Before Sydney stabbings, capitalism’s cupboard was bare for mental health

Written by: Louisa L. on 24 April 2024

 

The tattered remnants of public mental health care in NSW are held together by family members and volunteers. 

The week before six people were fatally stabbed in Bondi, and a mentally ill 16-year-old stabbed a priest, two Uniting Church psychiatric hospitals were closed in Sydney, because they were losing money.

When six strangers in a crowded public place are killed, grief and shock is inevitable. The media fans it to fever pitch. But people are frequently “murdered” by family members suffering psychotic episodes. And police too often shoot mentally ill people who ought to have been in hospital or long-term residential rehabilitation. 

Instead of suggesting triple zero and an ambulance, when “you or someone you know” is mentally ill, the media choruses Lifeline and Beyond Blue. A young friend frequently uses Lifeline’s skilled volunteer services.  Being alone and suicidal is not enough to be admitted to hospital – unless she’s taken an overdose.

On a pension she pays private health cover, so she can have occasional and much needed treatment in an expensive private hospital.

After the ambulance left 

The mental health system is designed to stop people being hospitalised, unless they have money to pay, and they are well enough to understand they need help. 

Last winter, under a suburban Sydney neighbourhood centre awning in pouring rain, a close friend, a mother and two adult daughters, waited for police and an ambulance.

It had taken hard arguing to convince my friend that police be called after her 16-year-old son threatened them, so he could be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. A centre worker did unpaid overtime while they talked. 

What happened? The son, who had previously assaulted his mother, sister and brother, assured the ambulance officers and police he wouldn’t harm himself or anyone else. Imagine the family’s vulnerability when the police and ambulance officers left. Instead of a dangerously ill young person receiving necessary treatment, the three women each found separate accommodation. An uncle and a youth worker checked on my friend’s son the next day, but he lived alone for over two weeks until his still fearful mother returned.

Desolation and grief

But his family’s grief is nothing compared to the desolation of the Bondi attacker’s parents whose son endured a living nightmare, denied desperately-needed health care, his life ended in such terrible circumstances. Nor does my friend’s ongoing worry compare to the grief of the families of those killed in that suburban shopping centre, or the family of the 16-year old on terrorism charges.

The media babbles about “people falling through the cracks in the mental health system”. What system? It’s not cracked. It’s been dismantled brick by brick because the mentally ill and their families are weak and unable to defend themselves. They are the bottom of capitalism’s heap. Their treatment is expensive, not privately profitable. They are disposable.

Mentally ill people are disproportionately part of the homelessness epidemic. Alongside First Peoples, alongside the poor and illiterate, mentally ill people fill our jails. Because under capitalism there’s always money for jails to mop up its normal functioning.

NSW Premier Minns announced an $18 million inquiry into what went wrong in the lead-up to the Bondi stabbings. Unless it’s accompanied by struggle to reinstate public mental health care at all levels, it will be just another whitewash. We know the state government funding cupboard is bare, after decades of corporate plunder and privatisations. 

For mental health, it’s been empty for decades. More deaths, more suffering – that’s capitalism’s promise to profoundly ill people and their families. Seven more dead and a 16-year-old charged with terrorism? Collateral damage. Nothing $18 million, plus media evasions and a lot of sorry talk, can’t sweep from sight. 

We need a new system. We need a revolution.

 

Productivity Commission wonks still pushing discredited economic rationalism

Written by: (Contributed) on 24 April 2024

 

(Above: The designers of this Mambo t-shirt understood the link)

Commentary from right-wing economic figures about the failure of globalisation to provide sustainable growth have revealed their sense of denial about the main cause of the problem. 

Their failure to also provide a satisfactory explanation for the increasingly dysfunctional state of economic affairs has provided further insights into their peculiar mind-sets.

A serious of pronouncements from two right-wing figures with links to the Productivity Commission have revealed just how out-of-step they are with reliable economic criteria; their continued pushing of an economic rationalist agenda has been shown to not produce sustainability or growth. In fact, a recent IMF report has shown the advanced economies hover at below two per cent growth rates, with little sign of an upturn. (1)

Longer term projections have also shown a steady decline of GDP from the time of the global financial crisis in 2008 to a projection it will sink to zero toward the end of the present decade. (2)

It is, however, the pronouncements of those guiding or commenting of government policy which require scrutiny.

Michael Brennan, former head of the Productivity Commission, for example, has drawn attention to 'three decades of uninterrupted growth which followed the early 1990s recession'; it is not supported with reliable economic criteria or statistics. (3) The Commission is an official Australian government body, nevertheless, with extensive glitzy websites which have advisory capacities. It would appear to be truly stacked with right-wing coalition supporters and others of a similar ilk.   

