"But they will not move towards a new economic and political dispensation unless they are convinced that the politicians offering it are serious, responsible, and competent individuals. Men and women who know what men and women are. Citizens who refuse to divide their fellow citizens along ethnic lines. Upholders of traditional democratic rights and freedoms – especially the right to freedom of expression. Human beings who refuse to instruct other human-beings that 2 + 2 = 5."
Any NZ citizen who watched the Ardern-led polarisation of NZ on racial basis, watched her divide us by those who submit to her will with vaccine mandates, masks, lockdowns etc vs those who preferred to think for themsleves, watched the neo-Maoist propaganda and indoctrination of the "team of 5 million" and the politics of self-declared "Kindness" and "Empathy" while feeling the jackboot of State oppression might take a long time to believe NZ Labour represents anything other than authoritarian State over-reach.
I think we divided ourselves into those people who had a sense of social responsibility and were willing to undergo a fairly minor inconvenience in order to prevent people from getting sick and dying, and those who didn't care about the wider society, simply themselves and their immediate family and friends, who were willing to risk illness, death, and hospital overcrowding because they couldn't take a simple jab.
Why couldn't they take a simple jab? Because they listened to idiots.
I suspect there are very few people left who actually follow the science who still hold the views of the "team of 5 million" as expresed by you here, even Pfizer happily admitted that their product did nothing to stop transmission of Covid-19. Sadly time has proven that the majority of the NZ official narrative and response was firmly in the misinformation category.
But thank you for the tone of your reply that reinforces my point that the Ardern Govt propaganda created a large degree of social polarisation and discord.
I suspect you are wrong about the attitude of people who follow the science!
The role of the vaccination was to provide a level of resistance to the virus so that the impact of COVID was lowered. There is some interesting research comparing the death rate of vaccinated versus unvaccinated people at https://bit.ly/3RLEYpg (Our World in Data) that clearly shows vaccination dramatically reduced the death rate. Thankfully, the majority of official communication followed the data.
Alan you may well be right, however I think with all the various definitions of who is or is not vaccinated the figures are highly unreliable. It is well known for example that people catching or dieing from covid within 2 weeks of recieving a vaccine were classed as unvaccinated, and many deaths were recorded as covid deaths regardless of other serious co-morbidities (including gunshot wounds in extreme cases). People who had not kept up to date with their boosters dropped into the unvaccinated class too. For the people who believe the pfizer products are actively harming people this hazy definition just throws fuel on the fire of speculation and encourages what is usually described as "conspiracy theories". None of this is helpful in ascertaining the truth, and generating a clear and universally acceptable path forward for any future pandemic.
I'm going to assume that you did look at the article (I know, I'm making an ass/u/me), but in case you didn't I wanted to highlight a couple of points from the examples given. My reason for providing them is not to take a position on vaccines, but to highlight the data is there if we want to go looking.
Three countries are directly provided (with links to others): USA, Switzerland and Chile. All three examples contain data only from that country and provide the details of how vaccinated people were and breaks out some of those boosted as separate data points. The data from one country is highly likely to be presented consistently.
For the USA and Switzerland (using mRNA vaccines) a vaccinated person was dramatically less likely to die than one who was not. For Chile, which used the Sinovac from China, getting three or four doses meant a person was much less likely to die.
A question. When you say, "it is well known", where are you getting this information from? I'd like to understand it.
If you don't like the tone, perhaps you could provide us some specifics – i.e. references to the Pfizer claim you make, because I think it's bullshit.
Chris Trotter, you once said you wouldn't allow anti-vax bullshit on your site.You censor all sorts of things – according to you, why not this? Are you turning into Winston Peters?
It's fascinating that in a post about Labour's chances of re-election, my comment that the polariation they created would be a strong factor preventing many of us voting for them again, is answered by people such as yourself with the desire to silence dissenting views and implement the general cancel culture that the modern version of the political Left seem to love so much. Surely you can see that if any Govt is given the power to silence dissent, this same power may well be used against you and your friends by future Govts with views different from yours? It is intriguing from a sociological perspective, and highly dangerous from a social one.
Well first of all, when fact checked your source comes up as "misleading". Secondly, it was actually found that it did reduce transmission. But even if it didn't it's nonsense. Just because it didn't stop people from transmitting the disease doesn't mean to say that it didn't either stop people from catching it, or reduce the symptoms/deaths and therefore prevented hospital overcrowding and deaths.
I wouldn't dream of silencing dissenting views as long as they didn't kill people. Yours do. Some bloke from quadrant.
Incidentally, your "dissenting views" are quite safe here. Chris Trotter seems to have decided ages ago that vaccine denialism is kosher.
I "didn't take a simple jab" because I was a scientist and I knew most of what we were being told was lies. I have not had covid. And just to be clear those who did have it and all the boosters have mostly had covid more than once, proof positive that it didn't work.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us what the lies were? And what your PhD is in? Medicine? Epidemiology? Archaeology? – some of these are more valuable than others when it comes to assessing the claims of the anti-vax ideocracy.
I have a first class honours MSc in human physiology. I was a researcher at the University of Otago post graduation. From the tenor of your posts I'd say you're completely closed minded to anything other than the official narrative, but in case you genuinely want to learn something here goes. For starters, the Pfizer injection was neither safe nor effective. Thousands of people in NZ alone had severe reactions (including death) to the jabs and boosters within a very short time-frame after receiving them, meeting nine of the ten Bradford Hill criteria for causality. Effective: not by any measure of the meaning of the word, let alone the fact that there was NO safety data produced anywhere in the world before releasing it. But hey, I don't think it would matter what references I could send you that would make a dent in your colossal armour of righteousness so I'm not going to try.
GS is a retired teacher and a very old Leftie, so it's to be expected that he always thinks he's right and he loves control - "You at the back, be quiet or I'll have you thrown out of the class".
He's infamous on Chris's Bowalley Road blog for being wooden headed about every opinion he utters. Here he still believes in things like "fact checkers". You'll never change his mind about anything.
"Interesting"comment Tom as usual. Let's break it down a little shall we.
1. Your first 2 statements are of course quite correct, but control funnily enough is something I always associate with conservatives.
But your stereotype is a bit much coming from someone who I doubt would last 5 minutes in front of what we used to call 4 engineering ii. Adolescents have a nose for weaknesses like yours.
Anyway, I doubt if you've been in a school since you left yours – presumably to the relief of all those around. Things have changed a bit since the 1930s.
