SPECTRUM Edition 3

Spectrum

Contents REPORTS FOR AND AGAINST

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SOCIALISM IS TO BLAME FOR THE CRISIS IN VENEZUELA

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THE END OF US PRIMACY

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THE ALP AND LNP HAVE BECOME TOO BROAD IN THEIR BELIEFS

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NO CITIZENSHIP REVOCATION FOR AUSTRALIAN TERRORISTS

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THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY LEADS TO MARKET REGULATION

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THE PUBLIC SECTOR SHOULD REGULATE THE SPREAD OF FAKE NEWS

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EDITORIAL

ABORTION IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH

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DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION

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AN END TO AUTOCRACY IN SUDAN

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BOOK REVIEWS

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President's Report With immense pride, I would like to present the latest publication from the Political Interest Society. Hopefully you will appreciate our presentation of the fine talent on offer at the University of Melbourne, with a series of hand-picked topics to gorge your political interests upon. Content is as varied as it is timely, in an effort to cover the most interesting features of our contemporary political landscape. I am glad to conclude that our contributors are both sophisticated in their arguments and representative of the spectrum of thought on display in our student society.

2019 has been a year of elections. From Nigeria to South Africa, Ukraine, Philippines, Australia and even PIS! Our newly elected, rosy-cheeked executive is looking forward to serving our society and combating polarization. We are committed to maintaining what the club already has; a fantastic loyal membership base, a steady stream of events, old traditions and of course, going to the pub.

With such a great club, we are also looking for new and exciting opportunities! I am thoroughly excited for what the future holds for us all. From the club’s inception in 1998 through to 2019, we will continue to hear from both sides of the argument, promote informed discussion and create a homeland for the politically interested diaspora.

You also might have noticed a slight change in our graphics. We have updated the logo to keep it more in line with our purpose and representative of our cause. The PIS dog will be sorely missed and if you read closely, you may still find him!

I would like to thank our contributors to this edition’s SPECTRUM team. Jasmine Ashby for her artful patience and Zen-like stability, Winona Horton for all her volunteered extra hours and Tim Mooney – the hero of SPECTRUM. It is hard to imagine anyone with as incredible design skills as yourself, you will be sorely missed.

To our readers, stay tuned for some very exciting events and updates for our much-loved student society. And of course, please come along to our Wednesday meetings/group therapy sessions at 1pm for biscuits and cutting edge political banter.

Audi Alterum Partem, SCOTT REID

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Letter From the Editor SPECTRUM is back!

I’ve always been a lover of trilogies and it brings me great satisfaction to end my PIS tenure with the release of the third edition of SPECTRUM. Looking back to when the idea of a non-partisan political magazine was conceived, none of the people involved had any idea whether we’d be able to get one edition done, let alone three. Over a year later, with over fifty articles published and hundreds of hours of work, it brings me a great feeling of fulfillment to hand over the reins of what was once merely an outlandish idea.

As always, it is the contributors who are the real stars of the show.

Reading and refining their articles over the past couple months has been a privilege and a joy. To see the passion and intellect with which people have engaged with these topics is inspiring, and gives me great hope for both the future of the club and political discourse more generally. In the pages ahead you’ll find the expected sharp observations, quick humor and impassioned calls to action, alongside a vibrancy that speaks to the youthful optimism and outrage that makes SPECTRUM (and PIS) what it is.

On behalf of the previous committee, we feel so lucky to have served you and to have been a part of PIS. Thanks for continuing your support and engagement with SPECTRUM, and we can’t wait for you to read on and see what the third edition has in store!

WINONA HORTON

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For

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AgainsT

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FOR SOCIALISM IS TO BLAME FOR THE CRISIS IN VENEZUELA Venezuela is embroiled in an ongoing crisis. This is under no dispute. What used to be the crowning jewel of socialist development and the richest nation in South America now lies in tatters, with hyperinflation making it so that Venezuelans can no longer afford food and medicine. Falling GDP, increased unemployment and rising poverty paint a picture of a county in a spiral. Millions have fled, with violence on the rise and murder rate of 111.19 per 100,000 making the capital city Caracas one of the most dangerous places in the world. This sharp decline has talking heads the world over asking what is to blame. The answer seems clear; Venezuela’s socialist system compounded existing problems within their economy, resulting in the unmitigated economic collapse we are witnessing today.

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When attempting to use a nation’s socialist status to explain its economic collapse, staunch Marxists often assert two key reasons why such criticism is invalid. The first excuse given is that the country in question was not operating as a ‘true’ socialist state. The second is that external factors were responsible for the economy’s collapse, not any inherent problems with its political system or structure of governance. In the case of Venezuela, both of these claims are wholly invalid.

Venezuela has strictly adhered to the tenants of socialism laid out by Marx since the Bolivarian Revolution. This is evidenced by the government expropriating over 6 million acres of land alongside the assets of foreign companies; all media being centralised under CONATEL; free education being implemented for all public school children; nationalised transport; and heavy progressive

taxation imposed on all citizens. Therefore, any argument that Venezuela was never a ‘true’ socialist state or carried out the tenets of socialism incorrectly is demonstrably false.

The impact of external factors such as U.S. sanctions and oil prices is the more compelling argument in defence of Venezuela’s socialist system.

One of the core triggers for the beginning of Venezuela’s decline was a reduction in global oil prices.

However, while oil prices acted as a catalyst, it was always a matter of when a collapse would occur, rather than if one would eventuate.

Both Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro failed to diversify the Venezuelan economy to move away from its over-reliance on oil exports. A lack of economic diversification was not so much an issue under the populist rule of a charismatic Chávez, when oil prices were in a boom and billions were able to be spent on social programs. The gains made during this period in terms of poverty reduction and increased standards of living are indisputable. However, Chávez was working on borrowed time and money, and it all came crashing down. After his passing in 2013, Chávez’s successor Maduro rose to power. Less well liked than Chavez, Maduro’s leadership has threatened the democratic ideals that were an integral part of Venezuela’s political landscape. Setting the controversies of his elections aside, however, it is under Maduro that Venezuela’s economy has truly fallen apart, with decreasing oil prices triggering a recession. In simplistic terms, the central bank then tried to combat this decline by printing more money, accelerating the crisis and leading to present levels of hyperinflation, which in turn is leaving citizens unable to afford basic necessities.

that the gains being made during this period were in no way sustainable.

Venezuela was placed in a precarious position of its economy’s functionality being entirely dependent on volatile commodity prices in the global market due to socialism’s failure to promote diversification and output growth. However, some Marxist advocates would argue that the 2014 sanctions placed on Venezuela by the Obama administration played a greater role in the crisis than the socialist nature of the state. This is explicitly false, as those sanctions merely applied to individuals responsible for significant acts of violence and human rights abuses, not on any companies or exporters.

Therefore, although the current Venezuelan crisis has been compounded by commodity prices and U.S. sanctions, its was the underlying socialist principles of Venezuela that drove it into recession.

Spending money it didn’t have on social programs, stunting real output growth through expropriation and reducing efficiency through nationalisation meant that Venezuela was ripe for economic disaster. That is not to say that socialism will, in all cases, lead to economic ruin. However, in the case of Venezuela the disastrous impact of such a system is clear and indisputable.

ANONYMOUS

The drop in Venezuela’s oil revenue was indisputably harmful to the Venezuelan economy. However, the pervasive effect of such a change can only be attributed to the socialist policies at play. Despite holding the world’s largest known store of oil, Venezuela is not the largest exporter. In fact, it is not even the world’s most oil dependent nation, coming in 8th. However, amongst the top 15 oil exporters in the world, its is the only one that went into recession in 2014, 2015 and 2016 with the drop in oil prices according to the IMF. Therefore, something more than oil prices must be responsible for the current crisis.

Under socialism, Venezuela saw a reduced incentive to invest in harvesting more oil and workers had no cause to increase productivity. Oil production did not increase after the nationalisation of the industry in 2008, instead remaining steady or slightly decreasing. However, this was masked by increasing oil prices as the country’s GDP still appeared to be growing. A decline in output was also evidenced in Venezuela’s steel manufacturing industry, with output falling by 70% after its nationalisation in 2008. This lack of real growth meant

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Against SOCIALISM IS TO BLAME FOR THE CRISIS IN VENEZUELA

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On account of a massive decrease in real GDP and huge consumer price inflation, the current period in Venezuela, and thus the presidency of Nicolas Maduro, has come to be defined almost exclusively by economic crisis. The general consensus among mainstream Western reporting is that socialism, and specifically the widespread social programs which followed the Bolivarian Revolution, are the root causes of the ongoing issues. Certainly, economic mismanagement by the Maduro government, and the preceding government of Hugo ChĂĄvez, have contributed to the crisis: failing to meaningfully diversify the economy away from the oil sector meant that it suffered greatly when the price of oil dropped drastically in 2014. However, as this essay will argue, far more significant causes of the current crisis came from elsewhere, principally in the form of internationally-imposed sanctions against the Venezuelan economy. It will

note, moreover, the social gains made following the Bolivarian Revolution, and explain that when evaluating the responsibility of socialism as a cause of the current Venezuelan crisis, it is imperative to recognise the notable advances made under socialism, in order to properly contextualise this era.

Foreign aggression against Venezuela, primarily through economic means, has acted as the most significant catalyst in the country’s economic crisis. Indeed, while there is a pervasive view within Western media that the crisis would undoubtedly exist irrespective of international pressure, this proves to be entirely unconvincing upon closer examination. U.S. economic sanctions, which began during the Obama administration and have since increased in intensity and effect, were initially justified on account of Venezuela being a “threat to

U.S. national security”. This first wave of sanctions was immediately followed by a massive hit to the Venezuelan economy: a number of multinational corporations pulled their business from Venezuela in response to the sanctions, with General Motors, Ford, and almost all international airlines halting operations in the ensuing period.

