THE NATIONAL PARTY is to be pitied. Those within its ranks whose personal political philosophies match the zeitgeist are inadequate to the task of expressing it. While the handful of genuinely talented National politicians have convinced themselves that power can only be reclaimed by competing fiercely with Labour for the right to implement the same policies. This anything-she-can-do-we-can-do-better strategy is unlikely to succeed. If New Zealanders are happy with a cautious liberal party, committed to incremental reform, then why would they exchange Jacinda Ardern for Judith Collins, or Chris Bishop, for that matter?
If National wishes to remove Labour from office it must be willing to embrace the anger and vengefulness of all those who have not found a physical and/or spiritual place to call ‘home’ in 2020s New Zealand. This will require the party to cease pretending that the policies of the 1980s and 90s can somehow be rehabilitated and set to work with the slightest prospect of success. They can’t. Like the rest of the world, New Zealand is fast becoming ripe for retributive populism. Not so much “New Zealand the way YOU want it” as “New Zealand the way THEY deserve it”.
This is the populism of Victor Orban’s Fidenz Party, Poland’s Law & Justice Party and, less successfully, of Donald Trump’s Republican Party. It is founded on the principle that the past was better than the present: and that unless there is a strong and unapologetic reassertion of the values and policies that dignified the past, then the nation’s steady decline will persist into the future. The truth or otherwise of this core populist assertion is irrelevant since the voters most likely to respond positively to it are aggressively unwilling to entertain anything in the way of counter-arguments. Evidence is for snobs. Real people are guided by their emotions.
All over the Western World there has been an explosion of what the German dissident philosopher, Rudolf Bahro, called “surplus consciousness”. In essence, advanced industrial societies have a tendency to impart more knowledge than they can usefully exploit. Increasingly, those who have passed through all the stages of education: primary, secondary and tertiary; are left knowing much more than they can sell.
In the former socialist states of Eastern Europe, this surplus consciousness manifested itself in movements determined to open up political, social and economic space for the highly educated. In late-capitalist societies, the possessors of surplus consciousness are used to manage and police those poorly educated citizens for whom the globalised economy is, increasingly, reserving only intermittent and poorly-paid employment. According to sociologist Beverly Burris, the role of this new Professional Managerial Class (PMC) is “objectively antagonistic to the working-class”, and that its “most essential and general function is … the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations.”
In the past, political parties dedicated to the smooth functioning of the capitalist system would have looked upon the emerging PMC as an important ally. The unceasing expansion of the PMC in both the public and private sectors of the economy, however, has given right-wing political thinkers cause to question the long-term political trajectory of the PMC. In the process of reproducing capitalist culture and class relations, these highly-educated servants of the system are also radically changing it. Capitalism, itself, is fast developing its own surplus consciousness. Far from integrating workers ever more closely into the capitalist system, the changes demanded by the PMC are alienating them from it.
A globalised capitalist system may derive no benefit from racist, sexist and anti-LGBTQI prejudice: indeed these thought systems constitute a barrier to its smooth functioning. At the level of the nation sate, however, the rational altruism of the PMC runs counter to just about every single one of the social traditions that have shaped its history.
New Zealand, for instance, is a nation state founded upon the deliberate subjugation and dispossession of the indigenous Maori. Racism is in its bones. New Zealand’s emphatically British cultural traditions constitute the bedrock of its Pakeha citizens’ identity. The country’s deeply-ingrained settler consciousness: sternly individualistic; aggressively heterosexual; proudly egalitarian; is not even remotely sympathetic to the politics of identity out of which a new multicultural “Aotearoa” is being fashioned. Well below the official radar, an ethno-nationalist backlash is, almost certainly, gathering force.
Labour’s current grip on the electoral loyalty of a plurality of the Pakeha working-class, as well as comfortable majorities of the Brown working-class and New Zealand’s own PMC, gives the party a huge advantage over National. Its ideological commitment to feminism, anti-racism and gender equality is perfectly congruent with its broader role as the principal facilitator of globalised capitalism within the New Zealand political system. If National is entertaining hopes of supplanting Labour in that role, then “tell them they’re dreaming!”
The National Party’s only real hope of shattering the fast-setting concrete of Labour’s electoral hegemony is to take to it with the jackhammer of right-wing populism. What Labour and its media allies in the PMC will instantly decry as racism, sexism, homophobia, but which National will characterise as the bedrock values upon which New Zealand was founded, will announce to all those who feel put-upon by the PMC and its “woke” avant-gardethat the National Party has their back.
To make this realignment work, National politicians will have to surrender their disdain for the nation’s underachievers. Like Donald Trump, they are going to have to learn to “love the poorly educated”. They are also going to have to learn how to disengage from rational discussion with “mainstream” journalists. Aggressive repetition of a few key slogans – and a few key falsehoods – is all that’s required of right-wing populist politicians. And if they can master the art of representing leading journalists as purveyors of “fake news” as well as dangerously biased “enemies of the people”, then so much the better.
