a change is gonne come…?

Ross Gittins has hit it on the head. His latest article sets out a clear argument on why Rudd is really just a young Howard:

Rudd talks about his grand plans but, in reality, he keeps closing off his options, lumbering himself with commitments to keep pursuing Howard’s policies.

Which goes to show that Howard really is the cleverest politician of his generation. Even if he loses this election he will have dictated the bulk of his opponents’ policies for at least their first term.

Howard would be ruling from the political grave.

This is exactly the point I was making in the previous post. Rudd is in fact narrowing the political debate more than Howard ever did because he’s elevating Howard into a concept, an economic consensus, rather than just the person we’ve had to contend with for the last ten years.

Which brings me to the question – is this massive swing to Labor really so radical a change? Isn’t it in fact Howard who is the radical in this election? Howard is the one proposing a radical restructuring of industrial relations. Howard is the one committing to a high risk foreign policy in Iraq (one that is becoming increasingly marginalised). Even his climate change policy is more radical than Rudd’s because it breaks from international consensus and sets up its own independent treaty. And before you can say ‘education revolution’ note Gittin’s article:

The Howard Government has increased its grants to private schools and changed the previous Labor government’s needs-based funding formula to one biased in favour of elite schools. Rudd has promised to increase grants and keep the Liberals’ formula until at least 2012.

Whatever Rudd may really stand for, the public perception is that he is the safe option, promising conformism back to the centre. I’m not in favour of Howard’s policies (far from it) but what their reception reveals is that, in the Australian psyche, real political change remains increasingly marginal.

Me Tooism

Surely, if there’s an ideology that has gained pre-eminence over the last decade it’s this worrying development – Me Tooism.

It’s a repeated criticism of Rudd’s campaign but it’s also nothing new. What we are seeing is merely the latest assimilating movement of capitalism coming to Australia a little late. According to the philosophy of Me Tooism, the obstacle to the unfettered reign of capitalism (the Left) is instead transformed into its positive impetus. What seems to actually moderate capitalism actually works better for it. Witness the Chinese communists presiding over the most explosive development of capitalism in recent history or the ideological shift made by Britain’s ‘Third Way’ social democracy.

What Blair did with his ‘Third Way’ was to take the chaotic, impulsive and unforeseeable Thatcher economic revolution and stabilise it, making it more palatable for voters by providing minimal safeguards and regulatory interventions. Indeed, a lot of commentators have noted that Blair has succeeded in forging consensus on and actually institutionalising Thatcher’s reforms.

My fear is that this is exactly what we are seeing with Rudd. ‘Howardism’ may not have existed before now but it wouldn’t surprise me if such a thing emerges after the election. Rudd is effectively repeating Howard’s economic conservatism and turning what before was a person into a concept, what before was contingency into necessity. The idea driving Rudd’s campaign is ‘we can do it better’ and by doing it ‘better’ he also further narrows the coordinates of the debate – now we are all ‘economic conservatives’.

Third Way social democracy from Clinton to Blair (and now Rudd) is in fact a model that ultimately works better for capitalism itself. Unfettered capitalism would lead to social chaos. Through moderation you indefinitely postpone the antagonisms of capital. The question is, as Slavoj Zizek notes: for how long?