| By the Left, the Right or in the Mire |
 |
 |
 |
| Monday, 24 April 1995 16:33 | |
April 1995I was enjoying an after-dinner debate in Hamilton when a university lecturer declared "We are all Marxists here!" Then pointing to me, he added "Except him. He's way off to the right." "Not so!" I replied "I belong to the historical left." The benches on the left of the French assemblies accommodated advocates of English laissez faire but at the same time nurtured those who emerged as the enemies of all open societies; those who believe that a centrally planned society must be superior to one allowed to emerge more gradually out of the more English process of 'muddling through'. Then, in the nineteenth century, Karl Marx claimed that the poor would find their salvation only through the vehicle of a nation state which was not only centrally planned, but which would own the means of production, distribution and exchange which at the end of the day means everything. The Marxists presented their total socialism as the cure for those who remained disadvantaged under the new capitalist economies of the time. Because the new establishment of the right defended capitalism against Marx's extension of Jacobin ideology the term 'right' soon became synonymous with capitalism itself. On the other hand, Marx's ideas were so powerful and so attractive to so many, that his proposed solution to the problems of the 'little people' on the Left became synonymous with his economic solutions for the 'little people' and 'left economics' was born. As the idea that socialism is the only cure-all for poverty fades into oblivion except in intellectual theme parks such as Waikato University and Auckland University's Economics Department the terms Right and Left may possibly regain their original meaning. For example, Sir Roger Douglas and his supporters within the 1984 Labour Government were sworn enemies of the privileged establishment our very own ancien regime. They waged war on corporate welfare and farm subsidies. They removed import licensing and high tariffs and so destroyed a whole class of privileged cost-plus manufacturers. They unwound massive central bureaucracies through the corporatisation of whole departments. Those Rogerrnomes were maintaining the traditions of the historical Physiocratic left. On the other hand Jim Anderton and his friends want to carry on coddling the regimes of the civil service, and the health and teaching professionals, while using licensing and tariff barriers to re-crown the kings of cost-plus corporate welfare. Hence they represent the interests of the privileged class and belong to the historical Right. But these new interventionists, who also believe that a few wise men and women, wielding massive central power, know better than the host of people who drive the economy, share the centralist beliefs of the Jacobin Left. Old style Jacobins like Sir Robert Muldoon and the new breed like Jim Anderton love inflation coupled to progressive taxes because fiscal drag provides an ever-increasing supply of tax revenues to subsidise the privileged classes without any need for Parliament to increase the actual rate of tax. For years high inflation transferred wealth from the savers to the borrowers and massively increased the tax take from the poor a genuine 'crime against the masses'. If taxation is theft then this deadly combination of inflation and progressive taxes is sneak-thievery on a grand scale. Which is why Jim and Pam and their fellow Jacobins just love it. Which means that to uphold the traditions of the original reformist Left we have to believe in the fiscally responsible principles of the monetarist Right. Does this mean the centre-left or centre-right is the ideal political territory? Hardly. The political centre attracts those who want to promise all things to all men, all women, all whales, all minorities, all victims, all trees, and any other pressure group that comes along. They proudly and loudly proclaim the benefits of their programmes. But they never count, or even consider, the costs of their well intentioned but destructive laws. Hence the centre delivers nothing except stagnation and the mind-numbing slide into bureaucratic tyranny. By the time of the Reign of Terror those Jacobins who dominated the Left of the Assembly were called the Montagne or the Mountain. Those who supported the English model on the Right were called the Gironde or the River. Those left in the middle occupied the Plain. The French populace called it the "Bog". It's where you found the National Coalition. |
