Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, May 14th, 2008 - 54 comments
Categories: history, national -
Tags: fascism, international socialism
Today is the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the National Party. So, it’s an opportune moment to reflect on the founding principles of the National Party and ask that age old question ‘why are they called National anyway?’
The political background to the founding of the National party is the conflict between the three great political ideologies of the modern age fascism, liberal capitalism, and socialism – which would soon reach a bloody climax in World War 2. New Zealand had the fascist New Zealand Legion, which had up to 100,000 members drawn from the bourgeois, the professional classes, and the farmers. This movement had taken numbers away from the old liberal capitalist power blocks, the Urban (formerly Liberal) Party whose power base was the urban business class and the Reform Party, whose base was farmers. The rise of fascism in New Zealand, as elsewhere, was partially in response to the rise of socialism among the working class and its political vehicle, the Labour party. A party much more radical than today’s Labour, it was truely social democratic, with the goal of public control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange written into its constitution.
The working class and Labour were winning. United and Reform, once fierce rivals, had been forced into a coalition, which was called the National Coalition (so-called because it was nationalist and opposed socialism which is internationalist by nature), to block the political ascendancy of the working class. The 1931 election had delivered a Parliament split between the Reform/United coaltion and Labour, with Labour having the most votes (34%) and fewer seats (24 of 80) than the combined coalition.
But the inevitable could only be delayed. In 1935, New Zealand had just elected its first Labour Government. It would institute a true social wage, whereby people would have free healthcare and education, and guaranteed an income if they couldn’t get work. The State would own core industries employing hundreds of thousands and exercise strong controls over the rest of the economy. It was hugely popular with the massive working class and the small intelligentsia.
For the first time in New Zealand’s history, the capitalists were not in control of the Government, which was not a situation they could permit to continue. Realising that while they were divided Reform and the Liberals could not hope to defeat Labour, they decided to form a united National party to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful by opposing social democracy. Its founding principles were: ‘To promote good citizenship and self-reliance; to combat communism and socialism; to maintain freedom of contract; to encourage private enterprise; to safeguard individual rights and the privilege of ownership; to oppose interference by the State in business, and State control of industry.”
Right from the start, National was reactionary and fundamentally hollow standing against ordinary working New Zealanders who want a fairer society.
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Scoopit!
Well, tane said what j’s quoting and I offered the definition of social democrat objectives.
j. you need to realise that marxism is one train of broader socialist thought as is social democracy. Marxism differs from social dmeocratic thought in several important ways but not in the idea of social ownership of the means of production – people differ about means, forms of ownership or control and extent or depth of control/ownership but everyone who is a socialist (as opposed to a capitalist) believes that the means of production, distribution and exchange should, to some extent, be held under collective control, rather than in the hands of individual controllers of captial. That’s what socialism is.
It sounds so scary when you explain it like that, Steve.
HS- that would be different from the current employer who completely disregards their workers’ environment how?
Sorry Ari you’ve lost me – problem with only looking at the thread while having a cup of tea you tend to loose track of what’s going on.
I should point out very quickly that there hasn’t really been a truly Marxist regime, in that they all got hijacked into authoritarian dictatorships during the revolutionary phase. (The closest thing to Marxism right now is Cuba. And they’re not there yet, either)
I should also point out that as social democrats go, Labour is very invested in liberal capitalism. We don’t really have an extreme “leftist” party in New Zealand- just two different centre-left approaches from Labour and the Greens.
Steve- I think “collective control” is confusing your audience, because they think that implies ownership all the time. Labour seems pretty clear that outside of infrastructure, this control is about regulatory interference in the market when it increases the welfare of the nation as a whole.
HS- sorry, hadn’t been a post between yours and mine while I was writing that. Heh.
I was asking how the government promoting the interests of some workers over another would be any worse than a company that is actively hostile to the interests of all of its workers, not only shirking its own environmental responsibilities beyond the level of simple corporate opportunism, (ten years of subsidised emissions and grandfathering is not enough for them? Tough, that is so generous I’m surprised their eyes are still in their sockets) but also trying to open up the door for others to do so.
Ari
Would you prefer a Troskyist version of Marxism in NZ rather than the centrist Labour or National government ?
Ari
I think your view that there is no reason to believe the government is, or will be, a better employer than the private sector.
There is hardly any difference between National and Labour these days. It’s got to the point where National has said that if it gets into power it won’t make significant changes to the Employment Relations Act. The so-called bosses’ party isn’t going to significantly change the employment law of the so-called workers’ party. Both parties are equally lame in my opinion.
different socialists differ on what level of intervention in the market is needed to ensure that the economy works in society’s interest – some would say you want regulation and little ownership, some would say you want ownership of key infrastructure, as we have now, some would say more, some would say own it all… the key is the idea that that society should collective benefit from the economy’s production of wealth, and ensure that production happens in a way that is compatible with society’s interests. Rather than having those decisions taken by indiviudals who happen to control capital based on their narrow self-interest.
There are infinite shades between anarcho-communism and anarcho-capitialism with people arguing for various levels of state/social intervention in the economy.
HS- While I’d certainly agree with your assertion that I find both Labour and National inadequate in ways, I can’t agree that Marxism would be better in any form. While I essentially agree with Marxist principles, I think it’s a very unstable form of government and would require a very high level of economic efficiency or very low population (and therefore material excess) to stabilise. In short, it’s one of those utopian dreams that just won’t see the light in our lifetimes.
