View Single Post
Old April 26th, 2012 #10
Rick Ronsavelle
Senior Member
 
Rick Ronsavelle's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 4,006
Default Libertarianism, Kiwi-Style

1. Rogernomics is not libertarianism!

Let me start by exploding a myth about New Zealand's economy: it is not, nor has it ever been, anything remotely approaching a free market. Rogernomics, the name given for the economic policies of Roger Douglas, Minister of Finance in the 1984-1990 Labour Government, is not libertarianism. Douglas was at best a lukewarm free-marketeer and most certainly not a defender of individual liberty. The best analysis I have seen on the economic reforms is the article Antipodean Altruism by Lindsay Perigo, which is also due to be published in the Libertarian Alliance pamphlet series.

The reform process failed because it lacked any underlying philosophy of individual rights. The reformers upheld the same altruistic premises as their socialist counterparts and simply saw free markets as a better means for delivering their altruistic ends. This was famously underscored by a well-known businessman, Sir Robert Jones, who once said to Roger Douglas and a prominent group of reformers something like, "You would all advocate slavery if you thought it would have a good economic outcome." The response summed up the reform movement: Jones was sent a book from one of the reformers explaining how slavery did not in fact lead to good economic outcomes.

As politicians, the reformers remained in thrall to so-called 'political realities,' meaning they would renege on any point of principle and simply force through by stealth those reforms they could get away with. Lacking both a coherent individualist philosophy and the backbone to defend any principles they did happen to hold, the reformers found themselves supporting an even bigger state sector and greater intrusions on people's lives than before the supposed free market reforms began. The reforms themselves can be characterised as a reduction in the big, obvious, direct mechanisms of the state, but a massive increase in less obvious bureaucratic regulation.

And through it all the populace remained as socialist as it ever was. New Zealand is populated by 3 million people and 60 million sheep, but many just say 63 million sheeple. When the socialist majority found itself unable to vote out the reform process, since both major parties promoted essentially the same policies, it simply reorganised to have the electoral system changed to the German 'mixed member proportional' style of proportional representation, under which any party gaining more than 5% of the vote obtains a proportional number of seats in Parliament. Inevitably, in the 1999 elections a resurgent left-wing Labour Party was instated in coalition with an even more left-wing party called the Alliance. The reform process is now in rapid retreat, and the sheeple celebrate while the economy collapses (figures out today show quarterly GDP growth as negative for the first time in several years).

Thus when I refer to the New Zealand 'libertarian movement' I do not refer to the earlier reformers or to their newer political guise - a party formed by Roger Douglas in the mid-1990s called ACT, which has managed to gain about 7% of the vote. ACT stands for the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers; however we in the libertarian movement refer to it as the Association of Compulsion Touters. ACT makes the same errors as the earlier reformers – lukewarm support for free-markets, and a philosophy of altruism and sacrifice of the individual instead of one based on individual rights. That the libertarian movement shares some of ACT's economic policies is almost incidental, in much the same way as the fact that we agree with the Greens on drug decriminalisation, which of course ACT opposes.

http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/44/sturm.php

Last edited by Rick Ronsavelle; April 27th, 2012 at 12:09 PM.