The other habit National will have to lose is its habit of mouthing neoliberal platitudes. If the workers want their jobs protected by tariffs, then tariffs they must have. If the underclass needs bigger benefits, then implement the WEAG Report in full. If the housing crisis requires an all-out effort by the state to build more homes, then resurrect the Ministry of Works and start building them. If red-blooded Kiwi blokes are worried that climate change will require them to give up their SUVs and utes, then proclaim the whole global warming thing a hoax. Tell conservative Kiwis what Dick Cheney told conservative Americans: that their way of life is “non-negotiable”.
It won’t be pretty: right-wing populism seldom is. It won’t bring New Zealanders together: but that’s not the point. To win back power, National must make itself the champion of every person who feels the old certainties crumbling beneath their feet. Every Baby Boomer who feels too old to change. Every Millennial who despairs of ever owning their own home. Every Maori sick of being looked down on because she can’t speak Te Reo, and who just wants a fair crack at the sort of life the Pakehas live for herself and her kids. Every factory worker resentful of the salaries his union pays middle-class kids fresh out of university to tell him he needs to work on his “white male privilege”.
The zeitgeist of the 2020s is rage: suppressed, inchoate, stomach-churning and tongue-tying rage at the loss of, well, you name it. And that’s the trick, National, to name it. But, before you try, you need to get mad. Really, really mad.
God damn it. Conservatives actually showing up to debate in good faith? Do I have that correct?
No denials, no whataboutisms, no downplaying. Just an admittance that it’s exactly what needs to get done. And “surely leftwingers have this too!”
Muldoonism: Make NZ great again? It’d clash with a lot of their existing ideas and general inability to work together. One big Weekend at Bernies type campaign would be bizarre to watch. The Labour Party would more likely take that approach successfully. Then as a foil we’d have Greens and Te Pāti Māori in a purposely not very extreme expression of themselves, barely able to keep the oil and water mix of their views stable. The perfect political nightmare.
Perhaps the next transitional government will be whichever party decides something along the lines that government intervention in the now sacred market is a good thing for overall social and economic balance, and fairness in economic matters have a run on effect to social matters, and not have to find much work to do in pushing identity issues since they’d already be contained in the attempted “fairness” in housing, jobs, welfare, corrections, health etc that overall moves power structures towards equilibrium.
The National Party is increasingly irrelevant, rather like a bunch of dinosaurs living on a planet that has been hit by an asteroid. They felt the Earth shake but haven’t yet experienced the tidal wave, the dust cloud and the volcanism. Those are coming very soon, along with extinction.
Unfortunately, as a consequence of decades of neoliberalism, NZ now has a large, and increasing, echelon that thinks life is what you organise and do via a digital device, a motor vehicle and a fast-food outlet.
Many dreams and delusions are about to be shattered
Everything in the real world -declining oil extraction, increasing planetary meltdown, increasing interest rates, surging food prices etc.- indicates the system is rapidly approaching the collapse point, and the whole neoliberal experiment will demonstrated to be an absolute disaster of unprecedented proportions.
Undoubtedly, there will be many ‘headless chickens running round the yard’ quite soon.
But there’s no telling them. They ‘know better than us’, these wizards of global finance, firmly locked into denial of reality and exhibiting delusions of grandeur, these ‘masters of the universe’.
‘If Yields Rise 7bps Today, Q1 Will Be The Worst Quarterly Rout For Treasurys In The 21st Century’
‘The combined cost of the two parts could reach $4 trillion, and since Magic Money Trees do not actually exist, contrary to what the socialist policymakers would like you to believe, it’s only a matter of time before the move higher in yields breaks all records.’
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/if-yields-rise-7bps-today-q1-will-be-worst-quarterly-rout-treasurys-21st-century
NZers have accepted incrementalism for a very long time what makes you think anything has changed.
The populist votes are definitely there for National and Act and it is very easy to manipulate working class resentment in favor of right wing policies – as long as the framing is on cultural issues and avoid any direct discussions of systemic economic problems.
But this is not something new or unique in NZ’s political history – Don Brash, Winston Peter’s and the litany of anti PC and nanny state critiques have been around since the 90’s.
The only thing that I’d disagree with in the article is the idea that right wing populists ever implement socialist economic policies like a house building program. The key is to win over the disenfranchised using cultural issues to mask the furtherance of right wing economic policies – this can be done with framing – such as “liberating workers” from unnecessary health and safety regulation or “freeing the market” to build more houses by lowering building standards etc.
Trump – despite his appeal to the white working class – did not implement a single policy to improve their economic position. Boris Johnsons answer to “levelling up” in the UK is to implement “Free Ports” – de-regulated zones that will foster tax evasion and worker exploitation. His solution to an underfunded public health system is to sell off it’s operations to private US health corporations etc. etc.
In other words the same kind of lies that we were subjected to in the 1990s, with a slight upgrade.
It’s fascinating that, even as global ‘free trade’ is generating a plethora of unsolvable problems and the enviromental predicament is made worse, the neo-fascists -opps, neo-liberals- still promote additional free trade as being beneficial.
