Who Ya Gonna Call? Labour and the New Zealand Economy.

Truth In Advertising: Labour, it would seem, is the party that knows nothing about running the economy right up until the moment that it does. 

HOW DID LABOUR acquire its reputation for being a poor economic manager? As with most things political and historical, it’s a long story.

In the beginning, the very idea that Labour might become New Zealand’s government was considered so preposterous that its economic policies weren’t considered seriously. To be fair, in its early days Labour’s economic ideas were more ideological than practical. The party espoused “the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange”. Once the people were firmly in control of the economy, Labour seemed perfectly content to leave the details of its management to them.

Unfortunately, the revolution in Russia and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks provided the rest of the world with a lurid picture of what “socialisation” could look like. Most New Zealanders recoiled in horror. If this was class war, then roughly 8 out of every 10 voters wanted no part of it. Clearly, hair-raising and formulaic responses to economic questions were not the way to win votes for Labour outside its working-class bastions in the big cities – and the West Coast’s coal mines.

Thus began the long and difficult journey from the Red Dawn of Labour’s adolescence to the Pink Sunrise of its adult years. Along the way the party steadily shed the most radical of its manifesto promises. That Labour was finally ready to occupy the Treasury Benches was signalled when the party voted to abandon its longstanding commitment to nationalise all privately-owned land in New Zealand.

The event which drove this crucial shift from revolutionary rhetoric to reformist realism was, of course, the Great Depression. Labour had to present the electorate with something it could vote for because it was fast becoming clear to a majority of New Zealanders that the conservative coalition government of the day was utterly bereft of ideas about how to get the economy moving again. Labour owed the people a workable alternative – and in the 1935 general election it delivered one.

For the next 14 years, through depression and world war, Labour kept on delivering. For tens-of- thousands of New Zealanders, the party not only stood for the nation’s, but also their own families’, economic salvation. The policies of Mickey Savage, Peter Fraser, Bob Semple, Jack Lee and Walter Nash were widely credited with transforming New Zealand. The country entered the post-war period with one of the world’s most prosperous economies. The opposition National Party only secured the reins of government in 1949 by promising to leave Labour’s “cradle to grave” welfare state intact.

The event that cost Labour its reputation as a wise and just economic manager was the so-called “Black Budget” of 1958. Confronted with a ballooning balance-of-payments deficit, Labour’s Finance Minister, Arnold Nordmeyer, increased excise taxes and sharply curbed the importation of foreign goods. For old and ignoble political and personal reasons, the trade union leader, Fintain Patrick Walsh, joined with the National Opposition in castigating Nordmeyer’s “Black Budget” as a puritanical Presbyterian’s attack on the booze-and-baccy pleasures of the working man.

That Nordmeyer’s tough-but-fair measures actually righted the economy and restored its forward momentum was forgotten. For the best part of two decades all any National Party politician had to say was: “Remember Nordy’s Black Budget!” and voters winced.

By the mid-1980s, however, the gross incompetence of a conservative government had, once again, compelled Labour to set aside its social-democratic dreams. New Zealand urgently required an economic programme capable of extricating its economy from the cul-de-sac into which the dirigiste policies of National’s Rob Muldoon had driven it. “You can’t run a country like a Polish shipyard!”, boomed Labour’s leader, David Lange. Roger Douglas wasn’t about to disagree.

Labour, it would seem, is the party that knows nothing about running the economy right up until the moment that it does. It is nothing short of astounding that in spite of everything that has happened since the party’s formation in 1916 – up to and including Labour’s two decisive re-organisations of the New Zealand economy of 1935-49 and 1984-1990 – New Zealand’s conservative establishment still finds it expedient to cast the Labour Party as a bunch of blood-thirsty Bolsheviks hell-bent on nationalising everything and shooting the buggers who complain.

This woeful lack of gratitude on the part of New Zealand’s capitalists makes me wish (almost) that their false description of Labour was true.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 31 July 2020.

Kissing The Whip: Electoral Politics And The Authoritarian Personality.

Sure To Rise? The rather alarming conclusion of a recent Politico article by Matthew MacWilliams is that Trump’s support among American voters has yet to peak, and may be much larger than the political pundits have so far been willing to admit. His research indicated that “a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.”

 

JUST OVER A MONTH AGO, the American website, Politico, ran a fascinating article about the supporters of Donald Trump. Matthew MacWilliams, a political communications specialist working his way toward a PhD in Political Science, noted a curious fact about Trump supporters. His research indicated that “a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.”

 

The “Authoritarian Personality” has been the subject of scholarly interest since the 1930s. The German sociologist, Wilhelm Reich, led the way with his ground-breaking book The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933). Reich’s study examined the role of sexual repression in the development of authoritarianism – linking the rigid moral system of the German family with the German people’s dangerous affinity for the Nazi Party worldview.

 

In the United States, academic refugees from Nazi Germany contributed to a highly influential book, The Authoritarian Personality (1950). At the heart of the book was a psychological profiling tool which its creator, Theodore Adorno, called the “F-Scale” (the “F” stood for “Fascist”).

 

The F-Scale reflected the experiences that contributed most to the development of an authoritarian personality. The authors took a Freudian view of character formation, arguing that:  “Excessively harsh and punitive parenting was posited to cause children to feel immense anger towards their parents; yet fear of parental disapproval or punishment caused people to not directly confront their parents, but rather to identify with and idolize authority figures” (Source: Wikipedia entry on The Authoritarian Personality)

 

MacWilliams’ article reveals that the voters most likely to support Donald Trump for President  are the people who pick the first option in the following four propositions pertaining to child-rearing: “whether it is more important for the voter to have a child who is respectful or independent; obedient or self-reliant; well-behaved or considerate; and well-mannered or curious. Respondents who pick the first option in each of these questions are strongly authoritarian.”

 

The rather alarming conclusion of MacWilliam’s article is that Trump’s support among American voters has yet to peak, and may be much larger than the political pundits have so far been willing to admit:

 

“So, those who say a Trump presidency ‘can’t happen here’ should check their conventional wisdom at the door. The candidate has confounded conventional expectations this primary season because those expectations are based on an oversimplified caricature of the electorate in general and his supporters in particular. Conditions are ripe for an authoritarian leader to emerge. Trump is seizing the opportunity. And the institutions – from the Republican Party to the press – that are supposed to guard against what James Madison called “the infection of violent passions” among the people have either been cowed by Trump’s bluster or are asleep on the job.”

 

The Politico article raises some interesting questions about the psychological drivers of voter behaviour in New Zealand. How pervasive is the authoritarian personality in New Zealand society? Might its prevalence in any way be inferred from the extraordinary reaction of so many New Zealanders to the so-called “anti-smacking” legislation? Was the extent and vehemence of that reaction an indication – both of the incidence of authoritarian attitudes within the New Zealand population, and their ultimate cause? Are parental violence and repression the defining characteristics of a majority of Kiwi childhoods? And, if they are, does that suggest that a worryingly large number of New Zealanders are likely to score highly on the F-Scale?

 

We might also ask ourselves whether the following three “attitudinal and behavioural clusters” are readily recognisable in right-wing New Zealand voters?

 

Authoritarian submission – a high degree of submissiveness to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.

 

Authoritarian aggression – a general aggressiveness directed against deviants, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.

 

Conventionalism – a high degree of adherence to the traditions and social norms that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities, and a belief that others in one’s society should also be required to adhere to these norms.

 

(Source: Wikipedia entry on Right-Wing Authoritarianism.)

 

The important point to note about authoritarian character traits is that they occur on both sides of the traditional political divide. American sociologists found that, in the United States, authoritarians were among the most vociferous supporters of the prevailing capitalist system. In the Soviet Union, by way of contrast, the authoritarian personality manifested itself in unwavering support for the communist regime. For authoritarians, what the people in charge believe matters much less than the enduring reality of their control.

 

Donald Trump’s (or, for that matter, John Key’s) bluster and bullying is thus a critical factor in his political success. By signalling that he is in control: that he is bigger and stronger and smarter and more powerful than his political rivals; he convinces his authoritarian followers that he is the only legitimate leader on offer. He will never compromise with, or apologise to, his opponents; nor will be kowtow to the news media; because he knows that the slightest sign of equivocation will immediately call into question his claim to the allegiance of his authoritarian followers.

 

And if the trajectory of the Trump campaign (and the enduring popularity of John Key’s National-led Government) is anything to go by – it’s those authoritarian followers who win elections.

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 24 February 2016.

Poking Out The Eyes Of The Public.

Managing The Message: Labour supporters are invited to receive a copy of Andrew Little's conference address by e-mail. The people surrounding the party’s leader have a “message” they wish to present to the public, and they are determined that every single party member should remain resolutely and coherently “on message”. Hence the near total ban on media access to conference proceedings.

 

THE LABOUR PARTY’s annual conference kicks-off today in Palmerston North and the news media might as well stay at home. Apart from a handful of carefully controlled events: speeches of welcome; tributes to fallen comrades; three spectacularly misnamed “Challenge Sessions” and, of course, the Leader’s Address; the weekend’s proceedings will take place under a comprehensive media ban.