Additionally, the widely-reported claim that the sanctions in place prior to 2019 could not have impacted the economy, as they targeted only “individuals”, hardly holds up when examined with any sort of scrutiny. The falsity of this claim is evident on account of a 2017 report from a United Nations independent expert, Alfred de Zayas, who explained that the American sanctions against Venezuela “have affected the normal functioning of the national productive apparatus, creating a reduction in the supply of goods and local services”5.De Zayas explained, furthermore, that the U.S. sanctions limited the ability of the Central Bank of Venezuela to use its bank accounts abroad, which made it increasingly difficult for the state to import both medicines and food. Perhaps most notably, de Zayas also clarified that the U.S. sanctions are illegal under international law (on account of not being endorsed by the United Nations Security Council), and could possibly be characterised as crimes against humanity. Therefore, while the prevailing viewpoint in Western media suggests that sanctions prior to the current year were no part of the cause of the current crisis, and only targeted ‘specific individuals’, this is evidently incorrect and severely understates the effect of covert and disguised economic warfare. This is further exemplified by a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which found that most of the impact of the sanctions of previous years “has not been on the government but on the civilian population.”. The report found that American sanctions alone were responsible for an estimated 40,000 deaths from 2017-18, in addition to preventing the Venezuelan government from being able to restructure its foreign debt, and thus “prevented the economy from recovering from a deep recession”.

Furthermore, the existing economic crisis in Venezuela has been greatly intensified by the more intense economic warfare being committed against it in recent months, in the form of more direct and harmful sanctions against its economy. Indeed, the new sanctions (which prevent American companies from doing business with Venezuelan oil companies) resulted in U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil falling to a fraction of previous norms. As a result, these new sanctions, imposed earlier this year, are expected to cut almost US $7 billion from Venezuela’s earnings on the foreign exchange, or in relative terms, over 20 per cent of its 2018 export earnings. This is in addition to international pressure from elsewhere: the Bank of England, for example, froze Venezuelan accounts in response to the country’s ongoing political crisis, preventing the current government from accessing an

additional US$1.5 billion in state assets.

Moreover, to the extent we are willing to evaluate socialism as a potential cause of Venezuela’s present economic crisis, it is also important to note the increased prosperity that the social programs of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PUSV), and thus socialism itself, brought to Venezuela over the past decade. The period following the Bolivarian Revolution saw massive social gains within the state, which have become hugely underrepresented since the beginning of Washington’s most recent crusade against the state. Even if, on account of the recent economic crisis, we ignore the massive reduction in poverty overseen by Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez (poverty in Venezuela was cut by over 33% under Chávez, and extreme poverty by 57%), there are nevertheless notable gains to be found elsewhere. For instance, the United Nations praised the social development programs for their role in combating structural racial discrimination in Venezuela, in addition to its Educational, Scientific and Cultural branch declaring it an “illiteracy-free territory” in 2005. Even in 2018, with Venezuela well into its current economic crisis, the United Nations’ Human Development Index listed Venezuela as a country with “High Human Development”, outranking many of its neighbours, including Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. The aforementioned Alfred de Zayas noted similar gains in his report, writing that the Bolivarian Revolution delivered over 2 million housing units to people “who would otherwise live in shanty towns.”. As most mainstream media in U.S.-friendly states is hostile to the Maduro regime, the social progress in the revolutionary period will typically go under-reported. Yet, to fairly assess the impact of the Bolivarian Revolution, and of socialism more broadly in Venezuela, it is critical that we give similar weight to the major gains that have been made during this era.

It is therefore evident that the current period of economic crisis in Venezuela, which began as a result of reduced export revenues following the price of oil declining sharply in 2014, has become the far greater crisis it is today as a result of factors far beyond the control of the country’s socialist government. The most significant of these, however, is the aggressive, illegal, and ongoing economic warfare committed against Venezuela by the U.S. and several of its allies over the past several years.

These sanctions have not only hindered the Venezuelan government’s ability to escape from the crisis, but actively intensified and worsened it in the process. Furthermore, the framing of the crisis as a failing of socialism and of the Bolivarian Revolution fails to address the huge social gains made under the socialist government during the Chavismo years, as were outlined in the latter part of this essay.

ANONYMOUS 9

FOR THE ERA OF US PRIMACY HAS COME TO AN END Although the U.S. will likely remain a powerful country for the foreseeable future, thanks to its resources and population, the uncontested dominance it enjoyed in the aftermath of the Cold War (the so-called ‘End of History’) is over. Not only have recent events irreversibly damaged the U.S.’s reputation and influence or “soft power” throughout the world, but the growth and development of other powerful global actors such as China and even the EU prefigure a more multipolar geopolitical landscape.

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The most obvious and clichéd sign of the end of U.S. primacy is, of course, the ‘rise of China’. While it still lags behind the U.S. in measures of wellbeing and power like GDP, let alone GDP per capita, China has successfully established itself once again as a rival power to the U.S. within the Asia-Pacific region, demonstrated by its ongoing projects in

the South China Sea in defiance of a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as well as its courting of South East Asian countries like the Philippines – historically close to the U.S. – away from the U.S. Notably, the dispute that lead to the aforementioned ICJ ruling was originally with the Philippines, but the South-East Asian country has remained close to China despite receiving a favourable verdict and U.S. support (Associated Press, 2016). Furthermore, China has already begun to expand its influence internationally through development projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was recently joined by Italy, one of the largest economies in Europe. China and the U.S. don’t necessarily have conflicting interests, and the former’s rise doesn’t guarantee Cold War-esque hostilities. However, the rest of the world now has the interests of two powerful states to consider rather than one.

Italy’s decision to join the BRI is also reflective of Western Europe’s recent movement away from the U.S., which is significant given the regions’ historical closeness and their shared liberal democratic ideologies. As much as European countries have recently experienced growing support for nationalist and right-wing governments, both France and Germany – the most powerful countries on the mainland – have elected or re-elected governments interested in following through and advancing the EU as both a political and economic union. A stronger EU, much like a rising China, represents a powerful strategic counterpart to the U.S., albeit one that is perhaps more ideologically aligned. The increased use of renewable energy as an alternative to Russian oil and gas, calls for an expansion of the EU’s military, resistance to banning Huawei, the planned mechanism to allow Iran to bypass U.S. sanctions, indicate a growing internal push for the region to assert itself as an independent power on the international stage, even in cases where its intentions conflict with those of the U.S. Even if the era of European primacy is long over, the region’s ability to assert itself as a bloc still threatens the U.S.’s dominance.

These emerging challengers to the U.S. have appeared not just because of growing economic or military power – particularly in the case of the EU – but also because the U.S. itself has seemingly done everything it can to end its own era. Much of the U.S.’s ability to negotiate agreements and influence other countries, despite its ‘primacy,’ has stemmed in part from those countries’ willingness to respect and place trust in America, which the U.S. has done very little to justify. Most blatantly, the Iraq War and its aftermath were unmitigated disasters, which contributed heavily to growths in international terrorism, the rise of IS and further destabilisation of the Middle East. Furthermore, despite valid criticisms, the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and the Paris Agreement, all demonstrate a reluctance if not outright refusal on the part of the U.S. to actually occupy its position of primacy and assert itself on the world stage. The first two withdrawals are especially damning of the U.S.’s ability to consistently act as a global hegemon, given that both agreements had been initially driven by the U.S. and were supposed to directly serve its national security interests: the JCPOA caused Iran to cease its development of nuclear weapons while the TPP was primarily shaped to isolate China.

The withdrawal from Paris, though not as tangibly impactful given the agreement’s non-binding nature, was nonsensical and hence reputationally damaging for the same reason, and that’s not even considering the absurdity of refusing to cooperate on climate change. Given its track record and recent behaviours, it’s easy to see why America’s ‘word’ is being faced with increasing scepticism and distrust, and how through its actions it has further marginalised itself.

I am, of course, obliged to mention Trump. The Trump administration’s blatant contempt for international cooperation and relations, impressions of instability and demonstrated willingness to overturn the achievements and ignore the commitments of past administrations are severely damaging to the U.S.’s reputation as a good faith actor and negotiator. Not only is Trump personally difficult to respect or trust, but his behaviour upon election has demonstrated the fickleness inherent to the U.S.’s political system, particularly given its historical refusal to participate in binding international agreements. Any negotiations with the American government must now take place under the assumption that every 4 years, the country might backflip on all of its commitments and jump to another ideological extreme. There’s obviously an extent to which that’s true for any democracy, but America’s clear polarisation, fundamentally flawed political system and history of exceptionalism heighten those risks dramatically. Given that the U.S.’s monopoly on military and economic power is demonstrably weakening, its ability to negotiate, persuade and garner respect have become even more important and it is at this time that the current President has acutely damaged it.

The U.S. has shown no desire or capability to maintain its previous position of primacy in the current geopolitical landscape, while there are plenty of emerging powers to rival it. Therefore, it seems inevitable that the era of U.S. primacy will come to a close, if it hasn’t already.

IMRAN AKYOL

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Against THE ERA OF US PRIMACY HAS COME TO AN END It has become fashionable these days to talk of an impending collapse of U.S. primacy in the world, with many pundits and analysts appearing to take perverse pleasure in predictions that the U.S. will soon be merely one great power among many. This is not the case, however, at least not for a few more decades yet. Firstly, current U.S. power must be situated in its historical context, which reveals the changing nature of world power relations. Secondly, an analysis of the U.S. economic, military and geopolitical situation shows that claims of American decline are much exaggerated, while lastly, the U.S. is likely to remain the pre-eminent power in the world for the simple fact that no alternative presents a significant enough threat to topple it from that position.

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It is true, perhaps, that America no longer enjoys the status it did at the end of World War II.

