Quite so

[erudito]

I have been commissioned to review Tom Bramble's Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from Flood to Ebb Tide. I have drafted a review and sent it around for comment. One of my interlocuters made the following apposite comment:

The Brambles of the world irritate me beyond belief because they ultimately don't care about people, in particular the

Comments

Turnabout is fair play, I hear.

[catsidhe]

The [anonymous interlocuter]s of the world irritate me beyond belief because they ultimately don't care about people, in particular the people for whom they have spent their careers claiming to ostensibly care about. Tens of thousands of families are going to lose their life savings, and more, as the combination of negligible job security, company directors firing people to keep their own bonuses secure, and the existence of a housing bubble in the first place squeeze the unskilled and middle classes both onto struggle street, while the already rich by-and-large make out like bandits. Their solution would be to give lots of money to the rich and simultaneously cut back on training schemes and emergency relief and the like, in the largely futile belief that this will somehow translate magically into poor people not losing their jobs, houses, and savings, whilst simultaneously bragging to their friends that times must be tough, because so many people (they hear) have no savings (because they are paying off a house they can't possibly afford), no job (because of the aforementioned bonuses), and no house (2+2=4), and it's all the Unions' fault, every bit of it. How dare poor people try and gain any political power by gathering together! That's only allowed for businesses, political parties and important people!
A pox on them all.

Re: Turnabout is fair play, I hear.

[erudito]

Given that the commenter in question would not suggest the "solutions" you attribute to him, the turnaround does not work.

Re: Turnabout is fair play, I hear.

[catsidhe]

How could I possibly know? But then, he has no problems attributing a stereotype of a narcissistic Teh Left to a man I am willing to bet he doesn't know.

Nor have I read the book in question. (Did he, or was he relying on your review? Which, by the way, I suspect I know what publication commissioned it, and that I have a pretty good idea what you think of it, sight unseen.) But what I could read in extract was wondering what had happened in the intervening time, that what would have had riots in the streets in the 60s had people being told to quietly go back to work, and meekly doing so in 2007. Where did the fire go? Which is about the decline of Trade Unionism as a force, something I'd expect you and other Quadrant readers to be bang up for. That others don't feel the same way should not be a surprise, and nor is it surprising that this difference is being used as a point of “aren't we better than them” moral superiority games.

No, this is fed back into the trickle-down myth that the only way to have a functioning economy is by allowing wage levels and job security conditions that compare unfavourably with the dole, so that employers can hire and fire interchangeable warm bodies with impunity, even while those bodies can't actually survive on such pittances. Like what the US has in great swathes, and isn't it working so well for them.

He made an acerbic attack on an entire side of politics, which you proudly (smugly, even) shared with the rest of us, based on a risible and offensive caricature of what “they” believe. I feel no shame in turning it around and presenting a caricature back. (Although I do think mine a little less caricaturish than yours.)