Dynamic socialism
Low-interest loans for manufacturing investment and an inheritance tax to fund capital grants for young people: Tim Ayres outlines his vision for Australia in a speech to the Fabian Society
The success of Trump, Hanson and Brexit is that they harness the anger that failure generates and channels it into a perverse ethno-nationalism that is pitted against the communities that have benefitted from globalisation.
The real risk for progressive politics is that this split becomes the axis of future political contests. Dividing Australian society into the winners and losers of globalisation splits the progressive coalition in two.
In the past 20 years we have seen the rapid growth of the progressive middle class or, as the Sydney Morning Herald recently referred to them, progressive cosmopolitans: educated professionals, many of whom have benefited from the progressive reforms to education championed by Labor governments.
Similarly, we have created a unique and cosmopolitan society from the waves of immigrants who have made Australia home. LGBT Australians live in a better, more liberated world than a generation ago. Women have won important rights that have dramatically furthered the cause of equality.
• This was a speech given to the NSW Fabians Society event titled “He Won: Progressive Politics in the Age of Trump”. A podcast of the event is available here fabians.org.au/podcasts
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