However, it must be remembered that it only enjoyed such authority in the first place because much of Europe was in economic and physical ruins, and not in a position to openly defy America when it was U.S. money and guns keeping them afloat and out of the expanding influence of the U.S.S.R. In this context, what would appear to be a slow decline of American power is actually a gradual rebuilding of European power, with the end of the Cold War and the EU’s (i.e. Germany’s) current status as an economic powerhouse ensuring it can afford to rely far less on American goodwill than it once did. Although the U.S.S.R. no longer exists, Putin’s Russia does, and therefore Europe cannot afford to disentangle itself from NATO (and American influence) completely. Thus, while the U.S.’s superpower status is no longer as absolute as it once was, it is still nevertheless the single most powerful nation on earth.

Indeed, at no point in its history did the U.S. ever completely direct world affairs. Yet this is the sort of America that the media seems to be envisioning when it conjures images of past American glories, and the sort of America that politicians seem to be referring to with their calls to “Make America Great Again.” The fact that the U.S. does not always get its way in no way indicates a loss of primacy.

The U.S. has always had its interests frustrated, even at the supposed height of its power. For example, the Korean War was a stalemate at best, while Vietnam was an utter defeat. If the U.S. was a superpower then, faced with constant compromise, why should it not be considered to still have primacy now? U.S. power relations have shifted as the world has, but this does not indicate so great a decline as is often claimed.

The U.S.’s geopolitical situation remains impressive. Long-time allies such as Japan, Australia and Canada remained committed to their historic agreements with the U.S. and project U.S. power around the globe by hosting military bases and joining American interventions. No other country in the world enjoys this sort of reach, and for this reason alone the U.S. could still be considered the number one global power, even if new blocs such as the EU are exercising a little more independence than in the past. China may have recently expanded its own roster of military bases, but mainly in unaligned third world countries, and if it decided to intervene overseas it is questionable whether it would receive the same coalition of willing allies as America would.

The U.S. economy also remains supreme, despite the rapid rise of rival China. While the world may now go to China for their manufacturing, they still go to the U.S. for the majority of their financial services and they remain the most popular reserve currency. This central position in the web of dependencies that is the world economy gives the U.S. unparalleled control over its own currency and economic fate, and the ability to leverage this economic power over other states. While a collapse of the Chinese economy would no doubt crash the world economy, in a race to the bottom it is probable that Washington could just outlast Beijing.

The U.S. also remains, by a wide margin, the world’s most powerful military force. While history shows that arms doesn’t always guarantee victory, it nevertheless counts for a lot in calculating relative power. Trying to compete with the U.S. on military spending was arguably one of the largest contributing factors to the downfall of the U.S.S.R., and the U.S.’s current rivals, such as China and Russia, risk going down the same path in their efforts to become the next non-American superpower. The size of American military spending ultimately matters not only as an indication of the technical and numerical superiority of their arms, but also as yet another testament to U.S. economic primacy, with the American military budget exceeding

the next six countries’ budgets combined, with a negligible impact on overall economic health. The geopolitical position of the U.S., aided by its economic and military supremacy, solidifies the U.S. as the strongest country in the world.

Lastly, an analysis of the U.S.’s main competitors shows no realistic options for a new prime power in the near future. The potential of America’s most commonly touted rival, the People’s Republic of China, is often exaggerated. Certainly, in the past few decades China has gone from a relatively minor global player (relative to its population) to a great power and potential rival to the U.S. It is a long way between first and second, however. Much of China’s strategic growth has been contingent on its rapid economic ascension, while U.S. power is far more nuanced, relying on successful diplomacy, international engagement, military strength, and cultural sway. In all these other criteria, China is far behind. Even considering that China is aware of these deficiencies and is actively trying to catch up, such a process will still take decades at the least, meaning that American primacy is guaranteed for a while yet.

Other potential contenders, such as Russia or the EU, also provide little concern. While these provide power centres increasingly independent of U.S. influence, they can still not hope to equal the U.S. militarily or economically. Although the Euro provides a strong counter to the U.S. dollar, the inherent instability that comes of a reliance on a bickering network of sovereign states means that the more reliable U.S. dollar will always be more appealing, especially when the next Eurozone crisis inevitably hits.

On balance it is clear that the U.S. remains, and will remain for the near future, the single most powerful nation on earth. While its hegemonic reach has somewhat declined after the Cold War thanks to the emergence of the EU and the economic rise of China, it still retains the geopolitical, economic and military edge over these competitors to a comfortable degree. The number of voices in the global arena is now much greater than it has ever been, but America’s is still the loudest.

MATT HARPER

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FOR THE ALP AND LNP HAVE BECOME TOO BROAD IN THEIR BELIEFS The Australian Labor Party and the Australian Liberal Party have sacrificed their core principles in an effort to attract voters across the Australian political spectrum. Instead of adhering to their original ideological guidelines, both major parties have relaxed in their approaches to issues of policy – in some instances there is little to no differentiation between the two.

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The contemporary Australian political landscape can be categorised as suffering from an “ideological deficit”. The symptoms? One can be seen in the Adani Carmichael coal mine in Queensland. Projected to produce 10,000 direct and indirect jobs, the Australian Labor Party refused to support the project, which undoubtedly contributed to the Liberal Party’s landslide victory in this year’s election (Labor now has no representation north of Brisbane). Why would the traditional working man’s

party turn its back on producing jobs for workers in the mining and construction industries? The answer is simple, Labor must now contend with large support from environmental interests, which in this case outweigh the importance of traditional labour, in the Labor party. This change in the party is recognised both outside and within, with a senior Victorian party source recently told the Guardian, “we have a problem with lower socio-economic voters”.

Importantly however it is not just the Labor Party’s apparatus that has grown far removed from its core beliefs, or its traditional voters. In 2018, the Australian Liberal party completely abandoned its broad energy policy – the National Energy Guarantee, due to rogue ultra conservative MP’s within the party. Polls at the time showed that 56% of Australians thought that the government

was doing too little at the time to combat climate change. Yet conservative backbenchers accused the government of being too “left-wing”, and for not reneging on the Paris Agreement. Considering that the Liberal Party was never created by Robert Menzies as a conservative party (he purposefully refrained from adopting a name like Australian Conservative party to firmly plant the party directly in the centre, far from right wing ideologues), when and where did this shift come from? The “broad church” of the Liberal party and its embrace of conservativism is antithetical to its belief in classical liberalism. Sheltering these ideologues in search of votes threatens its very foundations.

Consequently, both Liberal and Labor have faced ideological insurrection from within their own parties. This could only happen to political parties that are simply too large, culminating in leadership spills that are hugely damaging to the country. The Australian dollar’s value suffered from the 2018 leadership spill along with international confidence in Australia’s commitment to a free trade deal with Indonesia. With 6 prime ministers in 10 years, Australia is now dubbed the “coup capital of the world”. Perhaps this is a fair assessment, but what is unfair is that the Australian people suffer this label directly at the hands of commercialised parties. The worst thing is that the Australian people never wanted this. These large parties are ideological crises waiting to happen. Such existential battles should be played out across parliament, an arena designed for plurality. The stifling of debate to party rooms rather than voters (as they automatically are assumed to have been catered for) opens the door to a boom and bust cycle of rhetoric aimed at “renewal” – usually followed by a saviour style ideologue. As they supposedly “reconnect” to their disillusioned voter base, such characters take the opportunity to wage factional warfare on one another, as seen in Victorian young Labor and Liberal branches. It has now gotten to the point where there is a Labor “left” and “right” and a Liberal “left” and “right”. In turn, we have seen the rise and further rise of support for disendorsed Federal MP’s – from Jack Lang, Graeme Campbell, Paul Filing, Pauline Hanson and Mark Latham. The 2016 Federal election saw over a third of Australians refuse to vote for the major two parties. This is a good thing.

With less inter-party competition and consequently fewer electoral choices for the populace, voter apathy is all too real a concern for our democracy.

The 2019 Australian election saw one of the lowest voter turnouts (despite compulsory voting) since the mid 1920s. Australian electorates with the youngest median age have dropped in voting and the number of informal votes have skyrocketed.

This is not just occurring in Australia however, voter turnout has been steadily declining in the U.S, Western Europe, Japan and Latin America.

The broad professional political party apparatus is to blame. Sadly, we now rely upon compulsory

voting for interest and engagement with our democratic system. This is most observable with the youth of Australia. For many a feeling of isolation or absence in representation from the two largest parties brings their entire legitimacy into question.

Both sides hold the same opinions on many policy issues including border protection measures like mandatory detention, internal policy gridlock within the two largest parties sees our political landscape limited and controllable. Preferential voting is seen as a roundabout way of funnelling votes to big parties, meanwhile dishonesty plagues rhetoric between the two big parties from ‘mediscare’ to $100 lamb roasts. Business as usual is playing hard and fast, policy on the run, winner takes all. Australia does not need this.

For the health of our Parliamentary democracy, Labor and Liberal both need to reevaluate and reform commitment to their core beliefs. The size of these parties and the power they hold have become towering machines that resemble each other more so than their true selves. The Australian voter deserves better.

SCOTT REID

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AGAINST THE ALP AND LNP HAVE BECOME TOO BROAD IN THEIR BELIEFS Whose Liberal Party is it Anyway?

Over the past few election cycles, a dangerous and misleading myth has grown up around the supposed hijacking of the Liberal Party by the conservative right, personified in the likes of Tony Abbot and Peter Dutton. According to this worldview, while the Liberal Party has historically been the noble receptacle of free market liberalism and Good Economic Management, the lofty legacy of Menzies has recently been corrupted by the regressive forces of social and religious conservatism.

