WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.620 We weren't going to start until it was full, and it's full now, so that's good. Well done. 2 00:00:04.180 --> 00:00:09.900 Hello, my name is Janet Giles. I'm the Secretary of SA Unions, which is the peak trade union body for South Australia. 3 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:13.480 And I'm very honoured today to introduce John Buchanan. 4 00:00:13.840 --> 00:00:19.380 John Buchanan, a number of you may have also seen him or heard about a session he was in on Friday 5 00:00:19.380 --> 00:00:24.160 with a number of other people talking about what's happened to decent work. 6 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:29.900 John is well known to the union movement, but also to anyone involved in labour market research 7 00:00:29.900 --> 00:00:35.220 and what's happening to the labour market out there in Australia over the last, well, whatever years. 8 00:00:35.440 --> 00:00:41.700 He's the Director of the Workplace Research Centre at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney. 9 00:00:42.620 --> 00:00:48.160 The sort of work that John does is absolutely fundamental to our understanding about what's going on 10 00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:52.580 in the Australian labour market right now, particularly at a time when it's incredibly difficult 11 00:00:52.580 --> 00:00:54.140 to get data from government. 12 00:00:54.160 --> 00:00:58.200 We've had a lot of questions from federal government departments about what is happening to working people 13 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:00.120 and what's happening to the labour market. 14 00:01:00.360 --> 00:01:05.300 And many people rely on the work that John heads up at the University of Sydney 15 00:01:05.300 --> 00:01:08.340 alongside other researchers right around the country. 16 00:01:09.500 --> 00:01:13.860 I've had a personal connection with John through a project that's a national project 17 00:01:13.860 --> 00:01:19.200 that was just about to be completed on looking at what has happened to low-paid workers in Australia. 18 00:01:19.580 --> 00:01:24.140 He's had also a great involvement in looking at the training system. 19 00:01:24.160 --> 00:01:28.520 He's been a great person over many years and helping us to understand the whole area of skill shortage 20 00:01:28.520 --> 00:01:30.800 and training needs in the nation as well. 21 00:01:31.420 --> 00:01:36.380 He's a real labour market guru and an amazing person to listen to, 22 00:01:36.500 --> 00:01:37.840 so I'd like you to welcome John. 23 00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:50.560 Look, thanks for those kind words, Janet, and after an introduction like that I can only disappoint. 24 00:01:51.960 --> 00:01:54.140 I opened my presentation on... 25 00:01:54.160 --> 00:01:55.200 I opened my presentation on Friday by saying, 26 00:01:55.300 --> 00:01:57.120 hello from brain-dead Sydney. 27 00:01:57.800 --> 00:02:00.680 But I received quite a bit of criticism from that. 28 00:02:01.060 --> 00:02:06.000 And I did try to settle back then on complacent Philistines dominating Sydney. 29 00:02:06.460 --> 00:02:10.980 And I've now simply settled on the idea that basically Sydney lacks the cohesion of Adelaide 30 00:02:10.980 --> 00:02:13.580 and I'd rather turn it into a positive as opposed to a negative. 31 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:16.620 And so I think you from Adelaide should be very proud of this institution. 32 00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:20.020 I've found it inspiring to be involved here for the last three days 33 00:02:20.020 --> 00:02:22.000 and the fact that this kind of thing can still happen, 34 00:02:22.060 --> 00:02:23.560 that you can have a big open public debate, 35 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:26.940 gives one a real sense of hope for the future. 36 00:02:27.060 --> 00:02:28.520 So thanks for having me here. 37 00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:30.840 My talk this afternoon is called 38 00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:33.200 The Future of Work Isn't What It Used to Be. 39 00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:38.900 And the inspiration for this came from me looking back to my youth. 40 00:02:39.060 --> 00:02:44.940 When I was about 16 I was sent away on a kind of youth training camp 41 00:02:45.580 --> 00:02:47.420 organised by the United Nations. 42 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:49.340 It was a Dag Hammarskjöld event. 43 00:02:50.100 --> 00:02:53.540 And we had about a whole day's worth of lectures on the matter. 44 00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:56.120 And I was told that the lecture was going to be about the impending problems of the leisure society. 