Few understand the sheer enormity of what Prime Minister Stephen Harper is up to, but his goal is there for anyone to see. He’s committed to the total destruction of Canada’s welfare state.
And after it’s dismantled, his government will plough and salt the political terrain upon which it stood so it will never sprout again.
But most people don’t seem to realize this is happening. Maybe it’s just too horrible for Canadians to accept. After all, those who were adults in the 1970s remember the promise and the hope that came with investing in the programs and policies that made Canada a better, fairer and more civilized country.
Of course, those who’ve grown up since know only the long, gradual crushing of that hope and promise as the neoliberal wrecking crew began its work, defeating popular resistance battle after battle.
Now, only a year into his majority government, Harper intends to complete the destruction.
Perhaps it is timely to remember what is being lost and how it was won.
A BETTER, MORE FAIR CANADA
The consolidation of CCF/NDP power in Saskatchewan in 1944, and the threat the party posed in key provinces and in federal politics, were vital to the welfare state’s establishment in Canada. This was the Canadian manifestation of global political shifts resulting from the impacts of the Great Depression and World War II — shifts that saw social democratic and communist parties, rooted in the working classes, rise to prominence in the western advanced industrial nations, with the notable exception of the U.S.
Throughout Western Europe, social democratic parties swept into office. This resulted not only from the determination of an aroused working class — embittered by the suffering of the Great Depression and the carnage of the world war which resulted from that economic crisis — it was also a response to the political/ideological threat presented by the triumph of the Soviet Union, which had virtually single-handedly stopped Hitler’s drive to victory on continental Europe, and spearheaded his final defeat.
The internal pressures of an engaged, politically conscious working class, coupled with the external pressures embodied in the “socialist road” advocated by the Soviet Union and its affiliated parties across the western world, led to an historic class compromise in the advanced capitalist world.
The welfare state was born, providing citizens in the capitalist democracies the social security promised by the Soviet model, plus the benefits of upward mobility, personal choice and economic opportunity inherent in a capitalist system.
Welfare capitalism made heady promises and initially delivered on many of them. A fairer split of the wealth produced by the combined efforts of capital and labour led to gradual increases in real wages and the establishment of a universal “social wage.” This social wage included publicly funded, universal primary and secondary education, health care, family allowances, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, social assistance for those in need, and growing investments in public infrastructure and cultural amenities. All things we now take for granted, by the way.
A solemn social covenant was made based on the principle of universality. All citizens, even the wealthiest, received these benefits, even though for those with high incomes much of it would be taxed back due to progressive taxation. Nevertheless this principle of universality was important politically and symbolically, since all citizens received tangible evidence of their participation in sharing in the distribution of public goods. No one would ever again be hungry, homeless, denied needed health care or refused access to quality education. A basic minimum publicly guaranteed standard of material life was established as a social safety net for all. Large public investments in post-secondary education and enhanced accessibility opened the door to upward mobility. And each new generation looked forward to advancing the quality of their material lives beyond that enjoyed by their parents (if they were prepared to work and study), always comforted by the certainty that, in case of emergency, personal crisis, or economic circumstance, the social safety net was there to catch them and their dependents if they faltered.
Democratically elected governments played a more central role in the lives of citizens. The banking and financial systems, and the stock markets, were subjected to strict government regulation to protect the public interest. Industries found themselves under scrutiny to ensure their products were safe, prevent dishonest practices and ensure the public was protected from predation. The new economy of the welfare state was diversified as a growing public sector took over key activities: utilities, transportation, and any economic sector deemed to be central to the public interest and therefore unwisely left to the pursuit of private profit. As a result, the public sector — due to increases in the size of the civil service delivering publicly funded services, and the increasingly important publicly owned economic activities — grew to central prominence in the economy.
Furthermore, governments were charged with the general oversight of the economy in order to engage in the planning that was necessary to maximize employment, and ensure economic stability and growth.
The capitalist world became a very different place compared to the swashbuckling days prior to the Great Depression.
PRESSURE TO BE BETTER
The importance of the CCF victory in Saskatchewan should not be underestimated. Aggressively using provincial powers, the CCF positively transformed the lives of citizens in Saskatchewan in ways never before believed possible. The Saskatchewan model of moderate social democracy inspired the subordinate classes across Canada. Threatened by its popularity, the established capitalist parties adopted central features of the CCF’s welfare state program.
