>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.
an important point, and it does go to how we would define social democracy.
re: universal and targeted: not exactly, Medicare is (still hanging on, barely) universal. most other things (pensions, unemployment benefits, student incomes, family allowance) were at some time or still are non-contributory. they weren't universal, and they were mostly (aside from the ub's) means-tested, but the direct link to time having worked was not there. child endowments were universal for a very long time, I'm not sure about now. and, I'm not sure that the distinction between universal and targeted is what defines social democracy, even though universal cash benefits would certainly be preferable.
as for white australia, here's a fragment form Jill Roe that I think is interesting:
"the universalist maternity allowance (1912). In effect a one-off medical benefit to minimise the still formidable hazards of childbirth, it came at the end of a long period of concern about declining birthrates, when birth-control was a selfish middle class affectation lamented especially by eugenicists; 'populate or perish; had begun a long life as vital slogan... The nationalist, natalist drive is apparent from the disregard in this legislation of marital status, and whether beneficiaries were therefore 'deserving' or 'undeserving'." [from "Women and Welfare Since 1901"]
maybe the phrase here should be: there's universal and there's universal. the break with the charitable basis of the social wage was here made possible by way of the white australia policy. of course, it only included by excluding -- but at the border, which is still the limit of any universal social policy it seems.
Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au