Today, 2.33 billion of the world’s approximately 8 billion people face food insecurity. According to a<a href="https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000162840/download/?_ga=2.29482812.227984222.1739075536-913231167.1739075536">
World Food Program report</a>, 200 million more people are acutely hungry and 1.9 million more are facing catastrophic hunger compared with pre-pandemic levels, just in the countries where the WFP operates. Globally, billions of people struggle to meet their daily needs. Almost 700 million people, or 8.5 percent of the world’s population, live on less than $2.15 per day, according to the World Bank. This is not because of a lack of resources—in Nigeria, nearly<a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/nigeria/overview#:~:text=The%20poverty%20rate%20is%20estimated,largest%20poor%20population%20after%20India.">
40 percent of people live below the poverty line</a>, while the country’s richest man has a net wealth of<a href="https://www.pulse.ng/articles/lifestyle/richest-man-in-nigeria-2024072703141057049">
$15.9 billion</a>.
Developed countries are not as different as is usually assumed. In the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, 11 percent of the population live in poverty. In Australia, if you are part of the<a href="https://povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au/inequality/"> wealthiest 20 percent</a>, you have more than 90 times the wealth of the bottom 20 percent. In the course of two decades, the wealth of the rich has tripled, from 8.4 percent of GDP in 2004 to 23.7 percent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/13/the-rich-are-getting-richer-australias-wealth-divide-continues-to-widen">in 2024</a>. In the United Kingdom,<a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk">
22 percent of people live in poverty</a>. 
From the global north to the global south, poverty and inequality are endemic. 
There’s nothing natural about this. In pre-class societies, there was no wealthy elite that flourished while others suffered. In their book The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the State for Monarchy, Slavery and Empire, Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus discuss the Caribou Eskimo society, a community where “as with so many foragers, no one amassed a surplus. No one claimed exclusive rights to the land. Traps and weirs were communal property. During famines, all food was shared with neighbours”. 
Instead of history being a war of all against all, humanity existed for tens of thousands of years in societies like those of the Caribou Eskimo—as a collective and social species. Indeed, this is what marked us out from others. The divisions based on wealth and control of society’s resources that are supposedly so natural emerged only relatively recently, and not without resistance. There are examples uncovered by archaeologists of people overthrowing burgeoning elites and turning their<a href="https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/the-origins-of-womens-oppression-a-defence-of-engels-and-a-new-departure/">
temples into trash heaps</a>. A historian of one, located in neolithic Anatolia, reports: “On a certain day 9,200 years ago the manorial houses were burnt down ... The temple was torn down and burnt, and converted into a municipal waste dump. The slums in the west disappeared for good ... There were no more houses or shacks built to an inferior standard ... All hints to social differences were erased”.
But despite such outbreaks of resistance, ruling classes nevertheless emerged and came to dominate the mass of people. This marked the end of communities based on collective control and egalitarianism, and the beginning of societies ruled by a privileged elite, concerned almost solely with protecting their elevated social position. Jump ahead a few thousand years and a few different versions of class society, and we have capitalism: a society that has spread globally, destroys the planet it relies on to exist, has brought humanity to the brink of nuclear war and leaves people to starve to death while supermarkets destroy unsold food to protect their profits.
Today, corporations and nation-states hold a virtual monopoly on society’s wealth, and their main goal is to accumulate more wealth so as to better compete with rival corporations and nation-states. They best do this by forcing down wages, flouting environmental and safety regulations and reducing the quality of the materials they use. Walmart and Amazon are good examples. <a href="https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/press-releases/amazon-and-walmart-driving-economic-inequality-in-the-us-oxfam-says/#:~:text=Oxfam's%20analysis%20highlights%20key%20ways,pay%20to%20$14%20an%20hour.">An Oxfam report</a> into how Walmart and Amazon increase global inequality argues that “the companies’ outsized control empowers them to depress average wages, creating a disastrous reality for the American worker at a time when many already struggle to get by”. These are particularly high-profile examples, but every business aims to achieve this sort of “success”. 
The ideology of capitalism claims that, as the wealthy elite become wealthier, the rest of us ultimately benefit. This idea is popularised in cliches like “a rising tide lifts all boats” and in the concept of “trickle-down economics”. This obscures a basic reality of capitalism: that unless the majority of people are denied access to the goods and services they need to survive or an independent means to procure them, they will not be compelled to work for the capitalist class, and there will consequently be no profits. Capitalism cannot exist if the majority of people are not compelled to work for a boss, and the prevailing form of compulsion is relative poverty. 
The people systematically denied access to society’s wealth so that they can be exploited by the capitalists are collectively referred to as the working class. It includes all those who work for a wage and exercise little or no control over their labour or the labour of others, and all those dependent on waged workers for their survival—children, the elderly, sick and those who care for them. The working class exists in every country in the world and includes the majority of members of every oppressed group. It is the majority of the population in most countries in the world today. 
At work, workers are exploited. Not because they wear rags or live in the gutter, but because the value of what they produce at work is far in excess of what they are paid. The capitalists keep the rest, using some of it to cover operating overheads, some of it to expand their production operations and some of it for themselves. This gives them not only enormous privilege in terms of living standards, but also the ability to make decisions about society, what it produces and how, which workers are denied. 
The relative poverty and lack of power and control that characterise working-class life and working-class communities mean they are more likely to experience social problems, like crime and violence. Because capitalism can’t solve these problems, it instead criminalises the behaviour and creates industries, like the prison system, to “deal” with it. The United States’ annual <a href="https://www.vera.org/publications/what-policing-costs-in-americas-biggest-cities">police</a>
and <a href="https://ijrd.csw.fsu.edu/sites/g/files/upcbnu1766/files/media/images/publication_pdfs/Economic_Burden_of_Incarceration_IJRD072016_0_0.pdf">prison budge</a>t amounts to nearly $200 billion. The existence of an extensive criminal “justice” apparatus both serves to intimidate working-class people into submission and to create a profit-making opportunity out of those who don’t submit to capitalism’s authority.
And while all workers suffer oppression by way of poverty and exploitation, poverty exacerbates distinct forms of oppression like racism and sexism, and amplifies them. In his book Not So Black and White, Keenan Malik shows how poorer Black Americans are more likely to experience police violence than their college-educated counterparts: “Studies show, unsurprisingly, that police violence is correlated with poverty—the poorer a neighbourhood, the greater the risk of an individual being killed by the police. African Americans are disproportionately poor and working class; poverty and class location must also play a role in their being victims of police violence”. 
In the United States, 56 percent of those living in poverty are women, and in Australia older women are one of the fastest growing homeless populations. <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-life-expectancy/latest-release">Indigenous men</a> in Australia are likely to die nearly nine years earlier than their non-Indigenous counterparts, and in the Northern Territory this balloons out to nearly two decades earlier. Indigenous people live in poverty at a much higher rate than the rest of the population, 43 percent of Indigenous people earning less than <a href="https://www.indigenoushpf.gov.au/measures/2-08-income#keymessages">$500 a week</a>. Refugees in Australia are likewise disadvantaged, <a href="https://asrc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ASRC_Policy_Through_Poverty_Finalv1.pdf">82 percent of those seeking asylum</a> having no source of income and relying on charity services to survive. 
The experiences of oppression are different between these groups. But there is a common thread underpinning these marginalised groups, which is poverty and lack of power. All are under-represented in the ranks of the billionaire class and over-represented in those socially disadvantaged and marginalised. All are materially worse off than average.
The capitalist class doesn’t rely on poverty only to exploit people at work. It also helps them ensure cooperation with the worst excesses of its brutal agenda. An example is the military, one of the most savage institutions in the world. The majority of people don’t join their country’s military because of patriotism or a desire to fight, but out of economic necessity or because it is a way to access services they otherwise wouldn’t have access to. Writing in <a href="https://jacobin.com/2018/10/military-recruits-full-employment-welfare-state">Jacobin</a>, Meagan Day argues that the US military provides for poor people what a strong welfare state should: “In fact, it’s a comparatively attractive option for many people, in particular because it offers a steady income, free college and job training, and a lifetime of public health care”. This is often referred to as economic conscription. Instead of drafting people into the military, people are coerced into it through relative deprivation. 
Poverty also functions to keep workers weak and divided. The capitalists want to ensure that a section of the population is unemployed so that workers don’t have too much power vis-a-vis their bosses and so that there is what Marx referred to as a “reserve army of labour” to mobilise in times of industrial action or other labour shortages. For the Reserve Bank of Australia, having around 4 percent of the population denied access to an income is ideal. The real prospect of unemployment also acts as a discipline on workers: concern about losing work can make workers put up with low wages and bad conditions. 
The world we live in seems like a never-ending series of injustices. But there are threads that tie these injustices together, and the most important one is the relative impoverishment of the majority of the population. Relative poverty underpins exploitation and social inequality and is indispensable for social control. Capitalism simply could not function without it. 
If we want a more just and equal society, we need to eradicate poverty. To do this requires the overthrow of capitalism. Charity balls and LiveAid concerts are not going to cut it. The answer to poverty and the solution to oppression are one and the same: revolution and the construction of a socialist society.

