DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE

Contrary to the widely accepted myths of bourgeois sociology, class differences did not vanish during the long capitalist boom that followed World War II, nor was the Australian working class dissolved into a generally comfortable new middle class.

In fact, wealth and economic power became concentrated in the hands of a steadily smaller percentage of the population. At the same time, throughout the 1950s and '60s extensive mechanisation and monopolisation of factory, farm and office led to a considerable increase in the size of the Australian working class both in absolute terms and in relation to other social classes.

Spurred on by the needs of monopoly capital in a period of accelerated expansion, these changes in the postwar period significantly altered the composition and character of the Australian working class in the following ways:

• The postwar boom created a labour shortage that enabled a large number of women to enter the labour market.
• The growing use of part-time workers absorbed yet more women, as well as young people, into the workforce.
• Large-scale immigration from non-English-speaking European countries significantly altered the ethnic composition of the workforce, and particularly the industrial working class.
• The industrialisation of agriculture reduced the relative weight of rural workers within the working class while simultaneously increasing the role of wage-workers on the farms.
• There was a sharp decline in the percentage of manual production (``blue-collar'') workers in the labour force as a whole. A major contributor to this has been a decline in the percentage of workers involved in the mining, manufacturing, construction, electric power, transport and communications industries, due to increases in labour productivity produced by semi-automated or automated production processes. On the other hand, these processes have increased the role of intellectual labour in the production process (highly skilled repair work, technical supervision, data-processing, etc.).
• As in all the advanced capitalist countries, the sales and service sectors have grown substantially, leading to a percentage growth of the workers employed in wholesale and retail trade, advertising, etc., and in the services sector (health, education, government administration, banking, finance, tourism, etc.).
• The mechanisation of a large amount of clerical and sales work, and even of intellectual labour, created a new reserve of proletarianised and alienated labour, a fact reflected in the growth of ``white-collar'' unionism.

These changes in the composition and character of the Australian working class, together with the extensive monopolisation of all branches of the economy, have tended to sharply limit the scope of petty-bourgeois dreams and aspirations, even among skilled sectors of the working class. The great majority of Australian workers now regard themselves as permanent wage earners rather than potentially independent producers.

Relatively few workers believe that they will one day own a small business and have an independent livelihood. At the same time, they believe their children are entitled to a better education and a better life than they had. With fewer traditional petty-bourgeois illusions than any previous generation of Australian workers, they nonetheless feel that they have a right to what are sometimes considered middle-class living standards. These include a guaranteed and rising income, expanded medical and retirement guarantees, adequate transportation, a rounded and continuing education, peace, and a healthy environment for their children.

Today, there is a growing contradiction between the expectations of the majority of Australians and the harsh reality of declining incomes, education cutbacks, public service cuts, health care cuts, a growing housing shortage, increasing attacks on the rights of women and other specially oppressed sections of the population, the permanent threat of war, and accelerating destruction of the environment.

In the early 1970s capitalism, in Australia and internationally, entered a prolonged economic crisis. Capitalism today is less able to deliver a comfortable and rising standard of living to working people. While it can still offer very comfortable circumstances to some, it is forced to cut the wages of the great majority and the services available to them.

This contradiction, combined with the other oppressive features of Australian and international capitalism, can be a powerful factor leading large numbers of Australian workers towards a higher level of political consciousness, a break with Laborist reformism, and recognition of the need for the socialist transformation of Australian society.