Is a micro-party the best way to promote libertarianism?
Liberty and Democracy Party activists seem happy enough with with their 0.13% national vote share in the House of Representatives and 0.15% in the Senate. I’m still not convinced that the micro-party strategy is the way to go in promoting classical liberal/libertarian ideas.
While LDP members did get publicity they would not otherwise have received, much of it was not favourable. Lisa Milat is hardly responsible for the actions of her brother-in-law, but pre-selecting her just about ensured that media coverage was not going to be on-message for the LDP. And Bede Ireland perhaps could have picked a better issue to promote than decriminalising incest.
As the LDP is not seen as a serious electoral contender, the mainstream media will only be interested to the extent that the LDP can offer some colour to alleviate the boredom of the stage-managed major party campaigns. But ‘colour’ in the media context means things that the public will think ridiculous, eccentric or outrageous. That isn’t the way to make people take libertarian ideas seriously.
Then there were organisational issues such as their seemingly rather scattergun approach to targeting seats and candidates. It’s a fair call to say that the Liberal Party as represented by John Howard wasn’t clearly better on classical liberal principles than the Labor alternative; but the way to send a message isn’t to target the Liberals who are quite sound from a classical liberal perspective, such as the now ex-member for Corangamite Stewart McArthur. Sukrit’s candidacy there didn’t do McArthur any extra harm in the end, but from a libertarian perspective there were far more obvious people to go after, such as Kevin Andrews in Menzies (it would have saved Sukrit some travel time too). Some more research on who stands for what in the major parties wouldn’t go astray.
Regardless of these particular aspects of the 2007 campaign, overall I think that the best way to get a relatively unknown political stance a higher profile is through issue movements, think-tanks, and newer technologies such as blogging. Political parties are for the last stage in the issue cycle, when there are a sufficient number of potential supporters to be mobilised, and used to gain leverage with other parties, not the first stage when the ideas are still new to most voter.
For many people, that means a two-hats approach. I am far more libertarian in my personal and CIS views than I am in a Liberal Party context; as in the latter I must make concessions to secure at least partial acceptance among people who don’t share my philosophy. Policy purity is a lot more enjoyable than policy compromise, but if the consequence is achieving nothing at all in practical reforms then the price is too high.
November 26th, 2007 06:58
I agree, although unless you are implicitly saying it (I think you are), then infiltrating the big parties, as Peter Garett did with the Labor party, might in addition get you somewhere. Now would be an especially good time to get somewhere with the Liberal party for motivated people.
I think having both people in the ranks of the big parties and becoming popular through other means as you suggest are complementary. An example of this is that some people would argue that the Liberal party had to change to deal with One-nation (who were an electoral force also– but its hard to see how they would have survived over the long term), but an example people wouldn’t argue about is the Greens in Germany. They were so successful in changing the big parties (through popular support and people in the parties willing to include their policies) that they put themselves out of a job. I imagine the same might happen to the Greens here if the Liberal party tries to get the young vote and the Labour party gets a bit more green.
November 26th, 2007 07:03
The thing about the Greens and One Nation is that both of them turned up relatively late to tap into pre-existing sentiment. Perhaps because there was a longstanding green issue movement, the Greens have managed to overcome the massive organisational obstacles to establishing a functioning political party. The LDP have none of these advantages.
November 26th, 2007 07:52
“Political purity”? Perhaps you should shift your identification back to libertarianism if that level of clarity is a pleasure. The “constrained view” in Sowell’s schema - perhaps corresponding to a more conservative temper - seems to mitigate against this kind of “atomistic” libertarianism (as he describes it).
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I guess this raises another point. Microparties seem to represent political hybrids (Conservatives for Climate Change, or whatever they’re called) interest groups (What Women Want) or ideologies (LDP). I don’t think any party in the latter category will ever have much influence. With such a clear, principled, dogmatic platform, the result is internal homogeneity and a lack of broad-based appeal. It’s not just deep greens or ecofeminists or neopagans who are attracted to the Greens; many identify with their general leftiness and liberal social policies.
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Similarly, even though many shooters, euthanasia supporters etc. may sign up to the LDP or give them their votes, once the libertarian vision is fully articulated, I imagine all but hardened libertarian ideologues will be turned off. The legalization of incest is probably the most obvious example of this. As long as your party represents a result rather than a series of tendencies, processes, and sympathies, people will be disinterested.
November 26th, 2007 07:54
Andrew, this is a very interesting post. Are you still involved with the Liberal Party, though, or did the constant policy compromise of which you speak become too much? Personally, I found the latter quite difficult to sustain.
November 26th, 2007 08:16
The LDP doesn’t support legalising Incest. Our candidates sometimes make mistakes.
I find it strange that you’d lecture us on how to do it Andrew.
Your party in the last 11 years has hardened its stance on drugs, significantly infringed the rights of shooters, become more socially conservative in a bid to pick up the bible-thumper vote, raised the tax take by 35%, pork barrelled to ridiculous lengths and failed miserably in implementing its IR policy.
