Labouring in Vain (1995)

David Lange in 1984.

From the October 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the benefit of those who might not have experienced a Labour
 government, last month we published an article on the record of the 
various Labour governments that have been in office in Australia 
since 1984. This month we look at what the Labour government 
that ruled New Zealand between 1984 and 1990 put the workers
 there through.

The New Zealand Labour Party came to power in 1984 and stayed there until 1990. Labour shocked its supporters, party members and most of its voters by following a path of financial market deregulation, cutbacks in public services, sales tax, users pay, corporatization and privatisation of a large portion of the state, removing industrial and agricultural subsidies, removing trade barriers, import restrictions, import tax and duties. None of which was outlined in its pre-election campaigns. By the end of Labour's 6-year rule, unemployment was at catastrophic levels, record numbers of businesses had failed, the state had been turned upside down, and many of Labour’s traditional supporters and party members had left the party in droves. The only people happy were NZ Treasury, richer capitalists and the National Party (NZ Tories).

Prior to the Labour Party victory in the snap general election of 1984, Robert Muldoon had been both Prime Minister and Finance Minister for all of the nearly nine years of National Party government in New Zealand. Due to the screwed up concepts of socialism many people have, Muldoon has gone down in “history'” as having instituted or continued so-called “socialist” policies in his time as Prime Minister and the Labour Government of 1984—1990 has been labelled “right-wing free marketeers”.

The “socialist” label attached to Muldoon is of course nonsense but used by some to describe Muldoon’s policy of reenforcing the state’s role as provider of support through social welfare, subsidies to exporters, tariff walls to protect inefficient local industries, and the investment of huge amounts of state capital in ambitious energy projects named “Think Big”. “Think Big” was aimed at making NZ at least 60 percent self-sufficient in energy and was largely motivated by the oil shocks of the 70s. It is worth noting that NZ enjoyed a prosperous period post second world war with England guaranteeing a market for NZ produce (meat, butter, wool) and high wool prices generated by the likes of the Korean war. It was the entry of England into the EEC, and an international decline in agricultural produce prices that resulted in successive NZ governments giving subsidies to farmers and borrowing overseas in the hope of riding out the unfavourable market conditions.

When it came to the snap election in 1984, NZ was under a wage freeze (a price freeze had just been lifted), inflation ranged from 6.1 to 15 percent during the year, the economy was described as “one of the most regulated, protected and subsidised in the developed world” (Europa World Year Book), unemployment stood at 66,500, public debt stood at $21.88 billion. The fixed exchange rate was clearly overvalued while politically government unity was disintegrating as Muldoon’s autocratic style drew fire from within and without, and the economic position of the country worsened.

The 1984 election was more than anything focused on Muldoon, and the cry from the as usually confused “left” was “out with Muldoon”, never giving a thought to what was to replace Muldoon. Not only the “left” wanted rid of Muldoon, feminists, homosexuals, liberals, civil right activists to name a few wanted him out. None gave a moment’s thought as to what actually made capitalism tick—or were the least interested in how the system operated. A significant portion of the capitalist class wanted Muldoon out as well, having their eye on the international investment capital that would flow in once financial deregulation occurred.

Power for power’s sake

Labour came to power in July 1984 with a 17-seat majority and total share of the votes of 43 percent (NZ operated a First Past the Post electoral system until recently). Its election policies centred on health, housing, employment, education, the economy, overseas debt and an anti-nuclear stance (though Labour leader David I.ange had opposed the anti-nuclear position when it came up for formal endorsement at the Labour Party conference, he later championed it as Prime Minister as if it were his own brain-child). The Labour Party had a great deal of assistance in the 1984 election victory from the newly formed New Zealand Party who had one of New Zealand’s wealthiest capitalist’s as its leader: Robert Jones, property tycoon. By drawing the protest vote with its so-called “traditional National Party policies”—votes that would otherwise have remained with National— Robert Jones helped achieve his objective—a Labour government and promptly wrapped the New Zealand Party up to the immense chagrin of its officials, This if anything should have given an unsuspecting public a clue as to what the new Labour government would be all about.

