HobgoblinIssue # 7 ISSN 2324-4089 May 2014

Putting People at the Centre of the Economy

Hobgoblin On Facebook

Hobgoblin On Twitter

Hobgoblin On the Web

... click to go ... click to go ... click to go

This repositioning of the state is a far deeper and systemic project than simply releasing the employing class from ‘wage burdens’. Housing NZ’s rôle as a provider of last resort is apparently being transferred to the Ministry of Social Development, while the housing stock itself will be transferred to ‘social agencies’ – the State’s rôle as the provider of quality housing will eventually diminish, then disappear.

Just as the students of today are astonished to learn of the support the State afforded their parents’ education, in the future the notion that the state should have a rôle in providing an adequate housing stock will be seen as an anachronism.

All well and good and abundantly clear - the issue for the Left is not defining the problem; rather determining the response.

The quagmire of electoralism enthrals some while an overenthusiastic interpretation of the various sites of resistance captivates others – neither of which will suffice. A transformative social movement will not arise as the automatic effect of the laws of capitalist motion as imagined by some, nor as an incremental progress as in the classic social democratic perspective.

The development of a comprehensive counter hegemonic project requires, at the very least, tools that address the embedded ‘common sense’ of the neoliberal project (this is not to the exclusion of developing a ‘political instrument capable of raising an alternative national programme that unifies the struggles of diverse social actors behind a common goal’2) and first among these tools is good old ‘organising’.

In this regard the Campaign Against

Foreign Control – Aotearoa (CAFCA) must be congratulated.

Dismissed by many of the self-anointed ‘hard left’ as bourgeois nationalists CAFCA has, in conjunction with the Anti-Bases Campaign and First Union, embarked on a nationwide speaking tour under the rubric “put people back at the centre of the economy”3. The tour calls for “an independent Aotearoa based on policies of economic, military and political self-reliance, using Aotearoa’s resources for the benefit of the people of Aotearoa”.

Not militant demands; indeed a handful of years ago a Labour Party conference would have voted overwhelmingly for such a position. In 21st century NZ however these demands directly challenge the current political orthodoxy; they articulate what many ordinary people ‘feel’ and dares them to imagine a different future - to challenge the embedded ‘common sense’ of the neoliberal project. The tour also demonstrates the possibility of organised labour reaching out to, and working with, oppositional civil organisations.

That this message in being taken into small town Aotearoa is simply the icing on the cake.

The issue for the Militant Left is clear until and unless we can coalesce around a similar project, actively organising the unorganised, nationally, we are doomed to mimic the errors of the past and remain waiting forlornly for the revolution to burst forth – and that ‘wait’ is what I suspect Paul Maunder calls ‘magical thinking’. 

The time is strangely out of synch, Neoliberal-led global capitalism is in free fall towards the abyss, albeit in slow-motion. Off its hinges, but somehow, despite everything, stumbling on. Agents of the neoliberal project have scrambled to re-float the global market post 2008, first through apparent concession to non-market forces, and then by trying to talk the project up again and reinvesting in already-failed market remedies. But the global financial crisis continues, the environmental crisis deepens, and the ‘precariat’, and precariousness generally continues to grow. And into this mix is thrown the 2014 General Election.1

The kleptocracy, ministers Williamson and Collins notwithstanding, forges on with its programme of radical social engineering. The accelerating disintegration of the welfare state -increases in poverty, unemployment, poor housing, and surging inequity – is buttressed by a realignment of the rôle and goals of the state. Not, interestingly given the rhetoric, a withdrawal of the state from active engagement in the economy – but a refocus, a redirection, of state resources. Take, for example, the Treasury’s report on the living wage. "Adopting a living wage”, they suggest “would rebalance the rôle of the employer and the welfare system towards work being the primary mechanism for people to support themselves”.

The egalitarian myths of our national character have been turned on their head – no longer a fair day’s work for a fair day's pay. That is not the rôle of employment. Now we, the two thirds of the workforce who earn less than the average wage, do so to pay tax to bankroll our housing supplements and family support.

By Alan Grant.

1 David Neilson, State of play: a ‘pessimism of the intellect’ 2 Marta Harnecke, Ideas for the Struggle.3 Who’s Running the Show? And in Whose

Interests.

Ukraine – Not quite ‘a Plague on both your Houses’

By Paul Piesse .

Socialists universally have little time for Vladimir Putin, sur-rounded as he is by a coterie of capitalist oligarchs and the arch-reactionary Russian Orthodox Church.

His ally in the Ukraine, the de-posed President Yanukovich, was similarly supported by a faction of oligarchs, and was clearly venal and corrupt. The problem is that he was elected more-or-less democratically.

