>a more important distinction I think would be to note that social democracy
>was always a set of strategies available only to a small set of countries
>running either (or both) big trade surpluses or a 'labour shortage'; that
>it presupposes a national framework that is no longer available. Australian
>social democracy was built on the basis of the 'white australia policy',
>which is perhaps where it is returning to: in the face of (the threat of)
>capital flight, social democracy's national outlook can do little more than
>entail the continuing regulation of labour (movements).
There's social democracy and there's social democracy. By the definitions I'm working with - serious interference with market incomes and universality of social benefits - Australia has never been a social democracy. Its welfare state has relied on targeted, rather than universal benefits - and a white Australia policy is by definition not universal.
Doug