Even before the fourth Labour government resumed office it was confronted with a major balance of payments crisis and had to agree to a 20 percent devaluation of the NZ dollar. This decision was made on the advice of the NZ Treasury and Reserve Bank economic advisers where the Chicago School of Economic thought already dominated. (The Chicago School advocated removing state intervention and instituting laissez faire type economics). This set the tone for the rest of the Labour government term and was quickly followed up with abolition of exchange controls, deregulation of finance, abolition of subsidies and incentives and the floating of the NZ dollar. Within days, Lange was announcing the "cupboard was bare” and everybody should look to "tightening their belts ”. It soon became clear who was to be doing the belt-tightening and who would be letting the belts out. As the international capital flowed in, the local pigs were gorging themselves at the trough in a speculative frenzy that was to end up with the largest share-market and property crash in the history of the country in October 1987. Inflation was to peak at close to 20 percent in 1987.

Before and during the run up to the election in 1984, there was no indication from Labour that it would adopt such policies and its official economic policy was not much different from the conventional Keynesian style economics that both National and Labour had been following for decades. The Labour government therefore deliberately deceived the electorate and its own party supporters. Mike Moore—a cabinet minister and later Prime Minister told the Auckland Press Club that “had we talked about some of the things we did in 1984, we would never have got there (elected )”. A post-election remit of the Labour Party opposed free market policies; this made no difference to the course pursued by the Labour cabinet. So much for Labour Party democracy. There is little doubt that the Labour Party wanted power for power’s sake, and the conservative nature of the election campaign they waged reflected that.

Rogernomics

The Labour government finance minister Roger Douglas along with associate finance ministers Caygill and Prebble took on board the advice of Treasury. The economic policy enacted by the Labour government quickly became known as “Rogernomics” in the same vein as “Reaganomics”. The cabinet argued as a justification for their actions that their economic reforms would allow the fulfilment of the Labour Party’s social goals, even though no one ever defined the nature of these social goals. A similar argument is contained in the Treasury document Economic Management. “Users Pay” was a term that suddenly started slipping from Labour Ministers’ mouths and was meant to signify a new approach to providing services by the state, where the user of the service would be charged for at least part of the cost of the service.

In 1986, the State-Owned Enterprises Bill was passed through parliament. Lange and Palmer (deputy prime minister) denied when challenged that corporatization of many government departments would involve job losses and was a prelude to privatisation—they already had an eye to the approaching 1987 general election. Corporatizing government departments had never been a Labour Party policy. At the head of the new SOEs, the government placed leading business figures, many of whom were friends of the finance ministers. The SOEs’ boards of directors were supposedly accountable to Ministers (in a directors-shareholders style of relationship) and although the SOE Bill contained a section which enabled the Crown to pay the SOEs for non-commercial services this rarely occurred. The result of the implementation of the SOE Act was the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. With Alan Gibbs (businessman well known for his cabinet connections and backer of the New Right think-tank—the Centre for Independent Studies ) as chairman, ForestCorp (formerly the Forest Service) sacked the forestry work force and took some back as independent contractors.

The previously state owned Bank of New Zealand which has the largest share of retail banking in New Zealand had been partly sold (33 percent) by the Labour government in June 1989 amid pathetic cries of “they’re selling the family silver” from the likes of Pat Kelly—a long time trade unionist and Labour Party member.

By October 1990, $NZ13.7 million had been paid out by the government to private sector advisers employed in connection with sales of crown businesses.

The Lange Labour government introduced a supertax on the elderly. Extra income earned from savings or investments meant the old age pension was severely eroded by a surcharge tax. Of course while ordinary workers were being sacked in their thousands, mortgage interest rates at more than 20 percent, and workers were being asked to tighten their belts, parliamentary Labour in collusion with their fellow gutters in the opposition voted themselves a nice fat golden retirement package.

Government debt grew from $NZ21 billion in 1984 to nearly SNZ44 billion in 1991 despite state asset sales. Debt servicing grew from 10.6 percent of Government spending in 1980 to 15 percent in 1991. So much for the miracles of Rogernomics.

Unemployment over Labour’s term of office grew from about 60,000 to over 160,000 registered as officially unemployed. This had a particularly marked affect on female workers, despite the election of the Labour government being supported by feminists and the setting up of a Women’s Ministry. Unemployment figures are misleading, particularly in periods of high unemployment, as many married women or women living in partnerships are forced out of the workforce to be dependent on their partner, and so don’t show up in the official figures.