45 00:02:57.460 --> 00:03:03.360 And as a 16 year old I was traumatised at the thought that there'd be nothing to do. 46 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:08.420 Well, I've grown up to be an untraumatised middle aged man 47 00:03:08.420 --> 00:03:10.500 and I thought I should reflect on this contradiction. 48 00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:16.120 The perspectives I'll be bringing to bear are drawing on two things, 49 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:18.140 my intellectual training and my practical training. 50 00:03:18.260 --> 00:03:21.360 My intellectual training is in history, law and economics. 51 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:25.040 But I have to say I primarily see the world through a historian's eyes. 52 00:03:25.600 --> 00:03:29.520 But many of my insights are also drawn from my practical experience. 53 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:33.700 I worked in the Federal Public Service for seven years as a researcher. 54 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:37.720 But I was also an active union delegate and chair of a delegates committee. 55 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:42.360 And I've been a manager of a workplace research centre now for a number of years 56 00:03:42.360 --> 00:03:44.920 and I've learned a lot about the practice of management. 57 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:50.400 So in putting my ideas forward it's a blend of both this intellectual background 58 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:51.340 and the practical issues. 59 00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:51.660 And I think that's a really good experience. 60 00:03:53.560 --> 00:03:56.020 Let's start off with a few basic starting points. 61 00:03:57.540 --> 00:04:01.560 There was a fashion a number of years ago to say that we were at the end of history. 62 00:04:01.760 --> 00:04:03.760 As Francis Ween put it this morning, 63 00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:09.140 it boiled down to a grand final between the capitalists in blue 64 00:04:09.140 --> 00:04:11.120 and the communists in red and the capitalists won 65 00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:12.580 and we could all pack up and go home. 66 00:04:13.100 --> 00:04:19.420 But that end of history was not only a fallacious way of looking at the way in which society involves, 67 00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:22.680 it was essentially a code for the end of hope. 68 00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:25.800 Because if you're at the end of history you can't hope for anything better. 69 00:04:26.200 --> 00:04:30.040 And I think that that was wrong both empirically and ethically. 70 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:33.800 Second thing I think we've got to keep in mind when we're thinking about the future 71 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:38.180 is that we've got to get beyond this idea that we trend out from where we've been. 72 00:04:39.100 --> 00:04:40.680 Trends can be quite misleading. 73 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:46.420 We miss in particular the importance of understanding particular conjunctures. 74 00:04:46.820 --> 00:04:49.060 If I can just give a simple example. 75 00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:55.200 I am not a Leninist, but Lenin wrote a very despairing letter in December 1916 76 00:04:55.200 --> 00:04:57.680 saying he'd never see revolution in his time. 77 00:04:58.060 --> 00:05:01.700 And as we all know then the Russian Revolution broke out literally three months later. 78 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:06.420 So simply looking at a trend is not a very good way of actually making sense of the future. 79 00:05:06.900 --> 00:05:09.780 And finally for me when we're thinking about the future 80 00:05:09.780 --> 00:05:13.240 it's not another continent out there which we've got to discover. 81 00:05:13.860 --> 00:05:18.500 The future is very much something which is constructed out of social and political practice. 82 00:05:19.060 --> 00:05:23.900 And I'm of a historian's training who basically says the future is with us now. 83 00:05:24.140 --> 00:05:27.560 There are different trajectories possible within us and around us 84 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:30.620 and we've got to use our analytical capacities to tease out 85 00:05:30.620 --> 00:05:32.920 what are the possibilities in the current situation 86 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:35.200 and figure out what the potential trajectories are 87 00:05:35.200 --> 00:05:38.660 and then make choices about the trajectories we want to promote. 