First, the dramatic news: "The Australian Labor Party has served its historical purpose and will wither and die as the progressive force of Australian politics". Hamilton heaps a large portion of the blame for this on Labor's factional system. For while the factions "once served as a means of organising to promote ideas that were held passionately by their members ... [they] now divide only notionally along ideological lines. They have become vehicles for ambition and mutual support".
Hamilton makes this prediction on his way to proposing a new direction for progressive politics in Australia. Exit the ALP's traditional "deprivation model", characterised by values such as protection (of the working class) from exploitation and improved living conditions for the poor. Enter the counter-consumption model, where the destructive forces of consumer capitalism, fuelled by peoples' ever-increasing "material acquisitiveness", are kept under control by a more compassionate and forward-thinking government, lighting the way for a community-minded, family-friendly and cheerful populace.*
This sort of transformation would be a big ask for a party as bureaucratic and process driven (should I say Byzantine?) as the ALP. To begin with such a thorough re-evaluation of the party's foundations would have to be based on strong arguments, sound evidence and whatever the factional bovver boys thought was going to secure their power base. (A momentary lapse, I'm sorry.) Hamilton does not deny the existence of real deprivation and hardship in society. He just questions the extent to which it ought to motivate the social democratic agenda in a predominantly well off modern Australia.
Previously, when wealthy people made the decision to live beyond their means, their financial difficulties attracted little public sympathy. If they complained, it might be suggested that they consider living a little less grandly. Today, newspapers, commentators and political leaders depict the imagined financial difficulties of the wealthy as the result of hard times rather than inflated expectations. The problem thus becomes a matter of public concern. The real concerns of yesterday's poor have become the imagined concerns of today's rich.
Hamilton adds an interesting qualification here, namely that overplayed hardship can cause middle class people to have a warped understanding of their own economic position.
Some will react to these observations by claiming that, in arguing that its incidence is not as extensive as is widely believed, I am trivialising the problem of poverty. In fact, my intention is to counter the opposite tendency, that of talking up the extent of poverty in order to emphasise it moral and social urgency as a problem to be addressed. Too many social democrats adopt this tactic in the mistaken belief that inflating the problem will stimulate greater public sympathy and more government action. But it has quite the opposite effect: if everyone is struggling, there is nothing unique about the poor. And a middle class convinced that it is living in straitened times is more likely to vote for middle-class welfare, such as family payments and private health insurance rebates, than for poverty alleviation.
The central question of the essay is: what lies behind the fact (confirmed by numerous studies and surveys -- read the essay if you want details about sources) that increased prosperity in Australia over the past couple of decades has not been matched by increased happiness/wellbeing? Hamilton's answer is alienation. In searching for a purpose in life and an identity through which to meaningfully pursue that purpose, people have been captured by consumer capitalism. Confusion reigns: the neo-liberal idea that only the free market can ensure a fair balance between the demands of capital and the lifestyle needs of the citizenry responsible for its production has proven to be wrong; the so-called Third Way has fizzled due to lack of philosophical substance; and the traditional mainstays of social democracy** have been in a steady state of stress, if not decline, since the 70's (Hamilton cites Nixon's "decision in 1972 to abandon the global system of fixed exchange rates" as a turning point). And amid all this consumer culture has flourished. Strangely. But it has done so by preying on individual anxieties (break the person, bag the sale ... or something). This has left many people feeling trapped and alienated.
The task of the advertising industry is to uncover the complex set of feelings associated with particular products and to design marketing campaigns to appeal to those feelings. This is a challenge: consumers, for the most part, do not consciously understand what they want or why they want it. Prodigious intellectual and creative effort is poured into marketing, driven by the imperative of consumer capitalism. All aspects of human psychology -- our fears, our sources of shame, our sexuality, our spiritual yearnings -- are a treasure-house to be plundered in the search for a commercial edge.
This is not a conspiracy theory, mind, as the logic is clear: any sense of identity that is gained principally through the symbolic mix-and-match manufactured by marketeers must be false (Hamilton refers to the notion of "authentic selfhood" in this context). If it were not, then consumers, satisfied with a finite set of acquisitions - enough to support their lifestyle goals, say - would go home, run a bath and quit the game, or at least significantly reduce their involvement in the game. But this can't happen while the force of perpetual newness, often branded as a cult, continues to propell people back into the shopping malls and DFOs to upgrade their identity and buy buy buy.
So according to Hamilton the main focus of modern progressive politics should be liberating people from alienation. An important but marginal focus should continue to be the broad pursuit of social justice, particularly as it applies to the exigencies of poverty and workplace exploitation and oppression.
* For some reason, I'm reminded of the square dance patter call: All join hands and circle to the south / Get a little moonshine in your mouth.
** Such as state ownership of "strategic sectors of the economy", "greater equality in the distribution of resources and ... a welfare system that ... protect[s] the populace when capitalism fail[s] to provide a decent standard of living".
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