2.Have you ever come across anyone on this site who's actually changed their mind when presented with evidence?
3.Wooden headed?Y ou have the example of Brendan for instance who is eagerly awaiting theEnquiry into the Pfizer vaccine that was promised by Winston, yet has said that he won't accept the result if it doesn't fall in line with his preconceived notions. Yet I'm the wooden headed one?
4. "Fact checkers" seriously? You put it in inverted commas? How do you check your facts? I suspect something like all - I agree with this so it must be correct.
Because for all their faults, fact checkers do check facts, and their results might not be palatable to you and yours, but their reputation tends to rest on the fact that they are accurate. If you have any examples of the being totally inaccurate please provide them.
Aroha ... Tom Hunter – I don't know what he does for a living, but he's an old –and very arrogant – righty. He is just as wooden headed about his beliefs as anyone on this site, and has never been known to change his mind about anything, even when provided with evidence to the contrary.
Thanks SO much for this - it explains a lot! I persist in answering GS and others of his ilk because I think its important that those of us with views that oppose the "official" narrative make our points backed up with actual evidence. The fact that the recipients like GS will be unlikely to change their minds is irrelevant but demonstrating that we are not tin-hatted followers of conspiracy theorists is a valuable thing to do, in my opinion.
Wow! At last, a political commentator with the gonads to spell out what a government should do to stop the drain of our young people out of the country, to stop the inexorable rise in inequality and to enact logical policy to counter neoliberalism! Well done Chris Trotter. I applaud you!
Chris, you ask: "The omens for a sweeping Labour victory could hardly be more propitious – but is there anyone in the current Labour priesthood capable of reading them?" I think the answer is a resounding NO, looking at the current lineup. Not to mention the spectre of Labour needing the support of the Greens and Te Parti Maori in all likelihood. As I've posted before, I'm 77 and voted Labour all my life until the last election. I no longer believe any government has my best interests at heart and I no longer trust or have faith in our education, health and legal systems, the police force or the public service. All are now under the control, either directly or indirectly, of individuals who are fervent believers in the invidious doctrines of critical theory and it's going to take many years, probably longer than my lifetime, for this cancer to work its way through and out of our culture. I fear for our future when I see young people blindly demonstrating for causes about which they know little and understand nothing.
I agree with you entirely. I was also a long time Left voter, mainly Green back when they were an environmental party, but am unlikely to ever vote Left again for fear of their current views becoming policy. Many of us are essentially politically homeless, voting for the least bad option is not fun but all we have at the moment.
I have childern in their early 20's and what I see of their friend group is extremely encouraging for the future. My tradie son in particular has friends who are far less tolerant of political correctness than my contemporaries were at the same age 30-40 years ago. They are almost offensively 'non-woke', and delight in expressing contrary views. I think there is a big correction stirring up, at least in provincial NZ.
There is a third option, apart from raising taxes and cutting state spending. That is to increase the tax base by increasing productivity. This government is attempting to do that with its RMA reforms and foreign investment initiatives, amongst other things. The trouble with tax increases, beyond a certain point, is that they results in capital flight, which can end up reducing revenue rather than increasing it.
Increasing productivity also has the happy effects of increasing wages and decreasing welfare dependency. It's actually the only viable answer in the long term. With declining fertility, we will not otherwise be able to support our perpetually aging population. Immigration helps, but that well will start to dry up when demographic collapse really starts to bite. I agree with your proposals to increase GST and raise the age of eligibility for national super, though.
Thank you Chris that was a thought provoking post.
I’m not sure if you are familiar with Alfred Lotka and specifically his model known as Lotka’s wheel. What this basically shows is that no amount of money is enough for the government. All that will happen is surplus will just grow the size of Government and its complexity. However there is a limit to how much a smaller and smaller “productive” economy can afford to pay thought taxation.
I already pay 54% between GST and income taxes. The myriad of levies rates and fees consume much of what is left.
We expect to much of government and have ourselves become infantilised adult children. It’s time to down size government, because as I said before no amount of money will ever be enough and the creamy cow does not have a lot left to give.
54%? You do realise that income tax is graduated. If you are in the top tax bracket, 200k for comparison, you are still clearing over 70% of your income in your take-home pay.
Our GDP has doubled since the 80's, yet productivity and wages have declined or remained stagnant. On top of that, New Zealand has one of the highest levels of wealth (both median and per adult) compared to other nations. According to the MoneyHub article linked below, we have among the highest median and per capita wealth levels in the world (the 5th and 7th highest).
Yet, despite this wealth, many on the right still claim to "not be able to afford" what other developed countries take for granted — things like high-quality healthcare (we spend far less of our GDP on healthcare than many other nations) and housing for the homeless. Chris's tax program would go a long way toward addressing these issues, and many of his proposals have already been adopted by the Greens (though, of course, they need Labour's support to get anywhere).
Although I disagree with raising GST or the age of super, we cannot keep claiming we "cannot afford" superannuation at 65 or need the regressive GST raised when we now have twice the wealth of the 1980s (and life expectancy hasn't doubled) - I agree on everything else.
As Chris points out, one of the key elements missing from the conversation is a capital gains or wealth tax. Even the conservative OECD recommended that we introduce one... a fact that Luxon always omits when talking about their recommendations.
A few years ago, A recent Inland Revenue report revealed a shocking statistic: multi-millionaires are paying a lower tax rate than supermarket cashiers due mainly to a lack of a capital tax. The Guardian has detailed this disparity, a glaring issue we need to fix in the second link below.
Productivity often rises with state spending and shrinks without it. Spending on infrastructure, as well as the health and education of its workforce, is essential.
The US, unfortunately, raises it’s productivity primarily through its military system (e.g, computers that eventually went public and primed the technology for smartphones). Other developed nations raise productivity through public spending on health education, housing, and welfare. The list of countries by labour productivity ranks countries by their workforce according to the International Labour Organization: productivity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity. The top nations include those that tax the most, such as Scandinavian nations, France, Belgium etc. (and some that don’t).
The national GDP (really turnover not productivity) figure includes all monetary exchanges. That includes government expenditure so, sure, "productivity" increases but it's a bit of a "snake eating it's own tail" type of deal - even more so if it is funded by borrowing.