I’d actually really like to see a coalition Government between the Green Party and a party of Social Liberals- (we currently don’t have any of those in New Zealand Parliament… think of what would happen if you took Act’s economic policy and spliced it with Labour’s social policy. Admittedly, Labour has been moving closer and closer to this position recently in its race to the centre) I think issues of social freedom are the one area where New Zealanders really agree in politics- we don’t like our governments authoritarian, and the backlash to Labour right now is mostly along those lines, which I find odd given that National has a much worse track record in that respect.
“ …assumes that a government is a better employer and won’t look after their own at the high echelons of the company before they look after everyone else .. incredibly naive”
HS – you can’t have it both ways – aren’t public servants grossly overpaid for doing nothing but shuffle paper? (I doubt you’ve said that exclusively, but either the govt pays starvation wages, grossly overpays people, or perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle. I couldn’t comment about what Toll has paid as of late).
What Ari says is the irony of all this. In the wider swathe of conventional left-right political-philosophic thought, National and Labour are like siblings. It’s like arguing over whether Poison or Def Leppard sold out the worst, or whether Apocalypse Now or Platoon is the better Vietnam War movie. Genuinely extreme regimes have been tried on both sides – and generally been rejected. What’s left to argue over is mostly nuance and posturing.
This is thrown into clear relief by the `race to the centre’ both parties are currently running. I study symbolic politics. The major trend in attracting voter support is not so much the advancement of bold, radical policy as it was in the 1980s, but the struggle by both parties to normalise their policies or philosophies as `good management’ or `common sense’: to introduce them into the political orthodoxy of the day. To an extent this has always been the case, but I’d argue this strategy has partly displaced others in the past decade or so. Labour’s major achievement in that time has been in introducing policies like the ETS, interest-free student loans, Working For Families, etc. into the political orthodoxy – making them so accepted that National simply can’t afford to repeal them and retain electoral credibility. Ironically this might be the Clark government’s undoing, because Key’s National might well win the coming election on what looks very much like a traditional Labour ticket.
L
Great post SP, and accutely observed comment TomS.
National’s uninspiring but unwavering promotion of the interests of capital over the first forty years of its existence (even under Muldoon) is plain to see.
However, it’s difficult to pin down *exactly* what National stands for now as it nears superannuation entitlement age. After its nadir in 1999, the big corporate capital/neoliberal right tried to use the hollowed out carcase to sneak into power, but that having failed the pragmatic tendency seems to have reasserted itself. Clearly the default is still to favour capital. But as Chris Trotter pointed out recently, there’s not a lot that National’s offering right now that would appeal corporate capital in particular. Somebody mentioned employment law — the most likely change there is a 90 day period without PG cover, and that’s really aimed at the SME sector.
Raises some important questions… How did they get to where they are? I guess the slow realisation that NZers generally don’t want neoliberalism is, er, key, there. And how stable are the current National policy preferences? What would it take to see them revert to form?
(election year?) capthcha: Manufacturing honey
Good questions, jafapete. This is where I was headed, but the post was long-winded enough already.
L
Thanks Lew,
Missed your post because of a break in the middle of drafting mine. I’d agree with what you say, except that I don’t think I’d call National’s “Labour Lite” platform a “traditional labour ticket”. More “Third Way.”
All other things being equal, over time the differences of the two third way options will emerge ineluctably, just as they did over the post-war period as National administered the welfare state without a great deal of enthusiasm, and the welfare state gradually sank into the capitalist swamp.
But a proper analysis is needed, that takes into account the changing nature of capitalism in NZ over the past little while, and rise (and fall?) of neoliberalism, amongst other factors. If only Bruce Jesson were here.
Of course this is just arguments about statism. The so called “public” or “collective” control is political control, control by politicians, with bureaucrats marching alongside. It isn’t about the citizens, who get their incomes pilfered for whatever is deemed to be “public”, and can’t demand a refund, or accountability if they don’t get what is promised. If you don’t get your operation in hospital, tough you suffer or pay twice. If your kid’s school hires a bad teacher and you can’t convince it otherwise, you suffer or take your kid out and pay twice. If the “publicly owned” business gives you poor service or constantly demands your taxes, you can’t sell your shares in it, or stop paying for its failure to perform.
That’s the statism of social democracy, the consumer of “public services” has no power except the vote every three years. Those who are wealthy can always pay more to get out of the trap, but the vast masses in the middle get their taxes taken and have to trust that the centrally planned social services might deliver when they want them. When they don’t, all the social democrats say “need more money”, instead of thinking that centrally planned monopolies where consumers have absolute no power deliver precious few incentives to perform.
National and Labour play the same game, the same status quo and the same scaremongering that anything other than they managing these enormously important sectors would be “disaster”. Politicians and bureaucrats are, under social democracy, playing with large amounts of other people’s money with precious little to hold them to account for not delivering. That’s social democracy!
And the Standard draws another libertarian. Surely there’s some kind of software that can screen out these loons. I know I’ve said this before but I vote we round them all up and put them on some kind of an island where they can live in a market utopia. We’re just not good enough to share the same country as these ubermenchen. They should be set free to embrace their greatness. Please. An island. Far, far away…
[lprent: 'sod I exclude on behavior - not religious belief. You should know that better than anyone. Please don't try to start flames.]
No candles to blow out. The flame in that party faded out under English.