Still a useful read that puts #Gough #Whitlam in context: links.org.au/node/605 Since the mid-1970s, the ALP has moved sharply rightward. This shift corresponds to the changed needs of Australian capital resulting from the onset of the world capitalist economys fourth long-term depression caused by a decline in the long-term rate of profit. The slower rate of capital accumulation since the mid-1970s has reduced the capitalist rulers ability to contain social unrest by granting concessions to working people. In fact, capitalism has embarked on a drive to take back many of the social and economic gains won in earlier periods of greater prosperity, and to substantially reduce working-class living standards to offset the decline in the rate of profit. From 1972-75, The Whitlam Labor government attempted to accommodate the changed needs of capital, particularly through the Hayden budget of August 1975. But the dominant sections of the capitalist class did not consider that the Whitlam government could impose the austerity measures they wanted rapidly enough or decisively enough. The Whitlam governments failure to defend workers living standards and jobs during the 1974-75 recession caused widespread disillusionment with the ALP. This led important sections of the ruling class to believe that the ALP could be defeated by the Liberal-National coalition if it could force Whitlam to the polls. The Kerr-Fraser coup of November 1975 was the result. However, the coup provoked spontaneous outbreaks of working-class protest. The Labor reformists, more fearful of the consequences of a sustained working-class mobilisation against the coup than of losing office in a parliamentary elec tion, campaigned to demobilise the ALPs supporters and to channel any protest back into the parliamentary arena. In this framework, the conservative parties were able to capitalise on widespread working-class disillusionment and anger with the Whitlam governments pro-capitalist policies, and to win a landslide victory in the December 1975 federal election. This experience demonstrated once again that the ALPs subordination to capitalist parliamentarism is a dead end for the working class. Since the defeat of the Whitlam government, Australian capitalism has encouraged the ALP leaders to reduce working class expectations of a Labor government and to deepen the unions integration with, and subordination to, the capitalist state. This has necessarily involved an erosion of the democratic rights of the membership in order to prevent organised opposition to the leaderships right-wing course. Even in regard to electoral campaigns, this has entailed a deliberate demobilisation of the party ranks and the working class generally, and an increased reliance on the bourgeois media. #GoughWhitlam
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 06:30:59 +0000
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