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This myth is just that: a myth. It is a complete fabrication spun by economic right-wingers who also identify as social moderates, whose secret shame at coming to power off the back of such a Party has compelled them to create a worldview which would assuage their guilty consciences. One prominent proponent of the moderate Liberal myth was

Malcolm Turnbull, and it is further perpetuated in the current parliament by fashionably progressive nimbys such as Tim Wilson and Dave Sharma.

These self-proclaimed ‘modern Liberals’ would have the voters believe that they are the true face of the Liberal Party, and that the Party has always been the non-existent utopia of economic liberalism that they envision it to be.

The truth is far different. Menzies himself, the father of the party, was a staunch imperialist and proud conservative, and many of his policies, such as drastically increasing public spending on universities, would not sit well with the Liberal Party of today. More broadly, however, arguments are increasingly being thrown around in Australian politics that rely on the historical forms of parties to criticise them in the current day. For example, many point to Labor’s historical support of the

White Australia Policy as proof that it cannot and never will be able to take effective action on refugees. In a similar vein, the Liberal Party is constantly mis-characterised on the basis of the actions of individuals in its past. The state of politics in this country could be greatly improved if we become willing to acknowledge that Parties can and do evolve greatly over time, and also that no major party seeking to form government is going to be filled with thousands of people who share the exact same views on every issue. This is not the way politics works, nor is the way we should expect it to work, as some commentators seem to believe.

Additionally, to claim that the current beliefs of the Liberal Party are too broad is not actually in the interests of those who oppose it. Many on the left point to the current tensions in the Liberals as a sign of their unsuitability to govern, but the payoff of this divide and conquer approach is that the ‘modern Liberal’ narrative is further strengthened and reinforced as truth. Should this narrative be allowed to reach its natural conclusion, left politics in this country would suffer a grievous setback.

For while the Liberals differ wildly in their social views, they are near unanimous in their support for an economic ideology of big business and favouring the wealthy. If they are allowed to paint themselves as social progressives, while supporting decidedly anti-progressive economic policies, then both the political left and the Australian public will lose out.

This is the crux of the matter: Australian politics has always been a politics of economics, despite recent appearances to the contrary. This is evidenced by the fact that the three largest parties contesting the earliest federal elections were formed along economic policy lines: The Protectionists, the Free Trade Party, and Labor. The Liberal Party itself essentially developed around a common goal of opposing what was feared to be the socialist economic leanings of the Labor Party.

Those parties which have formed around primarily non-economic interests, such as nationalist, religious, or civil rights groups, have never broken beyond minor party status.

years has been a two-party system of Labor and anti-Labor. The two earliest major parties, the Free Traders and the Protectionist, even went so far as to unite as the Commonwealth Liberal Party so as to better oppose Labor. Through a series of further mergers and coalitions, almost every other party to arise since Federation has either been consigned to minority status and eventual electoral oblivion (as was the case with groups such as the Democratic Labor Party and the Liberal Democrats, and will likely one day happen to more recent upstarts such as One Nation), or been subsumed in the Anti-Labor coalition. The only exception to this trend is the Greens, who effectively exist either as a protest vote by progressives who wish Labor was further left, or a protest vote by the consciences of nimbys who would otherwise vote Liberal.

Taking this historical view, it becomes clear the Liberals, while still maintaining a façade of standing for some things, are in truth more accurately described as a party which stands against. This is not withstanding the fact that the Liberals or their equivalents have won more elections than the Labor Party; they often won these elections not on the strength of their own ideals, but on the effectiveness of their fear-mongering around the inevitable uncertainty that accompanies the prospect of a relatively more progressive government.

Given that they are united in standing against Labor, despite being diverse in their social opinions, the existence of such a party makes logical sense from an electoral standpoint. Any attacks against the Coalition which rest on the argument that it is too unwieldly an alliance of social conservatives and economic neoliberals are too simplistic and misconstrue the true nature of Australian politics. For the hypocritical self-serving ‘moderates’, such as Turnbull and the ‘modern Liberal’ crowd, enabling racists and bigots to gain government in this country is clearly not too great a price to pay to ensure that their rich mates keep getting richer.

MATT HARPER

It is therefore ridiculous to argue that the Liberals present too broad a church, for while they do indeed range from deeply religious conservatives to socially liberal moderates, economically they staunchly subscribe to a neoliberal economic ideology. It is on economics that they can and should be most strongly differentiated from their main opposition in the Labor Party, it is on economics that they prove themselves to be inherently anti-progressive, and it is on economics that they are united in the common goal of supporting and furthering those structures which oppress ordinary Australians and keep those in power powerful.

The Australian system over the past hundred

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FOR NO CITIZENSHIP REVOCATION FOR AUSTRALIAN TERRORISTS Fundamentally, the issue of whether to revoke a terrorist’s citizenship is a question of the extent to which we respect their human rights, the extent to which we value consistency in our punishment of crimes, and the extent to which we value minor convenience over fairness. For the purposes of this article, I’ll assume that the citizens in question definitely are or were members of a terrorist organisation, that they are entirely unrepentant, and that they’ve effectively been convicted in a fair trial. It goes without saying that more grey circumstances would weaken the case for a punishment as severe as the revocation of citizenship.

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To explain why the punishment is so severe, it helps to first unpack what exactly the revocation of citizenship constitutes. It doesn’t feel as concrete or impactful as more ‘traditional’ forms of punishment, such as a prison sentence, but it is in

fact considerably harsher. While imprisonment is the denial of various rights and freedoms in order to punish or perhaps rehabilitate a person (generally the former), revocation of citizenship is the denial that a person is under any circumstances entitled to those rights.

That might sound ridiculous at first. After all, there are plenty of people in Australia who don’t possess Australian citizenship – international students for example – and they’re hardly being deprived of their basic human rights (right?).

However, foreigners in Australia do possess citizenship of another country and arbitrarily abusing them would, generally speaking, trigger a response of some kind from that country.

The reason the UN talks about the ‘right to a nationality’ and why legal and political scholars

fret about how a policy or action ‘risks rendering people stateless’ is that citizenship is the basis for every individual’s human rights. If someone has no citizenship, then there is no one with any degree of influence (i.e. not an NGO or some random on Twitter) on the international stage going to advocate for their rights. Hence, they may as well not be a person as far as the international community is concerned, since their abuse or exploitation has no material consequences and most governments frankly do not place a great deal of weight on ethical principles. For most people, admittedly, ‘whether or not someone will speak on my behalf on the international stage’ isn’t at the forefront of their minds, but for someone who’s joined a terrorist organization and is stranded in the Middle East, that’s a much more material concern.

Based on the importance of citizenship we can at the very least come to two conclusions.

Firstly, that the revocation of citizenship is both symbolically and materially a significant form of punishment that Australia can inflict. Secondly, that someone who is stateless is effectively a non-person, and in order to maintain their universal human rights, this should be prevented.

Thirdly, a country refusing to advocate on behalf of someone is implicitly revoking their citizenship, because that’s the purpose of citizenship.

Therefore, Australia has an obligation to uphold the rights of its citizens who aren’t dual nationals, regardless of their affiliation. I’d also add that in the case of dual nationals, it’s basic decency to ensure that the other country will actually uphold the rights of the individual in question.

These assertions result in two more questions: do terrorist affiliations justify such a punishment, and now that we are forced to make a distinction between single and dual nationals by the above conclusions, whether it is fair to do so (Lenard, 2016). To answer the former, it serves to unpack exactly what these terrorists did.

At the very least, these people have expressed their support for an ideology that is bigoted, intolerant, hateful and unequivocally un-Australian. Insert quotable leftist ‘gotcha’ here. More seriously, there’s a reasonable case to be made that they’re guilty of treason, though there is a level of subjectivity in how treason is defined (bigotry in general could be seen as a betrayal of fundamental Australian values while certain radical cosmopolitan ideologies, both leftist and neoliberal, could have an ideal end-goal where the state of Australia no longer exists). More materially, they’ve probably aided and abetted instances of mass murder, rape, slavery and whatever else IS has been up to lately, if they haven’t engaged in those crimes themselves.

All of those acts, including treason, already have relatively clear consequences under Australian law. There’s no reason not to be consistent in

the enforcement of those punishments. It’s quite arbitrary to change a punishment solely based on whether or not someone’s a dual citizen, particularly when that status might have been acquired based on something even more arbitrary, like where someone’s parent was born, and had not been a tangible factor in that person’s life. It’s even arguably racist to do so, as it is inherently likely to separate out first and second generation immigrants.

The next question likely to be raised is one of convenience. Does accepting and processing Australian terrorists place a strain on our resources?

Not only is the number of Australia-born terrorists who are also dual nationals small relative to our prison population – there were just under 43,000 prisoners in Australia in 2018, reflecting an increase of over 1,700 prisoners in a year (ABS, 2018) – but the number we can actually expect to be captured is probably even lower, and will likely be spread out over a longer period of time. So there is hardly a difference in terms of economic convenience. More plainly, if the government isn’t doing something that you’d like it to do, be it more defence, welfare or immigration, it won’t be because of the 50 or so people they put in jail for terrorism.

Now compare that to another country, such as Syria, Iraq or Turkey, that is not only less economically well-off in general, but also has a larger burden in terms of captured terrorists to deal with. Providing a relatively modest amount of assistance by accepting some Australian citizens is only fair and serves to stabilise the region and prevent the spread of terrorist ideologies there (which negatively affects Australia).

The final point to consider is the responsibility that Australia might have for these terrorists’ behavior. Most terrorists with Australian citizenship are probably people who were born here or have lived here for a long time and have for reasons like bigotry or poverty become alienated from society and have as a result caused significant amounts of harm either in Australia or overseas.

If we consider the state responsible in some small way for the circumstances of its citizens, then why shouldn’t the state be at least a little bit responsible for the results of such circumstances?

