liberation

Open letter from John Minto to Chris Trotter

Kia ora Chris,

I don’t usually write to people like this because there are usually more productive things to do. However I’ll make an exception in this case. [Read more below]

[political finance] Political finance and inequality in New Zealand

We live in a very unequal society, but are inequalities of political party funding a major influence on this? Moreover, does ‘money buy elections’? The answers to these questions have important implications for the state’s regulation of political activity. This blog post evaluates different sources of political party funding, its influence on New Zealand parliamentary politics, and cautions against taking for granted some of the common understandings of political finance in New Zealand. While business interests have been able to exert an incredibly strong influence over politics during the last 25 years, this leverage is better understood by a structural analysis of economic power than by arguments about the direct influence of the wealthy over political parties. The political power of wealth does not exert itself effectively via the direct purchase of political influence in the party system, but by the structural role of business in the national economy. To the extent that money is directly important in the party system, it is actually backdoor parliamentary state funding that is having the most influence on political configurations. [Read more below]

The Green-Labour-National carbon trading con

The Labour Government has just unveiled its market-driven Emissions Trading Scheme, which has the support of other political parties such as National and the Greens. Increasingly it seems that all the parliamentary parties are ‘blue-green’ parties – combining concern for the environment with trivial market-based ‘non-solutions’ to the problems of climate change. [Read more below]

No choice for the oppressed of Myanmar/Burma

A critical guest blog post on the National League for Democracy by John Moore

The anti-junta uprising in Myanmar/Burma, and its violent suppression by the military force, has placed the concerns of this county on the international stage. In New Zealand, political oganisations ranging from the National Party through to the Greens and ‘far-left’ Socialist Worker have issued statements of uncritical support for the pro-democracy movement. The military regime is clearly despised by a vast majority of the population in Myanmar/Burma. However, leftists who want to support the people of Myanmar/Burma should cast a critical eye on those leading the ‘pro-democracy’ movement there. By examining the policies of the Aung San Suu Kyi led National League for Democracy (NLD), the less than positive implications of an NLD-led government coming to power can be deduced. (Read more below)