Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response: The Politics of the End of Labourism

176 Pages·2015·0.691 MB·English

by  Jason Schulman

Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union
Response
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Neoliberal Labour
Governments and the
Union Response
The Politics of the End of Labourism
Jason Schulman
AdjunctAssistantProfessor,LehmanCollege,CityUniversityofNewYork,USA
©JasonSchulman2015
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Schulman,Jason,1973–
Neoliberallabourgovernmentsandtheunionresponse:thepoliticsof
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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
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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