Fascism and Theocracy are merely the vehicles used to ARRANGE and FACILITATE the agenda of Neoliberalism. We attack neoliberalism (by making sure our countrymen are aware of what neoliberalism is), and the road to Fascism will be a deadend.
A few years ago I was ranting on a blog about the corporate take-over of our government and the resulting policies that have been emerging since Reagan and now being institutionalized as The New American Way of Life: No Middle Class (and everything that portends for this society).
Someone piped in: Hey, the New Zealanders fought off this same encroachment of corporations in the 1980s. That stuck with me these last few years. So much so that it only took me three years to look into it! Call me the tortoise in this tale.
More about New Zealand as our MIRROR after the fold
There is a diary posted here today about Fascism via theocracy and corporatism. See
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I started to response to that diary, and thought, really, the only thing I have to say is that this ENTIRE struggle that we have today is a class struggle. It's about workers vs management. Unfortunately, the struggle is global.
We can't beat these corporatists by responding to the nut-a-rific social and religious ideologies. That is a distractor issue to keep us in our emotional guts instead of in our fine heads for economic reform.
So today I went to see what New Zealand did to fight neoliberalism in the 1980s. Well, it seems that neoliberalism pretty much won that fight.
From an article published in 2004:
Since 1984, we've been subject to an awful lot of economic crap in Aotearoa/New Zealand. "Rogernomics", "Ruthanasia", "The New Right", "restructuring", "privatisation", "labour market flexibility", "teamwork": all this has meant working harder for less pay, longer hours, worse conditions, unemployment, falling living standards, the rich getting richer, increasing poverty...
Readers are no doubt familiar with the appalling effects of the "New Right" (also known as neoliberalism), so there is no need to repeat them here. The "New Zealand experiment", as it has been coined, has been noted for its severity. Aotearoa "out thatchered Thatcher" and adopted the "most thoroughgoing economic reform in the OECD", "free-market reforms more radical than any other industrial country's." http://www.anarkismo.net/...
Now, you can tell from the link that this paragraph was taken from an, eek! Libertarian -anarachist site. Maybe I should find some more mainstream commentary on the New Zealand situation? Ah, and the name Jane Kelsey and her book The New Zealand Experiment comes up over and over again. Seems she's the fly in the ointment in New Zealand and the world. Seems she was a player in helping to facilitate what is considered a collapse in last year's WTO meeting in Cancun. My kind of gal.
I happily found a nice little article she wrote in 1999, 2 years after she wrote the above-mentioned book: http://www.converge.org.nz/...
(God help me if I have tapped into a hornet's nest of pinko commie material, and, egad, subjected it on my friends here at Kos!)
9 Jul 1999
LIFE IN THE ECONOMIC TEST-TUBE: New Zealand "experiment" a colossal failure
New Zealand used to claim credit for being the birthplace of the welfare state, for being the first country to give women the vote, and for building a harmonious multi-racial society.
Today, however, it is becoming infamous for what is known as the "New Zealand experiment." Economic theories which had never been tried, let alone proved, anywhere else in the world became New Zealand government policy--first at the hands of a Labour government from 1984 to 1990, and then continued with equal, if not greater, fervor by its National government successor.
The "fundamentals"--market liberalization and free trade, limited government, a narrow monetarist policy, a deregulated labour market, and fiscal restraint--were taken as "given," based on common sense and beyond challenge. These radical policies were systematically embedded against change. [EMPHASIS ADDED with note: Sound familiar?]
This was a classic structural adjustment program of the kind traditionally imposed on poorer countries of the Third World by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. New Zealand did it voluntarily. The result is being promoted in New Zealand and overseas as a model for the developed countries of the OECD. But those governments and their peoples need to look beyond the "good news machine" and learn the real lessons of our last ten years.
emphasis added
Kelsey then goes into a very interesting - in a déjà vu sort of way for this American - short discussion on how neoliberalism has created an Economic Deficit, Social Deficit, Political Deficit and Social Deficit. Here are some clips, though I recommend reading them all (they are short, and they mirror the same "deficits" that we face here in the USA):
The economic deficit
This was no success story. For most of the decade New Zealand's economy has faced stagnation or recession. Between 1985 and 1992, OECD economies grew by an average 20%, while New Zealand's economy shrank by 1% over the same period.
Other objective indicators show that, between 1984 and 1993, productivity growth averaged around 0.9% a year, due mainly to labour cutbacks. Inflation averaged around 9% a year. Real interest rates remained excessively high. Unemployment rose to unprecedented levels. Net migration flows were negative. Foreign debt quadrupled. New Zealand's credit rating was downgraded twice. Investment as a percentage of GDP halved, and spending on research and development fell to half the OECD average.
