Saturday, 8 October 2016

For Public Housing, Green Space and Livable Cities



FOR PUBLIC HOUSING, GREEN SPACE AND LIVABLE CITIES!

21-08-2016 – Concrete jungles, unaffordable housing, expensive public transport, the privatisation and commercialisation of more and more public space, traffic congestion – all this has unfortunately become the norm for Brisbane for some years now. The imposing “West Village” development in West End is scarcely different. Seven 15 storey high-density luxury apartments are proposed by development corporations with no other agenda other than to pocket themselves millions of dollars, and damn the consequences, for they do not live anywhere near the monstrosity built. 

Local State Member of Parliament, the Australian Labor Party’s ALP Jackie Trad, has, after objections, initiated the process of “calling in” the West Village development.[1] But this does not at all mean that the project will be stopped – it could be merely a mechanism by which an ALP politician can claim that they have carried out “public consultation”. The ALP, along with the Liberal National Party (LNP) are bought and paid operatives for the system which creates unsustainable development in the first place. In fact, the entire parliamentary system, from the local council right up to the Federal Government, is not a system of “representation”, but a system of suppressing the right of working people to make political decisions.

The parliamentary apparatus is the sham political arm of the capitalist system – the system of private production for private profit. At the same time, privately organised production uses the social labour of the working class to amass all the monetary gain, returning only enough to working people the means to reproduce themselves – or not even that. This system has been in recession for years in Australia, with no current signs of any kind of recovery. Capital seeks an ever greater return on its rate of profit, and thus will undertake projects which glean the highest rate of return – irrespective of what working people and the communities in which they live actually need. Affordable public housing, cheap or free public housing, green space and public parks and amenities – capital pockets no profit from building or maintaining such needs for working people. 

Developments such as West Village are an example of the contradiction between private property and social property. As long as the Absoe Furniture site remains private property, the capitalist system will allow, and is set up to enable, the private owners to do as they see fit – short of a huge intervention by working people. Private property in land underpins capitalism. Opposing this system is social property owned in common – socialism. The struggle for rational social planning, for green space, for public housing and public amenities, therefore, is ultimately a struggle against private property. Such a struggle ultimately can only successfully be waged as a working class struggle. A “community” campaign, due to the fact that it appeals to all “locals” regardless of class, just won’t cut it.

Historically, where the working class has waged such a successful struggle which has resulted in victory, working people have reaped the benefits. While in Australia we have governments of all stripes which have privatised public housing, in the People’s Republic of China, their government has embarked on an immense public housing program. By the end of 2014, the Chinese government had supplied 40 million families with low-rent public housing.[2] Housing in China is seen as a responsibility of the government. Or take the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – referred to by the Western media as “North Korea”). Its capital Pyongyang has a whopping 58 square metres of green space per person[3], and is known for its 10 metre wide footpaths. Compare this to Brisbane, with a maximum of 4 square centimetres of green space per person.[4]

The crucial difference is that, with all its imperfections, socialism rules in China and the DPRK, whereas capitalism remains unchallenged in Australia. Local struggles, such as the one against the rapacious property developers, backed by the Brisbane City Council, seeking to bury West End under an avalanche of luxury units, are important way before the struggle advances to the stage of posing questions of the entire system. The efforts of all those struggling to make Brisbane a livable city are welcome. Yet even here class differences will become apparent. Residents and working people will have a totally different conception of “livable” compared to Councillors, developers, real estate agents and even small shopkeepers. They all see dollars in their pockets, whereas as working residents desire a pleasant and amenable place to reside for themselves and their families. In fact, the struggle for livable cities is inseparable from the struggle for decent working conditions, a lower cost of living, decent public transport and basic public services. With the right strategy, a win in one area can mean a win in others. Down with “West Village”! 

ML Group
PO Box 66  Nundah QLD  4012
www.ML-Group@blogspot.com.au
E: mlgroup271@gmail.com
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Demand Free Education



DEMAND FREE EDUCATION – JUST LIKE IN THE DPRK!

24-08-2016 – The figures are staggering. $20 billion of government funding cut from the University sector, a drift towards total deregulation of fees, $100 000 degrees, and the privatisation of higher education. Combine this with a further slated 20% cut in funding, and a 100% increase in class sizes over the last generation,[1] and the labelling of tertiary education as being “Americanised” is no exaggeration. Along with the daylight robbery type fees, crowded lectures, more online courses and less contact with tutors have become the norm. Higher Education in Australia is becoming, or has become, unaffordable for all but the most privileged.