A lot of European countries have government expenditure now comprising around half of GDP*, much of it heavily deficit funded and with a strong correlation with poor real productivity growth, weak entrepreneurial activity, poor social mobility and still some serious social problems - housing and violent crime not the least of it. Ireland is a stand out (Govt expenditure at 24% of GDP and a strong fiscal surplus) but they have managed to wangle out some pretty good beggar thy neighbour type arrangements with big multinationals.
While countries are all different, modelling ourselves on those that are clearly falling into a financial hole is not a good idea.
Ireland is a tax haven for corporations due in part to their proximity to the USA and Europe.
Spending does not necessarily mean more debt if the income increases. That is why we need a capital tax, which is missing from our tax intake; this glaring hole is unique in the developed world (bar Belgium, which has far higher income taxes). Even the conservative OECD recommended that we introduce one... a fact that Luxon always omits when talking about their recommendations.
Additionally, we still have one of the lowest debt-to-GDP in the world. And those European nations that you say are falling apart have higher productivity than we do.
After years of helping to ruin the economies – mainly of underdeveloped countries – the World Bank and the International monetary fund have finally admitted that austerity doesn't work except under very, very strict circumstances.
Let's face it, Britain had austerity for years without the least improvement in their economy and then of course help to ruin it even further with brexit.
But GST is a regressive tax and should if anything be reduced. It affects the poor rather than the wealthy, and why anyone outside the extreme right would suggest increasing this I don't know. It's an egregious attack on the working class.
A capital gains tax – fine, perhaps death duties on estates over a certain sum. Getting large companies to pay a fair share of tax by closing a shitload of loopholes. But for crying out loud, and increase in a regressive tax – shouldn't even be considered.
Incidentally, Nicola Willis has interesting qualifications for a finance minister doesn't she? A 1st class honours degree in English literature, and a postgraduate diploma in journalism. Both often criticised as those "useless" subjects by the regressive right. Fascinating.
Remember when GST was 10% and there was "no intention of increasing it"? Until there was.
You are quite right that something has to change. One of the other comments referred to productivity. It's the lack of this and sitting at the bottom of the OECD league tables that is a fundmental cause of our overall wealth decline. The huge increae in the civil service in recent years has not seen a commensurate increase in services or output. I don't think just analysing the size of government as a percentage of GDP is very helpful. Better performing banks and insurance companies are using digitisation to reduce their overheads.
You can point to wealth disparities but we need to be careful not to kill or chase away the golden goose. There are already a lot of barriers to risk taking and adding more like CGT compounds the problem. Maybe at a lower rate might fly. I think of UK union offocials of long ago who thought victory was bankrupting the boss.
So why not be a bit more surgical about reducing the deficit. A super surcharge is worthy of consideration but fundamanetally we must use technology and removal of recent entirlements like working from home to generate more bang for our buck. An example is Wellington Council and their associated water entity. You can't tell me that their ratepayers have received value for money.
Wellington remains a bubble and the new (but old boomer) State sevices commisioner, who has been used by all recent governments, has publicly said we should and can do better. I hope he starts with health and education back offices.
Do you have a sense of how big the share of the state should be?
By the end of the last Labour administration, it had got to 35% of GDP, which is not unusual for a Labour government (but quite a lot higher than in Australia). To balance the books would require total tax revenue to increase by about 10%. So probably not quite the levels of increase that you seem to envisage.
If you buy into the Greens vision of the economy and the size of the state, it would be closer to 40% of GDP. But I personally think that is not electorally saleable. It simply does not fit with the New Zealand psyche.
If the extent of your ambition is to restore the status quo ante 2017, Wayne, then 10 percent will probably do the trick. If, however, you wish to refurbish and extend the generous society in which the likes of you and me grew up, then a great deal more than 10 percent will be required.
Moreover, if your ambition is not to restore the generous society of 1945-85, then what chance is there of rebuilding ordinary people's faith in the present, neoliberal, economic and political dispensation?
Mature reform, or immature revolt? The ground between those two options is shrinking fast.
The 10% increase in total tax intake was based on the 35% of GDP that Labour spent in 2022/23. That increase in tax would pretty much result in a balanced budget.
In a comment on your previous article I indicated that the 28% of GDP in 2017 was too low.
During the Key/English government 30% of GDP was OK. However, since then our population has aged with a significant increase in health expenditure. I would say 32% would now be necessary.
But I definitely think 40% is out of line and beyond what would be acceptable to most New Zealanders.
Chris, I understand your interpretation of the situation, but like the media your version is Chris, I Chris I understand your interpretation of the situation, but like the media your version is inaccurate IMO. Of course we were told the tax adjustments were tax cuts so often many now believe the terminology. Yes the adjustments were used to bring tax takes into line with wages over a long period of time, and had the effect of temporarily reducing taxes, but were not tax cuts. By not making those adjustments, real tax for many had gone up over time as they passed into higher tax brackets. I’m sure those who received them were thankful over this very difficult time that many have experienced. As a lefty you most likely think good, more money for the beneficiaries and everything else, but I disagree, as once again the Labour philosophy is to take more from the only productive section of our economy .
You talk of the cuts in state spending but I can see big increases in spending on Health and Education with the cuts in certain areas trying for more efficiency, something totally lost on the left. I’m not saying all the current policies are going to work but the intent is to improve efficiency. With intergenerational unemployment we should be encouraging the reduction of the welfare state not the opposite. Those are the hard decisions governments should be making, not thinking it’s a hard decision to increase taxes to our brightest and best who are leaving in droves.
Nicola Willis’s dream of using increased productivity to get us to a situation where we can pay our doctors nurses, and teachers more, is far more positive and beneficial IMO, than looking around for someone else to tax. If National get it wrong they will lose the election and we can look for a future Labour government driving us toward that bankruptcy Chris is alluding to.
By the way I’m not against a well thought out capitol gains tax, but the extra small amount of money in the coffers will solve nothing but envy.
It will be interesting to watch what Mark Carney can do in Canada. Seems to be the qualified adult in the room. A strong economy can build and maintain comprehensive social services and afford environmental protections. We have a fragile, indebted economy. Adjustments to the taxation system like CGT and the eligible age for superannuation may be sensible but when only half of the working population pay net tax, I am not sure that “tax the rich” is the solution to our problems. If we are to fulfill our shared dreams, NZ inc. needs to develop more wealth rather than fixate politically on redistribution of what exists.
Nice column Chris and from Labour's point of view it makes sense. I was interested in the Kiwi aristocracy comment and the idea of a wealth and inheritance tax. I well recall the latter and the eay in which it was easily circumvented.
