“The Australian”: tool of the Alliance for Responsible Leadership?

59 Comments

1. Seems like a mob of propagandists sharing talking points and swapping lines to be used to set Oz up for further extortion by their backers. Nothing but a craven collective of toxic fairyfloss spinners.

2. Lucy is not happy that the Right makes an issue out of the ills that flow from what they call “secular progressivism”.
   But what is secular progressivism?
   It’s just another term for the liberal world order.

   Lucy says, with what I assume is sarcasm– What has “secular progressivism” done to us? The list is long: “narcissistic individualism; its substitution for religious norms; its suspicion of traditional families; its deployment of state power to advance its values; its compulsion to big government and higher taxes; its attachment to false education theory in schools; its promotion of climate catastrophe; its renewable ideology driving soaring energy prices; its hostility to resource development; its indifference to the collapse in fertility and the coming demographic crisis; its promotion of identity politics in an attack on liberal universalism and its disdain for national symbols and patriotism”

   What does the list tell us?
   It tells us that some of the Right’s grievances are valid.
   Liberalism has produced widespread narcissistic individualism that eats away at community values.
   It has undermined religious values and substituted market forces that must be appeased for a vengeful god that must be appeased.
   It does deploy state power to protect liberal priorities such as profit and endless property accumulation.
   Liberalism does falsify education programs.

   To be fair, the rest of the list is just a bundle of contradictions looking to infect feeble minds, but the point is that not everything the Right stands for is without merit.

   The other outstanding point is the assumption that any problems within the liberal order are not the fault of liberal values because liberalism, it is blithely assumed, is the pinnacle of social evolution.

   Liberals would starve the ratbag Right of oxygen if they engaged in some serious reflection and self-examination, and began putting their house in order.
   But they will not.
   Because they cannot.
   Because if they did, it would no longer be liberalism.

3. Lucy’s observation that “[n]ow, apparently, the West is decadent and decaying” seems uncontroversial to this scribbler. A broad inspection of many western hemisphere societies would seemingly afford many examples of decadence & decay.

   Similarly, Paul Kelly’s offering that “…Western societies are increasingly divided and diminished, plagued by a crisis of meaning, weakened by ineffective governments, suffering from a loss of trust in institutions and beset by a fracture between powerful elites and alienated publics” has an overtone of truth around it.

   I’m less enamoured by his conclusion, though, that we must return to “the things that once made us great”. Examples would have helped. Is he referring to western societies at large, or Australia in particular? If the latter, what, then, was it that deserved that adjectival merit in years gone by? Colonial expansion at the tragic expense of the indigenous peoples? The White Australia policy? The blight of involving young men in tragic wars overseas? Or less controversial acts; building cities, providing full employment for working-age men at salaries that enabled single-income home ownership? It seems a throwaway phrase… things that once made us great.

   If those things did, in fact, exist, then why do they no longer… were they wantonly discarded, or were they, like old farm outbuildings, simply destined to decay over time? Just as physicists insist on the remorseless trend of entropic systems, is it appropriate to couple that observation with societies at large; to argue that all societies tend over time toward dissolution and decay?

4. Stve,

   Which particular “religious values” would you like to see in place of those championed by “secular progressivism”?

5. Leefe, good question.
   You won’t get an argument from me about the negative influence organised religion has had on social progress.
   But having said that, religion at the personal level can be extremely positive. Life-changing even.
   And even organised religion has, to its credit, always worked to preserve community values. Whether it did this to protect the community or itself is beside the point; it’s contribution was positive.

   The right-wing source that provided the list that Lucy quoted gave no details as to which religious norms it was worried about, and I doubt that their concern about the values being undermined would be the same as mine.

   The problem with the effect that liberalism has had on society is that with its focus on the individual, it undermined community values and community welfare and replaced it with mindless narcissistic consumerism.
   So I guess the short answer to your question is — community solidarity.

6. Lucy, ‘ The cynicism and despair that the ideologues note is present. This malaise…”

   Cynicism is not a malaise. It is philosophy of virtue and ascetism, not so different from Buddhism. Are you aware that the Prince Siddartha was so unhappy in his royal life that he renounced entirely the material wealth and opulence of his palace to spend the rest of his life in poverty and simple contemplation under a tree and found contentment and enlightenment and subsequently became known as the Buddha. That is an act of cynicism. Another famous historical figure who exhibited the “malaise” of cynicism was St Francis of Assisi, and he adopted it because he was inspired by the cynicism of Jesus of Nazareth, who was inspired by Diogenes the Cynic of Ancient Athens, who was envied by Alexander the Great who died unhappy because he had no more world to conquer.

   Did you know that cynical St Francis was responsible for giving poor people Christmas? It’s true, look it up.

   Anyway I don’t see much evidence of the malaise of cynicism in this ultra materialistic world. Do you?

   Now despair. That is an understandable malaise given the lack of cynicism in this exhausted, overpopulated and overused, running out of materials world.

7. B Sullivan, you have argued repeatedly for your pedantic interpretation of the word cynicism. Not a single correspondent on these pages agrees with you. The initial use of the word may indeed be accurate, but given the inherent plasticity of meaning within language usage, nobody in this current era assigns the meaning to the word that you so pedantically insist upon. Lucy’s use of the word is entirely accurate within modern contextual usage.

   Here’s a tip; try moving along and not being so stuck in your rigid interpretations just because your brain furnishes such and such and you uncritically agree.

8. Steve,

   And even organised religion has, to its credit, always worked to preserve community values. Whether it did this to protect the community or itself is beside the point; it’s contribution was positive.

   Even when those “community values” were invasion, land theft, extreme racism (up to and including the Holocaust), slavery and the oppression of women and minorities. Oh yes, that’s sooooo positive …

9. Like I said from the start leefe, you won’t get an argument from me about the negative influence organised religion has had on social progress.

   But that went right over your head because you only wanted an argument.
   Why did you want an argument?
   Because you’ve never been happy with my criticism of liberalism, but you have been unable to counter it.
   Time to move on.

10. It’s notable that Lucy acknowledges that the Right has a point about genuine social/economic grievances .
    “The cynicism and despair that the ideologues note is present. This malaise is largely driven by the harm done to most of us by extreme “free market” colonisation of our societies. Our governments are in alliance with or captive to the demands of business and plutocrats: the duopoly’s failure to represent us is the result. No matter how we vote, the major parties will not let us address climate or injustice or the funnelling of our common wealth up to the super rich.”

    But Lucy cannot bring herself to see the role played by liberalism in this sorry tale.
    She blames neo-liberalism, which is actually hyper-liberalism.

    The free market fetish that concerns her is the end result of a natural progression within liberal economic theory and principles. It is a failure of the liberal order.

    The government-business alliance that concerns her has steadily grown over centuries, long before hyper-liberalism emerged. The cementing of this alliance is a failure of the liberal order.

    The “duopoly’s failure to represent us” that concerns her is arguably the most blatant failure of the liberal order.

    The deployment of State forces to quell legitimate climate and economic equity protests/concerns is also a failure of the liberal order, but ultimately exposes all that is deceitful and manipulative and contradictory about alleged liberal values.
    Police arresting protesters — that’s the beating heart of liberalism.

    Until the real culprit is identified, no progress will be made.

11. No, Steve, I don’t “want an argument”. I am pointing out an inaccuracy in what you said.
    If community values include negatives (such as support of slavery), then promoting those values is not a positive. This is simple logic. Refute it, if you can.

12. leefe, you live in a black and white world.

    I recall that years ago when the intention to have sugar mills in Nth Qld work 7-day weeks, a local vicar, could have been from Ingham, protested loudly and publicly that this would undermine community values and family values.
    He was a lone voice standing up for the community.
    And he was right.
    For all the terrible acts committed by organised religions, they still attract people with good hearts and a desire to serve.
    Not everything they do is bad.