How are classical liberals like yourself helping your cause by remaining members of the Liberal party? They get further away from your (and our) ideals every year.
As for picking out the more liberal candidates and supporting them like your Kevin Reynolds example, what would be the point of that? Would he cross the floor on issues with which he disagreed with Howard?
Of course not.
If you are a member of a party that is entirely poll-driven in its policies then nobody in your party stands for anything, regardless of what they claim.
Our job as a minor party is to gain senate seats and block your continual push to become Tony Blair.
November 26th, 2007 08:19
Sorry, Stewart Mcarthur, not reynolds.
Our candidate policy was pretty simple. We tried to put candidates in marginal seats where they could do the most damage. It seems that every Liberal seat turned out to be marginal though, pity we didn’t have more candidates.
November 26th, 2007 10:04
Seems to me the best way to promote libertarian ideas might be to join a major party and get active. If all the keen libertarians out there doggedly avoid the Liberal Party like the plague, I don’t see why we should be surprised that it aint very liberal anymore.
With someone like Turnbull seeking the federal leadership, now might be a good time for a renewal of the ideology of the Liberal Party.
November 26th, 2007 10:12
Here is an alternative to the micro party approach, in the context of the US party system:
http://www.rlc.org
November 26th, 2007 10:37
One could argue that if the Americans had preferential voting, they’d be doing it our way. The RLC certainly haven’t been particularly successful in turning Bush into a libertarian.
November 26th, 2007 10:40
I just love you guys; the Trots of the Right. The rhetoric on political tactics is identical.
When can we look forward to seeing the first three-way split?
November 26th, 2007 10:42
I agree with Yobbo completely.
And I was happy to see John Howard lose his seat - this may well force change for the better and result in a Liberal party libertarians won’t have to hold their nose to support.
November 26th, 2007 10:46
The best outcome would have been the Liberals just scraping in, John Howard and Mal Brough losing their seats and our man Terje in the Senate, but you can’t have everything …
November 26th, 2007 10:56
‘this may well force change for the better”
Don’t bet on it Jason. The Hillsong Opus Dei faction isn’t going anywhere. They will fight to the death, theirs and everyone else’s.
The Liberal Party, especially in NSW, will soon resemble Beirut circa 1982.
November 26th, 2007 11:05
Spiros: Hillsong == assemblies of god,
Opus Dei == Catholics.
Put them in a room together and the fight will be monumental, no matter how much conservative thinking they might outwardly share. The Liberal party is in for a DLP style split if the NSW Liberals are anything to go by, unless they can convince one of their less divisive candidates to be the leader. Unfortunately, people like Brendan Nelson aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, and Turnbull is a little too wet for the more conservative minded. Costello has gutlessly exited stage left when his party needed him the most.
November 26th, 2007 11:34
I’ve had my say on the LDP here. The civil libertarians are your best bet, ditch ther gunlosers and take the Democrats’ mantle now that they’ve dropped it (but without all those good ideas for new bureaucracy, red tape and spending.
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I disagree that libertarians should “infiltrate” major parties - Maoists talked a lot about this sort of thing and fat lot of good it did them. The stacking problem in both major parties shows that a libertarian can slowly and patiently build up a support base, person by person, issue by issue, only to have it washed away by a stack. As to Stephen’s example: they look like kept boys, if not cheerleaders then certainly useful idiots to make excuses for government bloat.
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Microparties are the way to go. What you want is votes going back to the majors via your preferences, which creates leverage far in excess of your membership numbers and much more than is possible from within a major party.
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The LDP needed people more sensible than Terje, Bird and Lisa Milat, and it’s an indictment on that party that they don’t exist. Family First had a lot of potential (the Democrats at prayer). Their poor choice of candidates - not just the pervert from western Sydney, but also out-of-his-depth Fielding - have doomed that party.
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I note that Leon and Yobbo are at cross-purposes over atomistic libertarianism. Sort it out guys, keeping in mind that the rights of drug users and gunlosers are not the only rights.
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Thanks Jason for alerting us to the notion that the whole LDP strategy was so inflexible that it would only work under very limited circumstances.
November 26th, 2007 13:20
After the Liberals got burned up in 1993 when they had the best platform we are ever likely to see, the lesson was that you have to play pork and all the angles until the chattering and writing classes are prepared to address policy issues instead of being addicted to leadership spills and ALP boosting.
November 26th, 2007 15:40
Hey Andrew
and I quote from your post on 1st December last year.
“Whoever wins, I reckon John Howard has an early Xmas present. Rudd wouldn’t challenge if he didn’t think he had a reasonable chance, so even if Beazley hangs on we’ll all know that even much his own party doesn’t think he is fit to be PM. If Rudd wins, the ALP will have as leader a man without the common touch.
Love that common touch. Bet you howard wishes he could have got a different Xmas present though.
November 26th, 2007 15:42
If I was a libertarian, I’d be joining the Liberal Party now. Take advantage of the leadership vacuum and soul searching. Now’s the time when entrism will return its greatest dividends.