But with house prices at the level that they are, and given that the house may be the major asset, and given that in Auckland at least the value may be a couple of million are these the people who would qualify as "the aristocracy"?
Or are you thinking of the really wealthy folks. You will note I did not use the word "obscenely" because I don't think any level of wealth is obscene. That word introduces an emotive element into the mix, and given property values (even although theyu may be levelling off) there are a large number of people who have an asset value of more than they dreamed when they got started and whose kids will unlikely have the same opportunities (especially if an inheritance tax devastates thir parents' estate).
A H V. your comment reminds me of when I first inherited half of my families small farm in CHB. Of course I only inherited my share and had to pay my brother and sister out, but I also had to pay death duties. A CGT. This was in the sixties and the duties payed on my Grandfathers death amounted to sixty six thousand pounds. A lot of money in those days. The farm has survived but never really recovered from having to pay that debt. It was always a struggle to find cash for fences ect. My son now runs it but is cash poor and I can see him pulling the plug. Did the government of the day and its' beneficiaries reap the benefit of all this CGT. Not that I could see.
Well, Tom, if the Death Duty payable on Graeme's grandfather's farm was $3.3 million in today's dollars, one can only imagine what the farm itself was worth!
"[Nordmeyer] also drastically increased estate duty: not only was the maximum rate increased sharply from 40 per cent to 60 per cent (the highest it was ever to reach), but the level at which the top rate applied was slashed from £100,000 to £30,000."
Sheesh, no wonder it was called the Black Budget by Holyoake. When they got into power in 1961 those increases were exactly reversed. But still, 40% on anything over a £100,000. Damn!
So it would seem that the farm was worth £165,000 or $8.4 million in today's money. That's basically a 168Ha dairy farm in the Waikato, which would be one of the smaller ones now. Hardly the sort of vast estate ruled by landed gentry that must be broken up, and unlikely to be affordably inherited by any children unless a single one.
But hey, if they're going to lose the farm anyway, better the government get its 40% cut, correct?
You'd probably like the paper, Chris, as it's not dry tax stuff but a rather good history of the politics and the arguments as well as the tax, all the way from 1866 to 2011 (when Gift Duty was finally dumped).
Thanks, Tom. I will read that paper with considerable interest. I had no idea old Nordy was such a staunch redistributor! 60 percent! Damn, that's harsh.
Tom. the farm was split in half with my other brother farming that and then paying out the third brother and a sister. My share of the death duties was half of the amount say thirty three thousand pounds. Still a big amount and approx half of your calculation. Cheers.
Flabby leadership, flabby -thinking citizens, you say.
Can NZ be Singapore, or Israel, who on these measures beat us hollow?
These are who we need to study and talk with, not ‘The Anglosphere’.
How much easier, imagining a Labor leadership dreaming about it in a revitalized Labor, to just have a touch, a little bit of the tried and proven! CCP method.
Far more likely than sweet reason widespread.
Small NZ has indulged itself in a hobo of drunken neoliberalism with hobos with bigger capacities.
The CCP way is sipping methanol.
Yes, it does come down to the character of individuals. This matters more than the institutions you long to see healthy.
"The problem is we are living beyond our means and we've created a level of entitlement that makes change really really hard politically.
Therefore, the solution is to try even more reallocation of resources to (Australia) those already giving according to their ability to those who claim to be in need."
Grown up would mean coming up with a real plan to sort our nation with the other grownups and refusing to play silly games of dress up.
You cite the old socialist slogan: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
At present, however, those with the greatest ability to contribute significantly to meeting the needs of their fellow citizens, the wealthiest 5 percent of New Zealanders, are not being asked to do so.
My plan is to do exactly that. Paying higher taxes will not make them poor, but it will make them less obscenely rich.
I appreciate the response and do think it worth clarifying that I implicated the old socialist slogan to highlight the fact that the solution proposed is not new creative or sustainable And to highlight that the solution proposed had no connection to the diagnosis being used to justify it. And to highlight that the proposal did not align with the flourish of the rhetoric - grownups.
The thing is, Leo, that if you offer such criticisms, then you really need to set forth the reasoning behind them. Why is the proposal unsustainable? What "fact" are you referencing? In what way is the solution unconnected to the diagnosis? Otherwise I, and I'm sure many other readers, are left in the dark.
The founders of the post-1945 welfare state understood the magnitude of the task they faced, to rebuild a liberal democracy that had broken down in the 1930s largely as a result of the loss of young people's faith in the future.
(That's why they are still arresting the occasional ancient Nazi in the 2020s BTW, they were mostly quite young at the time: a fact Cabaret gets right with the Tomorrow Belongs to Me scene.)
The magnitude of the breakdown was such that, as William Beveridge wrote in his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services, “A revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.”
A similar challenge faces contemporary liberal-democratic leaders facing a resurgent far-right at what increasingly seems like the last-chance saloon of the late 1930s all over again.
Will the momentary and welcome victories of Labour in the UK, Labor in Australia and the Liberals in Canada be seen as a last-chance reprieve to restore young people's faith in the future, even if it seems "revolutionary" to do so (e.g., a crash housing programme in the manner of the 1930s Swedish Social Democrats, 1930s NZ Labour, a full-throated Green New Deal, etc), or will it be interpreted as a Clintonesque mandate for business as usual at the expense of a Trumpism they foolishly imagine to have peaked already: for "patching?"
In which case, tomorrow may well belong to somebody else.
"But they will not move towards a new economic and political dispensation unless they are convinced that the politicians offering it are serious, responsible, and competent individuals. Men and women who know what men and women are. Citizens who refuse to divide their fellow citizens along ethnic lines. Upholders of traditional democratic rights and freedoms – especially the right to freedom of expression. Human beings who refuse to instruct other human-beings that 2 + 2 = 5."
Any NZ citizen who watched the Ardern-led polarisation of NZ on racial basis, watched her divide us by those who submit to her will with vaccine mandates, masks, lockdowns etc vs those who preferred to think for themsleves, watched the neo-Maoist propaganda and indoctrination of the "team of 5 million" and the politics of self-declared "Kindness" and "Empathy" while feeling the jackboot of State oppression might take a long time to believe NZ Labour represents anything other than authoritarian State over-reach.
I think we divided ourselves into those people who had a sense of social responsibility and were willing to undergo a fairly minor inconvenience in order to prevent people from getting sick and dying, and those who didn't care about the wider society, simply themselves and their immediate family and friends, who were willing to risk illness, death, and hospital overcrowding because they couldn't take a simple jab.
