JOHN MINTO has argued (to considerable acclaim from Daily Blog readers) that we should be making “a fresh start to building a more self-sufficient economy.”
“I have a lot of sympathy for the Buy Australian campaign”, says John, responding to the Australian supermarket giants, Coles and Woolworths, decision to back its domestic suppliers by refusing to stock New Zealand products.
John’s sympathy for the Buy Australian campaign is driven partly by environmental (“food miles”) considerations and partly by his reservations concerning free-trade and globalisation generally.
It is clear from John’s posting that he favours a return to the days when our local markets were protected from foreign competition through a combination of high tariffs, import controls and state-subsidised import-substitution industries. John is not, however, proposing to re-erect the Ford Motor Company’s Seaview car-assembly factory and it ilk. His vision is of an import-substitution industrial sector based on workers’ co-operatives. He would also appear to favour a new system of food distribution and exchange modelled on the farmers’ markets.
Now I must confess to a certain sympathy for this vision of a self-sufficient New Zealand of farmer and worker co-operatives. But then I’m the sort of person who finds J.R.R. Tolkien’s description of The Shire inspirational. With machinery no larger than a flourmill or more complicated than a forge bellows, his Hobbits constructed a bucolic utopia from which poverty, injustice and violence had long been banished. (That Tolkien’s Shire bears an uncanny resemblance to Downton Abbey minus the motor-cars is neither here nor there!)
Sticking with the Tolkien example for a moment (which, given Peter Jackson’s success in linking New Zealand and Middle Earth, seems apt) it should be remembered that Tolkien only set up his utopian Shire to demonstrate the ultimate impossibility of such “self-sufficient” communities.
That Hobbits had managed to steer clear of trouble for so many centuries was entirely due to the fall Sauron and the gradual decay of the northern half of the sprawling empire of Gondor. In short, because in the region of The Shire there was no state with sufficient reach to bother them. There was, however, an organised body of armed men, The Rangers, who took it upon themselves to protect them.
As the Ranger, Aragorn, puts it: “‘Strider’ I am to one fat man who lives within a day’s march of foes that would freeze his heart”.
But, not even the Rangers were strong enough to preserve the peace and freedom of The Shire forever. The central theme of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is that Evil cannot be turned aside by distance, ignorance, apparent insignificance … or toll-bridges. Eventually, Black Riders will make their appearance “even in the lanes of The Shire”.
To be defeated, Evil must be confronted.
This is the nub of my objection to John’s posting. A return to the days of import licencing and tariff barriers; completely knocked down motor vehicles and sprawling car assembly plants in the Hutt Valley, Porirua and South Auckland is economically and politically impossible. Not even Australia, with all its vast mineral wealth and a domestic market five times the size of New Zealand’s is prepared to go on pouring subsidies into the production of General Motors’ Holden cars. And, if GM’s going, can Toyota be far behind?
Nor is there a lot of point in keeping out Aussie biscuits. The economics of producing biscuits cheap enough to compete with those manufactured in and imported from Australia just don’t add up. Much of the land that produced the grain and the flour from which our biscuits used to be made has been converted to dairying. To pay the farmers enough to make it worth their while to put seeds in the ground would drive up the price of the local product well beyond that of the biscuits imported by the container-load from across the Tasman. The only way the consumer could be persuaded to buy these more expensive New Zealand biscuits would be by slapping a big fat tariff on the Australian imports – which would be an open breach of the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relationship (CER) agreement.
The resistance encountered by any government willing to tear up CER would be huge. Not only would it come from the Australian Government and New Zealand’s exporters, but it would also come from Kiwi consumers furious at being forced to pay higher food prices.
But let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that John’s Mana Party, in coalition with Labour and Green parties well to the left of where they currently stand, attracted sufficient votes to form a government committed to restoring protectionism. Let us further suppose that foreign governments and transnational corporations, out of the goodness of their hearts, decided to take no retaliatory action against a New Zealand Government which had just abrogated CER and the WTO Agreement. What would happen within New Zealand’s borders?
First and foremost there would be massive resistance to the new government’s policies from pretty much the entire capitalist class. At the very least there would be a rock solid investment strike and very likely a devastating flight of capital. With the Australian-owned banks refusing to lend and the cost of Government borrowing through the roof – thanks to the inevitable and savage downgrading of New Zealand’s credit worthiness by the international credit-rating agencies – the economy would very quickly begin to scream. Loudly supported by virtually the entire news media, the middle-classes and the small business sector would mobilise against the government. (In this regard there is every likelihood that they would be covertly supported, “Orange Revolution”-style, by both the Australians and the Americans.)
