BY BILL
MASON
BRISBANE — At meeting of 50 people at the Paddington Workers Club on April 10, Humphrey McQueen — Australia's most eminent left-wing historian — spoke on the theme of the “War on Work”, outlining the links between the war drive of the US and its allies and corporate attacks on the working class on a world scale.
For more than 30 years, McQueen has been interpreting Australian society and economy from a Marxist standpoint. From his groundbreaking 1970 book A New Britannia through to his most recent work, The Essence of Capitalism, McQueen has consistently exposed the cherished myths of contemporary capitalist society in Australia and the world.
“While the war on Iraq and other Third World countries is taking place, another war is going on, the class war which Karl Marx explained”, McQueen said.
Behind the US-led war on Iraq is a struggle by the US ruling class for continued dominance within the world economy over European capital, McQueen said.
“Capitalism has always operated globally. What is new about the current globalisation? It is not yet clear if this is merely a new phase of monopoly capitalism or a new stage of capitalism in development.”
Meanwhile, said McQueen , there is a war on workers in the developed countries, with cuts in employment, wages being driven down across borders, and the use of new technologies to speed up work and increase the rate of exploitation of labour.
“The unity of labour is the hope of the world”, McQueen noted as a traditional and still timely slogan of the international workers' movement.
In Australia, “the labour movement has been systematically disorganised” by the role of Labor governments, and now the direct attacks of the Howard government. The involvement of the trade union movement in the Accord, bureaucratic amalgamations and other similar policies have “put a bigger gulf between the rank and file and officials in the unions”.
McQueen spoke of the “glimmerings of change” with the growth of a “great anti-war movement” and stirrings among the working class.
He urged support for unity processes among socialists, as expressed in the Socialist Alliance, as the way forward for the progressive movement. An end to sectarianism was essential for the future of the movement, McQueen concluded.
McQueen's Brisbane meeting concluded a successful speaking tour of eastern seaboard campuses and cities sponsored by the Socialist Alliance.
The most notable feature of McQueen's speaking tour was the turn-up for his talks on regional campuses. Audiences at Newcastle and Wollongong universities, as well as at the University of Western Sydney and Deakin University (Geelong), all ranged between 50 and 80, and produced lively questioning in all centres.
On the basis of the success of the tour, McQueen will repeat his talks in Adelaide and Perth later in the year.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 23, 2003.
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