Posts Tagged ‘neo-liberalism’

Doomed?

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, October 21st, 2024 - 62 comments

“We’re doomed” was Private Frazer’s inevitable response to any crisis in “Dad’s Army”. One might stray into such despondency when considering the external context in which New Zealand finds itself, then considering what we are doing as a nation to respond. Nigel Haworth looks at where we are at.

Roger Douglas Has a Lesson for the Left

Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, August 25th, 2024 - 28 comments

Roger Douglas, the most revolutionary minister in the postwar history of Aotearoa, knew how to exert change in three years. Rogernomics transformed the economy with dizzying speed, from protectionist welfare state to a neoliberal free market. Elliot Crossan argues that the left needs to take the same approach to end the era of neoliberalism.

Is a Transformational Left-Wing Leadership of the NZ Labour Party Possible?

Written By: - Date published: 4:57 pm, August 17th, 2024 - 79 comments

It is a painful experience, to have fought long and hard for something you knew was inadequate and to have even that taken away. The Labour Party has long urged activists to be ‘realistic’. Elliot Crossan argues that it will not return to be a socialist party of the working class.

The curious case of Liz Truss

Written By: - Date published: 6:57 am, January 17th, 2023 - 34 comments

The Daily Fail on the Truss mini-budget

The truth is, the throwing caution to the wind approach of slashing taxes, removing restrictions on banker bonuses, and slashing other regulations such as IR35 were all consistent with what he and Truss had argued in Britannia Unchained a decade earlier. And these ideas found favour with the Conservative Party membership – with the idealised view of Thatcher’s vision of small government, deregulation and low taxation. For the general public, this was not so much ‘Britannia Unchained’ as ‘Libertarians Unhinged.

The Occupy Movement and the response to the 2008 financial crisis

Written By: - Date published: 1:39 am, January 14th, 2023 - 4 comments

We are the 99%

As the world currently goes through a post-pandemic and Russian invasion of Ukraine fuelled economic crisis, it is interesting to reflect on the economic crisis of over a decade ago and how the public responded at that time.

The end of the post war boom

Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, January 11th, 2023 - 87 comments

Tendancy for the rate of profit to fall

Throughout my time being active in politics, people have discussed the rise of Neo-Liberalism and the free market that occurred throughout much of the world from the late 1970s onwards. Yet few seem to really understand the reasons for this significant shift in economic policy at that time, which continues to shape our society today.

New Zealand’s most shameful secret: ‘We have normalised child poverty’

Written By: - Date published: 4:01 pm, August 16th, 2016 - 175 comments

Fuck the whole “Brighter Future” New Zealand.

Guest Post: Dancing to the Neo-Liberal Songbook

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, May 23rd, 2016 - 25 comments

In a guest post, regular commenter Tony Veitch takes some learnings from Noam Chomsky’s latest documentary Requiem for the American Dream. The neo-liberal plan has been in place for over thirty years. How come we’re only just starting to understand it?

Mopping up the fossil fuels subsidy shame

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, December 3rd, 2015 - 17 comments

McClay said he could not answer the specific question because he had “been advised” no such data exists.

How convenient.

September 18th

Written By: - Date published: 7:36 pm, April 8th, 2014 - 46 comments

The 18th of September 2014 is a big day.

On that day, people living in Scotland will decide if they want to become citizens in a nation that will have reclaimed its sovereignty.

Human Nature and Propaganda

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, December 17th, 2010 - 63 comments

We don’t have to care so much about beneficiaries any more. Or those single parents. Or the trials and tribulations of anyone else at all really. We have to be grown up. And we are more mean and lean than we used to be. Hell, even those pesky parliamentary lefties have abandoned the beneficiaries and the single parents. Yup. Nothing to see there. Life is good. We’re getting ahead. And we sure know what’s what. Don’t we?

Neo-liberalism at work

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, November 16th, 2010 - 15 comments

So people get sick and become less productive. I would have thought that that was pretty much stating the obvious.

Spending tax payers money trying to quantify how much imaginary wealth these sick people could have created for their employers if they had been perfectly well, seems to me to be bordering on lunacy.

The Failure of Neo-Liberalism

Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, July 6th, 2010 - 49 comments

Neo-Liberalism is a failure; not just in human terms, but by its own measures. Since the concepts of neo-liberalism were taken up by Roger & Ruth 26 years ago neo-liberalism has driven down wages as a share of GDP, massively increased inequality and stripped workers rights.

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