Why couldn't they take a simple jab? Because they listened to idiots.
FTFY
Dear Jim,
I suspect there are very few people left who actually follow the science who still hold the views of the "team of 5 million" as expresed by you here, even Pfizer happily admitted that their product did nothing to stop transmission of Covid-19. Sadly time has proven that the majority of the NZ official narrative and response was firmly in the misinformation category.
But thank you for the tone of your reply that reinforces my point that the Ardern Govt propaganda created a large degree of social polarisation and discord.
I suspect you are wrong about the attitude of people who follow the science!
The role of the vaccination was to provide a level of resistance to the virus so that the impact of COVID was lowered. There is some interesting research comparing the death rate of vaccinated versus unvaccinated people at https://bit.ly/3RLEYpg (Our World in Data) that clearly shows vaccination dramatically reduced the death rate. Thankfully, the majority of official communication followed the data.
Source: douard Mathieu and Max Roser (2021) - “How do death rates from COVID-19 differ between people who are vaccinated and those who are not?” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination' [Online Resource]
Alan you may well be right, however I think with all the various definitions of who is or is not vaccinated the figures are highly unreliable. It is well known for example that people catching or dieing from covid within 2 weeks of recieving a vaccine were classed as unvaccinated, and many deaths were recorded as covid deaths regardless of other serious co-morbidities (including gunshot wounds in extreme cases). People who had not kept up to date with their boosters dropped into the unvaccinated class too. For the people who believe the pfizer products are actively harming people this hazy definition just throws fuel on the fire of speculation and encourages what is usually described as "conspiracy theories". None of this is helpful in ascertaining the truth, and generating a clear and universally acceptable path forward for any future pandemic.
I'm going to assume that you did look at the article (I know, I'm making an ass/u/me), but in case you didn't I wanted to highlight a couple of points from the examples given. My reason for providing them is not to take a position on vaccines, but to highlight the data is there if we want to go looking.
Three countries are directly provided (with links to others): USA, Switzerland and Chile. All three examples contain data only from that country and provide the details of how vaccinated people were and breaks out some of those boosted as separate data points. The data from one country is highly likely to be presented consistently.
For the USA and Switzerland (using mRNA vaccines) a vaccinated person was dramatically less likely to die than one who was not. For Chile, which used the Sinovac from China, getting three or four doses meant a person was much less likely to die.
A question. When you say, "it is well known", where are you getting this information from? I'd like to understand it.
If you don't like the tone, perhaps you could provide us some specifics – i.e. references to the Pfizer claim you make, because I think it's bullshit.
Chris Trotter, you once said you wouldn't allow anti-vax bullshit on your site.You censor all sorts of things – according to you, why not this? Are you turning into Winston Peters?
The specific (bullshit) event was a hearing on Oct 10 2022 at The European Parliament with testimony from “Janine Small, President of Developed Markets, Pfizer.” There are a lot of arguments about it back and forth but the gist is Pfizer did not need transmission data to get EUA. One take of the event can be found here; https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/news/pfizer-admits-covid-vaccine-was-never-meant-to-stop-transmission.
It's fascinating that in a post about Labour's chances of re-election, my comment that the polariation they created would be a strong factor preventing many of us voting for them again, is answered by people such as yourself with the desire to silence dissenting views and implement the general cancel culture that the modern version of the political Left seem to love so much. Surely you can see that if any Govt is given the power to silence dissent, this same power may well be used against you and your friends by future Govts with views different from yours? It is intriguing from a sociological perspective, and highly dangerous from a social one.
Well first of all, when fact checked your source comes up as "misleading". Secondly, it was actually found that it did reduce transmission. But even if it didn't it's nonsense. Just because it didn't stop people from transmitting the disease doesn't mean to say that it didn't either stop people from catching it, or reduce the symptoms/deaths and therefore prevented hospital overcrowding and deaths.
I wouldn't dream of silencing dissenting views as long as they didn't kill people. Yours do. Some bloke from quadrant.
Incidentally, your "dissenting views" are quite safe here. Chris Trotter seems to have decided ages ago that vaccine denialism is kosher.
I "didn't take a simple jab" because I was a scientist and I knew most of what we were being told was lies. I have not had covid. And just to be clear those who did have it and all the boosters have mostly had covid more than once, proof positive that it didn't work.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us what the lies were? And what your PhD is in? Medicine? Epidemiology? Archaeology? – some of these are more valuable than others when it comes to assessing the claims of the anti-vax ideocracy.
I have a first class honours MSc in human physiology. I was a researcher at the University of Otago post graduation. From the tenor of your posts I'd say you're completely closed minded to anything other than the official narrative, but in case you genuinely want to learn something here goes. For starters, the Pfizer injection was neither safe nor effective. Thousands of people in NZ alone had severe reactions (including death) to the jabs and boosters within a very short time-frame after receiving them, meeting nine of the ten Bradford Hill criteria for causality. Effective: not by any measure of the meaning of the word, let alone the fact that there was NO safety data produced anywhere in the world before releasing it. But hey, I don't think it would matter what references I could send you that would make a dent in your colossal armour of righteousness so I'm not going to try.
GS is a retired teacher and a very old Leftie, so it's to be expected that he always thinks he's right and he loves control - "You at the back, be quiet or I'll have you thrown out of the class".
He's infamous on Chris's Bowalley Road blog for being wooden headed about every opinion he utters. Here he still believes in things like "fact checkers". You'll never change his mind about anything.
"Interesting"comment Tom as usual. Let's break it down a little shall we.
1. Your first 2 statements are of course quite correct, but control funnily enough is something I always associate with conservatives.
But your stereotype is a bit much coming from someone who I doubt would last 5 minutes in front of what we used to call 4 engineering ii. Adolescents have a nose for weaknesses like yours.
Anyway, I doubt if you've been in a school since you left yours – presumably to the relief of all those around. Things have changed a bit since the 1930s.
2.Have you ever come across anyone on this site who's actually changed their mind when presented with evidence?
3.Wooden headed?Y ou have the example of Brendan for instance who is eagerly awaiting theEnquiry into the Pfizer vaccine that was promised by Winston, yet has said that he won't accept the result if it doesn't fall in line with his preconceived notions. Yet I'm the wooden headed one?
4. "Fact checkers" seriously? You put it in inverted commas? How do you check your facts? I suspect something like all - I agree with this so it must be correct.
