The neoliberal revolution

31 comments on “The neoliberal revolution ”

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1. weka 1

   1 April 2017 at 1:52 pm

   Glad you put this up r0b, but fuck it’s a hard read. I think we have never come to terms with the 80s or the waves of shock since then let alone recovered. That puts us in a state of chronic stress.

   As far as I can see the way forward has got to contain the following elements: universal basic income, sustainable “green” industry / renewable energy, increased education and democratic participation, high taxes on capital and “externalities”. Please add to the list!

   We could indeed make a list, and those are a good start, but unless we change things more fundamentally we will always be at risk from the neoliberals once they get back into power, or where they retain power on the left. I don’t know how to get from where we are now to something different, but I think it requires a paradigm shift before we look at the elements.

   If I had to pick a focus it would probably be democracy because it cuts across everything else that has been monkey wrenched and is the underlying destabilisation tactic of National. By the time we realise what we’ve lost it will be very hard to change if we don’t have the basic democratic structures and processes in place. Off the top of my head I would look at the local bodies Act, the destruction of privacy (esp in welfare and health, but also the spooks), preventing the sacking of local bodies (do we want National doing that shit when the Big One hits Wellington or the Alpine Fault?), rights to protest, Māori rights (because the stronger they are the better NZ will be protected).

   Mostly we need multiple and cross-sector working together on the important issues. Solidarity politics. That’s another kind of democracy and one that is completely in our hands.
   • r0b 1.1

     1 April 2017 at 3:11 pm

     Yeah the Matthews piece is grim. I left NZ in early ’85. Found a political clue in Thatcher’s England. Got back here in mid ’89 to a country I hardly recognised.
2. Carolyn_nth 2

   1 April 2017 at 1:52 pm

   Return to valuing public and community services
   Upgrading and increasing public housing
   Upgrading and valuing state-funded education system
   Demolish SOEs; more public transport; end to profiteering from essential services like electricity and water for NZ households.
   Affordable housing for all
   Dis-empower financial services and banksters
   Re-invigorating public service media
   Take the money out of politics, especially elections
   Re-structure how the House works so question time truly does hold the government to account and isn’t just a circus.
   • Johan 2.1

     1 April 2017 at 8:45 pm

     There is a need to tweak our political system, so that it cannot be hijacked by a handful of politicians. Whatever happened to that second sober look when new legislation is being introduced? I do realize that we had a senate once upon a time.
     Also, we need to hold politicians/state employees accountable for their actions.
     I am not a fan of the US political system, but like the idea of having the power to investigate and remove rogue elements in gov’t eg. Nixon.
3. Ad 3

   1 April 2017 at 3:50 pm

   “Small scale joyful civic actions” noted in the ‘Authentic hope’ article are necessary supplements reminiscent of Spanish, French and German activism just around WW1.

   I can see they are necessary after the left’s sustained decline.

   But the ‘retro-utopian’ right has some important lessons about immigration and common societal values and their expression in the civic realm that the remaining left won’t find in small scale communitarian activism.
4. Cricklewood 4

   1 April 2017 at 7:03 pm

   Thanks Labour…
   I think memories of Rogernomics play a significant role in the way NZ votes for the status quo until the opposition turns into a fascimile of the governing party and people dcide to give them a go.

   No one wants radical change that can turn your life upside down at the stroke of a pen.

   *I have some sympathy for the Ron Swanson position these days
5. Glenn 5

   1 April 2017 at 7:17 pm

   I remember the relief I felt when Bolger got voted in in 1990 and thought finally that’s the end of that insanity…then we got the Mother of All Budgets and Ruthanasia and beneficiaries got thumped. Then the Employment Contracts Act thumped the Unions and nothing really changed politically. Rogernomics just carried on.

   “Roger Douglas, minister of finance in the preceding fourth Labour government, said (after his retirement from politics):

   I think the labour market changes in 1990 were first class. I think, unfortunately, Caygill and the Labour party had let the fiscal situation slip from where it was in 1988 and Ruth put that back on the road”

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthanasia
   • BM 5.1

     1 April 2017 at 7:29 pm

     Yeah, that was a real kick in the nuts.

     Everyone was like, “yay the madness may end” but it was like some real twisted psychological play were the rescuers we actually worse than the people who were creating all the pain and misery.

     Real out of the frypan into the fire stuff, big reason why so many people despise and distrust politicians, only good thing that came out of that period is that we ended up with MMP.
     • mary_a 5.1.1

       2 April 2017 at 10:45 am

       @ BM (5.1) … you state …

       “Everyone was like, “yay the madness may end” but it was like some real twisted psychological play were the rescuers we actually worse than the people who were creating all the pain and misery.”