November 26th, 2007 15:55
Gazza: sounds pretty sensible to me. Rudd hasn’t got the common touch, people are overlooking that and reaching out to him anyway.
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Robert: what a party does at the parliamentary leadership level and what it does at the branch/conference/State Council level is not at all the same thing.
November 26th, 2007 16:00
Gazza - My most wrong post ever! Guess I should watch serious interviews less and Sunrise more before I assess the common touch.
November 26th, 2007 16:00
As a Liberal Party member and a sympathiser with many of the LDP’s philosophic positions I make the following two points.
The LDP is a disaster in marketing and campaigning. Who chose LDP as the short name ? As very few booths are manned the bulk of voters are faced with a large white Senate sheet with ten or so organizations to put the single ONE against. If the short name was ‘Smaller Government’ or ‘Liberty and Freedom’ you would suddenly vault to the top of the micro parties and have something to swap with other groups. Of the micros only the ones with words and known acronyms gained any votes in the booth I scrutinised.
In campaigning - I agree with the above - don’t go for semi-rural seats with possibly sympathetic members. Go for seats with members you can solidly contrast yourselves with, either socially (Andrews) or economically (Gillard, Roxon). There are plenty of low cost methods of gaining attention and support that would translate into the 2-3% that makes the Party and policies into a segment worth the Liberals and Labor chasing.
There are less than ten thousand Liberal members in Victoria. Perhaps two thousand are active. If any LDP people wish to give it a go, then join a Branch and make yourself useful. You will be chosen for positions pretty quickly in my experience - as the Party is desperate for new blood. You could get a seriously classical Liberal into parliament if you’d give it a real go.
Hear endeth the lesson.
November 26th, 2007 16:12
The Australian Greens are a credible force in Australian politics and will now largely fill the role once undertaken by The Australian Democrats. Anybody that thinks that the Greens have not changed the shape of the policy agenda over the last 20 years have not been paying attention. And anybody that thinks that the Greens came into being without first being a micro party also have not paid attention. The idea that enviromentalism as a political force would have emerged as rapidly from within the major parties without the existance of Greens is in my view naive. And just as naive is the idea that libertarian policy positions will emerge from within the major parties today without any competitive need.
My big fear about the Liberals is that in the wilderness they will more than ever look to the likes of the Christian Democrats for preferences and this will tip them further towards social conservatism.
November 26th, 2007 16:17
Tim,
Nobody decided to campaign with the abbreviation LDP. Your criticism is based on poor information. Perhaps you would like to do some homework (by reading the LDP blog) on why we got stuck with an acronym before you blame it on “poor marketing skills”. We all know it was a dud situation to be stuck with and it was never deliberate.
Regards,
Terje.
http://ldpblog.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/its-all-in-a-name-ldp/
November 26th, 2007 16:21
Tim
Thanks for the comment. But look at what they did to Prodos in richmond at the alt state election. the state machine chewed him up.
November 26th, 2007 16:21
See also here.
November 26th, 2007 16:49
Rafe
Useful analysis as always - the Libs abandoned classical liberalism because of op-ed writers? WTF???
We know you’re a die-hard Liberal supporter so stop making excuses for the unprincipled hacks, Rafe.
November 26th, 2007 17:32
Andrew, maybe watching Sunrise would help but it would also help to think how many young voters have no memory of a Labor administration, are spooked by climate change, dont understand a thing about productivity and wage fixing, maybe did some arts or sociology at uni, scan the headlines of the Sydney Telegraph, the SMH or the Age, would like lower interest rates and cheaper groceries and just generally think it is time for a change.
November 26th, 2007 18:31
Andrew Elder:
what a party does at the parliamentary leadership level and what it does at the branch/conference/State Council level is not at all the same thing.
As a member of the ALP, I’m well aware of that problem!
What I’m saying is that given the choice between paying membership dues to the LDP and the Liberal Party, now’s probably a good time to join the Liberals. I’m not sure I would have said the same thing under Howard, but the fact that he’s gone means there’s an opportunity.
We’re talking about two terms in opposition, which gives plenty of time for libertarian activists to make some headway — especially because, as Tim Warner points out, the Liberals are not a mass-membership party, and in fact the membership base will surely decline now they’re in opposition.
November 26th, 2007 19:57
I am really disappointed by how this debate is going. People don’t want to listen to each other. My view is that one approach does not exclude the other. Moreover I do not think there is one approach for all sizes.
November 26th, 2007 20:25
I like the Trotskist entryism approach. You guys could be the Liberal Party’s very own Militant Tendency. (It worked a treat for the British Labour Party.)
Go for it!
November 26th, 2007 21:26
Membership of the LDP can be free if you take the non-financial membership option.
November 26th, 2007 22:12
Spiros
This isn’t a soccer match , mr. Tifosso.
I like the Trotskist entryism approach. You guys could be the Liberal Party’s very own Militant Tendency. (It worked a treat for the British Labour Party.) Go for it!
