In the wake of the recent freezing workers pay deal we now have the amazing spectacle of a Federated Farmers' official lashing the Muldoon administration for becoming dangerously "socialist". We were told that the state was getting out of hand and involved where it had no right to be.

Clearly, the official was correct inasmuch as the state has increasingly become involved in New Zealand's political and economic life over the last few years. And if one held the shallow views of some "left" Labourites and the Socialist Unity Party on the question of what constitutes socialism one would have to agree with the Federated Farmers official.

However, increasing state intervention in the economy and political and social life is not the result of a secret conspiracy by Muldoon to establish socialism on the sly. In New Zealand society it never could be, regardless of whether it was administered by a National or Labour administration.

No. The increasing omniprescence of the state, which has prompted people like Justice North and Sir Guy Powles into angry eloquence, has been the direct result of the economic crisis into which New Zealand plunged in mid-1974. As the dislocation of our dependent economy has increased and as growing mass struggles on a wide front have threatened the political power of the bourgeoisie the state has been used, first by a Labour administration and now by a National one, to help salvage New Zealand Capitalism.

Extending the State

Whom does the State Serve?

The key role of the state in our society is to maintain "order". It intervenes to pacify conflict situations and to smooth the bumpy path of boom and slump which characterises our economy. In the process the state reveals its class character. The "order" it preserves is the "order" of an economy dominated by monopoly capitalism — an order dictated by Watties, Fletchers, BP, General Motors etc. in a chummy network involving less than 100 key businessmen who control between them the key financial, manufacturing, banking, importing and agricultural companies. It is to protect the broad interests of monopoly that the state exists. The state ensures the continuing existence of the system of exploitation of the majority by the minority.

In times of boom (i.e. high profits) the state is not called on as much as in times of slump (i.e. low profits) when big business needs nursing. The existence of the modern state, with its extensive bureaucracy and wide-ranging powers, is monopoly's medical insurance.

What Happened with the Freezing Workers?

One major area of state activity in times of crisis is the economy. While content to let increasing numbers of small businesses and small farmers become bankrupt, it steps in smartly, as with Tasman's, to prevent the same happening to big business. Overall it acts to protect and raise the rate of profit by depressing wages.

Last year we had the wage freeze. In a change of tactics we then got the FoL-National Government policed "social contract". Now we are faced with the new Arbitration Court and a 12 month delay clause for rises in award wages. Meanwhile inflation is still well into double figures.

It would be wrong to argue from the general premise that because the Government is committed to depressing wages that it will do so in every particular case. This becomes clear if we look at the freezing works dispute.

In this dispute, one hard line section of big business threatened the interests of the majority of big business. The consequences of an all out battle between the freezing works employers and the freezing workers would have been unbearable for the bourgeoisie, regardless of the outcome. The loss of meat production at the height of the export season in a prolonged stoppage would have driven many farmers to bankrupty and considerably worsened the balance of payments.

State intervention, in this one case, on the side of the freezing workers was in the overall interests of monopoly capital. The state does not act blindly, in the service of every small section of the bourgeoisie that asks for its assistance but in the interests of the whole class.

Because the state appears to occasionally act on behalf of workers there are those that go on to argue that increased state intervention under a 'responsible' government could be the mechanism for reaching a socialist society. This is the false hope raised by the SUP with its slogan "social control of investment" by which they mean exactly that sort of government intervention. It is this type of false socialism which the Federated Farmers official accused Muldoon of when he averted what would have been an economically crippling dispute for the bourgeoisie.

The German revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg, warned of those who felt socialism could be gradually achieved through state administered reforms many years ago:

'Social control'... is concerned not with the limitation of capitalist property, but on the contrary, with its protection. Or, speaking in economic terms, it does not constitute an attack on capitalist exploitation, but rather a normalisation and regularisation of this exploitation. "

Maintaining Bourgeois Rule

While we live in a 'democratic' society we are not expected to seriously use our paper rights. The state and its repressive apparatus - the courts, prisons, police, secret police and armed forces - exist to curtail those rights when their exercise threatens bourgeois rule. The new powers for the Commissioner of Police to call in the armed forces to deal with "terrorists" coupled with the many new powers granted the state last year give it all the legal power it needs to completely curtail our traditional democratic rights.

The Governor-General presently has total power to take all the steps necessary to esconce a fascist regime and dismiss Parliament.

But while the state is steadily building up its repressive power through empowering legislation and increased budgets for the SIS and Police, it is currently unable to use it freely. The massive protests against the SIS Legislation last year make its widespread use difficult. The solidarity of workers behind officials threatened by anti-union legisltion (the Henry Stubbs case) has prevented the state from proceeding with even one prosecution of its own based on the new industrial legislation.

The most repressive new law — the abortion law — is foundering completely on the rock of massive public and medical opposition.

Instead of direct repression by the state, the bourgeoisie is presently attempting to gain most of its objectives through more subtle mechanisms. The "social contract" is one example.

The State and Wage Bargaining

Government intervention in wage bargaining has been with us since 1894. It has consistently been employed to the same purpose. It removes the union's strongest weapon — united strike action — and instead forces unions to rely on "expert" negotiators who put their case in a modern version of a three ring circus. These negotiators are made to work with the 'independent' arbitrator and are forced to accept his/her decision.

The "social control" of state-appointed arbitration (which incidentally must keep the 'national interest' as its prime concern) precisely 'regularises' and 'normalises' capitalism. It weakens working class organisation by removing the strike as a negotiating tool and by encouraging talkers rather than doers to become union officials. It wins new allies for the bourgeoisie by integrating union officials into the state apparatus.

Many union leaders, including those in the SUP, indirectly encourage this process through their fear of developing rank and file action in support of their demands. They would rather, as Ken Douglas informed the Masterton South Rotarians recently, treat "people as people " and forget class antagonism — even though this antagonism is growing daily as the bourgeosie tries to off load its crisis onto the backs of the working class. Douglas, in his speech which was reported in the Wairarapa Times Age on 12/4/78 went even further and invited the assembled employers etc. that "if you want to do anything about industrial relations, forget about Trades Hall." That would certainly get rid of that 'destructive' union-employer relationship — but to whose advantage? Treating "people as people" is all right if you start on even terms — but in capitalist society this is never the case.

As processes such as the re-introduction of the Arbitration Court weaken working class organisation the Government will start moving closer to the position where it feels strong enough to use its overt repressive legislation. It is no doubt encouraged in this direction by the growing right ward drift of New Zealand society. The right assault on the national student union is only the tip of a very large ice-berg.

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