This, the first issue of Fightback magazine for 2016, is based around the concept of neoliberalism. This is a term bandied about by political activists a lot in recent years — often, it seems, without a clear idea of what it means. Some even deny that it is a real thing, that it is simply “capitalism as usual”.

We agree with many Left activists and thinkers that the neoliberal era — beginning in the mid-1970s and still going on — is a decisive shift from previous “articulations” of global capitalism. We use the basic definition that neoliberalism is characterised by privatization, financialization and globalization, and takes the form of, as David Harvey puts it, “accumulation by dispossession” of previously State-owned, community-owned or common assets.

What’s more, the “traditional Left” has never found successful ways of combatting it. The Stalinized “Communist” countries have mostly collapsed in the face of neoliberalism (the old Soviet bloc) or enthusiastically combined neoliberal economics with a one-party dictatorship (China or Vietnam). Similarly, the old Labour and Social Democratic parties in the Western countries — and large portions of the Green movement — responded to the neoliberal onslaught with surrender. In New Zealand, neither Labour nor the Greens challenge the basic principles of neoliberalism such privatization, financialization, and open borders for money but not for people. They simply lay “caring/sharing” or nationalist rhetoric on top of that, or perhaps promote some trickle-down handouts for the worst affected — a combination which can be called “social liberalism”.

Fightback believes that we need new, radical-left responses to neoliberalism, and this issue is an attempt to get debate going on the wider left on the subject. The major article in this issue — “Against Conservative Leftism” — suggests that the activist Left are generally getting it wrong, trying to turn the clock back instead of looking forward to the future. The word has changed, irrevocably, since the early 1970s.

The old Keynesian welfare states — based on solid borders, expropriation of indigenous peoples, union-capitalist co-operation and State protection of “traditional” family structures — are not coming back, nor should they. Instead, we argue, it is the new forces thrown up by neoliberal changes — immigrant and refugee populations in our large cities, over-educated but under-employed precarious white-collar workers, feminist, queer and Tino Rangatiratanga movements — which are making the boldest challenges to neoliberalism at the moment. We still believe as Marxists that only the activity of the working classes can provide a permanent alternative to capitalism. But the “traditional” working classes represented by the union movement have been battered and decimated by neoliberal changes and will have to work as part of a new popular coalition seeking to transcend neo-liberal globalization rather than reverse it. The activist Left must be listening to these new forces and learning from them, not simply trying to impose the organisational and political methods of the past on them.

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By Joe McClure (Fightback Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington)

David Harvey, according to his website, is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the City University of New York. While this is not entirely accurate – his role does not include geography – he is nonetheless considered one of the foremost academic authorities on Marxism and how it informs geography, his area of personal expertise.

In 2005, he published A Brief History of Neoliberalism, charting the rise and rise of neoliberal economics, and how it has come to direct world politics. First of all, he defines his subject, as follows:

“Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.

“The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices. The state has to guarantee, for example, the quality and integrity of money. It must also set up those military, defence, police, and legal structures and functions required to secure private property rights and to guarantee, by force if need be, the proper functioning of markets.

“Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as land, water, education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution) then they must be created, by state action if necessary. But beyond these tasks the state should not venture. State interventions in markets (once created) must be kept to a bare minimum because, according to the theory, the state cannot possibly possess enough information to second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interest groups will inevitably distort and bias state interventions (particularly in democracies) for their own benefit.”¹

Harvey, like many other commentators, relies significantly on Karl Polanyi’s predictions in The Great Transformation, that:

“the market economy under which these freedoms throve also produced freedoms we prize highly. Freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of meeting, freedom of association, freedom to choose one’s own job… Planning and control are being attacked as a denial of freedom. Free enterprise and private ownership are declared to be essentials of freedom. No society built on other foundations is said to deserve to be called free. The freedom that regulation creates is denounced as unfreedom; the justice, liberty and welfare it offers are decried as a camouflage of slavery.”²

Agreeing in principle with this economic argument, he suggests that in reality, neoliberalism has taken a more gradated route, travelling along lines of regional importance rather than emerging as a standard development from the Keynesian economics that were widely adopted in ‘Western’ countries after World War II. He comments that:

“…A moving map of the progress of neoliberalization on the world stage since 1970 would be hard to construct. To begin with, most states that have taken the neoliberal turn have done so only partially––the introduction of greater flexibility into labour markets here, a deregulation of financial operations and embrace of monetarism there, a move towards privatization of state-owned sectors somewhere else.”

