Lateline reports tomorrow’s Newspoll has Labor’s two-party lead at 59-41, down from 63-37 a fortnight ago. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 73-7 to 70-10 (hat tip to Blair S. Fairman).
UPDATE: Graphic here.
Author: William Bowe
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.
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Steve K
Guy Rundle is widely respected as being brillant – just because he is truly of the social democratic left and is willing to critique Labor independently – as most of their policies are superficial as they stay in 2nd party of the Right status – look at their Housing affordability stuff -superficial policies they will not really change much – if labor really wanted to make a difference they would have to take from the left – just moderate social democratic left positions would be much more penetrating and make such a difference. It is clear from the Insight Program that Labor has not got the policies to make a great difference cause they are not willing to move outside the Authoritarian Right box..
Guy is happy to critique the Left independently – and he really looks at issues on their own merit – no group think.
951
bird
I’m not really sure what you are saying in your post. That’s OK.
[It was fun to watch. That was one of the most nervous performances I have seen Abbott involved in.]
I have a memory of Abbott squirming quite a lot in an interview by Toney Jones? over funding of an attack on Pauline Hanson. He looked very uncomfortable that night.
Abbot denies lying over anti-Hanson fund
The senior minister at the centre of the Pauline Hanson storm has vehemently denied that he lied about his financial involvement in bringing Pauline Hanson down. Tony Abbott was a parliamentary secretary five years ago when he established a trust fund to help bankroll civil court cases against One Nation.
And while the PM says he became aware of the trust fund around that time, he says he can’t remember discussing it with Mr Abbott.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2003/s933534.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/30/1062050681296.html
OK, maybe I did not express myself well, – thinking of too many things at once
What I am saying is that Guy Rundle is a great thinker – just because he correctly points out that alot, not all, of Labor’s policies are superficial, eg housing affordability – and that they really need to take from the S ocial democratic side of things to solve a problem does not make him wrong
I just find that alot a people who vote Labor are really of the Right – and seem to be equally dismissive of getting Labor to broaden up ideologically and move outside of the neoliberal world …its just my experience and I find it dissapointing..people like Adam Carr, while his contributions are often good, in the end he is very dismissive of people wanting to move outside of the neoliberal world…
I’ve got no problem with Guy Rundle. What you call the right is now the middle. Things have changed in these last 25 years. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day this Nation’s problems won’t be solved in a single term of government. I think Rudd and his team are going along quite nicely at the moment and many of the people I work with (an even mix of Lib and Lab) agree. Life’s good – enjoy.
I think rudd is presently, for the time being, stuck with the approach he took to the election. That is how he won it. It is a bit tough to make assumptions about the government after 4 months and to assume it will or wont include some variety of policies. I for one expect the Rudd government to gradually broaden its left horizons, there being more than one way to skin a cat but he may do it in not so obvious ways.
After so many years in the wilderness you can understand that the government must at first shows some caution to garner trust and acceptance.
I do find it a bit annoying that some Laborites are critical of Rudd Labor for not doing this or that and totally ignore the realities of establishing a government. They seem like upset children dissapointed they didn’t get the present they wanted. In their attacks on government policy and progress they are acting as an opposing force and not helping the government to establish itself.
This is a long term business and patience is required. They will get some of the presents they want, just wait.
Thanks Steve K – it depends Steve if you think that you should fight for the middle ground to bring it back to where it was even 10 years ago or just simply accept what you said. I know quite a few people who would like to fight for the middle ground..I was not saying by the way that Labor are not going ok…
Kina
I know what you mean – the 2nd term is the test, its just that now is really a good time to look at housing affordability – everything is being renewed again – it was just disappointing – I think in general Labor will still sit in a narrow ideological base but I am sure good stuff will be done…I think the death of neoliberalism is a 50 year thing myself –
957
bird
Please don’t advocate that we return to the ground we occupied 10 years ago.
Rudd is moving forward on a number of fronts. The ones that interest me most are the environment; homelessness (which is not the same as housing affordability) and the need to unscramble Federal v States issues. Although I’d like to see greater momentum on each of these issues I’m realistic enough to know that it must be controlled change and that will take lots of planning and consultation. Rudd is in that stage now. I don’t want to see half baked ideas offered as solutions which became a trademark of the Howard years. This should not be about buying votes – it must be about fixing root causes of serious problems.
