Sigma’s Simulacrum of Reality

I went to check out a debate held by Sydney Uni’s Socialist Alternative and Labor Club on ‘Can Capitalism Be Reformed?’ at uni today.

I was actually a bit late for it, and so I missed the beginning. But there were a number of participants who raised some good points on both sides, I thought.

But first, an aside. The Socialist Alternative is this club which would undoubtably be banned in Malaysia Simply put, it advocates revolutions in order to rectify the injustices in today’s society by utilising mass street demonstrations and strikes, things which would give our Malaysian authorities a heart attack I’m not even sure whether they even subscribe to democracy or not. The way I see it, I don’t really know how are they are any different from a Communist Club, for all intents and purposes! Interesting how there isn’t really a communist taboo here in Australia, even though they were under the ‘red communist threat’ too in the past. This club is lead by a few hardcore socialists (I’m suprised there species of people still exist today…), and they’re super-active. They constantly organise all sorts of talks from Leninism to anti-Muslim-scapegoating, and their posters can be seen everywhere on campus. Gotta give them credit for their passion, at the very least.

So anyways, debating against those ‘revolutionaries’ were the ‘reformist’ Labor Club.

The Labor Club argued for utilising democracy and your vote in elections to vote them into power. They argued that this avoids violence, chaos, and that it has been proved to work in many countries. They argued that Labor governments (generally) managed to introduce minimum wages to improve the standard of living for workers, taxing the rich to redistribute society’s wealth to the needy, liberalise societies by embracing homosexuals, eradicating racism, etc. They also argued that there aren’t any successful revolutionary socialist models in the world today which has proven to be workable.

In reply, the Socialist Alternatives argued that the labour movement and social democracy originated from the concept of socialism in the first place, and were merely watered-down versions of it which has sold out to capitalism. They argued that capitalism cannot be reformed through that way, as since it pandered to rich capitalists and corporations, the leaders of Labor governments would be reluctant to truly defend worker’s rights by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. They gave examples such as the Hawke-Keating government, whom through The Accord, actually, restrainted unions and favoured corporations through privatisations, and Whitlam’s quote of “your payrise will cost someone else’s job”. They quoted the Iranian Revolution and the French student’s strike as examples of a successful revolution. They also argued that the concept of socialism appeals to the ‘good’ side of people, and that those failed socialist states failed not because of the socialist ideology, but rather because of flaws and shortcomings in their application, leaders, or version.

Anyways, it was a no-brainer to me from the start. I am 100% for the Labor Club and democracy. Nevertheless, the debate gave me an interesting insight on the minds of revolutionaries though. Enjoyable.