liberation

Review of New Zealand politics in 2008

Every year the European Journal of Political Research publishes a political date yearbook which gives a review of politics in a number of western countries. I contribute the section on New Zealand to the journal – last year’s publication on New Zealand politics in 2007 can be read here. Below is the first draft of my review of New Zealand politics in 2008. It still requires a bit of abridging and editing, and as always I’m interested in feedback and suggestions, which you can leave in the comments section or email me (edwards.bryceATgmail.com). [Read more below]

Jobs Summit - a socialist analysis

The best leftwing coverage of the Jobs Summit has been that put out by the World Socialist Website - see: New Zealand “Jobs Summit” places burden of recession on working people. This article provides a very nice summary not only of the actual Job Summit but also of the nature of the recession in New Zealand. A number of examples and statistics are provided that show the severity of the continuing global economic meltdown, and its impact on New Zealand. The article writer, John Braddock, argues that 'Bill English is preparing a horror budget' in response. And Braddock's particularly scathing about the role of the union movement in helping business and the Government implement their attacks on workers, and that this 'underscores the role they have played, over the past two and a half decades, as enforcers of the government-corporate agenda against the working class'. Furthermore, he warns that the union movement is heading down the same nationalist pathway that we've recently seen in other Anglo Saxon countries: 'This is a New Zealand version of the same reactionary nationalist and protectionist policy that is being pursued by trade unions in Britain, the US, Australia and other parts of the world. It is nothing but a means of tying workers behind their "own" banks, corporations and employers to prevent the development of any unified and independent struggle in defence of jobs, wages and conditions'. You might not always agree with the analysis put forward by the World Socialist Website, but its occasional commentary on politics in New Zealand are always well written, researched, strongly opinionated, and thus worth reading.

Trotter on: Key vs English

Apparently John Key is a policy entrepreneur and engineer, while Bill English is an ideological passenger – and which of these two controls the direction of economic policy as the country grapples with the economic crisis will strongly decide the fate of New Zealand. In this week’s Independent Financial Review column, Chris Trotter characterises the future of the New Zealand economy as being determined by the natural ideological schism between John Key as prime minister and Bill English as finance minister, and whose vision wins out. English is painted as being conventional and Key as risk-taking and bold. Trotter clearly hopes that Key wins out, but suggests that this is unlikely. [Read more below]

Did Marx predict the current economic crisis?

The following quote from Karl Marx has apparently been doing the rounds of Wall Street:

Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism (Das Kapital, 1867)

The only problem is that it's a bogus quote. Yet the whole saga is still a fascinating insight into the current state of politics. After all - most of the quote does apparently actually exist in various parts of Das Kapital, and the fact that so many people find the quote of interest is significant in itself. [Read more below]

Responses to Budget: from left to right

Responses to the Labour Government’s 2007 Budget mostly fall into a left-right continuum – with critics voicing leftwing or pro-poor concerns, while its supporters use rightwing or pro-business arguments in its favour. Essentially, the left critics are Laila Harre, Matt McCarten, Susan St John, and Chris Trotter. The Budget supporters aren’t necessary all rightwing, but Jim Anderton, the CTU, EPMU, Jordan Carter, the NZ Institute, and Colin James have used rightwing, pro-business or economically-orthodox arguments in its support . [Read more detail below]

Profit-per-employee figures

New figures highlight the gap that exists between the wealth generated by large companies and the earnings of their workers. In the UK, recent research has shown that the 20 largest companies make an average of £96,000 pre-tax profit per employee. It would be interesting to see what the figures are in New Zealand. Matt McCarten has recently written about how SkyCity 'is in an extraordinary situation where staff members, who receive an average of $30,000 a year, are making their shareholders more than $40,000 each.'