Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 40 No. 11. May 23 1977

George and I on inflation

George and I on inflation

The economic and political situation in New Zealand is inseparable from that which faces the capitalist world as a whole. International recession and reaction is matched by internal recession and reaction. Muldoon may cry "victory" over a fractional decline in the rate of inflation. It is, however, rather like a bubonic plague sufferer admiring the removal of a pimple on his chin. The fatal disease is untouched.

Capitalism is in a state of crisis which reflects its decay as a world system. Sixty years ago, Lenin, in his famous pamphlet "Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism," showed the basis for this decay in the fact that the old laissez-faire capitalism in the biggest, developed capitalist countries had given way to modern monopoly capitalism, imperialism; that imperialism was a system of world plunder by the monopolists of a few big capitalist states, a system which, far from doing away with great power rivalries, economic crises, and class and national oppression, only intensified them to a point where it created conditions for the transition to socialism on a world scale and was therefore "the eve of revolution."

In some parts of the world this transition has already taken place, and flourishing socialist states have been created in China and Albania. In others, notably Russia, after a successful socialist revolution, a restoration of capitalism has taken place and a new imperialism exists, social imperialism (socialism in words, imperialism in deeds.) A new ruling bourgeoisie has arisen there, a class of bureaucrats and managers. Despite this retrogression, the general world trend id still towards the further decay and fall of imperialism. In Mao Tsetung's well known phrase, "Revolution is the main trend in the world today."

Burden Placed on Workers;

New Zealand is moving steadily deeper into recession at the same time and because the world as a whole is doing so. The New Zealand working people are being squeezed, both externally and internally.

It is not news to wage workers that their incomes are steadily falling behind the cost of living. The Muldoons and company declare that because of the recession and inflation "New Zealand" has to accept a lower standard of living. For "New Zealand," read "the wage workers," on whose shoulders the Government is placing the entire burden of the crisis by means of wage freezes, cuts in social services, excessive taxation increased unemployment etc. etc.

What is the Government? No more than the executive committee of the entire capitalist class, whose dominant section consists of the biggest monopolists.

Drawing of a brick layer

All capitalist governments have been "solving" the crisis in the same way as the Muldoons — at the expense of the workers. But in so doing they only make the crisis deeper, more protracted and more insoluble by forcing down the purchasing power of the masses, thereby making the market problem more acute.

Take New Zealand's balance of payment crisis. The international monopolies which run the enterprises of the countries supplying the bulk of New Zealand's imports can and do effectively impose high monopoly export prices to ensure themselves high monopoly profits. These prices have been increasing rapidly. The same financial oligarchy to which these monopolists belong is also demanding a bigger return on investments in New Zealand (e.g. Comalco,) and higher interest on loans. The monopolists are raising the cost of the so-called "invisibles," the shipping, bank and insurance charges on overseas freights. All of this means a substantial increase in outward payments. To balance such larger outgoings, the return for New Zealand exports has to be substantially increased. But this is not possible because the international monopolies have been cutting mass consumption in their home territories just as in New Zealand. It can be seen then, Why such Crises Simply will not go Away. In fact, present tendencies are for a worsening to take place.

Drawing demonstrating the capitalist crisis

Narrowing Market Inevitable.

Everyone knows that the main pillars of New Zealand's trade are butter, meat, wool and timber products. Except for wool, the market prospects for all these items are bleak.

  • The EEC countries have a mountain of butter to shift. They turn a deaf ear to New Zealand claims for preference on the British market. Margarine is also increasing its share of the market. There are evidently no grounds whatever for optimism as to increased returns for butter.
  • A similar position faces meat. On the one hand the New Zealand Meat Board has had to step in to buy New Zealand lamb in the United Kingdom to try to hold up its price level. On the other, the market in the United States for beef is still depressed, is subject to quotas and is unlikely to improve in the face of the hostility of the powerful cattlemen's lobby.
  • Australia takes almost the entire output of exported newsprint. All indications are now that Australia is going to set up its own newsprint industry. If this should happen then this market too will vanish.

CRISIS

The market situation for New Zealand exports is but a reflection of the anarchy of capitalist production, in which each monopolist or monopoly grouping produces to grab as much as possible of the home or world market while forcing to a minimum the basis of that market — the purchasing power of the masses — in order to get a maximum profit. And underlying this contradiction is the basic contradiction of capitalism, that between the social character of production and the Private character of appropriation. Hence the necessity for socialism.

How does imperialist rivalry stand today some sixty years after Lenin's "Imperialism," and how does it relate to New Zealand?

There is ever-growing contention between the two superpowers for hegemony over other countries, for domination over their resources, for exclusive control of markets, raw materials, places for investment of surplus capital, for the more total integration of these subordinate countries into one or other of the military blocs under superpower control. This contention, in time, is bound to lead to a new war. At the same time, the EEC and Japan are prowling where they can, seeking Their share of the spoils of imperialist plunder.

The monopolies of Lenin's time are now dwarfed by inter-state consortia and the multi-nationals, billionaire gangsters which rake in maximum profits from exploitation of the third world on top of squeezing the last cent out of "their own" workers in the developed countries.

As part of one bloc of plundering imperialist states New Zealand has long been able to get a share of the rake-off through the medium of relatively stable high prices for its farm exports, particularly on the British market. But as we have seen, that day is passing.

Tendencies to Fascism.

When a social system is in decline, when it can already feel the hand of its replacement on the scruff of its neck ready to throw it off the historical stage, then the ruling classes of the old order resort to any and every foulness in order to hold on to their power, wealth and privileges.

The weapon of the monopoly capitalists in this epoch, used to crush the rising forces of the proletariat and the national liberation movement, is fascism. No capitalist country, however supposedly "civilised" (remember Germany!) is immune from the dangers of fascism being imposed by internal — not external — forces. The Communist International gave fascism in power its classic definition as "the open, terroristic dictatorship of the [ unclear: mos] reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital."

Whenever the working class en masse rejects the disgusting sham of parliament and gravitates towards socialist revolution as happened in pre-war Germany and Italy, for instance, fascism is the typical answer of the ruling class. It is also the means for suppressing opposition to imperialist war and to the preparation for it.

However, right at this time open fascism is not to the advantage of the ruling class in New Zealand. The workers still accept the parliamentary fraud, though with increasing cynicism. But that is not to say that fascist tendencies, "creeping fascism," are not being pushed ahead.

We see such tendencies in the legislation designed to hamstring militant trade unionism (the only sort the boss fears) and to turn trade unions into ciphers. We see them also in regard to the expanded powers of search and arrest handed to the police, ostensibly in connection with drugs, But Usable also for Political Ends. We see them in relation to the new crime of "unlawful assembly," ostensibly aimed at gangs, but Usable also for Political Ends. We see them in systematic police photographing of demonstrators and compilation of dossiers on them for filing in the Wanganui computer centre, a more direct form of political intimidation by the state forces. We seem them as well in the so-called "riot control" training given to the armed forces. And we see them plainly in the growth of racism towards the Islanders and other Polynesians, and its use by the ruling class to divide workers..

The Communist Party of New Zealand does not doubt that, as and when the impact of the sharpening crisis of imperialism leads the working class to vigorously take up the revolutionary struggle for its emancipation, the capitalists will resort to increased fascist oppression. But "where there is oppression there is resistance!" Our Party is confident that the workers and their allies will be able to successfully counter the onslaughts of reaction and in due course to rid themselves entirely of that vast parasitic incubus on their backs, the capitalist system.