Labour disintegrates

Despite a show of unity during the first term of office from 1984 to 1987, and subsequent re-election on the back of a very slick TV campaign funded by taxpayer money and their nuclear ship ban (National was still opposed to the ban), Labour began to slowly fall apart.

The prime minister’s office in New Zealand has quite extraordinary powers and past Prime Ministers have used these powers to manipulate cabinet, sack hostile ministers and appoint friendly ministers without any endorsement needed from either cabinet or caucus. Lange was pretty much driven by cabinet and Treasury during the first term, in the second term, he opposed aspects of Roger Douglas’s budget that led to a falling out and eventual sacking of Douglas by Lange using the dictatorial powers of his office. Lange replaced Douglas with Caygill. Prebble was to follow soon after when he publicly criticised Lange’s ability as a Prime Minister.

A concerted campaign by Lange’s opponents led by Douglas and Prebble and ill health eventually resulted in Lange’s resignation. The deputy prime minister, Palmer replaced Lange as Prime minister but only for a few months before resigning in favour of Mike Moore. Moore and Labour lost the 1990 general election to the National Party (National had by then decided being anti-nuclear was a good idea) in what was a landslide victory, ending 6 years of Labour reign, a reign that devastated the very workers that Labour purportedly represented. National turned around and followed exactly the same economic policies only with more vigour, breaking virtually every single promise made during the election run-up. What Labour started, National finished.

Why did all this happen? And under a Labour government? Very logically. Property institutions under capitalism ensure that democracy can only be a veil, while underneath the vested interests that arise inevitably from a system of society based on production for profit, minority ownership and control of the means of production and distribution ensure that the interests of the majority—the workers— come last. The undemocratic nature of political parties such as Labour, government, companies and corporations are a reflection of this system and its need to subjugate workers in order to carry on fleecing them. Labour when faced with running capitalism became the manipulated.

The incredible thing is that rather than having learnt their lesson, many former Labour supporters have deserted the Labour Party to a party called New Labour— part of the Alliance (a political alliance of New Labour, Manu Motuhake, Green, and other minor parties)—with the same old failed formula, the impossible task of trying to run capitalism in favour of the workers.

Having become totally disillusioned with politics and politicians in general after being lied to and deceived, voters when faced with the choice of continuing with the First Past the Post electoral system and a Mixed Member Proportional system similar to the electoral system in Germany, turned to MMP. MMP means larger and fewer electorates, and a party list vote and is said to favour coalition style of government. Many workers are hopeful that this will result in fairer government. There is no evidence to support this, and the capitalist class and overseas investors seem far from concerned. Capitalism will merely adjust to the situation and workers will continue to suffer insecurity, pollution, poverty, violence and a life of drudgery and uncertainty. 

Dave Tildesley

World Review: Poor Health Wanganui (1995)

From the August 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

One can’t help but notice the supreme irony surrounding the name of the Wanganui area Crown Health Enterprise (CHE)—Good Health Wanganui. Good Health Wanganui is in very bad health having just had the hard word that it has too high a level of service compared to other CHEs around the country and therefore will have its funding slashed. Two hundred and forty-six jobs will be lost from the beleaguered CHE along with 30 percent reduction in some surgery over the next three years in order to "break even". The Dominion (13 June) reported:

“‘Other services would also be downgraded because the Government believed the crown health enterprise had been providing more services than necessary’, chief executive Ron Janes said yesterday.

'The situation is utterly disappointing,’ Mr Janes said. To have the spare capacity to be able to help those in need and not use it is bad enough. But to also shed that capacity so it will not be there when future policies show more vision is worse.’"

Janes must have been rapped over the knuckles for telling the truth as his first statement was followed later with a less critical statement, after a phone call from the CHE Minister Paul East's office.

The Dominion continues in the same article:

“The salaried Medical Specialists Association said more cuts were pending, with plans to contract out support services such as x-rays, pharmacy and laboratories, while references to reducing the cost of continuing care for the elderly to market level and promptly discharging new mothers were ominous."

On the same day, the Evening Post carried a report that the

"Hutt Valley Health CHE will have to severely cut back or close several services over the next two years because of proposed funding cuts.

The cuts are coming because the Government had told CHE it will stop funding to cover deficits by 1997. That means hospitals will have to make do with funds provided by RHAs (Regional Health Authorities). CHEs say those funds are inadequate to meet growing demand for services."

