Farrar says: carpe diem National

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 20th, 2009 - 13 comments
Categories: dpf, national/act government - Tags:

An interesting post from David Farrar calling for National to implement radical rightwing policies while it still has the support to get away with it:

The long-term goal is lifting our economic growth.

No. As we know, lifting GDP growth is not an end itself, even the creators of GDP said as much. The long-term goal is a prosperous sustainable society where people can live happy lives free of poverty and its consequences. Economic growth is just part of getting there.

Despite the rhetoric we will never close the income gap with Australia,

An interesting admission. We’ve being saying all along that the Government’s 2025 Taskforce isn’t really about lifting economic growth, it’s about using economic growth as an excuse for pushing through pro-rich, anti-worker policies.

but we might be able to stop the gap getting any bigger.

Um, it did stop getting bigger, once we booted out National (source).

ratio

Hell, I’ll even settle for the gap not growing so fast as before.

Again, the gap grew fastest when rightwing economic reforms were being implemented. Ironically, they were being implemented by people who said we had to act boldly to close the gap with Australia.

Some of what we need to do to lift that growth may need boldness.

I’d prefer some decent ideas sensibly put in place after careful thought to flawed ideology combined with boldness. Attacking wages and working conditions does not lift growth. All it does is create a cheap disposable workforce, which discourages businesses from investing in capital. One of the traits of business in this country is that it re-invests a relatively small amount of profits and pays out a lot of dividends compared to other countries – that ultimately holds back our economic performance, and is intrinsically tied to the Right’s low wage policies.

Basically, Farrar is asking National to use its current popularity to push through major reforms without pausing for proper planning and debate. That’s bad enough in itself. But rushing through more of the same old failed rightwing economics, that would really be a disaster.

13 comments on “Farrar says: carpe diem National ”

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  1. So Bored 1
    20 October 2009 at 1:19 pm

    Bloody hell Marty, since when was the goal of (to quote you )”a prosperous sustainable society where people can live happy lives free of poverty and its consequences” shared by the capitalist classes? Their goal is the same as it always has been, the maximisation of profit and the amassing of wealth at the expense of everybody but themselves. Poverty and pain are of no consequence.

    If the Left has a problem it is that this truth has is not accepted by the general public in the first world. The average Joe can blithely carry on accepting scraps from the table of the rich to convert into trinkets at the Warehouse accessed in his personal SUV built from despoiled resources ripped off from some third world hell hole using slave labour. He neither wants to see it or hear it. Bleak aye?

  2. Barry Sanders 2
    20 October 2009 at 1:30 pm

    I don’t exactly understand the point of this blog; it seems that the authors do not understand that by writing posts embedded with such strong left wing spin and philosophy, they restrict their ability to actually concince mainstream audiences of any reasonable left wing points.

    This site is only preaching to the converted, and if it continues to write posts in suich a provocative manner as the post above, it will only continue alienating and ostracizing those who could potentially join the left movement.

    We need to be smarter than this guys.

    [Stop pretending you’re a concerned leftie. You’ve previously commented on this blog as a right-winger called “Sarah” and every single comment you made then was an attempt to troll. I see nothing has changed.]

    • Gordon Shumway 2.1
      20 October 2009 at 1:56 pm

      Barry – far too many people here are blind to the fact that they are the intellectual/emotional equivalent of the lunatic fringe of the Right. There’s no attempt to engage with the intelligent Right wing or middle ground, just a barrage of name-calling, condescension or spin.

      The extreme Left continues to marginalize the middle ground by talking to them as if they are naughty little boys and girls. One day, it’ll be understood that adopting the condescending demeanour of of the former PM is an electoral liability, not an asset.

      • snoozer 2.1.1
        20 October 2009 at 3:24 pm

        how does this post “marginalize the middle ground by talking to them as if they are naughty little boys and girls.”?

        How is it even extreme left?

    • r0b 2.2
      20 October 2009 at 2:02 pm

      We need to be smarter than this guys.

      By all means show us how it’s done Barry!

    • r0b 2.3
      20 October 2009 at 2:06 pm

      Barry far too many people here are blind to the fact that they are the intellectual/emotional equivalent of the lunatic fringe of the Right.

      You can make that claim when we start photoshopoing JK’s head on to porn, like right wing bloggers did to HC. You can make that claim when we start running sick billboards comparing the government to various dictators, like comrade Farrar. You can make that claim when we let our comments thread degenerate into a pool of racist sexist homophobic bile like Kiwiblog. In other words, you can make that claim when hell freezes over!

      Until then, we’re concerned Lefties holding a bad government to account. Got a problem with that?

    • Killinginthenameof 2.4
      20 October 2009 at 2:09 pm

      Does that graph hurt too much to look at Barry?

  3. Zaphod Beeblebrox 3
    20 October 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Its not worth the time arguing logic like what you see on Right blogs its best just to agree with them that John Key needs to appoint Hide his deputy and change parties to ACT.

    He then should
    1. Introduce a negative taxation system where the more you earn the less you pay.
    2.Abolish the South island conservation area and invite BHP, Rio, Westren Mining etc to bring in the bulldozers.
    3. Abolish the Maori Party and tell them all to live elsewhere.
    4. Abolish local government and the RMA.
    5. Net trawl the entire NZ coast and sell the stock off overseas.
    6. Outlaw all discussion of climate change and start building lots of coal fired power stations just to spite the conservationists.

    You’d get lots of support for all thses measures on some blogs, as it seems some people have a high threshold for embarrassment.

  4. Draco T Bastard 4
    20 October 2009 at 5:21 pm

    Economic growth is just part of getting there.

    /facepalm

    Economic growth isn’t needed and is contrary to sustainability. You know why there’s poverty? Because there’s a serious misallocation of resources.