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Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Marxist Economics

How about that for a title? :)))

Last night I went to a meeting of
Socialist Alternative - a group of young australian socialists, some of whom are affiliated with the University of Sydney. I am proud to say that I have finally been to a political student meeting (a shame this did not happen while I was actually at university, but you can't have it all) and enjoyed it in a lot of ways.

It began like this (flashback to last Thursday night in 'Wayne's world' stylee'): I was coming home after an exciting day at
work. I plowed up the stairs at Newtown station and at the top was the "Socialist Alternative" people, collecting money, selling their magazine and canvassing for people to come to their meetings. I got talking to one of them and because my knowledge of socialism is zero, 0, nil etc I asked her what it was all about and she proceded to give me some of her views: for example there are two classes - the ruling class and the working class; the currency between these classes is labour (I can't go on really, my knowledge is limited). To cut a long story short, even with my extremely limited knowledge of all things political, I disagreed with such a simplistic model (which about doctors, university lecturers, nuns for Pete's sake?) and told her so. She she told me to come up with a better one which I couldn't, so rather than walk away and be ignorant I said that I would go to their meeting (which was yesterday), and even if I didn't agree with (or even understand) the things they were talking about (with some serious fervour) at least I would try another view point.

So, I went, and was (fairly) warmly received. I had done a little bit of reading, and when I walked in the door, people started to grill me, on the account of my accent, my smart shirt (fresh out of work), my glasses (I must do IT...):
"What are things like in the UK?" "What do you know about the IR laws?" (Not a lot but I am learning"), "Why are you here?" etc... TIRING!

Next week, Cindy Sheheen will be giving a talk, and I have said I'll be going along to that...

We rounded the evening off with a beer and a discussion of the state of Sydney US. I was impressed - they were all so young and so angry. They don't want to be mucked about, and they want to be able to rely on their university allies. I was impressed - they were so positive and pro active....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Two or three days ago the UK Independent did 2 pages on "Is Marx still worth knowing about?" Everyone they asked with the exception of former Thatcher Minister Tebbitt, said, yes, one of the big minds and big influences. Most said he got some things seriously wrong. I reckon that a bit like Jesus, he'll be coming round for the next 1000 years.