Since the dose of "free market" restructuring given to the old Area Health Boards by the National government, things have been going from bad to worse. Now after being split into autonomous competing companies, Crown Health Enterprises are run on strict business lines, where running out of budget is a final thing. CHEs contract out various services such as catering and cleaning but still must survive on the vote of money from the state via RHAs. CHEs are in direct competition for resources and supplies.

Recently the CHE in Lower Hutt ran out of budget for operating theatres three-quarters of the way through the year. The remaining three months without money meant an idle theatre but still a large and growing waiting list for operations. That’s not to say that the waiting lists were much smaller under the previous regime, but that restricted state funding has become more obvious.

Getting the chop

Various CHEs have been in the media recently for turfing patients—mainly elderly—out on the street in the wintry dead of night in the interest of cold-blooded efficiency. Also patients have been abruptly discharged supposedly because there is nothing seriously wrong with them, despite protestations and then promptly dropping dead. Funding restrictions have meant that the over-70s are no longer receiving certain operations such as knee replacements and in one very highly publicised case a man who needed kidney dialysis was refused and left to die. Doctors are forced to make life-and-death decisions because of the absence of sufficient funds, and the elderly are the first to get the chop, in keeping with the system that sees workers as economic units, rather than as human beings. Elderly workers are regarded as having too many miles on the clock and are too expensive to maintain.

Have no doubt in your mind that the capitalists’ idea of the perfect worker is one who remains healthy all their working life, works hard to the day they are put on the scrapheap and promptly drops dead thereby releasing the capitalist class from having to fund their hospital repairs and pay for their dotage. This is not necessarily because the capitalists are heartless cruel people but because the logic of a competitive system of society which has a fundamental need to accumulate capital at all costs for survival.

The Returned Services Association (RSA), well-known as being a bastion of conservatism recently criticised the government’s treatment of the aged citing as examples:

• There had been no catch-up in pensions for the elderly despite a thaw after the three-year freeze. Meanwhile, the cost of living had risen markedly, leaving many senior citizens on or below the poverty line.
• Medical and elective surgical treatment for many had been put on hold as waiting lists grew longer, with operating theatres closed for part of the year as funding allocations were used up. Asset-testing meant assets were required to be used to pay for full-time care in rest homes often causing the long-saved-for family home to be sold-up and unable to be passed to the next generation.

It is interesting in this connection to note that the old much debated topic of Euthanasia has popped up again with a private member’s bill named "Death with Dignity” being introduced in the New Zealand parliament and recently the Northern Territories of Australia passing a bill allowing voluntary Euthanasia under certain circumstances.

No doubt a few wealthy members of society like the thought of workers topping themselves to eliminate the expensive care needed to attend to the terminally-sick. Undeniably, there are certain aspects of Euthanasia that are humane, but in a system of society like capitalism, it is open to abuse, to service those who would benefit from reduced state expenditure.

The Evening Post (1 June) reported that:

"the government has told public hospitals to increase profit by restricting surgery and other services, says the Medical Association.

Chairman Dennis Pezaro said a letter from the Ministers of Health, Crown Health Enterprises and Finance to country's 23 CHEs showed the health reforms were a 'sham'. . . . This means hospitals must not do more operations than they have been paid for . . . Since die health reforms, surgical waiting lists have increased by about 30 percent to 80,000 despite hospitals increasing the number of operations."

According to Health Minister, Jenny Shipley:

"the reason for the instructions was to prevent the problem with the previous area health board system, where hospitals ran up large debts doing uncontraced non-urgent work and then sent the bill to the taxpayer."

So why does the government show so much concern to "the taxpayer” while at the same time is practically oblivious to the needs of many workers in desperate financial situations, the unemployed, the sick, and families struggling to survive on low income? The answer is both simple and complex. Complex because of the mythology surrounding capitalism; simple because the answer is that it is in effect the capitalist class that ultimately pays the burden of taxes, including PAYE and GST. which are a charge on profit, rent and interest for the services provided by the state.