13. Some come here to knee, scratch, gouge. It’s a cheap way to enjoy oneself…

14. No Steve, my world is not black and white, and can you please cease with the ad hominems.
    You said “And even organised religion has, to its credit, always worked to preserve community values. Whether it did this to protect the community or itself is beside the point; it’s contribution was positive.” That statement is, in itself, considerably black-and-white. When you aren’t one of those harmed by a system, it’s easy to say the system’s effects are, on balance, positive. Easy, but not necessarily accurate.

    I did not say, and am not saying, that everything religions do is bad; I am disputing the point that their impact has been, and is, overall a positive impact.

    If I really wanted an argument, I would also dive into the question of how you define the community, how you decide which are its values, and whether those values really deserve to be upheld.
    And then there’s the vexed fact that, as communities change – and change is the one certainty in life – so do their values.

15. leefe —“No, Steve, I don’t “want an argument”. I am pointing out an inaccuracy in what you said.”
    And yet, here we are, arguing over a point in which we are in almost total agreement.

    And as well, on the contributions point you raised, you are not correct.
    My statement that the contribution was positive clearly referred to its contribution to community values only.
    The statement was not inaccurate as you claim.
    You chose to include other values, the reason for which I can only speculate. But it’s not a good look.

16. Ohhhh, it only refered to the maintenance of the existing community values. Thank you for clearing that up.
    Now we can discuss whether those community values should have been maintained …

17. Lucy’s problem with the rise of the Right has been described elsewhere as the paradox of liberalism.
    It goes like this.
    Liberal democracies, in order to protect what they perceive as a liberal regime, resort to illiberal means that violate the same values they seek to protect. Herein lies the paradox. Either the liberal should tolerate illiberal practices, or turn to illiberal means in order to “liberate” the illiberal. Either choice undermines liberalism. The idea that one should adopt a liberal way of life as a prerequisite for living in a liberal society is, in itself, illiberal. This is because liberalism contains the freedom to choose not to hold liberal beliefs or live a liberal way of life as long as a person’s way of life complies with law and order.

    Liberalism cannot survive this paradox, or contradiction, call it what you will. But there must be a basic weakness or failure that produces this paradox. What can it be?
    It is this.
    Liberalism has no socially unifying principle greater than self-indulgence.

    Self-indulgence, self-promotion, self-satisfaction, self-liberation, this is the driving impulse behind the liberal order. A drive that is “ethically” justified, given substance and credibility, by one condition — non-interference with the priorities of others. Hence the paradox.

    And the weakness associated with the paradox?
    We appear to be involved in a socially unifying objective because we are not at war with each other, but this unity is largely an illusion.

    Our group objective is the pursuit of material wealth, but we don’t pursue it as a group as sensible people would. So the objective is not unifying, it’s alienating.
    We are competitors, not allies.
    To make matters worse, genuine structures of social unity, in particular those that pose a potential threat to the liberal order such as unions, or environmental groups, are systematically undermined. This is another aspect of the paradox. The deliberate undermining of social groups eventually undermines the liberal order as well.

    And because I noted in an earlier comment that liberals are incapable of self-reform (one of the few forms of self-ishness that is alien to them, along with “self-reflection” and “self-discipline”) the liberal order will eventually succumb to an ideology that has a stronger unifying impulse.

    In fact, it’s happening now.

18. Oh come on Steve, you can do better than trying to argue the Paradox of Tolerance. That’s juvenile.

    ps: “Black and white”, yet you seem to have difficulty dealing with the fact that many so-called “liberals” are so in the same way I am, that we differentiate between economic neoliberalism (that word being deliberately used to separate the concept) and liberality with regard to personal and private matters. Nor do we agree that the latter must inevitably lead to the former.

19. leefe — “That’s juvenile.”
    Yet you have not refuted a thing I’ve said.
    What’s holding you back?

    “we differentiate between economic neoliberalism (that word being deliberately used to separate the concept) and liberality with regard to personal and private matters.”
    There’s really not much I can do about your confusion leefe.
    Liberality is not liberalism.

20. Steve, a recent comment from Crikey’s political editor is relevant here, particularly as regards the paradox to which you refer. For example:

    “The liberalism that supported free speech even from people you strongly disagree with, up to the point of inciting violence, has now departed the Liberal Party. If the process began under Abbott, it’s now been completed under Dutton. No Liberals are standing up for the right of people to criticise genocide, let alone be bigots.”

    The author concludes (in part): “[All of] that leaves actual liberal voters — who believe in small government, free markets, lower taxes, the rule of law and hold moderate social views — without their traditional home.”
    https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/03/19/peter-dutton-dual-citizenship-deportations-liberalism-liberal-party/

    On a personal note, an acquaintance, a life-long Liberal voter, currently finds himself in a bind over a number of issues that involve (for him) the sanctity of “the rule of law” and the legal process.

    Having a robust scientific background, he regards climate sceptics (especially politicians) quite simply as fools; but more to the point, he acknowledges “[T]he deployment of State forces to quell legitimate climate and economic equity protests/concerns…” and admits to his partner that he doesn’t know how to deal with this: his formal training and experience clearly identifies the problems and dictates the actions required, but his long-standing political instinct and respect for societal institutions, for order and cohesion have combined to produce a personal dilemma.

    I am sure there are many others in a similar position. What do they do, to whom do they turn for guidance and inspiration?

21. Julian, thanks for your interest.
    The Crikey editor has not been paying attention with this — “The liberalism that supported free speech even from people you strongly disagree with, up to the point of inciting violence, has now departed the Liberal Party.”
    Their support for free speech was always turned on and off when required. Decent Liberals were always silenced or purged. Just as those that supported The Voice felt compelled to leave the party.

    Your scientist friend is an interesting case, and as you say, there would be many like him. Years ago they left and formed the Democrats. Enjoyed some success for quite a few years, but eventually fizzled, due in part I would think to Libs And Labs slowly undermining them.

    To whom do they turn now for guidance and inspiration?
    Can’t you think of an easier question? 🙂
    I’ll have to sleep on that one, cheers.

22. the only issue i have is with the term Liberalism. It doesnt have the same meaning here in oz compared to the USA. To my mind, its like the liberal party. In the USA it has all sorts of weird ideological meanings
    If the neocons and their lackies are looking for reasons for “western decline”. they need to look in the mirror. “Liberals” always seem to stand for some principle and then turn around and abandon it when convenient. Or they exaggerate some principle to win votes. They have no moral compass or empathy. Free speach, nah, yea mate, not for you.
    We look after the pensioners, protect you from reds under the beds. The morally bankrupt media trotted out this fantastic insult…..”pensioners will get a boost today….$4.50″. F me, a boost? And nobody dares to question the “light libs” over their amazing generosity.
    As i see it, how do you distinguish between Liberalism and Labor’s acceptance of defeat?

23. The attempt by leefe to put distance between the promised freedoms of liberalism and the harsh reality of liberal economics in action, does not stand up. It avoids political realities.

    The economics of liberalism cannot survive without something added to pacify the public. The principal plank of that “something” is the illusion of freedom.
    The brutal economics and the personal freedoms are locked together as one. They cannot be separated. When you vote for a liberal candidate, no matter how decent that person is, you are voting for economic policies that exploit and manipulate and steal.

    The widespread belief that liberalism facilitates and protects personal and private freedoms raises an interesting point — the power of liberal propaganda.

    The means by which liberalism achieves what is actually a process of mental enslavement, is remarkably crude, yet somehow remarkably effective.

    Crude, in that they tell the liberal West that the perpetual war we see today is the only possible path to peace. So “War is Peace”

    Crude, in that the guardians of the liberal order tell those struggling for economic independence in the Global South that economic freedom leads to communist slavery. Even as they destroy the economies of the Global South to save them from communist ruin. So “Freedom is Slavery”

    Yes, it’s straight from Orwell’s “1984” in which the slogan of the fictional authoritarian regime was “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.”

    Which raises the question — does “Ignorance is Strength” fit into the liberal program? Certainly.
    The inability of people to recognize these crude contradictions cements the power of the liberal system.
    Power does not accrue to the people through the peoples’ ignorance — it accrues to the liberal order.