Alternatively, if we do place all the responsibility on the individual, the Australian government is at the very least guilty of doing little to prevent the spread of hateful ideologies.

In short, revoking citizenship is a serious, potentially rights-violating punishment, that is entirely unnecessary and unwarranted in these circumstances. Stripping someone of their citizenship is to remove their personhood and only serves to undermine the basic rights and principles upheld by citizenship.

IMRAN AKYOL

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Against NO CITIZENSHIP REVOCATION FOR AUSTRALIAN TERRORISTS Human beings, generally, enjoy being part of groups. We are biologically driven to be social, and accordingly, certain rules of group behaviour are grounded into our psyche. Such rules are no more familiar to any adult than they are to children playing in the school yard. If you are in the group, you will have the special benefit of having someone to play with at lunchtime. If you have someone who would like to join your group, you might choose to reject them, or you might let them stick around for a couple of games before you decide whether or not they can stay (either decided as a group decision or by the ‘leader’, depending on the political structure of this particular gang of seven year olds). Most pertinently to this topic, if you do something your group does not like, you may face expulsion.

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This microcosmic example points to a wider truth: that a most basic tenet of the ability to govern a

state is the ability to choose who is allowed to be a member of that state. To bring this to the topic at hand, here we face the issue of citizenship. I suggest that the power of a state to control its membership should be inherent in its existence as a state, and that joining a terrorist group overseas may be an instance where dissolution of one’s citizenship would be justified.

For context, let us examine closer what is meant by sovereignty, and how it relates to citizenship. Let the tides of history—from small familial tribes, to ancient and classical empires ebbing and flowing in size and power, to the robust and complex modern nation—not distract from the fundamental truth that a state is merely a large and complicated group of people. Furthermore the rules that govern that particular group are administered in the name of sovereignty: the supreme right and power of a

state over itself. Its roots are at least as old as the classical era: ‘The people transferred all their imperium and power to the Emperor. The Emperor is not bound by the laws. A decision by the Emperor has the force of a statute’ (Roman jurist Ulpian, 200 AD). Political scientists tend to divide sovereignty into two parts: the internal (its power over individuals within the particular sovereign state) and the external (that the particular sovereign state is independent from all other states). The former is the focus here. If a state is to be said to hold the absolute power over the individuals within it, surely such a supposition is predicated on the notion that the state may choose to whom the power applies; surely it is a power inalienable from, incumbent on and concomitant with sovereignty.

In the case of Australia, the fact that the government has the power to bestow citizenship would suggest the logical inference that it is also empowered to dissolve citizenship. To bastardise a biblical quote: what the government giveth, the government may taketh away. In certain situations, Australia has the power to revoke Australian citizenship: for example where the Minister is satisfied that it would be contrary to the public interest for a person to remain an Australian citizen. However this power cannot be used where it would leave the person stateless. I suggest that this qualification is in error, and undermines the external element of sovereignty: it should be of no concern whether or not a person is a citizen elsewhere, if they have performed an act so heinous that it would be contrary to the public interest for that person to remain an Australian citizen.

terrible that it would result in that consequence.

Citizenship of a nation and all it encompasses— security, opportunity, identity, a right to participate in that nation’s political process—should be recognised as the immense privilege that it is.

Many people have taken enormous risks to migrate to Australia, and seek Australian citizenship for themselves or their children. If the Australian government has the power to grant citizenship to those it deems deserving, it should also have the power to revoke it from those it deems undeserving, and few would fit the latter category as easily as those who choose to leave this country and commit severe and violent acts of terrorism.

ANONYMOUS

To bring my argument to the point, I will begin by establishing that I do not argue that in every single case where an Australian joins a terrorist organisation in a foreign country, revocation of citizenship is the appropriate consequence. But I do argue, quite vehemently, two points of opinion. First, as stated above, I believe it is a central element of sovereignty that the state provide or revoke membership of that state as they see fit (even where it would leave them stateless). Secondly, to those who might argue, for example, that a government owes a duty to look after their own citizens and bring justice against them where needed, it is ludicrous to suggest that such a duty would be without a limit. Where an Australian has joined a foreign terrorist organisation and in that capacity has participated in serious terrorist acts, the government should certainly be empowered to revoke their citizenship and prevent them from freely returning to this country.

One may argue that stripping a person of their only citizenship is to leave them utterly helpless and without a home, ultimately dooming them to total misfortune. Against that point, one might proceed to note that it is indeed a terrible fate, as is intended, in order to discourage one from doing things so 21

FOR THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY LEADS TO MARKET REGULATION The extension of democracy naturally leads to market regulation due to the incompatibilities between classical liberal economic policy, and the current era of market globalisation. Economic inequalities produced are translated ideologically into wider social movements that encompass market regulation. The repercussions of an unregulated market economy both on a domestic and international scale would not only entail a globalised race to the bottom, but a reactionary aversion to democracy.

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Economic consequences of neo-classical liberal policy have had serious effects upon western democracies. Seen as the current dominant ideology, neoliberalism took charge of the western market debate in the 1970’s, coinciding with a distinct rise in income inequality. This replacement of Keynesian policy objectives like full employment

and the reduction of poverty show that economic development does not necessarily run parallel with social development. The policy prescriptions of “Thatcherism” and “Reaganism” extended to the ‘Washington Consensus’ (competition driven economic prosperity) and the international level. In turn, these economic prescriptions have implicitly become political prescriptions for the institutions of democracy, i.e. the absence of state regulation in economic globalisation and market convergence.

This has facilitated the rise and further rise of the corporate-state nexus, whereby the host country and corporations have a mutually beneficial relationship like the British East India Trading Company operating under a Royal Charter (Adam Smith himself strongly opposed these forms of relationships). The current stage of globalisation has seen multi-national corporations develop in

purpose and scope. Out of the 100 largest economies on earth, 51 are corporations. Capitalism in its extended, unregulated format has led to a rivalry between the democratic state and an increasingly empowered body corporate, with many already claiming the nation state is useless.

The increasing power of multi-national corporations is a consequence of both deregulation and globalisation. Waves of privatisation from telecommunications to water supply under the pretence of preventing “economic stagnation” are examples of governments ceding democratic accountability and institutional authority to their growing rival.

These are not instances of commercial “victory” but rather governmental failure in the face of economic pressure. When market failure occurs, the regulatory bodies of the state are immediately called into question, despite dubious practises by the private sector (almost to be expected). Examples of this behaviour include the manipulation of local and social economic networks as strategic devices to directly compete with local government to gain concessions and influence political decisions.

This is highly damaging to institutions of governance. Super PACs and the use of Private Military Contractors, all pose direct challenges to the operations of an accountable democracy. Cornerstones of “liberal economic policy” such as NAFTA, TPP and CETA have seen the process of ‘Investor-State Dispute Settlement’ interfere with the provisions of human rights and a national duty of care for the environment. In 1999, the Canadian Government (and in turn its people), was sued for $20 million for banning the export of toxic PCB waste.

This has also extended to developing countries. In 2012 Ecuador was sued by Occidental Petroleum for a total penalty of $2.4 billion despite having 27.3% of the population living below the poverty line. One can begin to see where antipathy for the international comes from.

This interconnected nature of globalisation has created a persistent area of conflict amongst capitalist democracies - the rise of the international market at the expense of the national market.

Winners and losers have been generated on a global scale and with globalisation inherently capitalist in nature, the limits to consumer growth as a criterion for “success” will be called into question.

Regulation and intervention will be required as a part of a wider assertion of economic purpose for democracies across the globe, a return to a nationalistic remedy for an international question might be inevitable.

For many, in the redrawing of the Keynesian post-war social bargain, capitalist democracies have simply forgotten the social contract. Subsequently for those most affected there is a growing disparity between the ideal of “democracy” as a

measurement for national and political success, and the harsh economic reality the they find themselves in. This polarity transpires into disillusionment. Political polarisation directly poses a threat to democracy and has contributed to the populist movements behind not just Donald Trump but also Bernie Sanders, Silvio Berlusconi, Marine Le Penn, and Geert Wilders. In the minds of the disenfranchised, these movements represent a return to the prioritisation of the national “majority”. The working paper ‘Importing Political Polarisation?

The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure’, found that U.S. voting districts exposed to international labour competition were far more likely to vote out moderate politicians. The underlying zeitgeist to these political outcries is that they offer a substantially “directive” approach to the role of government institutions, regulation and management.

For some, the democratic satisfaction of the majority of voters is a chore. In ‘Regulating the Poor’

by Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward (2012), it was suggested that the extension of the welfare state is only done to curb outright rebellion. In ‘The Logic of Collective Action’ by Mancur Olsen (1965), “neoliberalism” forms a part of a normal cyclical period of economic intervention where elites ‘rent-seek’ before the majority of society find out. This concept of class mobilisation is pertinent in conjunction with U.S. Chamber of Commerce membership booming in 1975 and the rise of U.S. corporate political action committees booming that same year. Quite a coincidence…

A more responsive state apparatus is required with adaptive economic policy in our era of globalisation; “democracy as problem solving”. As Karl Polanyi said “the self-regulating economy does not always work as well as its proponents would like us to believe.” Incentives, regulation and transparent provision of information are only some of the ways to revitalise the role of the state in a capitalist democracy. Democracy is a political platform for the exercise of regulation, and a government that does not use it in this manner has lost sight of its central purpose.

SCOTT REID

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Against THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY LEADS TO MARKET REGULATION To regulate a market is to restrict the freedom of its people and enable inefficient government bureaucracy, reducing welfare and prosperity. Rather than enhance or extend democracy, market regulation hampers it by reducing the ability of the population to make choices for themselves and results in a less efficient society.