Obviously, the less tax charged by the state, the more profit left over for reinvestment and consumption by the owners of capital, or allowing them to remain competitive in the face of competition in depressed markets. You didn’t really think that you were going to benefit from promised tax cuts did you? There are a hundred ways of skinning a cat, and the claw-back of the extra take-home pay is relatively easy in times of high unemployment (look how easy it was to make the public servants put up with many years of no pay increase while inflation reduced what they could buy with their frozen wages).

In New Zealand, health represents over 10 percent of total government expenditure, and is the second largest single government expense next to social welfare (25 percent); which is why both are under attack. This is happening worldwide; governments around the world are attacking social welfare, trying to reduce the infrastructural costs to capital, in order to remain competitive in an ever more competitive market. Is this a spiralling effect? Yes. But of course reducing expenditure can have negative effects when taken too far, as needed workers become unproductive because of ill-health, broken marriages, poverty-driven social disintegration, crime etc.—but just how bad can it get? Do you want to wait around and find out? Or do you want to do something about it while you can? It’s a choice between roll-over-and-die, or stand-up-and-be-counted—counted for your active support for free access; no money, voluntary labour; no employment, democratic administration; no government.

Dave Tildesley,

World Socialist Party of New Zealand

Poisoning the atmosphere (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

An article in the Wellington Dominion newspaper on 14 November last reported an alarming increase of incidence of skin cancer:

The skin cancer melanoma was now striking twice as many New Zealanders as it did 10 years ago. Cancer Society medical director Alan Gray said yesterday. "Melanoma is now the commonest cancer in people aged 20 to 39", Dr. Gray said. Figures published in the Medical Journal showed that cases had doubled every 10 years in the Non-Maori population from 1948 to 1977. In 1983. 686 new cases were reported, compared with an average 298 cases yearly in 1970. 1971 and 1972.

A programme on the National Radio followed up the theme the following Sunday. Here it was made clear that a badly underfunded public health service was unable to provide skin cancer screening services and people could be waiting months for needed operations. Melanoma, if not caught in its early stages, is a particularly dangerous cancer and kills many people each year (up to 200 in New Zealand).

In the same newspaper on the same day there was an even more disturbing article titled: "Ozone depletion exceeds forecasts". Dr. Tom Clarkson of the New Zealand Meteorological Service, who specialises in researching the effects of pollutants on the weather systems, was reported as saying: "world ozone depletion was greater than atmospheric scientists had initially predicted". The Dominions reported that scientists had called for immediate cutbacks in chloroflouro-carbon (CFC) production by at least 85 per cent because the existing protocol would not save the ozone layer.

The article went on to point out the difficulties of getting countries to ratify the existing protocol, which calls for only a 50 per cent reduction by 1999 of the 1986 levels of CFC production in stages. The problems of obtaining support for an 85 per cent reduction protocol were enormous, particularly with “developing" countries heavily dependent on chemical and electronic industries.

Dr. Clarkson said the world has lost 4 per cent of its ozone in the past 10 years or so. It appeared that the northern hemisphere had also developed a hole in its ozone layer and there were fears that the increasing amount of chlorine in the atmosphere were reacting with solids and liquids in a way not previously realised.

"Chlorine is increasing in the atmosphere by about 5 per cent per year", he said One scientist at the meeting presented new research suggesting a volcanic eruption in the tropics could trigger destruction of ozone over mid-latitudes. Such a reaction could not have happened in the past and was only possible now because of the vastly increased amounts of CFC's that had been poured into the atmosphere. Dr. Clarkson said an 85 per cent cutback in CFC's would only mean maintaining the status quo in the atmosphere.

The following day the Dominion returned to the issue under the headline “melanoma battle worsens as ozone layer depletes":

The world was losing the battle against the skin cancer melanoma and the problem would get worse if the ozone layer continued to be depleted. United States expert Professor Alfred Kopf said yesterday.

A week later I attended a public meeting on the subject of “Ozone Depletion and the Greenhouse effect" where the guest speaker was Dr. Clarkson. These two separate concerns have a common cause: pollution by the modern industrial world of competing nation-states and corporations.