    Those who are taken in by the liberal promise of liberty are actually captives.
    As Goethe put it, there are none more hopelessly enslaved than those who think they are free.
    Because once people accept the slogans of the system, passively or actively, it follows that they eventually identify with the system itself. From then on they can imagine no alternative. (How often have we seen it stated that there is no alternative to capitalism?) At that point, strength from ignorance flows back from the system to the people because they have become integrated into the system.
    They imagine that the system empowers them.

    That imaginary power is a potent drug. Those who are under its spell, which can be as simple as a sense of superiority, cannot be purged of it.
    Images and tales of suffering from the Global South, no matter how graphic and horrific, while arousing a superficial sympathy can subconsciously re-enforce that superiority. “Thank god I live in a western democracy” would go through the minds of many before they move on to more pressing matters.

    The fictional authoritarian regime of “1984” is no longer fictional.

    It’s true that unlike the situation in the novel, a healthy segment of the population today has not fallen for liberal propaganda in its entirety, but as we watch the liberal democracies do nothing of substance to stop the Gaza genocide, and in some cases assist it, it’s clear that the liberal order is in full control, and it exercises its power without mercy.

24. Indeed SD.

    And we’re seeing it play out in Ukraine / Russia, in a shadow play between T-Rump and Europe (the frightful, ‘coalition of the willing’). Where both Europe and America have virtually bankrupted themselves morally and financially by adhering to ridiculous centuries old models of brutality and treaty making/breaking in hubristic pursuit of supremacy regardless of the cost in human lives, the economy and environment. All accompanied by an intense propaganda still in play today.

25. Clakka. You are so right.

    The Ukraine debacle has turned into a bizarre mating ritual between the US and Russia, as they try to work out which is the alpha male, while the spurned lovers, Ukraine and Europe, find solace in each others embrace. Almost unbelievable.

26. In this article Lucy has made much of the Alliance For Responsible Citizenship, and fair enough.
    Many associated with it are absolute ratbags.
    But I’ve made the point before that the Right is not a monolithic force that should be feared because of its unity.

    The ARC conference in London that Lucy referred to is a case in point.
    One of the speakers was David Brooks, (thanks Bert) the conservative commentator known to many here from his regular spot on PBS Newshour. His presentation supported some of the points I made above as to the operations of liberal propaganda and the consequences that follow.

    In regard to our illusion of superiority that I mentioned, Brooks criticised the West’s “educated elite” and the role they played in the emergence of a meritocracy — “We designed a meritocracy around the skills we ourselves possess and rigged the game so we succeeded and everybody else failed.”
    The “rigged game” is the liberal order. There is nothing superior about the West. We are simply the beneficiaries of a rigged game.
    In regard to the alleged sanctity of personal freedom he said — “We privatized morality and destroyed the moral order. If what is right and wrong depends on what each individual feels, then we are outside the bounds of civilization.” Outside the bounds of civilisation? Now there’s an apt description of liberalism.

    Brooks also alluded to the fact that we are seeing the beginnings of a positive cultural change, a shift from a hyper individualistic culture (liberalism) toward a communal one.
    At the core of that shift he believes, is our individual and collective need to find community.
    Brooks quotes Walter Bagehot. ”Culture changes when a creative minority finds a beautiful way to live. Culture changes when a small group of people find a better way to live and the rest of us copy.”

    But he was heckled by some in the audience when he said this — “I have a lot of sympathy with what drove people to vote for Trump, but I’m telling you as someone who’s on the front row to what’s happening, do not hitch your wagon to that star.”
    He argued that whilst Trump, Musk, J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth are viewed as populists they actually are all Ivy League graduates who represent the destructive self-interest of the educated elite.

    Brooks has always been a supporter of liberal democracy, so this was quite a deviation in his thinking. Was this an admission that the positive cultural change that he hopes for involves a re-working of liberalism?
    But it’s clear from this that the Right is not a monolithic force. We must hope however, that enough sane voices like Brooks exist on the Right to move it to positive outcomes.

27. Steve, regarding the subject of “High-Tech Capitalism and Neo-Feudalism”, I have received a link to this article: “The Dark Enlightenment: the Tech Oligarch Ideology Driving DOGE’s Destruction.”. https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/24/the-dark-enlightenment-the-tech-oligarch-ideology-driving-doges-destruction/

    Regarding the subject matter, while it seems early days yet, it’s scary enough.

    BTW, as to my recently posed question (on March 21), that was intended primarily as rhetorical, but if you feel able to provide a response, that would be much appreciated. No hurry. Cheers.

28. JP, true, it’s a vision of endarkenment that a few self-select greedy ones want.

    It’s technocracy by another name. Add in transhumanism, the push to get technology into as many people as possible without informing them of what is really intended let alone seeking consent – it is a nightmare.

    Patrick Wood & James Corbett have done more than most to expose where parasitic technocrats, corps (inc msm), politicians & bureaucrats want to take us.

    If someone likes the idea of living in a world with zero human rights, where a social credit score is linked to what you say & do, where constant AI surveillance monitors not only ones movements but biometrics through near-field high-tech gadgetry and where buy/sell decisions are based on a permission-based model run by the Bank of International Settlement, etc, by all means, sign up for digital ID.

    Sign your life away, let someone else control it.
    You don’t need freedom or rights, you need control – just ask the parasites.
    Any intelligent person would want none of it imo.

    https://www.technocracy.news/ – https://corbettreport.com/qfc-technocracy/
    The first 5 mins of James Corbett talk is blah blah from memory.

29. Carman and Julian, thanks for the links.

    Julian, I gave quite a bit of thought to your rhetorical question because it’s so pertinent, but could come up with nothing substantial because of the global political turmoil that is more significant than the news media realise.
    There’s no telling where all this will end, so any big picture thoughts are premature. But there are no answers to be found in the current system.
    The turmoil is generated by the assault by Musk and Trump on the US Constitution, and the media are doing little more than saying Gee whiz, look at this, this is amazing!

    Trump is able to trash the Constitution because of its inherent flaws.
    Those flaws are due to its designers trying to set up the perfect liberal constitution. I’ve known for some time that Locke was a big influence on the thinking at the time, (he certainly influenced the Declaration of Independence) but I’ve just learned that he he might have been the principal influence. Something else to look into. It never ends! 🙂
    Locke was a propagandist for liberalism, so liberal assumptions found their way into the constitution, hence the chaos. When you think about it, it’s a wonder it lasted this long. After all, there was an attempted fascist coup in the US in the thirties or forties.

    But to get back to your question, no matter what the outcome will be, the best thing anyone can do in any social/political/economic situation, good or bad, is to nurture social bonds at the local community level.
    Mutual aid has been the foundation of human progress.
    It will be the foundation of our survival.
    “To whom will we turn” is a great question, but there are no saviours except ourselves.

30. Steve, thanks for your considered response; given the unlimited scope of the original question, you have done well and for that I am grateful.

    With hindsight I can freely admit it occurred to me much later that my question (one no doubt asked by others before me), required in effect a new “theory of everything” – particularly having regard to the manifold problems now facing us, including as you say, “global political turmoil”.

    When you add to this unpleasant mix the profound anxiety and pessimism that grips many among us – especially the young, one can be forgiven for asking: how the hell do you start to address this miasma; and unfortunately closer to home we have a Government unable to clearly express a national plan, and an opposition entirely given over to cliché and bluster, and otherwise prepared to do whatever it takes to win government.

    Solutions? I believe you may be onto something Steve with your recommendation “to nurture social bonds at the local community level”. Quite apart from the mutual (and beneficial) assistance we can offer one another at a local level, there is also I believe the additional and crucial job of putting out ideas (and information) to a wider audience – something we have briefly touched upon and which I believe will also be a factor in our salvation – not just [in] our survival.

    There’s no mistaking the profound impact of turmoil in the US, but whether that denotes a disintegrating empire is another question – in short term however there’s little doubt the Constitution is under sustained attack.