Anneke Demanuele

Why capitalism needs poverty

The University of Technology Sydney has marked International Women’s Day by banning a poster asking the question: “Why are teenage boys so misogynistic?”. 
The meeting was called to discuss rising sexist attitudes among, and the broader right-wing drift of, young men. Numerous indicators point to this reality, including a recent King’s College London survey showing that young men are far more likely than young women, and even older men, to say that men have it tougher than women today. In the United States, Donald Trump increased his support among young men by 15 percentage points last year compared to the previous election; in Australia, young men support Liberal leader Peter Dutton in much higher numbers than young women. Also, a recent Monash University study found that female teachers are facing a rise in misogynistic behaviour everywhere—and many are quitting the profession because of it. 
One woman who attended the meeting told the audience that in her first-year business tutorial, the tutor had to tell off men in the class because they were rating every woman who spoke in the discussion in the zoom chat.
Most universities have put up posters celebrating women and our contributions to society. But the UTS administration has sided with Andrew Tate and Donald Trump stans. 
UTS was alerted to the poster by at least one male student on campus, who also emailed the UTS Socialist Alternative club complaining that he feels “unwelcome and stereotyped” by the mere presence of a poster advertising a campus meeting about the growth of the far right and its expression in the political attitudes of young men. 
For years, the political right called the left “snowflakes”. People wrote hundreds of books and articles lamenting the “coddling” culture in universities and about how the political left and progressives can’t cope with ideas they don’t agree with. Right-wing provocateurs such as Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson made famous phrases such as “facts don’t care about your feelings”.
How the tide has turned. It seems that young men from the political right, like those at UTS, are now the ones who might start campaigning for safe spaces and trigger warnings. 
The Centre for Social Justice &amp; Inclusion handles complaints relating to sex, gender identity, race and disability discrimination. According to its equity policy, it seeks “diversity, fairness, social justice and ethical treatment of others”. The policy seems to have been written with oppressed groups in mind, so it’s remarkable to see it being used against women on campus. 
The directive to remove the poster is also related to the university fad of introducing policies to protect the “psychosocial safety” of staff and students, which were initially designed to silence Palestine solidarity activists. The feelings and emotions of those in positions of power are being protected while those trying to address injustices face disciplinary hearings. 
A staff member from Activate, which manages campus life, instructed the club to remove the posters during a phone call with Yasmine Johnson, UTS Socialist Alternative club president and the woman who hosted the meeting.
“He said to me, ‘You followed all the correct procedures, but unfortunately you are going to have to take these down. This has gotten around the uni top level very fast—the deputy vice-chancellor, the equity department, everyone knows’”, Johnson recounted to Red Flag. “He even said that the deputy VC instructed that the posters be removed as they violate the UTS equity policy.” 
That university management is worried about some men being distressed because people are discussing sexism tells you something about the political shift that is happening. 
Johnson reported being mobbed by Trump supporters while she handed out leaflets for the meeting. They loudly professed their love for the racist and sexist president of the United States. They were precisely the sort of young men who have been politically drawn to the far right and influenced by the violent misogyny of the sex-trafficker Andrew Tate. They are much more confident to express their bigoted attitudes, which will only become worse as institutions like UTS support them.
By not wanting to trigger any boys on campus who have trouble distinguishing between fact (young men are pretty sexist) and their feelings (a poster made me sad), the UTS administration has silenced the free speech of young women who are trying to fight back against the growth of a global far right.