The present economic debate has become increasingly focussed upon levels of government intervention to provide stable growth and a political division between those who continue to support economic rationalism and those who question its prolonged use.

The general implementation of economic rationalism grew out of right-wing think-tanks during the early 1980s which influenced international financial institutions controlled by the US and Wall Street. Earlier, the Chilean military coup in 1973, had established a test-tube for those linked to the Chicago School of Economics which had quietly pushed economic rationalism for decades, behind the scenes inside the corridors of power.

Economic rationalism was, however, only part of a much bigger picture to place the US at the centre of the global economy.

Submitting as report to US Congress on 21 July 1994 about the so-called New World Order, then President Clinton defined the three main elements of security policy: to enhance security by maintaining a strong defence capability and promoting co-operative security measures; to open foreign markets and spur economic growth; and to promote US-style democracy overseas.

The outcome was the wholesale implementation of economic rationalist policies which included three elements: de-regulation, privatisation, liberalisation.

Economic rationalism has been economic vogue thinking for nearly half a century; the present state of affairs has been the readily observable outcome. The floods of finance capital flung to the four corners of the globe has produced dysfunctional economies often leading to political instability and crisis. The vision of those in control of international financial institutions was akin to that of a casino, where risk-taking was commonplace. It also created the conditions for a drastically reduced manufacturing base in Australia, which subsequently led to revised GDP totals in an ever downward spiral.

An eighteen-month study conducted by the US National Security Council using independent economists found it unlikely globalisation 'would lead to general well-being … because the gap between rich and poor – both between countries and within them – is growing'. (4) The study, conducted around the start of the present century, was subsequently leaked to a Spanish language media outlet, although never publicised in English language outlets and was allowed to remain relatively hidden, for obvious reasons.

The distribution of income from globalisation remains noteworthy; in fact, it can be successfully argued economic rationalism was never intended to provide a sustainable model, only to enrich the already rich and powerful. It was a means to reduce the bargaining power of labour and hinder their political opposition in favour of the business-classes and their cronies overseas, thereby strengthening traditional class and state power.

Early studies of the model showed the income of the advanced countries rose from eleven times greater than the developing world, to 23 times larger by 2000. (5) Economic rationalism can therefore best be viewed as a form of neo-colonialism. Within countries the rapid emergence of billionaires has been well recorded. (6) The manner in which such people flout their wealth on the Forbes websites while paying their workforces well below CPI and inflation rates reveal a great deal about their mind-sets and limited vision of the world. They reside in a parallel world, devoid of the working-class. The fact the latter produce the wealth and the former acquire it, is an issue they never address.

Recent studies of the Australian economy have revealed massive differences between rich and poor. Average wealth of the top ten per cent of the population have recorded faster growth rates than the lowest sixty per cent since 2003. (7) The wealth of the top ten per cent also soared 84 per cent, from $2.8 million to $5.2 million, whereas the lowest sixty per cent only rose 55 per cent, from $220,000 to $343,000. (8) The poorest twenty per cent of Australians had a recorded average wealth of just $41,000, which is only seventeen per cent higher than it was in 2003. (9)

It was noted from a study conducted by the University of NSW and the Australian Council of Social Service that the average housing wealth for those in the lowest twenty per cent of the Australian population was zero. (10)

The wealth gap, for those under 35 years of age, is even more startling; it recorded the lowest sixty per cent accruing an increase in their wealth rising by only 39 per cent, from $68,000 in 2003 to $80,000 in 2022, while the highest ten per cent rose 126 per cent in the same period, from $928,000 to $2 million. (11)  

Despite the spurious motives for retaining economic rationalism, it can clearly be established to not have produced sustainable growth anywhere, or a betterment of life-styles
for the vast majority of people.

When challenged, however, right-wing economists continue to defend the model although they are inclined to offer furphies as additional factors. Those linked to the Productivity Commission, for example, have drawn attention to the failure of Australian entrepreneurs to register patents. Stating Australia is 'among the least innovative economies in the world', a report has recorded under ten per cent of registered patents are Australian-based as opposed to the US where more than seventy per cent are used by US businesses. (12)

The report does not refer to the fact that Australia only contributes 1.67 per cent of global GDP, whereas the US has a 25.3 per cent standing. (13)

Criticism from the Productivity Commission about recent government grants to support Australian manufacturing, likewise, has been revealing, with statements issued which have included reference to 'a return to old think industry protectionism', and not establishing a revival of a strong manufacturing base. (14)

The fact their economic model of choice has proved dysfunctional and created a state of affairs whereby an IMF projection for Australia's GDP being only 1.5 per cent this year, possibly increasing to two per cent in 2025, has, likewise, been conveniently ignored.   