The US and EU with their political sycophants like NZ sup-ported a coup d’état which brought a new régime to power in Kiev. Indeed, Canadian Professor Michæl Chossudovsky has pointed out:

“The forbidden truth is that the West has engineered – through a carefully staged covert operation – the formation of a proxy régime integrated by Néo-Nazis.”

It would be facile to dismiss that as mere conspiracy theory, but Chossudovsky quotes US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland thus: “We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine achieve and other goals...We will continue to promote Ukraine to the future it deserves”. This was done by funding a series of lobbying organisations, community agitation groups “research” institutes, and the like.

We would be naïve indeed if we didn’t understand that ‘other goals’ and ‘the future it deserves’ didn’t mean integrating Ukraine firmly into the US-EU capitalist dominion.

Similarly, the EU threatened the previous (Yanukovich) Ukraine government that it faced a financial blockade if it refused to sign the proposed pro-EU arrangements, and its UK Tory puppet foreign relations boss, Catherine Ashton attacked that government for not “becoming a predictable and reliable interlocutor for international markets”.

The notorious courier and prescriber of general capitalist interests, the IMF closed off some US$15 billion of credit in an attempt to force the Yanukovich government to stop subsidising household gas bills and thereby to lever Ukraine away from Russian supplies. And the EU’s dominant German Council on Foreign Relations was clear that a Ukrainian association with the EU had to be “under supervision”, and called for “stringent and very painful social adjustment measures.” We all know what that means for working people.

Thus what happened was a coup d’état, not as is claimed by our shallow media a revolution, because there has been no change to the basic socio-economic power and class structure. Indeed, some of the more sure-footed of the Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians have adroitly changed sides. We now see the competing imperialisms of Putin’s Russia and the globally still dominant US with its EU allies.

Those promoting the coup had and have the need for . . . ... click for more

Mana and Dotcom

By Sue Bradford .

... click for more

The first I knew about a possible alliance between Mana and Kim Dotcom’s new Internet Party was

when a journalist rang me for comment in late March.

I was so surprised that I thought at first it was probably a media beatup. However, I was quickly disabused of that notion when I discovered that in fact negotiations were already happening.

It was natural that the possible alliance suddenly became prominent on the agenda of Mana’s AGM due to held in Rotorua 11-13 April, with Mr Dotcom himself invited to make a guest appearance in a keynote slot titled ‘Building a brighter future together’.

Well over 200 Mana members attended the Rotorua hui, as did representatives of the entire parliamentary press gallery. Mana had never before been blessed with such media attention.

Kim Dotcom gave a rousing speech, marked with generous use of the term ‘social fairness’ (‘social justice’ didn’t get a look-in), and stressing the importance of ‘attracting foreign capital’ as the way forward for the New Zealand economy. He also talked about his poverty stricken childhood in Germany prior to becoming a teenage millionaire.

From where I sat, it was like listening to another version of John Key.

I oppose Mana forming an electoral alliance with the Internet Party because you can’t get into bed with neoliberals without being contaminated. Even if the Mana leadership was to remain strong and do everything possible to hold on to the movement’s value base, I reckon once you go down the track of dealing with people for electoral advantage and without a shared kaupapa, there is no way back.

There is a great political lesson from the last thirty years for people on the left. Over and over again people have sold out their core values for perceived advantage – and have ended up compromised beyond repair despite their best intentions.

The Labour Party is still compromised and affected by what it went through in the 1980s when a party that once stood up for working people engineered a right wing economic revolution in Aotearoa.

There are some experienced people on the left who refuse to accept that there were and are problems with doing deals at the expense of core values, and keep wanting to do the same thing over and over again.

The Greens have played the long game more than most, although they have made dangerous compromises at times in ways that were often not immediately apparent. Green support for Labour’s Emissions Trading Scheme was the worst example of this during my time with the Greens.

Cont. P 5 ..

Sue welcomes feedback on her view you can contact her at bradford.sue73@gmail.com

Socialist Perspectives for Aotearoa - New Zealand

By CWI NZ-Aotearoa.

The road to genuine social change

and peoples power By Mike Treen .

The purpose of this document is to give a broad analysis of economic, political, industrial, and social processes in New Zealand today. In our view this type of analysis and understanding of processes can help make socialists and social justice activists better prepared for future class struggles and for building fighting organisations.

The world and New Zealand in crisis

Since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 we have been witness to seismic shocks throughout the world. The financial crisis has given way to a worldwide economic, social and political crisis. Every corner of the globe has been touched in some way, shape or form.