You mean that we are Trotskys because we believe in the things we do. So it’s no longer what you believe that makes one a Trotsky, it’s how strongly you believe in it. That’s deep, Spiros. That’s some heavy duty thinking, Dude.
Would you mind explaining the economic argument of why you were against Workchoices. Not the politcs of it…. just the economics as I’m interested in hearing what you have to say.
I’ll start you off:
Workchoices and free labor markets are bad economics because……
Fill in the rest please.
November 26th, 2007 23:49
Ignore him JC, it’s boring.
November 27th, 2007 00:06
There is some silly stuff here.
John Howard didn’t back Peter Costello for the leadership because he thought he was too ‘dry’ even if he agreed privately with his views. He was right - you need to take Joe Citizen with you in politics - but even Howard got hammered because of public mistrust over WorkChoices. He finally exaggerated the electorate’s willingness to accept rational policies. Yobbo would have preferred an even more radical agenda that would have produced an even worse outcome.
The LDP is a political joke that sees national politics as a process of making gestures not gaining power and doing things. Let’s liberalise all markets, abolish the ABC, liberalise drugs and cut out all public schools.
These are screwball policies but, more than that, they are policies that will get a party (at most) 0.13% of the vote.
Politics just isn’t some kind of undergraduate game kiddies.
Who cares if LDP people do or do not join the Liberal Party. Its like the old cries of the Sydney Trotskyites to join the ALP. Even if this does occur (it fortunately) would have no effect on policy.
The Liberals want to regain power before 2050.
BTW Yobbo many of the things you say are factually false - Australia is still wedded to harm minimisation (in my view wrongly) and taxes as a % of income have not risen 35%.
November 27th, 2007 02:14
To JC’s comment on Prodos - his difficulties do not stem from his beliefs but from the fear his eccentric dress and hair invoke in very timid administrators. They believe that the press would concentrate on his very different look at the expense of covering a bland policy - the idea that you could use the press interest is a step to far.
I note the error in lodging the forms for the LDP - but having the Party name would have been only one step up - it still would not answer my comment. The LDP needs to be known as the low tax and or small government group. “Liberty’, “Liberal’ and ‘Democracy’ simply do not cut the mustard. They are simply not visceral enough.
November 27th, 2007 05:42
No Harry, but they have risen 35% when expressed in terms of a percentage of real GDP per capita.
November 27th, 2007 05:45
Shorter Harry: Being in power is all that counts. Actually making good policy is for amateurs.
November 27th, 2007 05:49
Yobbo, If you are saying that the average fraction of our income going in taxes to the government has increased 35% you are deluding yourself.
That’s right Yobbo. Standing on the sidelines and shouting slogans is worthless. It’s a kid’s game - not real politics.
November 27th, 2007 06:50
I calculated a real per person increase in Cth spending of 17.5% between 1995-96 and 2004-05.
November 27th, 2007 07:58
“Workchoices and free labor [sic] markets are bad economics because……”
WorhChoices had nothing to do with free labour markets. WorkChoices is 800 pages of legislation and 1000 pages of associated regulations.
WorkChoices was a political instrument designed with one purpose only, which was to destroy the trade union movement. That is why the unions were so against it and it is why they are so relaxed about Rudd’s plans to keep the economic substance of WorkChoices, while removing the trade uinion destroying part.
In time WorkChoices will be seen as one of the great policy, political and legislative dogs of all time, up there with Chifley’s bank nationalisation.
It’s a funny sort of libertarian who associates 1800 pages of law and legislation with free markets.
November 27th, 2007 08:20
Though WorkChoices was a bureaucratic mess, there were aspects of it that were worthwhile - such as reducing the scope for ‘unfair’ dismissal claims and ending the status quo as the baseline for future wages, which the Howard government abolished itself before it was defeated. But it was a political failure - which I will show in considerable detail in the next issue of Policy. The Liberal Party should let the repeal bill pass unimpeded through the Senate.
November 27th, 2007 08:41
Spiros
I didn’t want the union ads talking points memo. We know that. I want you to explain why free labor markets don’t work. Stay away from the talking points and explain why the marginal productivity is incorrect.
November 27th, 2007 08:45
I look forward to it Andrew. I can see the argument for letting it go through, but it is galling when Labor opposed all the (sensible) Coalition policies that had been taken to an election, such as the GST, Telstra sale, unfair dismissal, etc. It’s very tempting to tell Rudd to shove it for the next 6 months. The question is, if the Coalition no longer stands for (very incremental) labor market deregulation, what does it stand for?
November 27th, 2007 08:46
JC, I want you to explain what WorkChoices had to do with free labour markets. (Note the spelling of labour.)
November 27th, 2007 08:51
“It’s very tempting to tell Rudd to shove it for the next 6 months.”
Only if you have a political death wish.
Even if the Liberals decided to oppose the WorkChoice repeal, Barnaby will do a deal anyway.
But the Liberals will drop WorkChoices because it is political poison.
And while we’re on the subject of repentances, watch the next Liberal leader line in behind Rudd in supporting the ratification of Kyoto.
