Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response: The Politics of the End of Labourism PDF
Preview Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response: The Politics of the End of Labourism
Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response This page intentionally left blank Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response The Politics of the End of Labourism Jason Schulman AdjunctAssistantProfessor,LehmanCollege,CityUniversityofNewYork,USA ©JasonSchulman2015 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noportionofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, SaffronHouse,6–10KirbyStreet,LondonEC1N8TS. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorhasassertedhisrighttobeidentifiedastheauthorofthis workinaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2015by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN PalgraveMacmillanintheUKisanimprintofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,Basingstoke, HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanintheUSisadivisionofStMartin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN978–1–137–30316–5 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Schulman,Jason,1973– Neoliberallabourgovernmentsandtheunionresponse:thepoliticsof theendoflabourism/JasonSchulman. pages cm ISBN978–1–137–30316–5(hardback) 1. Neoliberalism—GreatBritain. 2. Neoliberalism—Australia. 3. Neoliberalism—NewZealand. 4. LabourParty(GreatBritain) 5. AustralianLaborParty. 6. NewZealandLabourParty. 7. Laborunions—Politicalactivity—GreatBritain. 8. Labor unions—Politicalactivity—Australia. 9. Laborunions—Political activity—NewZealand. I. Title. II. Title:Neoliberallabor governmentsandtheunionresponse. JC574.2.G7S352015 324.2(cid:2)17—dc23 2015002371 To Sheri, for her love and support This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgements viii 1 Introduction:TheTransformationofSocialDemocratic Parties 1 2 TheNewZealandLabourParty 17 3 TheBritishLabourParty 45 4 TheAustralianLaborParty 65 Conclusion 89 Notes 118 Bibliography 150 Index 163 vii Acknowledgements I am grateful to the City University of New York Graduate Center. Iwishtothankmysponsor,Dr.SusanWoodward,foralltheattention and useful criticism she gave me as I frequently revised the book, andDr.JohnBowmanandDr.IrvingLeonard‘Lenny’Markovitzfor similarlyprovidinghelpalongtheway.ManythanksaswelltoRuth O’BrienandthelateW.B.Ofuatey-Kodjoe. I also wish to thank my long-time friend Michael Hirsch for first suggesting that I examine the state of the New Zealand welfare state and whether or not that country remained the ‘Sweden of the South’.FurtherthanksgotoLenRichardsandJillOvens,withwhom I stayed in Auckland, New Zealand, for several weeks in 2006; to MarkGoscheMP,KeithLockeMP,ChrisTrotter,MattMcCarten,Mike Smith, Gerard Hill, David Verran, and Chris Ford for agreeing to be interviewed;Dr.HermanSchwartz,forallowingmetodownloadhis work from his website and to cite it; Dr. Bryce Edwards, who was kindenoughtosendmeacopyofhis(veryuseful)dissertation;and JurriaanBendienandDr.RickKuhnfortheirresearchadvice. Finally, I would like to thank Andrew Baird and Amber Stone-Galilee, my original editors at Palgrave Macmillan; Sara CrowleyVigneau and Jemima Warren, my subsequent editors; my parents,MarcandHadassah,fortheirloveand(attimesmonetary!) support; and above all, my partner, Sheri, to whom this volume is dedicated. viii 1 Introduction: The Transformation of Social Democratic Parties GerassimosMoschonas,theauthorofIntheNameofSocialDemocracy, hasarguedthatalthoughthesocialdemocraticandlabourpartiesof Europewerefoundedwiththeintentionoftransformingcapitalism, theirsuccess in doingso pales in comparison to howcapitalism has transformed social democracy.1 This is indeed the case, not merely for the European social democratic parties but for their Australasian counterparts.Itisrarelyasurprisewhenpartiesoftherightenthusi- asticallyembraceneoliberal,market-orientedeconomicpolicies.But forpartiesofthelefttodoso,notmerelyasconcessionsinthefaceof objective economic conditionsbut at the ideological, programmatic level,indicatesthatadramaticchangehastakenplacewithinsocial democracy in general—indeed, a change in social democracy’s very ‘essence’.Thequestionis,whyhasthisoccurred? Over the last 25 years, virtually all social democratic parties have presided over some degree of market deregulation, commer- cialization, and privatization of the public sector, and at least the piecemealimplementationofwelfare-stateretrenchment.Onemight expect working-class parties, even ones with fairly autocratic inter- nal lives, to be largely immune from an intellectual, ideological embraceofneoliberaldoctrine.Workersandunionleaderstendnot to demand that austerity measures be imposed upon themselves. Yetsocialdemocraticpartieshavehardlyinoculatedthemselvesand are increasingly led by advocates of the free market, deregulation, and privatization. Social democratic parties have generally made no concerted effort to find alternatives to neoliberalism—their role in 1
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