Labor looks to modernise
By Sean Healy
MELBOURNE — Given the defeats suffered by Labor governments over the last 12 months, you would think a conference entitled Social Democracy: Future Directions would attempt to explain why Labor is on the nose with large numbers of working people.
But about as close as this conference, held in Melbourne on October 19, got to self-appraisal was putting electoral losses down to an inevitable "swing of the pendulum".
The conference was designed to brainstorm ideas about how to win back Labor's lost ground without abandoning its commitment to "fiscal responsibility" and good (capitalist) economic practice. One session, titled International Perspectives, focused on how "the development of the international capital market has undermined the whole basis of traditional social democracy — it's no longer practical politics to demand levels of minimum wages or full employment".
Speakers at the seminar included former British Labour Party figure Bryan Gould who spoke about the need to reassert the role of government in the market economy, even given the "improving ability of market economies to deliver economic success", and stressed that "good government counts". Others called for greater investigation of British Labour leader Tony Blair's "ethical socialism" and "communitarianism", and asserted that social democracy should champion "the equality of dignity rather than the equality of income".
Getting more concrete, the Labor left's "great white hope", Victorian Lindsay Tanner, explained why Labor should rethink its "traditional" approach to public ownership and indirect taxation.