Kirsten Henderson in 'Review Essay: Water and Culture in Australia: Some Alternative Perspectives' in Thesis Eleven August 2010 refers to Donald Worster’s 1985 text Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West which traces the development of irrigated agriculture in the Far West.
Henderson says that Worster's text is a study that owes much to Wittfogel’s analysis of the nexus between water and power. It avoids many of Wittfogel’s missteps by taking his idea about the link between control of water and control of social power and modifying it so it becomes an argument about a two-way or dialectical relationship between nature and culture rather than a claim for an environmentally deterministic association where water (or lack of it) directs social formation. She adds:
Worster draws on the work of Wittfogel’s one-time colleagues at the Institute of Social Research, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, and their critique of instrumental reason in modern societies, especially in relation to the approach to nature therein.In their book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1973), Horkheimer and Adorno argue that the Enlightenment, via the evolution of science and the application of instrumental reason, introduced a new understanding of the natural world and its role within human affairs. No longer was nature a sensuous, biological world indistinguishable from the human life that was unquestionably dependent upon it. With the advent of modernity and the application of instrumental reason, nature became an object to be manipulated and mastered for human purposes. Through instrumental reason nature is degraded to ‘mere material, mere stuff to be dominated without any other purpose than that of this very domination’
Worster emphasizes that it is the decisions made in response to environmental conditions that are important for societal outcomes and that those decisions are influenced by many factors, most notably material interests that incorporate a certain conceptualization of the role of nature in society. Thus Worster develops a notion of power within hydraulic societies that is much more nuanced than that of Wittfogel. The notion of despotic power is replaced with the idea of the hydraulic and technical domination of nature in order to extract profit – profit that is made via the capitalistic exploitation of people and profit which is not then re-distributed to the workers who produced it.
He describes three modes of water control: the local subsistence mode, the agrarian state mode and the capitalist state mode, each of which have their own techniques and apparatus for water control with corresponding social relationships and arrangements of power. Each different mode represents a different historic way of conceptualizing water within the society. Consequently power and politics is configured differently within each mode, depending on the degree of control exerted over water. Worster’s contention is that as more human control is applied to the water the power base within society shifts, becoming ever more centralized as societies progress though the successive modes.Worster applies these insights to the history of the development of irrigation in the western United States. Contrary to popular perceptions of the development of the American West as being a time and place of empowerment for families and ordinary people, Worster argues it was a process of empire-building dominated by business interests and the corporate state working in tandem to acquire the control and monopolization of water throughout the region.
The same could be said for Australia. Australian water history do reflect the patterns he identifies. Even more pertinent: consider the very recent proposal by the Commonwealth government to assume control of the rivers of the Murray Darling Basin (a state government responsibility under the terms of the Australian Constitution).
In The Ethics of Economic Rationalism John Wright highlights a distinction between economic rationalism and neo-liberalism. Though both ‘economic rationalists’ and ‘neo-liberals’ argue that governments should reduce their own activities and leave as much as possible up to the free market, Wright points out that:
when they come to explain why they think governments ought to do this, economic rationalists and neo-liberals might give rather different answers. The economic rationalist will emphasise the role that the free market has in increasing efficiency and creating wealth. But a neo-liberal might instead emphasize the ways in which, by cutting back on their own activities, governments can thereby maximise the liberty of their citizens. The economic rationalist will emphasis efficiency, the neo-liberal freedom (p. 18).
In this discussion on the discussion on the Philosophers Zone it is stated that economic rationalists want to get society as close as possible to an ideal market and ideal markets, by definition, for economic rationalists, maximise welfare. Is that a moral good?
Wright says:
Well, not necessarily. Maximising welfare, if this is taken to mean maximising wealth, then it's not entirely clear, or at least more argument needs to be done to show that this is a moral justification or an ethical justification. Now one kind of ethical justification that perhaps most immediately springs to mind is something along the following lines: that if you've got an ideal market, then welfare will be maximised, and if welfare is maximised, or wealth is maximised, then people will be happier, the greatest happiness for the greatest number will occur when welfare is maximised, and if you've got the greatest happiness for the greatest number, then at least on a utilitarian perspective, which actually sees the best, the morally best perspective, or some versions of utilitarianism see the morally best perspective as the one in which there is the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Then in those circumstances it's plausible to think you would have an ethical justification for economic rationalism.
Wright adds that:
Economic rationalism involves maximising economic efficiency. It involves trying to get society as close as practicable to an ideal market, and this may involve doing things like eliminating public goods, so that for example, things that were previously done by governments are done by free enterprise. Now this type of thing is different from letting society run on its own. It's changing society with the aim of maximising economic efficiency, and it can have these unforeseen consequences that conservatives were concerned about.