University of Technology Sydney stands with boys with big feelings

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has released its findings and recommendations from the inquiry into antisemitism on university campuses in Australia. They call for an even greater crackdown on free speech and the right to protest.
The inquiry was launched last year in response to the mass Palestine-solidarity movement on university campuses. In the wake of these anti-war actions, university administrations launched a series of attacks on student activists. Supporters of Israel made a string of bogus complaints about campuses purportedly developing a hostile atmosphere towards Jewish students, claims that were then amplified by the media. 
The panel’s recommendations include that universities tighten and expand their disciplinary processes and report complaints to a national student ombudsman. If universities don’t act on the recommendations, the government might launch a judicial inquiry. 
Another recommendation is for universities to adopt the International Holocaust Memorial Association’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been criticised by many for its potential to associate any criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism. The recommendation has been accepted by all universities across Australia, which have agreed on a definition of antisemitism that closely mirrors the IHRA definition. 
A section of the definition reads: “Criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions and when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel ... Substituting the word ‘Zionist’ for ‘Jew’ does not eliminate the possibility of speech being antisemitic”. This means students and staff can be disciplined for calling for a free Palestine or for criticising Israel or Zionism—which is a political ideology. 
As Senator Lidia Thorpe noted in comments about the inquiry: 
“[T]he Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Ms Farida Shaheed, observed that universities in the United Kingdom have used the working definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance to ‘silence lawful speech supportive of Palestinian human rights and the right to self-determination’”. 
The National Tertiary Education Union and the National Union of Students have voiced concerns about adopting the IHRA definition because it may restrict pro-Palestine advocacy and limit academic freedom. 
Another recommendation directs the government to investigate whether the Fair Work Act should be altered to allow universities to fire staff more easily. <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/academics-under-attack-for-supporting-palestine">As reported in Red Flag</a>, universities are already unfairly treating staff who stand up for Palestine. Randa Abdel-Fattah, a Palestinian academic, is facing a smear campaign from the press; her own vice-chancellor, who fronted the inquiry, says the Act is impeding his ability to fire her. 
The inquiry was a blatant witch hunt against supporters of Palestine. For instance, one submission’s “proof” of bigotry at the University of Sydney consisted of anti-war posters calling for weapons companies to be kicked off campus, Muslim men praying at the Gaza solidarity encampment and a sign that read “apartheid free zone”. 
According to Dr Noam Peleg, a Jewish professor of law at the University of New South Wales, Zionist organisations advised people on how to flood the inquiry with submissions. He wrote in his submission (which was largely ignored by the panel): “These organisations encouraged individuals to spam the commission with submissions that include so-called evidence about antisemitism on campus by circulating templates ... [They] called this template a ‘Submission Cheat Sheet’”. 
In their submissions to the panel, university administrations said they had already tightened disciplinary procedures, banned encampments and made it easier for people to complain. Nevertheless, the inquiry recommends that universities do more to restrict democratic rights and to act quickly. 
Politicians, the corporate media and university administrators are campaigning hard to conflate Palestine-solidarity activism with an apparent rise in antisemitism. There have been abhorrent acts of antisemitism, such as attacks on synagogues or swastika graffiti. But virtually no evidence is provided to uphold the claim that there is a rise of antisemitism on university campuses. 
Instead, genuinely antisemitic acts are being cynically tied to legitimate protests against Israel’s war crimes—as though the people who oppose today’s genocide are no different from those who celebrate the Holocaust. Equally perversely, many people who openly support Israel’s actions in Palestine claim to be the victims of a broad anti-war sentiment, despite there being no official sanctions or inquiries into their pro-war behaviour and intimidation of Arab and Muslim students. Some Australian citizens have even flown to the Middle East and joined the Israeli military’s offensive in Gaza—yet there is not a peep of opposition to this in the media or among the political class.
If there were a genuine increase in racism against Jewish staff and students on campuses, silencing protests would not be the way to deal with it. In its submission, the Human Rights Law Centre argued that actions curtailing racism “must not come at the cost of silencing critical or dissenting voices”. But that is precisely what is happening at universities across Australia. 
The University of Western Australia administration has banned almost all forms of mass political communication between campus activists and students. Students can no longer put up posters or hand leaflets to other students, affix signs, banners or other displays, or use chalk on pavements. If students want to hold “events relating to the current Middle East crisis”, they must ask for approval ten days in advance and detail how they will “ensure the safety” of attendees. 
Not only are basic activist activities banned, but students also “must refrain from using phrase[s] and slogans that are contrary to the university’s policies (in either written or verbal form) at any time or place on campus”. This is a flagrant restriction of free speech. 
This mirrors the introduction of the University of Sydney’s civility code, which prohibits the use of “contested” phrases unless their meaning is explicitly defined. Slogans such as “from the river to the sea” will require further explanation if students and staff are to avoid misconduct and disciplinary hearings. 
The university recently wrote that “practices such as sit-ins and protests in buildings and classrooms are out of step with contemporary work health and safety standards and our obligations to maintain psychosocial safety on campus”. 
Dr Peleg has described how “frameworks such as cultural safety and psychosocial safety are also used to attack, harass and bully staff and students, Palestinians and their allies, including Jewish staff who oppose Israel’s actions. This is done in the name of combating antisemitism”.
Universities and governments are also introducing policies and legislation to censor and punish individuals and groups who protest peacefully and express critical ideas. Charges of antisemitism are, disturbingly, being weaponised to introduce these measures. We must resist the push to limit free speech and the right to protest. We will need them as the drive to war and the growth of the far-right gains momentum.

