New Zealand letter (1965)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

I recently read a press report on the new BMA booklet Doctors’ Orders.

We in New Zealand have been getting this sort of thing thrown at us for about two or three years. The BMA are only handing these books out in order to get the workers to keep themselves fit for more intensive exploitation.

Think how the military authorities must groan in despair at the number of men who are not in fighting condition at commencement of training! The expense involved in bringing them up to a peak of fitness required for cannon fodder!

The BMA’s little booklet should enable the workers to do their own P.T. at less cost to the master class. Our experience in Australasia has been that as soon as the masters knew they had a good reserve of healthy labour, they increased the pressure on the workers.

Also there has been a coincidental rise in drug trafficking, and, even in Australia, the discovery of several acres of narcotics growing wild on the banks of a big river.

I notice in the BMA’s booklet that people who have to stand up at work are advised to take a few paces every few minutes. The medical reason for this is quite sound, but the trouble is that so many people are unable to put it into effect because of the very nature of their work. Also, where workers do make the effort, other workers who are more fortunately placed, and have healthier jobs, spare nothing in their efforts to ridicule them.

The object, of course, is to get the other bloke to quit or to “keep him down”. This is often encouraged in New Zealand by foremen who find it a convenient way of dealing with workers who “know too much” and are a threat to their own job security.

If you go to a “vocational guidance expert” and tell him your troubles (that you cannot adjust to this sort of thing) he will have the unconscionable gall to tell you that it is in your own attitude to society and life that the trouble lies, and that where there is “competition” of this sort you must simply learn to fight against it and “stick up for yourself.”

This, incidentally, is a favourite one with our psychiatrists, prison psychologists and Bible-bangers at the present time. In the meantime, those worthies are enjoying the best of privileges handed out to them by a grateful capitalist class who find it very convenient to have a large number of trained sophisticates taking care the workers do not get out of hand.

In spite of all the perennial rot they say about us having free speech, if a worker really gets up and has a go at them he is going to get slapped down pretty hard.

Only the Communists can get away with this “free speaking”; they are adept at saying nothing in several sentences and are in any case supporting the system.

I have not yet read the BMA’s little book and I am not especially anxious to do so. When I hear that they have written a book describing the social conditions which give rise to, and help perpetuate, the majority of mental and bodily disorders, and suggesting the means whereby those conditions can be eradicated, then I will be eager to get my copy.

E.W.H., 

Christchurch, NZ.

Blogger's Note:

I'll go out on a limb and say that 'E.W.H.' was Ernie Higdon.

Letter: Small Fry (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Small Fry

I read with interest your reply to Robin Cox, entitled “Working and Class” (March Socialist Standard), in which you say that a self-employed business man employing a handful of people cannot be classed as a member of the capitalist class proper. With which I agree, but by the same token, if a person retains the full value of his own labour and the surplus value of, say, 5 or 6 other people then he cannot be classed as a member of the working class proper.

I remember reading an article which, if my memory serves me right, made this very point, saying that the labour theory of value was very elastic and that the small business man came into an economic “grey area”, but that these people were such a small minority of the world’s population it was of no importance to the scheme of things. It also rightly pointed out that a self-employed person’s interest lies more with the working class than the capitalist class, as often in an economic crisis many find themselves fighting for their very existence. Indeed, thousands have found themselves relegated to the ranks of the dole queue in competition for the sale of their labour-power.

I would be most interested in your comments.

E. Higdon. 

Auckland, N.Z.

Reply:

In addition to the answer you yourself give, we would say the following. The kind of small enterprise you suggest is seldom independent and would not be capable of competition with larger companies. Instead, it is commonly dependent on one or another of them. It supplies components, or sub-contracts, or plays a part in distribution.

The “business man” running such a firm is theoretically getting his living from the surplus-value produced by those he employs, but in practice he is supervising a segment of the larger enterprise. Usually the use of his own labour-power is as indispensable as that of the employees, and in effect he is himself employed and exploited. When the major company reduces production he is likely to be left with his outlet diminished or gone and his liabilities to meet: hence the many bankruptcies among small companies.

