The relationship the Labor Party has to the social movements has always been a contentious one. Here, PIP HINMAN from the Democratic Socialist Party argues that the ALP, despite its rhetoric, is no friend of either the labour or other social movements. More, it actively works to thwart and coopt sections of the movements in a bid to channel independent campaigns with radical dynamics back into the conservatising parliamentary arena. This talk was presented to the Melbourne Marxist Educational Conference at Easter.
The Labor Party was recently elected into government in NSW — on a minority of first preference votes — after seven years of Liberal rule. The first thing Bob Carr said, even before being sworn in as premier, is how much he admires Jeff Kennett. Of course, this was music to the ears of the corporate sector, which will not be disappointed by Carr's promise to make it easier for them to sack workers and his threat to privatise public enterprises if public servants' productivity doesn't increase.
These "reforms" fit well with Carr's appointment of Ken Baxter (renowned for slashing the jobs of 35,000 Victorians) and Fred Hilmer (architect of the policy designed to open public utilities to competition) to head the state's largest energy monopoly, Pacific Power. They make clear Carr's intention to continue where Nick Greiner left off — plans which were frustrated under John Fahey's rule by the lack of a Coalition majority in the lower house.
Labor's NSW election campaign signalled its right-wing direction. But the push for more law and order, including laws to arrest young people for being on the streets at night or for wearing caps back to front, backfired just days before the election when the law and order "auction" began to be publicly questioned. You don't win too many votes by saying you are going to be more right wing than the Coalition.
Labor left officials, with union funds, went on a last minute paste-up campaign with red posters emblazoned with the slogan "What Value a Worker's Life?" to enlist workers' anger at the cuts and privatisation of workers' compensation. Despite the $2 million the union movement contributed to the ALP's election fund, workers' jobs are now not only less secure, but public transport and water charges are set to increase.
Carr, a key player in the ALP's right faction, also took a few lessons from former Senator Graham Richardson's handbook and, at the last minute, stitched up green preferences with the help of the environment peak bodies. Most of the peak bodies bought Labor's "forest accord" (which involved large subsidies to the timber companies); a "vote for the forests" campaign was organised by the Total Environment Centre, which, rather than promoting green and progressive candidates, was designed to help Labor over the line in the marginal seats.
Now, of course, the environment peak body leaders are hoping for their reward — the preservation of old-growth forests in NSW. They do not seem to understand, or choose to ignore, the fact that Labor's pro-capitalist economic strategy is diametrically opposed to implementing green and social justice measures, especially in the 1990s economic climate, when there is not as much fat in the capitalist economy as there was in the 1970s.
Social democracy in decline
All around the world today, social democratic parties cannot deliver their promise for progressive reform. The material conditions for the Swedish model or the Whitlam agenda, which existed in the long boom conditions of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s in the imperialist economies, no longer exist. As a result, most social democratic parties have lost much of their traditional working-class base.
The ALP has been more successful at holding onto government at the federal level than most other parties of its ilk. This has been dur to a variety of factors, including:
- a particularly inept and disorganised federal opposition;
- the special relationship it has to the peak trade union body, the ACTU, which has been essential to the implementation of the Accord and the introduction of enterprise bargaining with the union movement's assistance (remember when unionists warned that enterprise bargaining was a new right plot?);
- the cooption of a number of the leaderships of social movements in the late 1970s, and their consequent decline.
After 13 years of Labor in federal government, the ALP through the Accord has been instrumental in helping the rich get richer by way of a major shift of income from wages to profits.
The top 10% now own 50% of the national wealth, while the bottom 50% now owe more than they own. The share of profits in national income has returned to 1960s levels, while company tax has been reduced from 49 to 33%.
At the same time, unemployment has remained at an all time high (around 10%) and many of the social reforms introduced by the Whitlam Labor government, such as free tertiary education and universal welfare rights, have either been repealed or are under major attack.
One reason the ALP remains in power federally is that the ruling class knows that when you have good servants, you don't fire them.
Cooption strategy
The ALP has a consistent record of coopting and demobilising the social movements. The demobilisation of the organised working class through the Accord has also had a debilitating impact on the social movements.
In the 1970s the anti-Vietnam war moratorium and women's movements, in particular, played an important role in bringing an end to Australia's involvement in the war, and forcing the ALP to adopt a range of reforms for women.
The impact of these mass, independent movements for social change was not lost on Labor, which was elected into government in 1972 after 23 years in opposition. It set about securing the loyalty of the movements. But for that to happen, it had to convince the leaderships that their demands would be won via parliamentary reforms.
The ALP worked on demobilising the peace, Aboriginal, women's and student movements by coopting their leaders and bureaucratising their organisations. The examples here are endless. Compare, for instance, the Aboriginal land rights movement of the 1970s to the 1990s Mabo debate and "struggle" though the courts.
While many activists in the 1970s were genuine in their initial decision to go into the bureaucracies and try to reform "from the inside", very quickly they found that it was either adapt to the government's line or get out. Many did get out, but many stayed on after having made their peace with the system and become adjusted to a more comfortable sort of "activism".
Today, while many activists are well aware of the ALP's shortcomings, and have either left the party or refuse to be joined up, nevertheless, they can still become disoriented by Labor's minimalist reforms — usually announced a week or so before election time.