The Productivity Commission and those linked to the organisation can best be regarded as benefiting from economic rationalism and therefore have no reason to change the model; they are quite content to languish in economic mediocrity.

1.     IMF warns on 'stalling' progress to reduce inflation, Australian, 17 April 2024.
2.     Economic decline, 'Goodbye good times, hello reality', Australian, 11 April 2024.
3.     Ibid.
4.     Hunger does not subside and slavery returns, Granma International (Havana), 24 June 2001.
5.     How globalisation fuels poverty, Socialist Campaign Group News (Westminster, London), July 2005.
6.     See: Survival of the Richest, OXFAM Report, 2000.
7.     'Disturbing' gap between haves and have nots, The New Daily, 18 April 2024.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Australian, op.cit., 11 April 2024.
10    Bonanza for rich leaves poor in their wake, Australian, 18 April 2024.
11.   Ibid.
12.   Ibid.
13.   World GDP, World Bank, 25 July 2023.
14.   Australian, op.cit., 11 April.

 

May Day 2024: Honour the Past, Fight for the Future

 Written by: CPA (M-L) on 24 April 2024

 

With May Day fast approaching, we reprint the editorial from the 8-page Vanguard newspaper that will be distributed at rallies and marches. It is free of charge, so look out for our distributors and take your own copy – eds.

On May Day, class conscious workers come together to express solidarity with comrades across the world in their struggles for liberation, peace, justice and a decent life.

Only the working class has these deep feelings of international class solidarity, based on their recognition that they are all victims of the class system, all subject to exploitation, abuse, deceit, and all threatened by the murderous war policies of imperialism.

At gatherings, The Internationale rings out, “Arise ye workers from your slumbers, arise ye prisoners of want…” calling on the class to take up its historic mission of leading the masses through fundamental social change that eventually wipes out the class system altogether.

In places, The Red Flag is also sung, recalling the bitter struggles and sacrifices the working class has endured. It pays tribute to the heroes and martyrs that resisted the violence of the state, the hired thugs and fascists. “The workers’ flag is deepest red, it shrouded oft our martyred dead, and ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, their hearts’ blood dyed its ev’ry fold.”

In spite of defeats, oppression and betrayals, the working class never gives up, has no choice other than to struggle for survival and a better life, as the chorus rings out “Then raise the scarlet banner high, beneath its shade we’ll live or die, though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we’ll keep the red flag flying here.”

Australia’s working class 
Workers in this country have won many hard-fought battles against local and foreign capitalists and multinational corporations. In the post-war years they achieved improving living standards and some progressive social benefits through union action and solidarity.

But, ever since the days of the Accord under the Hawke government, union membership has fallen away in many trades and professions, with most of the remaining unions falling in behind the parliamentary Labor Party and only mobilising members at election time.

Consequently, there is little strike action, little ACTU activity outside of the courthouse, and practically no solidarity actions which are now illegal.

Result – falling wages, unemployment, rampant cost of living increases, housing and rental crisis, small businesses going broke, banks and supermarkets screwing their customers ever harder.

Capitalism reasserts itself as always. The lesson for workers is that whatever is won by struggle will always be challenged and whittled away, and this cycle can only be finished when capitalism is replaced by socialism. 

Imperialism and the globalised economy 
But that is only part of the story. At the same time, this “restructuring” of the economy encouraged further multinational investment and eventual control of key sections of Australian industries.

Obscene profits and rampant speculation followed, as the rich get even richer while the workers go backwards.

The political influence of US imperialism has now become dominant, reflected in the operational control of Pine Gap, the AUKUS deal and the growing intrusion into Australian military bases and airfields by the US military, aided and abetted by the sucking up antics of the current and previous Labor and Liberal governments.

 

Swissport CEO shows contempt for workers

Written by: Duncan B. on 22 April 2024

 

Recently, Australia was graced by a visit from Warwick Brady, who is the President and CEO of Swissport, which is a giant Zurich-based airline ground handling company.

Swissport controls 45% of the Australian market, and 15% world-wide. It is looking to expand its cargo and airport lounge interests. 

This company is the one to which Qantas outsourced its baggage handling operations in 2020, with the loss of 1700 jobs at ten airports in Australia. The Transport Workers’ Union took Qantas to the Federal Court, which found that Qantas acted illegally, and could not prove that its decision to outsource its baggage handling was not motivated by a desire to avoid industrial action from airport unions.