In Danger lurks in playing it safe in The Australian Paul Kelly refers to the shift in economic governance that occurred in the 1980s in Australia. In From the Australian Settlement to Microeconomic Reform: the Change inTwentieth Century Policy Regimes Geoffrey Brennan and Jonathan Pincus argue that a substantial shift in the economic policy regime in Australia:
The first regime held from federation through the 1970s. It focused on extensive development, through the attraction and retention of selected immigrants by a set of mutually-supportive policies centered on trade protection. The second strategy, of recent vintage, concentrates more on intensive development and, in contrast with the earlier, relies on economic competition, rather than attempting to suppress it.
The old developmental strategy was largely overthrown. In its place was a set of policies that encouraged competition in product markets and in capital markets. The change was dominated by the Commonwealth’s decisions to reduce and almost eliminate tariff protection. Broadly, however, the States, under Liberal, National or Labor governments, as well as the Commonwealth embraced the switch to a regime putting much greater reliance on competition to achieve policy aims
They argue that the developmental strategy, pursued since the early years of federation, which was to erect protective walls behind which ‘tariff factories’ would be attracted, bringing capital and expertise to employ native and immigrant workers in relatively labour-intensive industries, proved to be too costly and limiting in a global economy dominated by Japan and the US. The protection regime had been structured around the UK, when the British trade policy was being re-oriented towards Europe and away from its former dominions. These changed economic circumstances impacted on the economic policy regime causing the shift to a more market orientated mode of governance.
What is the future of regional communities in the context of a global economy. Is regional Australia doomed to be an economic ghetto, as some neo-liberal economists claim? How do we understand regional development under a neo-liberal mode of governance that emerged in the 1980s?
One way to begin to understand this is to turn to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government 2009 report entitled The Global Financial Crisis and regional Australia. This provides us a way into the issues and to see if there is a comprehensive long term integrated analysis that combines all sorts of factors--- social economic environmental even cultural---within a holistic policy framework.
The Committee's role is to identify and highlight issues facing regional Australia and this report is broken into two sections:
the first addresses the impact of the crisis on regional Australia to date and the government response. The second section examines current and future regional development policy options targeted at assisting Australia’s regions to grow and withstand future economic challenges.The report is broken into two sections; the first addresses the impact of the crisis on regional Australia to date and the government response. The second section examines current and future regional development policy options targeted at assisting Australia’s regions to grow and withstand future economic challenges.
This was an ad hoc approach to regional developmnent, albeit one that was a reflection of regional development theory which stressed rapid regional growth through:
*a relatively large stock of capital;
*a highly educated population; and
*an economic environment that favoured knowledge–intensive industries.
This approach to regional development remained relatively consistent throughout the 1990s until 2001, when the Commonwealth Government released a regional policy statement titled Stronger Regions, A Stronger Australia that was driven by the then John Anderson led Nationals
This report, which was based on Department of Transport and Regional Services Working Paper 55, Government Interventions In Pursuit of Regional Development: Learning From Experiences, outlined the following broad goals for regional Australia:
*strengthen regional economic and social opportunities;
*sustain productive natural resources and environment;
*deliver better regional services; and
* adjust to economic, technological and government–induced change.
One of the strategies for achieving these goals included taking a whole-of- government approach to regional development that promoted ‘coordination between departments and agencies in implementing Commonwealth programmes’. For the remainder of the period prior to 2007, regional development policy promoted partnerships between communities, industry and government under programs such as Regional Partnerships; the whole of government approach was extended to include cooperation between federal, state/territory and local governments as well as intra-departmental cooperation at the federal level; and there was an increasing emphasis on developing local training, eduction and employment initiatives.
From this brief history we can that the theory behind regional development in the context of a global economy is to be found in the Department of Transport and Regional Services Working Paper 55, Government Interventions In Pursuit of Regional Development: Learning From Experiences.
Is US power in decline? What are we to make of the rise of China? Will a possible equalization of North-South relations herald a more brutal capitalism or a better world? Giovanni Arrighi, Joel Andreas, and David Harvey give their perspectives in this forum, for a discussion of Arrighi's 2007 book Adam Smith in Beijing (Verso).
Arrighi's text is an analysis of the nature and implications of the rise of China, casted in the context of the historical evolution of capitalism and the contemporary international relations. His argument is that the American Century of global dominance is in terminal crisis. China is bound to resume its historic place as the eastern pole of (economic) civilization and America’s day in the sun is sure to be eclipsed, both by virtue of China’s deep well of human and cultural resources and by the geographic logic of historical capitalism.