November 27th, 2007 08:53
Spiros
They were a little freer than they were before.
Now tell us all here why you think free labor markets are wrong economics.
(Thanks for the spelling lesson.)
Now don’t slink away from it, Mr. Tifosso.
I’ll start you off again:
The marginal productivity theory of labor is wrong because………….( note! not because Greg Comebet says so)
November 27th, 2007 09:09
I don’t think action to deal with climate change has inherent ideological problems for Liberals or liberals. Howard blundered on this. As Rajat says, IR is a different matter. But at least for the foreseeable future, democracy has to trump liberalism on this one.
November 27th, 2007 09:12
What does that mean, Andrew?
Rudd simply can’t demand the senate pass the law. That’s democracy too.
November 27th, 2007 09:19
hc’s comments are a great demonstration of why conservatives are the true enemy of liberalism. Prohibitionism plus watered down commitment to markets plus craven power-seeking for its own sake.
November 27th, 2007 09:28
Andrew
You have been hinting that you will be providing a detailed analysis of ‘what now’ for the Liberal Party. Can I pose a question that you may wish to consider. While you, I and many of your readers would like the Liberal Party to be more classic liberal/libertarian, what’s in it for the Liberal Party. Most Liberal Party members are interested in the Party regaining power and want policies that will enable them to do that. They aren’t interested in classic liberalism for its own sake. The challenge, as I see it, is making classic liberal ideas a compelling path to political success for the Liberal Party. Any ideas?
November 27th, 2007 10:14
It’s all relative - at least our conservative friends have a “watered down commitment to markets” unlike our progressive friends. I can name one progressive MP who is committed to markets, but I’m sure I could name more than one conservative MP committed to markets.
Power-seeking is also not undesirable. When the conservatives hold power that means the progessives don’t. That, in and of itself, is a good thing, albeit expensive. The big difference between the major parties is that the Liberals were embarrassed when they were labelled ‘big government conservatives’, for the ALP being big government conservatives is their electoral mandate.
November 27th, 2007 10:31
Sinclair Davidson wrote:
What’s that, an echo from 1972? I think it’s time you reassessed the parties Sinclair. Neither of them would be particularly satisfactory to a Libertarian I suppose, but only one of them has had a consistent approach to modernising the Australian economy. Hint, it wasn’t the tories. You only have to look at their respective records in government, not at their rhetoric. I think you are all forgetting that Howard was originally elected to slow things down - to make people “relaxed and comfortable”. It’s hardly the language of a major reformer, is it?
November 27th, 2007 10:55
“I can name one progressive MP who is committed to markets, but I’m sure I could name more than one conservative MP committed to markets.”
Sinclair, your lack of knowledge about MPs and what they believe is not evidence of anything except your lack of knowledge.
As a relatively recent arrival to this country, you have a lot to learn about the Liberal Party. As a party, it has had, at a rhetorical level, a commitment to “free enterprise”, but that is just a two word slogan. It has never had a committment to markets as such, except markets that have been monopolised by its friends, donors and potential enemies that it wants to appease. For a recent example, look at the utterly, utterly disgraceful policies of the Howard Government towards allowing new entrants into broadcasting.
Past Liberal governmwents have had noisy backbenchers who pointed out the anti-market policies of those governments. Bert Kelly did it in the 60s and early 70s; John Hyde did it during the Fraser government. They were regarded in the mainstream of their party as cranks.
It is notable that there was no one, not a single person, whp performed that role during the Howard years.
And if we are talking about conservative MPs, then we must include the National Party aka the rural socialists and its near cosuins, the .
Subsidies for turning ethanol into petrol, anyone?
Barnaby Joyce has a committment to markets? Bob Katter? Pauline Hanson?
Lindsay Tanner, he of the ALP left, has a more sincere committment to markets than the entire coalitipn put together.
November 27th, 2007 10:57
David, I think that is a rather skewed interpretation of recent history and I don’t think your central point is defensible. Labor did introduce many important reforms in the ’80s and early ’90s, most of which were supported by the Coalition (the exceptions were largely related to CGT and FBT about which the Coalition would now be ashamed). However, having championed a broad-based consumption tax in 1985, Keating vehemently opposed it in 1993 and 1999, thereby setting back economic reform in this country by at least 7 years (given Fightback!’s other components, arguably more like 14 years and counting). Moreover, the fact that Howard only introduced Workchoices after gaining a Senate majority suggests that Labor is now and would have been prior to 2004 the key barrier to a more deregulated labour market. Meanwhile, Labor in opposition has opposed virtually all further reforms. I think the ‘relaxed and comfortable’ line was intended to apply mainly to social and cultural changes. True, Howard has spent up big, but it is far from clear Labor would have spent less given the strength of tax revenues over the last decade.
November 27th, 2007 11:23
I must say I find it extremely encouraging that the left, and perhaps more particularly the boosters of the ALP, now want to claim all the credit for successive decades of neo-liberal reform. It’s a sign of how far they’ve come. The economic agenda of the right can now proceed, albeit cautiously, under Rudd and free from the rhetorical slings and arrows that the left apparently reserves for conservative governments.