Antisemitism inquiry recommends crackdown on free speech

If you walked past Mark McGowan, former premier of Western Australia, and gave him a serve for his role in locking up Indigenous children, you would probably feel pretty good about yourself. If it was filmed and put online, you might even end up in a segment on the Project. If you happened to do it at Curtin University in Western Australia, you’d probably be suspended. This is what happened to a student at Curtin last month, one of many students across the country facing discipline over justified acts of protest. 
<a>Red Flag has covered</a> the increased repression on campuses in the wake of the Gaza solidarity encampments. In response to the Palestine solidarity movement, universities changed their policies and student charters to make it even harder to speak out against the genocide in Gaza. We are now seeing the impact of these changes, as well as the political impact of the parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism on campuses. The historic student general meetings (SGM), in which thousands of students nationwide have voted in solidarity with Palestine, have also kicked off a new wave of repression. 
There are dozens of examples of universities repressing pro-Palestine activism in just the last few months. Here are a few of them. The Students for Palestine club at the University of New South Wales has been suspended in the wake of the SGM. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology has launched disciplinary proceedings against three students for their participation in a political meeting at that campus. The University of Sydney shut down a bake sale raising funds for Gazans and has brought misconduct charges against students for organising a Palestine solidarity protest on campus, including an anti-Zionist Jewish student. Melbourne University is hunting down students who occupied the office of a pro-Israel lecturer. The vice-chancellor interfered in the student union elections at the University of Technology Sydney to ban mention of the word “genocide”. And at the Australian National University, the spending of elected student union officers is being audited because they promoted Palestine solidarity. Not only students: two academics at the University of Sydney are being accused of racial vilification over their support for Palestine. 
Up and down the country, space for student activism—almost a rite of passage for young people—is narrowing, and those who dare to speak out against the genocide in Gaza are being dragged through misconduct hearings. It’s difficult to grasp the full scale of this, as many universities impose confidentiality clauses that prevent students from speaking publicly about their repression.
The political backdrop for these attacks is a hysterical campaign by the mainstream media, the Labor government, the Liberals and Zionist organisations against Palestine solidarity activism. This resulted, among other things, in a Senate committee about a supposed wave of antisemitism on campuses. Many of the submissions to the committee made the well-rehearsed argument that any criticism of Israel amounts to a racist attack on Jewish people. The purpose here is to accuse pro-Palestine activists of being antisemites who must be stopped.
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott in particular was accused of not doing enough to suppress this supposed problem. Submissions and commentators, including opposition leader Peter Dutton, attacked him for not instantly shutting down the Gaza solidarity encampment on his campus. Jillian Segal, the recently appointed special envoy to combat antisemitism, wrote a submission to the Senate hearing which stated that there is a “pervasive hatred” of Jewish people at the University of Sydney, and that antisemitism is an “embedded” part of university culture. Her accusation is based on a few interviews with Jewish staff and students, all of whom support Israel and are opposed to the anti-war movement. In the months after the campaign against Scott began, the university launched a witch-hunt against known Palestine solidarity activists.
In the initial months of Israel’s war on Gaza, there was a more liberal approach on the campuses. Even when the solidarity encampments were established, most universities chose not to shut them down or bring in the cops, as we saw in the United States. Scott even said he wouldn’t ban political expression and respected the right of students to protest. But a hardline approach has since been adopted by the administrations, who have fallen into line with the anti-Palestine campaign.
Universities are some of the country’s largest institutions that help to manufacture the ideological material of Australian society, as well as the literal material of weapons research in partnership with weapons companies and other imperialist nations like the United States and Israel. This is all far more important to administrations than academic freedom and open political expression. Those who run the universities form part of Australia’s elite: they come from it, and they contribute to it. For instance, RMIT vice-chancellor Alec Cameron is a long-term member of the ultra-conservative, boys-only, Australian Club. Sydney University’s chancellor, Belinda Hutchinson, sits on the board of Thales Australia, a major weapons manufacturer. Many vice-chancellors earn more than a million dollars a year. 
So when a hegemonic political line is established by the Australian elite, university management will toe it. There is a common view of universities as oases of open expression, where ideas flow freely, common sense is challenged, and diversity and debate flourish. This is much overstated. Our universities are embedded in Australian capitalism; they are economically and ideologically beholden to it. Ideas deemed too dangerous to the status quo have historically been repressed.
The Australian establishment ardently backs Israel, regardless of the atrocities it commits, because it is a loyal member of the Western imperialist bloc. The Palestine solidarity movement of the last year has threatened the ideological myth of Israel as a defender of democracy and freedom. The federal and state governments, as well as the billionaire-backed mainstream media, have denounced the movement from day one. Universities, which can feel the pressure of upholding their liberal image, took a looser stance to begin with. But now they have fallen into line.
The excuses that universities have used to justify the repression in recent months are astonishing. For instance, in suspending the Students for Palestine club at UNSW, Arc, the body that oversees clubs and student life, alleged that the mere presence of pro-Palestine posters caused damage to the “psychosocial safety” of the university community. It’s pretty jarring to anyone who has watched footage of dead Gazan babies being pulled from bombed buildings to hear that putting up posters advertising a student meeting is a threat to “psychosocial safety”.
Student activists at the UTS in Sydney have also apparently harmed the psyches of staff and students by handing out a leaflet for an event titled “exposing UTS ties to genocide”. Students were informed by security that the vice-chancellor said the use of the word would be “triggering”. 
At RMIT, students who made use of an empty lecture theatre for a political meeting after a Palestine solidarity rally received disciplinary hearing notices that insinuate the students were celebrating terrorist attacks on Israel. They imply that the mere sight of a keffiyeh caused anxiety and threatened the wellbeing of staff and students. 
The phrase “From the river to the sea” has been banned by multiple universities, including ANU, where students were warned that the phrase was “harmful”, and at Monash, where banners and placards with the phrase were seized. Monash has also disciplined two students for putting up pro-Palestine stickers—one was dragged out of class by security. 
As mentioned, some universities have altered their campus policy guidelines to restrict protests by demanding that students first seek approval from management. While they refuse to spell it out, the motive for this is to shut down pro-Palestine activism. For instance, at Sydney University, the new Campus Access Policy has been used only to shut down Palestine-related events, such as a bake sale, or discipline students who organised a Palestine rally. Other non-Palestine-related events that broke the new guidelines have not been touched. 
RMIT is altering its “Property Management Procedure” and the “Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy”. The changes will give unilateral power to the director of Property Services to bar room bookings or “protest or protest related activity” that might cause “financial or reputational” damage to the university. Like the Campus Access Policy, it also prohibits camping—a clear reference to the encampments. 
According to an anonymous staff member who works in the policy department, an earlier draft of the policy changes was so restrictive and undemocratic that the policy team rebelled against the directives of management, which was forced to revise the policy. This staff member also reported that the emails about the policy included “Palestine protests” in the subject line. 
Last month, Swinburne University in Melbourne’s inner east made the extraordinary move to remove the Islamic Student Society’s chosen prayer leader and replace them with a university-appointed chaplain, and stationed guards at the entrance to the prayer rooms to bar those without a student card. Students feel that this act of religious repression happened because the students frequently make references to Palestinian oppression in their prayers. 
It’s a terrible precedent that a university can interfere with students’ religious freedoms. And it highlights the real social problem in the wake of Israel’s genocide in Gaza: the ramping up of Islamophobia. Jewish students have not had their prayers or events shut down by any university across the country. There has been no enquiry into the impacts of the war on Muslim students. This again speaks to the selective outrage and enforcement of restrictions by university administrations. 
Universities frequently celebrate the struggles of the past. Students learn about the movements against the Vietnam War and South African apartheid in history degrees. Universities use photos of protests from the ’70s and ’80s in their advertising material to future students. UNSW proudly displays a bronze statue of Nelson Mandela. But university managements opposed those movements when they were happening, and they are repressing the students who are confronting the modern equivalents. 
The absurdity at the heart of this issue is that the students and staff who are facing repression are those calling simply for peace, for an end to the war. Yet they are being suspended, expelled, harassed and intimidated. Some staff may even lose their jobs for speaking up for Palestine. The universities are telling us that right is wrong and wrong is right. This is the reality of campus life for socially progressive students and staff. It’s a reality that must be challenged.

