Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 23:08:33 +0000
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: Re: The Welfare State


Rob Schaap wrote:
> It's too late to hope for such behaviour from the ALP here, so I'm into
> this 'New Labour Party' (we have compulsory voting - for now - and
> proportional voting - both advantageous for the likes of us - I imagine the
> conditions are not as congenial in the UK and the US).  Anyway, that's me.
> 
> Comments?
> Hi Rob.

I'll try to answer this in more detail when time allows, but things move so fast here it is difficult to do 
that without being overtaken by the discussion. So, briefly here are some thoughts from the UK:

I think the situation here is different from that you describe for Australia (altho' some people I know in 
Australia say it's not like that there, either), because of the still-existing links for the working class into 
the Labour Party. This is not saying that the Labour Party is great, or that a Blair govt will do good things, 
or even that previous Labour governments were somehow 'socialist', it is simply pointing to an objective 
reality that workers and their organisations (the unions) are part of what makes up the Labour Party.

Any strategy that ignores that or tries to sidestep it (as the SWP do, they say 'Vote Labour' on polling day, 
and 'Leave Labour' the rest of the time) is not going to relate to the working class. It seems to me that we 
have to take the class as it is, scummy leadership and all, and engage with it on the terms that are available 
to us. We can say, shake off your leadership and remould the movement that you are part of. But I don't think 
we can say, throw that movement in the dustbin of history just because currently it is ideologically dominated 
by the bourgeoisie. ANY organisation that exists in bourgeois society will be dominated by bourgeois ideas 
unless the marxists fight for it to be different. We can do that in a sect of a few hundred or thousand, or we 
can do it in a labour movement of many millions. The failure might be more evident in the latter case, but a 
vitory would actually mean something.

As for the US, I think the story is different again. The working class does not have a mass party - there is 
nothing to hold the workers to the Democrats, depite what some on the 'left' suggest. It seems to me that a 
workers' party is needed. Not a narrow thing, but as broad a party as can be built on the agreement that the 
working class needs a voice in politics. If that can be done with the membership of some trade unions through 
the Labor Party, then I would think this is better than starting from a tiny cell of 'revolutionaries'.

In Australia, I guess, you have to do the sums. Is the Australian Labour Party organically linked in any 
meaningful way to the working class (not 'do the workers' run it?', but 'is there a link')? If there is, then I 
think you should stay in there and fight for your perspective amongst the membership. If there ain't, then you 
get out and fight to build a mass working class party.

I'm not sure that the nature of the electoral system makes a massive difference until you get to the grey 
areas. In the US for example, with STV, I think you would still have to build a working class party and not 
advocate any transfer to a 'lesser evil' bourgeois party. In the UK, at least as is, you would still have to 
stay in the Labour Party and fight to transform the movement, although you might be more flexible about 
electoral sorties, and not necessarily say, "Vote Labour everywhere." If Blair wins the election and begins 
dismantling the Labour Party's links to the unions, then fairly soon it will be time to leave (or force a split 
or drive Blair out (best option!)) even if we still have first past the post.

That's me, then.

Anyone from the ultra-left fancy a go?

Nick




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