REVIEWS

Probing the crisis of ‘democratic socialism’ —

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM: The Chal-
lenge of the Eighties and Beyond. Edited
by Donna Wilson, Vancouver, New Star
Books, 1985. $9.95.

This book deals with the proceedings of
4n international conference of social
democrats — trade unionists, feminists,
academics and politicians — held in Van-
couver, Oct. 20-23, 1983. The purpose of the
conference, sponsored by the Boag Foun-
dation, was to “explore the world crisis”
and to “develop a socialist response of a
Canadian character.”

Subjects covered by the conference
included the future of the welfare state and
of social democracy itself, the state of the
economy and policies needed in the era of
economic crises and an attack from the
tight. Among the participants whose papers
are included in the book are Joop den Uyl,
Evan Simpson, David Schreck, John Fryer,
Clay Perry and D. Ruben Bellan.

What becomes evident immediately on
teading the book is that there is a world of
difference between what social democrats
call “democratic socialism” and how the

term “socialism” is understood by Com-
Munist Parties; and the countries where
SOcialism already exists, such as the Soviet
Union and Cuba.

_ “Democratic socialism,” as clearly out-
lined by the participants in this conference,
Simply means reforms within and under
Capitalism, embodied in what they call the
“welfare state”. Furthermore, social demo-
Crats refer to countries where social demo-
Crats are in office as socialist states governed
by socialists, even though the capitalist eco-
Nomic structure in these states remains
Intact.

Communists, on the other hand, use the
term socialism to describe a society where
the main means of production are under
Public ownership, where public planning
and public control are based on this public
Ownership, where production is for the
Needs of the people rather than private
profit, and where the old capitalist state
apparatus is replaced by a completely new
democratic state of the people under the
leadership of labor.

The conference participants agreed that
both social democracy and the welfare state
are in crisis and under attack from the right.
The discussion centred around how to meet
and deal with this fact and what policies
Should now be advocated by social demo-
crats. The question of the abolition of capi-
talism, or even of a return by the NDP to the
Principles of public ownership underlying
the 1933 Regina Manifesto of the CCF,
Were not raised at the conference. The clos-

-€st anyone came to questioning the NDP’s
Steady drift to the right was a statement by
Clay Perry, the research director of the
International Woodworkers of America.
“During the postwar expansion period,”
he said, “social democratic parties deluded
themselves by believing that if they moved
Just one more increment to the right,
dropped just one more nasty word — like
Nationalization’ — from their lexicon, they
might meekly inherit the earth.”
What the participants were concerned

~ With and discussed were policies which they
believed would make capitalism work —
Policies such as quality of work, work shar-
ing, a shorter work week with a correspond-
‘Ing decline in pay to give work to the

7 .
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unemployed, decentralization of the econ-
omy and an incomes policy.

Joop den Uyl, the former president of
The Netherlands, claimed that individual
social democratic governments could do
nothing. “The world economic crisis of the
”70’s should have taught all socialists,” he
said, “that it is not possible to raise the
standard of living of workers or to expand
social security or fight unemployment on an
isolated national basis. The essential condi-
tion of the survival of the welfare state is to
overcome the present disorder of the inter-
national economy.” We should tell the peo-
ple, he added, that “the prospects for raising
the standard of living will be low, even
under socialist guidance.”

Evan Simpson, vice-president of the
Ontario NDP, said that “‘it is in the public
interest to advocate increased profit... .even
governments whose hearts are on the left
have to acknowledge this fact,” adding that
“if socialist objectives are to be realized,
they must be founded on a premise other
than economic.”

John Fryer, president of the National
Union of Provincial Government Employ-
ees, also challenged existing trade union pol-
icies. :

We need to re-examine the policy of “‘full
employment as the salvation of society” he
declared, and go beyond “our usual nega-
tive knee-jerk responses to the talk about
reducing working life time, job sharing and
part time work...Union leaders may be
opposed to part time work but there is a
growing force of workers who like it...a
three day work week at age 60. ..(would)
open up thousands of new jobs for our
young people.”

Fryer also questioned the need for uni-
versality in social programs and whether
some current government services should
be under government control. “Govern-
ment liquor stores,” he said, “‘are an anti-
quated, bizarre and socially unacceptable
way of distributing liquor. There are servi-
ces that do not need to be under direct
provincial government control.”

D. Ruben Bellan of the University of
Manitoba, advocated “some sort of profit

and ownership sharing which would -

encourage in the workers an owner’s regard
for the enterprise,” and that “we ought to
institute profit-sharing arrangements as
persuasively as possible.” Bellan also
thought that “the inflationary pressures that
we have been experiencing reflect in consid-
erable means this historic pressure for the
reduction of inequality (of income).”

