From: HISSGB-AT-lure.Latrobe.edu.au Date: Sat, 09 Nov 1996 00:58:10 +1000 Subject: Re: M-I: "class consciousness in US" Jason argued that the main reason that the social democrats drifted to the right is that they don't have "a majority constituency". The history of the Australian Labor party both recently and throughout many periods of government this century I believe clearly shows this is not the case. Labor was in office here for 13 years and lost precisely because its right wing policies disillusioned its working class supporters. It was not the workers that dragged Labor further and further to the right. Workers didn't vote for Labor to cut their wages, force up unemployment etc. Actually on all the main issues: defence of the health system, privatisation, university fees etc etc opinion polls constantly show that the majority of workers are well to the left of both the Liberals and the Labor Party. Yet Labor consistently ignored this "majority constituency" in order to serve their real constituency -- big business. Labor presided over the greatest transference of wealth from poor to rich that ever occurred in Australia this century. Earlier Labor governments have a similar track record. At the start of the Great Depression Labor was elected here with a massive majority. It then proceeded to break strikes, slash government spending, drive down wages and put most government employees on part time work. Again not to serve the "majority constituency" that voted it into office but the capitalist class. It is both factually wrong and elitist to blame the workers for the betrayals of the reformist parties. True most workers today in Australia don't want socialism but they do have much more left wing attitudes than what the ALP in practice stands for. This shift to the right by Labor is not simply the product of sell outs by a few leaders it reflects the inability of reformism as a political current to deliver to its working class supporters when it takes office in a period of deepening capitalist crisis. More left wing reformist parties when they come to office behave little better than Labor type parties. If the Alliance in New Zealand ends up being in government as part of a coalition it will go down the same road as the thoroughly discredited NZ Labor Party. That's why the difference between Bolshevism and Menshevism matters why try to build slightly more left wing reformist parties which in government will turn their backs on their working class supporters. Unless someone seriously wants to make the argument that a new period of capitalist prosperity is in sight and reformism will be able to deliver again. Mick Armstrong Socialist Alternative --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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