Defending social standards: why social policy must globalize.

While politics and government remain national, economics has gone global. This disjuncture is a major source of disenchantment with social-democratic and Liberal governance in Canada. The policy choices that social-democratic and liberal governments offered, as an alternative to conservative monetarism and downsizing of social programs, were based on the premise that national governments could exercise some control over the capitalist economy. It has become increasingly clear that these progressive alternatives are no longer available. Electing a New Democratic government at the provincial level or a Liberal government at the federal level does not make a great deal of difference to policies of taxation, social spending and deficit reduction.

Since electoral politics are failing to make a difference protest movements are springing up in defense of social programs and living standards. Governments are likely to respond to widespread social unrest - as for example in France - by offering some concessions and/or retreating temporarily. But these reactions are bound to be ad hoc and the compromises temporary. Something more proactive is needed which seeks to reconcile, the competitive pressures of a global economy and the importance of maintaining basic social standards in industrial democracies.

Social programs remain popular …