BBB
November 27th, 2007 11:36
Rajat,
It isn’t much in eleven years, is it? The botched WorkChoices legislation (and the mad fairness test) which cost them government. As others have pointed out, WorkChoices + fairness test = labour market re-regulation and a far more onerous and intrusive level of government involvement in the labour market than before. Just because it allows wages to drop doesn’t mean it has “de-regulated” anything - wages are but one component of the labour market. Simple changes to the unfair dismissals legislation would have achieved more.
GST - well, you’re right. Keating flubbed it but you could argue that nobody was really politically motivated to push it through after deregulating banking, floating the dollar, handing policy over to the reserve bank etc.
CGT and FBT - clumsy reactions to the misalignment of company and personal taxation, and the stupidity of negative gearing. It’s about time this was sorted out.
“Relaxed and comfortable” - well, partly on social issues but remember, we were just climbing out of the “recession we had to have” which a lot of the public sheeted home to a government that didn’t know how to handle their freshly deregulated economy. Howard definitely campaigned on the idea that he would slow the pace of economic reform.
November 27th, 2007 11:38
Didn’t take too long. Anyone notice the seeds of Rudds demise yesterday? I mentioned this at Catallaxy.
He’s ordred his cabinet/ parliamentary party to go to schools and report back. This is why the bureaucratic little tosser is so hated in his own party. These people are adults and he’s ordering them to attend to school. They’re adults who have just won a big election and he’s bossing them around like they were kids. Some of these people were senior people in trade unionists etc. I’m sure you can just start feeling the love.
November 27th, 2007 11:45
Is there some sort of Italian v Greek rivalry going on here between JC and Spiros?
November 27th, 2007 11:48
David, I’m really having trouble understanding your position. First you say Labor in power were better reformers than the Coalition. Then when I point out that Labor blocked virtually every reform when in opposition, you imply that the Coalition was to blame for the slow pace of reform over their term??!! I feel like I’m living in a Kakfa novel and I think I will stick to reading them.
November 27th, 2007 11:49
Is JC Italian? I didn’t know that.
Go home, you wog.
November 27th, 2007 12:15
Why is Jc here JC over there. Are they two different people?
November 27th, 2007 12:22
Rajat, I didn’t blame the coalition for their slow pace of reform, just pointed out that they were less successful. You’re right - the ALP did oppose a lot of things although given that they are the “Labor” party, it’s expected that they would seek to represent the interests of their supporters (otherwise, what’s the point?).
Are you disputing that Howard was originally elected in 1996 to slow reform?
November 27th, 2007 13:24
Spiros, having only been here 13 years I’m sure there are many political nuances I’ve missed, but I’m certain that Barnaby Joyce, Bob Katter and Pauline Hanson are not Liberals (although Ms Hanson was once an endorsed Liberal candidate). Many of the silly policies that you can point to, such as broadcasting etc. are bipartisan. I would be very surprised if at the end of the Rudd era we would have seen open entry into broadcasting and banking or the abolition of AQIS, or the Foreign Investment Review Board. I would like to see the total abandonment of mandatory detention for illegal migrants. That too is bipartisan policy.
Tanner was not the progressive I was thinking of either. But I will take your word on it and observe him (and others) with much interest over the next few years.
Howard has had Petro Georgio, on social issues, all along, and since the last election he has had Malcolm Turnbull performing that sort role on the economy and taxation in particular. Then there is Marise Payne in the Senate on social issues too.
November 27th, 2007 13:36
“the abolition of AQIS”
Great idea. That way, we can get not just equine flu, but every other animal and plant disease in the world.
Obviously, it’s a smart idea to destroy the sheep industry with foot and mouth disease. No wonder you are a professor, Sinclair. I am in awe.
November 27th, 2007 13:42
“The marginal productivity theory of labor is wrong because…………” it cannot be measured ex ante (and in many jobs not measured easily ex post).
Workers cannot be sure they have a job at which their productivity will be maximised and employers cannot be sure they are hiring an employee who will justify the wage. As job separation and rehiring imposes heavy costs on both employees and employers, wages have to be set with a considerable rent (in the economic sense) - a wedge between estimated marginal product and wages paid. Allocation of this rent occurs in a bilateral monopoly game where “bargaining power” matters. This allocation will affect the distribution, but not the total quantum, of payoffs - ie while the rent exists the employment outcome is unaffected.
Now if you want a mathematically rigorous explanation, as well as a good deal of empiric testing, I suggest you start wih Pissarides (”Equilibrium Unemployment Theory”), Manning (”Monopsony in Motion”) and lots of back issues of the Journal of Labor Economics.
November 27th, 2007 13:58
I understand.