The domination and hegemony of the West is on the decline. Notably, the efforts by the US - the current dominant power - in turning itself into a world state were devastated by the “signal” crisis and the looming “terminal” crisis. These crises are attributable to both inherent mechanisms of capitalist production and the mismanagement of the economy by the government. The failure of the neo- conservative imperial project paves the way for China becoming the new center or superpower.
The Contemporary Europe Research Centre (CERC) at the University of Melbourne closed in 2009. However, its Working Papers series are online and they are in the public domain. My Eye was caught by Cas Mudde's Globalization:The Multi-Faced Enemy? which explores the relationship between ‘globalization’ and ‘national populist parties.’We can use this as a way to explore the pathology interpretation of national populist parties.
Mudde says that the main function of the process of economic globalization is the creation of a capitalist world market. In addition to the simple trade, international actors and states are nowadays bound by a variety of rules, and organizations that uphold those rules – such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Globalization has led to a multitude of oppositions within the Western world and it is generally national populist parties or movements that lead the struggle against economic globalization. Mudde argues that these are parties or movements of the radical right share an ideology consisting of the combination of the following four core features: nationalism, xenophobia, authoritarianism, and populism. Nationalism entails a political doctrine arguing the convergence of state (the political unit) and nation (the cultural unit); xenophobia refers to the fear of anything alien (including people, ideas, habits); authoritarianism denotes a strict belief in law and order (yet not necessarily an anti- democratic attitude); and populism refers to an appeal to the people against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society.
The regional populists in Australia (including the now defunct One Nation of Pauline Hanson) strongly opposed the international free market, often argue that Australia should seek self-sufficiency and oppose high levels of non-white immigration. Unlike Europe, the resistance in Australia to cultural globalization, which as it more or less means a dominant American culture, is a resistance to Americanization, has faded. The resistance to the new world order ---the ever growing international political cooperation between states, in particular the growing involvement of the United Nations (UN) that means loss of without the loss of sovereignty-- is also marginal.
The populist radical right is considered to be alien to mainstream values in contemporary western democracies, and this is expressed most explicitly in the “normal pathology thesis”, which holds that the populist radical right is antithetical to the values of liberal democracy and that its success is to be explained by crisis. The radical Right "stands psychologically outside the frame of normal democratic politics". So why the popular support for populist radical right politics?
Bob Katter, one of the regional Independents holding the balance of power, is commonly seen as the ‘‘populist radical right.’’ This edited summary of the policy priorities Katter sent to the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition indicates that Katter does not see regional populism as part of an anti-globalization movement that generally considers itself as ‘left-wing’. His policy priorities are:
1. Creation of a National Energy Grid facilitating resource development, the decentralisation of population and clean energy resources.
2. The removal of the tax on Australian-produced bio-fuels and the introduction of a statutory 10 per cent bio-fuel (ethanol) content in all petrol rising to 22 per cent (as in Brazil).
3. Address the two chain oligopoly in the Australian food retailing sector. The option of divestment (a maximum market share for any chain of 22.5 per cent only) and/or a maximum mark-up of 100 per cent between the farm gate/factory price and the retail price.
4. No carbon tax. No emissions trading scheme.
5. No mining tax.
6. Return of recreational freedoms to traditional pursuits of fishing, camping and outdoor sports and activities. This includes the removal of the Wild Rivers Legislation.
7. Provision of title deeds providing ownership of homes, businesses and farms … to indigenous communities.
8. Legislation to ensure that the constitutional right to full compensation for the taking of property by government be extended also to the taking of any property “rights” by government [such as land-clearing by farmers].
9. Commitment to the use of some part of the Future Fund for the creation of a national development corporation for major infrastructure and strategically important industries.
10. Restoration of collective bargaining rights to Australian farmers. Where a majority of farmers in an industry request collective bargaining arrangements, they be provided.
11. Rural and country hospitals and dental services will be placed under the control of a restored local hospital board and that funding be delivered from Canberra directly to these hospital boards.
12. Agreement that where a food or plant import licence has not been approved, approval can only be granted when the country of origin can establish that is has no endemic diseases that can be imported into Australia.
13. The utilisation of 3 per cent of northern Australia's abundance of water to enable irrigation for small areas of agricultural land sufficient to guarantee a healthy growth in Australia's agricultural sector and to provide food security for our people.
14. Establish a taskforce to secure action to provide: all-weather anchorage roughly every 30 km; … micro resource development at five towns in the Queensland Gulf and Mid-West; … a port to service the southern Gulf of Carpentaria; upgrading the McEwen highway.
15. Government-provided solar hot water systems and/or other measures to reduce the money problems on our older generation caused by rapidly escalating costs for rates, electricity, insurances, car registration and other similar charges, which, increasingly, they are unable to meet.