For example throughout Europe there has been intensified class struggle, perhaps most dramatically illustrated in Greece, Spain, and Portugal. In South America we’ve witnessed the return of mass movements in Brazil and a formidable student movement which took the stage in Chile. Millions have been on minimum wage strikes and demonstrations in Indonesia. While in both India and ngland we’ve seen the biggest general strikes in the history of those countries occur over the last few years.

In the Middle East and North Africa we’ve seen a revolutionary wave sweep through the region while in Egypt and Tunisia new workers organisations have developed. In South Africa, after the massacre of striking mine workers in 2012, we are now seeing allegiances shifting away from the ANC and a new dawn of socialist political representation for the masses. This will only be amplified by the passing of Nelson Mandela whose legacy is one of the last things holding the ANC together in a positive light.

In the United States, the centre of world capitalism and where the financial crisis started, we have seen an unprecedented public sector workers battle in Wisconsin and the development of the Occupy movement from New York. Now low paid retail and fast-food workers are taking action for living wages. In Canada we saw a gigantic student movement which took to the streets in 2012 to protest dramatic increases to university tuition fees.

Class struggle has definitely been put back on the agenda as a result of the crisis. The common theme of the period is that governments and employers have sought to make working people pay for the crisis via cuts, layoffs and austerity. While private profits have been protected, ordinary people have had their living standards reduced.

While people have struggled against these attacks the problem is that the working class is lacking a . . .

I want to follow up on last week’s blog which discussed whether it is correct for a party or movement that is seeking a radical change in society in the interests of working people (and all those subject to the various forms of discrimination, marginalisation and dispossession that occurs in capitalist society) to participate as a minority partner in a coalition government.

My conclusion was no because it would mean abandoning the radical critique and vision of the movement and therefore making it harder to achieve even the more modest concessions that may be possible under social democratic/green type governments.

But the question that presented itself, then, is will it ever be possible for a truly anti-capitalist political movement to come to power in the 21st century?

This question is being posed in Greece today with the radical left SYRIZA party close to becoming the largest party in the country. It could well win the next election. If the party tried to implement the programme adopted at its the recent national congress, it would involve a ferocious fight with the Greek and European ruling classes, including their allies within the existing state bureaucracy and military who have overthrown democratically elected governments before. To defeat those attacks would require a gigantic mobilisation of the Greek working people to take power more directly into their own hands through new forms of popular power.

These questions are being posed in Greece because it’s the country that has had the deepest crisis of capitalism over the past decade. Millions of workers have lost their jobs and living standards have been devastated. Fascist groups have grown and more and more of them use physical violence against immigrants and the left.

Some left wingers argue that because the existing state (especially the police and military) is structured to always be hostile to progressive social change it is a waste of time trying to win governmental power under capitalism. All we can do is ‘wait for the revolution’. The revolution in their minds is a form of spontaneous popular organisation and power that emerges as a consequence of struggles by working people under capitalism. They usually point to the example of the Russian revolution in 1917 where workers, peasants and soldiers councils (called Soviets in Russian) emerged in that year and proclaimed their authority over the country at their national congress in November.

There is a lot of truth in that argument. The subsequent degeneration of the revolution into a police . . .

... click for more ... click for more

A paper that our editorial board watched develop over time and while its critical content and purpose have changed the justification for its publication remains intact.

The Committee for a Workers International (CWI) describe the articles’ purpose as a contribution to the ‘analysis and understanding of processes’ needed to arm the “left” for ‘future class struggles and for building fighting organisations’. Socialist Perspectives is a worthy contribution to a necessary discussion.

Reprinted with permission.

In the second of a two part article Mike address both the difficulties of minor parties as junior partners in an MMP parliament and, importantly, flags the issues that will be faced by a truly progressive government.

Reprinted with permission.

We took a granddaughter to the circus before Christmas. I remember one of the acrobats balancing on a chair, then standing a chair on top of that chair and balancing, and so on. I think she got to twelve chairs before making her way down, dismantling the pyramid as she descended. The circus performers were all young Chinese, who had obviously been to circus school. They were very skilful but also remote. They had learned the art of performance; their smiles were fixed, their bowing immaculate. The tent was a wonder and outside there was a bouncy castle to end all bouncy castles, in terms of size, for the children to play on. There was nothing of the grubby old circus with its sense of marginal characters, mouldering lions and melancholic lifestyle, here. As with all acrobatic feats we marvelled at the skill of the chair balancer, but it was a consumer experience, an entertainment. Deeper questions were left, and in fact, afterwards we wondered about the life paths of these young performers. Had they escaped a peasant existence or a factory existence by becoming circus performers? How well were they being paid? Who was running the show?

