Chris Slee: New book examines Australia's role in the region

Chris Slee reviews New book examines Australia's role in the region.

If Australia were to break with the US, the latter would react in a hostile manner. This might include military action, perhaps in the form of a naval blockade. Submarines might be useful in deterring this.

But if Australia still had a capitalist government, even one that was relatively independent of the US, it might use its armed forces to attack and intimidate its Pacific neighbours.

Breaking with the US is essential, but so too is opposing the exploitative relations between Australian capitalism and the people of the Pacific.

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So Australia is bound to the US Imperialism through coercion and bribery. The stick of US military action coerces Australia to accept the bribes of imperial profits. The carcasses of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam, Somalia, Sudan, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. are there for all to see what happens to those who oppose US Imperialism.

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Chris Slee: Capitalism and workers struggle in China

Chris Slee writes about Capitalism and workers struggle in China.

China's economy is now essentially capitalist, as indicated by the privatisation of the bulk of the means of production, and the conversion of labor power into a commodity. Workers can only survive by selling their labor power to an employer.

But the most extreme ideologues of neoliberalism (both in China and elsewhere) are not satisfied with the degree of privatisation that has occurred so far. State-owned enterprises remain dominant in certain strategic industrial sectors such as iron and steel, electricity and telecommunications, and in the banking sector. The neoliberals want more complete privatisation, and unfettered access to all areas of the economy for local and foreign capital.

The Chinese Communist Party has up to now resisted these pressures. A strong state sector helps China maintain a degree of independence from the Western imperialist powers.

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If this is the case, it is not unprecedented in the history of capitalism. State ownership of key industries can sometimes be beneficial for the functioning of the capitalist system as a whole. The British government nationalised the coal mines after the second world war. This did not mean that Britain had become socialist. Similarly, China's economy remains fundamentally capitalist, despite some cases of re-nationalisation in the wake of the global financial crisis.

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Slee concludes:

Despite the partial reversal of some neoliberal policies, China remains a highly unequal society, where workers are ruthlessly exploited and lack job security. The state remains capitalist. It represses the resistance of the workers to capitalist exploitation.

The air and water are extremely polluted. Despite significant investment in renewable energy, the use of fossil fuels continues to expand, and China is now the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases.

Minorities such as the Tibetans and Uighurs continue to be oppressed. Freedom of speech continues to be restricted.

A struggle for genuine socialism still remains necessary. This struggle will need to bring together workers, students and other oppressed groups. An example of such unity is the solidarity of university students with workers at Jasic Technologies. This kind of solidarity, if repeated on a much larger scale, can help take China on the road to socialism.

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Royal Commission 'prejudiced and biased': CFMEU leader

Chris Slee writes that Royal Commission 'prejudiced and biased': CFMEU leader.

By accusing the CFMEU of blackmail, the Royal Commission is trying to portray any industrial action (apart from the very limited forms allowed by Australia's highly restrictive laws) as a crime. Union officials (and by implication rank and file union members) who carry out such industrial action are portrayed as criminals. The royal commission is also preparing the ground for even more severe restrictions on workers' rights.

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Any defiance against the ruling class is a crime. A crime is defying the natural order of things.

And since Capitalism is currently the true natural order of things, workers who ask for and fight for decent working conditions and wages are against the natural order of things in which the Capitalists alone determine what is right and fair.

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The problem of relative privilege in the working class

Chris Slee ponders The problem of relative privilege in the working class.

Slee dislikes the term, “labour aristocracy”, and prefers to use “relative privilege” instead. It is this relative privilege that is the source of division among workers:

Material inequalities between different groups of workers can contribute to conflict between them. Often one group of workers will try to defend their position of relative privilege against other workers who are perceived as threatening it.

Slee argues that, given the global nature of the production process, the government should nationalise any factory is threaten by being moved off-shore:

How should Australian unions react when companies threaten to close a factory in Australia and move production to another country (whether a Third World or another imperialist country)?

We should argue that it is the responsibility of the Australian government to ensure that there are jobs with good pay and conditions for all workers in Australia. This means the government should take over factories threatened with closure and run them as public enterprises, or else provide the sacked workers with alternative work. Public housing, public transport and renewable energy are some of the areas that governments should invest in and create jobs.

Slee proposes that workers should aim for the leveling up of wages for all workers around the world:

One of our long-term goals should be to reduce inequality between workers in different countries, by raising the living standards of those in poorer countries. Pay rates should be leveled up, not leveled down as the capitalists would like.

Slee concludes that:

The struggle between solidarity and the defence of relative privilege is part of the struggle for a socialist world.

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