Universities are repressing Palestine solidarity activism

Last month, Treasurer Jim Chalmers fronted the media with a gloating smile to announce the federal government was posting a consecutive budget surplus of $18 billion. “Our bigger than expected surplus in the year just gone is entirely due to lower spending”, beamed Chalmers. “A second straight surplus is proof of our responsible economic management.” 
Any normal person observing this “responsible economic management” was probably feeling their stomach turn. We are living through one of the worst cost-of-living crises in generations, and the Labor government has decided to lower government spending rather than increase it in areas that would help the millions of people struggling to make ends meet.
The latest <a>Guardian Essential Poll</a>
shows something that socialists have been arguing for the last few years—that most people, when confronted with a lack of affordable housing and rising electricity and grocery prices, think that the government should intervene to make things more affordable. Seventy percent of survey respondents thought that price caps should be introduced on rent, groceries and electricity bills, and the same number thought that the rich should be paying more tax. 
Seventy-one percent of respondents agreed that the gap between the rich and poor is widening. According to the <a>latest poverty and inequality report</a> from the Australian Council of Social Services, one in eight people in Australia are living in poverty. With rising costs, this number will only increase. 
The latest CoreLogic report from September found that rents had increased by 7.2 percent since last year. These increases are not uniform across the country. In Melbourne, it was working-class suburbs like Dandenong (16 percent) and Broadmeadows (14 percent) that went up the most. The same is true for New South Wales, rents in Roselands, Villawood and other working-class suburbs increasing by 24-30 percent. The amount of money one must earn to purchase a house in Sydney is eye-watering—only those on nearly $300,000 could purchase a property at the median value without incurring mortgage stress (this is $200,000 more than the average annual income), according to financial comparison site Canstar. Unsurprisingly, only 16 percent of people are opposed to removing tax breaks for property investors, according to the Essential poll.
Wages haven’t gone up to compensate for rising prices. In fact, the latest employment outlook from the OECD found that wages in Australia have gone backwards by 4.8 per cent compared with pre-pandemic levels. Bosses in Australia have taken advantage of the economic situation, and wealth is rapidly moving from the bottom of society to the top. Corporations like Coles—which posted an annual profit of $1.1 billion in the last financial year—are laughing all the way to the bank. 
Many people know this situation isn’t right. Forty percent of respondents to the Essential poll said that our political system needs fundamental change, which rose to 49 percent for those who are struggling or in serious financial difficulty.
Capitalism is always going to produce stark wealth inequality, poverty and anxiety for ordinary people. It’s a system predicated on a class divide in which a minority get rich off the labour of the majority. The bosses and the politicians who represent them clearly have no interest in overturning this state of affairs. 
That’s not to say there’s nothing the government could do to alleviate the current financial burdens for millions of people. They just refuse to. The government could raise taxes on companies like Coles and individuals like Gina Rinehart and use that money to pay for public housing. Instead of posting an $18 billion surplus and bragging about cutting government spending, Labor could increase government spending on social services and Centrelink. They could legislate price caps on essential goods and ban greedy landlords from ripping more rent out of young people. 
It’s an indictment on the Labor government that they refuse to implement these measures. It’s also an indictment on the union movement that there aren’t more strikes and actions for wage increases. 
Ordinary people understand the problems and know what the solutions are. I say we should let them be in charge.

Workers know what to do: tax the rich and cap prices

Victoria Police is pulling off the heist of the year, aided by sensationalist (and dumb) reporting in the corporate press. 
In what is being billed as “one of the largest police operations in decades”, more than 1,200 cops from around the state have descended on Melbourne to provide paid security for the <a href="https://landforces.com.au/">Land Forces expo of weapons manufacturers</a>, some of which are involved in providing equipment to facilitate the genocide in Gaza. 
That’s right, masses of cops with guns are being assembled to protect the people with the missiles.
Police say that the Supreme Court of Victoria has authorised “special powers” under the Terrorism (Community Protection) Act for an area surrounding the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, the conference venue. This is not to assist them in monitoring the terrorism facilitators inside but to better target peace activists who will be protesting the event.
The anti-terror legislation allows police to enforce an exclusion zone, search people and vehicles, instruct people to leave the area and arrest them for not doing so. 
The cop mobilisation is being helped by a pliant media that uncritically and repeatedly reports that 25,000 people will lay siege to the conference—a figure seemingly plucked out of thin air but most likely circulated by Victoria Police.
The Guardian, the news site of liberal progressives, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/08/thousands-of-anti-war-protesters-to-disrupt-controversial-weapons-expo-in-melbourne">reported on Sunday</a> that “25,000 activists” are mobilising “as Melbourne braces for the biggest protest in decades”. Anyone with even a passing interest in the Australian left knows two things. First, there aren’t that many activists in the whole country. Second, Melbourne has had protests that were far bigger than 25,000 in the last twelve months. Not that Guardian editors are interested in fact-checking these idiotic claims.
Not to be outdone, <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/army-of-protesters-to-cause-chaos-ahead-of-weapons-expo/news-story/25d424b4046e0db12096a8e36fdd43f2?amp">the Herald Sun also reported</a> that “an army” of “up to 25,000 activists are set to cause chaos”. Again, where is this number coming from?
Police clearly want a mass mobilisation—a show of force to intimidate anti-war activists who have sustained Palestine solidarity protests for nearly twelve months. 
Possibly, the cops want an easy ride for the week as well: there’ll be plenty of overtime for everyone, plus travel allowances and accommodation for the country cops. Perhaps a promise has been made to every weary constable and underused riot squad member that they will also get free rein to kick a few vegans.
It looks set to be one giant cop holiday, paid for by the ALP government, which says it can’t afford to properly staff hospitals anymore.

Before the conference even opened, cops were swarming South Warf. 
“Police [are] seen at every entry and exit point of the building. Some police were even seen patrolling the Yarra River nearby on a large boat on Saturday morning as bus loads of police entered the centre through the loading docks at Normanby Rd”, the Herald Sun reported. 
Indeed, one activist walking through the area told Red Flag that she was followed by half a dozen officers, who demanded to know who she was and what she was up to. “They seemed to be looking for an excuse to arrest me”, she said.
Early Sunday, under the cover of darkness, three military helicopters and about 150 police officers reportedly were mobilised as an army tank was brought into the convention centre. One wonders if the heavy cop presence was necessary—surely a tank can take care of itself. 
Inside the Land Forces expo, the tank will be displayed alongside drones and an array of the latest weaponry, which can be perused and purchased. Outside, people might be arrested for littering, loitering or perhaps underage vaping—which is unhealthy.
This expo is an affront to decency. The media, the cops and the state government have a lot to answer for in facilitating this death cult event in the middle of the city. 
We may not get 25,000 people out to protest it. But protest it, we will—along with the ridiculous police mobilisation that now comes with it. 
Students for Palestine have called a demonstration for <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C_RewJmTMu9/">6am Wednesday 11 September at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre</a> to protest the opening ceremony of the Land Forces expo. Meet near the Clarendon Street entrance across from Crown Casino.
Afterwards, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C_eooM9yHEH/?img_index=1">join us for a counter-convention</a> with Rathi Barthlote, a co-founder of Refugee Women Action for Visa Equality and an organiser of the refugee protest camp outside the Department of Home Affairs in Docklands. Dr Binoy Kampmark, an anti-militarist lecturer at RMIT, will also speak.