88 00:05:39.540 --> 00:05:41.100 So how do I do that? 89 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:45.080 Well I'm going to be using the three disciplines of economics, cultural studies and politics 90 00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:46.840 to elucidate on these issues. 91 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:48.940 And I'll start off with economics. 92 00:05:49.060 --> 00:05:52.380 Not because I'm a simple-minded Marxist 93 00:05:52.380 --> 00:05:54.480 but I'm a child of the Scottish Enlightenment. 94 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:58.400 And if you look at the background of the Scottish Enlightenment 95 00:05:58.400 --> 00:06:00.980 they were the ones, you know, Adam Smith, Hutchinson and the like 96 00:06:00.980 --> 00:06:04.000 who basically said if you wanted to understand how society was evolving 97 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:05.900 you had to look at its material conditions of production. 98 00:06:06.400 --> 00:06:08.180 This is an idea Marx picked up on 99 00:06:08.180 --> 00:06:11.980 but he simply refined a legacy that had been worked up for about 50 years beforehand. 100 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:15.360 And the beauty of economics is it opposes the question 101 00:06:15.820 --> 00:06:18.620 what are the problems that have to be solved 102 00:06:18.620 --> 00:06:19.980 if life is to go on? 103 00:06:20.080 --> 00:06:23.220 That's like the really bedrock question that's coming out of economics. 104 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:26.180 But simply because economics throws up this problem 105 00:06:26.180 --> 00:06:28.960 it doesn't guarantee how it will be solved. 106 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:31.400 And how those problems will be solved 107 00:06:31.400 --> 00:06:35.160 are ultimately defined through the prism of ideology and culture. 108 00:06:35.760 --> 00:06:37.600 And ideology and culture 109 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:42.220 allow us to determine what is both conceivable and desirable. 110 00:06:43.140 --> 00:06:45.940 And that's why I'm drawing on cultural studies. 111 00:06:46.260 --> 00:06:48.420 But having figured out that there are problems 112 00:06:48.620 --> 00:06:49.520 that the economy throws up 113 00:06:49.520 --> 00:06:52.440 and that ideology and culture give us options on how we can solve them 114 00:06:52.440 --> 00:06:56.020 it's ultimately politics which determines what prevails. 115 00:06:56.500 --> 00:06:58.260 And so the third prong of my presentation 116 00:06:58.260 --> 00:07:02.280 will be actually working through the political options currently open to us. 117 00:07:02.660 --> 00:07:04.060 So let's start off with economics. 118 00:07:04.400 --> 00:07:06.620 Now, can I say this is a scandalous presentation. 119 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:09.080 I've got half an hour to talk about the future of work 120 00:07:09.080 --> 00:07:12.100 and I'll strip economics down to five minutes, 121 00:07:12.140 --> 00:07:14.220 cultural studies to five and then politics to five. 122 00:07:14.380 --> 00:07:17.960 So if I cut a few corners I'm assuming a sympathetic audience. 123 00:07:18.740 --> 00:07:21.540 So, economics, what has to be solved? 124 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:23.820 Well, from where I stand 125 00:07:23.820 --> 00:07:28.140 economics is about meeting the imperatives of production and reproduction. 126 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:29.940 And this is a scandalous bit. 127 00:07:30.040 --> 00:07:33.980 It boils down to the problem of profits, people and the planet. 128 00:07:34.420 --> 00:07:36.600 So the three P's if you like. 129 00:07:36.820 --> 00:07:40.600 And the problems of profitability come from the dynamics of a capitalist society. 130 00:07:41.140 --> 00:07:44.420 And in the current situation there are two key issues 131 00:07:44.420 --> 00:07:47.600 which are constantly throwing up challenges 132 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:48.780 that have to be solved. 133 00:07:49.140 --> 00:07:51.940 The key ones in the material economy 134 00:07:51.940 --> 00:07:53.300 are the problem of excess capacity 135 00:07:53.300 --> 00:07:56.320 and in the financial world there's the problem of excess liquidity. 136 00:07:57.840 --> 00:08:02.360 The problem of excess capacity is something that I think we see about us all the time 137 00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:06.420 and I don't have to explain to people in Adelaide what excess capacity is. 138 00:08:06.540 --> 00:08:10.160 The news of the impending collapse of the car industry is almost a daily story. 