How long would it be before elements within the Labour Party and the Greens announced that they were throwing in their lot with the National-led Opposition? Would John’s protectionist government even make it to the end of its first three year term?
Not without making the transition from a radical reforming government to a dictatorial revolutionary regime. Because, make no mistake, a dictatorship would be required to supress a middle-class as large as New Zealand’s. And, very likely, the repressive measures required to enforce such a revolutionary government’s will would very swiftly plunge the country into civil war.
Would the Australians send troops to fight alongside the brave Kiwi “freedom-fighters” waging war against New Zealand’s fanatical communist regime? Given the scale of Australian investment in the New Zealand economy, full-scale military intervention would be inevitable. The probable outcome? New Zealand’s incorporation in the Commonwealth of Australia.
So much for self-sufficiency!
The way forward for New Zealand is not via the road back to yesteryear. The free movement of goods around the world has, historically, been closely associated with the periods of greatest intellectual and artistic flowering and the most aggressive expansion of individual liberty. Autarky (economic self-sufficiency) by contrast, has always marched hand-in-hand with authoritarianism and tyranny.
The progressive challenge lies in expanding the realm of freedom and equality by supporting not only the expansion of humanity’s technological prowess, but also its democratisation. Retreating, Hobbit-like, into our own diminished version of The Shire, will not keep the Black Riders at bay. On the contrary, it will invite them in.
The dilemma which appears lost here, is, should the land and its resources be the property of the people and actively used to support nourish and educate its inhabitants? Or should people be free to profit for themselves and stuff the poor, the slow, the sick? Which will propel our progress and competitive edge into the 3rd milennium?
There are 2 questions here.
The first is whether we would be better off in the longrun employing our own people and creating our own credit or, as we are doing now, exchanging the assets of the country for foreign slave wage manufactured goods. Whether ever spiralling foreign debts, shrinking asset base and selling out of our primary earner – farming, and the land, really matters?
The second is whether the country would stand for it.
It seems in this article very little is said about the first and much made of the second, whereas the first is the more fundamental question, as we edge slowly constantly towards the 3rd world, as our jobs are taken by virtual slaves or machines, as our houses become out of reach for our children. This is not about whether we resurrect the Ford motor plant or live without twink. This is about poverty, equality, employment, debt, balance of payments, sovereignty.
Actually I believe the most prosperous and creative time was under the mixed economy of the 60s and 70s, with tariffs and protection “ism”. It now takes 2 incomes to provide what 1 income used to provide. So our standard of living has slipped drastically since the miracle of the so called “free” market. How will we halt the decline Chris? Free markets is it?
Chris is right that there aren’t many immediate options right now. You’d be naïve to believe New Zealand could turn into a sort of ‘cold water Cuba’ right away, particularly when the labour movement is a weak rump and there is hardly any resistance to existing economic policy.
But a lack of sufficient conditions in NZ today to support a return to a more socialistic economy doesn’t mean it will never happen. There are irreconcilable contradictions within the global capitalist economy which cannot be solved. Falling profit rates have forced capital to prop up the system by inflating unproductive financial bubbles and repressing wages. Living standards for ordinary people continue to fall as economies lurch from crisis to crisis, unable to sustain full employment or a full welfare state. People starve not because there is not enough bread, but there is too much – nobody earns enough to buy it all, and the bakers get laid off.
It’s only a matter of time before people get sick of supporting a system that is actively contributing to the decline in their quality of life. Moreso when the middle class aren’t middle class any more. It won’t happen overnight, nor in every country at once, but the historical precedent exists.
The fact that the people of a sovereign nation cannot declare true economic independence without being repressed by military force gives you some idea of how much “freedom” really exists in today’s imperialist world. So much for avoiding a “dictatorial regime”.
As the cliché goes, revolution is not a dinner party. It requires the revocation of the excessive privileges of a rich elite for the benefit of all of humanity, an elite who will resort to violence if necessary. Bringing the machinery of society under the democratic control of the people – as even the Labour Party once promoted – is the true path to extending democracy.
First act for John Minto as Finance Minister? Ring up the Venezuelans.
“It’s only a matter of time before people get sick of supporting a system that is actively contributing to the decline in their quality of life.”
I would suggest this is at the heart of the problem with what you say. If we take NZ as an example, we have a substantial middle class who are enjoying a constantly improving quality of life, and this has been the case for many years. You imply a universal disgruntlement with the current system that, even if true (and I don’t believe it is), is not particularly deep set.
