Political Parties and the State

Both Labour and National have adopted the same overall strategy to deal with the economic crisis. It was under a Labour Government that the first big drop in wages (5% in its last year of office) occured. Neither party has a concrete programme to attack New Zealand's dependence on foreign imperialism — the fundamental reason for the depth of the current economic crisis.

Both parties are committed to anti-union legislation and moves such as deregistration (pioneered by the Labour Party). Both parties are committed to some sort of bugging legislation. What, then, do they argue about? In essence all that is argued about on the floor of Parliament and in election campaigns is who can most effectively direct the capitalist state in dampening class conflict and propping up faltering monopoly.

Even if Parliament were to become a progressive force the key components of the state — the repressive apparatus — would soon move against it. This is exactly what happened in Chile.

In the long term only the complete destruction of the bourgeois state and its replacement with a workers' state can guarantee and extend democracy for the majority, form the political basis for developing an independent and self-reliant economy and ensure the maintenance and improvement of living standards. Only after the political and economic power of monopoly has been crushed can the state (now a workers' state) be used for genuine "social control".

James Morgan