Guardian fake news helps cops mobilise against anti-war activists

To celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2017, La Trobe University’s advertising campaign featured the slogan “Fighting for change before hashtags” accompanied by inspiring images of student activism. Melbourne University’s long-time promotional branding encourages us to “Dream Large”, and Monash University wants us to “#changeit”. To prospective students, universities market themselves as progressive institutions where “Big Ideas” (Melbourne University again) are debated, and thinking is cutting edge. For current students, it’s a repressive atmosphere where if you dare stand up to genocide, you get threatened with expulsion, dragged through disciplinary tribunals and denied natural justice.
Across Australian universities, a crackdown on the right to protest and freedom of speech aimed at pro-Palestine activism is currently in full swing. At Monash University in Melbourne, nine students have been subject to disciplinary hearings for their participation in the campus Gaza solidarity encampment. At La Trobe University, also in Melbourne, two students have been threatened with disciplinary measures for their involvement in similar activity. At Melbourne’s Deakin University, two students faced drawn-out disciplinary hearings, one resulting in suspension. 
At ANU in Canberra, a student was expelled for publicly stating their support for Palestinian resistance. Curtin University in Perth, ANU and Monash have all banned or restricted the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea”, and Melbourne’s Swinburne University has asked the police to stop students participating in political activity. Melbourne University has used Wi-Fi connections to track students who participated in an occupation of a university building. At Sydney University and the University of New South Wales, administrations have changed their student charters to restrict nearly all forms of protest, particularly aimed at future encampments. 
Universities are a law unto themselves when it comes to decision-making and discipline—students enter a realm reminiscent of post-9/11 repression when they are charged. In most cases, students have been told not to discuss their charges with others. At Monash, students accused of misconduct weren’t allowed to view the evidence against them, outside of a limited window and under the supervision of a university employee. 
Madi Curkovic, one of the disciplined Monash students said of the experience: “We were not allowed to show anybody the emails we received from the university, nor were we provided with the evidence against us and were banned from being on the lawns where our encampment was set up”. 
One student subject to disciplinary action at Deakin University told Red Flag they were treated as guilty before any evidence was presented, and the university official put in charge of their hearing eventually recused herself after concerns were raised about bias. Another said the university failed to provide her with all the evidence they were using against her. That student was later suspended.
The only recourse for students found guilty of misconduct is an appeal to the same institution that found them guilty, or to take the university to court. This is obviously prohibitive for most students. 
This crackdown is not in response to anything “radical” by the historical standard of the Australian student movement. What student activists have done is the basic bread and butter of political activism: talking to fellow students, raising awareness, collecting names on petitions and holding protests.
James Gallagher, a socialist at Swinburne University, told Red Flag
that the police were called to shut down a stall he was staffing, which involved a table with petitions, political leaflets and badges. “First, security came and told us to pack up”, he said. “When we refused, they called the police.” 
Universities are traditionally no-go zones for police, and the right of students to engage in political activity and hold protests is similarly well established. But during the Gaza encampments on university campuses across Australia, the question of whether or not police could break up student camps on university grounds, as the authorities did in the US, became hotly contested. University charters, local by-laws and regulations, criminal law and human rights charters were all consulted, by both sides. In the end, no cops were used against the student protesters. But in the wash-up of these camps, university administrations are trying to intimidate students and prevent similar protests from happening again.
One tactic involves administrations changing the rules of engagement to shut down free speech and restrict the right to protest. At the University of Sydney, the new “campus access plan” restricts the rights of students to use a megaphone, hang a banner, set up a table, or organise a rally on a road for which 72-hours’ notice hasn’t been given. Violating the code can result in disciplinary action. The administration has banned anything that might make for an effective, disruptive political action. The University of New South Wales has also updated its rules and regulations. Deaglan Goodwin, vice president of the student union at Sydney University said: 
“The timing is not accidental at all. It comes after the incredibly successful Gaza Solidarity Camp at Sydney University. The spectre of the encampment haunts the campus access policy—a lot of it targets specifically anything that can be used to set up or maintain a protest camp site on campus”.
Even students going through official channels to show support for Palestine have faced pushback from the universities. Students at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) called a student general meeting through the student union, to take a position in solidarity with Palestine and against weapons companies conducting research on campus. 
The university administration’s response has been to withhold information about how many students are needed to meet quorum, block room bookings and instruct staff to bar students from making announcements in classes. Students holding a stall to promote the meeting were threatened with police involvement. The education officer for the QUT student union, Isabella Foley, described the intimidation tactics by the university: 
“Management have encouraged staff to call security on students ‘delivering a political message or garnering support for protest activities’ to classes. Students have been told that saying ‘QUT supports genocide’ could result in repercussions from the university. Rather than threatening us, the university should be cutting ties with Israel and expressing opposition to its genocide.” 
Pro-Israel students, although a lot less active than pro-Palestine ones, have not been met with the same repression. At Monash University, pro-Israel stalls have attracted no harassment from the university, despite the fact that the Israeli flag would likely cause distress to Arab and Palestinian students. 
Pro-Israel students physically and sexually harassed students at the Monash Gaza solidarity camp, yet not a single pro-Israel activist has been disciplined for this behaviour. In one case, a Muslim woman was stalked on the way to her car, and another has been subject to vicious online attacks. Madi Curkovic, a pro-Palestine activist at Monash, said: “Almost every day we faced down violent counterdemonstrations by supporters of Israel, who were allowed by the university to enter the encampment to harass and assault student protesters”. This double standard reflects the allegiance universities have to Israel.
During the Gaza solidarity encampments, university vice-chancellors wrote to the attorney general asking for legal advice on the slogan “From the river to the sea” and the term “intifada”. Essentially, they were asking the government to provide them with a reason to persecute pro-Palestine activists more viciously. Despite so far receiving no definitive response, administrations have cracked down on the slogan anyway. 
At Monash, security seized banners and placards with “From the river to the sea” written on them, and even snatched a sign off of a Jewish student that said “Jews against genocide”. Students were told they could face disciplinary measures if they chanted the phrase. Students at Curtin University and the Australian National University have likewise received written notices barring them from displaying the phrase “From the river to the sea” on banners. 
Universities aren’t the only supposedly liberal institutions that are cracking down on expressions of support for Palestine. Just this month, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra cancelled Jayson Gillham’s piano performance because it was dedicated to journalists murdered in Gaza. Although they later backtracked, the message to artists was clear: any reference to the rights of Palestinians is not welcome. This is in stark contrast to the stance the orchestra management was happy to take in support of Ukraine in 2022, when they dedicated an entire concert to raising money for the victims of Russia’s invasion, with—rightly—no concern about offending Russians. 
After a Sydney Theatre Company performance of the play The Seagull last year, actors wore keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian scarf, for the curtain call to display solidarity with Palestine. Management responded by issuing an apology for the actors’ actions after they received complaints from supporters of Israel. At the State Library of Victoria, an event was cancelled due to three authors airing pro-Palestine views on social media. 
On the streets as well as the stage, the right to political expression is under attack. In liberal Melbourne, the council is attempting to restrict the right to do stalls during the weekly pro-Palestine demonstrations. With the threat of fines and police intervention, local Palestinian craft stall holders and political organisations have been hemmed into the State Library forecourt, barred from distributing information on the street. 
As long as Israel remains firmly part of the Western imperial alliance, challenging it will be controversial. On university campuses especially, as long as cross-institutional ties with Israeli universities continue to be cultivated and companies that profit off of the war industry have research partnerships with Australian institutions, challenging Israel will be beyond what university administrations are willing to accept. 
When the right-wing media talk about university students, they paint an image of snowflakes too scared to talk about things they disagree with. It turns out this is actually a description of the bureaucrats who run our universities.
Despite the censorious attitude that abounds on campuses, pro-Palestine activists and socialists are finding ways to stand up for Palestine and are winning support. Thousands of students are showing up for student general meetings in solidarity with Palestine, and in a number of cases, students who have challenged university discipline procedures have been successful. They have also attracted some high-profile support, including from Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam and human rights organisations. 
It is to their eternal shame that Australian university administrations have so far remained silent in the face of genocide and the destruction of every single university and most schools in Gaza. At the beginning of the current war, universities released statements condemning Hamas and largely ignoring the fact that Israel was responding with intense bombardments of the civilian population in Gaza. 
Monash University wrote on 10 October: “We are especially disturbed by the attacks on civilians by Hamas”. RMIT was “greatly saddened” by the “humanitarian impacts” but made no acknowledgement of the fact that Israel was murdering Palestinians. Sydney University “abhors terrorism”. None of these universities have spoken out against the war crimes of Israel. None of them have cut ties with the Israeli government. All of these statements refer to antisemitism and have only a casual nod to the impact on Palestinians and those subjected to Islamophobia.
Writing in the leftist publication Sidecar, Ussama Makdisi refers to this as the “Palestinian exception”. He writes, “Yet the heart of the Palestine exception is not simply the crude denial of Palestinian history and humanity. More significant is the constant overwriting of this history by a different one: that of modern European antisemitism ... With this act of substitution, the ongoing reality of Palestinian slaughter is erased from ethical consideration”. 
Supporters of Palestine continue to face obstacles, repression and accusations of perpetrating harm towards supporters of Israel. But whatever discipline they want to mete out, we’ll fight. Students know we are on the right side of history.