Still, each reform of the CCF/NDP in Saskatchewan was met by hostility from the capitalist class, business lobby organizations and the media. It was often a bitter ideological struggle, but the popularity of the measures pioneered in Saskatchewan forced the established parties to join in the foundational minimum of the welfare state consensus. In 1957, John Diefenbaker’s Tory government introduced a national version of the CCF’s 1947 publicly funded comprehensive hospitalization plan. In 1966, Lester Pearson’s Liberal government introduced national medicare, a plan pioneered by the CCF/NDP in Saskatchewan in 1962. These became the anchors of the Canadian welfare state. In both cases, the Ottawa government used fiscal discipline to impose the plans on resistant provinces ruled by right-wing governments. The discipline was simple: join the plans with national standards in place and Ottawa will pay 50 per cent of the cost. Refuse to join, and not one thin dime will be forthcoming. It worked.
The same fiscal discipline was used to force provinces to adhere to national standards for social assistance, and, in the 1960s, to push the provinces to expand post-secondary capacity and open up accessibility.
This was the final stage in Canada’s nation-building strategy, embarked upon in 1867. The dominant capitalist class was not happy and resisted it often, attempting to minimize the breadth of its programming, aggressively battling features considered lethal to “free enterprise.”
The old days of capital’s unfettered power were not forgotten. The welfare state was not yielded up voluntarily by the capitalist class. All the concessions were won under political threat. The all-consuming nightmare of the capitalist class was that the CCF/NDP would win power in Ottawa. That, above all, had to be prevented.
But it turns out that the most important political reality, in capital’s long view, was that what Parliament can give, Parliament can take away.
Back in the 1970s many of us dreamed in Technicolor of a cradle-to-grave welfare state. There was serious discussion of a guaranteed annual income for all. We criticized the Blakeney government in Saskatchewan and the Trudeau government in Ottawa for not extending the welfare state quickly enough.
We believed the welfare state consensus was secure, that no politician hoping to win would dare dismantle it.
We were wrong.
We underestimated the ruthlessness of the capitalist class. We forgot what history had taught us. Capital accepts no limits in its pursuit of profit — slavery, colonialism, genocide, world wars. Today, capital is even prepared to destroy the planet in its mindless pursuit of profit at any cost.
Here we are in 2012. Stephen Harper has his majority. The capitalist class again enjoys unfettered power. The piecemeal dismantling of the welfare state from the 1970s to 2011 will be replaced by the final assault.
The unanswered question is: when will Canadians rediscover and re-assert their political power — a power they exerted so effectively in response to the Great Depression and World War II?
Original Article
Source: planetsmag
Author: John F. Conway
And after it’s dismantled, his government will plough and salt the political terrain upon which it stood so it will never sprout again.
But most people don’t seem to realize this is happening. Maybe it’s just too horrible for Canadians to accept. After all, those who were adults in the 1970s remember the promise and the hope that came with investing in the programs and policies that made Canada a better, fairer and more civilized country.
Of course, those who’ve grown up since know only the long, gradual crushing of that hope and promise as the neoliberal wrecking crew began its work, defeating popular resistance battle after battle.
Now, only a year into his majority government, Harper intends to complete the destruction.
Perhaps it is timely to remember what is being lost and how it was won.
A BETTER, MORE FAIR CANADA
The consolidation of CCF/NDP power in Saskatchewan in 1944, and the threat the party posed in key provinces and in federal politics, were vital to the welfare state’s establishment in Canada. This was the Canadian manifestation of global political shifts resulting from the impacts of the Great Depression and World War II — shifts that saw social democratic and communist parties, rooted in the working classes, rise to prominence in the western advanced industrial nations, with the notable exception of the U.S.
Throughout Western Europe, social democratic parties swept into office. This resulted not only from the determination of an aroused working class — embittered by the suffering of the Great Depression and the carnage of the world war which resulted from that economic crisis — it was also a response to the political/ideological threat presented by the triumph of the Soviet Union, which had virtually single-handedly stopped Hitler’s drive to victory on continental Europe, and spearheaded his final defeat.
The internal pressures of an engaged, politically conscious working class, coupled with the external pressures embodied in the “socialist road” advocated by the Soviet Union and its affiliated parties across the western world, led to an historic class compromise in the advanced capitalist world.
The welfare state was born, providing citizens in the capitalist democracies the social security promised by the Soviet model, plus the benefits of upward mobility, personal choice and economic opportunity inherent in a capitalist system.
Welfare capitalism made heady promises and initially delivered on many of them. A fairer split of the wealth produced by the combined efforts of capital and labour led to gradual increases in real wages and the establishment of a universal “social wage.” This social wage included publicly funded, universal primary and secondary education, health care, family allowances, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, social assistance for those in need, and growing investments in public infrastructure and cultural amenities. All things we now take for granted, by the way.
