Frank wrote on Jul 21^st, 2026 at 11:05am:


I already demolished this garbage in

https://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1645944963/1485#1489

#1486

You didn't have to nous to reply.

Deplorable. 

Grappler Racist Filth wrote on Jul 25^th, 2026 at 4:28pm:


1. the "socialism" which delivers the essentials for all.

2. Menzies delivered the essentials for all because he was operating in the Keynesian 'welfare state' system (1946-1970s) funded by deficit spending.

Nevertheless Menzies sought to increase private home ownership  (not socialism), whereas the Labor platform emphasized public housing . 

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Yes.

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Yes

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Local manufacturing moved off-shore after the demise of Keynesianism, as a result of the Arab oil embargoes in the 70s which wrecked price-structures in the Western economies  (causing 'stagflation');  globalization via freetrade was seen as the way to achieve  lower prices for manufactured goods.

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The real culprits were the emerging crop of Neclassical economists led by Milton Friedman whose economic dogmas benefitted  bosses at the expense of unions (workers). 

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Given the increasing acceptance of democratic socialists in the US recently (eg Mamdani), I've lately been exploring the movement from Marx to various divergent 'socialist' schools of post Marx "socialism" - some like Eduard Bernstein emphasized  democratic change, others like Lenin sought more revolutionary change. 

Russia chose the revolutionary path directed by Lenin, the Weimar republic chose a  democratic path - until Hitler seized power.

So...fast forward to post ww2 Oz: 'Conservative' Menzies governed during the "golden age of capitalism"  (in the West) as described above in the Keynesian welfare state era; but now - post Friedman and Thatcher, Albo is facing a fight with ON because he is overseeing a fall in home ownership rates, with  increasing rents and increasing homelessness.

Courtesy of neoclassical WTO 'free trade rules'  and "small government/privatization"  ideology. 

lee wrote on Jul 25^th, 2026 at 5:32pm:


Menzies delivered the essentials for all - "socialism", under Keynesian deficit spending; it has already worked, 1946 -1970s, during the "golden age of capitalism".

Google AI will tell you why Keynesian deficit spending failed after the Arab oil embargoes in the  1970s. (Keynes had discovered that deficit spending could solve unemployment, during the GD in the 1930s (Keynes' ideas were adopted in Roosevelt's "New Deal"**) but massive increases in the price of oil in the 70s caused inflation which deficit spending could not solve.

**  "The New Deal was a series of economic programs, public work projects, and financial reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Designed to provide relief, recovery, and reform, it fundamentally expanded the federal government's role in the economy to combat the Great Depression.

lee wrote on Jul 25^th, 2026 at 6:20pm:


Please explain? (apologies to Pauline...)

No doubt your blind Conservative  brain is enforcing a very narrow view of the word 'socialism" (eg, restricting 'socialism'  to the Soviet command economy); I think Marx  would have been quite pleased with the Menzies 'welfare state' achievements, delivering  high wages relative to costs, with full employment. 

lee wrote on Jul 25^th, 2026 at 7:18pm:


1. You ignored backing up your assertion, namely: "You keep trying to rewrite history in your imaginings";  absolutely no attempt to prove your assertion...whereas I commented on the recorded history of economic thought from Marx through to Keynes who addressed  the errors in Classical economics during the Great Depression,   resulting in the post war economic boom in the West, until Friedman's reversion to  Neoclassicism  caused the steady decline in worker's wages and the current c-o-l crisis.

2.  Marx would have approved of Menzies' delivery of the essentials for all, though he mistakenly believed capitalist democracy could never deliver prosperity for workers, as Keynes' system did in the democracies in the post-war era.

But Eduard Bernstein (writing soon after Marx) observed rising living standards for workers in late Victorian England, so he promoted the idea of "democratic socialism"  - whichis gaining traction a century later with election of socialists like Mamdani.      

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Correct, as I already commented on above.

And?

lee wrote on Jul 26^th, 2026 at 12:58pm:


Ah the old Thatcher meme about "running out of  other people's money".

But c-i-govts don't need your money, by definition: they need to avoid inflation while maximizing economic growth - and dealing with market failure....