When you claim that “Living standards for ordinary people continue to fall as economies lurch from crisis to crisis” you can’t really be referring to NZ, surely. Our living standards have not fallen in many, many years. There are a whole range of factors that have improved the quality of our lives over the past 50 years or so, including technological advances, wider access to information, access to lower cost imported goods, a wider variety of goods available, the list is long. We derive most of these benefits from being part of a free world, of being party to trade agreements, from allowing the relatively free flow of capital and goods into and out of NZ.
In my opinion a return to the sort of economy John Minto hankers for would be a retrograde step, that would lesson economic freedom, and likely most hurt those he seeks to advocate for.
The growing precariat has a dim view of your assessment of the situation, which may benefit the short sighted and selfish interests of the upper class and much of the middle class, that has not been driven into “working poverty” yet.
Yes, the 55 or 60 per cent society, where these that still manage ok or even do well have enough votes to keep the ones down the bottom in political minority, it may sadly last a little longer yet.
But the day of reckoning will come, and while New Zealand may consist of geographic islands, it is economically, politically and strategically not an “island” in the global environment, and it will be affected by many negative, challenging developments that are going to happen over the coming years in many parts of the planet.
Fasten your seat belts.
Hi Marc…yes indeed NZ is impacted by global events, but frankly the only alternative is to turn ourselves into some kind of isolationist/socialist outpost, a la the soviet union, and look how that ended. The other problem with the sort of policies you appear to advocate is that they are invariably implemented at the end of a gun. There aren’t too many places where the sort of socialism you seem to prescribe goes hand in hand with the freedoms we enjoy in the west.
I also disagree with the 55-60% figures you quote. The middle class in NZ is actually very large, and the number reasonably satisfied with life in NZ would be well above that.
Promoting local consumption and production is not isolationist or socialist, it is rather common sense. But it does also not automatically mean there will be no trade and no imports and exports.
We are not idiots IV, there will always be a lot of trade happening, and that is not what we are against. Some things simply cannot be made here, unless causing uneconomical costs.
Yet, there are justified questions about what and how much should be imported, or made here, and this is what this debate is about.
When free trade is done at the lowest common denominators, when it costs thousands of jobs, when it means losing know how, land and other assets, endangering the local economy and its base, then it is justified to challenge the way the “free trade” is done.
Trade must benefit all parties, must be reasonably fair, and it must not be done at the expense of workers, who may end up working in slave like and exploited conditions, forcing down wages here, forcing the closure of factories. It must also not be done at unreasonable costs to the environment.
So you are misleading readers here, suggesting we want a North Korean style of economy!
That makes you mischievous, and you will be seen as that, whatever comments you make here.
Oh I suspect you are being a little too generous towards some of the views expressed by others here Marc. But let me address your comments specifically.
“When free trade is done at the lowest common denominators, when it costs thousands of jobs, when it means losing know how, land and other assets, endangering the local economy and its base, then it is justified to challenge the way the “free trade” is done.”
You might be surprised to know that I agree with these sentiments. The problem is that you paint a picture that is not, at least not fully, accurate.
When you refer to the ‘lowest common denominators’ and trade ‘costing jobs’ then I assume you refer to China. But there is a problem with that argument, because while trade costs some jobs it also creates others. How many people would be employed in our farming sector if we didn’t trade with China?
When you speak of ‘know how’ being lost, what ‘know-how’ precisely? If it relates to goods we can source competitively overseas then it isn’t worth much, is it?
When you refer to us losing land, what do you mean? The amount of NZ land in foreign ownership is just a tiny %. Perhaps you forget that NZer’s own large tracts of land overseas, from which they repatriate profits.
IV you seem to be working on commenting here 24/7, who is paying you to do this? You are on almost every topic and with numerous comments, which never seem to end.
You know full well that the slave like labour in many poorer countries is exploited by global manufacturers to underbid local manufacturers in the countries they export their products to. It has been a race to the bottom since outsourcing and off-shoring was started.
It is like anything, once one competitor goes and bends the rules, or goes off-shore legally, to use cheap labour and produce in low standard countries, where decent environmental and labour laws are not enforced, then competitors are forced to follow suit.
As for the “new” jobs created, what kind of jobs are they? Many are just low paid “service sector” jobs often not even offering full time work. Kiwis deliver each other pizzas and cut each other’s hair, or sit in taxis 12 hours a day, to earn a few fares below the minimum wage, if spread over the “working hours”.
