Speech on individualism or solidarity

Dear Chancellor Vranitzky Prime Minister Horn, President Hostasch, Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honour for me to address this important conference and to celebrate together with youthe 75 Anniversary of the Bundeskammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte. I do so with pleasure in a capital which has been a stronghold of Austrian and European social democracy and trade unionism for decades and, I believe, will continue to be so in the future.

The ties between social democrats in Austria and in the Nordic countries are strong. Bruno Kreisky, a legend already in his life, spoke Swedish fluently and remained faithful to the Austrian - Nordic social democratic ideals throughout his life. Together with Willy Brandt, whose spoken Norwegian was impeccable, he built a tradition of social democratic cooperation between the German-speaking and the Nordic parts of Europe which has shaped Europe politically for half a century and which will continue to play a forceful role in Europe.

The decision by the Austrian people to join the European Union and the two other new member countries Sweden and Finland will contribute to this effect. Through the Agreement on the European Economic Area, ( der EWR Abkommen) Norway, too, is part of the internal market. We will, through that agreement, cooperate as closely as possible with the Union and seek to coordinate our views on the future of Europe, often through consultations with the most likeminded countries.

Today and tomorrow, our cooperation will be continued by Chancellor Vranitzky, by Rudolf Scharping and by my Nordic colleagues gathering here in Vienna today, as we share the same goals and aspirations for our societies of tomorrow.

If individualism threatens the solidarity in our societies, as is the issue of this conference, then it is inspsired by other forces than our social democratic movements. Our challenges will change with time, but our ideals remain unchanged and rock-solid: Freedom, solidarity and democracy with social justice.

Why freedom and solidarity? Long experience has proven us right. Individualism, as an ideology - it plainly does not work. The individual cannot live without participation in communities which bind him or her to other people. We also identify ourselves through our relationship with other people, in work, in friendship, by joining purpose, not through laissez-faire attitudes.

If we stand back from taking part in society, the common good will suffer, - individuals will suffer - in our own societies, but also on a global scale.

But social democracay also means that we must all contribute - that individuals have a responsibility, for themselves - and for others. This is the basic idea of solidarity: It is equally essential to give and to contribute as it is to receive from others.

Social democracy does not mean to take away and to undermine the potential and the responsibility of the individual. Quite to the contrary, it means to widen the possibility of everybody to live meaningful lives in justice. Without responsibility we would lose the glue that keeps us together in our democracies. We need solidarity - and responsibility. To achieve this we must mobilize the will and the insight of the individual - in orden to mobilize the social forces of our democracies - to build common concern for the rights of all individuals - and the common good.

Our time is characterized by profound change. Hardly anyone who tried to foresee the course of world events ten years ago would have been right today.

Rapid change affects our daily lives, our work places and our understanding of the world, which has become one global neighbourhood from which nobody can turn away. Borders between countries are becoming less meaningful. Political work has become more demanding in a world where governments and individuals have access to the same databases and information networks. We are becoming part of one integrated world economy, and still often so far apart.

The information age often offers confusion and fragmented pictures rather that the sense of direction, purpose and security which we all need.

We are experiencing a technological revolution. The scale and pace of change is enormous. Policies must change and adapt to new realities. If not, people risk becoming passive spectators and passive consumers of goods and electronic communication.

There is also a shift in power away from governments, international institutions and even federal banks into boardrooms and to anonymous processes, stock-markets and branches of industry. The speed and magnitude of these processes threaten to outpace the capacity of the national and international public sectors to adapt the working of politics to new realities.

For the individual, the search for security can lead to a turning away from a society which has become increasingly complex to understand and which does not seem to offer meaning or direction.

We must be alert to these tendencies which may lead to passivity and leave us immune to emotions the predicament of our neighbours.

The strength of social democracy lies in our ability for change and renewal, - based on our lasting ideals. In all of Europe, social democrats are concerned with the fight against unemployment, with how to finance and secure the best of our social systems, and with adapting our public sectors to serve our people in a changing world.

But our policies depend on a conscious population. Even the most deeply rooted democracies depend on a continuos public debate. The individual certainly is unique and responsible for his or her own life, but the individual will only find meaning in life through active interaction with others, in the family, locally at the work place, in political parties and trade unions.

Some years ago an opinion poll was made in a Western democracy. The question was: What do you consider as being the gravest threat to society, ignorance or apathy? A middle class male responded: "I don't know and I don't care.

This is the attitude that we must struggle against. We must consistently underline the need to care and to share,

- share opportunities, knowledge, and resources,

- care about those who are less fortunate, the unemployed and the poor and destitute in developing countries.

Clearly, we live in a world both of differences and indifference. 20 million people are out of work in Europe. In the course of the last year, the world economy increased by amounts corresponding to the entire economy of South America.1 billion people in the Third World are living in acute poverty.

The challenge is global and will be in the centre of world attention at the UN Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen two weeks from now. There it must be stated - and all governments should commit themselves - to maintain or establish a strong public sector. This a prerequisite both for solidarity, democracy and for social justice. Our vision must comprise giving all people, regardless of where they live, the opportunity to realize their potential, by means of just and equitable, redistributive social policies, both nationally and internationally, where redistribution has come severely under siege in later years.

Still our ability to show international solidarity will not be adequate if solidarity becomes overshadowed by individualism in our own countries and in our own communities. The early 1980s became a playing ground for ultra liberalism, egocentrism, trickle down economics, and inspired the belief that the market, if left unchecked and unmanaged would bring benefit to all of mankind. Today, people know how these liberalist policies failed.

One of the main historic achievements of social democracy has been to use and harness the working of the economic markets for the benefit of everybody. We did not abolish the markets. We used them. We know that markets are indispensable for an efficient use of economic resources, but markets alone can never build community purpose, or instill social responsibility. Nor can they assert the larger vision that only people and communities can have of a just and sustainable future.

The 1980s left us with soaring unemployment rates all over Europe. We risked becoming three-fourths societies where the majority is reasonably well off and active participants in life while the other one-fourth would be without much hope, fearing or facing unemployment, seeing no future in education, and finding fewer who cared.

Fear and discontent is the instrument on which populist strong-men play their seductive tunes. When people go idle, we create new victims to the voice of populist, xenophobic and undemocratic demagogy.

Policies had to change. We were obviously on a wrong track when Europe spent 100 billion ECU on unemployment compensation and far less on active measures for reemployment. Paying people such sums for not doing anything is neither sustainable nor socially acceptable.

Norway and Austria are perhaps the two countries in Europe with most experience in promoting income policies based on solidarity. We have pursued income policies aimed at stimulating and sharing work, lifting the lower-paid strata of the work-force and sharing responsibility between the social partners.

This policy of solidarity, aiming at a high level of employment and a fair distribution is even more acutely needed under new circumstanaces. Ensuring full employment is increasingly demanding today when more and more can be produced by fewer and fewer hands. Jobless growth is a disturbing threat, with socially detrimental effects. It also eliminates low-skilled labour-intensive jobs, making education more and more a condition for employment.

Technology has eliminated so much hard manual labour which we should not be nostalgic about, but it also threatens to increase the concentration of power in the hands of those who control capital.

The role of the owner, in the traditional capitalist sense of the word, is receding as more and more resources are controlled by anonymous entities, trusts and funds. Individual interest is fragmented, and wthe role of the wage-earning managers responsible only to the stock market, tends to increase in importance.

The demands on governments for an active labour market policy are obvious. The idea of an active labour market policy was originally devised during a period of high employment. It consisted in keeping the productivity growth of the economy high, allowing for wage increases and alleviating transfer of labour to expanding industries by retraining and subsidizing vocational and geographical mobility.

Today, an active labour market policy is designed not only to secure income for the unemployed, but to maintain and improve the ability to work, through training and short term employment programmes. The review of such policies by the OECD strongly support our conclusion that active measures are preferable to the passive disbursement of employment benefits.

We should never lose sight of the fact that the measure of any successful policy of redistribution is to unleash people's true potential.

Redistributive policies are needed also on the global scale. It is new to the present generations, that we must face the new reality of ecological interdependence. There is today no limit to the number of future generations that depend on our solidarity.

The world population will double some time in the next century. 90 per cent of the population increase is taking place in developing countries. The widening gap between the fortunate few and the powerless poor is dangerous and it is morally unacceptable.

Each country will have to assume the bulk of the responsibility for its own people. But its success or failure will affect us all.

We need a strong international public sector. There is a need for a more equitable sharing of global responsibilities. Bills for peace-keeping, bills for peace-building, for averting environmental disasters, alleviating poverty and famine and curbing the population explosion must be equitably shared, because we are all dependent on success in every one of these fields.

But policies to alleviate problems in other countries will not succeed unless they are supported by a socially conscious people. Cynics are often quick to dismiss international solidarity as futile, costly, and contrary to what they see as national interests. Such attitudes are dangerous. "Cynics know the price of anything and the value of nothing," said Oscar Wilde.

Sometimes we have belatedly seen the threats to peace and prosperity. The tragedy in Bosnia unfolded while a number of Western countries had different views as to what the outside world could and should do. But the tragedy would have been even more perilous had we been indifferent to it.

The transition to democracy in South Africa would not have happened had we all been indifferent to apartheid.

Peace would not have come to the Middle East had we all been indifferent to the tragedy of that region.

In exercising power in the world, the power of the moral example can be far greater than material riches or equipment. Each one of us will have our own contribution to make. Let the imperfect world around us be our challenge.

There is a growing need to focus on knowledge as the ultimate resource and as an engine of growth and change. We must increasingly focus on dissemination of knowledge. The best prospects for our future seems to lie in the inexhaustible potential of the human mind. It is a source of optimism for the future that knowledge is an infinite resource.

It took all of human history to grow to the 600 billion dollars world economy of the year 1900. Today, the world economy grows by more than this every two years. Each year, economic expansion corresponds to the entire economy of South America. Only a lifetime away, our 14 trillion dollar world economy may have grown fivefold.

An average person in North America consumes almost 20 times as much as a person in India or China, and 60 to 70 times more than a person in Bangladesh. It is simply impossible for the world as a whole to sustain a Western level of consumption for all. In fact, if 7 billion people were to consume as much energy and resources as we do in the West today we would need 10 worlds, not one, to satisfy all our needs.

Traditionally, economic growth has meant producing more and more goods using more and more natural resources and placing an increasing strain on an already fragile environment. Perpetuating this kind of economic growth is neither necessary for employment nor possible for environmental reasons.

If we are to achieve sustainable development, which means to leave for the coming generation at least the same options that we have had, individuals must also be prepared to pay the environmental costs of their consumption. This means that it will cost more to use private cars and charges for waste disposal, sewage and energy will increase. As we know, such increases are not popular. In a number of countries, the removal of subsidies for unsustainable use of energy or protection of domestic resources will lead to such cost increases.

We must not only eliminate subsidies of unsustainable practices, but also rethink the whole pattern of taxation.

We have not yet fully explored the positive effects of shifting some of the burden of taxation from resources which we use too little, such as labour, to resources which we use too much, such as finite natural resources.

We are now embarking on the transition towards a post-industrial society. This process should not be viewed with fear and anxiety, but rather with hope and optimism. It is not a question of sacrifice but of new opportunity.

Let us jointly and determinedly meet the future. Just and equitable societies do not come about by our merely wishing for them. This is a field where we need the strength of each other's support as well as the benefit of the experience gained in individual countries. We must learn from each other to avoid the danger zones of unchecked individualism and apathy.

We must work on many fronts. And - to our children and grandchildren - we must be able to say that we saw to it that the ideals of social democracy where made to work at a time when people and countries realized that they had to move ahead, - based on solidarity, - towards more mature stages of civilization.