Next election fought on the economy, not identity politics – why that will hurt the Left
Bryce Edwards will have enraged the Wellington Twitteratti with his latest column in the Guardian arguing that identity politics won’t be the lens through which the NZ election will be fought…
Move over culture wars, New Zealand’s post-virus election will be about economics
For the immediate future, politics is going to be all about economics. In that sense it will mark the return of the traditional left-right politics that dominated the 20th century, before social issues gained the ascendancy. Since the 1960s, politics in countries like New Zealand have become less about economics (or what political scientists call “materialist concerns”) and more about post-materialist issues.
These non-economic issues – debates on everything from nuclear weapons, abortion, sexual politics, racism and environmentalism – never fitted easily into the traditional left-right spectrum.
Important debates raised by feminists, Māori nationalists, the peace movement, environmentalists and so forth also brought into play concepts such as culture wars, political correctness, identity politics, woke politics, and social liberalism. Alongside this, other non-materialist concerns around free speech, immigration, and religion have been central to understanding modern politics.
The importance of these strains of contemporary politics wax and wane, and at various times the culture wars have receded. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, there was a concentration on more basic economic issues. On the left there was a spike of concern about workers’ rights, economic inequality, the welfare state, and so forth.
Such concerns underpinned much of the debate in New Zealand’s 2008, 2011 and 2014 elections. Then, with economic prosperity returning, post-materialist concerns came to the fore again. Issues like gender and ethnic inequality dominated, especially on the left. And climate change grew to become an overarching concern.
In the wake of Covid-19, post-materialist issues are likely to weaken once again, becoming overshadowed by more basic concerns about putting food on the table.
…I’m half expecting Morgan Godfery TO QUIT THE GUARDIAN IN PROTEST, Alison Mau and Lizzie Marvelly to record a protest song calling on a boycott of everyone named Bryce and The Spinoff Mummy Blogger Temperance Union to host a special On The Rag podcast demanding he be publicly gelded.
Factitious comments about Identity Politics acolytes aside, Bryce’s argument bodes ill for the Left because over the last decade Identity Politics has replaced class as its ascendent movement and it’s left us intellectually ill prepared for this current challenge.
At no point in NZs 35 year neoliberal experiment has a moment arisen that so utterly corrupts the very foundations of free market capitalism than this Pandemic. The next 12-18months until a vaccine is found will be an economic depression unequaled in global dimension and where is the NZ Political think tank Left?
What is the intellectual response from our organs of egalitarian power?
The CTU have set up a phone line to dob in bad bosses…
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um.
Great?
I’ve suggested that the NZ Left urgently put together a virtual conference to thrash out a basic policy agenda platform as a response to this unprecedented crisis of free market capitalism and that should be getting planed right now because the Death Cult Capitalists are ramming their agenda through and will throw the working classes who suffer most from this virus under the bus faster than they can say untaxed capital gains.
The Left haven’t had a real public economic academic since the passing of Bruce Jesson and the Labour Party was almost ripped to pieces from the ideological fallout of Rogernomics so the experimental neoliberal hegemonic platform has been unchallenged for the entirety of its 35 years.
Please tell me the Left have an economic response beyond middle class identity politics.
Please.
We’re great at organising petitions on Action Station to free the nipple for PoC vegan cycling mommy bloggers and Trans Allies, not so great at reconstructing the neoliberal hegemonic structures of the economy.
Look, I’ll even draw up an agenda so you can’t screw it up.
Agenda: NZ economy until a vaccine is ready
Mass State Housing Rebuild – The only way to force slumlord landlords to upgrade their slums is remove the desperation of the market. 30 000 new state houses would do that and create mass jobs while upgrading the entire housing stock.
Mass mixed forest replanting – we need this for climate change and mixed tree planting would create huge new jobs.
Ministry of Works – It’s time to stop managing and actually doing, recreate the Ministry of Works and put them to work building state houses and planting trees.
Nationalise Fletchers – This will be the bones of the new Ministry of Works.
Universal Union Membership – There has NEVER been a stronger case for Universal Union Membership, it has been the unions protecting essential workers, the unions arguing for their safety, the unions who have stepped in when bosses have ignored their obligations. Until a vaccine is available ALL workers should be members of Unions to ensure their rights are protected.
UBI – For the self employed a UBI will be the difference between surviving and not. We should have one until a vaccine is available. Labour looked at this during their ‘Future of Work’ conference before they got elected.