139 00:08:10.780 --> 00:08:14.180 But for those of you who are not aware of the precise facts 140 00:08:14.180 --> 00:08:16.320 in the world car industry today 141 00:08:16.320 --> 00:08:18.640 we have as a globe 142 00:08:19.320 --> 00:08:22.800 the ability to produce one third more cars than we can sell. 143 00:08:23.140 --> 00:08:28.460 So the capacity to produce cars is way in advance of our capacity to sell them. 144 00:08:28.840 --> 00:08:31.860 Now that problem is not just confined to the automotive industry. 145 00:08:32.120 --> 00:08:36.780 It exists through all parts of manufacturing and the services sector. 146 00:08:37.100 --> 00:08:40.100 You might remember Ansett went belly up a while back. 147 00:08:40.300 --> 00:08:42.440 There was basically too much capacity in the skies. 148 00:08:42.620 --> 00:08:45.020 If anyone follows the US airline industry 149 00:08:45.020 --> 00:08:48.520 there's at least one airline constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. 150 00:08:49.600 --> 00:08:53.460 And if you look at retail, margins in retail are so small 151 00:08:53.460 --> 00:08:54.760 they're squeezed so tight 152 00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:59.000 because there's basically just too much retail space for the number of shoppers out there. 153 00:08:59.780 --> 00:09:02.000 Now excess capacity is not just an abstract idea. 154 00:09:02.220 --> 00:09:04.880 Basically it means that everyone involved in the production process 155 00:09:04.880 --> 00:09:07.280 is looking over their shoulders to figure out how to cut costs 156 00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:10.260 to try and survive in a world where there's excess capacity 157 00:09:10.260 --> 00:09:13.660 and to make sure that they're not the ones who are shut down. 158 00:09:14.160 --> 00:09:18.420 So that puts immense pressure on any system of economic development 159 00:09:18.420 --> 00:09:22.040 to change things, to reconfigure things. 160 00:09:22.800 --> 00:09:25.520 But it's not just problems in the real economy. 161 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:26.980 There are problems in the financial economy. 162 00:09:27.560 --> 00:09:29.880 We have now the problem of excess liquidity, 163 00:09:30.460 --> 00:09:33.520 particularly with the growth of private superannuation funds. 164 00:09:33.780 --> 00:09:37.540 There's more money in the world now than there are good investments to put it into. 165 00:09:37.920 --> 00:09:41.680 And so you see this headlong rush for the maximisation of shareholder value 166 00:09:41.680 --> 00:09:43.640 or it's now taking the form of private superannuation funds. 167 00:09:43.660 --> 00:09:45.960 So it's private equity companies figuring out how they can maraud assets 168 00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:48.020 and get the major returns from them. 169 00:09:48.200 --> 00:09:50.860 And this creates another imperative for change. 170 00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:53.500 So that's the first thing about the economy. 171 00:09:53.720 --> 00:09:57.200 The problem of profitability having its roots in excess capacity and excess liquidity. 172 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:02.400 The second big change in the economy is the changing sector or division of labour. 173 00:10:02.880 --> 00:10:05.880 We have lived through a revolution in our times 174 00:10:05.880 --> 00:10:08.420 and that revolution goes to the role of women in society. 175 00:10:08.920 --> 00:10:11.900 It is a revolution that has not got the recognition it deserves. 176 00:10:11.900 --> 00:10:15.720 In fact, I would say in 50 years' time, when we look back, 177 00:10:15.860 --> 00:10:18.620 people are going to say, what were they thinking? 178 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:23.360 Because what's happened is that a whole lot of care that used to be provided by women and households 179 00:10:23.900 --> 00:10:28.560 has diminished as women's labour has gone on to the open labour market. 180 00:10:28.680 --> 00:10:33.700 Whilst households have been very flexible in releasing labour into the labour market, 181 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:38.220 the labour market has been very inflexible in the way in which it has allowed care hours to be managed. 182 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:40.640 In other countries, they use the welfare state 183 00:10:40.640 --> 00:10:42.140 to put care in behind women. 184 00:10:42.280 --> 00:10:44.560 In the English-speaking world, that's not a developed tradition. 185 00:10:44.880 --> 00:10:48.660 But that changing sector or division of labour is right up there with the crisis in profitability 186 00:10:48.660 --> 00:10:51.740 as a major source of instability in our society. 