Au pays du mateship, la depolitisation est institutionnelle

The overall ambition of this book was to address whether and in which ways the world of work still informs politics. This book chapter specifically discusses the politics of solidarity under labourism in Australia. In doing so the analysis refers to two cardinal notions underlying the social foundation of solidarity: the concepts of 'mateship' in the realm of praxis and 'fair go' in the ideological domain. It is argued that, in a rather counter-intuitive way, both notions share liberal roots. The 'fair go' relates much more to a principle of social justice, in Rawls sense, than to a holistic (and socialist) view of society. The 'mateship' concept is based on voluntarism located within a system of mutual obligations in Maussian terms. A Century ago, a foreign observer characterised Australian labour politics as 'Socialism without doctrine'. The historical institutionalisation of labourism, it is contended, has led to an over-representation of labour and, as a matter of path dependency, has also introduced a 'pragmatic' model of solidarity par défaut which is disconnected from politics; a 'solidarity without doctrine' in other words. This has multiple consequences which are discussed throughout the chapter, one of which is the rather conservative nature of labour politics in Australia. The very notion of a fair go, as the adjective 'fair' suggests, refers more to a politics of resignation (which, in turn, is subordinated to an order or a fate and, by implication, 'luck') than to a politics of emancipation. To the extent that solidarity largely relies on voluntarism, collective identities, social bonding and boundaries are defined through, and within, socialisation. Yet, however strong the socialisation may be, the limits of inclusion are also the frontiers of exclusion.

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Sens politiques du travail

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978-2-200-27433-7

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