Because for all their faults, fact checkers do check facts, and their results might not be palatable to you and yours, but their reputation tends to rest on the fact that they are accurate. If you have any examples of the being totally inaccurate please provide them.
Aroha ... Tom Hunter – I don't know what he does for a living, but he's an old –and very arrogant – righty. He is just as wooden headed about his beliefs as anyone on this site, and has never been known to change his mind about anything, even when provided with evidence to the contrary.
Thanks SO much for this - it explains a lot! I persist in answering GS and others of his ilk because I think its important that those of us with views that oppose the "official" narrative make our points backed up with actual evidence. The fact that the recipients like GS will be unlikely to change their minds is irrelevant but demonstrating that we are not tin-hatted followers of conspiracy theorists is a valuable thing to do, in my opinion.
phooey
Wow! At last, a political commentator with the gonads to spell out what a government should do to stop the drain of our young people out of the country, to stop the inexorable rise in inequality and to enact logical policy to counter neoliberalism! Well done Chris Trotter. I applaud you!
Chris, you ask: "The omens for a sweeping Labour victory could hardly be more propitious – but is there anyone in the current Labour priesthood capable of reading them?" I think the answer is a resounding NO, looking at the current lineup. Not to mention the spectre of Labour needing the support of the Greens and Te Parti Maori in all likelihood. As I've posted before, I'm 77 and voted Labour all my life until the last election. I no longer believe any government has my best interests at heart and I no longer trust or have faith in our education, health and legal systems, the police force or the public service. All are now under the control, either directly or indirectly, of individuals who are fervent believers in the invidious doctrines of critical theory and it's going to take many years, probably longer than my lifetime, for this cancer to work its way through and out of our culture. I fear for our future when I see young people blindly demonstrating for causes about which they know little and understand nothing.
I agree with you entirely. I was also a long time Left voter, mainly Green back when they were an environmental party, but am unlikely to ever vote Left again for fear of their current views becoming policy. Many of us are essentially politically homeless, voting for the least bad option is not fun but all we have at the moment.
I have childern in their early 20's and what I see of their friend group is extremely encouraging for the future. My tradie son in particular has friends who are far less tolerant of political correctness than my contemporaries were at the same age 30-40 years ago. They are almost offensively 'non-woke', and delight in expressing contrary views. I think there is a big correction stirring up, at least in provincial NZ.
Your last paragraph lightened my afternoon!
There is a third option, apart from raising taxes and cutting state spending. That is to increase the tax base by increasing productivity. This government is attempting to do that with its RMA reforms and foreign investment initiatives, amongst other things. The trouble with tax increases, beyond a certain point, is that they results in capital flight, which can end up reducing revenue rather than increasing it.
Increasing productivity also has the happy effects of increasing wages and decreasing welfare dependency. It's actually the only viable answer in the long term. With declining fertility, we will not otherwise be able to support our perpetually aging population. Immigration helps, but that well will start to dry up when demographic collapse really starts to bite. I agree with your proposals to increase GST and raise the age of eligibility for national super, though.
Thank you Chris that was a thought provoking post.
I’m not sure if you are familiar with Alfred Lotka and specifically his model known as Lotka’s wheel. What this basically shows is that no amount of money is enough for the government. All that will happen is surplus will just grow the size of Government and its complexity. However there is a limit to how much a smaller and smaller “productive” economy can afford to pay thought taxation.
I already pay 54% between GST and income taxes. The myriad of levies rates and fees consume much of what is left.
We expect to much of government and have ourselves become infantilised adult children. It’s time to down size government, because as I said before no amount of money will ever be enough and the creamy cow does not have a lot left to give.
54%? You do realise that income tax is graduated. If you are in the top tax bracket, 200k for comparison, you are still clearing over 70% of your income in your take-home pay.
Excellent article.
Our GDP has doubled since the 80's, yet productivity and wages have declined or remained stagnant. On top of that, New Zealand has one of the highest levels of wealth (both median and per adult) compared to other nations. According to the MoneyHub article linked below, we have among the highest median and per capita wealth levels in the world (the 5th and 7th highest).
Yet, despite this wealth, many on the right still claim to "not be able to afford" what other developed countries take for granted — things like high-quality healthcare (we spend far less of our GDP on healthcare than many other nations) and housing for the homeless. Chris's tax program would go a long way toward addressing these issues, and many of his proposals have already been adopted by the Greens (though, of course, they need Labour's support to get anywhere).
Although I disagree with raising GST or the age of super, we cannot keep claiming we "cannot afford" superannuation at 65 or need the regressive GST raised when we now have twice the wealth of the 1980s (and life expectancy hasn't doubled) - I agree on everything else.
As Chris points out, one of the key elements missing from the conversation is a capital gains or wealth tax. Even the conservative OECD recommended that we introduce one... a fact that Luxon always omits when talking about their recommendations.
A few years ago, A recent Inland Revenue report revealed a shocking statistic: multi-millionaires are paying a lower tax rate than supermarket cashiers due mainly to a lack of a capital tax. The Guardian has detailed this disparity, a glaring issue we need to fix in the second link below.
https://www.moneyhub.co.nz/average-new-zealand-net-worth-by-age.html#:~:text=Wealth%20is%20defined%20as%20the,Hong%20Kong%2C%20at%20US%24202%2C525. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/27/new-zealands-millionaires-pay-lower-tax-rates-than-cashiers-its-time-to-fix-the-system
Productivity often rises with state spending and shrinks without it. Spending on infrastructure, as well as the health and education of its workforce, is essential.
The US, unfortunately, raises it’s productivity primarily through its military system (e.g, computers that eventually went public and primed the technology for smartphones). Other developed nations raise productivity through public spending on health education, housing, and welfare. The list of countries by labour productivity ranks countries by their workforce according to the International Labour Organization: productivity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity. The top nations include those that tax the most, such as Scandinavian nations, France, Belgium etc. (and some that don’t).
"Productivity often rises with state spending"
The national GDP (really turnover not productivity) figure includes all monetary exchanges. That includes government expenditure so, sure, "productivity" increases but it's a bit of a "snake eating it's own tail" type of deal - even more so if it is funded by borrowing.