November 27th, 2007 14:06
DD, I’m not sure what you are getting at. I take that what you mean is that uncertainty and transactions costs mean that one cannot be confident that workers will be hired right up until the point where w= MPL. Okay, so in the real-world there is a ‘wedge’ which means that the labour market does not work exactly according to the pure abstract textbook model. So what? None of what you alluded to contradicts the fundamental point that a less regulated labour market means more jobs than a more regulated labour market. Surely that is not a controversial proposition in this day and age, nor would it be that organised labour prefers higher wages for ‘insiders’ to more job opportunities for ‘outsiders’?
November 27th, 2007 14:13
Rajat - you know the academic phrase “That’s all very well in practice, but could never work in theory”?
November 27th, 2007 14:24
Well, I guess I’m getting a taste of it…
November 27th, 2007 14:25
Aside from all the partisan stuff, there’s something important missing from this idea about whether libertarians should infiltrate the Liberal party: they aren’t in power, anywhere.
You’d be better off infiltrating the Labor party. You might have to hold your nose while doing it, modify the pitches a bit etc., but there’s little point winning over a demoralised rump.
November 27th, 2007 14:30
David - Jason Soon’s tried that
.
November 27th, 2007 14:46
As Boris said, if not in these words, some of the possible strategies are not mutually exclusive and diferent people can do different things. The main thing in the medium to long term is to improve the overall understanding of the issues.
One of the reasons for flexibility in wage fixing is to make it easier to reward productive people and workgroups, so people or teams that want to work harder or smarter can get the benefit immediately. That may have happened under Workchoices (with all its failings) which resulted in weird criticisms like “you wanted to keep lid on wages and look how they have grown”.
November 27th, 2007 14:57
I am tipping the Liberals will offer to pass the repeal of AWA’s in return for Labor changing its unfair dismissal laws back towards more resembling what the Libs had.
And the LDP is a lost cause. The trick to getting rid of the nanny state is to convince people they wont be hung out to dry if their life goes down the toilet.
People want to feel like help will be available if their life turns to shit. They don’t care what form that help takes, but the problem with workchoices was it made people feel like the Liberals were taking that away without letting them know that the help and security they want would take another form.
What the LDP proposes makes workchoices look like A-grade policy. It’s far more radical and has no chance of making people (and thus major parties) feel it is worth acheiving.
November 27th, 2007 15:13
DD
please. If labor market demand doesn’t slope downwards and you can prove that, I personally will you up for the economics prize.
Simply put the marginal productivity theory explains that labor will tend towards receiving compensation for its marginal output. Disequilibrium will occur if compensation is above or below that which the market will pay. Above will cause unemployment. Below over full employment. These arguments were settled a long time ago
.
I’m serious. If you think you can prove this wrong write a paper and put yourself up for contention.,
November 27th, 2007 15:25
You’d be better off infiltrating the Labor party. You might have to hold your nose while doing it, modify the pitches a bit etc., but there’s little point winning over a demoralised rump.
The economics side is a lost cause with the ALP as it is a nanny state party. I actually disagree with the premise on which some libertarians hold libertarian beliefs. Some say they are attracted to the libertarian philosophy on social issues and human rights views. I honestly cannot see how anyone can separate that from economic liberty, which is why I cannot see why some LDP members actually voted ALP as a second preference.
Admittedly the Libs have been much chop in their past. But at least the party manifesto suggests they are supposed be the small government party. Here’s hoping they one day make the jump but meanwhile just hold your nose.
November 27th, 2007 17:28
Yobbo is wrong that taxes during the Howard years rose by 34% in percentage of GDP terms. The reality is as follows:-
In 1996 federal tax revenue was approx $8500 per capita in 2007 dollars.
In 2007 federal tax revenue was approx $11500 per capita in 2007 dollars (excluding GST revenue).
Using the exact figures this represents a real increased per capita cost of federal governement of 34%. This is in spite of a decline in unemployment. And because both figures are in 2007 dollars it means that inflation does not explain the price increase. Why are we paying more for less? Or are we getting 34% more in government services?
And if the price increase is to pay for higher wages then why are we paying higher wages in the government sector without any productivity gains to neutralise the overall sting?
November 27th, 2007 17:51
Andrew, I agree with your remarks about the LDP - in the early days of The Greens it was important to keep the small party going to give people a continuing political ‘home’ - these days you can do that with a website/blog, though it’s still nice to have someone to vote for. (The very presentable Scott Ludlum from WA will be joining the Greens senators - so nice to cast that vote for him!)
Perhaps it just my biases but although I persist with Counterpoint on Radio National and scanning the dreadful Policy and Quadrant magazines, I just don’t find much that’s attention-getting or enjoyable from the right.
Libertarians need speakers like Paul Krugman - I turned on Background Briefing on RN last week and was immediately hooked:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/
November 27th, 2007 20:45
Russell, Policy is certainly rough in places but having received subscriptions to both it and Dissent for a while I can assure you which is the better magazine.
The Australian chattering classes on both sides of the aisle are mediocre - few if any have what it takes to strut on the world stage.
November 27th, 2007 20:46
Russell
The LDP spokespeople are not dishonest so we could never have people like the Krug man doing our bidding.