Universities crack down on Palestine solidarity

Before Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Mexico, workers in Cancún dug sea turtle eggs from the sand and secured them in crates to ensure they would be safe from the category-five storm. Residents of Union Island in Saint Vincents and the Grenadines prepared by fortifying roofs with cinder blocks. From Venezuela to Texas, millions of people have been affected by Beryl. The impact has been devastating. On Union Island, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/07/06/hurricane-beryl-caribbean-damage/">almost all of the 2,500 residents</a> have been made homeless. In Texas, 2 million people have been left without power in the midst of a heatwave.
In Jamaica, a resident of Treasure Beach said that the storm was “terrifying” and people were grateful to be alive. Eyewitness reports detail the terror of being trapped inside homes while roofs are ripped off by the wind. More than eighteen people have been killed, but the death toll will likely rise as clean-up efforts continue. 
Speaking to the Guardian, meteorologist Jeff Masters said the hurricane was “unprecedentedly strange”. Beryl is strange both because it occurred earlier in the season than any other category-five hurricane on record, and because it intensified far quicker than expected. Usually, Atlantic hurricanes at this time of year are category one or two, meaning they are less likely to result in severe damage and loss of life. The reason for this unprecedented event is the warming ocean. 
The last decade saw the hottest ocean temperatures <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ocean-warming/?intent=121">since the 1800s</a>, and 2023 set the record for the hottest year ever. Scientists estimate that 90 percent of global warming from human activity has been absorbed by the world’s oceans. And because hurricanes draw their energy from the ocean, warmer water makes for more powerful and destructive storms. 
Warmer water was an important factor underpinning the rapid intensification of Beryl from a lower category into a category five—the highest level. And it affects the coral reefs that act as natural barriers to the waves caused by Atlantic storms, providing protection for more than 18,000 people in the area. The reefs are being bleached and weakened by warmer waters. 
This double whammy of bigger storms and the breakdown of natural defences means there will be more storms as destructive as Beryl. Ko Barrett, deputy secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said that Beryl is a harbinger of a “very active, very dangerous” hurricane season. 
Poor countries like Jamaica and other Caribbean islands are going to bear the brunt of these climate-change-induced superstorms. According to the prime minister of Grenada, Dickon Mitchell, 98 percent of the country’s infrastructure has been damaged. 
The story is similar everywhere. The countries that bear the least responsibility for the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis and which have the fewest resources available to deal with its impacts are the ones hardest hit. Because such countries are marginal to global capitalism, little is done to protect the lives of those in them. 
Western politicians have even been known to joke about the threat of climate change on these vulnerable populations. Opposition Leader <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joking-about-sea-levels-in-pacific-islands/6768324">Peter Dutton</a>, for example, was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joking-about-sea-levels-in-pacific-islands/6768324">caught</a> in 2015 making fun of the prospect of “water lapping at the doors” of people in the Pacific Islands. 
Every year, new climate-related records are broken. Whether it’s warm oceans, heatwaves, rising sea levels. The causes are no mystery. Fossil fuels continue to be burnt so that companies can profit, with the encouragement of governments, when we need a rapid transition to renewable energy sources.