A lot of European countries have government expenditure now comprising around half of GDP*, much of it heavily deficit funded and with a strong correlation with poor real productivity growth, weak entrepreneurial activity, poor social mobility and still some serious social problems - housing and violent crime not the least of it. Ireland is a stand out (Govt expenditure at 24% of GDP and a strong fiscal surplus) but they have managed to wangle out some pretty good beggar thy neighbour type arrangements with big multinationals.
While countries are all different, modelling ourselves on those that are clearly falling into a financial hole is not a good idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP
Ireland is a tax haven for corporations due in part to their proximity to the USA and Europe.
Spending does not necessarily mean more debt if the income increases. That is why we need a capital tax, which is missing from our tax intake; this glaring hole is unique in the developed world (bar Belgium, which has far higher income taxes). Even the conservative OECD recommended that we introduce one... a fact that Luxon always omits when talking about their recommendations.
A few years ago, A recent Inland Revenue report revealed a shocking statistic: multi-millionaires are paying a lower tax rate than supermarket cashiers due mainly to a lack of a capital tax. The Guardian has detailed this disparity, a glaring issue we need to fix. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/27/new-zealands-millionaires-pay-lower-tax-rates-than-cashiers-its-time-to-fix-the-system
Additionally, we still have one of the lowest debt-to-GDP in the world. And those European nations that you say are falling apart have higher productivity than we do.
After years of helping to ruin the economies – mainly of underdeveloped countries – the World Bank and the International monetary fund have finally admitted that austerity doesn't work except under very, very strict circumstances.
Let's face it, Britain had austerity for years without the least improvement in their economy and then of course help to ruin it even further with brexit.
But GST is a regressive tax and should if anything be reduced. It affects the poor rather than the wealthy, and why anyone outside the extreme right would suggest increasing this I don't know. It's an egregious attack on the working class.
A capital gains tax – fine, perhaps death duties on estates over a certain sum. Getting large companies to pay a fair share of tax by closing a shitload of loopholes. But for crying out loud, and increase in a regressive tax – shouldn't even be considered.
Incidentally, Nicola Willis has interesting qualifications for a finance minister doesn't she? A 1st class honours degree in English literature, and a postgraduate diploma in journalism. Both often criticised as those "useless" subjects by the regressive right. Fascinating.
Remember when GST was 10% and there was "no intention of increasing it"? Until there was.
Chris,
You are quite right that something has to change. One of the other comments referred to productivity. It's the lack of this and sitting at the bottom of the OECD league tables that is a fundmental cause of our overall wealth decline. The huge increae in the civil service in recent years has not seen a commensurate increase in services or output. I don't think just analysing the size of government as a percentage of GDP is very helpful. Better performing banks and insurance companies are using digitisation to reduce their overheads.
You can point to wealth disparities but we need to be careful not to kill or chase away the golden goose. There are already a lot of barriers to risk taking and adding more like CGT compounds the problem. Maybe at a lower rate might fly. I think of UK union offocials of long ago who thought victory was bankrupting the boss.
So why not be a bit more surgical about reducing the deficit. A super surcharge is worthy of consideration but fundamanetally we must use technology and removal of recent entirlements like working from home to generate more bang for our buck. An example is Wellington Council and their associated water entity. You can't tell me that their ratepayers have received value for money.
Wellington remains a bubble and the new (but old boomer) State sevices commisioner, who has been used by all recent governments, has publicly said we should and can do better. I hope he starts with health and education back offices.
Graeme
Do you have a sense of how big the share of the state should be?
By the end of the last Labour administration, it had got to 35% of GDP, which is not unusual for a Labour government (but quite a lot higher than in Australia). To balance the books would require total tax revenue to increase by about 10%. So probably not quite the levels of increase that you seem to envisage.
If you buy into the Greens vision of the economy and the size of the state, it would be closer to 40% of GDP. But I personally think that is not electorally saleable. It simply does not fit with the New Zealand psyche.
If the extent of your ambition is to restore the status quo ante 2017, Wayne, then 10 percent will probably do the trick. If, however, you wish to refurbish and extend the generous society in which the likes of you and me grew up, then a great deal more than 10 percent will be required.
Moreover, if your ambition is not to restore the generous society of 1945-85, then what chance is there of rebuilding ordinary people's faith in the present, neoliberal, economic and political dispensation?
Mature reform, or immature revolt? The ground between those two options is shrinking fast.
The 10% increase in total tax intake was based on the 35% of GDP that Labour spent in 2022/23. That increase in tax would pretty much result in a balanced budget.
In a comment on your previous article I indicated that the 28% of GDP in 2017 was too low.
During the Key/English government 30% of GDP was OK. However, since then our population has aged with a significant increase in health expenditure. I would say 32% would now be necessary.
But I definitely think 40% is out of line and beyond what would be acceptable to most New Zealanders.
Chris, I understand your interpretation of the situation, but like the media your version is Chris, I Chris I understand your interpretation of the situation, but like the media your version is inaccurate IMO. Of course we were told the tax adjustments were tax cuts so often many now believe the terminology. Yes the adjustments were used to bring tax takes into line with wages over a long period of time, and had the effect of temporarily reducing taxes, but were not tax cuts. By not making those adjustments, real tax for many had gone up over time as they passed into higher tax brackets. I’m sure those who received them were thankful over this very difficult time that many have experienced. As a lefty you most likely think good, more money for the beneficiaries and everything else, but I disagree, as once again the Labour philosophy is to take more from the only productive section of our economy .
You talk of the cuts in state spending but I can see big increases in spending on Health and Education with the cuts in certain areas trying for more efficiency, something totally lost on the left. I’m not saying all the current policies are going to work but the intent is to improve efficiency. With intergenerational unemployment we should be encouraging the reduction of the welfare state not the opposite. Those are the hard decisions governments should be making, not thinking it’s a hard decision to increase taxes to our brightest and best who are leaving in droves.
Nicola Willis’s dream of using increased productivity to get us to a situation where we can pay our doctors nurses, and teachers more, is far more positive and beneficial IMO, than looking around for someone else to tax. If National get it wrong they will lose the election and we can look for a future Labour government driving us toward that bankruptcy Chris is alluding to.
By the way I’m not against a well thought out capitol gains tax, but the extra small amount of money in the coffers will solve nothing but envy.
.
It will be interesting to watch what Mark Carney can do in Canada. Seems to be the qualified adult in the room. A strong economy can build and maintain comprehensive social services and afford environmental protections. We have a fragile, indebted economy. Adjustments to the taxation system like CGT and the eligible age for superannuation may be sensible but when only half of the working population pay net tax, I am not sure that “tax the rich” is the solution to our problems. If we are to fulfill our shared dreams, NZ inc. needs to develop more wealth rather than fixate politically on redistribution of what exists.