Brady defended the outsourcing of ground handling by airlines, claiming that this allowed for lower airfares for passengers. Commenting on the Qantas court case he is quoted as saying, “For Qantas, the economic benefits plus the service benefits are still better for the outsourcing.” He went on to say, “In the end, if you’ve got a workforce that costs you a lot of money, your passengers are going to pay more.”

He is also quoted as saying, “unions sometimes get in the way of market dynamics.”

If workers fighting against employers for their rights and for better pay and conditions is “getting in the way of market dynamics,” we are all in favour of workers’ struggle!

Book Review: SLOW DOWN

Written by: Duncan B. on 20 April 2024

 

Slow Down. How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth, by Kohei Saito is the second recently-released book which we are reviewing. Kohei Saito is a Marxist scholar and an associate professor at the University of Tokyo. He is a member of the MEGA project which aims to publish the complete works of Marx and Engels, including many works never previously published. 

The author firmly bases Degrowth Communism on his study of Capital and other works of Marx, including unpublished works discovered by the MEGA project.These works show that Marx deeply studied ecology and the relationship between capitalism and the natural environment. Like Vulture Capitalism, Slow Down shows that Marx is still relevant today.

 

The author discusses the effects of the climate change crisis, and how it particularly affects the countries of what he calls the “Global South.” He describes how the wealthy capitalist countries of the “Global North” exploit the resources of the “Global South” and shift the burden of the environmental crisis on to the countries of the “Global South”.

 

He debunks the Sustainable Development Goals being promoted by the United Nations and other world bodies. He also criticises ideas such as the “Green New Deal,” “Green Keynesianism” and other attempts to allow capitalism to keep functioning as normal while reducing the burden on the environment. “Decoupling,” which seeks to use new technologies to allow the economy to grow while reducing carbon dioxide emissions is another example of these ideas.

 

Saito’s answer to the environmental crisis is what he calls “Degrowth Communism.” This means winding back capitalism’s never-ending drive for growth at the expense of the environment, and developing a society where production is carried out to benefit the people within the limits of what the environment can bear.

 

He writes, “Yet it is capitalism, with its demands for unlimited maximisation of profits and economic growth, that is fundamentally unable to protect the earth’s environment. Both humanity and nature become objects of exploitation under capitalism.”

 

There is a need for people to band together in solidarity to rein in capital and protect the planet. To achieve this, Saito puts forward what he calls “The Five Pillars of Degrowth Communism.”

1. Transition to a use-based economy. This means producing goods that meet people’s basic needs, rather than producing luxury items and status symbols.

2. Shorten work hours. Workers will improve the quality of their lives when meaningless work is eliminated.

3. Abolish the uniform division of labour. This means ending the division between physical and mental labour and returning creativity and autonomy to work.

4. Democratise the production process. This means communal management of the means of production and deciding what, and how much should be produced.

5. Prioritise essential work. This means prioritising and valuing labour-intensive jobs such as nursing, education, child care and aged care.

 

Capitalism is destroying our planet. Only the overthrow of capitalism and the creation of a communist society will stop further damage to our earth. Slow Down is a book which should be read by all who are concerned about the destruction of our environment by capitalism.

 

I will leave the last word to Marx. In chapter XLVI of Volume Three of Capital he wrote, “From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man by another. Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuaries and, like boni patres familias, they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition.”

 

Book Review: VULTURE CAPITALISM

Written by: Duncan B. on 20 April 2024

 

Vulture Capitalism. Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom by Grace Blakeley is the first of two recently-released books which we will be reviewing. Grace Blakely is a staff writer at the English magazine Tribune, and is a political and economic commentator for the BBC.

The book is based around the idea of planning under capitalism. We are led to believe that capitalism is based on the free market, and planning is something that happened in places like the former Soviet Union. However there is a very large element of planning under capitalism.

It is the author’s aim to show how capitalist planning works and how we can start to resist it. She aims to discuss what capitalism is, how it has changed over time, while centralised planning has remained constant. Major institutions capable of planning within capitalist societies: firms, financial institutions, states and empires are examined.  On p13 the author says, “Finally I’ll outline how we can start to replace the current system of oligarchic capitalist planning with democratic socialist planning.”

Vulture Capitalism begins by exposing some of the many scandals surrounding big companies such as Boeing’s sales of faulty aircraft, Henry Ford’s relations with Nazi Germany, the collapse of companies such as Enron and the financial crisis of 2008.

In a chapter titled "Disaster Capitalism" the author exposes how many companies benefitted during the COVID pandemic, receiving large handouts and lucrative government contracts. She shows how companies are benefitting from the climate change emergency and the rise in energy costs arising from the war in Ukraine.

