Farmers as Mini-Monopolists

If farmers were to get the guaranteed profit promised by Beetham they could become mini-monopolists, restricting their production so as to earn the maximum profits possible. This would certainly be paradise for the petty bourgeois — farmers could be small and safe!

The trouble is, that no matter how much Beetham guarantees farmers a profitable price, he cannot control the level of world market prices. Whereas the consumer pays through the nose for the maximised profits of the industrial monopoly capitalists, in the case of Beetham's guarantee the NZ taxpayer would pick up the bill. Or if Beetham chose to run a bigger budget deficit, we would still pay for it through increased inflation.

'Justice for the farmer', in New Zealand's present economic situation is only another way of saying 'give the farmers a bigger slice of the national cake'. Readers will immediately recognise this cry for it is repeated in various ways and with varying degrees of subtlety by representatives of all 'interest groups' on behalf of their own economic constituencies.

There is no magical way in which farmers can be given bigger incomes without depriving other classes of part of theirs, given the stagnant state of the NZ economy at present. The actual amount that each class receives is determined by the daily struggles which dominate the New Zealand economic and political arena.

These struggles take place between exploiters and exploited (workers against the employers and the state), between big capitalists and small-scale business and also within the monopoly capitalist class itself.

These are the realities of modern life, realities which are partially reflected by Social Credit policies, but which are in no way comprehended by Social Credit economic theory.

David Steele