The social deficit
Whatever the economic outcomes, the country and many of its people are a great deal worse off. Unemployment and poverty have become structural features of New Zealand life. The Labour government was responsible for the early decline, with rising unemployment, failure to keep benefit and family assistance in line with inflation, and favourable tax treatment for the rich at the expense of the poor.
clip
There is no doubt that poverty and inequality have increased. The number of New Zealanders estimated to be living in poverty grew by at least 35% between 1989 and 1992, so that, by 1993, one in six New Zealanders was considered to be living in poverty.
The political deficit
The political verdict was equally damning. Most voters felt paralyzed by the pace of change, confused by the Labour government's role after 1984, and trapped in nostalgia for an interventionist welfare state which was disappearing before their eyes. While they felt uneasy, most remained isolated, insecure, unorganized, and politically inert.
Critics of the right-wing "experiment" were dismissed as dinosaurs or vested interest lobby groups trying to protect their own interests. Too often the media abandoned their investigative role and became seduced by the market hype. Meanwhile, the "change agents" stacked the deck with fellow-travellers who would defend the new regime against all challenges and critiques.
The cultural deficit
Within a decade, the country and the lives of its people were turned upside down. This right-wing revolution--bloodless, but devastating for those who became its victims--had been prosecuted in the name of "the nation as a whole."
Clip
The ethos of the market pervaded everyday life. Even the language was captured, dehumanizing the people and communities it affected.
It became acceptable to talk of "shedding workers," as if they were so much dead skin.
"Incentives" meant cutting benefits to force people into low-paying jobs.
"Broadening the tax base" meant shifting the tax burden from the rich to the poor.
"Freeing up the market" meant removing all impediments to profit-making.
"Deinstitutionalization" meant closing state institutions and shifting responsibility for their occupants to poor families and communities.
"An open economy" meant welcoming foreign purchasers of the country's assets and resources.
"International competitiveness" meant competing with countries whose economies are based on prison and child labour, grinding poverty, and environmental degradation.
I feel a little guilty for essentially paraphrasing this article by Ms. Kelsey as if that is research. But the brevity with which she is able to bullet-point the results of neoliberalism in NZ is something I think concerned Americans should stay focused on. We have the same thing happening here in the USA. Lucky for the Kiwis, though. They are not a nuclear superpower so, technically, there is only so far that their globalists can take their little economic experiment.
Here in the USA, we, well, we can see that globalism and neoliberalism really have no borders, boundaries, limits. The world is all theirs, theirs, theirs. We can start wars; end wars; rape the entire globe, and the little taxcut beneficiaries in their penthouse apartments and mcmansions don't miss a single pedicure or vacation. We `workers' however are facing big trouble in our daily lives. Serious trouble. No healthcare, jobs, heating, food.
Remember that Libertarian/Anarchist article I linked to above? Well, take a look at it. It's pretty dry reading. But, you know what makes it a worthy read? What makes it a must-read? This is my take:
Essentially, the reason neo-liberalism was not snuffed out `by the people' was simple. The class group known as the `unemployed's' and the `unions' started to work together and they had some serious power. But that relationship was thwarted - whether from within or without, I don't know. Probably a little of both. A lot of both external and internal factors caused the breakdown of that relationship.
So, what might have happened if the unemployed's and the unions had stuck it out together?
So that's what this diary is about. It's about a need for us to stop focusing on the hot button social and religious issues (abortion, gays, 10 commandments as our constitution) being promulgated and even legislated.
To hell with the "OMG they want a theocracy!" If workers are able to protect themselves from globalization, neoliberalism, corporatism (whatever we want to call it), there will be no theocracy. The fundies are simply little brown shirts used to keep us focused on that rather than on REAL POLICY that affects 90% of American's lives. We see what those policies are doing. Just like in New Zealand. Except in the USA, our Social Deficit will be far more debilitating than what NZ has experienced. Amidst all the abject poverty and unemployment, we will be hating on each other. That's the gift to the Theocrats by the Corporatists: Do our bidding and youse guys get free license to hate, hate, hate!
If we beat the corporatists, we beat the nut-a-matics in the radical social right in this country. I believe this.
Kelsey lets me down because in her conclusion "There is an alternative," she pretty much says: "In the meantime, other countries, governments and peoples who are being told that they too have no alternative to the corporate agenda should learn from New Zealand's tragic mistake."
We have to find our own solution. Our own solution to end the economic raping and pillaging of the people in this country and abroad. Frankly, I like the idea of allying the unemployed and unions in a fierce struggle against this. Of course, we have get rid of the union-busters who actually RULE and control the unions.
I guess I am ready to register as a socialist or communist for the next election. I feel it is my duty to THE PEOPLE to do so. How's about you?