187 00:10:52.460 --> 00:10:56.800 The third big variable to watch is the whole problem of the planet. 188 00:10:57.100 --> 00:10:59.820 We are now hitting the major ecological constraints on growth 189 00:10:59.820 --> 00:11:03.640 and this is something that's not just talked about by fringe environmentalists 190 00:11:04.420 --> 00:11:06.020 like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. 191 00:11:06.180 --> 00:11:09.220 It's now a mainstream issue in business around the world. 192 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:10.080 In fact, 193 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:14.780 I think the thing that I don't think we realise is just how backward Australia is in this regard. 194 00:11:15.400 --> 00:11:17.220 Business is so far ahead of the government, 195 00:11:17.280 --> 00:11:19.720 they've basically given up trying to get them to change their minds. 196 00:11:20.040 --> 00:11:22.380 And if you do any research on the net, 197 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.920 and you look at particularly companies in the finance sector, 198 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:28.080 and as you know I'm no fan of companies in the finance sector, 199 00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:31.160 but they've worked out, for example, particularly in the insurance sector, 200 00:11:31.340 --> 00:11:34.680 that if they can have one less cyclone every ten years, they make a squillion bucks. 201 00:11:35.260 --> 00:11:38.140 And they know there's more cyclones coming through because of global warming, 202 00:11:38.220 --> 00:11:39.680 so they want to do something about global warming, 203 00:11:39.680 --> 00:11:40.920 because it goes to their bottom line. 204 00:11:41.060 --> 00:11:45.180 I mean, the problems are of such magnitude now that even business recognises it. 205 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:46.780 So that's the first thing. 206 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:48.320 What are the problems that have to be solved? 207 00:11:48.480 --> 00:11:52.080 There's the problem of profitability, the problem of people, and the problem of the planet. 208 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:56.880 So how are we defining the options for confronting those problems? 209 00:11:57.060 --> 00:11:59.240 Well, this is where we have to turn to ideology and culture. 210 00:11:59.940 --> 00:12:03.320 And the challenge here arises from new ways of understanding, 211 00:12:03.820 --> 00:12:06.780 new ways of defining what is desirable for the future. 212 00:12:07.300 --> 00:12:09.140 And here there's the second scandal. 213 00:12:09.140 --> 00:12:12.140 These turn on questions of wealth, women and work. 214 00:12:12.380 --> 00:12:15.660 You can tell I'm dealing with human resource managers, 215 00:12:15.760 --> 00:12:17.840 they're like little couplets with the same beginning letter. 216 00:12:18.660 --> 00:12:19.820 Or triplets. 217 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:21.800 So let's look at wealth. 218 00:12:23.260 --> 00:12:28.920 There's a major debate broken out in notions of economic policy. 219 00:12:29.440 --> 00:12:36.800 And the fundamental shift we've lived through has been the discrediting of post-war Keynesian settlement 220 00:12:36.800 --> 00:12:38.760 and the emergence of... 221 00:12:39.140 --> 00:12:41.220 a new way of thinking about the economy, 222 00:12:41.400 --> 00:12:44.200 what's sometimes called market fundamentalism or neoliberalism. 223 00:12:44.380 --> 00:12:46.820 That's a very formalistic way of putting it. 224 00:12:47.020 --> 00:12:52.340 In the cultural domain, this issue has been analysed most effectively by a guy called Thomas Frank 225 00:12:52.340 --> 00:12:55.740 who's written a very important book called One Market Under God. 226 00:12:56.200 --> 00:12:59.720 And he's actually looked at the emergence of popular understandings of the economy 227 00:12:59.720 --> 00:13:01.060 and how we think about the economy. 228 00:13:01.420 --> 00:13:04.540 And he argues that capitalism goes through periodic crises, 229 00:13:04.660 --> 00:13:06.940 primarily related to crises in profitability. 230 00:13:07.680 --> 00:13:08.720 In the past, 231 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:09.940 when those crises have bitten, 232 00:13:10.440 --> 00:13:13.420 the population at large has been traumatised by them 233 00:13:13.420 --> 00:13:15.720 and has turned to the left for solutions. 234 00:13:16.160 --> 00:13:18.580 So if you look at the big crisis in the 1890s, 235 00:13:19.060 --> 00:13:20.240 unions are decimated, 236 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:22.600 the Labor Party is formed as a result. 