    I note your reference to the English physician and philosopher John Locke. From my memory of a truncated study of him some years ago I can attest his influence upon Thomas Jefferson and subsequently upon the “Declaration of Independence”. I also recall the distinct possibility of Lock’s views on slavery likely having some influence on the later Constitution. And here as well (as you indicate) it seems Lock’s views on money, land, property and the like may well have been taken up and incorporated in that document.

    For my own part, one of the easily discernible and yet tragic flaws in the US Constitution was the wonderfully articulated notion that government’s power flows from the people with the consequential result that African American and other groups not only had to wage an equally wonderful and sustained struggle to be recognized – but now face the prospect of that splendid history being deleted from American school text books and elsewhere as not contributing to Trump’s idea of “patriotic education” and also being part of the now rejected policy of diversity, equity and inclusion.

31. Julian, I’ve collected synopses of Locke’s contribution to the US Founding Fathers from Britannica, Capitalist Magazine, usconstitution.net and the John Locke Foundation.

    Have not had time to go over them yet, but one standout was the fear expressed at the time of the danger of “majority tyranny”. In other words — fear of democracy.
    This reminded me that I’ve read a couple of times that the phrase “the people” in those times did not refer to the general population. It referred to people of property. This would have resulted in distortions in the constitution, as would fear of majority tyranny. But I can’t recall where I saw this.
    Majority tyranny can be a problem in certain circumstances, but I seem to recall that in this case it was about protecting property rights.
    Gunna be busy, but I love a challenge!

32. Thanks again Steve.
    Your reference to “the danger of majority tyranny” struck a chord, and I do have a vague memory of coming across reference to that sentiment in my earlier study – although, and in hindsight, I do now wonder at its contemporary relevance – but of course on this I could be quite wrong.

    My reason for querying its relevance is because the American Founders and others would have been aware that much of the constitutional turmoil in 17C England resulted both from religious differences and the growing power struggle between the monarchy and Parliament over who would rule. Admittedly it took some time for the notion of Parliamentary supremacy to take hold, but with that struggle came the slow development of the idea that the real authority to govern came from the people as a whole, and this notion survived later disputes between Parliament and subsequent English Kings.

    By the time the American Constitution was written in 1787, there’s no doubt these ideas would long have had currency in America, and it was being reminded of the English notion that authority to govern came from the people, I think that allowed me to recall that one of the American Founders was I believe greatly taken with this idea and agitated for a greater role for “ordinary people”, which may explain – in part at least, why the Preamble became “We the People of the United States …”.

    However, and as you note Steve, the franchise was severely restricted: no slaves, no blacks and no poor persons, which left “men of property”; added to which, over time I would argue, the inspirational concept of “the people” became very much a panacea, and remains so to this day, with the majesty and mystique of that concept apparently not being diminished in any way by various Supreme Court decisions over time regarding the “personhood” of corporations, which as you know, has now led to an effective impediment upon the value and relevance of the popular vote – something of no concern to the current administration, nor to any previous, but which does however highlight the necessity in Australia for comprehensive scrutiny and control of campaign contributions.

33. Why is it that the urge to remake politics comes mainly from the US Right?
    Plenty of people across the political spectrum are fed up with the current political malaise, but the energy, the organisation, the networking, the conferencing that are referred to in this article seem to be led from the US Right.

    There must be something profoundly awry in the US polity to generate this much activity. This much ill-feeling, tending to anger and hatred.
    I referred above to the possibility that the problem stems from the US constitution.
    I believe that is the case. And I did not have to dig too hard to find evidence for that.

    A constitution is “a system of laws and principles according to which a state is governed.” (OED)
    But there is something remarkable about the US constitution.
    Capitalist Magazine proudly declares “Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution talk about or refer to group rights or collective entitlements.”
    That is quite stunning.
    If there is no reference to group rights, what is it all about?
    It’s all about property and the protection of the rights enjoyed by those who have property.
    With such a focus, a significant portion of the population, those with little or no property, are marginalised. Is this the group making all the fuss?

    But first, my assertion about the focus on property demands evidence.
    The Framers of the constitution were educated men. Surely they would not have produced a document so unbalanced.
    But they did.
    John Locke had a huge influence on those setting the agenda.
    From Britannica — “In political theory, John Locke refuted the theory of the divine right of kings and argued that all persons are endowed with natural rights to life, liberty, and property and that rulers who fail to protect those rights may be removed by the people, by force if necessary.”
    Sounds pretty inoffensive so far, even Proudhon would have trouble finding fault with that, but the Framers went further.

    From usconstitution.net — “Locke argued that individuals inherently possess these rights, and they are not granted by any government or authority. This principle was profoundly influential in shaping the ideas of the American Founders. The notion that (individual) rights are inherent and inalienable became a cornerstone of American political thought…”
    At that point the seed was sown for individualism to take control of the framing, because Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other pivotal figures embedded Locke’s principles into the bedrock of American political ideology.
    But it gets worse.

    They ended up equating property with liberty.

    “Liberty itself was property possessed.” John Philip Reid, The Concept of Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution 72 (1988)
    According to James Madison, “The Father of the Constitution,” property was “the guardian of every other right,” and protection of property was “critical to the enjoyment of individual liberty” and “central to the new American social and political order.”
    He argued, in line with Locke, that every man had a property right in whatever he acquired or produced through his own labor. A right to the fruits of his labour.

    To Madison, property included not only realty and personalty, but also anything of value, including a person’s legal rights. “as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.” Also this “Conscience is the most sacred of all property.”

    And so property took on an almost mystical quality — “In Revolutionary political thought, the term ‘property’ denoted a relationship between an individual and some object, not the object itself.” Steven M. Dworetz, The Unvarnished Doctrine: Locke, Liberalism, and the American Revolution 74–75 (1990)

    And so the elevation of property to something resembling a fetish became ingrained in US political culture. The special relationship between people and their property was a purely personal thing. Not only were others not part of the relationship, but the intent of the relationship was the exclusion of others. The relationship was actually described as one of dominion. (Prof Gordon Wood)
    So, an illusion of personal power. The more I possess, the more powerful I become.
    The cult of individualism was up and running.

    According to Chomsky in Year 501, there emerged from this two competing forms of elitism — the landholding elite favoured by Jefferson and Madison, and the financial elitism of the first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton. Chomsky quotes prominent historian of US colonial history Edmund Morgan, who states that Jefferson and Madison believed that power should be in the hands of ”the natural aristocracy”, landholding men like themselves who would defend property rights against Hamilton’s “paper aristocracy” Chomsky adds, the reigning doctrine expressed by the Founding Fathers, is that “the people who own the country ought to govern it.”
    Backwoods farmers versus a financial elite?
    We know how that turned out.

    But why is it falling apart?
    Well, the cult is still going strong.
    It’s the political framework behind it that is under strain.
    Because that framework is, of course, liberalism.
    The US system was described from the beginning as a liberal system. It was deliberately designed as a liberal system.
    And it delivered on its promises and justified its assumptions fairly well while there were still Native American lands to plunder. (No property rights for them.) And while there were colonies to exploit. (No Lockean rights to the fruits of their labour for them.) And while military muscle was enough to impose restrictive economic structures on the rest of the world. (No Lockean rights to liberty for those labouring under IMF-imposed austerity.) Economic structures from which we benefited as well.

    But the world moved on. The victims of neo-colonialism are inching their way to economic independence. The markets are shrinking. The resources are more costly. And so the liberal system, which relies on perpetual profit, has had to turn on its domestic population.

    The people are not happy.
    We were fine when our lifestyle was subsidized by the powerless. Now we find that we are the powerless. We are the ones subsidizing the lifestyles of the great and the not-good-by-a-long-shot.
    And so we see the rise of the Right.

    Given that we now watch US society at war with itself, it’s more than a little ironic that Locke’s view of the origins of society, which he took directly from Thomas Hobbes, institutionalized the very conditions that would lead to the greatest fear of Hobbes, a society in which, for many, life is poor, solitary, nasty, brutal and short.

