Nationalisation: a key demand in the socialist program

[This article is an edited version of a talk originally given to the Melbourne branch of the Democratic Socialist Perspective in August 2008.]

For all the misery it represents for ordinary people, there is at least one positive result of the current capitalist financial crisis. The idea of nationalisation is getting an airing again in the West, however squeamish bourgeois leaders and pundits may be about using the actual word. Of course, this is clearly a case of governments mobilising massive resources and taking drastic action to save bankers and speculators from the consequences of their greed but, nevertheless, there it is. And if nationalisation — state or public ownership — is allowable in this dubious instance, why not for far more deserving and urgent causes such as saving the planet and the lives and welfare of masses of working people?

Are livable cities just a dream?

[The following talk was presented at the Climate Change | Social Change Conference in Sydney, April 2008.]

When one sees a modern city from the air, especially at night, it is a truly awe-inspiring spectacle. What always strikes me is the immensity of the project, a testimony to the power and creativity of human beings. However, on the ground and actually living and working in this wonder, things are quite different and the social and ecological problems crowd in and fill one's view.

Victorian Labor's water plan: business as usual

[Green Left Weekly, #720, August 3, 2007]

In Australia, as in other major capitalist countries, the official response to global warming is to deny or gloss over the utter catastrophe confronting human society and try to carry on with business as usual, making only a few relatively minor adjustments here and there.

Two roads for our healthcare system

[Green Left Weekly, #718, July 20, 2007]

The media hysteria over a possible Australian link to the recent British terror attacks serves to highlight a basic reality. The Australian healthcare system is critically dependent on overseas-trained doctors and it wouldn’t work without them.