Ozone layer depletion

Dr. Clarkson explained that ozone is a form of oxygen with three atoms to the molecule. It has different properties to ordinary oxygen with the double molecule and is particularly toxic to animal life, including human beings. Some man-made ozone exists in the lower atmosphere among other pollutants and poses an immediate health hazard. However, the ozone layer is usually between 15 and 30 km away from the Earth's surface and is important to both plant and animal life in two respects. It forms a “cap" on the weather systems below, lending a stabilising influence (it warms up due to absorption of the suns rays and forms an inversion layer). And it blocks out most of the harmful radiation which emanates from the surface of our sun, in particular short-wavelength electromagnetic radiation such as ultra-violet waves. Sun-burn is due to this radiation, and if the ozone layer were suddenly to be removed, these rays would prove lethal to most life.

Ozone in this layer is formed by the UV radiation breaking down the ordinary oxygen molecules' bonds so that they recombine as three-atom bonded molecules. At the same time ozone is also being broken down into oxygen. This two-way effect has a natural balancing point.

Chloroflouro-carbons or CFCs were invented in the 1950s and found to have many desirable properties which lent themselves well to industrial and domestic use. Efficient, easy to produce and relatively cheap in comparison to alternatives, they were also regarded as safe due to their chemical stability. However, in the seventies there was an apparent depleting of the ozone layer and it is now widely accepted that massive damage is being done to it by these pollutants.

The natural level of chlorine in the atmosphere is approximately 0.9 ppm (parts per million). In 1973 it was measured at 2 ppm. In 1988 it was just under 4 ppm. Due to the slow progress of the CFCs through the stratosphere, the pollution of today will have a much delayed effect. It is estimated that if all CFC production and use were to cease now, it would take another 200 years to get back to pre-1970 levels. In the spring of 1987 half of the ozone layer above the Antarctic completely disappeared.

The Greenhouse Effect

The man-made “Green-House" effect is a phenomenon about which scientists are still not in agreement. However the measurements observed are in line with the scientific models that have been made of the effects of man-made pollutants collecting in the atmosphere. Again there is a natural balance between the amount of carbon-dioxide which is emitted and the amount reabsorbed by the sea (100 billion tons per year) and vegetation (60 billion tons per year). The natural concentration of carbon- dioxide is about 300. ppm The effect of the carbon-dioxide is to prevent or slow down the loss of heat from the surface of the Earth by forming an insulation blanket around it. Human production of C02 is about 5 billion tons per year; however, unlike the natural processes the man-made carbon-dioxide is a one-way direction process only.

Man-made pollution has added substantially to the greenhouse gases and the concentrations are growing rapidly. The current relative cheapness of fossil fuels such as oil and coal has meant a dramatic increase in their use. New Zealand, which has mainly hydro-powered electricity generation, is finding it economical to restart the few oil-powered stations it had mothballed in the seventies and early eighties.

Adding further injury to the eco-system, natural forests are being cut down and destroyed at an insane rate. The Amazon rain forest, which once contributed 25 per cent of the world's oxygen, is being reduced at a rate which approximates to an area the size of Wales every day. Where once there was luscious rain forest, there are now tree stumps stretching as far as the eye can see.

Measurements made by the Department of Scientific and Industrial research since the early seventies show the concentrations of carbon-dioxide to be 325 ppm in 1973 and 350 ppm in 1988. Average global temperatures have been recorded from the year 1880 and figures show that the highest were in 1987 and the five hottest years have been since 1980. The United States is now taking the greenhouse effect very seriously as it stands to be a big loser if world temperatures rise as some predict. Other nations may benefit in the short term. At worst, if the use of fossil fuels for energy continue on the existing scale, the average global temperature will rise at a catastrophic 0.8 degrees centigrade per decade.

No solution within capitalism

The worldwide capitalist system will be unable to deal effectively with this problem. The warning signs have been with us for years, and many experts and environmentalists have been pointing out the dangers. Damage which will have an effect many decades later is being done now.

Alternatives to environmentally destructive industrial processes exist, they are generally more expensive and this would reduce the competitiveness of a nation or company which chose to adopt them unilaterally. Action will only be taken if damage begins seriously to impair the smooth functioning of the profit system — or if anti-pollution measures and products become profitable in themselves. Either way, capitalism's air will remain unfit to breathe.

Dave Tildesley

World Socialist Party of New Zealand

Human nature and Socialism (1990)

From the May 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

t seems that everyone is an expert on human nature, right? Especially politicians, who often make remarks about the general nature of humans. Why, everyone knows that humans are an inherently greedy, selfish, violent, nasty species. I mean, what could be more obvious?