One of the major criticisms of David Harvey’s depiction of Marxism is that it is completely reliant on the reader accepting his geographical approach – that economic development cannot exist independently of spatial conditions, and therefore, takes place differently in different conditions. This scientific position informs all his sociological research, and, critics have pointed out, “has distanced him from concepts whose purchase is limited by the calculus of spatial science or whose provenance lies in Continental European philosophy.”

Because of this focus on geographical trends and local (i.e., contained) events, he is able to easily and accurately cite instances of economic trends within well-known companies. Concretely, in a comment that encapsulates both Harvey’s ability to produce illustrative examples and yet be imprisoned by geographical constraints, he tells us in 1990 about:

“the condition that Marx… picked upon in developing one of his most telling concepts – the fetishism of commodities. He sought to capture by that term the way in which markets conceal social (and, we should add, geographical) information and relations. We cannot tell from looking at the commodity whether it has been produced by happy laborers working in a cooperative in Italy, grossly exploited laborers working under conditions of apartheid in South Africa, or wage laborers protected by adequate labor legislation and wage agreements in Sweden. The grapes that sit upon the supermarket shelves are mute; we cannot see the fingerprints upon them or tell immediately what part of the world they are from.

“We can, by further enquiry, lift the veil on this geographical and social ignorance and make ourselves aware of these issues (as we do when we engage in a consumer boycott of non-union or South African grapes). But in so doing we find we have to go behind and beyond what the market itself reveals in order to understand how society is working. This was precisely Marx’s own agenda. We have to go behind the veil, the fetishism of the market and the commodity, in order to tell the full story of social reproduction.”³

Intriguing though it may be, this description does not bring us closer to an analysis of neoliberalism, though, in a subsequent volume he adopts a much simpler view, arguing in The Enigma of Capital (2010) that “neoliberalism… refers to a class project that coalesced in the crisis of the 1970s. Masked by a lot of rhetoric about individual freedom, liberty, personal responsibility and the virtues of privatisation, the free market and free trade, it legitimised draconian policies designed to restore and consolidate capitalist class power.”

When it comes to class, Harvey argues that neoliberalism “has… entailed its redefinition.” He cites class despots such as Margaret Thatcher, Rupert Murdoch and Ronald Reagan, whose policies, despite initially promoting Keynesian redistribution, leading Reagan him to comment, “We’re all Keynesians now,” soon shifted toward an attack on unions, and a rearrangement of the economy – the Volckner shock – that forced foreign governments to become dependent on the US currency and subject to conditions put in place by US investors. In England, he argues, by opening up the country to immigration and foreign investment, Thatcher created a new middle-class, whose philosophy consisted of individualism, consumerism, and entrepreneurship. She used this new class to help crush working-class resistance, by enforcing the financial dominance of the City of London over the rest of the British economy, and demolishing the structure of traditional institutions such as mining, shipbuilding, and car manufacture.

After setting the scene for the development of neoliberalism, Harvey goes on to discuss its inherent contradictions, and how these make neoliberal states more unstable. These include, the tension between forcing the state to withdraw from a free market, to ensure everyone has the same impact, and maintaining national its influence at the global level. This has recently been seen in political programmes such as the TPPA, which gives governments significantly greater powers to pursue lawbreakers, but removes trade barriers and government subsidies on regularly-used goods.

Similarly, he argues, authoritarian demands for market freedoms can often come into conflict with individual freedoms, when producers set prices that consumers cannot afford – another issue raised by the TPPA, particularly in light of rising pharmaceutical costs. Excessive market speculation, he adds, is inherently risky, and leads to events such as the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. In a totally commercialised system, he notes, a few companies will inevitably come to dominate each industry, creating an almost feudal structure.

Finally, he suggests, the series of attacks on social structures, spiralling into Margaret Thatcher’s denial of society itself, has created a nearly unprecedented level of social anxiety, which has expressed itself through the rise of populist politicians such as Donald Trump or far-right organizations in Europe, which have started campaigns to reappraise questions of citizenship and basic personal rights.

Ultimately, he concludes, neoliberalism has effected a huge redistribution of resources, and the introduction of a new class structure, in which business managers and corporate groups have taken over government functions. Worse still, he contends, their practice is based on privatization, lending, commodification, the creation of debt crises to force government bailouts, and the reversal of Keynesian social policies. This process of commodification extends “to all… processes, things, and social relations, [so] that a price can be put on them, and… they can be traded subject to legal contract.”

The most detrimental effects are induced by the commodification of labour, as employees become simply parts of the production process, and manufacturers can choose from the entire global economy to get the cheapest labour available, leading to horrific conditions of exploitation in regions where factories are not closely regulated. So well-established, however, is this economic system, that only a major crisis could jolt countries out of neoliberal methods. Given that the 2008 GFC did not achieve this, despite doing huge damage to the world economy, a crisis sufficient to bring about the abandonment of neoliberalism would be an order of magnitude greater, and would have flow-on effects for decades to come. Unfortunately, Harvey does not propose a well-reasoned alternative, suggesting instead that the world might return to some kind of earlier stage that had existed before neoliberalism was introduced – but, he admits, after decades of neoliberal governments, many voters have simply accepted that, as Margaret Thatcher insisted, “there is no alternative.”

PSA workers on strike

by Ben Jacobs (Fightback member and public servant).

Like many systems of thought, the theory and practice of neoliberalism don’t line up particularly well. In New Zealand, for example, the state plays a key role in propping up a system that preaches minimal state intervention. Public servants realised long ago that actually existing neoliberalism is a myth, but unfortunately, stating the obvious can make life awkward in public policy and management circles.

The fourth Labour government may have introduced neoliberalism to the public by stealth – they had not campaigned on the extreme policies they introduced – but neoliberalism was force-fed to the public service. With the introduction of neoliberal policies came new elites. Where previously trade unions, public servants and rank-and-file labour party members could have expected to be consulted and have input into such reforms, Roger Douglas and his associates heavily restricted access to the democratic process, and shifted their focus to a handful of Treasury officials and business organisations such as the then Business Roundtable (now the New Zealand Initiative).

The modern-day continuation of this approach by both Labour and National Parties can be seen in the marginalization and stigmatization of the union movement and the ongoing influence of captains of industry in various high-powered (and even more highly paid) so-called “Taskforces” and “Working Groups”.

Many readers will be familiar with the success enjoyed by the ruling class in undercutting unions and excluding them from positions of influence, and I won’t go into these here. I will focus instead on the methods employed by successive governments to coerce public servants at all levels into swallowing the “blue pill” of neoliberalism.

The funding environment

Neoliberals view economic outputs as the be-all and end-all of social success (because if the economy’s growing then the benefits will trickle down, right?). When government departments are funded based on readily measurable economic output, then the measurable stuff (such as revenue collection, shifting people off benefits, cutting costs) becomes the focus. Any of the nice-to-have stuff, such as reducing inequality, creating secure jobs and a living wage, or addressing climate change, is left to others such as NGOs and charities. What’s more, constant cutting and capping of funding means government agencies are fighting over the scraps, and are in no position to challenge the status quo as they’re constantly “firefighting”.

On top of this, Ministers play an increasing role in managing the departments and agencies that they oversee. For example, Steven Joyce is actually lauded by the mainstream media for his tendency to wade into territory that could rightly be seen as that of public sector managers¹. Because pleasing the Minister brings the promise of extra discretionary funding, this breeds a culture of managers putting their career stocks into managing successive Ministers’ expectations rather than delivering on the stated aims of their own agency.