And have you thought that the tens of thousands that left NZ for Australia went there, only to work in sweat shops or to serve each other for the minimum wage that we have? No, they went for better opportunities and decent pay.
The extra jobs in the dairy industry are apart from Kiwi share-milkers imported farm workers from the Philippines and some other places, who put up with comparatively long hours and lower pay than locals, who have also gone to Australia.
There have been many Kiwi inventors who sold their patents to overseas companies, as they got little or no support from the government or businesses here, to turn their products into success stories here.
Also do we have few that now know how to make things, and we have school kids that know how to use imported computer tablets but cannot even tie their shoes up.
As for farm land and real estate sold, there are contradicting figures for the first, and the annual figures may seem low, but adding up over the years, a substantial percentage of farm and forest land and the likes has been bought by foreign companies, individuals, or some that are based overseas, but use local companies to officially own and operate the land holdings. Re real estate NZ does not even keep proper statistics, but here in Auckland I know of heaps of properties having been bought by foreigners or new migrants, who have sufficient cash, while NZers struggle to buy their first home on an overheated market.
Keep dishing out your one eyed propaganda here, you are turning into a bit of a troll, I feel.
The land held by Kiwi investors in places like Uruguay, Chile and so is comparatively small, just to let you know. There are also not that many Kiwi land owners in Australia or other places. Stop making up figures and stories, my friend!
Yes the middle class is comfortable now but look at the next generation coming through – how many of them are going to be able to afford to buy a house compared to their parents?
Maybe it will be a quiet revolution and they’ll just stop voting for neo liberal parties. Or maybe they’ll just suck it up and pass it on to the next generation. If that happens the revolution will be a little less quiet I feel.
Aaron in my 50+ years on this planet I’ve heard that more times than I’ve had hot dinners. I bought my first house in 1984, and within 12 months was paying 20%+ interest rates. My parents and in-laws wrung their hands and wondered how we would cope, but we did. We bought outside of the most expensive areas of town. We went without many of the extra’s of life until we were on top of our mortgage. We agreed never to have more than one item on HP at a time, which meant using an old wringer washing machine for ages while we paid off our fridge. Now I’m beginning to sound like my parents when I was a teenager…and perhaps therein lies the point. Every generation has it’s challenges. I have two teenage children and they face very different challenges to what I faced, but none they won’t be able to manage, and none any more difficult than we faced, or our parents before us.
By all means ring up the Venezuelans. You will see the failure of this sort of thinking in action. The breakdown of society and the market and the slow erosion of pluralistic democracy.
CH obviously does not read the paper.
“Ring up the Venezuelans”, right now they are the perfect example of Chris Trotter’s point.
The middle class won’t stand for it !
Kia ora Chris – I think you’ve set up a pile of straw men just for the thrill of knocking them down. The point I was making about self-sufficiency is a very important one for New Zealand for the reasons I gave – it doesn’t mean setting up car assembly plants or getting into bed with hobbits.
New Zealand has a strong tradition of co-operatives in sectors such as farming and despite the fact that in farming they are co-operatives of businesses rather than co-operatives of workers the concept is excellent and a positive way forward. Yes the concept will be vigorously opposed by capitalists but to stunt the vision at the outset means we have failed before we start.
John –
I fear Chris has just outed himself as an adherent to the belief in the necessary continuation of the “fossil fuel over the cliff” kind of economic direction.
He has a great mind, writes some excellent posts and articles at times, but I fear he fails to acknowledge climate and other science, the ever so speedy change in a restless, unpredictable world we have now, and that shipping stuff over large distances cannot go on for much longer, that is unless some miraculous, unknown new, cheap energy is found and developed, replacing so much, that now still depends on petroleum based products and energy to run things.
With all the solar, wind and geothermal alternative energy, and with much efforts to achieve savings in energy, we will not be able to continue wasting as we have done over the last few decades.
The planet is soon plundered and a wasteland, unless we change direction, and New Zealand may only be a small player in this, but must take action now, to not miss the bus.
Set up your co-operatives now. There is nothing stopping you creating new businesses run along lines you prefer.
Apart from the capital that is held in the hands of the few, or offered by way of credit by banks, who prefer ones as borrowers, who already have some substantial assets or savings.
Gosman is again playing cards he does not have.