 

The Sector Sessions: where the party’s component groups – trade unionists, women, Maori, youth – meet to discuss issues of special interest to their members, are “closed to the media”. The Policy Workshops; where conference delegates debate policy remits on health and society, jobs and growth, skills and wages, human rights, and a host of other matters, are similarly “closed to the media”. Likewise, all discussion of the Party’s all-important ‘Policy Platform’ (to which all Labour MPs are bound) has been deemed too sensitive for the ears and eyes of the public’s proxies.

 

Also “closed to the media” is the session headed ‘Whakarongo me korero’ – which features “discussions and presentations on a variety of current topics”. Even the announcement of the results of the Party’s internal elections are “closed to the media”, along with a session intriguingly titled “Re-written Constitution and Rules”. The Party big-wigs have also decided that no journalists should be present at the special workshop entitled “How to be a Treasurer”.

 

Most worrying of all, the critical plenary session at which the members’ policy proposals, developed at all those earlier workshops, are debated, amended and voted up or down is – that’s right, you guessed it – “closed to the media”.

 

The extent of this year’s media ban speaks eloquently of a political party at odds with, and mortally afraid of, itself.

 

It is almost a reflex among those who like to think of themselves as political “professionals” to deny the public even the slightest glimpse of events they haven’t already emptied of anything remotely resembling controversy, spontaneity or authenticity. The people surrounding the party’s leader have a “message” they wish to present to the public, and they are determined that every single party member should remain resolutely and coherently “on message”.

 

After the tumult and turmoil of the past four years, the message Andrew Little’s staffers are determined to communicate to the voting public is that Labour is united. And by ‘Labour’ they mean the whole party. The Labour caucus, the New Zealand Council, the trade union affiliates, and even the rank-and-file, are all 100 percent united and raring to go. Nobody’s heard of Jeremy Corbyn. Nobody’s the slightest bit worried about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. From top to bottom, Andy’s electoral vessel has been caulked and sealed and plugged. Nobody’s getting in and, sure as Stalin, nothing is getting out!

 

Except that a political party – especially a left-wing political party – has no right to shut away its deliberations from public scrutiny. After all, the body we’re discussing is not a society of philatelists, but a quasi-constitutional institution within which the future leaders of our nation are raised and readied, and out of which its future economic and social policy directions are expected to emerge.

 

This quasi-constitutional quality is only enhanced when a political party’s membership arrogates to itself the right to choose the leader of its parliamentary caucus. When the choice of who should be Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition is restricted to the candidates’ caucus colleagues, the voters can at least reassure themselves that these key political figures are being chosen by people who have, themselves, been put to the democratic test. But, they can have no such reassurance when their political leaders are being decided by people whose only qualification is the payment of a membership fee.

 

When Labour’s members took upon themselves the duty of deciding who the next Prime Minister will be, they simultaneously forfeited the right to behave as if they were a society of stamp-collectors. The latter has every right to determine who can participate in and observe its AGM. The Labour Party, however, like all political parties, lays claim to the right to design and deliver the nation’s future. And that must mean that the nation possesses a reciprocal right to watch them do it.

 

By banning the news media from a huge chunk of its conference proceedings, Labour is poking out the eyes and blocking the ears of the voters. Shame on them!

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 6 November 2015.

Woman Interrupted: Some Thoughts On The Jacinda Ardern Controversy.

All Smiles? Ardern’s political project is “a work in progress” – upon which the spotlight of public scrutiny (and the dubious boon of public acclaim) may have fallen too soon. It is simply not enough for a political leader to be in possession of high intelligence and finely-honed communication skills. A leader must also have something to say – and Ardern is still finding her voice.

 

EVER SINCE TAKING fourth place in the Preferred Prime Minister stakes (after John Key, Andrew Little and Winston Peters) Jacinda Ardern has been in trouble. Not serious trouble: at least, not yet; but trouble nonetheless. The NZ Herald’s DigiPol has swung the spotlight onto a work-in-progress much too soon. The political project called “Jacinda Ardern” is not yet finished, and, as we all know, it is most unwise to show fools and children unfinished things.

 

Which category Paul Henry and Graham Lowe fall into – child or fool? – I will leave for the reader to decide. But the upshot: Lowe’s description of Ardern as “a pretty little thing”; ignited a social media firestorm. Not far behind the Tweeters and the Facebookers came the NBR’s dynamic duo, Matthew Hooton and Rob Hosking – whose right-wing provenance only added to the shrillness of the Left’s all-too-predictable responses.

 

“I am sick to death of the ignorant, sexist bullshit that my friend and colleague Jacinda Ardern has had to put up with in the past few weeks”, thundered Labour’s Grant Robertson on Facebook.

 

Well, yes, there’s been plenty of ignorance and sexism, and loads of bullshit, spouted about Ardern – and not just in the past few weeks. When Ardern and National’s Nicki Kaye first contested the Auckland Central seat in 2011 a young Herald reporter by the name of Patrick Gower framed the political encounter as “The Battle of the Babes”. Sadly, Gower’s characterisation (as insulting to Kaye as it was to Ardern) stuck, and both politicians have been living with it ever since.