“”or “freeing the market” to build more houses by lowering building standards etc.”” Yeah, look what happened last time the Natz did this – our very own Leaky Homes crisis projected to cost $40 Billion to fix and wrecking a great many lives in the process. Another neo-lib train wreck.
National’s days seem numbered as a major force. human mortality is doing them in, funeral by funeral their dedicated supporters diminish. That does not mean the proportion of reactionaries and conservatives and neo authoritarians is necessarily changing though. Some right wing propensities seems to be hard wired, transferable across generations.
The Nats can try a Trump wannabe route, but ACT is more likely to get such people. Given Labour ‘is not for turning’ on neoliberalism and house prices, 2020 switch voters might just stay with Labour.
As Peter Bradley above refers to, the populists are skilled at professing to “feel your pain”–but they never do anything serious about alleviating the related material conditions.
Hahaha good April 1 post Chris. Advising National to “smash the system” when they are the primary beneficiaries of it. National are the shills of the PRC, Property investors, and multinationals seeking to pillage NZ. They care about money and perpetuating the system & they view the working class with contempt.
I think the tarnish is starting to wear off but the voting public cannot see any real alternative .If you are voting on policy this Labour government is pretty close to running a National like policy. If you are voting on charisma for many Jacinda and Grant comes out in front . Judith and Dr Reti do not seem to be on the same page as each other or the rest of caucus and while I like Seymore he is a bit radical for most and his team is unproven.
I think we are doomed to be lead by a do nothing government for the next few years.
Understandably the left is disappointed that Jacinda has not moved the policy settings significantly away from the neoliberal settlement. I don’t remember seeing anywhere that she ever said she was going to. She dis say there would be more houses and that hasn’t happened, but there is no political opposition out there to attract voter support that is offering any less continuity with the settlement. So any and all aspiring political options are further to the right. She has no serious contestant on the left with any financial creds now that Russell Norman has left the party. They have only wokeist policies.
So if you accept that Jacinda is as Kaynsian a leader as is on offer in the foreseeable , in all other respects of presenting as an attractive, genuine, approachable believable leader , there’s no one out there that has half the appeal.
The changes that need to be made are fundamental, and are constrained by a miriad of international agreements that lock us into a system that has removed the power of national governments to take the steps needed to properly look after their country in the present world economic climate . It is all heading for a re organisation brought about by the failure of neoliberalism to serve the requirements of most of the world’ people. But that day of reckoning is being postponed with all the energy , resource and sagasity the gnomes can deploy. So until the illusion of normality evaporates entirely and the system becomes unworkable there is unlikely to be a concensus that will make it possible for a truly independent national ( as in of a nation) government to undertake those reforms without incurring the wroth and excommunication and hence loss of the ability to trade with the rest of the world. The world that we view as our partners anyway.
I think Jacinda is pretty bright. I doubt that she is an irrevocable ideologue . And I think she is as likely to act appropriately when the moment arrives as anyone in parliament or out of it.
Electorally speaking for the foreseeable future “There Is No Alternative”.
D J S
David Stone: “….Jacinda has not moved the policy settings significantly away from the neoliberal settlement. I don’t remember seeing anywhere that she ever said she was going to.”
Well of course not: she’s a Blairite. It’s been obvious from the outset what she is.
“She dis say there would be more houses and that hasn’t happened…”
Again: we should have seen that coming, I guess. The neoliberal project sees housing as being a private good: she wasn’t about to change that.
Successive governments have abrogated their responsibilities in respect of state housing, and de facto delegated that task to the private sector. And NOW she declares war on investors for behaving like investors? The barefaced bloody cheek of it is surpassed only by the willingness of a biggish chunk of the electorate to go along with that. Kindness my foot! She should take her own advice.
“The changes that need to be made are fundamental, and are constrained by a miriad of international agreements that lock us into a system that has removed the power of national governments to take the steps needed to properly look after their country in the present world economic climate.”
Exactly. It would require a leader with courage, and willingness to stand against the 5 Eyes in particular. Gough Whitlam, Norman Kirk, Keith Holyoake, perhaps, might be those leaders. Ardern isn’t, and never will be. She’s a show pony.
Regrettably, because I see nobody in Labour at present with that sort of character, who could take the reins and steer NZ in the direction in which it needs to go. Yet this is what some of us lefties expected of a left-wing government. If we’d actually got one, of course.
in my view, NZ needs to follow the path of independence and non-alignment. And the only person in opposition who might just possibly be persuaded to follow that sort of path is David Seymour. No guarantees there, either.
“I think Jacinda is pretty bright. I doubt that she is an irrevocable ideologue.”
I don’t share that view of her intelligence. However: my impression is that she has (as the saying goes) come to believe her own publicity. The same thing happened to Key, and for the same reason: they both have/had charisma, and the adoring public would find no fault with either of them. Thus she acts in ways that don’t damage her political capital. Key was the same.
This is why I am deeply suspicious of charisma in pollies. I greatly prefer plain men, so to speak.
The thought of having this lot – and Ardern – in power for the foreseeable, fills me with despair. And the desire to emigrate, even though I was born here. A neighbour remarked that he walks out of the room when she comes on TV; I feel much the same.
Comments are closed.