Stop picking on Libs, pleads Hockey
Poor ol’ Joe. He’s made my day.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23433800-12377,00.html
“FEDERAL Opposition frontbencher Joe Hockey has pleaded for people to stop “bashing” the Liberal Party.
Out of power across the nation, the Liberals were ridiculed this week in NSW after a federal MP was refused membership of a party branch in his electorate.
Mr Hockey, the Opposition’s health spokesman, said criticism of the Liberals had gone too far.
“Will everyone please stop bashing up the Liberal Party at the moment,” he told Fairfax Radio Network….
One bunch of figures I saw recently was that in the past decade home prices have risen 250% and borrowings 500% with 90% of that being on existing homes. This seems to indicate that money is being spent competing for the existing rather than developing the new.
I guess the issue is one of supply which will also include the issue of supporting infrastructure, services and effective transport to work.
We may even see the government set a incremental program for increasing capital gains tax on investment housing, in its next term.
Ken Lovell over at Road to Surfdom critiques the first four months of Rudd. The new Government has been pre occupied with doing what they said they were going to do. Apparently, some of the left think this is not good enough. Well bollocks to them.
http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/2008/03/25/the-first-four-months/
Bird said re: housing affordability:
“….if labor really wanted to make a difference they would have to take from the left – just moderate social democratic left positions would be much more penetrating and make such a difference.”
The problem with these sweeping generalisations like “social democratic left” and neoliberalism is that they seem to be little more than gigantic bags of nothingness that people fill up with their own pet political ideologies or grievances.
Just what “social democratic left position” should labor pursue to improve housing affordability in terms of actual policy?
And what is neoliberalism?
Anyone that thinks any government in Australia will ever take the country into a hard left turn and ditch market economics as the fundamental cornerstone of our economic system is deluding themselves. Governments arent in the business of deliberately setting out to reduce our standards of living and committing electoral suicide. We saw what happens when government go down that route of threatening living standards by accident with Workchoices.
They certainly wont follow that path deliberately.
Steve K – my complaint was also that I do not want to see half baked solutions hence my request that labor change to the ideological base that it works from –
When you say centre ground, well, given that Labor are where ideologically where the Liberal Party was in t he 80’s – so the left have difficulty making it into the centre – see I think that you can actually look at the values in a policy and put it on the map – and see where the cutting on capitalism is – in 50 years time, when we are all old, perhaps the centre will be back to where it was 20 years ago – climate change might change the way we live in more profound ways than we think – you never know how we will be living in generations time.
Possum:I was not advocating reducing standards of living – I was advocating the Labor explore a broader ideological base and not have superficial policies that only scratch at the surface….especially when overwhelming evidence is that Labor’s current policies in regards to housing affordability aren’t going to do it
Bird, I appreciate that you werent deliberately advocating reducing standards of living, but the type of big government interventionist approach you seem to be hoping for (although please, correct me if I’m wrong here and you werent) too often delivers that type of outcome in Australia.
A broader exploration of the ideological base is one thing – but to achieve what?
In case people havent noticed, Kevin Rudd doesnt have a very close policy relationship with ideology – his days in Qld demonstrated that in spades, and so far his PMship has continued that same position. Its not an ideological framework he uses, it’s empirical.
It can basically be summed up as: Name an objective, find out the policy program that is most likely to achieve that objective with maximum benefit, minimum cost, and which scores well politically – regardless of which end of the ideological spectrum the policy might come from.
Possum: I think you have misinterpreted me – its not about big govt – I would like to see more community based solutions to things in fact – a less statist approach I would like to see…
you are absolutely correct with your last paragraph though – but it comes back to my original criticism of Labor’s policy re housing affordability – there policy so far is superficial but let’s see – 2nd term may change i gather
There will never be the death of ideology – there always has to be values behind each policy – unless you work in a nothingness – what I am saying is that often now very right wing econonic positions are seen as common sense and objective and the exploration of other positions to solve problems is dismissed..when the exploration of these positions may actually produce better outcomes
And what is neoliberlism you say? Perhaps you should study globalisation, as I have…
It’s the Queensland way of picking winners.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/26/2199220.htm
OK, who funds the “community based solutions”, and what “solution” would they actually provide? The problem with these grand sweeping ideas is that they tend to fall down in a heap at the first sign of actual detail.
Its too often like a bunch of cheerleeders:
What do we want?
Community Solutions!
When do we want it?
Yesterday!
Too much criticism of government policy gets tied up about notions of ‘form’ not ‘function’.