 

It is a measure of Ardern’s maturity as a politician that she has been able to make the “Babe” label work for her – rather than define her. In no other profession does Oscar Wilde’s bon mot: “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”, carry as much weight as in politics. To be called a “Babe” may transform a woman into an object of the male gaze, but if she is committed to constructing a successful political career, then Mae West’s wry quip: “it is better to be looked over than overlooked”; makes more than a little sense.

 

Because, of course, Ardern brings a great deal more than a set of regular facial features to the political table. Were this not the case, it is highly doubtful that the nation’s leading businessmen (shrewd judges of character – almost by definition) would have ranked her so highly in their assessment of the Labour Opposition. Hearing Ardern speak, it is immediately obvious that one is not only listening to a person of considerable intelligence, but also to a very experienced communicator. Combined with her open and affable disposition, these are formidable political assets.

 

Why, then, describe Ardern’s political project as “a work in progress” – upon which the spotlight of public scrutiny (and the dubious boon of public acclaim) may have fallen too soon? Because it is simply not enough for a political leader to be in possession of high intelligence and finely-honed communication skills. A leader must also have something to say – and Ardern is still finding her voice.

 

She cannot be another Helen Clark. The voice Clark perfected, to such extraordinary political effect, was the product of an era in which the values and purposes of social democracy required little, if any, definition or explanation – so ingrained were they in the New Zealand character. Ardern is the product of a very different historical period. Not one of Savage’s children, like Clark, but a child of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia. Losing the insidious accents of neoliberalism is no easy matter.

 

This is especially so when Labour’s psephological advisers continue to insist that the rhetoric and policies of undiluted social democracy (let alone democratic socialism!) will not be well-received by an electorate fed almost exclusively on neoliberal ideas. That the electorates in Greece, Spain and Italy have violently regurgitated these ideas does not impress these political “scientists”. Nor have they been moved by the huge crowds that are turning out for Bernie Sanders in America and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK.

 

That Ardern’s political career, to date, has been guided by such “Third Way” theorists has rendered her eloquence curiously ineffectual. One can listen to her speeches, and be impressed by the strength of their delivery, and yet, when they’re over, find it difficult to say with any certainty what they were about. Many people walk away impressed by Ardern, but nowhere near as many are inspired. Indeed, it is difficult not to agree with the NBR’s Rob Hosking when he argues that it’s not Arden’s sex appeal that matters “but the vapid, substance-free politics she has offered so far”.

 

That’s why the glare of the “Is She Up To Being Leader?” spotlight represents trouble for the Ardern Project. It has swung in her direction too soon. She is being assessed as a potential party leader well in advance of her settling on something more substantive to offer the news media’s relentless interrogation than a fetching physiognomy.

 

This essay was posted simultaneously on The Daily Blog and Bowalley Road blogsites on Monday, 31 August 2015.

"Hot Air" Delivers The Cold Hard Facts About New Zealand's Response To Climate Change

Watch It And Weep: Alister Barry's Hot Air documents the losing battle, waged since 1990, between the politicians of good-will from both sides of the House who attempted to do something to mitigate the effects of climate change and the ruthless representatives of New Zealand's largest industries who opposed them.

IF YOU SEE only one film in the 2014 NZ International Film Festival see Alister Barry's feature-length documentary, Hot Air.

 

This chilling exposé of the strategy and tactics adopted by New Zealand's largest industries to ensure that no effective action to combat climate change is ever undertaken in this country should be viewed by every voter.

 

Hot Air constitutes one of the most persuasive arguments for radical, ruthless and rapid policy implementation on behalf of people and planet I have ever encountered.

 

The documentary proves conclusively that if a government opts for “business as usual” politics, then it is “business” that usually always wins.

 

Hot Air screens on the following dates at the following locations:

 

 

AUCKLAND

 

Friday 1 August  1:00 p.m.  Sky City Cinema

Saturday 2 August  3:30 p.m. Sky City Cinema

 

WELLINGTON

 

Thursday 31 July  6:15 p.m.  Paramount Cinema (World Premiere)

Wednesday 6 August 11.00 a.m.  Paramount Cinema

 

DUNEDIN

 

Friday  8 August  1:00 pm  Rialto

Sunday 10 August  1:15pm  Rialto

 

CHRISTCHURCH

 

Monday  11 Aug  6.00pm  Hoyts Northlands 3

Tuesday  12 August 11.00am  Hoyts Northlands 3

 

 

DO NOT MISS IT!

 

This posting is exclusive to the Bowalley Road blogsite.