Hmmm… I’m thinking of Whittaker’s chocolates… Very yummy. A wee bit more expensive than Cadbury’s… But NZ-owned… and did I say they were very yummy? (Not that I’m allowed to eat them… but still… mmmmm, New Zealand-made chocolate…)
Perhaps we need to think up ways and means to create local businesses and producing local products.
Worker co-ops? Sure? Why not. At least worker co-ops can’t be bought out by corporate raiders. And workers know how their company operates, from the ground-up.
In the 1970s, the Kirk-led government supported the setting up of Ohu’s. A progressive government could look at such ventures. Low-key and without much fan-fare of course. Don’t want to spook the money-market mad men.
Like National implementing performance-pay by stealth (their recent super-principles and super-teachers policy), new worker collectives should be quiet affairs.
Until they are successful enough to be trumpeted as economic successes, creating jobs, profits, and real choices for Citizens/Consumers…
Whack a “Job Creation” label on it; make it self-funding; and the middle classes will love it. The next leader of the National Party, Judith “Fashionista” Collins, might call it “communism by stealth”, but *pffft! she’ll be unelectable anyway.
How to avoid FTAs where corporations would demand a “slice of the action” and tender for financing for these new Ohus?
One method to get around FTAs – use WINZ. A New Ohu Deal for unemployed/under-employed, where the government would finance the setting up Ohus using WINZ as a front organisation.
That would lock out corporates wanting a slice of the action. After all, this policy would be for (mostly) unemployed. Corporates aren’t unemployed. So they can just fu- – go away.
Just a thought…
What Chris has left out of his considerations is the scarcity of fossil fuels, where oil will diminish rather swiftly in coming decades, can only be replaced by gas to a degree, and where the use of coal will be limited, as it will prove too costly to turn it into gas for cars.
Also there is a need to address the burning of fossil fuels and the ever increasing emissions of CO2 and other gases, that contribute to climate change. Admittedly it seems now, that instead of committing themselves to reduce emissions and fossil fuel use, many countries’ governments are now working together with the oil and gas exploring industries to get the remaining resources out of the ground as soon as possible, and to use them to feed the energy hungry industries and end consumers.
Kyoto is not being adhered to by certain key economies. There is always more talk than action on taking necessary steps to address human caused pollution and the need to switch to alternative energies, and we see a continuation of the status quo. Emission trading schemes are becoming less relevant, and subsidies and taxes on certain energy use are being reduced again in some places.
But with the now large and energy hungry economies and societies of China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and a few other countries, burning the remaining fossil energy at higher paces, with only slowly taking up alternative energy investment to replace fossils, we will soon have serious scarcity and price rises. That will lead to some technological innovation to use energy more efficiently, but also to some new investment in alternatives. But that will not solve all.
Re transport, and I mean global transport, we will face a new situation, where it will increasingly become less economical to ship goods around the oceans of the planet over large distances. That in itself will force for more local production to take place in most countries.
Also will the time come, where the slave labour in certain places will not put up with more enslavement and appalling pay and living conditions, and social and economic pressures will lead to serious unrest, as there has already been in places like Bangla Desh, as there will be in many other countries (Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico and so forth), so that investment there will become more risky for the corporations that are engaged in mass production of cheap consumer goods.
We will see major climatic, environmental, economic and social changes take place soon, and they are just starting. When the climate becomes so unpredictable and extreme in vast crop growing regions, leading to droughts, storms, sudden blizzards and freezing or hot temperatures, agriculture will suffer, and food prices will go up. Coastal areas will be flooded, causing immense damage and costs.
While Chris raises valid points, like the protection of local manufacturing in some cases likely leading to breaches of trade agreements, he does rely too much on the status quo, and that this “free market” scenario as we have it now, will continue somehow, and therefore should not be upset too much.
No, Chris, the situation is more complex, and the world is changing fast. The time will come that the affordability of the ordinary personal motor vehicle will again become more of a luxury for most, and that cycling and shared public transport will be the only means for most to get about.
This present economic and social environment will not last for very much longer, but as New Zealand governments tend to drag their feet on this, we are likely to pay highly for not investing early enough, and starting to change now.
Your contemplations and historic reflections may be “interesting”, but they are just mental activities in your academic mind, of a writer with a strong interest in human and social history. They fail to consider science and the ever changing dynamics of global and local politics.
“What Chris has left out of his considerations is the scarcity of fossil fuels, where oil will diminish rather swiftly in coming decades”
Don’t worry Marc, that boat has sailed:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/the-mythical-assertion-of-fossil-fuel-scarcity/article1369200/
http://www.livescience.com/37469-fuel-endures.html
A link to an an opinion piece (in a strongly business focused and commercially oriented) Canadian publication from 15 Jan. 2010 on an 80 year old “energy economist” claiming there will be virtually endless supply of fossil fuel, that can only come from a person with a fossilised cerebellum.