       A case of Orwell’s Animal Farm revisited for real!
6. mickysavage 6

   1 April 2017 at 7:30 pm

   Your choice of photograph was absolutely perfect.
   • r0b 6.1

     1 April 2017 at 7:40 pm

     Glad you like it!
7. Skeptic 7

   1 April 2017 at 9:16 pm

   As a bit of a follow up to the article, I was one of the Rogernomics victims. In 1984 there were about 67,000 public/state servants of all descriptions, of whom about one fifth almost fit Roger Hall’s satirical play (and who the Fairfax led papers misled the rest of NZ into thinking all PS were like this). By the time the two ACT governments under Lange/Palmer/Moore & Bolger (after all the two architects did form ACT) there was 34,000 left . I returned to Varsity as a mature student to find out why. I learned!
   Worse, before 1984 about one in three of the workforce was involved in some form or other of voluntary work – from surf life saving to coaching sport to art/craft work to church working bees to social work – about 750,000 people. After 1994, this figure fell to just over 50,000. That’s the real legacy of Rogernomics/Ruthenasia – the total and irrevocable destruction of New Zealand’s voluntary sector.
   Even worse, the whole “economic experiment” was done by stealth and deceit at Cabinet level. Douglas and crew slipped into each Cabinet meeting over a period of about six months, unseen papers that pushed through the reforms – no-one had seen them except a select few. The whole thing was done in secret.
   All this is now common knowledge as a PhD thesis has been done on the comparison of Australia’s open reforms and NZ secret reforms – with direct reference to Cabinet papers. History will judge the perpetrators – traitors – harshly – and justifiably so. Their legacy also includes the rise in the wealth income gap, increased suicide rates, increased divorce rates, increased crime levels, increased third world diseases, devastated internal economy, a wage/slave regime for the lowest 30% of earners where the minimum wage is standard, increased unemployment for youth and school leavers. This list is endless.
   Before Labour can earn the trust of the working class back, it need to publicly and unequivocally disown and distance itself from 1984 – 1990 and above all. apologise for being so stupid as to be hijacked.
   • Thinkerr 7.1

     2 April 2017 at 10:24 am

     I was a victim of a different kind.

     Freshly-graduated, I couldn’t compete with the crop of downsized professionals who were reduced to taking what used to be the graduate’s jobs. I spent a few years’ obtaining the practical side of my work, then had to relinquish it 18 months later because I couldn’t afford the annual fee. That led to me having to start a whole new career.

     So, I also voted for change in 1990, to put an end to the madness, only to find that the same agenda was put in place, but with sharper blades.

     I don’t pity myself, because I think the vast majority of (now) two generations have suffered/are suffering because of what happened. I think something had to change – we were not Britains Farm any longer, but as to TINA ((There is no alternative), there are always alternatives and the fact that all this was done in stealth and at speed suggests to me that those involved knew that what they were doing was against the desires of mainstream New Zealand.

     And that’s where my anger lies – the architects of what has ruined many peoples’ lives are still held in high esteem when, in my opinion, the real heroes are those who have kept their families’ fed and watered at their own sacrifice, and also people like Helen Kelly, who took the flak and spoke her mind.

     I don’t think Labour needs to apologise for the past. But what it does need to do is stop presenting a watered-down version of right-wing policy. Give us a credible alternative to vote for that will allow the bottom 90% to live with dignity and to be able to work to live, not live to work.
     • Skeptic 7.1.1

       2 April 2017 at 2:25 pm

       Absolutely dead right, mate.
       I’m looking forward to when all income is mandatorily disclosed and the lowest income level is set as a percentage of the average top ten percent – say one seventh.
       Only then will all Kiwis feel included and the greedies will be forced to either put up or shut up (or fuck off – emigrate – where we won’t miss them)
       • In Vino 7.1.1.1

         2 April 2017 at 8:19 pm

         Fully agree with you both
   • Stuart Mathieson 7.2

     2 April 2017 at 11:59 pm

     They won’t do that. But I still remember cadets moving around the BD & M office in Edinburgh House (Dunedin) in slow motion while cardiganed men and ladies with ornametal spectacles kept an eye on them. I wish I’d filmed it.
     • Thinkerr 7.2.1

       3 April 2017 at 7:12 am

       So which group were you in, then, Stuart? 🙂
8. Tamati Tautuhi 8

   1 April 2017 at 9:21 pm

   It was basically theft of State Assets by stealth?
9. Michael 9

   2 April 2017 at 12:47 am

   We’re all rolling around with laughter – especially after Grant Robertson and James Shaw decided to keep the joke going.
10. Sanctuary 10

    2 April 2017 at 8:59 am

    Three of the linked pieces in this post take you to articles published in the UK Guardian. In itself, this highlights the pervasive entrenchment of neoliberalism.

    The Guardian has long been big on talking the talk when it comes to opposition to neoliberalism. But when a genuine break with the Thatcherite/Blairist political consensus occured and the UK Labour party elected Jeremy Corbyn as leader against the wishes of the middle class chardonnay “socialists” of the establishment neoliberal parliamentary Labour party the Guardian led the charge in the hysterical attacks on Corbyn.