You’d think that because Ministers are actively reducing the role of government department CEOs, the role would lose some appeal and perhaps their remuneration would reflect this. But it seems that the market is mysteriously failing here, because there is no shortage of career CEOs and senior managers willing to use a short-term post in New Zealand as a stepping stone to bigger and better things elsewhere. Although some Senior Execs ride the gravy train for life, many take up short-term posts as a hatchet job to implement distasteful policy, or otherwise just collect their massive paycheque and don’t look to rock the boat.

This approach also shows up further down the management chain in the overuse of consultants. To some extent, consultants are a financial necessity, allowing fearful managers to disguise operating (personnel) costs and patch holes left by earlier cuts. The impact is that people in these contract roles are more driven by what will land them their next contract than by principle. The surprising amount of power wielded by consultants seems to reflect the dogma that voices and experiences from outside the public sector is better.

Consultants and contractors are also a harbinger of organisational instability in the public sector. The culture of constant change that is facilitated by hordes of HR advisors and managers looking to impress their Ministers leaves public servants always mindful of the shifting sands and distracted – if not outright fearful of the cuts that are still happening and are always at the back of public servants’ minds.

Overall, union membership is not dreadful in the public sector (the PSA has around 60,000 members). However, coverage is much lower in policy, analytic and strategic functions. My feeling is that this pattern reflects a blind belief among law and policy graduates in the doctrine that unions are an impediment to the individual freedom on offer from the market, similar to the way the public sector is still painted as bureaucratic and inefficient in popular myth. It is these functions within the public sector in which union delegates are in short supply, and increasingly burned out by non-stop organisational change and personal cases arising from the stress on workers.

It seems hopeless, but and maybe it is! But I’ll continue to organize, build union membership and demonstrate the importance of this to my colleagues (luckily HR gives lots of opportunities to do so). The public sector is still running on the capital created by its workers but it is unsustainable. This situation can’t persist and I’m counting on that. We public sector workers need to use what outlets we have to express alternative views of how society and the economy might be organized and be prepared to act.

Fightback (Aotearoa / New Zealand) is an ecosocialist, socialist-feminist group that publishes a regular magazine. In 2015, Fightback stepped back from our monthly printing schedule towards less regular, themed issues; an issue on the Housing Crisis; on the fight for Secure Hours and a Living Wage; a successful crowdfunded issue dedicated to paid writing by Women and Gender Minorities; an issue dedicated to Internationalism, and finally this issue, on the Climate Crisis.

The 2015 UN Climate Change Conference will be held from November 30th to December 11th in Paris. As argued in the following pages (see particularly Change Everything: Climate Justice Post-Paris, p17-18), these talks are unlikely to change anything. Any commitments are likely to be non-binding, framed by the market logic that produced the climate crisis, and to benefit the global rich at the expense of the global poor.

NGO 350.org has nonetheless initiated a global People’s Climate March in advance of the talks. Fightback is a partner in the Aotearoa / New Zealand section of this march, to be held on November 28th in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and smaller centres across the country (see http://www.peoplesclimatemarch.org.nz/events). We participate to promote radical solutions that go beyond pressure on existing powers (necessary but inadequate), towards asserting the power of self-organised communities.

Our first article, by Bronwen Beechey, explains the theory and practice of ecosocialism (p4-7). Two international articles cover ecological struggles: a reprinted article from Green Left Weekly reports on a recent climate change conference held in Bolivia (p8-9), and Jojo, a Fightback correspondent based in Germany, outlines actions against coal mining (p10-11). Daphne Lawless reviews Naomi Klein’s recent book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, and relates Klein’s argument to Aotearoa / New Zealand (pX-X). Michelle Ducat (Oil Free Wellington) outlines the limits of the Paris talks, and Oil Free Wellington’s plans for education and direct action in December (p17-18). The issue concludes with a poem by Tam Vosper (p19).

Fightback is a small organisation, with no funding from the state or big business. If you would like to support our work, and are not a current subscriber to the magazine, please consider subscribing at http://fightback.org.nz/subscribe

If you would like a print copy of the Climate Crisis issue, please contact your nearest branch.