November 28th, 2007 01:30
“hc’s comments are a great demonstration of why conservatives are the true enemy of liberalism.”
yes it is known for 200 years that tories are not whigs. Nothing new here.
It is only in Oz that a conservative party is called Liberal.
November 28th, 2007 05:45
Paul Krugman!!! Surely you’re joking.
November 28th, 2007 09:49
I think Stephen LLoyd hit the nail on the head when he said that “People want to feel like help will be available if their life turns to shit.”
That’s the reason that Australians are so attached to the industrial safety net, Medicare, and the welfare state in general. And, whether they are right or wrong, they prefer for those protections to be centrally organised rather than have to go out and provide all their own protections. But while life it going well, they are also happy to go it alone, knowing that the safety net is there to fall back on (which is, after all, the purpose of a safety net).
The trick, as always, is how to provide people with the minimum level of security they need while minimising adverse effects. I’m sure it can be done better than it is at present, but it is not and never will be something that is amenable to simple solutions.
I agree with Harry, too, that policy always involves compromise - while some policies are better than others, I sincerely doubt that there is any such thing as a perfect policy.
November 28th, 2007 11:17
No, JC, I won’t write the paper because the papers are already written. They’re absolutely mainstream labour economics these days, and also becoming part of mainstream macroeconomics too (Google “Robert Shimer” for the latter - he, Chris Pissarides and Dale Mortensen are my tips for the Nobel recipients for this stuff).
The point of the theory is not that labour demand curves don’t slope downwards but that the individual labour supply curve faced by firms slopes upwards. This means there is a “wedge” between MC and MR. It’s often referred to as a monopsony model, though in fact it crucially depends on forward looking behaviour that is absent from traditional models of monopsony.
The practical implication is not that wage levels don’t matter to employment, but that they often matter much less than the neoclassical theory would predict and that they are in set in quite a different way to the tatonnement of the traditional approach.
November 28th, 2007 11:48
DD,
How come monopsony wages aren’t paid in the most monopsonistic industry of all - the mining sector?
“The LDP is joke” - the people who are saying this are bigots like Andrew Elder (his despicable attitude to gun owners is no different to homophobia or xenophobia) or conservatives who can’t hack the idea of a real liberal party (like Harry who is lukewarm about markets but wants the sheer lunacy of a national smokers register - yet he has the gall and lack of irony to call us “loonies”).
“I’ll join the LDP once you look more professional and start getting more votes” …. maybe we don’t want career politicians whoring us as a political spitoon to power.
November 28th, 2007 14:02
I dont understand the narrow way in which the LSP defines individual freedom.
They fight for the right to smoke anywhere they like, but the reason smoking is being kerbed is because passive effects impinge other peoples’ individual right not to smoke.
Surely individualist freedom should be judged on the extent to which is affects others’ individual freedom?
I really think many of the policies, in an effort to not compromise have become very blinkered.
November 28th, 2007 15:06
You come into my house, I set the rules, you don’t like them (pro or anti-smoking), you leave?
Get it? Property owners set the rules and conditions of entry. No one forces you to passively smoke in a pub, house etc you don’t own and are a guest of.
November 29th, 2007 01:45
DD, it is not clear that the outcome from a bilateral monopoly will always be efficient. Most of the literature on this problem takes a cooperative bargaining approach. These methods typically assume that the outcome will be efficient and then focus on how the surplus is divided between the parties rather than showing that the solution must be efficient. I believe that it has been shown that two of the standard cooperative bargaining solutions, the Nash bargaining solution and the Kalai-Smorodinsky bargaining solution, can be implemented as the outcome to some non-cooperative game. However, there are many non-cooperative games that do not result in an efficient outcome. As such, there are probably non-cooperative bargaining games that do not result in an efficient outcome.
November 29th, 2007 07:56
Here it is.. As much as it pains me to say it, and I cannot really be bothered letting the cat out of the bag, but here it is anyway.
The main problem for the LDP electorally was that they were basically not Australian in the traditional Menzies/Curtin sense of the word.
Almost everyone associated with the party was either born overseas, or had not made their names pronouncable, or was basically an outsider ie net addict or from Perth or sporting a fruitcake style postmodern literary fraud type of personality.
In a sense, too western for an eastern outpost of a monarchic imperium.
They had no electoral appeal and did not understand the basic sensory concept of a quiet, peaceful, pollution/smoke free environment as an ideal (however unlikely).
Basically, a bunch of web-weirdos glued to each other by unpopular ideas in a world they don’t understand.
Humphreys is too nice a bloke for politics and too much of group thinker for libertarianism. The others have been a bad influence on him.
Send the next patient in..
November 29th, 2007 09:13
RE: LDP
Also, attempting to be tax payer funded public servants (politicians) who make legislation whilst claiming to be against tax, public service, government and wanting to reduce legislation is an oxymoronic sham or idiocy.
November 29th, 2007 14:11
You’re a dull boy parkos. There are more small business owners in the LDP than public servants. Besides, there is nothing wrong with public servants screaming to be privatised.