    But this raises a question about our Australian constitution.
    At the time of Federation we had no British model to lean on because the UK has no written constitution. Did we look to the US model for guidance and transfer its flaws to our shores?
    That would certainly explain the antagonism from the Australian Right to the Voice. The Voice could well have been seen as a foot in the door for the inclusion in our constitution of collective entitlements.

    NOTE 1. It is true that the totally individualistic constitutional approach to property has been watered down by US Supreme Court decisions that allow for public interests to intrude, but the role of property in US culture, particularly economic culture, has not changed, and still produces negative outcomes.
    NOTE 2.
    It’s interesting to compare the attitude of the US Founding Fathers to land property, with that of the Native Americans they displaced. One was all about personal power, the other was about custodianship. The Framers of the constitution voiced many a lofty thought about “natural rights” to justify their flawed definition of property, but it is the indigenous view that is the true natural right.

34. Steve, apologies for the delay in replying. I have been laid up with a bout of the flu and am having trouble concentrating upon much of anything. I should like respond in due course.

35. Not a problem Julian, get well soon.

    And a correction — the info from Chomsky was not from Year 501, it was Deterring Democracy, p361.

36. In my comment above @5.13pm I argued that the rise of the Right comes from a fall in living standards that is now being felt by those who once benefited in a modest way from the liberal economic system.
    But it must be pointed out that these are not the movers and shakers of the Right. They are merely the necessary numbers that give the movement momentum.
    The movers and shakers are elites who have become extremely wealthy through the system.
    So why are they revolting? (I know, I know, not one o’ me best!)

    Orwell’s “1984” gives us a clue.

    From O’Brien’s interrogation of Smith — “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others ; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing.”
    We can substitute “the Right” for “the Party” in that extract without missing a beat.
    Of course, they are interested in long life, wealth and happiness, but only as the trappings of power. It’s the power that gets their juices flowing. Wealth without power is meaningless to them.

    This raises the question, however — why now?
    Because they believe, correctly, that the power that they enjoyed as liberalism dominated the globe is now under threat.
    They see that they are beginning to lose the propaganda war that they have dominated for eighty years.

    Israel, their base running interference for them in East Asia, is fighting for survival in a manner that undermines the global goodwill it enjoyed since its inception.
    Young people in the West no longer accept that capitalism is a superior economic option and are looking for alternatives.
    China, with its alternative economic system has emerged as an unstoppable economic rival.

    Those who have enjoyed Power do not relinquish it without a struggle.

    Hence the rise of the Right.

37. Correction, the reference to East Asia should of course be West Asia.
    It would have been simpler to stick to “middle east” 🙂

38. At past articles I’ve disputed Lucy’s devaluing of traditions.
    There are certainly traditions and traditional ways of thinking that deserve to be abandoned from time to time, but healthy societies do that through a process of evolution. By a general raising of awareness.

    But to walk away from tradition is a tragic mistake, and we see that tragedy in play now in the US tearing itself apart with the rise of the Right.
    Whether we are at Act 1 of the tragedy or Act 3 is hard to say, but it will not end well.

    How did the tragedy begin?
    It began with the US Founding Fathers setting up the first totally liberal society.
    They took, from the system they rebelled against, untested “philosophical” attitudes and concepts that were still evolving in Britain (liberal theory was still being developed in Britain a century later by Mill and others) and made those attitudes and concepts the foundation of their liberal state.

    I just came across this blog comment, posted yesterday elsewhere. It supports my view that the US constitution is the source of many current problems.
    “Many of America’s problems largely spring from that document. The US Constitution is a negation of historical inheritance and wisdom and it views man and society as a machine — not as an organism. The ideas which founded the US constitution believe that man and society can not only be understood, but can be perfected via reason. This is dangerous because these new philosophical precepts reject all other ways of knowing: rejecting intuition, emotion, experience, wisdom, metaphysics and revelation.” (cf Locke and sensory perception. SD)
    “The US Constitution was noble in its aims but it was not a realistic assessment of human nature or human history or society as such; it was a product of enlightenment rationalism and liberalism — neither of which achieved their promises and in fact created the scientific and rational justification of building anti-civilization in effect, by promoting radical individualism rather than any understanding of an integrated whole, promoted the ideological and moral justification for market-driven anti-human pursuits (e.g. trans-humanism) because this is also true to liberal logic: freedom from everything, including freedom FROM the good. Including virtue redefined as utility and truth redefined as pragmatism (normalizing lying for utility, the truth becomes transactional).”
    “Most tragically these philosophical precepts assume their own good by fetishizing enlightenment rationalism and thus fail to provide a lexicon or epistemological and ontological toolkit to self-assess its own conclusions, to question the direction of its own material, moral and philosophical travel as anything other than “progress” and can only tolerate intra-liberal debates where foundational disagreement has been epistemological and suppressed.”
    “The US has liberalism as its political expression, but liberalism de facto rejects any other ways of knowing except by scientific reduction or by the consensus of “the rational experts”. Quite naturally this structurally enables and disables certain outcomes.”
    “In terms of the organs of society that deal with applied power and influence, they see man as an abstraction i.e. man as rational, as universal, as per-political and not historical or communal. They believe that Man exists outside of time, community, tradition and whose rights are “natural” rather than historically and symbolically conferred. They believe that man exists prior to any political community.” (The pernicious influence of Hobbes again. SD) “This is a fundamental metaphysical break from the view that there was no such thing as man apart from tradition by saying that man actually exists prior to any political order.”
    “In fact, the idea that a nation can be born from a document, from abstracted principals on paper and not from real material and historical factors, from a shared historical memory and shared historical experience, from a shared metaphysical essence — is itself hubris paraded as rationalism. It is the height of rationalist absurdity culminating in the final absurdity that a nation is “an idea.” China is not an idea. Russia is not an idea. Italy is not an idea. If something is only an idea it can only be held together by constant narrative manipulation.”

39. Steve, I am in awe of your exposition of the influence of John Locke upon the early political and constitutional life of the United States and am happy to accept your thesis as well wrought – apart from which I am in no position to argue – such is my ignorance of American history generally.

    That said, I was particularly interested in some of the matters you raise, beginning with the question you posed at the outset: “Why is it that the urge to remake politics comes mainly from the US Right?”

    I think the answer you ultimately provide is correct, in that the rise of the Right in America is principally about power, its re-establishment and its consolidation. The secondary or subsidiary question of what lies behind this ‘movement’, or more correctly what provides the impetus is, I think, less well understood, but to a reasonably informed observer the present convulsions in the US seem to be a somewhat theatrical but nonetheless fervent restatement of a fundamental and long-held American sentiment that those who own the country should run it.

    I understand you argue Steve that essentially this notion was accepted by the Founders and embodied both in the Declaration, but more importantly in the Constitution, and that principally because of the emphasis (via John Locke) given to, and the subsequent importation into the Constitution of the notion of an individual’s inherent, or pre-existing rights, this led not only to the pre-eminence given to the individual, but also to the necessity to protect the individual and (equally importantly) whatever it was that constituted or distinguished the individual.

    You argue, I think correctly, that in the first instance it was property that ultimately distinguished or characterized the individual – again most likely thanks to John Locke. It is pertinent I think your mention of the fact that in the Constitution there is no mention of group rights or collective entitlements. Specified individual rights had to wait several years until the First Amendment.

    As a result I have no trouble in accepting your thesis Steve that the Constitution is the progenitor of “the cult of the individual”, and while I have some difficulty with the notion of property being synonymous with liberty, I am likewise able to accept that a contemporary understanding of the individual was synonymous with a reasonably well developed concept of property, of its nature and manner of acquisition – of improvement even, and that this became a foundational principle of political identity and expression among persons – such that the very materiality of property and its possession (to the exclusion of others) ultimately became an individual’s expression of power.

