CAPITALISM

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:27): I have been waiting for a long time to speak in this house about someone who I admire tremendously, Karl Marx, much to the horror of most of my colleagues on this side—I do not know about the other side—and also someone whose writings I have been very influenced by, Ernest Mandel.

The reason why I am raising this issue in the house today is that as a student I was fascinated by the description, particularly, of 'political economy' that was outlined by Karl Marx over a century ago. I think in a time of global financial crisis such as we are in at the moment it is important to understand economic issues.

I will quote from a book that I have just finished reading, entitled Economics for everyone: A short guide to the economics of capitalism, written by Jim Stanford. Jim Stanford, of course, is an economist but works for the Canadian Auto Workers Union. On page 338 he states:

Workers and poor people only get as much from the economy as they are able to demand, fight for and win.

I must say that this is certainly my understanding, particularly with the ways in which different governments are dealing with the current global financial crisis.

I am sure that other members would have had constituents coming to their electoral offices complaining particularly about how the current economic climate has directly affected them and their living standards. Many people have registered the fact that, if they have not already lost their jobs, they are about to lose their jobs.

There is the issue of interest rates going up and down, not only for home loans but for borrowings for motor vehicles and personal loans, as well as other things. A lot of people who I have spoken to have actually taken out loans to put their children through private school. So, there are a lot of reasons why people borrow money, and they are closely watching the interest rates because it makes a big difference to how much food they eat in any one month.

There is also the matter of asset values. I think it is fair to say that, so far, South Australian property prices have been reasonably steady, but it depends on where you live. Having watched real estate prices, particularly in my electorate, I think we seem to be okay at the moment, but who knows how long that will last.

A big issue that is being raised with me relates to incomes for people who have retired and are living on superannuation or people who are about to retire and really do not know what to do, because they have taken such a big cut in their superannuation entitlements, particularly in the last year, and are trying to budget on what will be considerably less for their retirement.

It has been interesting to read in the media (and I do not have at hand the quotes from the print media, in particular) some quotes of Karl Marx from some of his publications, such as Capital. I found it quite amusing that the media would do that. Also, the words have changed. People are again starting to talk about capitalism (I think for the last 10 years it has been a word that has not been identified), or are using terms such as 'capitalism failing', which I also found very interesting.

As we know, Karl Marx devoted most of his life to analysing the laws of motion of capitalism, and I would argue that his analysis would be as relevant today as it was a century ago. Certainly, if one studies his preliminary work, Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, Grundrisse and later Capital, one will see that, although he did not predict some of the dreadful machinery that is now in place around capitalism, he certainly was on the money (so to speak) with regard to the need for workers to be forever vigilant and to make sure that they received a proper share of the profits that were guaranteed by them from their work.