Toronto labor lawyer Patricia McDer-
mott was of the opinion that “in return for
retraining and job security, labor must
abandon its rigid job classification, work
rules and cost-of-living increases.”

Numerous conference participants ex-
pressed the view that the solution to society’s
problems today lay in the adoption of an
incomes policy, which would divide up the
national income among various segments
of society.

Bellan said it “will ensure that the aggre-
gate increase in wages and profits in the
country corresponds to the increase in pro-
ductivity” and assured the audience that it
would be “consistent with the maintenance
of a free enterprise economy.”

Fryer said an incomes policy “means that
all sectors of society have to give up certain
things,” and gave the Australian Accord

(between the labor government and the
trade union movement) as an example.

Simpson saw an incomes policy, as “the
highroad to non-confrontation.”

One dissenting (and unnamed) voice
pointed out, however, that “the experience
in Canada and the experience of every other
democratic country which has instituted an
incomes policy is that you cannot control
profit and the repatriation of capital as suc-
cessfully as you can control wages.”

The Participants’ Report on East-West
Tensions called for an end to the arms race,
balanced trade between east and west,
increased cultural exchange and strengthen-
ing of trade union links. However, the U.S.
and the USSR were regarded as two equally
guilty superpowers where there is “a lack of
political accountability and downgrading of
human rights, domestic and abroad.” There
was no recognition of the consistent prop-
osals of the Soviet Union to end the arms
race, including a freeze on further nuclear
arms production, reduction of existing
stockpiles and abandonment of the Star
Wars plans of the U.S. Also conveniently
omitted was the fact that when social demo-
catic governments were in office in western
Europe, they were among the most active
proponents of the arms race and the Cold
War.

Completely lacking in the papers pres-
ented to this conference was even the slight-
est suggestion of the need for the people and
labor to fight back against the restraint pro-
grams and other attacks from the right on
the so-called “welfare state”. This is consist-
ent with social democratic policy which
abhors extra-parliamentary action or con-
frontation for fear it may spoil its image of
respectability and lose it some votes. Work-
ing people are told to put all their faith in the
election of social democratic governments.

It is clear from the papers in this book
that social democracy is well aware that the
period of economic expansion experienced
from 1940-76 is at an end, that the corporate
sector is today determined to undermine the
welfare state and the gains that labor made
during that period. It is adapting its policies
accordingly. Since capitalism will have
chronic and high unemployment, it pro-
poses not a means to overcome this but
rather various means to spread existing
employment among the whole labor force
through work sharing and part time- work
schemes. Wages will be kept in line and
related to profitability by various profit-
sharing schemes and by an incomes policy
which will impose wage controls in one
form or another by top level business-
government-labor arbitration boards and
thus do away with strikes and collective
bargaining in which union members have
any direct say:

But there is another course being
advanced today which the leadership of the
NDP has so far ignored and refused to
accept. These are the alternative economic
and social programs put forward by unions
such as the Canadian Union of Public
Employees, the B.C. Carpenters Council,
the Vancouver and District Labor Council

JOHN FRYER. . .questions trade union
policies.

DAVID SCHRECK. . .one of conference
contributors.

and the Communist Party. In varying
degress they call for substantial changes in
our economic system including a high
degree of public ownership — of the banks,
resource industries, transportation and
foreign-owned transnationals — as well as
the establishment of a strong manufactur-
ing industry in B.C. and Canada, expansion
of social services, a reform of the tax system
which would end subsidies and tax conces-
sions to big corporations and make them
pay their fair share of taxes, and the diver-
sion of wasteful military spending into
socially useful production.

Capitalism as it is today constituted has
outlived its usefulness. It is time for changes
that lead in the direction of real socialism. It
is inevitable that understanding of this fact
will grow in the labor movement in the
years ahead.

Social democracy in Canada is faced with
a choice. Either it will go along with this
movement to abolish capitalism and in this
way hasten the day, or support the existing
system with minor reforms that bring no
lasting benefits to labor and the people.

— Ben Swankey

RO Ree oe ICU

The Federation of Russian Canadians
takes this opportunity to wish our members
and supporters greetings of the season.

May 1986 bring you good health, happiness and
a world free of war and nuclear weapons.

New Year’s Eve Party
Dec. 31, 1985, 7 p.m. 600 Campbell Ave.
Dance to Harry Hoshowsky’s Orchestra at 8:30 p.m.

For tickets please call: 255-6488; 253-8180; 254-3430;
Special discount on tickets purchased before Dec. 29

We ale a

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 18, 1985 e 23