    Consequently I am able to say (admittedly ex-post-facto), that the desire of the contemporary Right in the US is not only about power per se, but also the accoutrements of power, the primary element of which is wealth – compromising both real and personal estate – as well as Charles Dickins’ favourite source, portable property. Above all other considerations for such persons however is what can be done with power.

    The notion that those who own the country should be those who run the country is of course not confined to America and Americans. The elites in every country and in every epoch have believed and acted similarly, but in the modern era, what links the western-oriented developed “democracies” has been the concurrent development of an administrative/political system constructed around a cogent and believable script that fosters in the general populace a belief that their voice and their vote is the bedrock of the society. The English Parliamentary system (with which we are more familiar perhaps) is an excellent example of this process, whereby the interests of those who own the nation’s wealth are protected and their influence progressed. More to the point, perhaps the only time in the UK those interests were seriously threatened was financially at the hands of Governments in the immediate post War periods, otherwise it has been ‘business as usual’. In the United States the Congressional system has been the veneer to cloak the same process which has existed since the creation and ratification of the Constitution.

    I think that for me Steve, the main takeaway from your researches has been firstly the undeniable influence of the English philosopher John Locke upon the formation of both the Declaration and the Constitution. Secondly, that the individual was regarded as being synonymous with a “bundle” of rights and the ‘property’ inherent in those rights, which could be further appropriated and expressed only by the individual. Thirdly, that “property” so adjudged should be regarded as personal to the individual and accorded protection by the State. Fourthly, the economic system embedded into the Constitution and which allowed and encouraged the unrestricted acquisition of property in the US, is starting to “devour its own”. Fifth, and perhaps to emphasise your overall thesis, is that the Americans now find themselves almost at the point of war with each other over an idea (as ideology) that only ever served the interests of those whose primary interest was enriching themselves, and those who have enjoyed the privilege have no desire to relinquish it. Lastly, the ‘unbounded’ nature of the Constitution, together with the economic system that sustains it is now facing perhaps its most fearsome test, not just that competing ideas might be paramount (vide China), but that any notion of “society” or the “common wheal” was ever just a fairy tale.

    It remains only for me to thank you Steve for an absorbing and challenging dialogue.

40. Julian, many thanks for taking an interest in this, and in particular for the trouble you went to, not only to add to the subject, but to provide a summary. A summary was exactly what it needed — it was getting out of hand! 🙂

    You mentioned at the end of your comment the friction over the ideology of enrichment. This is a crucial point in understanding the present situation.
    That ideology bound them together as it gave everyone an “ethical” justification for plunder. While riches were there for the taking, they saw each other, in some sick way, as comrades.
    But the opportunities for plunder are drying up, and so cracks are appearing and the knives are out because, as the blog commenter I quoted pointed out, the whole project, impressive though it has been, was always no more than idea. A concept. A justification.

    Another way to summarize the problem is to point out that in taking over what they regarded as an empty continent, the founders of the US saw an opportunity to abandon the concept of the common good, the common weal, and replace it with the common right to endless private acquisition. And where did that idea come from?
    Of course it was John Locke, who stated that God gave the world to mankind “in common to use for its preservation,” a belief that had enjoyed global acceptance for millennia.

    But in a shift in direction that highlights the singularity of liberal thinking, its unique place in history, Locke then attempted the torturous exercise of justifying the appropriation of resources from the common store for exclusive use by individuals.
    Locke argued that although resources are common property, we are all entitled to take from the common estate for our exclusive use, and further, that the consent of others is not necessary because, wait for it, people will starve while waiting for others to consent!
    That’s it. That’s liberal ethics in a nutshell, a pseudo-philosophy based on fear and uncertainty that creates a world in its own image, but it’s important to note that the first liberal thinkers did not dispute the common ownership of natural resources.

    Even J S Mill, writing a century and a half later, accepted that natural resources belonged to all, but that belief no longer figures in any significant way in economic theory or practice.
    Speaking of which, it’s also important to note that the modern interpretation of mutual obligation, (the alleged obligation of those who have nothing, to enter into bondage in return for handouts from the wealthy), is a denial of this foundation principle of common ownership.
    Mutual obligation, a simple and admirable concept that is fundamental to our view of justice, a concept lodged deep in the consciousness of humanity, has been hijacked, has had the humanity squeezed out of it and now in its modern liberal form is no more than an attempt to deflect attention from the theft behind the amassing of wealth, an attempt to defuse and confuse the legitimate entitlement of all to a share in prosperity, by branding as unworthy those unable to access their fair share.

    And so we see from the example of mutual obligation that the intent of liberal economic theory has been to divert attention away from the long-established common ownership of resources, to allow for unlimited private accumulation.
    Common ownership had to be destroyed as a concept, for accumulation to succeed.
    That scheme enjoyed its greatest success in a country that was deliberately designed for that purpose, but we see that as well as being based on dodgy philosophy, it is ultimately impractical. The assumptions and contradictions of liberalism eventually undermine the system. As we see today. The liberal economics package is simply not sustainable, even in the US where it enjoyed so many natural advantages.
    The success of the US was an accident of history that cannot be repeated, even though the rising Right is attempting to do so.

    The panic on the Right can be summed up by this old aphorism. They had it so good for so long that now they’ve been brought back to the field — when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

41. Steve, once again I am in your debt for this further clarification of the “liberal ethic”. I am also able to say that I had not completely understood that “Common ownership had to be destroyed as a concept, for accumulation to succeed.” In hindsight I think this arose from my forgetting that “…the first liberal thinkers did not dispute the common ownership of natural resources.” and that it was Locke’s tortuous “reallocation of resources” that sealed the death knell of the common weal – particularly as Locke’s notion became the bedrock of American identity.

    I note your reference to the debasement of “mutual obligation” and here I am reminded of the insistence of then PM Mr. Howard by his use of that term, that our beleagued First Nations’ persons be formally obliged to acknowledge their beggar status. I still regard that as perhaps the most dreadful insult by any Australian Government before or since.

    I owe you a vote of thanks Steve for unmasking the American “experiment”, clothed as it has been by varying degrees of cant, hypocrisy and self-serving horseshit.

    For my own part, I am able to reaffirm my view of Liberalism: such that when shorn of its “bells & whistles” it is nothing more than smoke and mirrors – a deeply cynical ideology justifying self-enrichment and bearing a wonderfully disguised cloak of community prosperity and well-being.

    In conclusion, I had to smile when I came across an online article by an international insurance executive who “is warning his fellow capitalists that their commitment to profits and market supremacy is endangering the economic system to which they adhere and that if corrective actions are not taken capitalism itself will soon be consumed by the financial and social costs of a planet being cooked by the burning of fossil fuels.”

    So far, so good, but what reinforced my view (just above) was this chap’s subsequent warning “…of the growing stress put on the insurance market worldwide by extreme weather events—including storms, floods, and fires—“that ultimately will undermine the ability of markets to function or governments to keep pace with the costs…”. My emphasis
    https://www.commondreams.org/news/capitalism-climate?/

    As one commentator noted: “This is not climate-driven market failure, it’s market driven climate failure.”

    So much for poor old Joe Blogs – unless of course he’s a shareholder.
    Alternate reference: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/03/climate-crisis-on-track-to-destroy-capitalism-warns-allianz-insurer

    Thanks again Steve.

42. Thanks for the info Julian.
    Understanding the manipulation of the mutual obligation concept, anchored as it is in the earlier society-wide acceptance of the common ownership of natural resources, is possibly a key to progress in adjusting our approach to social security entitlements.
    Most people would be unaware that this principle once held sway.

    There should be a base arrangement for social security that is free of conditions, free of obligation, free of reciprocity.
    My view is that the base package should consist of at least, food, clothing, housing, education and healthcare.
    We have the wealth to do it with ease.

    A project for GetUp perhaps? 🙂

43. Wow, a round of applause. Thanks to JulianP and SD for bringing me back to this article, and the comments. I have thoroughly enjoyed the read of all the comments I have not read since 24March.