It would have to be a very very good reason why function should ever be sacrificed for form.
The reason many positions – like community based solutions – get dismissed often has little to do with them not being explored, but more to do with them being comprehensively refuted as workable, achievable or being able to produce an acceptable outcome once the detail is hammered out.
Perhaps I should study globalisation? – as an economist, (one that prefers following the data of observable reality rather than following any particular ideological school of economic navel gazing ), I think I’m probably well versed enough to have a chat.
Just what is neoliberalism? As far as I can tell it seems to be whatever grievances some on the left have with the world rather than anything consistent or concrete.
Is it markets? Is it open economies? Is it certain government policies?
It too often just seems to be a case of “I dont know what it is, but I DONT LIKE IT!”.
Possum: Globalisation is based on winner takes all capitalism – its based on an ideology for essentially a small percentage of the words population – most for the few ..!! For example, when multinationals go into 3rd word countries, then impose often far right fundamentalism, or very right – do anything to stop the poor collectively bargaining and unionising – so they cannot get themselves paid fairly vis a vis 300 billion profit margin – 99% of this goes back to a very small percentage of the worlds population, 1percent for the many – often have them working in harzardous conditions etc – in countries that have not had the benefit of a labor movement – so its a race to the bottom of the barrell – now they are going to China cause they can pay people 13c an hour, and not 20c like in Bangladesh or the Phillipines ..basically impossible levels of greed
When I was doing my assignments – specifically looking at neoliberalism and water privatisation – the World Bank, IMF etc WTO do not often explore other ideological options, even though the evidence is there to explore them cause they are working …eg: community water schemes are really working great in Latin America and Africa – they have less water leakage than others, primarily because people have a sense of ownership….You get to the end of my research and you ask yourself Why Do not the World Bank pursue these options, as they are really successfull?..Well, the only conclusion you can come to, and for anyone who has studied globilsation, is that they do not pursue these options cause they will not feed into western multinational profits – even though to pursue them may produce better outcomes for the people –
If you want to have a further conversation/discussion about this separately that’s fine, but I would live to give you this assignment to read – WTO, World Bank, IMF – anyone who knows anything about this knows that for 30 years, regardless that the evidence is daming, these organisations continue to impose neoliberalism or market based fundamentalism on 3rd world countries, – whatever wealth there is in the 3rd world is being pushed back to the US really – you could be a bit more for everybody if you pursued other ideological positions…Joseph Stiglitz – Nobel Prize winning economist and former chief economist at World Bank – has come out in support of criticism of all these institutions – and says the whole ideological underpinnings need to be rearranged – like the LEFT have been saying for many years.
What does Left, Right or Centre mean in todays politics? Apart from “not one of us”.
In my view they are useless words. 😛
Ruawake:
If your starting base is winner takes all capitalism which is radically individualistic, then left is any additional power base eg: power sharing or values added to profit making, capitalism – eg, values such as justice/fairness and environment sustainability. Just expanding on my further post, what the Neoliberal world hates about is someone else gettingpower and having to consider other values such as profit making
It would be great if we could live in an ideologically free world – but believe me, globalisation is based on a specific ideology for western corporate interests – and any interfernce to that which normally comes from the left they really hate.
The problem with what you say is that the data simply doesnt back it up. If it was a race to the bottom, we would expect to see declining incomes and declining living standards across much of the developing world. That is afterall what a race to the BOTTOM means.
Apart from a few African countries in the middle of a long term war, or a few political basketcases like Burma and Zimbabwe with dictatorship issues – there is no data around at all to support the notion that the developing world is experiencing declining incomes and declining standards of living. No World Bank data, no IMF data, no UN data.
On the contrary – What all the data does show is that incomes are rising, and with them standards of living, and have been for a long time, but have accelerated over the last 30 years.
If there is no data that even remotely suggests that the developing world is racing to the bottom – perhaps it’s not the data that is wrong, but the theory?
As for the ability of many developing world populations being prevented from collective bargaining – that is true. They are prevented by their governments, but always have been. I cant think of a case where a country had the ability to collectively bargain, but then had it removed over the last 20 years in this context.The problem is that it has always been the case in those nations. Yes, lobby for all nations to sign up to ILO agreements – it will be a great day in the world when that happens. But blaming governments for oppressing their labour movements because of recent history, and ignoring the fact that those same governments had been oppressing their labour movements way before they ever opened their doors to international trade kind of missed the point of what’s actually going on there.
