The great comrade Chris Trotter warns us that Autarky can not be NZs future because we don’t have enough self-sufficiency built into NZs economy.
I agree that’s a problem, but it certainly isn’t an impossible problem to overcome.
Yes we need a basic pharmaceutical industry if we want to be self sufficient.
No I don’t think the collapse of western capitalism will occur fast enough via climate change to require a domestic weapons making facility but yes I believe we urgently need to raise our military spending to 5% of GDP.
Yes Māori we’re able to live here self sufficiently for almost a century but I’m not suggesting a subsistence existence.
The naked truth is that Fortress NZ will be forced upon us whether we are willing or not.
The catastrophic heat via pollution locked into our system goes so beyond what the ice core samples tell us that we are in uncharted territory.
Normally heat like this occurs over hundreds of thousands of years thanks to the angle of the Earth on its axis but we have done that in less than 3 centuries!
When the process occurs naturally over hundreds of thousands of years, the sudden and dramatic flip from burning hot to ice age can occur within decades. Create all that power within centuries and we turbo charge those flipping points in ways far more abrupt and damaging.
The rapid melting of the doomsday glacier in Antarctica and the shut down of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will trigger irreversible environmental collapse within decades, not the end of the century.
There is no optimism on the climate front, just consequences now.
With such significant weather catastrophes occurring with ever more whithering destruction, other country’s will move to Autarky, will NZers cheers those planes landing with tourists while burning more climate gases or will they attack the Airports to shut them down?
Look at how every poll in NZ shows over 50% support for a total close of the border from a virus with the low mortality rate of Covid?
The climate crisis destroys environments and makes it more likely and probable that an Alpha virus far more lethal than Covid-19 will emerge – you think Kiwis will
While the globalists infect every political party in NZ, all it takes is one populist spark to breath Fortress NZ into life.
Post growth capitalism with true sustainability calls for Autarky on a burning planet than can’t take anymore globalism.
Muldoon thought big because he believed the oil shocks of the 70s was the future. He was wrong then but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong now.
The US Military Industrial complex simply solved the problem of an Oligopoly by seeding and backing harsh authoritarian regimes with lots of oil so that they could always access cheap petrol making Muldoon’s investment meaningless but The Military Industrial Complex can’t negotiate with the planet as we make it sicker and sicker!
The tyranny of distance has always been our malaise but on a burning planet of constant external shocks the Shire of NZ is looking very good right now.
‘Build that wall’ will soon become ‘defend that moat’.
In 1980, the time between billion dollar climate destruction events was 3 months.
It’s now 18 days.
There is a point where the next destructive weather event strikes before you can rebuild from the last one.
Fortress Aotearoa is coming whether we want it or not.
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The key political question is how to organise for an Eco Socialist run Fortress NZ rather than the dog eat dog scenario familiar from all those dystopian movies.
My suggestion for a good starting point would be Rob Hopkins’ The Transition Towns Handbook
It was written back in 2005 by a guy who was concerned about how his local community of Totnes would deal with the twin threats of resource (oil) depletion and climate change.
He ended up energizing that community to come up with a plan and documented the process.
Instead of focussing on the negative impacts that climate change and peak oil would reap on society as a whole, instead the Totnes community looked for the opportunities in local commerce, food production, energy production etc that the inevitable economic retraction caused by these crises would offer. Basically build back local resilience by plannng collectively in advance.
It spawned a bit of a movement back in the day and it’s led to some really interesting community led initiatives in the UK over the last decade. Arguably it’s influenced some aspects of Emergency Management and Civil Defense response here in NZ.
But the oil didn’t run out…. so the movement kind of petered out once the World got drunk again on cheap fossil energy, high tech and social networking after the GFC of 2007.
Good blue print for how to make local change though.
The Citizen-Powered Energy Handbook: Community Solutions to a Global Crisis by Greg Pahl is another very good book. Again its coming from an energy descent point of view but some really interesting case studies of community led collaboration.
The thought the idea of running around in combat boots, a leather nappy and Mums old sieve for a helmet may have appeal to some.
“…because we don’t have enough self-sufficiency built into NZs economy….”
Is that because four Australian owned banks take billions of dollars out of our farmer generated economy annually, aided and abetted by our dodgy as fuck RBNZ!
And can I add? The irony doesn’t stop there. Australian farmers are our farmer’s competitors so, if one were to allow me to be vulgar and uncouth? Oh go on…? You know you want me to be.
What the FUCK!? Is the penny ever going to drop?
Farmers? Are you there? You’re up!
Capitalism (there aint no Western or non-Western capitalism) isn’t collapsing. It is just being remodeled. Capitalists are still in control of everything, that’s all that matters – to them.
Your living in a pipe dream, NZ is far from any sort of fortress. The only thing we have going for us is that if anything happened we wouldn’t starve to death. NZ should be an extremely wealthily nation, but since our inception we have are opted for rapid growth on the back of loans inwhich have made us extremely reliant and rather indebted to other Nations. A fortress limits the people it allows in, NZ has been at breaking point of migration for many generations which keeps quality of life down as a pillar to curb migration.
New Zealand could truly be a great place to live, but nothing really changes when the population is less then interested in anything. Too many socialists get into power and undermine any and all the work done to free ourselves from debt, to have viable growth and an educated population.
You just need to look at the city of sails, and just how many people are actually sailing around our country. Have you ever sailed a boat? Have you ever sailed from one city to another as a mode of transport?
and which socialists are in the current cabinet lindsay? a list would be appreciated..I can’t think of one and no the woke don’t count before you go down that cul-de-sac.
You were doing O.K until-‘Too many socialists get into power and undermine any and all the work done to free ourselves from debt,’
The Natz Govts hang out the NZ 4 Sale sign everytime they are in power.
They encourage kiwi indebtedness to foreign banks and cultivate foreign ‘investment’.
They stymie the Cullen Fund,Kiwisaver and Kiwi Bank at every opportunity.
Those entities help NZ’ers get out of debt and become self reliant.They threaten the profits of the private,charlatans that prey on debt slavery.
Maybe if all the settlers who have arrive after 1840 leave, then there would be a good chance of a Fortress Aotearoa, could happen. Other than that.
The middle-classes selling out the working class to climb over them to join the rentier club to then become part of wealthier Capitalist classes, we’re pretty fucked if the rules of the game aren’t changed.
GFC MKII is just around the corner.
I agree, hard but not impossible. Three years ago did any of the diaspora think that their bolt hole in NZ would no longer available to them. Nope! Hard decisions can get made quickly if the crisis is severe enough.
Preparation is key to autarky and the worry is that we can react well as a nation when something bad hits us between the eyes but climate change is a bit more like the “boil the frog” analogy.
Defence spending, particularly the navy needs to increase significantly.
Key industries need protection or at least a pathway to independence needs to be thought through..
Fast track transition away from fossil fuels to electric/hydrogen.
Very selective immigration policy should be implemented. Create a bolt hole for the clever people.
True autarky that preserves everything will be impossible so preserving the ability to trade will be important. A pathway to have some sort of NZ inc owned shipping capacity will be important.
Australian banks should be forced out over time.
4 year government term will be important.
An economy driven by autarky will have materially less and we will be poorer, so the pain must be shared equitably.
Govt capacity to build must be increased. We should reinvent the ministry of works or some sort of modern equivalent.
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