Editorial:

The real role of social democratic governments

Social democratic parties such as the Australian Labor Party and the 
British Labour Party have always been parties of compromise between the 
interests of the working people and the interests of the capitalist class. 
When the chips are down it is the interests of the employers that 
predominate. This truth is becoming more and more apparent following the 
defeat of the ALP in the recent Federal elections.

The desire of the main leadership of the ALP to distance itself from the 
working class is starkly reflected in the announced intention of Crean and 
a number of his new Ministers to distance themselves from the trade union 
movement. Irrespective of the role of this or that trade union or this or 
that trade union leader, the membership of trade unions is made up of 
working people.

The same idea is behind the intention to "broaden" the base of the Labor 
Party to include "small business" and to encourage "share ownership" and 
"property ownership". There is nothing inherently wrong with the working 
class having policies that take into account the interests of other social 
groups in society. But that is not what is meant by the Labor Party's 
leaders. They are about abandoning the interests of the working people.

There are already hints that the Labor Party will support Howard Government 
legislation to weaken unfair dismissal legislation to the point where it 
will not apply at all to small business. If the present legislation, weak 
as it is, is even further watered down it will mean that small business 
employers will be able to sack at will that half of the working class who 
are employed by small business enterprises.

ALP leaders are talking about hatching new policies, and abandoning even 
the paltry GST "roll-back" policies of Kim Beazley.

If these and other policies are implemented, the Labor Party will move 
further away from the working people and closer to the interests of the 
employers — whether they are big or small employers of labour.

The Labor Party leaders have for a long time preached the idea that workers 
and employers have common interests. It was pushed hard by former Labour 
Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. This was the basic idea 
underpinning the Accord between the ACTU and ALP adopted in 1983.

But it is a false theory and life proves it to be false every day. 
Employers always want to reduce wages and working conditions while workers 
want to achieve improvements. Employers incessantly push to lengthen the 
working day while workers want it limited and reduced without loss of pay. 
Employers want to corner for themselves the benefits from increased 
productivity arising out of technological change while the working people 
expect to share in the benefits.

The idea of "common interests" has been recently stated with remarkable 
clarity by none other than Gorbachev who has just formed a social 
democratic party in Moscow. He called for "social partnership and a 
historic compromise between labour and capital". But it is a one-sided 
compromise in which capital holds the dominant position in the 
relationship. It is not an equal partnership. It never has been and never 
will be so long as capital maintains its control over finance and 
production.

But it is by these false claims of "partnership" and "common interests" 
that working people are led to accept their subjugation and exploitation by 
capital.

It is not surprising that the right-wing leaders of the Labor Party are 
being encouraged to distance themselves from the working people and their 
trade unions by the media and Ministers in the Howard Government.

The rejection of this course by a number of trade union leaders and many 
ALP members is welcome, but this stand needs to be reinforced by insistence 
of pro-worker policies on working hours, wages, conditions of work, job 
security, entitlements, rights in the workplace and other policies which 
are of benefit the working people.

Why should working people support a Party and trade unions which do not 
look after their needs? It is their failure to take a decisive stand 
against attacks on worker's living standards, the GST and privatisation 
that is behind the steady erosion of both the support for the Labor Party 
and for trade unions.

But then this is where the ideas of Social Democrats inevitably lead to. 
This has been confirmed time and again both in Australia and in other 
countries that have influential social democratic parties-such as Britain, 
France, Germany and Italy. None of these governments have led the working 
people and the trade unions to fundamental change in the interests of the 
worker. They all have particularly in times of economic crisis subjected 
the working class to the interests of capital. That is the real role of 
social democracy.