You are only discrediting yourself, IV, and I feel sorry for you, as you are increasingly coming close to be laughing stock material here.
And re the second link: Even if the newly found resources (of lesser quality and density), which were so far hard to exploit, will become “economical” at some stage, the costs will quickly become prohibitive again, to make the energy usable for most.
And then we will continue to pump yet more carbon into the atmosphere, while we have reached levels not seen for 800,000 years. So according to experts we have only 50 to a 100 years to move away from fossil fuels to save the planet and our existence:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/14/record-400ppm-co2-carbon-emissions
“e360: We have been passing other climate milestones, such as Arctic sea ice disappearing and glaciers melting worldwide. What do you think it’s going to take to move the public and politicians to finally begin facing up to this problem?”
“Keeling: Well, it’s tough, and part of it is just being aware of the significance of it. I mean, our small role here in measuring CO2 concentrations is to not just track it, but also make people aware of it. The magnitude of what’s needed can be expressed in many terms. It can be expressed in terms of what you have to do just to stabilize emissions. One way to put it in perspective is to ask the question, “What would it take to stop CO2 from continuing to grow, but just to stop at 400, not going higher?”
And the answer is that we would have to reduce immediately our burning of fossil fuels by something like 55 to 60 percent. So it’s a pretty drastic change. That is clearly not going to happen. If it did happen, it would be an economic catastrophe. So, it’s not in the realm of something we should hope for, but it tells you where we have to get to at some point. We have to actually move away from fossil fuel burning in such a way that we practically go fossil-fuel-free within the next half a century or century, if we’re going to avoid going above considerably higher levels like 500 parts per million. But even stopping it at 450 or 500 is going to take similar kinds of cuts, although we would have more time to do it if we started now.””
To begin, I suggest you look up the word cerebellum, and learn something of it’s true functions. Unless you really did intend to question my motor skills!
As for the rest of your piece, you are (either willfully or ignorantly) changing the subject from scarcity of fossil fuels to climate change, which was not what I commented on. There is no shortage of fossil fuels, and there is ample research available to demonstrate that.
Finally your somewhat ageist ad-homenim critique appears desperate; perhaps keeping to the facts would be a better strategy.
IV – It was you who also changed the topic, by using information sources that are claiming there is no scarcity of resources like fossil fuels, which is commonly referred to as meaning petroleum, gas and coal.
When certain scientists now offer projections to prove that there are virtually “infinite” fossil sourced energy resources, but by doing so not disclose clearly enough, that they now also include oil sands, shale gas and whatever “resources” where there are just TRACES of carbon (more diluted traces of oil, gas or coal), then this is also misleading, as that is not the same as “fossil fuels” as we understood them in the conventional sense.
That by the way explains the traditional projections which were more conservative.
By using sources to prove your case you are at least indirectly also changing the subject!
You are also misleading by presenting such newer projections as referred to above.
And re climate change, that is now proved beyond any doubt, that fossil fuel burning and use is substantially contributing to global climate change, which results in climate warming in most places. Hence climate change is directly linked to fossil energy use!
“It was you who also changed the topic, by using information sources that are claiming there is no scarcity of resources like fossil fuels, which is commonly referred to as meaning petroleum, gas and coal.”
Ah no. I was responding directly to this comment:
““What Chris has left out of his considerations is the scarcity of fossil fuels, where oil will diminish rather swiftly in coming decades”.
Please keep up.
“…then this is also misleading, as that is not the same as “fossil fuels” as we understood them in the conventional sense.”
Oh what a beautiful sidestep, but nonsense nonetheless. Fossil fuels are fossil fuels, whatever from they take, and whatever extraction methods may be required.
“By using sources to prove your case you are at least indirectly also changing the subject!
You are also misleading by presenting such newer projections as referred to above.”
No, I am responding to a specific comment about scarcity of fossil fuels. I have demonstrated there is no such scarcity, and I would expect you would now admit as such.
“And re climate change, that is now proved beyond any doubt, that fossil fuel burning and use is substantially contributing to global climate change,”
And that is complete nonsense. There is increasing dissent around mankinds contribution, and increasing dishonesty and manipulation being adopted by climate alarmists to keep this gravy train on it’s tracks.