Nice column Chris and from Labour's point of view it makes sense. I was interested in the Kiwi aristocracy comment and the idea of a wealth and inheritance tax. I well recall the latter and the eay in which it was easily circumvented.
But with house prices at the level that they are, and given that the house may be the major asset, and given that in Auckland at least the value may be a couple of million are these the people who would qualify as "the aristocracy"?
Or are you thinking of the really wealthy folks. You will note I did not use the word "obscenely" because I don't think any level of wealth is obscene. That word introduces an emotive element into the mix, and given property values (even although theyu may be levelling off) there are a large number of people who have an asset value of more than they dreamed when they got started and whose kids will unlikely have the same opportunities (especially if an inheritance tax devastates thir parents' estate).
A H V. your comment reminds me of when I first inherited half of my families small farm in CHB. Of course I only inherited my share and had to pay my brother and sister out, but I also had to pay death duties. A CGT. This was in the sixties and the duties payed on my Grandfathers death amounted to sixty six thousand pounds. A lot of money in those days. The farm has survived but never really recovered from having to pay that debt. It was always a struggle to find cash for fences ect. My son now runs it but is cash poor and I can see him pulling the plug. Did the government of the day and its' beneficiaries reap the benefit of all this CGT. Not that I could see.
I ran the numbers on the Reserve Bank inflation calculator and picked mid-1965 as the year:
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/about-monetary-policy/inflation-calculator
That's $3,349,834 in today's money. Crippled is right.
Well, Tom, if the Death Duty payable on Graeme's grandfather's farm was $3.3 million in today's dollars, one can only imagine what the farm itself was worth!
Perhaps Graeme can answer that?
However, thanks to the Interwebby and Auckland Law School there's a paper called "The History of Death Duties and Gift Duty in New Zealand"
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2439053 (download or open the PDF)
With this appropriate piece of history:
"[Nordmeyer] also drastically increased estate duty: not only was the maximum rate increased sharply from 40 per cent to 60 per cent (the highest it was ever to reach), but the level at which the top rate applied was slashed from £100,000 to £30,000."
Sheesh, no wonder it was called the Black Budget by Holyoake. When they got into power in 1961 those increases were exactly reversed. But still, 40% on anything over a £100,000. Damn!
So it would seem that the farm was worth £165,000 or $8.4 million in today's money. That's basically a 168Ha dairy farm in the Waikato, which would be one of the smaller ones now. Hardly the sort of vast estate ruled by landed gentry that must be broken up, and unlikely to be affordably inherited by any children unless a single one.
But hey, if they're going to lose the farm anyway, better the government get its 40% cut, correct?
You'd probably like the paper, Chris, as it's not dry tax stuff but a rather good history of the politics and the arguments as well as the tax, all the way from 1866 to 2011 (when Gift Duty was finally dumped).
Thanks, Tom. I will read that paper with considerable interest. I had no idea old Nordy was such a staunch redistributor! 60 percent! Damn, that's harsh.
Tom. the farm was split in half with my other brother farming that and then paying out the third brother and a sister. My share of the death duties was half of the amount say thirty three thousand pounds. Still a big amount and approx half of your calculation. Cheers.
How about stripping public spending in all National ,Act , and NZ First seats to be brutal.
Flabby leadership, flabby -thinking citizens, you say.
Can NZ be Singapore, or Israel, who on these measures beat us hollow?
These are who we need to study and talk with, not ‘The Anglosphere’.
How much easier, imagining a Labor leadership dreaming about it in a revitalized Labor, to just have a touch, a little bit of the tried and proven! CCP method.
Far more likely than sweet reason widespread.
Small NZ has indulged itself in a hobo of drunken neoliberalism with hobos with bigger capacities.
The CCP way is sipping methanol.
Yes, it does come down to the character of individuals. This matters more than the institutions you long to see healthy.
Is it really grownup to say in effect:
"The problem is we are living beyond our means and we've created a level of entitlement that makes change really really hard politically.
Therefore, the solution is to try even more reallocation of resources to (Australia) those already giving according to their ability to those who claim to be in need."
Grown up would mean coming up with a real plan to sort our nation with the other grownups and refusing to play silly games of dress up.
BTW thanks for sharing your thoughts.
And thank you, Leo, for sharing yours.
You cite the old socialist slogan: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
At present, however, those with the greatest ability to contribute significantly to meeting the needs of their fellow citizens, the wealthiest 5 percent of New Zealanders, are not being asked to do so.
My plan is to do exactly that. Paying higher taxes will not make them poor, but it will make them less obscenely rich.
I appreciate the response and do think it worth clarifying that I implicated the old socialist slogan to highlight the fact that the solution proposed is not new creative or sustainable And to highlight that the solution proposed had no connection to the diagnosis being used to justify it. And to highlight that the proposal did not align with the flourish of the rhetoric - grownups.
The thing is, Leo, that if you offer such criticisms, then you really need to set forth the reasoning behind them. Why is the proposal unsustainable? What "fact" are you referencing? In what way is the solution unconnected to the diagnosis? Otherwise I, and I'm sure many other readers, are left in the dark.
The founders of the post-1945 welfare state understood the magnitude of the task they faced, to rebuild a liberal democracy that had broken down in the 1930s largely as a result of the loss of young people's faith in the future.
(That's why they are still arresting the occasional ancient Nazi in the 2020s BTW, they were mostly quite young at the time: a fact Cabaret gets right with the Tomorrow Belongs to Me scene.)
The magnitude of the breakdown was such that, as William Beveridge wrote in his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services, “A revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.”
A similar challenge faces contemporary liberal-democratic leaders facing a resurgent far-right at what increasingly seems like the last-chance saloon of the late 1930s all over again.
Will the momentary and welcome victories of Labour in the UK, Labor in Australia and the Liberals in Canada be seen as a last-chance reprieve to restore young people's faith in the future, even if it seems "revolutionary" to do so (e.g., a crash housing programme in the manner of the 1930s Swedish Social Democrats, 1930s NZ Labour, a full-throated Green New Deal, etc), or will it be interpreted as a Clintonesque mandate for business as usual at the expense of a Trumpism they foolishly imagine to have peaked already: for "patching?"
In which case, tomorrow may well belong to somebody else.
Well said, Chris. Well said.