A solemn social covenant was made based on the principle of universality. All citizens, even the wealthiest, received these benefits, even though for those with high incomes much of it would be taxed back due to progressive taxation. Nevertheless this principle of universality was important politically and symbolically, since all citizens received tangible evidence of their participation in sharing in the distribution of public goods. No one would ever again be hungry, homeless, denied needed health care or refused access to quality education. A basic minimum publicly guaranteed standard of material life was established as a social safety net for all. Large public investments in post-secondary education and enhanced accessibility opened the door to upward mobility. And each new generation looked forward to advancing the quality of their material lives beyond that enjoyed by their parents (if they were prepared to work and study), always comforted by the certainty that, in case of emergency, personal crisis, or economic circumstance, the social safety net was there to catch them and their dependents if they faltered.
Democratically elected governments played a more central role in the lives of citizens. The banking and financial systems, and the stock markets, were subjected to strict government regulation to protect the public interest. Industries found themselves under scrutiny to ensure their products were safe, prevent dishonest practices and ensure the public was protected from predation. The new economy of the welfare state was diversified as a growing public sector took over key activities: utilities, transportation, and any economic sector deemed to be central to the public interest and therefore unwisely left to the pursuit of private profit. As a result, the public sector — due to increases in the size of the civil service delivering publicly funded services, and the increasingly important publicly owned economic activities — grew to central prominence in the economy.
Furthermore, governments were charged with the general oversight of the economy in order to engage in the planning that was necessary to maximize employment, and ensure economic stability and growth.
The capitalist world became a very different place compared to the swashbuckling days prior to the Great Depression.
PRESSURE TO BE BETTER
The importance of the CCF victory in Saskatchewan should not be underestimated. Aggressively using provincial powers, the CCF positively transformed the lives of citizens in Saskatchewan in ways never before believed possible. The Saskatchewan model of moderate social democracy inspired the subordinate classes across Canada. Threatened by its popularity, the established capitalist parties adopted central features of the CCF’s welfare state program.
Still, each reform of the CCF/NDP in Saskatchewan was met by hostility from the capitalist class, business lobby organizations and the media. It was often a bitter ideological struggle, but the popularity of the measures pioneered in Saskatchewan forced the established parties to join in the foundational minimum of the welfare state consensus. In 1957, John Diefenbaker’s Tory government introduced a national version of the CCF’s 1947 publicly funded comprehensive hospitalization plan. In 1966, Lester Pearson’s Liberal government introduced national medicare, a plan pioneered by the CCF/NDP in Saskatchewan in 1962. These became the anchors of the Canadian welfare state. In both cases, the Ottawa government used fiscal discipline to impose the plans on resistant provinces ruled by right-wing governments. The discipline was simple: join the plans with national standards in place and Ottawa will pay 50 per cent of the cost. Refuse to join, and not one thin dime will be forthcoming. It worked.
The same fiscal discipline was used to force provinces to adhere to national standards for social assistance, and, in the 1960s, to push the provinces to expand post-secondary capacity and open up accessibility.
This was the final stage in Canada’s nation-building strategy, embarked upon in 1867. The dominant capitalist class was not happy and resisted it often, attempting to minimize the breadth of its programming, aggressively battling features considered lethal to “free enterprise.”
The old days of capital’s unfettered power were not forgotten. The welfare state was not yielded up voluntarily by the capitalist class. All the concessions were won under political threat. The all-consuming nightmare of the capitalist class was that the CCF/NDP would win power in Ottawa. That, above all, had to be prevented.
But it turns out that the most important political reality, in capital’s long view, was that what Parliament can give, Parliament can take away.
Back in the 1970s many of us dreamed in Technicolor of a cradle-to-grave welfare state. There was serious discussion of a guaranteed annual income for all. We criticized the Blakeney government in Saskatchewan and the Trudeau government in Ottawa for not extending the welfare state quickly enough.
We believed the welfare state consensus was secure, that no politician hoping to win would dare dismantle it.
We were wrong.
We underestimated the ruthlessness of the capitalist class. We forgot what history had taught us. Capital accepts no limits in its pursuit of profit — slavery, colonialism, genocide, world wars. Today, capital is even prepared to destroy the planet in its mindless pursuit of profit at any cost.
Here we are in 2012. Stephen Harper has his majority. The capitalist class again enjoys unfettered power. The piecemeal dismantling of the welfare state from the 1970s to 2011 will be replaced by the final assault.
The unanswered question is: when will Canadians rediscover and re-assert their political power — a power they exerted so effectively in response to the Great Depression and World War II?
Original Article
Source: planetsmag
Author: John F. Conway
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