    I have been reading collecting and collating histories of America’s foreign relations and war stories and treaties (from today backwards in time) on the one hand, and ditto for Europe (incl Britain), from say, Rome I onwards to today. (I’ve already done it for the Levant & Fertile Crescent back to the pharoahs and the ‘tribes’). And gee, I suspect I’ll need another external hard drive.

    I’m at the stage now where I’m contemplating the Carolingians, The Holy Roman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Empire, and the wierdness of the rise of Britain running amok in that via it’s (perhaps faux) dissociation with the olde story.

    Some days, I’m just so far down the rabbit hole, I get close to neglecting coming up for a cheese sandwich and some gruel.

44. Steve, I have just spent an hour or so listening a most interesting discussion between two economics professors: Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson on the topic: “Trump’s Trade Policies: A Fast Track to Economic Ruin.” https://www.unz.com/mhudson/trumps-trade-policies-a-fast-track-to-economic-ruin/

    I am presently going over the transcript to ensure I missed nothing.

    I think you would find this discussion stimulating, not simply because it contains points of reference to matters you have raised, but simply because the discussion takes for granted the wholly exploitative nature of the US economic system, and in respect of which, the speakers claim outright that Mr. Trump wishes (on behalf of his donors) to return the economy and the country to a fondly remembered “Gilded Age”, but without the safeguards that slowly and painfully developed in its wake.

    Perhaps you could let me know what you think in due course.

45. Julian, it will take a day or two to work through that interview, but luckily I have the time.
    In the meantime here’s one for you.
    https://asiatimes.com/2024/09/the-tragedy-of-american-wealth/#

    The concluding sentence is exactly what we’ve been discussing here, only we’re a few steps ahead in the analysis I think. 🙂

    “For a political economy that couldn’t figure out a mechanism to pay them off (compensate retrenched workers) as globalization created immense riches, how likely is it that the immensely rich will willingly stomach becoming significantly poorer?”

46. I must thank all commenters for weeks of efforts and musings. Rethinking, researching, re-reading my old books has been useful in refreshing. Slow work, but a good task.

47. Hey Phil, I’m only in it for the therapy!

    Yep. You guessed it.

    Dementia therapy.

48. Julian, it’s a great discussion at that link, too long to cover in detail, but here’s a section that captures a lot of what is going on here with Trump sending global trade into convulsions.
    RICHARD WOLFF — “Last point. We used to call tariffs “justified” tariffs, it’s the way you teach it in a university, because it has something to do with an event we call “infant industry.” The idea here is, when you’re a poor country, when you’re just coming out from being a colony, for example, like the United States once was, and you want to build up your industry, you have a hard time competing against those who’ve been doing that industry for fifty years.”
    “So, there is a notion: Temporarily, you put a tariff just to get your infant to maturity, then you take away the tariff because you want the benefits, so-called, of competition. That’s the story told in every textbook.”
    “Well, we’re not a little country with an infant industry. That’s what all those other countries are, like Bangladesh and Vietnam. They have a reason and a justification. We don’t. This is turning all of it on its head.”
    “We’re all supposed to believe now that two hundred years of economic theory, fifty years of experience in free trade, which the United States benefited from, and the solution is to throw it all out the window and go with that “stable genius” of economic policy, Donald Trump. You must be kidding.”
    MICHAEL HUDSON: “So you’re saying that we’re protecting decadence, not infant industry. I love it.”

    The US became an economic powerhouse by protecting its infant industries. Now that it’s running out of “civilised” options to maintain its dominant position, it is simply using brute force to stop underdeveloped nations from making progress. If it is successful in getting zero tariffs through bilateral negotiations, it maintains its position. But if the aim is to re-industrialise, it has huge problems.
    Hudson has pointed out in earlier discussions that the off-shoring of industry was a weapon in the class war against labour. So they cannot bring industry back without also bringing back unionisation and more power to the proletariat. Re-industrialisation will face huge problems unless they drop the class war. I can’t see that happening.

49. As you say Steve, the discussion is way too long to cover everything, but, as you note there are real nuggets. One such was your mention of Hudson’s critical point that “..the off-shoring of industry was a weapon in the class war against labour.”
    That reminded me of a related comment by Richard Wolff that the agent of that change was the corporations “who made the key decisions” and are now being left “off the hook” by virtue of Trump laying the blame on all those terrible foreigners. No wonder Wolff calls it “BS of the first rank”, but it’s also a wonderful example of the “liberal ethic” in full expression – both before and after.

    But the other critical point you mention is that if the current upheaval is designed to re-establish manufacturing in America, then I think your conclusion is correct, in that “Re-industrialisation will face huge problems unless they drop the class war.” The indications presently give no indication of that being likely.

    I read the article on the “Tragedy of American Wealth,” thank you. I particularly liked the reference to the “junior priest [who] founded a consulting company, rode the globalization wave to its peak, reversed course with perfect timing and now advises American companies and state organs as a China hawk, ascending to high priest status in the New Washington Consensus.” What a wonderful description.

    I think the author covers the proposed reversal of globalisation briefly and well: the financial elite will at the very least have to get a change of work clothes, but, “how likely is it that the immensely rich will willingly stomach becoming significantly poorer?”

    Another commentator I read looked at things slightly differently but I think his analysis is spot-on:
    “Until the US government fundamentally changes its policies toward the financial sector, heavily taxes capital gains, and incentivizes companies to invest in local manufacturing, they are going to continue to prioritize financial speculation over tangible production.”

    “The fact that the US private equity industry is flourishing is the perfect symbol of how US capitalists don’t want to create a new company or build new factories, because it is considered too risky and not profitable enough. They can much more easily earn high returns on investment by simply buying up existing companies, laying off their workers, and asset stripping them. That’s the entire business model of private equity’s infamous corporate raiders, who have gotten fabulously wealthy in the neoliberal era.”
    https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/04/04/trump-tariffs-effect-us-economy/

    Earlier today I found an article with an intriguing title – one that would resonate with you Steve:
    The reactionary right is not a monolith.
    By Henry Farrell. Posted on Inside Story on 01 April 2025.
    https://insidestory.org.au/the-reactionary-right-is-not-a-monolith/

    Professor Farrell examines the attempt by the US Vice President “to straddle two diametrically opposed tendencies on the radical right.” A short extract:

    “It is not just that the American right is becoming more extreme, but that its extremism pulls in two radically different directions. One faction yearns to return to the cultural stability of a world in which everyone agrees (or is obliged to agree) on shared values, and the only legitimate arguments are about how best to achieve the worldly version of the kingdom of heaven. The other fantasises about a radical acceleration of the forces of change, ripping society apart in the name of perpetual innovation. Moving towards the one means moving directly away from the other.”

50. Julian, I think that Wolff and Hudson do an interview with Nima every week. I’ll have to follow them more closely because they really are a precious source of sanity in a crazy world.
    I used the Global South version of that particular interview as the transcript was more user-friendly.
    https://globalsouth.co/

    Hudson also has his own site, where the articles are written, not conversational, and so points that are made have more clarity and punch because he has the time to give more thought to things.
    Here’s a good example, it’s full of little gems, and you’ll see a slight difference in presentation. I just came across it, and had not been aware that de-dollarisation was already underway in 2019. It’s sure to accelerate now.
    https://michael-hudson.com/2019/02/trumps-brilliant-strategy-to-dismember-u-s-dollar-hegemony/

    Your point about the US private equity industry is a good one. The US allowed the corporate sector to deal a fatal blow to their economy, and now as the effects become obvious, they, through Trump, instead of reversing, are doubling down by allowing what is in effect a complete oligarchic takeover of the country.
    With Trump vowing to abolish capital gains taxes, that’s what we are seeing — oligarchs in total control.

    Thanks for the link to Henry Farrell, what a brilliant analyst! (Haha 🙂 )

    He makes a good point that the Right has to maintain the loyalty of what he calls “Common Good Conservatism”. (I’m going to steal that one!) Maintaining that loyalty will be difficult.