Vulture Capitalism exposes how big corporations, financial institutions such as banks and governments unite to bail out failing companies, including those which really should be allowed to collapse, but which have friends in the right places.

The author refers to initiatives being taken in various countries to base planning at the community level where local people and community organisations are planning for the needs of their communities in areas such as health, education and infrastructure. She sees initiatives like these as a way forward.

However she does recognise that the capitalist state does use violence when challenged. Her analysis of the destruction of the Allende government in Chile makes this clear. She says (p269), “Socialists must struggle within and outside all social institutions - including those of the state - to shift the balance of power within society in favour of workers.”

Vulture Capitalism gives the reader much useful information about the workings of capitalism. A positive feature of Vulture Capitalism is that the author refers regularly to Marx and other Marxist writers in explaining the operation of capitalism and in developing her arguments against it, showing that Marx’s theories are as relevant today as they ever were.

 

ADSTAR: Info-wars and the military, Canberra, 2024

 Written by: (Contributed) on 23 April 2024

 

The organisers of the Australian Defence Science, Technology and Research (ADSTAR) summit in Canberra in September have already publicised their provisional agenda. Representatives of key US allies and defence and security partners are already registered to attend. One of the listed items has far-reaching implications for Cold War Australia; it is doubtful, however, that conference delegates will be discussing the item in the context of a recent US legal decision about non-legitimate intelligence-gathering techniques.

The main agenda for the forthcoming ADSTAR summit has six listed items: hypersonic missiles, directed energy, trusted autonomy, quantum technologies, information warfare, long-range fires. (1) Organisers of the summit are expecting in excess of 1,700 delegates, 'including a line-up of international luminaries' to attend the event, which will provide the military-industrial complex with bigger defence budgets and increased likelihood of 'real-war scenarios', more likely than not, in the Indo-Pacific region.

It has already been publicised the summit will include defence leaders being part of panel-led discussions to prioritise what they regard as 'opportunities across the military realm', from India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, the UK and US together with Australia. (2) It has been noted that Heidi Shyu, US Under-Secretary of research and engineering at the Department of Defence will deliver the keynote speech, while no Australian figures have so far been named as participating at that level.

War, and the preparations for war, are, quite clearly, big business. And ADSTAR figures are, no doubt, rubbing their hands with glee. With western defence budgets set to increase over the next decade, the ADSTAR summit would appear a central consideration for the pushing of military agendas.

It is, however, the fifth listed agenda item which is the most revealing for contemporary Australia; information warfare and countering disinformation campaigns have become a major problem in recent years and has become a major pre-occupation with law enforcement agencies. (3) While it has generally been accepted that social media has enabled disgruntled and disaffected users to gravitate toward conspiratorial far-right political organisations, which then espouse anti-science disinformation and distrust in government, it is also the ability of the state to harvest vast troves of personal information with intelligence-gathering techniques which raise alarm.

A recent legal decision in the US has revealed how Google had tracked users without their knowledge. The outcome of a class-action lodged in a San Francisco federal court, has led Google to plan to destroy a vast trove of data collected from millions of people about their web-browsing histories. (4) It was noted by a lawyer who represented consumers that, 'the settlement required Google to delete and remediate in unprecedented scope and scale the data it improperly collected'. (5)

The legal decision did not, however, note how Google was party to the improper methods of intelligence-gathering from its earliest beginnings. Revelations emerging about US-led intelligence-gathering during the previous Cold War by using Crypton AG equipment also provided information about their later use of the internet; it was noted, for example, that the US National Security Agency's attention eventually 'shifted to finding ways to exploit the global reach of Google, Microsoft, Verizon and other US technical powers'. (6) Such state-controlled intelligence-gathering techniques remain outside usual legal jurisdiction; there is little, if any, accountability.

As attendees of the forthcoming ADSTAR summit participate in the part of the conference dealing with information warfare and countering disinformation, it is extremely unlikely any consideration will be given to the role of their intelligence services trawling daily through confidential communications between internet users. The fact the information accessed by the state is frequently used for profiling purposes was also not addressed in the recent US legal decision; or whether Google had already passed such information onto interested third parties for a whole variety of motives.

1.     Strategic advantage key to ADSTAR conference, Defence Science and Technology supplement, Australian, 3 April 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     See: Australia's far right gets COVID anti-lockdown protest booster, Aljazeera, 5 October 2021.
4.     Google to destroy its 'Incognito' data, Australian, 3 April 2024.
5.     Ibid.
6.     The intelligence coup of the century, The Washington Post, 11 February 2020; and, Compromised encryption machines, The Washington Post, 17 February 2020; and, Operation Condor: The CIA is not innocent, The Guardian (U.K.), 23 February 2020.