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Those on ‘The Left’ who supposedly advocate democracy are quick to bemoan and condemn billionaires and corporations, declaring their success and influence ‘corruptive’, ‘oligarchic’ and, of course, ‘undemocratic’ and insisting that the government step in to weaken them. In doing so, advocates of market regulation expose their hypocrisy and malignant. Despite what Bernie Sanders, AOC and Anthony Albanese would have you believe, billionaires are, in fact, people. And corporations, though obviously not physical human beings

themselves, do represent the combined interests and desires of thousands if not millions of people.

Remember that when your local socialist rants and raves about mining companies, ‘the big banks’ and whatever else - they aren’t just calling for the demise of a handful of executives; they also seek to impose artificial destitution upon countless people employed by these entities, as well as the ordinary shareholder. That’s not even considering the impact of losing the various community outreach programs, social justice causes and scholarships which rely on the support of banks and other corporations. Advocates of market regulation seek to take economic power away from people and their representatives in business and instead pass it on to faceless bureaucrats and politicians in Canberra, who have no understanding of the struggles faced by ordinary working Australians. Such a policy could not possibly be democratic. Rather,

market regulation is a deployment of government authority that is inherently tyrannical.

It is no coincidence that we live in a society that both espouses democratic values and has adopted the free market. The two are inextricably intertwined. The free market is the best economic system simply because it is the only economic system that aligns the incentives of individuals (and hence their actions in aggregate) with the best interests of society. Therefore, the free market is the structure that maximises prosperity and best optimises our production. In contrast, governments are prone to corruption as well as general incompetence. The corruption endemic to modern China as well as the downfall of the U.S.S.R. plainly reveal the failings of government bureaucracies to operate in an efficient and effective manner, highlighting the objective inferiority of those socialist systems when compared to the market-based systems of the U.S. and Australia. Power is one’s ability to influence and inherently must stem from the resources at one’s disposal. Surely, the economic apparatus that maximises the wealth and well being of the people is also accordingly the one that grants them the most power and thus maximises democracy.

‘The Left’ responds to these empirical facts by lecturing us about ‘inequality’ and similar buzzwords.

Such discourse betrays a lack of understanding of free market mechanisms. Even if wealth and income are distributed somewhat unevenly, what gets produced and where resources are directed is ultimately determined by what people will pay for.

Consumers may not all sit on corporate boards, but they still have the power to vote with their wallets and hence dictate what those boards decide. Regardless of distribution, free markets always function under the principle of consumer sovereignty, enabling democracy in its purest form.

Proponents of market regulation wilfully misunderstand or mislead people about consumer sovereignty because therein lies the true underlying motivation for their behaviour: paternalism.

Advocates for regulation invariably believe that certain lifestyles and decisions are objectively best for everyone. They are obviously entitled to those beliefs, but regulation entails the enforcement of those beliefs on the rest of society regardless of what individuals perceive to be best for them. For the government to represent the entire population, as it is supposed to in a democracy, it should facilitate the independent decision-making and liberty of the individuals that comprise it instead of dictating others’ decisions. This is particularly important given that objectivity is more often than not an illusion to avoid thinking about one’s assumptions, and so the philosophies advocated by the writers of regulation are unlikely to be universally positive for all. The ethical systems and values held by advocates of regulation are inherently subjective and should not be spread by a democratic government at the expense of choice and free will. People should ultimately be left to

their own devices and be free to make decisions and pursue happiness in their own way. Limiting those choices and coercing people to follow a specific lifestyle – and that is the effect of market regulation – is inherently anti-democratic. In the worse case scenario, the groups responsible for writing or influencing regulations could be granted unthinkable amounts of power over the way we live, dictating what we consume every day. Clearly, such a paradigm would not be at all democratic. In contrast, out-of-control regulation could lead to a sort of accidental – or even intentional – tyranny.

Market regulation is not an “extension of democracy”. In actuality, it is a subversion of it that threatens our freedoms by transferring power away from the people towards various institutions and interest groups who cannot be trusted with it.

ANONYMOUS

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FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR SHOULD REGULATE THE SPREAD OF FAKE NEWS With the increased digitalisation of traditional newspaper outlets, news of all kinds and all sources has become increasingly accessible to every individual residing in every corner of the planet.

This means that the digitally literate generation no longer needs to go to a newspaper stand or convenience store to grab their daily scoop in person. Now not only is the time it takes for news to disseminate much shorter, but all types of content are more accessible than ever before, with media companies fiercely competing for the attention of readers.

It is in this marketplace that the problem of fake news appears. Not only is the attention span of consumers decreasing to the point that online news articles advertise themselves as one or two minute reads, but this inattention is in turn creating a generation that struggles to focus on one thing for any length of time. To grab the attention of these distracted readers, media companies are now incentivised to keep their content as brief and to the point as possible, as well as using catchy titles and clickbait images, all in the hopes of enticing consumers into opting into paid subscription services.

This creates a problem of fact-checking content that is put out there: are the claims made simply untrue to make money, and if so, should it be a part of a company’s corporate social responsibility to ensure the dissemination of accurate information? Furthermore, should an industry known for using misdirection to sell subscriptions be trusted to self-regulate? It is in the face of these issues that the public sector comes in - namely the government.

Another important point to look at is of course the question of who provides the funding of these activities. It is true, the government can raise awareness on the dangers of fake news online but the authenticity of the campaign can be tricky at times. The government is comprised of representatives from the left, right and everything in between, who would have different priorities and agendas. Furthermore, due to a lack of consensus and bipartisanship in many modern governments, parliament would likely be sluggish when it comes to implementing effective programs and policies cracking down on fake news.

Corporations, unlike the government, are more fast-paced and resourceful. While the government and regulatory bodies do voice and debate on the importance of keeping online news authentic, it is the corporations who have the power to implement reform - as long as it serves their interests.

This then raises questions once again, about how reliable these organisations are when it comes to cracking down on fake news online.

Therefore, the government needs to not only have strong anti-corruption measures to prevent conflicts of interest arising, but look past party lines to reach a bipartisan consensus on addressing the widespread problems happening online. The public sector must also work alongside corporations, to ensure they are ethically carrying out their legal obligations, and effectively educate digital consumers on the potential dangers and risks of online media. ćž—éž? SONIA

The government, provided that officials are free from corruption and potential conflicts of interest, should be responsible for making policies in the best interests of the public, and safeguarding the public against the spread of fake news. However, this regulation would need to be undertaken with assistance from the private sector, intelligence agencies and daily independent social media users, in order to successfully prevent the spread and threat of fake news for the best interests of the public. Introducing and organising awareness campaigns, designing user-friendly training programs under the guidance of a trusted authority will be essential, and requires the participation of social media corporations.

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Against THE PUBLIC SECTOR SHOULD REGULATE THE SPREAD OF FAKE NEWS First and foremost, a mild disclaimer, all ‘fake news’ was written with the explicit purpose that it be spoken aloud in the form of a Trump impersonation. If you do not do this, the article may not retain its intended flow or meaning. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

The concept of free speech is one that seems to be cropping up in debates and discussions everywhere. Not just through news sources, but on social media platforms and blogs alike, revealing that there has been little public consensus.

Since the rise of social media, which can be linked to the initial launch of Facebook and Twitter, these debates have intensified in their aggressiveness and frequency. Ostensibly, in regards to ‘fake news’ there is simply a question of how far one should be allowed to go when expressing their opinion.

However, in this highly-charged political atmosphere that is experiencing fresh accusations of ‘fake news’ every day, it becomes less of a question of do we need to regulate this, and more question of how should we regulate this?

Free speech can only go so far before it becomes hateful or blatantly deceitful. In one particular incident, somewhat insensitively named “Pizza-gate”, an American fake-news story linking a pizzeria in Washington D.C. to human trafficking accusations and one particular presidential candidate, prompted a man to enter the establishment with a semi-automatic rifle and start shooting at staff and customers alike. This is a clear example of fake news going too far. It is not all just stories of celebrities eating burritos the wrong way, this is truly damaging stuff that can have disastrous consequences. But how do we solve this? And who must shoulder the responsibility?

This is not an easy problem to solve. The public sector, which describes bodies created for public purpose, and the people employed by these bodies, has been brought to the forefront in this particular conversation. It includes public service departments, SES, non-SES and other organisations constituted for a specific public purpose, and is a crucial facet of a functioning society. Yet, its reach only extends to that particular society, or for a better term, state. Social media, however, is a global phenomenon. So just how much can the public sector truly do to regulate an international problem, when they are limited to a national domain?

There is also a question of what can the public sector really even do? For an issue such as this one, if we choose to resolve it, we need laws. Hard rules that tell individuals what they can and cannot post in regards to “news” on the internet, and appropriate sanctions in place that can be doled out when needed. The public sector cannot do this. Thus, if we really wanted to go down this road, it would be the responsibility of the government to steer us in the right direction.

In addition, we still need to ask ourselves just how limiting we would want to be. Luckily, or not so luckily for us, we do not possess any express right to free speech in the Australian constitution.

However, if you have ever been on Facebook, you have probably witnessed some kind of political rant possessing very little facts, which in my experience are solely posted by family members over the age of 50. To some people, the fact that we are allowed to do this is a beautiful, if not irritating thing. So just to play devil’s advocate for a second here, I have to ask, do we really need to restrict this if it isn’t harmful? Yes it may not be truthful, but will people believing it cause any actual damage?

There is a difference between these type of rants and fake information presented on online news sources, which can then be shared on Twitter. I do not refute that. But I have not seen many examples where these articles have truly had a negative effect. I agree that outright lies should not be printed, lest we have more “pizza-gates” but the public sector cannot be expected to oversee this.

Over the past five years, there has been a net decline in Australia’s trust in news sources of approximately 14%. Evidently, we are mostly intelligent enough to spot these types of things on our own. In a dream world, I would appreciate the government having a heavier hand in instances like this. But with evidence of backlash from similar laws in Singapore, it is clear that we are not ready to have any real infringement on our free speech.

