PARTISAN!

Comrade Mila appraises the Labor government’s proposed solutions to ongoing global economic crises, with reference to the “Working Futures’ White Paper.

---

There is a quiet crisis taking place within international capitalism. Profits, declining for decades, are at an all all-time low. Supply-side disruption due to the war in Ukraine has unleashed monopolistic profit-driven inflation. Despite the “lucky country” fantasies of Keating and others, Australia experiences these global shocks too: suffering from low economic growth which is increasing made up of housing speculation rather than growth in productivity or investment.

To rescue us, and the bosses’ profits, the Labor party arrives with the “Working Futures” white paper! This document not only outlines the government’s proposed solutions to this crisis, including their policy-making methodology, but is also a mission-statement for the Labor party’s ongoing social democratic mission. The paper is the blueprint for Australian capitalism under the Labor party, so it is one of the most important documents for understanding capitalism in Australia for the next decade.

On the face of it, the government is surprisingly cognizant of the malaise in the Australian economy. Instead of lamenting a profit crisis it hides behind a “productivity slump” and complains about high inflation. There is growing concern over the ageing workforce and the knock-on effect that has on demand for care sector work. The paper is frightened of climate change but only over carbon emissions, as opposed to a holistic concern of ecological collapse caused by material demands. Finally, although there is no mention of racism towards migrants (which is deliberate) the paper wishes that women and indigenous people had more economic opportunities.

The rhetoric of the paper reveals the Corporatist agenda lying at the core. Every economic issue is discussed as if it were an issue of welfare rather than of profit, and every issue of welfare discusses the economic benefits of diversity. The paper praises “workplace cooperation” between trade unions and businesses. It pushes policy that promotes “resilience” and “dynamism”, meaning an economy that is flexible, growing, and harmless.

This language is reflected in the fake “intersectionality” (i.e. lacking understanding of class) discourse used within the department, and the sheer joy taken in consulting with NGOs representing minority groups when policy crafting. The Labor party positions itself as heralding in a new age through this paper, a utopia of feel-good capitalism where all the contradictions between the workers and the bosses are resolved by just, you know, talking it out, man.

This is a fantasy. We live under capitalism, and the capitalists aren’t interested in adopting European-style social democracy. The post-WW2 welfare state system (social democracy) was adopted due to fears of socialism, but the trade unions threatened to collapse capitalism anyway due to their ever-increasing wage demands. Even in Europe, where semblances of this system still survive, they are regularly struck with bouts workers agitation when they are not distracted by insane bouts of racism.

Unable, and unwilling, to push for a truer social democratic system, Labor is nonetheless convinced of its role as a hero for at least some form of cooperation between workers, women, indigenous communities, and businesses. So instead, it creates consultative committees, public forums, and taskforces headed by experts and NGOs claiming to represent us. They delight in asking for permission. The paper is riddled with self-congratulatory airs whenever it regularly refers to any time it consulted with someone on something.

Even this is too far for the Australian capitalists. The Voice, the perfect example of this sort of consultation-without-actual-power, was rejected decisively due to the propaganda of business-aligned news outlets. These news outlets also ruthlessly attack any policy that could be construed as “anti-business”. Labor seems to believe that the 2022 election result indicated a defeat of aggressive neoliberalism, when it was actually a defeat of the Coalition for not doing it properly!

The result is a white paper that enacts neoliberal policy but with the set-dressing of capitalist identity politics. The government has had the public service go to incredible effort to coordinate and communicate with stakeholders when making policy: policy that then concerns itself with ensuring ever more coordination and communication, but rarely dramatically changes spending or regulations.

To attempt to boost productivity growth and lower inflation, the white paper proposes “targeted” spending essentially on technical education and training. This hopes that a more skilled workforce will be able to innovate, and thus grow profits and GDP, without big capital investment and expansion. However, absent from the white paper, but ever-present in the Ministers’ discussions of it, is the heavy lifting that AUKUS projects are doing. Most of the spending on the new “centres of excellence” is to train domestic engineers in industries related to nuclear submarine production. It seems the Labor party hopes to rely on buddy USA to justify, if not supply, government spending to improve growth figures without Sky News throwing a tantrum. Comrades must be cognizant of the growing military-industrial complex in Australia and proactively campaign “no war but the class war”!

Similarly, the white paper hopes that “targeted” investment into Indigenous non-profits and “social enterprises” will close the gap and full integrate indigenous people into the economy. Are you joking?

Too little too late on climate change also. I recommend the recent Class and Capital workers’ inquiry into the renewables industry for insight into this. To summarise, capitalists simply do not have the appetite to invest in renewables in the volume needed for a rapid transition, due to thin profit margins and low capacity for reinvestment. The white paper does not offer up the sums necessary.

To open a new arena of economic growth and resolve the gender pay gap, the white paper proposes the silver bullet of expansion of the child and aged care sector. The paper, rightfully, identifies that women, burdened by unpaid caring responsibilities, suffer from inaccessibility to advance their careers. To solve this issue, the government proposes generous childcare subsidies.

As always, capitalism cannot just grow through innovation but must consume more facets of life into the market. Australian capitalism has reached an interesting new stage where, ravenous for primitive accumulation, it aims to proletarianize unpaid female labour into paid wage labour. The ouroboros eats itself.

This process holds great promise for the Labor party, which is why they aim to accelerate it by subsidising it. It will prop up growth figures, as more work (the same work!) is performed within the market rather than outside it. It will open exciting new opportunities for capitalists to profit directly from the reproductive labour of women rather than indirectly through the wage of her husband.

Make no mistake, this will not resolve the gender pay gap. It will not liberate women! If it does so at all, it will only do so for a small portion of relatively wealthy, salaried, office-working women. Inevitably, almost all the workers in the expanding care industry will be women and they will continue to be paid a pittance minimum wage.

There are lessons to be learnt about the nature of capitalism for comrades in this paper. Even in the most advanced capitalist economies like Australia, capitalists always desperately seek out new spheres of life to drag into the market and profit off, this is not just a phenomenon of economies in the Global South.

We must be prepared for the government to dismiss us when we state the facts of capitalism: that the workers have nothing to lose but their chains! They will try to point to the language in this document and claim that they asked workers and women etc., and that we should wait until the next round of consultations to express our concerns. But we know that, in reality, there is no such cooperation. The workers must will have revolution, not consultation!

We must also look out for opportunities to organise childcare workers. The paper outlines how critical this growing sector is to Australian capitalism and, despite casualisation in the sector, worker shortages and the wide workplace networks that exist in this sector present great opportunities for trade union organising. Organisation into trade unions is the first step towards class consciousness, which is the highest aim of the Communists building towards the revolution!