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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 21. September 3 1979

Cross-Fertilization

Cross-Fertilization

The other significant idea of Palmer is his recommendation that the traditional "independence" of the Civil Service lifetime career-oriented structure be changed so that there is more "cross-fertilization" between private enterprise and the government at the upper levels of policymaking. In particular he would like to see some captains of industry appointed directly to the Cabinet without elections. (Incidentally, the doyen of women liberals, Marilyn Waring expressed similar views [unclear: in] an article in National Business Review [unclear: Jua] 21st 1979).

It is not a surprising recommendation a Palmer is so enamoured of the American system of democracy where it is traditional for presidents to stack their Cabinets with former heads and employees of big busines like McNamara, Dean Archeson, Lance Vance, Ball, Kissinger, Blumenthal etc. [unclear: Th] less known systems of similar capitalist type of rule are to be found in Latin America Africa and Asian dictatorships where Cabinets are composed of heads of the military and heads of industry.

I am not here arguing that military government is likely to emerge in New Zealand but merely to point out the trend [unclear: ir] liberal democratic governments [unclear: nowada] where the representatives of [unclear: monopo] capital are not going to be satisfied with just playing a backstage pressure-group role in the formulation of state policies but are now pushing to be represented directly [unclear: at] the centre of political power. And it is liberals like Palmer and Waring who are openly exposing the fundamental contradiction in their type of democracy.

What we are witnessing is the emergence of the corporate form of government in which the state apparatus is being restructured in order to continue to guarantee the hegemony of that small class of owners/beneficaries of international monopoly capital in New Zealand and other Western countries. And what about democracy? There will still be the three yearly ritual general elections in which the general populace will be asked and (hopefully) continue to give the appearance of ratifying policies that must essentially guarantee the continued dominance of monopoly capitalism.