    The reaction of the comfy liberal Oxbridge elite that warms the seats of the Guardian’s offices to Corbyn (and Brexit) shows that much of what they publish is simply mealy-mouthed hyperbole from middle class liberals who talk of wanting change from neoliberalism, but actively and viciously oppose anyone or anything that might actually bring about that change.

    The Guardian is a classic example of the illusion of a free press and how the (neo) liberal middle class and capitalist establishment maintains a charade of choice when in reality they are in a conspiracy to maintain the status quo – from which both are doing very nicely, thank you very much.
11. Nick 11

    2 April 2017 at 9:32 am

    Rereading the litany of noxious results of neoliberal “rationalization” reminds me also that there are very few problems that New Zealand is facing that cannot be alleviated or cured by a really good Regional Development policy.

    Housing, poverty and the environment can be dealt with far more effectively when the pressure on the city conurbations is lightened, and the plight of rivers and streams is no longer about something in the amorphous mass South of the Bombays, but rather something just down the road. Production can be more efficient in a locale where logistic are actually easy, while workers with a better life-work balance are also far more effective.

    The issue is that so many people today, particularly in Auckland, in their bubble, have the idea that non-Auckland Bucolia is some sort of drooling Hayseedocracy. This, while obviously fatuous, particularly in the age of Internet, is probably a big motivation to reject relocation.

    But New Zealand used to be a highly mobile country when people would think nothing of moving from Christchurch to Auckland to Napier to Golden Bay. In fact the whole Education system was predicated in such mobility.

    Today this flexibility is in the rear-view mirror, particularly from Large to Small centre, but it could perhaps be addressed by a motivated government. To start with, the possibility to get inexpensively from smaller to bigger town could be addressed, (at least in the early stages when dislocated “Jafas” are suffering early withdrawals), but even a sustained government lead would be useful.

    Doubtless not every town can, or maybe should be “saved”, but who gains by jamming ever more people into an increasingly dysfunctional and less and less people-friendly location?
12. johnm 12

    2 April 2017 at 9:43 am

    A government that refuses to control the market will be controlled by the market. The market is not a democratic institution.
    • rocco siffred 12.1

      2 April 2017 at 10:05 am

      A market is the only true democracy. All truth is in revealed preferences.
      • Incognito 12.1.1

        2 April 2017 at 11:58 am

        A fundamental principle of democracy is equality (e.g. one person, one vote); free-market capitalism is antithetical to equality.
        • In Vino 12.1.1.1

          2 April 2017 at 8:25 pm

          The market can make a good servant, but it makes an appallingly bad master.
          Do many people really really believe that homo sapiens is so stupid that the invisible hand of the market is its best guide?
          A sad commentary on our education system that too few people have seen through that obvious bullcrap. The market is blind, and all too often manipulated by the privileged.
          • aerobubble 12.1.1.1.1

            3 April 2017 at 3:06 pm

            Its simple. Look over there. Now i can do what I like, you are looking elsewhere.
            This in essence is free market ideology, Nothing to see here, we dont need to do anything, oh and pass thes laws no question.

            Now why did so many accept it. Simple again. Cheap high density mid.east fuel set the western economies on decades of cheapening fuel costs. Its basic engineering, nothing to do with neo-libs, the market was set to grow whoever was in power. Just the right got out in front and claimed the growth was the result of their ideology. Thank Murdoch.

            Fact is we’ve been beating the crap out of society, citizens, universities, environment, etc to fuel a financial boom, a quite unnecessary and irrelevant wart on us all. And now practical limits hit us, neolibs ideology is the problem holding innovation, govt incentivized, investment, leadership.

            Worse. All that power all that money provides is in the hands of neolibs who think they created thegood times we’ve had and they still do. As Franks put it, let them eat cake, sorry misquote, they,ve never had it so good.
13. rocco siffred 13

    2 April 2017 at 10:03 am

    “Thatcher’s legacy is in ruins, but Britain is still in its thrall.”

    Oddly, Mr Milne seems to have dedicated himself to leaving the UK Labour party in smoking ruins. He has also been very quiet on Venezula in recent years, his preferred alternative to neoliberalism. I wonder why that is?
    • dukeofurl 13.1

      2 April 2017 at 10:46 am

      What does Venezuela have to do with anything in particular.
      • aerobubble 13.1.1

        3 April 2017 at 3:10 pm

        A generation of politicians have been saying they need to do less, or nothing, that the market will do the work, and it still shocks me that people openly admit they vote National, while suggest youth are lazy druggies. Drugged on neolib, lazy thinking, let others do the work, free market zombies.
14. millsy 14

    2 April 2017 at 7:49 pm

    30 years of this sort of carry on.

    The NZ government has been reduced to a facade, with much work being outsourced. Most government departments don’t even own their own buildings anymore.
15. Philj 15

    2 April 2017 at 9:10 pm

    You should check out this video from Ruth Richardson about how well it has all worked. It is very revealing.

    https://youtube/B36itjmiBs0

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