When companies move their operations from the western world to China – everyone benefits. We benefit because we get cheaper goods (which means we get to buy a better standard of living for a given amount of money). The Chinese population benefits because they get pulled out of absolute poverty, usually away from the environmental and economic squalor that is subsistence farming. You might not think that 35 bucks a week is worth a pinch of the proverbial, but compared to the 14 bucks a week they’d be otherwise earning via subsistence farming in a good season, it’s an economic rainbow that allows those workers to send their kids to school for the first time and buy more healthcare than they’ve ever been able to before. As time goes on, those wages start rising – as they did in Japan and Korea and Malaysia and Indonesia and Thailand, and India etc etc over the past 50 years.
On the WTO/IMF/World Bank – Because one program works somewhere doesnt mean the same program will work everywhere. Over the last 10 years particularly, the funding that nations provide the IMF and the World Bank has been accompanied by demands for much more rigourous cost benefit analysis to be done on the projects that those funds eventually go to – essentially to stop all the money being pissed up the wall on hair brained schemes that failed. The World Bank funds tens of millions of dollars worth of what you call community solutions, particularly in Africa, every year.
But now they’ll only be funded if the cost/benefits stack up – and too many schemes of all descriptions now fail those tests and get dismissed. The real irony is the cost/benefits should be even tighter than they are at the moment.Another thing your missing here is that it is actually rare for the World Bank to design aid schemes – what usually happens is that professional aid organisations design proposals and then approach the World Bank for funding. A lot of what you are blaming the WB for (not broadening their ideological scope) actually has little to do with the since its the aid organisations that design the proposals.
Where you see vast right-wing conspiracy is really just a case of poor proposals not getting funding because they wont work.Similarly, every problem that exists in these international bodies you blame on corporations – even though its ostensibly national governments and their interests which are responsible for the running of these agencies.
The IMF, the World Bank and the WTO all have problems, but if you think Stiglitz for one moment was saying that globalisation is a race to the bottom, opening trading markets is essentially bad and that its really multinational corporations that are responsible for any and every ill that the developing world experiences, you need to read him again.
Now bringing this back to Australian politics – you want the ALP to broaden its ideological base. To do what with?
You specifically mentioned housing in this context – so what ideas would you be hoping that the ALP would pursue after this broadening? Community Solutions was also mentioned – but again, all I can ask is “like what”?
My brain hurts. 🙂 If only it were so simple.
Not you Possum 8)
Aw shucks ruawake – flattery will get you everywhere
Brough to get Queensland Lib President job.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/brough-tipped-for-political-comeback/2008/03/26/1206207157727.html#
977
Over Warwick Parer’s dead body. Parer has already endorsed his deputy for the position.
The vote will probably be taken before Mal Brough returns from his holiday overseas. Nice timing for a resignation.
Then again they could pull a name out of a hat.
OK, Possum – you have made your points. Its about income distribution – it is producing an extreme income disparity – its about impossible levels of greed, – your half points do not cancel out mine. Nike admitted that they were not paying people fairly – everything Oxfam had been telling them for years.
and if you read Stiglitz’s book it will reveal that imposition of neoliberlism was, in his view, the single biggest factor behind the Asian crisis – no financial controls at all, and yes, you know what he found, it was that a US Multinational was looking to get into market and that no financial controls suited them…
Possum, I do not have the time now to get into this, and all the subtleties of it – but all I can say that I think that I do know more about this than others who have not studied, I have also worked in a developing country. When I was studying I looked up academic research about the ramifications of the imposition of neoliberalism in Bangladesh – I worked there- and it basically came out that it only did something for the top 30% – the business and economic elites – and nothing for the bottom 70% – the trickle down theory is very discredited in America as well..
Stiglitz is agreeing with my point on an overall basis – change the ideology behind it..the World Bank still to this day goes in with right wing fundamentalism in its poverty alleviation strategies – these things are well known by people closer to the action than you and me.
I live in sydney – i would love to discuss this issue further if you are interested – instead of point scoring
Joseph E. Stiglitz has written 18 books, bird which one are you referring to?
I have seen interviews with him and he advcoates changing the ideology behind it – he was on the 7.30 report years ago when he wrote his recent Globalisation book.
ALso, he came out in support ofthe protests in Seattle in 1999
Possum
As Oliver James and others suggest neo-liberalism is the con job whereby the tories in UK, USA and Austrlia have convinced the great unwashed that sh*t sandwiches taste really really yummy.
