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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Socialists and the NDP: Support the Struggle not the Party  - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Socialists and the NDP

﻿<br﻿>﻿Support the Struggle not the Party 

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by Seth Clarke, Susan Bender, Hamid Sodeifi, Shiraz Rawat ﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, April - May 1999﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿The following two articles continue the ongoing discussion on social democracy in the pages of NEW SOCIALIST. We welcome our readers' contributions to this debate.﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


All the indicators suggest that there will be a provincial election in Ontario this spring. For many people this is seen as an opportunity to get rid of the Mike Harris GOVERNMENT. This sentiment is compelling and supportable. What is not clear is whether the electoral process has any significant role to play in the task of getting rid of the Mike Harris AGENDA. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

During election campaigns the majority of the left has traditionally looked to the NDP as the party whose structure and policies have the greatest potential to be influenced by workers and oppressed people. Even those with no illusions about the likelihood of an NDP government bringing in progressive reforms will often call for critical support on the basis of the NDP's links to the trade unions and their traditional support base inside the working class. It is claimed that these factors mean that the NDP is not a party of the bosses' class and electoral success might impact positively on the confidence and activity of the working class. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

However, the validity of these assertions is dependent upon the political context in which a call for critical support is being considered. A call for critical support for social democratic parties such as the NDP should not be a formulaic response based on the bankruptcy of the alternatives. Such a call should only be made after a serious assessment of the political period we are in and then only if there is no viable left alternative to social democracy. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

A call for a vote for social democratic parties in a period when there is a serious, measurable radicalization of workers to the left putting pressure on a liberal democratic state to instigate reforms, is a fundamentally different tactical measure than the same call in the late 1990s. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Despite this analysis, some on the left will still sometimes argue that the NDP will make tangible, if small, improvements for workers and oppressed people and is therefore different and preferable to the other parties of liberal democracy. This ignores the fact that you cannot separate the chosen platform of social democratic parties from the system in which they operate. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The NDP, like most of the social democratic parties around the world, has followed the lead of the British Labour Party, which has taken a hard turn to the right and is increasingly looking to court corporate sponsorship and to lessen the influence that organised labour has over the party platform. This move to the right, although more pronounced now, is by no means a new phenomenon. Nor is this move independent from the direction of the political mainstream. Social democracy sways in the same wind as the other mainstream parties. Decisions to cut or spend are based on the rate of profit and the relative strength and organization of the toiling classes. Never under liberal democracy are they based on need. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The Bob Rae Ontario NDP government brought the Social Contract, welfare cops and cuts to social programs. The policies brought forward by the governments led by Tony Blair, Lionel Jospin et al in Europe are a continuation of the right-wing agenda that was prosecuted by their conservative forerunners. This reality points to the true nature of social democracy in office. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

It is important to recognise that voting is not of itself a politicising act and that when working- class struggle is low capital will not give in to demands of labour and other organized groups of resistance. It is a strange occurrence that elections can serve to pacify people's engagement in activist politics. Electoralism tends not to contribute to the self-organization of workers and oppressed people. In fact, more often it tends to detract from and undermine activist movements. An example of this is the demobilisation of the Ontario Days of Action against the Harris government in favour of an electoral strategy. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The nature of capitalism is to squeeze as much production out of workers as possible for the minimum compensation. This does not change depending on which party is in office. The role of elected governments under liberal democracy is to create the most favourable conditions for the accumulation of profit in a given area, They tinker with a system that creates hardship for the majority of people. They neither have the inclination nor the power to change the system itself. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Attacks on wages, health, education, and social programs are not matters of contention on party political grounds. They are an imperative of the corporate agenda, which is the real power which drives social and economic policy. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

It is not sufficient to claim that there was a housing program in Ontario under the NDP, that social assistance rates were higher or that tuition fees were lower. It is also the case that unemployment insurance rates were higher under the Tory Mulroney government than they are now. The Rae government cut social assistance and raised tuition fees. These were not halcyon days in comparison to now. They represent different dates in the continuum of attacks and cuts which began with the end of the post World War 2 boom in the 1970s. Without the development of militant organised pressure from below, these cuts will surely continue regardless of who has the majority in the Ontario legislature. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

As the century draws to a close the representation of workers' interests in mainstream politics is diminishing. This, along with the stranglehold that business unionism has developed over the labour movement, suggests that more than ever the politics of socialism from below must draw us to see elections as an opportunity to develop an activist approach to politics and elections. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The fact that there is no left electoral alternative to the NDP should not mean that we should call for a vote for the NDP until one is created. Suggesting to people which end of the whip they might choose to be struck with is little more than a symbolic gesture based on tradition. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

It is far more important in this period that those on the left are involved in building grassroots activism from below so that politicians and union bureaucrats do not have the ability to demobilise activist movements so easily in the future. The Ontario election, like others to come, is an opportunity to build actions that expose the hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness of liberal democracy and to relate to the real day-to-day struggles in people's lives at a time when politics is on the public agenda. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿Seth Clarke, Susan Bender, Hamid Sodeifi and Shiraz Rawat are members of the New Socialist Group in Toronto.﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


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