For instance, the fact that the ALP has been able to introduce higher education fees only over some years should be seen as a win (fragile and temporary though it is) for the free education movement rather than a reason to trust the ALP more than the Coalition. The saving of 10% of old-growth forests is testimony to the fact that so many people were prepared to mobilise, not that the ALP is the greener of the two major parties.
Labor's pace of attack may be different to the Coalition's, but their goals are the same. They both exist to serve the interests of the capitalist class at the expense of the majority of people. (Historically, Labor has been the most use to the powers that be in times of economic crisis because of its ability to sell austerity to the working class.)
Lobbying
Labor has always attempted to hegemonise and channel movement activists back into the parliamentary system. While Labor's origins at the turn of the century reflected a heightened consciousness in the trade union movement about the need to have some parliamentary representation, even then the ALP represented a range of interest groups apart from the workers. Today it is clear that while the trade unions have remained affiliated, the party does not primarily defend working people's interests.
Labor is opposed to the independent self-organisation of the working class, because this would reduce its political influence. To this end, Labor tries to make out, especially at election time, that it really is a reformist organisation, which is waiting to be told what people want. This the message that the bureaucracies and the peak bodies also push.
But the failure of the lobbying strategy is more visible today than ever before. Most, if not all, of the reforms of the 1970s are being withdrawn, and the social movements, small and fragmented as they are, are forced to fight a defensive battle to hold on to reforms, often against a pro-ALP organisation, ostensibly set up to fight for reforms.
One example of this is the National Union of Students, which was created in the late 1980s by the ALP to demobilise and contain student politics just as Labor decided to dump its free education policy.
Similarly the leaders of the Wilderness Society and Australian Conservation Foundation, because they rely on the ALP for a chunk of their budget, are more and more prepared to be lackeys for that party particularly around election time. (The 1990 federal election, when the ALP won on green preferences, and the recent NSW election are two examples.)
Like other movements, the environment movement has been most successful when it has organised independently of the ALP's agenda. The Franklin dam campaign, which mobilised tens of thousands of people around the country as well as a successful mass blockade, retained its independence from Labor. Unfortunately, the more recent woodchip campaign, despite overwhelming public support for protection of old-growth forests, was cut short because of the peak bodies' insistence that independent political action beyond the "fax, write and petition" type could only be a last resort.
In the absence of a bureaucratised organisation, Labor has other ways of coopting movements. The 40% quota for women MPs, for example, is an attempt by Labor to make the party more appealing to women, to sell itself as the thinking women's or "feminist" party.
While there's nothing wrong with increasing women's representation in parliament, this "reform" is nothing more than a cynical manoeuvre to cover for Labor's lack of commitment to other important and much promised reforms such as more child-care services, equal pay, equal access to education and so on. At the same time, Labor has retained its conscience vote on abortion, and, in NSW has been actively frustrating activists' attempts to get a pro-choice campaign off the ground.
Maintaining fictions
Why is Labor like this? Because it needs to preserve the status quo, the belief that the parliamentary system and politicians really are accountable and responsible, and that the system really does work.
It's fiction, of course, but a fiction that is reinforced at every level of society. From the moment we're old enough to reason, we're told that, even though things are far from perfect, and, yes there could be some changes here and there, this is the best that we'll get.
But the fiction is wearing thin. The two-party con game is increasingly being seen for what it really is — an institution that serves the real powers that be, the corporate sector.
With the two-party system under increasing attack, it's hardly surprising that support for independents and minor parties is rising. Labor "won" the NSW elections with a primary vote of only 37.6%. The Coalition received more votes, though it too failed to get the vote of the majority. The No Aircraft Noise party, launched less than five weeks before the elections, received an average of 20% in the inner city seats where it stood candidates. Seven small party members in the NSW upper house is further evidence of the growing disillusionment with the two-party system.
In Victoria, after three years of Kennett's return to barbarism, opposition leader John Brumby can muster only 18% in the polls. Why support an ersatz Tory when you have a real one in Kennett?
New party needed
It isn't enough to build the social movements or even to struggle to keep them independent of the ALP's coopting and demobilising influence — though serious socialists do do this. The building of a red-green political alternative to Labor must start now.
The ALP is a social democratic, liberal capitalist party, and as such will never be reformed into a genuine socialist party. Because it still holds the allegiance of important sections of the working class, it is an obstacle to the further development of working-class consciousness; it is an essential part of the ruling class's attempts to contain the political activity of workers and other fighters for social change.
It isn't enough to bury oneself in a single campaign, or a few campaigns, and abstain from thinking of the broader political question of building an alternative to the ALP. It's not good enough to simply say, "A mass alternative party doesn't exist now, so I'll wait".
The "big bang" theory of mass party formation is not realistic; a mass left alternative will not form spontaneously. And while we recognise that the road to building an effective mass alternative to the left of the ALP is likely to be a complex process — involving the building of various alliances between different progressive forces — it is important to build the serious left forces that do exist now.
Ultimately, only the revolutionary transformation of society, which involves the majority of people, will further the cause for a sane, just and environmentally sustainable world. A party capable of such a colossal task cannot be created overnight. It must be built consciously and consistently, all the time learning the lessons of history, testing out ideas in action, and training new activists for a lifetime of revolutionary activity. Ultimately, only a party with this sort of orientation, composed primarily of working people and winning the respect and confidence of workers, will be capable of leading the oppressed and exploited.