Articles by: Boris Frankel

It is precisely at a time when the socialist Left is extremely weak in developed capitalist countries that utopian thinking flourishes to fill the gap created by the absence of strong mass movements. This is particularly true of the United Kingdom and the United States, where a sense of hopelessness about radical change (as opposed to social democratic change) has produced unusual or spectacular flights of fancy. When major thinkers such as Fredric Jameson contemplate…

Earlier this year, former ALP President Barry Jones told Phillip Adams on ABC Late Night Live, that he felt like wearing a burqa in public to avoid strangers constantly stopping him to air their complaints about the ALP. Jones is typical of former 'true believers' who are now scathing in their criticisms of the ALP.

Booing Laurie Brereton at the recent ACTU congress may have been heart-warming, but ultimately it was merely an exercise in nostalgia. For right through the 1980s, the Accord process had effectively laid the basis for a deregulated labour market. All that is at stake now is how the ACTU can minimize the damage to workers' rights - not whether it can take a decentralized enterprise bargaining system off the agenda. From the moment that the…

In 1955 I joined the army of paperboys who sold newspapers on the suburban streets across Melbourne. Instead of shouting 'get your Herald' I was told by the other boys to shout 'Eenya Herald' or something like 'Eenya, Eenyer Herald'. 'What does it mean?' I asked the other boys. But they didn't know and said that they were merely repeating what an earlier generation of boys had shouted. While I was busy selling newspapers, Herbert…

The sight of key Accordist, Bill Kelty, joining with leading capitalist, Lindsay Fox, in what was little more than an exercise in charity work said it all. In appealing to the selfinterest, if not Christian spirit, of capitalists by begging them to take on workers at governmentsubsidized costs (up to $10,000 per job), Kelty's months of full-time 'charity work confirmed the bankruptcy of the market-dominated perspective which has dominated the ALP and ACTU since the…

The ABC production 'Paper Giants', about Ita Buttrose, Frank and Kerry Packer and the founding of 'Cleo' magazine in November 1972, was an entertaining miniseries even though it glossed over crucial issues and romanticised 'Cleo' as being at the centre of the feminist avant-garde. It did, however, bring back memories of my accidental role in disrupting Sir Frank Packer's plans to open the first private cable television stations in Australia. This is not a story…

Boris Frankel examines the problems facing the social movements in the new political climate and their prospects for renewal.

There is much to admire about the Arena Project. For over forty-five years the editorial group have co-operatively produced their publications, encouraged many authors and provided an important alternative socio-political perspective. I share many of their key criticisms of capitalist societies, but in the past have also disagreed with aspects of their socio-economic analysis (see 'A Postmodern Market Society?', 'Arena' no. 99/100, 1992). The editorial group restatement/update of their long-held thesis by Geoff Sharp, Nonie…