16. Equal rates of government-funded parental assistance for working mothers and stay-at-home mums as well.
17. An agreement that the Commonwealth meet with the Queensland Government and secure relaxation of restrictions on land sub-division and boundary realignment prohibitions.
18. Address the unfair and artificially high value of the Australian dollar, on which upward pressure is placed by interest rates that are out of step with international benchmarks.
19. Introduce an open, public registry of foreign ownership of farm land, housing, public and private corporations and re-examine the thresholds on foreign ownership requiring FIRB approval.
20. A review of zone allowances for remote areas. Tax should be levied on “real" purchasing power, not monetary purchasing power, as $100 buys a lot less goods and services in Cloncurry than it does in Brisbane.
Anti-globalization is not (yet?) a central issue in the ideology of this regional populism even though it identifies neo-liberalism of the two main parties as explicitly pro-economic globalization and there is an unease with the consequences of globalization for Australia. Katter's list focuses on the state fostering regional development and on an economic policy that benefits ordinary people in north western Queensland.
As Mudde points out the “normal pathology thesis” under "normal" circumstances the demand for populist radical right politics comes from only a tiny part of the population. Hence the search was on for those "abnormal" circumstances in which "populist radical rightwing attitudes" spread. The standard answer is that society is transforming fundamentally and rapidly through modernization, leading to a division between (self-perceived) "winners" and "losers", and that the latter will vote for the populist radical Right out of protest (anger and frustration) or support (intellectual rigidity). Under conditions of massive societal change, the "losers of modernization" will vote for populist radical Right parties. This represents the pathological remnant of a dark past.
Katter's above list of policy priorities indicates that far from being the pathological remnant of a dark past thrown up by crisis, they are connected to mainstream ideas and much in tune with broadly shared attitudes and policy positions of those in regional Australia.
The emergence of a hung parliament in Australia and the balance of power being held by three country Independents who articulate their concerns in a populist discourse suggests that it is time to revisit populism in Australia.
We no longer need to extrapolate from populism in America and the common response by the commentariat that the populism of three country Independents represents a threat to liberal democracy is undercut by the Independents calling for reform to our political institutions. Populism has become a regular feature of politics in Australian democracy and many people support populist ideas and politicians. What they oppose is being represented by an ‘alien’ elite, whose policies do not reflect their own wishes and concerns. Those polices, for the country Independents in Australia is neo-liberalism.
One place to start revisiting populism is Cas Mudde's 2004 paper The Populist Zeitgeist in Government and Opposition (Vol.39, No.3, 2004, pp. 541‐563.) In this paper:
a clear and new definition of populism is presented. Second, the normal- pathology thesis is rejected; instead it is argued that today populist discourse has become mainstream in the politics of western democracies. Indeed, one can even speak of a populist Zeitgeist. Third, it is argued that the explanations of and reactions to the current populist Zeitgeist are seriously flawed and might actually strengthen rather than weaken it.
an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expres- sion of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.
He adds:
In liberal democratic systems, where political parties are the main actors in the process of representation, it comes as no surprise that in the propa-ganda of populists, anti-party sentiments play a prominent role. In an often implicitly Rousseauian fashion, populists argue that political parties corrupt the link between leaders and supporters, create artificial divisions within the homogeneous people, and put their own interests above those of the people.
Mudde says that populism can be either left wing or rightwing:
The populism of the New Left referred to an active, self-confident, well- educated, progressive people. In sharp contrast, the current populism is the rebellion of the ‘silent majority’. The heartland of populists [on the right] is the hard-working, slightly conservative, law-abiding citizen, who, in silence but with growing anger, sees his world being ‘perverted’ by progressives, criminals, and aliens. In short, the contemporary populist revolt is in many ways the opposite to that of 1968 and further. While the populists of the ‘silent revolution’ wanted more participation and less leadership, the populists of the ‘silent counter-revolution’ want more leadership and less participation.
What is opposed is being represented by an ‘alien’ elite, whose policies do not reflect their own wishes and concerns. Those policies for regional populist Independents in Australia are identified as neo-liberal ones because a neo-liberal mode of governance has degutted many regional parts of Australia. The demand is that things can and should be better for regional Australia. Mudde ends thus:
The problem is, can they be ‘better’ (i.e. more democratic) within the system of liberal democracy? As soon as more radical demands are made, the answer from the mainstream politicians is often that they are not feasible because of constitutional provisions or international commitments. Thus, a vicious circle is created, which can only be broken by either giving in to the populists, and creating a more populist (and less liberal!) democratic system, or by resisting them, and instead explaining and defending the democratic limitations of the liberal democratic system.