This conventional wisdom is both wrong and unscientific. There has been a lot of debate over the years, for instance the Nature vs Nurture debate, but it seems that the public at large remain ill informed. The public's judgement is of course affected by the unchallenged remarks of people in positions of power. We not only do ourselves a great injustice by condemning our fellow humans in this bigoted way. we also place ourselves and our collective future in great danger. That such views should be widespread amongst all sections of the population is a striking commentary on the education most people receive.

It is worth noting that when people make the scathing remarks concerning our nature they often conveniently exclude themselves and their friends. Actually, when most people talk about human nature, they are referring to human behaviour—two different concepts.

Human nature implies a built-in, inherent attribute, and we do have these. For instance, the urge to satisfy human needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. Human behaviour, on the other hand, includes learnt or acquired behaviour. The fact is that we are a social animal and that our behaviour is virtually all learned behaviour.

One to two million years ago, human beings emerged as a species from an ape like creature, and for at least the last 100,000 years we have had basically the same bodily form. The thing that ensured our survival was and is co-operation and this has been a constant indispensable feature of human society. Unlike other animals we long ago dispensed with adapting ourselves biologically to the environment, but instead we adapt the environment to ourselves. For hundreds of thousands of years we lived in primitive hunter-gatherer societies of tribal communities. One of the outstanding features of these communities was the ability of their members to co-operate and live in harmony for their own mutual benefit. If they had the behavioural attributes that we now so glibly condemn in ourselves, human beings would have perished forever millions of years ago.

The main things that people are born to do are to eat, drink, keep warm, imitate, copulate and learn. The relations they enter into with each other at a given time to accomplish these ends set the pattern for the social outlook and the social code. In the course of history humanity has moved from relative simplicity in the social arrangements in isolated communities into a world of large interconnected industrial 'complexes. What people think and how they act is not due to some fundamental instinct, but is the result of customs, regulations and inhibitions that spring from the social environment in which people of past history have had to solve the problem of living. In other words, that people are able to think and act is a fact of biological and social development, but how they think and act is a result of social conditions. Since private property came into existence some 10,000 years ago. the pursuit of property has bred murder, cruelty, fraud, enmity and other anti-social behaviour.

There has been little discernible change in the fundamental make-up of humans, yet there have been considerable changes in social conditions. For example, stealing today is looked on as a criminal act whereas hunter-gatherer societies did not have any concept of stealing because there was no private property.

As to the assumption of selfishness, there are thousands of people who give selfless devotion in all manner of voluntary effort. There is co-operation going on all around us if you care to look, despite the competitive, one-upmanship, law-of-the-jungle philosophy which is rammed down our throats. It comes as a surprise that, despite the enormous inhuman stresses that are placed upon people by the society we live in, there are not more murders, rapes and crimes in general. The selfish, cruel, anti-social conduct that is laid at the door of human nature is really only the outcome of systems based on private property, which compel people to engage in predatory conduct in order to survive.

We cannot afford to let an erroneous view of ourselves as human beings prevail. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot live in peace and harmony. That this will mean that we must make a fundamental change in our system of society is something we will come to when we know about ourselves as humans.

Dave Tildesley
World Socialist Party of New Zealand

Alcohol accounting (1991)

From the May 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recent TV documentaries on Australia’s ABC have shown the scientific evidence of severe damage to the brain and other organs caused by alcohol abuse. There is no doubt that it is a very serious problem affecting a significant portion of the population.

It would be nice to think that this concern about the effects of excessive alcohol consumption was motivated by humanitarian feelings for the wretchedness of ruined lives. However, it doesn’t require much digging to reveal the real concerns of the nation’s accountants and politicians—it is costing a great deal of money in lost lives, hospital bills, social security payments, property damage and lost production.

Who has to pay for this? Ultimately it costs the class whose income is derived from their ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth; for the size of the tax bill is a major factor affecting the profitability of their businesses. The Melbourne Age (10 July 1990) ran an article confirming that, as usual, human lives and misery have been debased and alienated by measuring them in terms of money:

Mr Staples [Federal Minister for Aged, Family and Health Services] says a conservative estimate of the yearly cost of alcohol and associated problems to the community is $5 billion. (The Royal Australian College of Physicians puts the figure at between $5 and S12 billion).

