Hand In Hand: "Rogerpolitics" is the term coined by the New Zealand political scientist, Richard Mulgan, to describe the form of politics required to make sure that Rogernomics “took” in a country which, on the face of it, should have rejected neoliberalism out of hand. Had Rogerpolitics not been so successfully embedded in the key organs of the New Zealand state, then Rogernomics would not have lasted.
“ROGERNOMICS” is political shorthand for the neoliberal
economic policies introduced by Labour’s finance minister, Roger Douglas
between 1984 and 1988. While most New Zealanders have heard of Rogernomics,
nowhere near as many have heard of its inseparable companion, “Rogerpolitics”.
The term was coined by the New Zealand political scientist,
Richard Mulgan, to describe the form of politics required to make sure that Rogernomics
“took” in a country which, on the face of it, should have rejected
neoliberalism out of hand. Had Rogerpolitics not been so successfully embedded
in the key organs of the New Zealand state, then Rogernomics would not have
lasted.
Critical to the success of Rogerpolitics was the widespread
public disillusionment with the style of politics that preceded it. In New
Zealand’s case, the principal target of the public’s hostility was the National
Party Prime Minister, Rob Muldoon, and his highly interventionist economic
policies – “Muldoonism”. An additional factor in the public’s antipathy towards
Muldoon was his facilitation of the extremely divisive Springbok Tour of 1981.
In the eyes of younger New Zealanders, “The Tour” was proof of their elders’ unfitness
to rule. The people referred to by the then prominent political journalist,
Colin James, as the “RSA Generation” had, in the eyes of the “Vietnam
Generation”, been confronted with a straightforward moral test – and they had
failed.
Without Muldoon and Muldoonism; without the Springbok Tour;
the hunger for a new way of managing the economy and running the country would
not have been so acute. The proponents of neoliberalism, or “free market
forces” (as the ideology was more commonly referred to thirty-five years ago)
were pushing against an open door.
It was the same all over the advanced capitalist world. The
interventionist economic policies that had played such a crucial role in
generating the unparalleled prosperity of the post-war period had finally run
up against the buffers of the capitalist system. Every attempt to reduce the
rising levels of unemployment and inflation that were the primary
manifestations of the system’s failure only ended up pushing them higher.
Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party captured the growing sense of unease
with its 1979 slogan: “Labour isn’t working.” The following year, in the USA,
the Republican candidate for President, Ronald Reagan, summed-up the popular
mood when he declared: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution
to our problem, government IS the problem.”
In its essence, this is what Rogerpolitics is all about:
getting government out of the way. If politicians, by interfering in the
economy, only made things worse, then the obvious solution is simply to prevent
them from interfering.
Accordingly, the Economic Stabilisation Act, which had since
the Second World War allowed the Cabinet to more-or-less run the New Zealand
economy by decree, was repealed. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand was freed from
political interference. The State Sector Act, by introducing market disciplines
to government departments and agencies, fundamentally reshaped the structure
and purpose of the New Zealand civil service. Whenever possible, state-owned
enterprises were sold into private hands.
At both the national and the local level the effect of these
economic and political reforms was to significantly disempower the country’s
politicians. Regulation, where it couldn’t be avoided altogether, was to be
“light-handed”. The day-to-day running of things was to be left to the market’s
“invisible hand” or, in those places where “free market forces” had yet to make
their presence felt, to the new order’s administrative proxies – the CEOs of
the new government ministries and local government bureaucracies.
With remarkable alacrity, the ideological and practical
political infrastructure required to support the new economic regime was
cemented into place. In the nation’s schools and universities; in it’s publicly
and privately owned news media; in its local and national institutions,
Rogerpolitics became the new orthodoxy. For the next thirty years it would not
only inspire the design of the mechanisms by which political power is
exercised, but also the moral justifications for their use.
Those New Zealanders born after 1984 – New Zealand
neoliberalism’s “Year Zero” – have absorbed the “free market” catechism
practically without thinking.
The market organises human activity much more efficiently and
effectively than the state.
The freer the market, the better the organisation.
Private ownership generates much better outcomes than public ownership.
Capitalism works best when Money, Goods and Labour are all permitted to
move freely around the globe.
Free trade promotes peace, prosperity and global understanding.
Protectionism is an outgrowth of nationalism – both of which are very
bad things.
Trade unions distort the signals of the labour market – which makes
them very bad things also.
Capitalism celebrates individual freedom and embraces human diversity –
racism, sexism and all other forms of discrimination have no place in a
properly functioning capitalist society.
In summary, the only sort of politics which it is ethical
(and advisable) to practice in the New Zealand created by Rogernomics is the
politics which exerts the least influence over the smooth operation of the free
markets it brought into being. Rogerpolitics both asserts and insists that the
best politician any New Zealander can be is the politician whose actions
produce the least effect on the operation of the nation’s economy. The very
worst politician a New Zealander can be is the politician who mobilises the
envy of the many who have failed in the marketplace against the few who have
succeeded.
Rogerpolitics does not believe that democracy is a market
friendly form of government, and all Rogerpoliticians are expected to act
accordingly.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Thursday, 15 November 2018.