237 00:13:22.860 --> 00:13:25.100 If you look at the crisis in the 1930s, 238 00:13:25.100 --> 00:13:25.520 once again, 239 00:13:25.980 --> 00:13:28.720 unions, the usual shock absorber, take a really rough time. 240 00:13:28.780 --> 00:13:29.880 People turn to the left. 241 00:13:30.020 --> 00:13:32.120 That's when you get the rise of the mass communist parties 242 00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:34.600 and the emergence of new doctrines such as Keynesianism. 243 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:37.880 What is distinctive about the crisis that we've been living through 244 00:13:37.880 --> 00:13:40.720 since the late 60s and early 70s 245 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:42.660 is that the populism that has come through 246 00:13:42.660 --> 00:13:44.320 has not been of the left, 247 00:13:44.460 --> 00:13:45.520 it has been of the right. 248 00:13:45.860 --> 00:13:49.220 And it's what he calls the issue of market populism. 249 00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:52.340 The market is seen as the solution to our problems, 250 00:13:52.460 --> 00:13:54.140 not as the problem itself. 251 00:13:54.340 --> 00:13:55.720 And that's a decisive shift 252 00:13:56.740 --> 00:13:59.160 that progressives have not had to confront ever. 253 00:13:59.660 --> 00:14:01.800 This is what's so distinctive about the current situation 254 00:14:01.800 --> 00:14:04.700 that people have had an assumption that as an economy goes into crisis, 255 00:14:04.740 --> 00:14:06.480 people blame the market for it. 256 00:14:06.580 --> 00:14:07.080 In fact, 257 00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:09.940 there's been a whole set of discourses put in place to say, 258 00:14:10.040 --> 00:14:12.260 no, we've got to have our own share portfolio. 259 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:14.160 No, we've got to have our own superannuation portfolio. 260 00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:16.560 That's what's going to solve our problems for the future, 261 00:14:16.660 --> 00:14:19.380 not reliance on creative intervention from the state. 262 00:14:19.780 --> 00:14:22.080 So that's on the one hand a vision of wealth, 263 00:14:22.540 --> 00:14:25.620 but market populism itself is now coming under a bit of an assault. 264 00:14:26.180 --> 00:14:28.700 Market populism has been on the rise now for a good 20 years 265 00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:29.940 and it hasn't solved the problems. 266 00:14:30.260 --> 00:14:32.120 And you've got a new current coming through, 267 00:14:32.160 --> 00:14:34.860 a new possibility being articulated as an ideology, 268 00:14:35.060 --> 00:14:37.060 and that's the ideology of sustainable development. 269 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:40.260 And this is something that is now starting to get some purchase 270 00:14:40.260 --> 00:14:42.520 where people are not simply relying on the vision of the market 271 00:14:42.520 --> 00:14:43.560 as the solution of the future, 272 00:14:43.660 --> 00:14:46.080 but there's another way of thinking about the allocation of resources 273 00:14:46.080 --> 00:14:48.740 and that goes to something that's ecologically sustainable. 274 00:14:49.420 --> 00:14:53.320 So that's the first strata in the ideological stakes, 275 00:14:53.540 --> 00:14:54.520 the vision of wealth. 276 00:14:54.640 --> 00:14:56.000 Do we go down the market populist route 277 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:57.880 or do we go down the sustainable development route? 278 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:02.040 The second element within the ideological frame 279 00:15:02.040 --> 00:15:05.020 that's structuring debate concerns the role of women. 280 00:15:05.560 --> 00:15:06.720 And from where I sit, 281 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:10.340 this is I think the number one space for struggles over the future. 282 00:15:10.900 --> 00:15:14.440 At the moment, women are on the retreat. 283 00:15:14.660 --> 00:15:16.820 I think the rights of women are on the retreat. 284 00:15:17.340 --> 00:15:21.720 And the ascendant ideology is one that could be loosely characterised 285 00:15:22.260 --> 00:15:25.180 as the restoration or the call for the restoration of family values 286 00:15:25.180 --> 00:15:26.780 on the one hand, 287 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:31.280 and on the other, the elevation of what Ariel Levy has called 288 00:15:31.280 --> 00:15:32.820 the emergence of raunch culture, 289 00:15:32.960 --> 00:15:36.120 that the biggest act of rebellion now 290 00:15:36.120 --> 00:15:37.400 is to wear a short skirt. 