978 Ruawake, that is just too funny. I knew Brough was unelectable with the general population but I never realised he was unelectable within the Liberal Party too!
I guess you are referring to “Making Globalisation Work” a rather cheerful tome. Not full of gloom and doom at all.
Sorry for the brevity of my posts my enthesopathy is playing up. 🙂
Ruawake
No one is saying every single thing is bad – its the overaching ideology.
There are alot of other people writing on this topic who would be more critical of course.
I will give you anothe example, Costa Rica got a labor movement in the 1990’s – and this resulted in a US multinational organisation in the tuna industry having to pay people fairly – and not have them working in hazardous conditions – so when unions did get this the company p…ssed off and went to Peru –
The Ideology of Development
By William Easterly Professor of Economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and Co-Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute
http://www.nyu.edu/fas/institute/dri/Easterly/File/FP_Article0707.pdf
[Sachs accused Easterly of excessive pessimism, overestimating costs, and overlooking past successes. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has praised Easterly for analysis of the problems of foreign aid, but criticized his sweeping debarment of all plans, lacking the due distinctions between different types of problems, and not giving the aid institutions credit for understanding the points he’s making]
Bird, So I take it we’ve agreed that there isnt actually any empirical evidence for the race to the bottom theory then? That’s a pretty important thing because it shifts the reality of the debate – especially about where the problems are.
On Stiglitz – he is very particular about his criticism and it relates not to products markets (open trade), but the capital market (open financial flows). And I agree with a lot of what he says on that. But you also need to remember that countries didnt reluctantly open up their capital markets, no one pressured them to open up their capital markets – they did it because they wanted a slice of the capital that was sloshing around the global market place – ostensibly to accelerate their domestic development (and line the pockets of the cronies attached to the leadership in South East Asia). When nations enthusiastically sign up to an absence of capital restraints, you can hardly call that having something “imposed” on them.
For anyone that studies the income/trade relationship in developing nations – the starting point is Dollar and Kraay and the substantially large collection of empirical analysis moves onwards from there.
Although critics of trade wont like the observable reality they find. The data speaks louder than polemics.
And piffle like “trickle down theory” doesnt even come into play. You dont need a theory of what should happen when what you are doing is measuring what is actually happening.
Accussing the World Bank of right wing fundamentalism in their poverty alleviation strategies is actually pretty funny in the general scheme of things.Their core business isnt even designing strategies, but funding the strategies of countries that are the destination of funding, or funding proposals by third parties.And being an international body, it’s caught between the politics of everyone -there aint much wiggle room there to be fundamentalist about anything.
I’m in Brisbane and I’m not point scoring (I get cheeky and snarky when that starts happening )- just trying to add some observable, empirical reality to the conversation. And maybe a bit of complexity to boot.
Albert – I can agree that neoliberalism is a con job, but I’m not too sure which side is conning which.
Brough to get Queensland Lib President job.
I thought Springborg was strongarming the Libs into amalgamating with the Nats as the United Pineapple Party
Possum
See my point 985 to Ruawake – its a race to the bottom of the barrel with conditions – wages etc – those things are still correct – and yes, they are all leaving philippines etc and going to China because they can pay people less – what I am saying is that people should be able to have it all – good jobs, pay etc
Generally, I agree with the point that trade is better than aid – I never said anything different, but what i have been trying to say Possum, is that it is based on winner takes all – what others are saying is that it could be a bit more for everybody and not just the next billion dollars of Nike, on top of the 300 billion dollars that they earn – like our far right IR stuff that we just got rid off- its about shared economic prosperity
Another example, in Malawi a multinational organisation in tobacco was going to the villages and paying the local growers to not collective bargain/unionise so they could keep their winner takes all ideology it is based on preventing the local growers from getting a fair price – this is MY POINT – SBS Dateline did a story on it a while ago
The World Bank has its country development strategy for each country – and yes of course there is ideology, values in everthing so yes, if you ask people like Stephen Lewis, former UN diplomat, when I was working at a women’s reproductive rights I was involved in recent advocacy – last year- of getting the World Bank to drop a Christian right person imposing no funding of reproductive rights/health, family planning to all country strategies – it was basically the left world wide that protested and we got some action – they reinstated the language – these battles are happening all the time – i was just in a position to see it up close – and it is the Left Possum that are constantly fighting these battles – you just do not get to see it –
Possum: Sorry, I did not develop my point about Stephen Lewis – I was going to say that he headed the UN’s African Aids envoy – you may have heard him speak – but he is high in UN – and closer up than either of us – and he is more than happy to tell you that there is market place fundamentalism in their strategies..
