All Together Now! In terms of the inviolability of the new neoliberal establishment, it mattered very little whether Labour or National was in power. And, since cabinet ministers from both sides of the aisle clearly regarded ideological boat-rocking as being every bit as career-terminating as state sector CEOs, there was scant incentive to entertain any alternative definitions to what constituted “good governance”. In the years since 1984, therefore, it has made much more sense, personally and politically, to “work towards the [neoliberal] führer”.
AN “AFFRONT TO DEMOCRACY”, was the State Services
Commissioner’s characterisation of the state bureaucracy’s decision to spy on
political activists. Few would disagree. That multiple state agencies felt
entitled to contract-out the gathering of political intelligence to the
privately owned and operated Thompson & Clark Investigations Ltd reveals a
widespread antidemocratic disdain for citizens’ rights within the New Zealand
public service. The alarming revelations of the State Services’ inquiry raise
two very important questions: How did this disdain for democratic norms become
so entrenched? And what, if anything, can Jacinda Ardern’s government do to
eradicate it?
The dangerous truth, in relation to the first question, is
also painfully relevant to the second. The effective abrogation of democratic
norms in New Zealand dates back to 1984 and the events which the former CTU
economist and ministerial adviser, Peter Harris, characterised as a
“bureaucratic coup d’état”. In was in July 1984 that elements within the NZ
Treasury and the Reserve Bank, taking full advantage of the relationships they
had been cultivating for at least a year with the parliamentary leadership of
the NZ Labour Party, initiated the detailed and extremely radical economic
policy programme which came to be known as “Rogernomics”.
This programme, set forth in “Economic Management” – the
book-length briefing paper for the incoming Minister of Finance, Roger Douglas
– had received no mandate from the electorate. Indeed, the ordinary voter had
no inkling whatsoever that the Labour Party of Mickey Savage and Norman Kirk
was about to unleash a programme considerably to the right of Margaret
Thatcher’s and Ronald Reagan’s. The authors of “Economic Management” were not,
however, interested in obtaining a democratic mandate for their proposed
reforms. In fact, they strongly suspected that submitting their ideas to the
voters was just about the surest way of securing their emphatic rejection.
Since the mid-1970s the conviction had been growing among
big-business leaders and high-ranking civil servants living in the wealthiest
capitalist nations, that democracy had gotten out of hand; and that unless the
scope for democratic intervention in the economy was radically reduced, then
the future of capitalism could not be guaranteed. Free Market Economics, as it
was called then, or Neoliberalism, as we know it today, was, from the outset,
incompatible with the social-democratic principles that had underpinned western
policy-making in the post-war world. It could only be imposed, and kept in
place, by a political class sealed-off from all manner of pressures from below.
If that meant gutting the major parties of the centre-left and right; purging
the civil service, academia and the news media of dissenters; and crushing the
trade unions – then so be it.
Once it became clear that the free-market “revolution” was
not about to be halted in its tracks, all those with an ambition to rise within
the new order made haste to learn its rules and spared no effort in enforcing
them. This phenomenon: of absorbing and implementing an antidemocratic regime’s
imperatives was described by British historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw,
as “Working Towards The Fuhrer”. Kershaw lifted the phrase from a speech
delivered in 1934 by the Prussian civil servant, Werner Willikens:
“Everyone who has the
opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above
everything which he intends to realize sooner or later. On the contrary, up
till now, everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has,
so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer. Very often and in many spheres, it has
been the case—in previous years as well—that individuals have simply waited for
orders and instructions. Unfortunately, the same will be true in the future;
but in fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer
along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon
enough. But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and
towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future, one day have the
finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.”
The behaviour of New Zealand civil servants and their
private sector contractors conforms very neatly to Kershaw’s thesis. In terms
of the inviolability of the new neoliberal establishment, it mattered very
little whether Labour or National was in power. And, since cabinet ministers
from both sides of the aisle clearly regarded ideological boat-rocking as being
every bit as career-terminating as state sector CEOs, there was scant incentive
to entertain any alternative definitions to what constituted “good governance”.
In the years since 1984, therefore, it has made much more sense, personally and
politically, to “work towards the [neoliberal] führer”.
Certainly, Kershaw’s “Working Towards the Führer” thesis
would explain the behaviour that has so disturbed readers of the State Services
Commission’s report like Victoria University’s School of Government academic,
Chris Eichbaum. Namely, why so few of the people involved in this “affront to
democracy” displayed any awareness that they were behaving unethically. If
Neoliberalism, like the Third Reich, is not a force which can be legitimately
contradicted or criticised, then obviously any person or group engaging in
activities inimical to the implementation of state policy is bound to be
considered an enemy of the system.
Not that the neoliberal order will ever acknowledge its
political imperatives so honestly. A large measure of bad faith continues to
operate within the system. It has to – otherwise the still useful façade of
human rights and democratic consent will rapidly fall apart.
Ministries and other state entities reach for the private
investigator rather than the police officer because the latter is still (at
least in theory) accountable. By contrast, the paper and/or electronic trails
left by the likes of Thompson & Clark are considerably more difficult to track
than those carefully logged in an official Police investigation. What’s more,
the unofficial and private aggregation of “evidence” against the State’s
“enemies” opens up the possibility of their unofficial and private punishment.
That job the activist lost, or failed to get. The bank loan
that was refused. Simple bad luck? Or something else?
The most sinister aspect of the “Working Towards The Fuhrer”
phenomenon is that any obstacles or objections encountered along the way will
be taken as evidence of forces working against the führer. Popular
resistance to neoliberal objectives is never taken as a sign that those
objectives might be ill-advised, counterproductive, or just plain wrong.
Rather, it is taken as proof that those responsible for organising such
resistance are dangerous and irrational opponents of beneficent policies to
which there are no viable alternatives.
It appears never to have occurred to Gerry Brownlee, for
example, that the rising levels of desperation and anger among the Christchurch
clients of the state-owned Southern Response insurance company – feelings that
were manifesting themselves in threats to life and property – might be evidence
of massive failures on the company’s part. John Key, similarly, refused to
accept that oil and gas exploration might constitute a genuine threat to New
Zealand’s (and, ultimately, the entire planet’s) natural environment.
Was Simon Bridges, when he introduced legislation outlawing
waterborne protests within 2 kilometres of the oil and gas industry’s drilling
platforms, doing no more than working along the lines and towards the goals of
his leader?
As above, so below: the law of hierarchy is immutable.
Thomson & Clark may have been the tool in the hands of ruthless public
servants “working towards the führer”, but the masters of those servants were
the neoliberal politicians from both major parties who, ever since 1984, have
been tireless in their defence of the neoliberal order against its most
fearsome foe – the New Zealand people.
The question, therefore, arises: If the Coalition Government
demonstrates the slightest willingness to move against the servants of that
neoliberal order (as Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister, Megan Woods,
by forcing the resignation of the Chair of Southern Response, has arguably done
already) will the same forces that subverted Labour in 1984 set in motion the
measures necessary to bring down Jacinda Ardern’s “issue motivated group” in
2020?
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Friday, 21 December 2018.
