The Dead Roo

Comment from Kieran
Time: February 10, 2007, 9:22 am

There is no mystery about why any of this has occurred. You don’t need a sociologist to tell you that economic prosperity fosters happier families and better communities.

Well actually, that’s not true.

Australia is supposedly more prosperous. The Howard regime likes to talk about 2 million more jobs, but the fact of the matter is that this was achieved by massive attacks on job security and financial stability.

Yes, there are more jobs. But people are less certain about whether they will hold them next week, they’re less certain about whether they will actually get some hours next week, and thus even with their job will they be able to eat and pay the rent?

I’m not talking about work choices, I’m talking about casualization. It’s but one example of how the happyness of the worker declines, despite the few extra bucks in their pocket.

What any “growth = happyness” argument misses is the existance of the unequal experience of the total economic well being of the society.

What any sociologist would tell windshuttle is that happyness has a hell of a lot more to do with levels of inequality than with the total economic position of the society.

Comment from David
Time: February 10, 2007, 11:18 am

Re Re: Comment 1 (Kieran)
1:

"Australia is supposedly more properous"

"Total economic position of the society."

Supposedly.  I wrote a piece ("Why not all GDP growth is good") a little while back that discusses how this metric is not always appropriate for economic health, even though the electorate thinks it is proof that the Howard government is a good economic manager.

2:

"But people are less certain about whether they will hold them next week."

Very true.  Other quality-of-life issues have dropped: (time with kids, insecurity about having a roof over the head from rising mortgage defaults, etc).

Quality of life issues (time with kids, etc) has decreased.  A description of functional poverty ("Do I buy school-shoes or food this week") has decreased. 

3:

"Unequal experience of the total economic well-being of total economic well-being of society"

Very true.  Social cohesiveness is often decreased by disparity, and Australia (and others with a similar "business-before-people" societies are fairly messed up if you look at trends in the GINI coefficient over the last few years,

Comment from David
Time: February 10, 2007, 12:45 pm

Maybe rather than quadrant, it should be pronounced quadRANT.

Comment from Kieran
Time: February 10, 2007, 2:44 pm

Aside from the fact that GDP growth can have negative social consequences, there is also the issue that GDP growth is actually a poor measure of the economic prosperity of a state.

When we extract and export mineral resources, shouldn’t we also consider the deficit to our wealth that the absence of (and thus future inability to use) those resouces poses?

All the issues of inequality aside, the existance of functional poverty is still a very real issue in Australia. Tens of thousands of Australian families still make decisions about food or bills.

Comment from Jock Lenehan
Time: February 11, 2007, 1:31 pm

The Left thrives on having a supply of victims, a category which no longer includes the working class in Australia. Of course part of their rage at losing this base, spills over to the workers themselves.

Thanks to long overdue reform overcoming the union built straightjacket, which promoted unemployment and lowered productivity, the workers are no longer victims, and so of no further use to the Left for the purpose of emotional blackmail of the community.

Of course the workers are now discarded, and despised, by the Left.

How any reading, of Windschuttle’s piece, could reveal any admission that the Senate enquiry or William Deane, were a basis for any scintilla of blame attaching to the Navy over the SIEV X incident is beyond understanding. He makes it clear that the disingenuous left wing beat up, over the incident, was of no substance.

The imaginative description of the whining prevarications of Robert Manne, as having “flair”, certainly catches attention.

Comment from David Bath
Time: February 12, 2007, 1:17 pm

Re: Comment 5 (Jock Lenehan)

a) The "left" and traditional small-l-liberals decry the insecure conditions imposed on workers forced into contract positions, forced to act as small-businesses, a state not in accord with standard capitalist principle of competitive advantage that the economy is served by people, companies and nations doing what they are best at, and nothing else.

b) From my reading, Windy implies, but skillfully avoids, the unequivocal statement as fact that SIEV-X didn’t happen as described by the left.  This is typical of how the forces aligned with Howard’s agenda get a counter-factual impression in the minds of readers and listeners: by artful composition of ambiguity.  You also seem to miss the way Deane avoids direct finger-pointing, leaving the implications up to the intelligence of the audience as they reflect on the statement.  (Deane follows the Queen in using genteel, non-accusatory, criticism of a situation: have you gone over her many Christmas messages since the Thatcher years, carefully?) Such reflection and analysis is too rare. 

c) If Manne was without intelligence or flair as a thinker and wordsmith, why was he appointed editor of the leading right-wing journal in the country?  Why was he, during that time, so-often cited as an important Australian intellectual by the "conservative" parties?  In my view, he is, and has always been, associated with the moderate or small-l-liberal end of conservative thinking, artfully relabelled now as the "soft left", or discounted as "doctor’s wives"

d) General
If you hated "left" thinking in the past, can you explain the shift in voting patterns (against the financial interests of the typical professional) of the Glenferrie Rd polling booths in Higgins (once the most blue-ribbon Liberal seat in the country, now considered almost marginal) and Kooyong (where Liberal votes are maintained merely by Georgiou’s stance)? Can you explain East Braaaaghton?

Indeed Higgins and Kooyong were one of the few electorates in the country to have a two-party-preferred swing to the Labor party at the last federal election.  The only reason it wasn’t even greater was that the "Prahran" end of Higgins (containing housing commission flats and far fewer graduates than the Malvern end, and traditionally a left-wing bastion) swung significantly to Howard.

Similar voting patterns have been evident recently in the wealthy parts of Sydney just north of theharbour.  Again, analysis of census data (and I wrote FlyBuys analytical engine that combined shopping information with demographics from the census, so I know this domain pretty well) shows that the best educated suburbs full of professional engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc, are turning against the Howard government, and voting more for Labor (slightly), Democrat, and Green (significantly: above 10% of primary vote for lower houses in Higgins/Kooyong).

Human rights versus individual gain (and now climate) are biting in the educated yet relatively affluent suburbs, as opposed to those like Toorak, which has much more money, but far fewer degrees, and is populated more by financial types than professionals subject to codes of ethics.

Comment from David Bath
Time: February 12, 2007, 1:46 pm

In the LP Saturday Forum, I put a heads-up about Windy’s article. I’ve just noted this has generated significant discussion: Gummo Trotsky on Post-Modernist Relativism, Windschuttle Style.