Austerity (noun): 1. Enforced or extreme economy. From the Greek, austēros, meaning “harsh” or “severe”. 2. Merriam-Webster Word of the Year, 2010. The conversion of the present ALP federal government from new-era Keynesian stimulus apostles to sovereign debt doom merchants did not take place overnight, but if it happened anywhere it was in Toronto at the […]
16 Jun
Comments Off on Explaining the age of austerity: Beyond the conjunctural, the organic crisis re-emerges
How did it come to this? Just two years ago everything seemed so different: The GFC was crashing across the planet, provoking the largest internationally coordinated program of state intervention in human history. Prime Ministers were writing quasi-erudite essays damning “market fundamentalism” while disinterring Keynesianism and social democracy. Progressive thinkers spoke hopefully of Green New […]
04 Feb
Comments Off on Who’s afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood?
They are: The tyrant’s strategy seems clear. After 30 years of brutality, repression and feathering the nest of his globetrotting fellow elites, at the moment his regime is in peril he will act as the reasonable one. He will act to reverse the “chaos” and “anarchy” in the streets as gangs of violent thugs attack […]
11 Dec
What is the nature of elite rule and how can it be challenged? This is the real question behind the political crisis caused by the WikiLeaks revelations. Compared with other leaks, the scale and breadth of the information being released makes it impossible not to reassess how state and citizens interact. Despite the attempts at […]
06 Nov
So what is politics? For most, politics is that thing that happens in Canberra and on Macquarie Street. That thing to be ridiculed, not trusted, obsessed over and argued about. It is that thing external from us, happening ‘out there’ in other locations, and reported in the media. Yet politics is also a practice, or potential […]
18 Sep
Comments Off on A ‘Philosophy of Praxis’ for our times
As I blog this, liz_beths is writing the conclusion to her Masters thesis, which analyses the rise and fall of the Global Justice Movement in Australia. She wrote a bit about the arc from S11 2000 to 9/11 and the present day on the Overland blog last weekend. Rather than simply re-use hackneyed categories that […]
27 Jun
Comments Off on The age of austerity: Social polarisation, fake partisanship & the Left’s strategy