Unfortunately, at this point in time, I think it best we take a step back until it is truly necessary.

KEELY GARRETT

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Editorial

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Abortion in the american south

If Alabama’s new abortion laws have revealed anything, it is that politicians are still not prepared to grant social and sexual freedoms to women.

Yet again, a room filled with old white men have decided that women cannot possibly know what to do with their own bodies. This year, twenty-five Republican men voted ‘yes’ for a new bill entitled the ‘Human Life Protection Act’. The bill, which was passed by majority and signed into law on April 30th, strictly decrees that the performance of an abortion is illegal, and threatens doctors with a minimum of ten years imprisonment if they choose to assist in the removal of a foetus. This archaic law reads more like scripture than legal doctrine, and strips women of their right to privacy and bodily autonomy.

Frighteningly, the popularity of abortion bans are growing in the United States. Ten states, including Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, have already passed a ‘heartbeat bill’, which prohibits the act of abortion after a heartbeat has been identified from a foetus. Note here that foetal heartbeats can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, meaning that girls and women may be legally required to carry their foetus to term before even possessing the knowledge that they are pregnant.

What should women do to prevent such mental, emotional and physical strains? Some conservatives might advocate for abstinence; a refusal to engage in sexual intercourse. However, this suggestion denies women the pleasures of sexual freedom. It also disregards women who are victims of rape. The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) reveals that girls between the ages of 16-19 are four times more likely to experience sexual assault than any other gender or age group.

In 80% of these cases the perpetrator is a parent.

However, the state of Alabama shrugs this off.

There are no exceptions to their new laws, unless the mother or foetus is exposed to a serious health risk during pregnancy. This means that girls and women who are victims of rape and incest are forced to give birth to the child of their attacker.

Upon hearing this, many people may wish to revert this discussion back to ‘the average woman’ who participates in consensual sex. So, let’s focus on contraception. Planned Parenthood suggests that couples who wish to prevent pregnancy should use condoms, however, warn that they can break during intercourse. They also state that the pill is 99% effective, but only if it is used correctly. If a woman takes her pill a few hours later than usual, vomits or simultaneously consumes alternative medication, her likelihood of falling pregnant drastically increases. Evidently, women are still at risk of pregnancy even when using protection.

Furthermore, contraception is not always readily available to women. Women in marginalised, uneducated and poorer communities are often unable to access birth control, and sometimes cannot

afford to relocate outside of Alabama if an abortion is desired. Of women who seek abortions, 75% are from low income households. Black women are three times more likely than white women to experience what the Guttmacher Institute describes as an ‘unintended pregnancy’, while Hispanic women are twice as likely. The criminalisation of abortions will undoubtedly impact these marginalised communities negatively and extensively. Instead of being supported by the law, women in Alabama are being threatened by it.

In an effort to safeguard their own futures, or prevent their foetus from being born into destitution, many women will feel forced to enact an unsafe abortion; an attempt to remove their foetus without medical knowledge or professional assistance.

Olga Khazan reveals that 45% of abortions are still performed in such conditions, which creates greater risks of bleeding, infection and obstructed labour. This, as found by the Global Aid Organisation Médecins Sans Frontières, kills 22,000 girls and women a year. Do we really want to see this number increase as the criminalisation of women’s rights spreads throughout the United States?

Alabama’s state senate clearly prioritises the beliefs of its male voters over the rights and freedoms of its female citizens. While the bill was signed into law by Alabama’s female governor Kay Ivey, only 4 of the senate’s 35 seats are actually occupied by women. If the Alabama senate included a greater representation of women when proposing their new laws, the outcome of their vote may have differed significantly. The bill would have been presented to the citizens that it physically affects.

It would have then been thoroughly scrutinised in terms of the harms it imposes on girls and women.

Its attack against bodily autonomy would have been condemned, and the rights of women would have, hopefully, prevailed over the uninformed decision-making of white, male politicians.

Without greater political female representation, our societies will crumble. We must let women take charge on matters that concern their own bodies and freedoms. If Alabama’s politicians believe that their new laws promote a safer and more ethical environment for their female citizens, they’re kidding themselves.

JAMISYN GLEESON

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Democratic Participation

Across the western democratic world, there seems to be growing disenchantment and distrust with government and the democratic process. People no longer trust that the institutions of democracy can meet their needs or represent their values.

Frustration with government inaction or perceived unrepresentativeness is often directed, mistakenly in my view, toward democracy.

As a sign of the growing disengagement from electoral politics, political party membership across western democracies has been declining for several decades (with membership rates particularly low among young people). Political parties have traditionally been one of the major institutions in democracy. Parties provide a bridge between civil society and the government, with party members in the middle. Having a strong, diverse membership is important for parties to be representative of the views and interests of the broader community or electorate. When choosing party executives or candidates and developing party policy, members are representative of their respective demographics. Declining party membership means that decisions within the party are drawn from an increasingly narrow proportion of the community.

Political party membership in Australia is only around 2% of the population, with only a fraction of these being active. Paired with the scarcity of younger members, parties will inevitably become less representative of Australians, particularly young Australians, creating a further divide between politicians and the communities they serve.

I believe we in Australia should be grateful for our democracy, particularly when we look at authoritarian regimes and failed states around the world (we could certainly do worse). People can vote, join political parties, run for office or otherwise express themselves politically. Not everyone in the world has those freedoms. In the Democracy Index 2018 published by The Economist, Australia was given a perfect 10.00 on electoral system and civil liberties.

Good governance was high at 8.93, while political participation was the main drawback at 7.78. If there is a weakness in Australia’s democracy, therefore, it is not that the system is broken or the government is corrupt, but people are not participating fully as active citizens. To a lesser extent, we may blame the politicians, but I think the rhetoric on the inaction of politicians is a symptom of a disengaged populace. If people were fully aware of the issues and able to determine the best solutions, that would naturally pressure politicians into more effective and representative policy. If people want politicians to listen to them and represent their values, naturally they need to be involved first.

Otherwise, how can we expect politicians to know what we want them to do. They are left to guess - surrounded by a bubble of a small number of politically aware individuals, party members and special interest groups. As American labour leader Cesar Chavez said, “We don’t need perfect political systems; we need perfect participation.”

In the past state election, how many people had no idea which parties were running or even who they were planning to vote for at the ballot box? Despite the ease in which we can look up each of the different parties, many people cannot be bothered. If people are not aware of the party policies, politicians are not selected on the merits of their ideas, but rather on the basis of whether or not they have a catchy slogan or popular figurehead.

This does not mean that people, including young people, are politically apathetic. Many still have deep convictions about certain issues and participate in alternative forms of political action, such as protest marches or social media activism. These activities are perceived as more likely to result in positive change than being involved in political parties. This lack of involvement in political parties, however, hinders effective policy change. For instance, if many teachers or nurses decided to join parties (across the political spectrum), you might expect to see the quality of education or healthcare policy (at least relating to teacher and nurse conditions) rise dramatically. Party bureaucrats would suddenly have to contend with people within the party calling for policy change, with the votes to back that up. Similarly, if young people want to see policies that are representative of their values and interests, they should be involved in electoral politics, including becoming party members.

Thomas Jefferson noted that government is not formed by a majority of the people, but by “the majority who participate.” Plato wrote further, “one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” A democracy, by its nature, means people can be involved in the decision-making process.

However, where people do not act, they are leaving decisions to be made by others on their behalf. For Australia to have a healthy democracy that is fully representative of the public interest, people need to be engaged and involved.

BENJAMIN CRONSHAW

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An end to autocracy in Sudan

The twenty first century yielded unprecedented transformation that cumulatively affected many Arab nations. With the United States eradicating Saddam Hussein’s B’ath regime, which had ruled Iraq for more than twenty years, pro-democracy movements began attempting to end the prolonged aggression, and created a crusade - popularly known as the ‘Arab Spring’.

The Arab Spring has sparked revolution in many Islamic dominant states, one conspicuous example being the National Transitional Council’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The transition from autocracy to democracy halted the bloodshed of thousands of civilians from the Gaddafi loyalists. However, if we fast forward to October 2014 we can see that hundreds of thousands of Libyan civilians have been displaced amidst the civil war against Islamic State (I.S.). Utilising their military prowess to occupy cities of Brega and Tobruk, I.S. has threatened the longevity of peace and representative government in Libya, and this is only one example. Many other Arab nation-states are facing a similar threat which begs the question; how successful can major Arab movements striving for democratisation truly be?

Sudan has recently exemplified collective mobilisation, as groups with shared ethnic and religious identities have asserted themselves politically, against Omar Al Bashir, a man who triggered devastating inequality and tensions within the state. Conflict has plagued Sudan for more than twenty-two years. Approximately 50,000 civilians have been killed, and more than 2.3 million people displaced as a result of the dangerous allegiance between the Sudanese government and Arab Janjaweed militias launching savage attacks against African tribes in the Darfur region. Omar Al Bashir’s dictatorship has committed unfathomable crimes against the Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. Crimes that range from pillaging towns and villages to total extermination. A seemingly peaceful utopia has seemed unfeasible to the Arab population, with the continuous cycle of violence being utilised to assert state policy. Despite the plethora of human rights violations against many Sudanese civilians, the International Criminal Court has failed to prosecute Bashir and his government for their crimes.