291 00:15:37.800 --> 00:15:40.500 This is something that she has analysed in quite some depth, 292 00:15:40.680 --> 00:15:44.260 showing that the feminist movement in the late 60s and early 70s 293 00:15:44.260 --> 00:15:46.340 arose at the same time as the free love movement 294 00:15:46.340 --> 00:15:49.340 and that you have real problems that as the politics 295 00:15:49.340 --> 00:15:52.640 of the autonomous women's movement was wound back, 296 00:15:52.820 --> 00:15:55.340 elements of the free love movement prevailed 297 00:15:55.340 --> 00:15:59.120 and survived in a way that the political feminist movement didn't. 298 00:15:59.220 --> 00:16:01.860 And that's meant that you've got quite some confusion now 299 00:16:01.860 --> 00:16:04.420 about what it means to be a strong, independent woman 300 00:16:04.420 --> 00:16:06.100 and what it means to be oppositionist. 301 00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:06.300 And that's not traditional. 302 00:16:06.700 --> 00:16:10.480 So you've got this family values, raunch culture vision on the one hand, 303 00:16:10.560 --> 00:16:14.640 but there are still survivals of an egalitarian vision of feminism 304 00:16:14.640 --> 00:16:16.020 and that is still there. 305 00:16:16.100 --> 00:16:17.480 It's not as strong as it used to be, 306 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:22.360 but it does offer some other vision of how women's role can evolve into the future. 307 00:16:23.060 --> 00:16:26.040 The third element of the ideological frame 308 00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:28.880 that's shaping choices for the future is a vision of work. 309 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:31.940 And here the stakes are becoming very high 310 00:16:32.580 --> 00:16:36.020 because there is a vision put out by Tony Abbott 311 00:16:36.120 --> 00:16:38.720 and the like that says any job is better than no job. 312 00:16:38.860 --> 00:16:42.280 That basically you should labour to justify your existence. 313 00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:46.580 And we don't care if it is of poor occupational health and safety. 314 00:16:46.640 --> 00:16:48.720 We don't care if it's virtually no wages. 315 00:16:48.780 --> 00:16:50.620 You should work because you should work. 316 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:53.780 Against that, however, there's a big movement coming through 317 00:16:53.780 --> 00:16:58.240 led by the International Labour Organisation around the idea of decent work. 318 00:16:58.540 --> 00:17:00.580 That as we evolve as a civilisation, 319 00:17:00.760 --> 00:17:04.240 we should ensure that basic labour standards are adhered to 320 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:05.740 so that people can live in dignity, 321 00:17:06.120 --> 00:17:09.640 and have the capacity to flourish beyond work as well as within it, 322 00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:11.360 so that there have to be decent rates of pay 323 00:17:11.360 --> 00:17:13.540 and decent hours of work. 324 00:17:14.220 --> 00:17:15.240 So there we have it. 325 00:17:15.260 --> 00:17:17.540 The economy is throwing up these problems around profitability, 326 00:17:18.780 --> 00:17:21.040 around the changing division of labour, 327 00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:22.880 and around the problems of the planet. 328 00:17:23.660 --> 00:17:26.780 Ideology is now giving us contradictory options. 329 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:29.620 There's visions around wealth, market, populism, 330 00:17:29.620 --> 00:17:30.820 as opposed to sustainable development. 331 00:17:31.040 --> 00:17:32.120 There are visions around women. 332 00:17:32.280 --> 00:17:34.920 Is it the family values, launch culture on the one hand, 333 00:17:34.920 --> 00:17:36.100 or egalitarian feminism on the other? 334 00:17:36.120 --> 00:17:37.940 And then there's vision of work, 335 00:17:38.080 --> 00:17:40.460 the kind of any job goes versus decent work. 336 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:42.260 What will prevail? 337 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:45.240 Well, it's here that we have to move to the third discipline 338 00:17:45.240 --> 00:17:46.900 that I mentioned I was going to use, politics. 339 00:17:47.560 --> 00:17:51.080 And here I've been very influenced 340 00:17:51.080 --> 00:17:53.340 and find the work of Karl Polanyi 341 00:17:53.340 --> 00:17:55.360 and people who work in his tradition the most useful. 342 00:17:55.840 --> 00:17:59.340 And Polanyi's analysis is underpinned by a very simple 343 00:17:59.340 --> 00:18:00.660 but a very powerful insight. 