Doug answers: >>fight for socialism, of course.
to which Brad DeLong replies: >Which is different from "fight for social democracy" how, exactly?
a key difference is that my reading of the historical record suggests that no-one ever got social democracy (i.e., the management of capitalism with a leftish tilt, based on a truce between organized capital and organized labor) or the welfare state by fighting for it. Both SD and the WS are the results of _compromises_: labor and other antiestablishmentarian forces were fighting for something much larger (e.g., socialism) -- and SD and/or the WS were what they got after a lot of resistance (including violent or extraconstitutional repression).
Put another way, go look at the work of Piven & Cloward: progressive welfare reform occurs when the "natives have been restless" and those in power need to throw them a sop in order to keep them calm. But when the poor stop being "uppity," we start getting Clinton-type reforms.
BTW, I like SD and/or the WS much more than the mean-season capitalism we're currently getting. But I don't think we can get them by asking for them. The elites have to be scared. (BTW, the elites are more scared by mass popular movements than by terrorism and the like.)
What should the "Korean/Russian/S African etc." workers do? first they have to defend themselves. then they have to link up their struggles with similar ones to form a broader mass movement, develop common programs and demands, etc. and they have to decide _for themselves_ what to do.
Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html