As a result, the people of Sudan have taken the future of their country into their own hands. What began as demonstrations evolved into mass protests calling for the removal of President Bashir, with the cries for regime change mirroring that of the Arab Spring back in 2011. The long-held values of sexism and conservatism were being condemned by many women who had previously subjugated to the patriarchy. Particularly in the last month, we have witnessed Sudan’s attempt to rid itself of its monstrous past so as to rejuvenate its nation, with the promise of a transition to a new civilian democratic government, from what was a

despised Military Council. The military coup was a failed attempt by the council to garner support from protestors, with civilians acting in defiance against state wide curfews to encourage the transition to democracy. The Sudanese populations wanted immediate change, and they wanted it now. The country has endured what seemed to be an endless cycle of barbarity and injustice, and now the African Union must prioritise these once-marginalised communities.

We arrive at July 5th, a momentous occasion which signifies the new nation. The people have finally been imbued with renewed optimism and there is amity between once warring factions. The African union has assisted in introducing a “peaceful and consensual peace agreement towards democratic transition and civilian rule” - Niemat Ahmadi, a survivor of the genocide in Darfur. Sudan’s government for the next three years will welcome elements of the Transitional National Military Council, however many citizens remain wary of the actuality of liberation in the future. Thus, as Sudan undergoes a revolution of great magnitude, we must consider previous attempts of democratisation.

In March 2003, the U.S. coordinated a military invasion of Iraq, to eradicate the brutal Saddam Hussein regime which had religiously oppressed the Kurds Shi’ite Muslims. The U.S., a seemingly benevolent hegemony believed that through coercive tactics it could assert its rhetoric. However, in the years succeeding the ‘heroic’ invasion, the U.S. government has endured harsh criticism for its mishandling of its seizure of Iraq. U.S. intelligence failed to find any weapons of mass destruction, which was the Bush Government’s grounds for overrunning the state. Amidst the fragility, Iraq became a breeding ground for subordinate terrorist groups, the most well-known being I.S., who have since ventured on a murderous rampage across the state to occupy cities. It was reported in March 2014 that Mosul had been captured by Daesh fighters, signifying rapid expansion of territorial claims made by rebels. Indeed, Sudan does not have U.S. intrusion of its state affairs to deal with, however with the Military Council holding heavy influence over the new transitional legislative council, a potentially further divided and hostile civilisation could form if the balance of power isn’t maintained.

Sudan’s democratic future appears optimistic if viewed from a western stand-point, however it is when we delve into the perspectives of middle-class protestors, we start to comprehend that the ‘peace agreement’ is indeed antithetical to its name. This agreement may be adhering to the status quo, but it is my belief that the government is deceptively utilising this in order to debilitate the opposition and cement its dominance.

OSHINI SENANAYAKE

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Book Reviews AN EXPERIMENT IN ARTIFICIALLY GENERATED CONTENT In an ongoing effort to deal with the relentless march of progress the Spectrum editorial team has decided to outsource this issues book reviews to the newly released GPT-2 word predictive neural network. Each of the following reviews was created by simply inputting the book’s title and author and the heading book review, GPT-2 did the rest. It is our hope that their surprising syntactical clarity and ability to construct a cohesive narrative while entertaining will also encourage the reader to reflect on what effect future advances in this technology will have on jobs that were once considered immune to automation as well as the ease at which deceptive news stories will be able to be produced and propagated.

Interested readers can take the AI it for a spin at https://talktotransformer.com/

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince is a complex, moving, and provocative political, philosophical, and moral novel-length, written just as Shakespeare’s Othello was, or, well, Othello was when he wrote it. Machiavelli, a man obsessed with what goes on within the limits of power and of his own personality, wrote some of Shakespeare’s best writing, and his Prince is still as good-natured, funny, and entertaining to me today as he was to me when I first read it.

It is a simple story – a tale of four brothers who die in a duel, who, once again, become the subjects of a great political struggle. But what I really love about this story, and what is so compelling about the Prince in all he has accomplished in so short a time so far, is that its heart is its heart. And this is true of the life of a single man by the name of The Prince: this is who he is: he is who he wishes to be and what he truly wants is the same thing Shakespeare would have wanted and what the great Shakespeare, for example, wanted was his master to fulfill the role of ‘the King’, to do all his master’s bidding.

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1984 by George Orwell 1984 presents an ideal dystopian world. The people live in a paranoid atmosphere, ruled by brutal, cruel elites who rule by their own twisted logic. The world of 1984 is a grim, dystopian universe. The police are the most famous, the most powerful, the most beautiful of all the power centers, but they’re all made up of children. A whole new category of

people are being created, but their purpose is to provide control over the citizens, and to rule over them as if they were objects. The police are just the most obvious example. There are countless stories of the same concept, which are told through film, television, and radio dramas as well as novels and plays. Some, like 1984 , are about a society created by the state. Others are about a state of mind; in fiction, people in the control of this state of mind are called totalitarian dictators. But in reality, we have no concept of totalitarianism (or, as a term might have it, democracy). We’re talking about a society without political power or authority, without laws, without justice and justice being held to be the law of the land by the majority. These conditions aren’t in any way unique to the Soviet Union, to any of these totalitarian regimes; in fact, these things are the very same things we see in many countries around the world today.

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx There is no doubt that the Communist Manifesto was written at a time when the world was in revolutionary turmoil and the ruling class held sway over a mass of people. At the time, Engels’s writings were only circulating in an underground underground Communist Group called the International Working Men’s Association (IWA).

Marx’s views on social revolution were radically different from those of his forefathers. For him, the working class was the only revolutionary class; there were also those who wanted to continue the same system, but not on its current terms. By his own words, “We all share the same blood and conscience”. The Communist Manifesto became a major vehicle for the spread of revolutionary ideas. The work of its authors, including its famous passage entitled “Workers’ control of the means of production”, established a revolutionary precedent for the future generations to follow.

In reality, revolutionary ideas were never intended to spread to the masses. In the struggle for power, the goals of the ruling class were to make sure that the people did not rise up against them as they always had. But the most important goal remained the creation of a democratic centralisation of power which would allow for the people’s participation.

Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil

by Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is one of my favorite modern political works. It’s short, funny, and filled with fascinating ideas. Hobbes offers a very simple philosophy of life as Hobbes lived it, and his ideas about human nature and the nature of men and how they interact with one another makes up a lot of the book and gives his followers a great deal of depth. Leviathan is one of the most important works of modern political thought, but the real crux of it is that, at the heart of the book, Hobbes is arguing that human nature is like the matter and Form and Power of a Commonwealth – and humans should never, ever live without either of them.

Hobbes’ views are much later than Marx or Rousseau, and are not quite in their best state. But he does have ideas for how to deal with the situation that we’re in today. For example, there’s discussion of women having control of the marriage and marriage choices (he was quite fond of women’s choices). But it’s also hard to see this as the end of modern civilization – there’s still a lot of struggle. Even among these struggles, Hobbes’ ideas are pretty radical, and one of the main lessons is that we don’t have to solve everything to get the progress that we want. We can go around working with other people and find ways to improve them.

We can find ways to make changes that we want to make.

something that we live but something that must be fought. And so I do not choose my words so that those who want to combat my work as a writer will fight me, that their values will define how I write history; they will determine what they define, just as the founders define our political identity.”

Zinn is not a historian who writes because he wants it to be true; he believes that history is neither inevitable nor necessary to our way of life.

Rather, as he states, “I find in the facts. The facts of life come to me. I have lived through them. They are, indeed, truths.” If you think that truth needs to be defined in terms of facts, this is a pretty short read. To Zinn, facts are not a “bargaining chip” or “controlling tool” that only can be used for political or economic gain, but instead are “the essential essence of being human, the reality of being ourselves. I define things as they are without regard to their relative truth or falsity, without consideration of human interests, without regard for their relevance to the human life in its many facets.

Everything is what it is, without reference to any further explanation, but rather in its own terms.”

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand The only thing that distinguishes Atlas Shrugged, in my book, is that it was the only book on which I read all of the pages, including the last 20 pages of the first section. I had read enough material in previous years that I could remember what the title page of every book was. And since I had already read the other books I thought of when I decided What Happened by Hillary Clinton which I wanted to read, I asked my editor for some ‘Clinton’s book is a very good book. It’s the kind of advice. books that will sell in a bookstore for fifty bucks— which means that you can take it to lunch with a This book is the story of the history of American friend who knows who Bernie Sanders is. Her writ- capitalism from the end of the Civil War to the ing style is clear, precise, and, frankly, smart—and Great Depression. It is at once the history of what it seems to be one of the greatest books of the last we are now, and the history of what we should decade or so... Clinton’s insights are like the magic strive for for the future. That is why I like it, and eye watching all things as they present themselves: why you should read it. she is able to peer into the mind of voters, examine their hearts to see what makes people tick…The I know this book is boring to many people to sit author has given us extraordinary insight into a through. But there has to be no one else out there political person—with a remarkable ability to un- who has seen it — no one but the original author derstand what makes people tick, whether by their himself. What you do with this book is to read choice—and what makes them tick for political the whole, and you will want to stay through that purposes…She is, as she once boasted, as a child entire section, and at every turn you will discover and teenager, ‘an American in Paris; I’m a child of some new thing that is interesting about American New York.’ . I cannot think of a clearer portrait of a capitalism — something that you have been hiding self-styled political outsider in American history. for decades; something new that your friends and colleagues forgot about. And you will be hooked.

A People’s History of the United States SPECTRUM BOT & TIM MOONEY

by Howard Zinn Although Zinn’s vision was prescient in the sense that he is one of the few authors to write a book that is available to students, historians, and scholars who wish to engage in meaningful discourse, his book reflects the times that he was writing in rather than the time he is writing now. As Zinn wrote, “I am a writer. I am a historian. For me, history is not

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Spectrum Contributors Imran Akyol Benjamin Cronshaw Keely GarRett Jamisyn Gleeson Matt Harper Scott Reid Oshini SeNanayake 林龍 Sonia

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Special Thanks Thank you to the Contributors who have made this venture more than a picture book with no words An enormous Thank you to umsu for their Financial Support of this Project

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