Reading The Luminaries reminded me of the performer balancing on her tower of chairs. After ploughing my way through it I was left with admiration of the skill involved, and the patience required to perfect the act, yet feeling impatient at the emptiness of it all. The plot is facile, or as some have commented, a shaggy dog story, and neither the author, nor I as reader, became engaged with the characters.

Kirsty Gunn, the Guardian reviewer, wrote: “But the problem is that as we read on, we don’t read in. It is a curious act of double-writing that Catton has achieved – that she could write more and more about a thing, only to have it matter less and less. The characters don’t gain depth as the story proceeds; they slip further away from us.” Gunn justifies this by arguing that Catton thus makes us think about the act of reading a lengthy novel; is it justified to spend this length of time on a fiction? Do we want to engage in characters or simply engage in an intellectual idea about the novel? We are in the realm of John Cage composing four minutes of silence, or the blank white canvas in the art gallery. If the Chinese performer mounted twenty four chairs would it make any difference? Or would she simply slip away from us. We would become bored, begin to think about the reason for us sitting there watching her balancing on chairs, an essentially meaningless act. As Gunn points out: “…this great, intricately crafted doorstopper of a historical novel, with its portentous introduction, astrological tables, character charts and all the rest, in fact weighs nothing at all.”

But that also makes me think of the place of art as commodity in a neo-liberal society, where exchange relations penetrate to every level. All spheres of leisure and entertainment have become an industry, fuelled by consumer markets. . . .

... click for more

National Myth-Making and a New Antidote

By James Robb ..

April is the month when national myth-making goes into high gear in Australia and New Zealand. It was on 25 April 1915 that a combined Australian–New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) force attempted a landing at Gallipoli on the shores of Turkey, as a section of the armed forces of the British Empire. Their goal was to open a supply route through the Black Sea to Britain’s ally, the despotic czar of Russia. The Anzac forces were defeated by the Turkish defenders with heavy losses. Since that time, the event has been commemorated every year in Australasia on April 25 as Anzac Day, a celebration of both countries’ participation in the imperialist wars of the twentieth century.

As the centenary of the Gallipoli events approaches, the frenzy of myth-making reaches a higher pitch every year. A major television drama is planned.

Schools do their part. I hardly dare step inside a bookshop at this time of year, so oppressive are the extravagant displays of national chauvinism presented: the new titles examining every aspect of New Zealand imperialism’s military history; the ‘forgotten wars,’ the role of women in the wars, the general titles on ‘forging a nation,’ the numerous titles for children, introducing them to the national mythology from an early age.

April this year is also the 150th anniversary of an earlier battle, this one on New Zealand soil: the assault on the pa (fortified village) at Orakau in April 1864. It was the last major engagement in the invasion of the Waikato lands by British and colonial forces. At Orakau a force of 1800 imperial and colonial troops besieged a group of 250 Maori defenders led by Rewi Maniapoto, a leader of the Kingitanga (King movement – a movement to forge the Maori tribes into a single nation). As their ammunition and water supplies ran out on the third day, a group of defenders broke out of the siege, and Rewi escaped unharmed, to the chagrin of the British commander. But eighty Maori men, women and children lost their lives in this battle to defend their ancestral land from the encroaching settlers.

Discussing a proposal that the battle at Orakau be commemorated with a national holiday as is Anzac Day, the New Zealand Herald editorialised on April 5, “It is easier to mark a military experience in which all New Zealanders were on the same side.”

Therein lies the Anzac myth. “All New Zealanders” were not on the same side in the Great War, any more than they were in 1864. ” sharing some kind of common interests, is the heart of the myth.

... click for more

As the stench of jingoism and national chauvinism wafts across the country James Robb addresses the mythology surrounding of New Zealand's participation in WW1.

James writes the blog “A Communist At Large”.

The literary circus – a review of The Luminaries By Paul Maunder

REVIEW

theatre and music per-formances, as well as political discussions. Tonight’s public meeting is standing room only.

put People back at thecentre of the economy 

f o r a n i n de p e n de nt A o t e ar oa b a s e d o n po l i c i e s o f e c on omic , m i l i t ary a n d po l i t i c a l s e l f - re l iance ,

u s in g A o t e aroa ’s r e s o u rces f o r t h e b e n e f i t o f t h e pe o p le o f A o t e aroa

People’s Rights Before Corporate Profit

Public Service Not Private Profit

No Unjust Secret TreatiesAn Independent Foreign 

Policy

By Paul Maunder .