Extension of Benefits – Stop the toxic culture in WINZ, immediate reform so that those needing welfare can gain it immediately and lift the benefits minus the draconian punitive stuff until a vaccine is found.
Community Resilience & Whanau Ora – Vast increase of budget to community groups to directly build sustainability into their communities.
Taxation –
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- Financial transaction tax
- Wealth tax
- Multinational tax
- Inheritance tax
- Capital Gains Tax
Bruce Jesson would be rolling in his grave at the lack of imagination and ideas being espoused by the Left right now. There has never been a better time to challenge the fraudulent foundations of neoliberalism, we’ve had 35 years to prepare ideologically for this moment, where is everyone?
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What they need to do for the environment
– tax on coal starting at 10% now rising to 100% in 5 years
– no-registration tax as an incentives for electric vehicles
– increase tax on imported vehicles with low fuel economy (start at 5%, raise 5% per year until it hits 50%)
– increase R&D spending on methane emission reduction in agriculture
– new agency tasked with transferring best farming practices (dairy, dry stock) to poorly performing farms, funded by existing meat industry levy
– increase R&D spending on converting Taranaki economy to hydrogen production from alternative energy sources
– mandate 100% renewable power production within 5 years
– massive investment in energy efficiency (this is by almost a factor of 7x the best way to reduce emissions), including: phase out all incandescent bulbs, subsidise insulation (ceiling, underfloor), free energy efficiency audits from EECA (they used to do this until National canned it, and it was extremely successful)
– massive investment in rail, including: fully electrify all rail, new regional rail networks, new trains & lines in Wellington, tax all trucks travelling more than 100km (start at 5% per additional 50km rising to 100%), fourth line through Wiri, proper rail to West Auckland, Northland, East Coast
– proper integrated public transport in cities – one ticket covering the whole network
– new $300m regional funds for cycling & walking initiatives
– end Public Private Partnerships in transport where they are demonstrably more expensive e.g. the stupid decision by the previous National government for Transmission Gully to be a PPP at 30% extra cost
– virtual power plant such as this one is OZ to replace the winter power payments https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/nsw-virtual-power-plant-sydney-winner/
– start all the environmental reforms on the state and council land and large scale operations first (aka fresh water reform) who have the size to implement the rules. Work out what works for them before getting the paper pushers, with huge fees and impractical policy focusing on smaller sized landowners, (easy targets) driving them out of business! Most environmental destruction is from big business and it’s time that was focused on not ignored as being too hard, or might hurt the big businesses economy, or upset foreign business. Hopefully Covid is the wakeup call to look after the environment!
The poor stewardship of council and state landowners and big business needs to be tackled before they are appointed the overseers of environmental reform! At present smaller landowners are seemingly the only targets for being environmental and being told what to do by councils and state owned land who are laughably providing the worst practices for environmental use while inflicting private practise to write their own cheques (paid for by others of course), to do their job for them!!
The environment in NZ has becomes a ponzi to make money, not actually about preserving the environment, as those with money seem to be able to pollute as much as they like and get away with it. Hence zero prosecution from EPA.
Get rid of all the poverty campaigners and neoliberals in the ministry of environment. The ministry of environment need to get staff who give a stuff about the environment and have huge knowledge and experience of it and are proper environmental campaigners and qualified for the environment, not just networked friends of friends getting a job they are unsuited and unqualified for.
saveNZ, you really need to watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
because there is no such thing as renewable energy (other than eating organically grown food or burning small quantities of wood.
Only hydro-electricity offers any long-term durability. And what use is electricity at a hydro-generation point if the national grid -which is maintained using fossil fuels- breaks down?
All the so-called renewables are simply subsets of the industrial economy; all require vast inputs of fossil fuels to construct and most require substantial inputs of fossil fuel energy to keep them running; very few last more than a decade or two without requiring replacement (involving yet another round of mining, processing and construction using fossil fuels).
And there is no such thing as ‘the hydrogen economy’: it is a con, promoted by the business-as-usal community to keep the masses belieiving there are technological solutions to our collective predicament. The nearest source of hydrogen is the Sun (and good luck with obtaining hydrogen from there). All the hydrogen found on Earth is manufactured -with considerable energy loss- from hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) or by using electricity (electrolysis of water -again with substantial energy loss).
The storage and transport of hydrogen is a technological nightmare, since it cannot be liquified (as hydrocarbons can) at practicable temperatures. Even pressurising it is extremely problematical since its molecular mass is just 2, versus 16 for CH4 (methane). in other words you need a pressure vessel 8 times the size to contain the same number of molecules.