The quality of the education provided at Universities today and the fees charged proceed in inverse proportions. The worse the quality, the more fees are charged. University staff also suffer – there has been a raft of job cuts at Universities around the country, and many tutors who have some employment are only taken on for short-term contracts. Casualisation is rife, with tutors sometimes only paid for the actual student contact hours. In contrast, the remuneration for University Vice-Chancellors continues to be obscene. Figures for VC salaries from 2015 reveal that the lowest VC salary was $540,000, while seven VCs pulled a salary of over 1 million per year.[2] Universities have become commercialised degree factories, whose graduates are endorsed for uncritically accepting the privatisation of virtually everything.

The rapidly approaching full deregulation of fees will adversely affect international as well as domestic student. A HSBC report found that despite Australia having the highest education costs of any country in the world,[3] international students make up 20% of tertiary student body. These students are treated by University administrations as little more than cash cows, who are charged higher fees than domestic students. These international students have to work to pay the tuition fees in addition to their living expenses, while somehow studying full time. This leads many international students to undertake any available work, often ending up being illegally underpaid by notorious outfits such as the 7 Eleven convenience stores.

While the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has done some positive work to oppose the further drift to full fee deregulation, and to highlight the dangers of $100 000 degrees, it still ultimately retains an electoralist and parliamentarist strategy to address the almost terminal state of accessible higher education. In amongst encouragement to attend rallies, the NTEU officials talk about “helping out at election time” , “writing a letter to your MP”, and “ensuring that the government not abrogate its role in providing [higher education]”. The left party Socialist Alternative (SAlt), the largest left group organising on University campuses, also ultimately plays into a perspective of “pressuring” parliament and parliamentary parties, despite its laudable organisational role. SAlt correctly recognise that both Liberal and Labor parties back the effective privatisation of higher education, but often tailor their calls to target Liberal party ministers, which opens the door for work on the ground with Labor and Greens aligned students.

To be clear, the ongoing attacks on higher education in this country are not a result of the ideas or ideology of the major political parties, nor are they the result of the ideology of “neoliberalism”. Higher education is being privatised due to the economic crisis engulfing the capitalist world economies, mired in effective recession since 2008. In this country, the privatisation of higher education began in 1989 under the Labor Party, but has continued ever since, regardless of whether there has been a Liberal/National, Labor or Labor/Greens coalition. All of these parties are committed to maintaining the capitalist system at the expense of the suffering of working people. All “liberal democratic” governments in this country are thus in practice arms of a dictatorship of the owners of the means of production. This is why they no longer see it (if they ever did) as “their role” to provide accessible higher education, as the NTEU leadership implores.

It is only a socialist government which genuinely sees its role as providing education for all working people. It is in the material interests of a socialist government to ensure all its citizens have access to all forms of education to establish an educated workforce, but also to ensure the scientific and cultural progress of that society. There is a socialist state in the Asia-Pacific region which does provide all its citizens with free education – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – referred to by the corporate media as “North Korea”). The DPRK has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is only 1.3% the size of Australia’s GDP[4], yet it is able to provide education at all levels, including 12 years of schooling, and between 3 and 5 years of University education at no cost to DPRK citizens. What is more, all University graduates are guaranteed employment, as the concept of unemployment is unknown in the DPRK.

It is a far cry from what young working people in Australia face – crippling or unaffordable tuition fees, and a high likelihood of unemployment upon graduation. The contrast between capitalism and socialism could not be more stark. While we face the barrier of wholesale deregulation, however, the same methods used to secure a socialist state – class struggle – is ultimately the only way of obtaining a decent and accessible education system now. Students, as an intermediate body between school and the workforce, do not have the social power to bring the system to a halt. Only the working class, particularly on campus, but also in the public service and workplaces across the country, has the potential to ramp up the class struggle, through mass actions up to and including the withdrawal of labour.
The main obstacle to the linking of the student’s struggle for free education with workers’ power is primarily the influence of the top officials presiding over most Unions, who see their role as channelling any just demands into the capitalist state via pleading with “our” politicians. These politicians are not “ours” no matter how much snake oil they sell. Students and workers need to rely on their own strength, independently of the parliamentary system, to forge a mass movement which has the power to win. This will also require the formation of a workers’ party, which can champion the struggle for both free education and socialism.

DEMAND  FREE  EDUCATION!
ML GROUP
PO  Box  66  Nundah  QLD  4012
www.ML-Group@blogspot.com.au
E: mlgroup271@gmail.com
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