Labor Government And Its Ideology example essay topic

-- -Affect of the Ideology of the Hawke Labor Government on Interactions with Business and Society -- -By Nathan Eaton Since the Second World War, the Australian state has adopted a distinct approach in its dealings with society and business. This approach has been characterised by government intervention in the activities of business and a comprehensive welfare system serving the vulnerable segments of society. Often, government intervenes in the activities of business to force industries to assume a social welfare capacity. Successive governmental actions have been influenced by the ideologies of the incumbent party. These ideologies have not merely made sense of social or economic realities, they acted as guides for government policy.

Through the critical use of supporting evidence, the affect of the Hawke Labor government upon relations with business and society will be examined. The Hawke and later Keating governments were often accused by the Socialist left of subverting or ignoring Labor's traditional egalitarian ideology. While its ideology may be the filter through which Labor saw social and economic realities, it was constrained by international competition and lagging economic growth to adopt a more pragmatic approach under some circumstances. Economic contraction coupled with high unemployment and interest rates meant Labor needed to adopt a measure of economic liberalism, in the same way as Social Democrat European governments are compelled to presently. Hawke's Labor championed the 'disadvantaged', however defined, and altered Australian society by acting upon its ideology of egalitarianism.

Socialism has consistently been associated with the welfare of an oppressed class (Heywood 1997, p. 50). Following the second world war, the Labor movement had been at the forefront of the campaign for granting aboriginal Australia voting rights. Consistent with that association, the Hawke government continued Labor's special protection of aborigines with the 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act' of 1990. That special protection was granted upon the aboriginal is in keeping with Labor's Socialist ethos - that of equal outcomes, not necessarily equal opportunity, and the belief that economic differences are due to differing social environments. Bauman explains the intention of the 'inventors of the welfare state', and the theory that previous deprivation made special protection necessary:' What they had in mind was getting rid of the deprivation which made collective care or positive discrimination necessary in the first place: to compensate for the inequality of chances and thus make chance equal. ' (Bauman 1998, p. 61) Upon critical assessment, Labor's recent treatment of aboriginal Australia could be interpreted as being in contradiction with its ideology.

The collective care sought by the Labor movement infers that every aboriginal by virtue of sometimes dubious ethnic ties is a victim of past deprivation. Socialism in theory seeks to award resources on the basis of need, not necessarily merit. Ab originality is not an indicator of economic need, for there are thousands of aborigines among the professional classes. But ab originality singularly merits an individual with resources under Labor's legislation. Furthermore, as Jaensch (1997, p. 16) explains, the Hawke government abandoned its proposal for national Land Rights legislation only after the Western Australian state government rejected the proposal. However, a key concern of socialism is the extension of collective responsibility (Ryan, Parker & Brown 2003, p. 40), and that sense of responsibility may extend towards aboriginals as an entity.

Socialism holds the collective interest paramount and does not emphasise the importance of individual rights. Labor's interaction with the aboriginal community during the Hawke years may have been borne of a sense of empathy for an identifiable group which had been victimized by the Australian government in the past. The Labor-instituted Social Security Act (1991) sought to provide more comprehensive care to those most vulnerable, including children and the disabled. Socialists 'support the welfare state and other social policies which are aimed at achieving happiness and equality for society overall' (Ryan, Parker & Brown 2003, p. 40). Labor at that time was clearly fulfilling its ideological commitment to equality, and its actions were reflected in Australian society overall. Their ideology, exercised in practise, extended to the realm of health-care.

Under Hawke, universal heath care (previously dismantled by the Liberal Party) was reintroduced under the name 'Medicare'. The universal system of health care implemented by Hawke in is stark contrast with the system of public health prevalent in the United States. Schroeder (2003, p. 174) laments that those in the United States medical profession are 'largely unable to denounce and change the worsening health and societal inequalities'. By providing adequate 'free' health care for all through a tax on the wealthier segment of society, Labor could argue that it's acted in the national interest. Government often assumes responsibility for public services which cannot be adequately be provided by private enterprise. Huber (1999, p. 116) reports that despite a health sector exposed to theoretically efficient market forces, per capita health spending in the United States has remained at least twice that of the nearest OECD country.

Tansey (1995, p. 146) contends that in many areas of government, as in business, 'economies of scale' mean that large undertakings can often be more efficient than smaller ones. Therefore it can be argued that the affect of Labor's singular universal health care system was positive not merely on the Australian public but the economy also. The Australian government at the time of Hawke's government was actively attempting to forge official agreements between unions and businesses to reduce the incidence of industrial dispute and thereby spur economic growth. Hawke's first major act as prime minister was the establishment of an 'Economic Summit' whereby a formalised 'wages accord' would be agreed upon by consensus.