The reasons I have given (as well as very serious safety issues associated with leakages: the tiny molecules escape through valves much, much faster than methane or ethane or propane or butane) explain why there has been much talk about a hydrogen economy since the 1960s but no action, other than novelty exhibits constructed at humungous expense.
As for electric cars, they sure do generate much less pollution at the local level but the pollution debt incurred in building electric cars is higher than the pollution debt incurred for an internal-combustion-powered car. And NZ would still have to participate in the global fossil fuel economy in order to have roads, which are made of heavy petroleum products and are constructed and maintained by heavy petroleum-powered equipment.
This ship is going down but most of the passengers still haven’t realised: some think they can keep the engines running using alcohol from the bar, and some think they can patch the holes in the hull with sticking plasters. .
Sorry to burst your bubble but its better to face reality now than invest time and energy in non-solutions.
As for central government and local government bureaucrats, they are tasked with rubber-stamping destruction of the visible environment and rubber stamping continuing or increasing emissions of invisible pollutants via orthodox dysfunctional thinking. e.g. arranging for the collection of rubbish using diesel-powered vehicles and having the rubbish buried where it will generate methane; operating sewage systems that require huge input of energy to process human waste by biologically unsound methods. And in many cases using vast amounts of fossil fuels energy to dry out waste so it can be sold to the public as compost (in plastic bags, of course).
Other officials spend their days thinking up ways to waste energy and resources on trivial pursuits like food festivals or even worse, partnering private individual or companies in funding and promoting blatantly anti-environmental activities like car rallies, corporatized sport etc.
Some officials spend their time thinking up ways to ‘grow, the economy’, or until very recently ‘grow the tourism sector’). Worship of GDP remains generally unchallenged, despite GDP being a phony measure of progress but a fairly good indicator of how quickly a society is degrading its land-base and pollutes its air.
The paradigm shift required is just too great
AFKTT
You have touched on where it seems to be, well written.
Chasing ways to not change is a neurotic quest.
What we can do is use much less energy and degrowth in population and material resource use.
Learn how humans live with zero carbon foot print because our ancestors did as do some communities today.
Live in smaller communities with simpler housing, local food production based on cooperatives and permaculture.
Forget banks and capitalism and those who want them.
Do not let material wants interfere with providing education nor the best we can do with healthcare. Many technologies we have today will be left behind as they consume to much energy and resource.
Support families not corporations.
If your hungry the snack on the rich who have stolen community assets.
You have not mentioned that Kiwis need to use less energy and keep reducing use of Non Renewable Natural Resources.
Solar panels are short term and not sustainable.
Electric cars similarly.
Edwards’ article ends by mentioning nationalism and NZ First potentially benefiting from it. Having heard snippets of Peters’ speech in parliament on Tuesday (28th), it does seem that NZ First are going to push the message of domestic/”Kiwi” labour and manufacturing, and also exports over imports.
I wonder what the National Party has planned. They were at the wheel during the GFC, so will likely claim that they have experience in dealing with economic crises. But the solution seemed to be an ever deeper involvement with China. And Bridges has made much of his trips to China, of course, but also India and the Philippines. Are we going to have a stronger dose of Steven Joyce-style population-driven economic growth? Are we going to need the borders opening up sooner? Start with Australia then extend it to parts of Asia?
China may have a growing image problem. There is more international noise about trust and whether we can go back to business as normal, and equally, a China that seems very sensitive to criticism. How does this mix with the local nationalism that Edwards’ writes of?
If the election is to fought over the economy, how much of the battle is to be about us vs them?
I think the politicians might think the economy should be about economics, but in my view the narrow short term focus on the economy has been the problem for the last 12 years!
Maybe the wake up call with Covid will actually do the opposite and more and more people after taking 1 month break will expect more from life (and politicians) than the NZ work, growth, profits and growing the precariat class in NZ one Thirsty Liquor, Burger bar, at a time. (They have already turned journalism and many other white collar jobs into precariat ones at lower than minimum wages, now they are going after the working class…) and all steam ahead to keep wages declining in NZ further.
The decline of the working and middle class has been a huge issue not being tackled by government policy. In fact they choose to ignore it and by doing that have created a class of well educated or skilled people who can have less security or be earning less than their peers who are unemployed, don’t have an education or are unskilled.