This is a short and good read…
http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-age-of-climate-alarmism-is-coming-to-an-end/article/2537417
The “Washington Examiner” – a right wing online journal owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz.
Mr Anschutz is also well connected to the oil industry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Anschutz#Rail_and_petroleum_businesses
The oil industry is well know for funding anti-climate change groups, for obvious, self-serving reasons.
Sorted.
Yeah, because NASA, the Royal Society, oceanologists, and every reputable climate group around the world are all lying…
Because everyone is lying that the ice sheets in Greenland, the Arctic, and Antarctica are melting, eh IV?
And everyone is lying that there is a correlation between the rise in CO2 (and other gases) and global temperatures, eh, IV?
By the way, I hope you’re not deny evolution, plate tectonics, and the effects of CFCs on the Ozone Layer also?
Head. Sand. Yours, IV.
Your appeal to authority is quaint but irrelevant. There are many reputable scientists who question the anthropogenic link to climate change. Science isn’t done by a vote Frank.
And the only correlation between CO2 and temperature is the the rises in temperature preceed the CO2 rises.
There is a troll here, who is called INTRINSICVALUE, and who even spends excessive times commention on his/her own comments, just to be an endless nuisance, by delivering supposed arguments that are no real arguments.
@ IV: ” There are many reputable scientists who question the anthropogenic link to climate change. ”
Doubtful.
Your definition of “reputable” would be dubious.
Fossil-fuel funded mouthpieces don’t count.
And NASA satellites recording the melting of polar ice are about as impartial as you can get.
IV, let me introduce you to King Canute…
IV – EVERYTHING is scarce or limited, even the time you have left in this existence on this planet, or do you wish to claim you live forever, perhaps are “god”?
Everything is limited. Not everything is scarce.
Fossil fuels are not scarce. That is a lie spread by climate alarmists and other fellow travellers.
This may be helpful to you…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/f/fossil_fuel.htm
Do you acftually READ the links you post to, IV?!?!
To quote from the link YOU POSTED,
“The burning of fossil fuels by humans is the largest source of emissions of carbon dioxide, which is one of the greenhouse gases that allows radiative forcing and contributes to global warming.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/f/fossil_fuel.htm#sthash.kTXgmwOj.dpuf
LMAO!! 😀
I think IV was discussing Hydrocarbon reserves not the impact of CO2 on the environment.
BTW Frank if you truly cared about the impact of greenhouse gases then you would be all for the dismantling of the NZ agricultural sector as methane is a far bigger contributor to NZ’s greenhouse gas emissions than carbon dioxide.
The hypocrisy of climate alarmists is actually quite staggering Gosman.
I don’t see that there is any hypocrisy involved.
Pointing out that dismantling our agriculture industry might be the only remedy (if indeed that is the case) hardly disproves the negative effects of CO2 emissions.
I know that Frank. If you actually read what I posted, that cite was to help Marc gain an understanding of what fossil fuels actually are.
The hypocrisy, Mikesh, is by those who rant on about the harm of fossil fuels, yet use their by-products almost constantly.
@ IV;
“The hypocrisy, Mikesh, is by those who rant on about the harm of fossil fuels, yet use their by-products almost constantly. ”
Hmmm, a few errors there, IV, let me correct it for you;
“The hypocrisy, Mikesh, is by those who rant on about the harm of taxpayer-funded public services; the State owning various enterprises; and infra-structure that was built up over generations using taxes – yet use them almost constantly.”
Sorted.
You’re welcome.
😀
@ Marc –
Indeed, Marc. I have friends who no longer take drives up the Kapiti coast, or Wairarapa wine-trail, for day-long ‘tiki tours’. The prohibitive cost of petrol – along with their other household expenditure (especially at the beginning of the School year for teenagers) – now means that such jaunts are left for special occassions.
As the cost of fuel escalates, the private use of motor cars will continue to reduce bit by bit.
Some folk seem to believe that the amount of oil in the ground is infinite. Which is bizarre, as Earth is mostly assuredly a very finite planet. Even the Universe is not infinite (just boundless).
The evidence for this is simple. The price of petrol. When is the last time it was $1 per litre? The price has risen because it is a commodity that is getting scarcer and requires more intense technology to extract.
And of course, the price hardly ever falls…
Chris has done an able job of explaining how Socialism can never be brought about through the ballot box. But we knew that.
What Chris didn’t do, is he didn’t counter John’s proposals with a better one of his own. “No alternative” is the very Thatcherite slogan that got us into this mess in the first place – it’s been used to shut up Socialists for a very long time now, but it’s been a lie from the beginning.