America has the power of veto at the World Bank – they appont neocon’s – it sets the agenda for the organisation – its not saying that every project is bad – but it sets a values agenda
There are some on this site who want it now, all of it, immediately, plus some more that they just thought of , and oh yeah, every looney and not so looney, lefty, feelgood, change the world, wish gratified. Forthwith.
What they want is what I want, in the fullness of time, with proper planning, with appropriate safeguards. with community acceptance. And if I can’t have it without surrendering Government to the ratbags we’ve just kicked out, then I’ll wait. And do without if necessary.
There are so many achievable things this Government can bring to fruition, and is achieving, that I currently have little time for disellusioned dreamers or people with personal issues and axes to grind.
Fulvio 992 – i am happy to wait as well on the domestic level – but certainly when it comes to globalisation and neoliberlism you will have to fight over many years – otherwise change will never happen
Bird, it wasn’t you I had in mind, to be honest.
Fulvio: Thank you for your post..
Possum: Do you concede a point?
And while Possum is adding complexity…
As I understand, our housing growth has outstripped out population growth, and yet we have a housing crisis. Why? Well, you could link it all the way back to out craving for individual human rights and what appears to be it’s corollary – selfishness. The reality is that in the last 20 years our block sizes have halved, our house sizes have doubled, and the number of occupants in each house has halved too. Oh – 1 car per household too. So much for the Australian lifestyle eh?
But who is going to argue that we have to go back to having our Gandparents live with us?
Was it really such a big deal to pay a bit more at the corner store that doesn’t exist anymore compared to our giant supermarkets we have to drive to?
Was this massive cultural change a Leftist or Rightist ideology?
Hardly. (Very simplistically) I’d argue it’s all due the fact that in our society we value the rights of the one over the many, even if it is eventually detrimental to the one AND the many. We can argue all we like about the economics, but I don’t believe the economics is driving the culture anywhere near as hard as the culture is driving the economics.
Breaking news – COAG announcement. Victoria to sign Murray Darling agreement.
Bird at 990
For the race to the bottom theory to be correct, there would be empirical evidence showing that not only income, but working conditions are trending downwards – but there is no evidence to support that. All aggregate evidence is actually to the contrary. When data and theory dont match – one is wrong. And it’s not usually the data.
What seems to be happening is that groups with a political based agenda (and I’m not accusing yoou of this bird) pick and choose carefully the few examples they can find where wages and working conditions were cut, they join them together and attempt to misrepresent the broader reality of being reflective of their carefully chosen sample.
It’s junk science. Dont fall for it – always follow the data.
People should be able to have it all – but we are still pulling people out of absolute poverty. It is impossible to move someone from subsistence farming into a wage equivalent to $50 000 AUD a year, unless you want hyper inflation – and then you just end up sending people back into the poverty you are trying to alleviate. These things take time. It took the West 300 years to drag its citizenry out of poverty after we started to realise what we were doing. It wont take that long for the developing world, but it certainly wont be done in the next few decades. These things are incremental and it mostly depends on the government decisions of the countries themselves.
And it’s more than winner takes all, its the comparative advantage of nations. Its only winner takes all if you dont look at the consequences of what’s going on. Multinational corporations look like they win because they make profit of low wages – but their workers also win because they get to earn more than they ordinarily would (which starts the income growth ball rolling) and can afford to send their kids to school for the first time (which starts the intergenerational wealth ball rolling), and we win because our goods become cheaper.
So it’s not really winner takes all, the winning gets spread around – and as it becomes more complicated, it still manages to work via simple comparative advantage.
That reproductive rights battle is a typical example of the type of politics that goes on – its the politics of governments and their backers, not multinational corporations or neoliberalism or whatever – just dirty old ordinary politics. And I think you’ll find that no broad side of politics has a monopoly on fighting for causes they believe in, or helping people less fortunate than themselves.
Omnimod – I’m with you, over the longer term, culture – or rather people just doing ‘stuff’ seems to drive economics more than economics drives the stuff we do.
The choices we make creates the world we live in and all that.
Within reason of course.
997
The collective had to do something to keep Rann from blowing his top.
Turnbull will no doubt be caliming credit for this one?