Later he introduced an Industrial Relations act and updated Social Security Act. In the third year of Hawke's first term, the business council of Australia laid harsh criticisms upon state interventionism, and attempted to debunk the claims of Hawke aligned unions that market failure justified such government involvement (Bell 1992, p. 37). This Business Council criticism was not merely an attack upon the union movement but also on the Labor government and its ideology. A cursory examination of the government's ideology suggests it was aligned with reform socialism, or social democracy:'s social Democracy stands for a balance between market and state, a balance between the individual and community.

At the heart of social democracy there is a compromise between, on one hand, an acceptance of capitalism as the only reliable mechanism for generating wealth, and, on the other, a desire to distribute wealth in accordance with moral, rather than market, principals. ' (Heywood 1997, p. 55) Australian business was finding itself increasingly incapable of contending with their international competitors, especially those in the economically liberal manufacturing centres in East Asia. Competitiveness was limited foremost by a confiscatory tax system which channel led commercial profits into an inefficient public sector as well as the Hawke inspired wage reforms which seriously limited labour mobility. As Self (1989, p. 36) writes, 'with the rapidly falling role of labour in production and the global dimensions of companies' freedom, the investment in welfare provision does not seem all that profitable after all'. One of the biggest problems for the trade unions in a globalizing economy is its grounding in the nation-state (As bjorn 2002, p. 46). Once strongly tied to the union movement, Labor seems to have faced the same problem during the past decade and somewhat compromised its socialist roots in favour of economic pragmatism.

Hence social policy was designed to ameliorate disadvantage, not eliminate it (May 2001, p. 256). A key affect of the implementation of the Labor ideology was the expectation of Australian industry to fill a social welfare role through the payment of high taxes, which served to impel companies to leave Australia because they were increasingly free to relocate internationally. There was no incentive to make a welfare investment when they weren't compelled to remain. Conversely, Howard's tax revisions were designed to reap the advantages of globalization by attracting transnational businesses through the promise that they won't be compelled to fulfil an excessive social security role (Kelly 2000, p. 277).

The Labor Party under Hawke leadership remained faithful to its Social Democratic ideological mandate in the realms of industrial relations, health care and social security. However it was obliged, due to economic circumstances, to temper the substance of its policies with a degree of economic liberalism. Political ideology begins with a utopian world view of the nature of human interactions and ends with an optimistic view of how this utopian version of society will be realised. No society, what ever its ideological ambition for society, can say it has achieved it. Likewise, Hawke may have entered office with the goal of eliminating poverty among Australian children, but implementing his ideal version of Australian society was an unattainable goal. Reference List: Bauman, Z. 1998, 'The Rise and Fall of the Welfare State in Bauman', in Bauman, Z (ed.

), Work, consumerism and the new poor, Buckingham: Open University Press, p. 61. Bell, S. 1992 Business government relations: The ideological context in S. Bell & J. Wanna (eds. ), Business Government Relations in Australia. Sydney: Harcourt Brace, p. 37. Heywood, A. 1997.

'Chapter 3, Political Ideologies' in Politics, Hound mills: Macmillan. p. 50, 55. Huber M. 1999, Health Expenditure Trends in OECD Countries, 1970-1997, viewed August 14 2004, p. 116. Jaensch, D. 1997. 'Chapter 2, Analysing Australian Politics' in The Politics of Australia. 2nd ed. South Yarra: Macmillan, p. 16.

Kelly, P. 2000, 'National Disgrace' in Kelly, P (ed. ), Paradise divided: the changes, the challenges, the choices for Australia, St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, p. 277. May, J. 2001, 'The challenge of poverty -the case of ACOSS' in Sawer, M and Zappa la, G (eds), Speaking for the people: representation in Australian politics, Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, p. 256. Ryan, N., Parker, R. & Brown, K. 2003. Government, Business and Society.

2nd ed. French's Forest: Prentice Hall, p. 40. Schroeder, C. 2003. 'The tyranny of profit: concentration of wealth, corporate globalization, and the failed US health care system', Advances in Nursing Science, vol. 26 no. 3, p. 174. Self, P. 1989. 'Redefining the role of government' in Coal drake, P and Nether cote, J (eds.

), What Should Government Do? Sydney: Hale & Ire monger, p. 36. Tansey, S. 1995. Mechanisms in Politics: The Basics, London: Routledge, p. 146..