The truth is, John is right, New Zealand should be a self-reliant democracy based on worker-owned co-ops, instead of the Rent-Seeker’s Paradise that it has become.
Unfortunately, as brilliant as he is, John can only point the way; he cannot take us there. It is no insult to say that he simply doesn’t have the skills. No one person has these skills. John’s vision, to be accomplished, would require a very high degree of legal, commercial and managerial acumen, which most certainly exists, collectively, in the New Zealand Left. However we have no means of bringing together the people with these skills, to the common purpose John describes. And that’s the real tragedy.
The Left of New Zealand is an ideological archipelago of tiny isolated groups, who really only work together when a big protest is required. When that happens, watch out! But other than that, with only a few exceptions, most of these groups don’t individually have enough organisational horsepower to run a corner dairy.
These groups are trapped in what Jo Freeman called, “The Tyranny of Structurelessness”. The Tyranny of Structurelessness prevents these groups from growing, adopting new ideas, learning from their mistakes, or breaking out of the cycle of failure. The scope of their activities is almost entirely defined by the limitations imposed by their formlessness. So banner painting is fine, but business plans and binding policy development, forget it.
Structureless organisations cannot lead a movement requiring the proliferation of worker’s co-ops, because worker’s co-ops are sophisticated commercial and legal entities needing management skills, policies, procedures, marketing, payment systems and so forth. Structureless organisations are good at tearing down, but find it almost impossible to build anything, even themselves. Freeman’s thesis makes it clear why “structureless” groups that are allergic to the very idea of formal organisation will never bring forth a society such as John described, whether it is by Revolution, the ballot or otherwise.
Hence John’s vision will forever remain little more than a dream, and that is very tragic. Because it is a good dream.
The only significant advantage the Capitalists have at the end of the day is the superiority of their organisational technology. If the Socialists could ever properly learn to organise themselves, like the Capitalists once did centuries ago, it would all be over very quickly.
Capitalism sucks, but structurelessness actually sucks more.
Just because the black riders are here in the lanes of NZ doesn’t mean we should give up on ‘the shire’ completely. The Mana party and movement speak for those who do not benefit from the type of economy the black riders have bestowed on us.
The left has been to ready to accept that there is no alternative to no-liberalism and it’s pragmatic inevitability and I think Chris has missed the point of what Minto is saying. He is not advocating for the restoration and protection of the NZ biscuit industry, he is pointing out that we can organize our local economy differently for those who want to define their lives outside of consumerism.
I think a mixed economy can and must be achieved through the ballot box. Nothing can change until the majority understands. Cars will not die out. They will change to different fuels. We do not need to aim for self sufficiency. Trade is good. This does not mean we should be stupid enough to sell the farms. What we must do is earn more than we spend, something deliberately ignored by the destructive globalist system. Ever since Rogernomics NZ has been running at a loss. So has most of the developed world. It is a con. This debate is suppressed by a corrupt media. The media is the problem.
There can’t be a return to the economic past as it was, but there has to be change and the incoming Labour/ Greens must implement it. As for the Commonwealth of Australia, there has been an empty chair left aside since NZ said no thanks back in 1901.
Actually, the CER free trade agreement made NZ effectively a colony of Australia, economically if not politically. Since both our highest political offices are held by the monarch of England, and the NZ parliament is terrified of doing anything independent in case we get punished economically, the theoretical political “independence” of NZ is more a vanity than a reality. Frankly, if we intend to continue with ‘business as usual’, we would be better off becoming a state of Australia, which would at least give us full equality with the other Ozzie states, and some influence over the federal governments which rules us by default anyway.
Alternatively, we could stage a revolution (peacefully by mass civil disobedience), set up a real federal democracy, among the communities of Aotearoa, and as John Minto says, retool our economy around local production for local needs by workers co-operatives. Trade with foreign companies for luxuries like coffee or whatever would be part of the picture – to the degree that’s practical is a situation of energy descent – but on our terms, not the WTOs.
Always thought Tolkien was an idiot – it’s why he wrote such boring stories.
Every community can be self-sufficient within it’s resources base. In fact, it has to be to be sustainable. If it requires resources from outside it’s own area then it is, ipso facto, unsustainable.
Yes, we can be totally self-sufficient and doing so would be cheaper, in real terms, than trade. The only thing that makes it look cheaper to import so much is the monetary system and the incorrect view of economies of scale that it engenders.
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