Seymour Marches On

Like the few Japanese soldiers stranded on Pacific islands after WW2, David Seymour doesn’t believe the neoliberal war against neo-mercantile ways of doing business has been lost. He chooses to ignore the recent historical evidence of how the economies that tried to enact neoliberal theories (e.g. US, UK, Australia. Canada and NZ etc) fell behind the growth rate of their neo-mercantile competitors. Soon after WW2 farming and manufacturing industries in NZ rapidly expanded and paid the country’s bills and employed almost everyone in a growing population. They generated a path to more prosperity, technological progress, longer life expectations, and a shared sense of interdependence and support. Seymour, on the other hand, appears to want to turn back the clock to "Depression NZ". He seems to favour low wages, longer working hours and shrinking public services to drive desperate people to serve the rich. He does not seem to care about this new "servant class" lowering their own income, lifespans and experiences of well being in doing so. He and the Nats call that "growth". I call it a deliberate act of deception to hide social and economic decay, make it worse - and hide the real agenda of more ruthless exploitation to come! Strangely, enough people believe in his policies to put him and his cronies into Parliament. But the tide is turning - the Far Right is on the rise again internationally, as it was during the Great Depression. They are persuading disenchanted working people, who are these days the casualties of neoliberal policies, not to have faith in democracy. This is dangerous stuff - and history shows it often leads to war and the removal of civil rights. So how can we stop this process of allowing neoliberal policies to be normalised and entrenched in the daily struggle for New Zealanders to survive and attempt to have a balanced and hopeful life - plus still have some left over cash to buy useful and valued stuff in the house and have the time to enjoy using it. What I see today is under-priced imports and social welfare payments being used as a bribe for New Zealanders to remain passive and inhibit local industrial investment. China, and previously Japan, have been the major countries to benefit from traders in Western economies selling out their own country's chance for a prosperous future in return for personal short term profits. The resulting sales tax on imports (GST) appears to me to be paying for the rising rates of social welfare dependency for workers previously productively employed in local industry and paying tax - instead of being supported by it. In a nutshell (where Seymour appears to reside), New Zealand has the neoliberal Act Party in a government coalition and it is strongly influencing government economic policy. Hopefully they will be booted out in this election year, but sadly the neoliberal virus has also infected the major parties of Labour and National. So I think it is time for their leaders to ditch neoliberalism and re-examine the merits of taking on again many of the neo-mercantile policies of post World War Two New Zealand. Recently many successful Asian economies have done this and we have witnessed their incredible economic revival. If they can do it, surely we can too. We do not need to continue our present policies of managing our comparatively slow economic and social decline. Luckily we can this year use the ballot box to be masters of our own destiny. Or will apathy win the day and let the present government back in to continue to play into the hands of our international competitors?