I read this article in 2015 and have been sharing it ever since. Welcome to the “1099 economy”: The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind
https://www.salon.com/2015/12/29/the_sharing_economy_partner/ I knew instantly that that was going to happen in NZ and thus strip the skilled people from the NZ workforce or render those that stay invisible where there is hundreds of people competing in a tiny nation with poor record of management who don’t innovate, don’t look for the best at anything, they look for the cheapest…
It is so poor that we don’t even have journalists who seem to write articles about it, or if they do, they spout the same neoliberal jargon… build more houses, build more roads, bring cheaper workers into NZ to help business… well they have done that for 20+ years and more and more people are worse off in NZ, wages are declining for most jobs in real terms. Meanwhile NZ has the largest brain drain in the world, but nobody in government now cares. NZ, New Zealand brain-drain worst in world
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/7973220/New-Zealand-brain-drain-worst-in-world.html
Statistics New Zealand no longer measuring ‘brain drain’ to Australia
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/03/statistics-new-zealand-no-longer-measuring-brain-drain-to-australia.html Bring me a latte!
We are now at the point where many experienced NZ journalists are paid per small piece of work (don’t even think of asking for a pay rise) and actually are probably not paid at all or about to be made redundant (RNZ, Bauer group), while Chorus workers which used to be a solid working class reasonably paid job, finds that 92% of the workers are now paid below minimum wages.
In NZ where it is harder to get the competition to make the gig economy work like the US and we have a welfare system to turn to, the neoliberal have created a massive immigration machine (300,000 temp visas per year) to keep the wages and conditions falling. In some cases the unions in NZ have made a u turn to support the visa routs….Thus keeping marching on, a very short sighted road to absolute poverty in NZ and as the US article says “The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind”.
This is a worldwide issue!
The fall of the Australian working class
https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2018/03/20/australias-working-class-grows-as-their-jobs-disappear/
https://www.salon.com/2014/06/04/9_reasons_the_american_middle_class_is_dying_partner/
Good Morning, China! Make That $200 Billion
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2018/07/11/trumps-new-tariffs-on-china-200-billions/#513bcdf0179d
Political Ecology.
What about matter…?
In substance, the coming election will be decided on a variance of concrete climate adaptation based upon tangible socioeconomic and cultural transformation.
And so will be all elections of the foreseeable future.
Ecological conditions determine the economic possibilities, as they have always done. Not the other way around, as some apologists of capitalism may tell us.
Political Ecology. Keeping the differences and relationships between causes and effects always clear.
Regardless what the parties’ election posters – or some political fortunetellers – may try to make us wish believing.
This basic matter is fully understood by a class-conscious, emancipatory Left not taking the bait of being split along different individual priorities.
What the Left in AO/NZ lacks is the organizational platform for critical discourse and joint action.
Having no other option the final election tally will strongly reflect those workers, farmers, small businesspersons, un-employed, ‘precariates’ having difficulties re-paying their mortgages, loans and rents.
There will be many.
Ecological Foorprint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMn59yNwoZ8
Immigration should have been seen first as an economic issue ie part of the free market system forced on us. That would have seen it being treated in a more ational mannerr instead of everyone making wily jabs at people who expressed distaste for the unnatural growth we have invited with our policies, and the effect on employment and lowering of wages, lessening of available jobs at living wages, and callous forced work of all beneficiaries who can move, except those on the old age pension.
Boys and Girls, I agree it is time for action stations, id suggest that if you wanna hurt the Rich simply organize a rent strike.
But make no mistake the Global Economic meltdown is here, The CCP plague is simply the pin that burst the balloon or bubble if you prefer, many pundits are expecting more of a Great Depression than a minor hiccup, we should only protect the basics of life, like food and shelter and not “bail out” or more concerning “bail in” Large Corps that are no longer economically viable.
As far as Whinny goes, will he be able to stay awake long enough to provide stable leadership?, global supply chains are at a standstill, the free market is stuffed for the foreseeable future.
Its time for a change and we all know it, no more corporation RULE say I, no more spy agency control of the narrative (media), no more dodgy election finance from communist china and no more propaganda about fake climate emergency.
Drop the U.N. and the W.H.O. ,that will immediately free up funds ear marked for corrupt overseas unelected dictators, dump the WTO while we are at it and kick the Aussie banksters to the curb.
This is an opportunity to once again have a Free Country with Free education and Viable social security.
Dont buy into their tracking crap thats just another way to exercise control over you, its the cashless society slipped in the back door, long a focus of the global elites, time to head back to a gold standard currency because fiat money is the new toilet paper.
Give em the finger but keep the print WWG1WGA