liberation

A leftwing perspective on asset sales

Some political commentators – and Labour and National party activists, too – are suggesting that this year’s New Zealand general election will present voters with a genuine ideological choice: between a radical leftwing Labour Party that favours nationalised industry and a radical rightwing National Party that wants to privatise everything. Any such description is hugely inaccurate, and a proper examination of the situation would show that the positions of both parties on the issue of state owned enterprises are actually remarkably similar. Once the rhetoric from Labour and National is put to one side, it obvious that both parties favour a mixture of state and private ownership of industry, with only degrees of difference in how much should be owned and which direction should be taken. But given that there is at least some differences opening up on the issue of asset sales – and that this is set to be some sort of election issue, I hope to write a few posts in the near future examining it all in detail. This initial blog post merely raises the question – from a leftwing point of view – of whether there is actually anything progressive about the state owning businesses. It argues that the New Zealand left have developed a nostalgic and false idea that the government ownership of businesses like TV2 or NZ Post is something wonderful. [Read more below]

Milton Friedman – The Supply-sider moves into deficit

There’s been a lot of tributes to the departed intellectual godfather of the “free market”, Milton Friedman. But as the Guardian’s chief economist points out, while ‘policy makers pay lip service to Friedman's ideas, they behave like Keynesians’ because Friedmanite policies were tried and failed. Read more below: