly local kind of socialism which developed, under local conditions and shaped by the culture of the organic Australian people.
This local evolution of socialism is broadly consistent with the many nationally appropriate socialist systems which emerged in the late 20th century. Nasserism, Castroism, Bolivarian revolution, Ho Chi Minh socialism; all were attempts to build socialist states within the framework of unique national cultures. They were also, unfortunately, the last stage in the long evolution of socialist ideas - it’s last flower, if you will – before the suppression of socialist ideas in Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ - and victory for global capitalism. Attempts by liberal globalists to associate these forms of thought with German national-socialism reflect either bad-faith, or gross ignorance of history.
Australian socialism interprets the trajectory of the labour leaders in this country until the late 1960’s - and extrapolates that trajectory into the 2030’s and beyond. It examines the principles which drove the push to build a workingman’s paradise on the great southern continent – and considers how these apply today.
It rejects – wholeheartedly – the cookie-cutter application of foreign and globalist interpretations of socialism in Australia. It acknowledges the grave errors of socialists in adopting the agenda and methods of the New Left.
Secondly, our focus is generally local. While we will work with likeminded people anywhere in the world, we are first and foremost committed to the betterment of the organic Australian nation through the creation of a socialist state – and the Australian Cooperative Commonwealth.
Consistent with this objective, we honour the rights of all national communities to cultural, economic and demographic independence and integrity within their homelands. The foundational Australian community; descendants of those who founded and built the modern Australian nation-state, demand these rights just as we support them for others. We understand that today it is not the British Empire, nor even necessarily the colonial appetites of America or China which most seriously threaten these rights for us. It is global capital, pure and simple.
Finally, and unlike most of the liberal globalist outfits, we clearly understand our identity as Australians. The modern Australian nation was founded by the children and grandchildren of the convicts who were born on the Australian continent. These people had no real attachment to any other country, and formed the bulwark of the nationalist – and paleo-socialist – movements of the 1880’s. These movements drove Federation and the creation of the modern Australian nation-state. For nearly 100 years, the organic Australian nation – the extended family tree – turned a harsh penal colony into one of the most prosperous and (genuinely) progressive countries on the planet. In the strength of this identity, we must organise to defend our own interests and integrity. We fight to build the Australian Cooperative Commonwealth.
So what?
Having read this far, you might be thinking, ‘well, so what?’ ‘How does this relate to me in the British Isles?’
It hardly needs saying that the forces of global capitalism are, indeed, global. Australian socialists recognise in the SMPBI an ally in the fight against these forces. Sharing experience and interpretations will produce new insights which will – hopefully – arm us better for the fight.
I welcome your feedback on any of the matters covered here, and salute you as comrades.
Yours in Solidarity.
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