..Sweden’s Great Welfare Heist Red Pepper looks at how Sweden's public services were stolen, and how people are fighting to take them back

Mana and Dotcom continued

Never want to miss an issue?

Sign on Email

info@hobgoblin.org.nz

The Tragedy of the Privates, The Potential of the Public A timely new publication from the Transnational Institute

This report co-published by Public Services international and the Transnational Institute surveys anti-privatisation . .

... click for more

services back under public control. Public Service workers and their fellow community members are not only de-fending public services but are also struggling to make them democratic and responsive to the people's needs and desires.

... click to go

Download

Back Issues

... click for more

From South Africa to Brazil, from Italy to the US, in Uruguay, Greece, Nor-way, the UK and in many other coun-tries, municipal councils are taking

But they showed real courage and intelligence in leaving the Alliance when they did, to build a party based clearly on their own Green principles and values, and have outlasted the Alliance by many years already.

One thing the left can learn from the Greens is that sticking to our own kaupapa and forging ahead under our own steam will pay dividends in the long run.

Mana could still move back from the precipice and say goodbye to Dotcom if the party wants. There is a deep chasm between the two parties, with a commitment to tino rangatiratanga and social and economic justice on the one side and support for neoliberal capitalism on the other.

There are policy points in common, no question of that, but the fundamental divide is enormous.

I wonder sometimes if people in Mana understand that in Parliament diametrically opposed parties often compromise in creating legislation or dealing with particular issues, and that such agreements can achieve very good results. My bill amending s59 of the Crimes Act was an example of this. However, such accommodations are very different from entering an electoral alliance.

The Internet/Mana proposal is a win-win for Labour. If the alliance proves to be a flop, Labour may well benefit by picking up some erstwhile Mana votes in the Maori seats. In the reverse scenario, an electorally successful alliance would provide a greater number of MPs committed to supporting a Labour-led government.

In whose interests does this proposition really work?

Before the Dotcom/Mana deal raised its head, I noticed an increasing number of young activists showing interest in Mana as an option this year. The proposed alliance with Dotcom has probably already disillusioned many of them.

People who are interested in working for a different kind of transformational left politics are not going to be interested in a party which is tricked into making the same old deals we’ve seen in the past.

I find it particularly disturbing that many Pakeha socialists are cheerleading for the deal, in part because they see Mana’s historic welcome to the tauiwi left as transcending any other consideration, and that throwing that away will be harmful to movement building in the long run.

My take on it is that the proposed alliance is simply a contemporary form of beads and blanket colonisation, aided and abetted by some who will later look back on their current position with considerable regret.

At the time of writing, I do not know what Mana’s final deci-sion on an alliance with the Internet Party will be. It is up to Mana to make that decision, and whatever happens I will stand by the movement’s kaupapa. However, I do feel that Mana’s hard won credibility has already been severely dam-aged by recent events.

In what remains of my activist life, I hope to work with people from any part of the left who wish to build organisation(s) that refuse to make compromise for short term gain and are prepared to work for the long haul, step by step, slowly and carefully.

Some call that fruitless ideological purity. That’s not what I’m talking about. I simply believe that until we develop our own radical left institutions that can embrace internal conflict and diversity while avoiding dangerous deals with neoliberal capitalists, we’re not going to get anywhere in the long run.

For a hundred years, ABF-Huset on Sveavägen has been the headquarters

of the workers’ education movement, a pillar of Sweden’s ‘study-circle social democracy’. Every day and all evening the classrooms and lecture halls are filled with adult education classes,

Yes, I’m a socialist and want be on the Hobgoblin Mailing list If “no” thank you for your time

we’ll not bother again

Where appropriate

YES NO

My areas on interest

Name

Address

Email

Phone

Mobile

Where appropriate

Employment, Unions, Labour Law

International Affairs,

Social Justice (housing, heath, education etc)

Ecology, Environment,

Constitutional, Government, Local Government

Economy, Commerce, Taxation

Transport, Energy

Other please specify

_____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________

My areas of interest are

My contact details are

Want to be involved?

Return to PO Box 167 Lyttelton or email to info@hobgoblin.org.nz

Hobgoblin: How it Works Hobgoblin is an electronic newsletter best read while online. The majority of articles contain hyperlinks either within the text or at the conclusion of the piece. Hyperlinks are identified by either underlining (when within text) and symbols like this and this Articles written specifically for us are often, because of their length, concluded on the web. These articles are printed in full for snail-mail members. If you a find broken link please let us know.

... click for more ... click to go

“... the (working class) does not

gain class consciousness

spontaneously. . . it gains this

awareness only when it comes

into intimate contact with

revolutionary theory and

practice” Tomás Borge