Hurricane Beryl is more evidence that climate change is here

“The Communists disdain to conceal their
views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the
forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes
tremble at a Communistic revolution.” This was how Marx and Engels closed the Communist Manifesto, the central text of the socialist movement.
Socialists and communists will be the first to tell you that to solve issues
like the climate crisis, the genocide in Palestine or the constant squeeze on
working-class living standards, we’re going to have to end capitalism.
But
today among online leftists and campaign activists, there’s an idea going
around that socialists have some secret, nefarious hidden agenda. It’s the
“progressive” version of the Trumpist conspiracists who dismiss every social
justice initiative as the work of George Soros and cultural Marxism. 
For
these people, political purity is synonymous with concern about only one issue.
Making connections between injustices, or drawing attention to the overarching
social system within which they occur, is highly suspect. This agenda, of
policing the political outlook of others in a movement and valorising a
compartmentalised view of society, reflects just as much of an agenda as that
of Marxists.
Treating
society’s various problems as discrete phenomena reflects a reformist or
liberal world view. It implies that the causes of most injustices are bad laws,
poor military judgement, ignorance or the individual misuse of corporate or
state power. It follows that a change to laws in one area, or the ending of one
particular military adventure, or the removal of a particularly bad boss, will
solve most social problems. This can be done by sympathetic representatives in
parliament, the United Nations, the corporate sector or whatever it is. Some
outside pressure might be needed, but not wider social change. Activists
aligned to reformist parliamentary parties or NGO lobbying groups are often the
ones most hostile to the socialist agenda of connecting discrete atrocities to
the broader system. 
If
changing the system is ruled out, we have to settle for whatever concessions
the powerful are willing to make. The climate crisis is a good example of where
this logic gets you. Climate NGOs and Greens parties around the world seek to
implement climate legislation to curb emissions. This means lobbying
politicians, writing reports and launching glossy marketing campaigns. Things
that might put centrists and politicians offside are rejected as too
radical—such as disrupting corporate mining conferences. This strategy has,
sadly, not got us closer to solving the environment crisis. 
Or take
the example of people who argue we should look to Arab states, Iran or
Hezbollah to liberate Palestine. Their agenda is backing one imperialist power
over another, which will not lead to liberation, but strengthen a different
group of repressive, warmongering capitalist states. Critiquing liberal or
reformist approaches to change and offering an alternative are therefore not
only legitimate but necessary if we are serious about winning.
Sometimes
the way the “socialist agenda” argument comes up is the claim that, by talking
about broader issues or capitalism, socialists are “silencing” the voice of the
oppressed. The idea is that political arguments made in the course of struggle
somehow take away the agency of the oppressed or perpetuate their oppression.
But a plurality of opinions within a campaign among people committed to winning
common demands does not disempower anyone or cause oppression. On the contrary,
free political expression better ensures that a variety of strategies and ideas
can be engaged with and tested in the course of struggle, putting us all in a
better position to win. 
Often,
what underpins these criticisms is a basic hostility to socialist ideas and
radical politics. Business owners, those with aspirations to power, as well as
those who have innocently absorbed capitalism’s “common sense” that appealing
to those in power and having better “conversations” gives you the best chance
of winning change, are hostile to socialist politics for obvious reasons. They
are invested in the system. Others just want their ideas or strategies to
dominate in a particular campaign, and look for easy ways to disparage rivals.
Rarely are people open about this being their agenda, which makes accusations
of socialists’ “hidden agendas”, which are not even hidden, both hypocritical
and absurd.
Socialists
and revolutionaries are committed to participating in social movements even
when many within them have world views that are different to ours. We want to
fight to win reforms within the system and push the struggle of working class
and oppressed people forward. We do not make agreement with broader socialist
politics a condition of cooperation, nor do we consider other viewpoints
necessarily “problematic”. This is different from the approach that many
involved in social movements today take, who seek to rubbish socialist
arguments in order to maintain their own political dominance. 
As a
socialist, my agenda is clear. I believe that genuine human liberation is
possible only in a world run on the basis of need, not profit. For this we need
revolutionary struggle by the working class to overthrow capitalism and create
a new, democratic socialist society. Partial reforms on their own will not be
enough to solve the problems facing humanity; for that we need a broader
challenge to the profit-driven logic that causes them. 
Socialists
also recognise that oppressed groups will not be able to overcome their
oppression alone. The Palestinian movement will require uprisings all across
the Arab world and in the imperial core like the United States in order to
break the power of the Israeli state. In Australia, the Indigenous struggle
will necessarily need to combine with the power of organised labour to win
against the ruling class, the bosses and the government. That is why I believe
it is strategically necessary to draw different social struggles together and
extend solidarity between them. 
None of
this agenda is secret or hidden. What is hidden is that disdain for such an
agenda is usually the expression of support, somehow or other, for the system
and its various institutions. We’re all better off when we can see that for
what it is.

Do socialists have a hidden agenda?

Around 200 people attended a forum hosted by the No AUKUS Coalition at Victorian Trades Hall on the evening of 23 June. Speakers included former Labor MP Peter Garrett, Dr Margie Beavis from the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, the manufacturing workers’ union state secretary, Tony Mavromatis, and Arthur Rorris, secretary of the NSW South Coast Trades and Labour Council. 
Garrett began the speeches and narrowed in on Australia’s “national interests”, saying that we need a robust relationship with the United States and that Australia could not defend its interests by staying neutral. The threat of China’s rise was a problem that should be considered. 
Garrett argued that the main challenge for those who oppose AUKUS—a military pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States—is not explaining to people the cost of the deal or pointing out the problems with the US. The main challenge, he said, was “describing a world where defence is taken seriously” without the AUKUS relationship. He argued that we have to “save the national interests of the country from its leaders”. 
Garrett is not opposed to an Australian alliance with US imperialism. He is merely concerned about “interoperability” with the US military. It has been encouraging to see Garrett and others from the ALP coming out against AUKUS. But arguments like this lead us down the wrong path.
Beavis argued that AUKUS passes neither “the pub test” nor a cost-benefit analysis. She spoke about the financial cost of the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal—which will cost up to $400 billion—and all manner of things we could spend that money on instead, from acting on the climate crisis to spending money on schools, hospitals and welfare. She also argued that AUKUS leads us down the path of a dangerous arms race and locks Australia into an agreement with a nation that has caused too many wars. 
Left unnamed was the “nation” that Beavis was referring to. 
The omission highlights some of the problems of the forum. The main danger of AUKUS, aside from nuclear waste and weapons, was mostly left unsaid: there was very little discussion about the threat of Australia joining a US-led war against China. No-one questioned the way that AUKUS strengthens the already problematic US alliance. And most of the speakers argued for a strong military strategy to defend “Australia’s interests”. 
That came most strongly from Garrett and Mavromatis. Mavromatis, while outlining some of the problems of AUKUS, focused mostly on the questions of jobs, training and apprenticeships. This sectional view—narrowly focused on the perceived immediate interests of manufacturing workers—resulted in Mavromatis arguing that the government ought to buy the Williamstown shipyards to set up a conventional submarine industry in Victoria. 
It was important to hear from Arthur Rorris, who closed the speeches. He focused on the risk to communities in the Illawarra and the need to resist the war machine. Speaking about the potential impact of a submarine base at Port Kembla, Rorris argued that the AUKUS deal is damaging, dangerous and must be opposed. 
Rorris, who helped to lead a May Day protest against military bases at Port Kembla this year, finished on a defiant note: “You can’t stand by and do nothing ... It’s workers’ blood that is spilled in wars. They want to conscript us into their war machine. But this community [Port Kembla] won’t be conscripted ... Peace is union business!” 
We will need to build a broad movement to challenge the march to war. People will oppose the government’s expensive submarine agreement for different reasons. However, it is important that the campaign make a strident anti-war argument and not succumb to right-wing talking points about “national defence”: Australia is one of the most aggressive imperialist powers in all of Asia. 
Arguing for a national submarine industry gives credence to the argument that China is a military threat to Australia. But China would pose no threat to these shores if there were no AUKUS agreement and no military alliance with the US. It’s unfortunate that this was not raised at the forum.

Why capitalism needs poverty

University of Technology Sydney stands with boys with big feelings

Antisemitism inquiry recommends crackdown on free speech

Universities are repressing Palestine solidarity activism

Workers know what to do: tax the rich and cap prices

Guardian fake news helps cops mobilise against anti-war activists

Universities crack down on Palestine solidarity

Hurricane Beryl is more evidence that climate change is here

Do socialists have a hidden agenda?

‘Peace is union business!’

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