On 12/7/2010 4:29 PM, Mike Beggs wrote:
> I think you have the wrong end of
> the stick with Stuart Hall - in fact he is one of the Gramscians Purdy
> is talking about
Yes, I realized this after the fact. Purdy actually has a PDF of the "Moving Right Show" on his site.
> - but about the place of incomes policies in
> socialist strategy.
>
> Speaking of learning from history - the Australian Prices and Incomes
> Accord between the unions and the Labor government in the 1980s is
> surely an example of exactly the kind of strategy Purdy is talking
> about. Though it is not hard to see why the strategy appealed to so
> many on the left at the time, in retrospect it was a disaster, the
> worst period for real wage growth in postwar history (negative),
> inflation around 8 per cent, and unemployment persistently above 10
> per cent. It was launched with all the rhetoric about democratising
> the economy and so on, and had the support of the Communist Party of
> Australia.
Well, was the problem simply that it was ineffective (and why was it ineffective?) or was it that the vaunted reforms were hollow, or both?
> Back to the UK - absolutely, the unions were doomed to a backlash if
> they would not or could not _politically_ win some control over
> investment, and a lot of people were saying this from the very
> beginning of the 1970s. But an incomes policy is not that. It's all
> too easy to get conned into wage restraint with impeccable
> macroeconomic arguments and a promise to start the 'democratisation of
> investment', only to have the wage restraint come first, because it's
> _just so urgent_, and have the rest of the deal reneged upon. My view
> is that if the labour movement is ever in such a strong economic
> position again, there ought to be some serious expropriation underway
> before incomes policies take effect.
I don't understand. I'm all for wresting control of investment, but how would that (rather than incomes policy itself) have helped avert an anti-union backlash? The backlash was provoked by inflation. Averting the backlash required an anti-inflation policy.
> I agree with you on most things, SA, except about Kolakowski, Billy
> Joel, and now this.
That is because my views on Billy Joel, incomes policy, and Lezsek Kolakowski are interdependent elements of a larger philosophical system which I am currently developing in a four-volume self-published treatise. I will be sending you a manuscript for comments.
SA