    Farrell quoted from a Silicon Valley tech guru on the freedom that allegedly flows from technology — “We believe technology is liberatory. Liberatory of human potential. Liberatory of the human soul, the human spirit. Expanding what it can mean to be free, to be fulfilled, to be alive. We believe technology opens the space of what it can mean to be human.”
    Which is of course nonsense, as history attests.
    Then this from Vance — “Vance provides two justifications. The first is that “Real innovation makes us more productive, but it also, I think, dignifies our workers.”
    What can I say.
    Liberal illusions.
    The lies never end.

    But their fantasy world of liberal freedom reminded me of this from Fidel Castro.
    “They (the West) blur your mind, offering your body a thousand comforts, and unnecessary perverted pleasures, which, however, to obtain, you will have to sacrifice your soul and the values of your ancestors. And they will do all this for the sake of profit, which in reality hides a huge theft.”

    The liberation and dignity on offer from the tech Right is not only a promise impossible to fulfill, it’s purely materialistic despite the rhetoric. And they know, despite the rhetoric, that the liberal order cannot provide for the deeper needs of society.
    Deep-down, humans need more than that.

    When we speak of purpose in our lives, we are not talking of property accumulation, or comfort, or self-satisfaction. Quite the opposite. We are seeking something far deeper. Something that is the antithesis of those liberal ambitions.

51. Further to your recent conclusions Steve, there’s an excellent article in today’s “Pearls” from Melbourne Uni’s Allan Patience:
    It’s time to rethink socialist principles amid the ruins of neoliberalism
    https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/04/its-time-to-rethink-socialist-principles-amid-the-ruins-of-neoliberalism/

52. Julian, thanks for the link to the P&I article on the need to revisit socialism.

    The article made a number of good points, but it’s really frustrating when those on the left repeat Western propaganda when it comes to how China and Russia conduct their internal affairs.
    As the inimitable Caitlin Johnstone put it — The “Uyghur genocide” narrative is a lie, the “debt trap diplomacy” narrative is a lie, the “social credit score” narrative is a lie, they’re lying about Taiwan, and they’re lying about China trying to conquer the world. They lied about every other disobedient nation, and they’re lying about China.

53. I take your point Steve, particularly concerning the “Uyghur genocide”. I can recall not long after that issue was first raised in the Western press – along with satellite pics of extensive “prison-barracks” and other structures, the Chinese invited representatives from several Muslim countries to view and report on what was happening. At the time I think there was only a couple of independent media that reported this, together with the fact that there were no subsequent adverse reports in the “foreign” Muslim press. No mention of this in the western press of course.

    What I also find interesting is that among the current anti-China reportage are allegations that the Chinese are intent on securing alliances, bases and security deals with Pacific countries. If that’s what the Chinese are attempting, it’s in a sense certainly no worse than what the US has been up to for years. You may recall Steve the security pact concluded between the Solomon Islands and China in April, 2022 which led to pious declarations in Australia, the US and New Zealand that such a deal could open the door to a Chinese naval base in the South Pacific.

    Late last year Australia decided to give one in the eye to China by assisting PNG to join the NRL with a taxpayer-funded $600 million deal over 10 years. As one ABC report noted:

    “Australian government sources have said the deal is linked to a security arrangement that would stop Beijing from gaining a significant police or military presence in PNG.”
    “The ABC understands Beijing has been trying to clinch an agreement with PNG that would allow police or defence troops to be based in the country.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-05/security-pact-to-block-china-not-linked-to-nrl-deal-png-pm-says/104691450

    To cap off those recent bouts of shadow-boxing we have the ludicrous pre-election positioning over the Port of Darwin’s 99 year lease, with both major parties vowing to grab it back from the Chinese. A recent article on P&I noted that only one media outlet mentioned the commercial realities of trying to get the port back and went on to note:

    “The rest of the coverage is typical legacy media dross, talking up the national security threat of a strategic asset owned by a Chinese company and glossing over the realities. The port’s operation, and ownership, has been cleared by three comprehensive government reviews, one in 2015 when it was sold, another ordered by the Morrison Government and delivered to then defence minister, Peter Dutton, in 2021, and an Albanese Government review in 2023.”
    https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/04/abc-has-four-corners-with-just-one-angle-anti-china-media-watch/

    Quite apart from the Americans, the Australian China hawks are relentless in their mis-information and propagandizing, so much so you have to ask; what’s in it for them? The linked article below does not answer that but deals with the alleged security threat from China.
    https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/04/is-china-really-the-main-threat-to-australias-security/

54. Julian, I’m surprised Caitlin Johnstone did not include the biggest lie of all — the Tiananmen Square lie.

    P&I has published several good articles on Tiananmen, but this linked one is possibly the best. It gives us an insight as to how we should consider every last bit of information that is fed to us, not only about China, but also about Ukraine.
    https://johnmenadue.com/post/2023/06/how-psy-ops-warriors-fooled-me-about-tiananmen-square-a-warning/

    Careful readers will note a particular link between the Tiananmen extravaganza and the Ukraine extravaganza — a lurker in the background of each.

    Readers will also, on reflection, note the broader link to the rise of the global Right.

55. Thanks Steve. I remember reading that article at the time and wondering of what else were these “psyops-warriors” capable? Now of course we know the answer. I have gone back thru’ my records to locate the first reference to America being referred to as a “criminal-enterprise” – particularly regarding the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent behaviour of the Bush 2 administration, with the black ops, renditions to black sites, torture and so on, and I think it may have been on this very site.

    I know I used the term during a conversation at a local ex-Service function one Anzac Day – shortly after the invasion of Iraq. I reminded some of those present that they had been comprehensively lied to about Vietnam, and the same was now happening over Iraq. The “shocked-silence” was indication enough to me that few, if any of those present, had considered the possibility.

    That didn’t bother me, but what did annoy me a bit was that after much of this stuff became better known, some of those to whom I had spoken remained obdurate in their admiration of all things American. As we both know Steve, it’s bloody hard work trying to work thru’ the BS. That’s why I so admired the late John Pilger, he knew of and often alluded to the simple fact that the US was, and had for much of its history been a criminal enterprise and was enormously capable and unhesitating in its use of propaganda to justify criminality and general malfeasance.

    A really good example of his approach is an article published in Online Opinion in November, 2016 (during the US presidential campaign) adapted from an earlier address given to a forum in the UK. What is relevant today is the reference to the current US President. Pilger notes that “To the invisible government in Washington, the unpredictable Trump is an obstacle to America’s design for the 21st century.” I recommend the article.
    http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=18620

    In this short contemporary video clip, Trump speaks of systemic corruption – a side of Trump we don’t hear much of these days. After callings the Clintons criminals. Trump goes on to say
    “…the central base of world political power is right here in America, and it is our corrupt political establishment that is the greatest power behind the efforts at radical globalization and the disenfranchisement of working people. Their financial resources are virtually unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched, and most importantly, the depths of their immorality is absolutely unlimited.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYozWHBIf8g

56. Julian, I’m astonished that you provoked no anger at the Anzac Day function — you were lucky to get out alive!

    I just read the Pilger article, I’d forgotten how good he was with words, one of the best. I have a couple of his books, but have not touched them for years.
    Pilger was a shining light.
    Luckily, the growth of the internet has allowed the emergence of a swathe of equally committed analysts, but few as good.
    Also good to see his realistic take on the Ukraine tragedy.

    The quote from Trump is quite remarkable — I’ll have to pay more attention to what he says!

57. Steve, as to the RSL incident, there’s a simple enough explanation why there was no angry outburst directed at me. Of the few to whom I spoke, one I had served with and knew well; of the four others, two I had materially assisted to obtain a positive outcome from DVA at a time when veterans faced mounting difficulties in that regard. Consequently while there was no real threat of assault, I did get the “cold shoulder” from some others present.

58. Julian, does this mean that I have to delete my image of you as an Oz version of Arnie who no-one would be silly enough to upset? 🙂

59. Very droll Steve.