Of course the owners of the breweries and liquor and hotel outlets are against any moves to reduce alcohol consumption, while the owners of other businesses are unimpressed with having to pay for the damage caused by alcohol abuse. Who said the capitalist class are united?

The capitalist class are anxious not to overdo the anti-alcohol-abuse campaign. After all alcohol helps keep the workers sedated between working and sleeping. Can’t have the workers doing too much serious thinking—they might just wake up to the whole rotten system and throw it out!

Drug abuse is a direct result of the system of society we live in. Not only is there profit to be made out of supplying the drugs be they legal or otherwise, there is also a willingness to “get out of it” on drugs by many. Is it any wonder that people want to “escape” from their unhappiness which is a result of alienation from the means to life? Poverty, wage-slavery, powerlessness, menial and repetitive work, and the whole sick social environment of capitalism will grind down the most resilient of people.

Drug abuse and the human suffering it causes will not go away while the conditions which are its cause remain. Capitalism will not go away until the majority of us have become convinced of the urgent need for its immediate abolition and replacement with the only alternative—free access socialism.

Dave Tildesley
World Socialist Party of New Zealand 

Time running out, say scientists (1989)

From the September 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

   Humans would have to make wide-reaching changes in attitude and lifestyles quickly if they are to survive the changes begun by pollution and deforestation. scientists told an Auckland symposium at the weekend.
   Scientists and researchers said the human race might die out without a new spirit of co-operation and collectivism. They said it was becoming increasingly likely that the planet would reorganise its systems to rid itself of pollution, the greenhouse effect, and ozone depletion. While the planet would survive, there was a fair chance the human race would not, they said.

So opened a news item that appeared on 27 March in the Wellington newspaper The Dominion under the heading "Scientists issue 'last chance' warning". Professor John Morton was quoted as saying that it looked as if humanity was likely to fail while another lecturer. Edward Goldsmith, was equally pessimistic. Economic and industrial policies, he said, had caused "the most terrible soil erosion and deforestation and were altering the ozone layer and climates", adding that “if our policies remain unchanged there is no question about it. there is no way man can survive another forty years".

The seriousness of the threat facing the human race right now needs no further comment. What does is the implication of the comments of the scientists that "policy" is the problem and that “policies" are the cure. Despite commendable scientific endeavour in their special disciplines, they have yet to apply it to humanity in general. What we have is a particular system of society which has evolved from the relatively short historical period of private property society that is in its closing stages.

Far from the policies of governments dictating the way in which wealth is produced and distributed, it is in fact the reverse. Policies are dictated by the world-wide system of capitalism. A way to look at this is to think of a boat being tossed on the waves of the ocean, the boat is the human race and the ocean is the market system (the buying and selling of goods).

Goods are produced for sale and not for direct consumption to satisfy human needs. The competition to sell goods causes a constant vicious circle which goes like this: Profits falling due to overproduction — introduce new technology to reduce costs (spend a large proportion of profits on new capital) — sell goods in larger quantities by undercutting competitors' prices because of reduced costs — competitors forced to introduce new technology — back to the same situation where started — introduce more technology, expand capital base.

The incessant drive to maximise profits means that enterprises generally will strive to reduce costs. The disposal of wastes is a large cost to enterprises, and they will try to do it as cheaply as possible — they will bury it in trenches, pump it into the waterways, exhaust it into the air. and a variety of other polluting methods. This is not from any malicious intent but because competition forces this upon them.

Often because of political pressures governments will try and legislate to prevent pollution. In some cases this has worked, but more often it is ineffectual. Also, to worsen the problem, enterprises and governments when faced with a choice of raw materials and producer goods are forced to take the least expensive route, again due to competition. This often means that the more environmentally harmful substances are used.

To sum up, we are faced with the most serious problem ever to confront the human race next to the nuclear war threat, and workers are continuing to support a system of society which is the basic cause of both problems.

If the scientists were forced to sit down and apply their techniques of scientific investigation to human society and its evolution. they would come up with only one answer: the establishment of a system of society where production will be for direct use, goods and services will be free to all, and where all will have a direct democratic input because they are social equals. Only then can we make rational decisions concerning production and our environment without the shackles of the market system. But then it is up to us and not the scientists to establish this system.

Dave Tildesley
World Socialist Party of New Zealand