344 00:18:01.100 --> 00:18:04.460 And that is, in thinking about the situation today, 345 00:18:04.580 --> 00:18:06.100 you've got to recognise that 346 00:18:06.120 --> 00:18:09.580 this vision of the market as a self-adjusting mechanism 347 00:18:09.580 --> 00:18:11.100 is incredibly new. 348 00:18:11.560 --> 00:18:14.040 When you look back over the history of society, 349 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:17.440 that vision that somehow the economy was independent of life 350 00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:20.140 has only been around for about 200 years. 351 00:18:20.500 --> 00:18:24.420 And when you consider humans have been around for millennia, 352 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:27.500 that makes it an incredibly interesting idea. 353 00:18:27.800 --> 00:18:30.000 And he argues that it's in fact an idea 354 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:32.120 that is built on three fictions, 355 00:18:32.220 --> 00:18:34.620 what he calls the three commodity fictions. 356 00:18:34.780 --> 00:18:36.100 And the three commodity fictions are the three fictions 357 00:18:36.120 --> 00:18:38.460 that land is treated as a commodity, 358 00:18:38.740 --> 00:18:40.100 that money is treated as a commodity, 359 00:18:40.200 --> 00:18:41.680 and that labour is treated as a commodity. 360 00:18:42.580 --> 00:18:43.880 Land isn't a commodity, 361 00:18:44.020 --> 00:18:46.500 it's the source of life and renewal itself. 362 00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:49.640 Money isn't a commodity, it's a medium of exchange, 363 00:18:50.040 --> 00:18:52.380 it's the very thing needed to make a market order run. 364 00:18:52.560 --> 00:18:53.820 And labour, as we all know, 365 00:18:53.860 --> 00:18:55.660 is basically about humans living their lives, 366 00:18:55.720 --> 00:18:56.940 they're not chattels to be sold. 367 00:18:58.060 --> 00:19:00.960 Now the issue is, just because these things are fictions 368 00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:02.960 doesn't mean they are without their effects. 369 00:19:03.280 --> 00:19:06.100 So when you try to run an economy on the basis of fictions, 370 00:19:06.100 --> 00:19:10.300 it has quite destabilising effects on the social order. 371 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:17.420 And so Polanyi says this triggers a social protection impulse. 372 00:19:17.840 --> 00:19:20.360 And so as the visions of the market society 373 00:19:20.360 --> 00:19:22.280 were constructed through the 18th century 374 00:19:22.280 --> 00:19:23.540 and early 19th century, 375 00:19:23.700 --> 00:19:27.520 you had a social protection impulse come through pretty quickly afterwards. 376 00:19:27.740 --> 00:19:31.100 And this took the form of basic sanitation movements, 377 00:19:31.740 --> 00:19:36.080 so that the state stepped in to ensure basic standards of sanitation for voters, 378 00:19:36.080 --> 00:19:37.360 as well as to lower death rates. 379 00:19:37.620 --> 00:19:42.180 You had major pushes to improve public health across the board, 380 00:19:42.300 --> 00:19:43.920 and you had the struggle for the franchise 381 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:46.820 so that people would have some say over what happened in their future. 382 00:19:47.240 --> 00:19:50.300 And so on the one hand, while you have a vision of the free market coming through, 383 00:19:50.420 --> 00:19:52.340 on the other hand, you get a social protection impulse. 384 00:19:52.520 --> 00:19:54.640 And if you want to understand the evolution of market societies, 385 00:19:55.040 --> 00:19:58.480 it's this dynamism between free market ideology on the one hand 386 00:19:58.480 --> 00:19:59.800 and the social impulse on the other. 387 00:20:00.460 --> 00:20:02.620 Now can I say, the social protection impulse 388 00:20:03.420 --> 00:20:05.740 can be nice and friendly, warm and fuzzy, 389 00:20:06.080 --> 00:20:07.220 or it can be pretty nasty. 390 00:20:07.900 --> 00:20:10.120 And social protection can take the form, 391 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:14.140 on the nice side of being social democracy or open socialism. 392 00:20:14.580 --> 00:20:16.740 On the other hand, it can take a really nasty form, 393 00:20:16.840 --> 00:20:17.920 such as national socialism, 394 00:20:18.040 --> 00:20:21.020 where we're all bonding together against the market and the other. 395 00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:23.820 And so just because you have a social protection impulse 396 00:20:23.820 --> 00:20:27.620 doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a nice world that comes through. 397 00:20:27.760 --> 00:20:30.120 And we've already seen that in Australia with Pauline Hanson. 398 00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:32.280 Pauline Hanson's political constituency 399 00:20:33.080 --> 00:20:35.480 had basically been treated very savagely by the market. 400 00:20:35.580 --> 00:20:36.060 And I'm not saying that's the case. 401 00:20:36.080 --> 00:20:37.540