It is convenient to the capitalist class to let small enterprises go on in this way. Many of them produce cheaply because they are in sub-standard premises, employ part-time or casual labour, or believe sacrificial cheapness equals competitiveness and will get them more contracts; and the volume of goods or services supplied to a company in this way is not sufficient to be worth the company’s while to incorporate in its own production. As an example, a few years ago the Esso oil company operated a system of “authorized installers” for central heating. Under it, small businesses installed boilers, pipes and radiators for small returns—so that Esso heating oil could then be sold. Not much doubt who was, and who was not, realizing the surplus-value in that case.

Editorial Committee.

Obituary: Jean Higdon (2008)

Obituary from the April 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jean Higdon 1934-2007

Jean’s secular send-off was attended by fifty of her family, friends and party members.

Of those who were invited to speak on Jean’s life were her son, Jon, who spoke of Jean’s dedication as a mother; Mike Lee, Chairman of the Auckland Regional Local Bodies’ Council, who briefly outlined Jean’s socialist thinking (production of use, not for sale); and Jean’s neighbour whose fractious child was always comforted by Jean’s pleasant manner, and a party member whose galloping rhetoric brought smiles to what might have been a sombre occasion. Said he, “none of those parasitic bastards in Buckingham Palace, the White House or the Kremlin would be tall enough to polish the shoes of Jean Higdon!”

Jean was for many years secretary of the Auckland Branch of the WSPNZ, taking lengthy notes of the discussions we had, and typed out the minutes almost verbatim.

Jean was responsible for the layout of the party journal, The Socialist Review, from 1971 till 1982 when it folded because we couldn’t find any writers. Jean was also a sometime parliamentary candidate for Auckland Central on the socialist ticket, and with her late husband made a vital contribution to spreading the socialist case in new Zealand.

They are both remembered for their humanity and generosity of spirit.

Our condolences go to Jean’s family.

Executive Committee, WSPNZ, 8 February 2008

Unique New Zealand (1969)

From the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Zealand’s development has perhaps been unique in two fields. First, certain reforms were achieved in New Zealand at a very early stage. As early as 1879 men had the vote, and by 1893 women were also entitled to vote. But even today certain restrictions are placed upon Maori voting. By 1894 New Zealand was the first country in the world to have established the system of compulsory state arbitration for fixing wages and settling industrial disputes. This was a retrograde step as far as the workers were concerned, for as all class-conscious workers know, in practice, courts for fixing wages etc. are there purely to prevent workers from striking as further pressure for their claims. Arbitration courts are often long-winded and the capitalist knows that the majority of workers can be distracted from their original determination if things drag on too long.

These early reforms and others, like the eight-hour day in 1897, plus a restricted programme of immigration (thereby maintaining a fairly full state of employment) have tended to give the New Zealander a false sense of security.

As well as long hours of overtime and wives going to work, secondary employment has become to the New Zealander an accepted way of life. He has his house, car, and washing machine, but the price has been high, New Zealand being only second to America in the number of hours worked per head of population. The veneer of affluence, like that of any so-called affluent country, for the working class is very thin.

The second unique aspect of New Zealand’s development is that it has been a farming community from the start and has remained so ever since. This can be a very precarious situation since New Zealand’s exports, the greatest bulk of which go to Britain, are made up almost wholly of agricultural produce—meat, wool, tallow, butter, cheese, powdered milk, and some timber.

Reading an extract from The New Zealand Trades Alphabet, 1968 edition, we can see just how far New Zealand is committed to agriculture as a means of overseas earnings, and to Britain as the buyer.

  For more than a century, Britain and New Zealand have been trading partners. New Zealand, whose whole economy is based on our ability to produce cheap foodstuffs, has sold them to Britain in return for goods and services we cannot provide for ourselves. The money which changes hands in trade between New Zealand and Britain now exceeds $860 million a year.
  New Zealand’s farming industry has been developed primarily to suit British needs and tastes, and Britain now buys some 85 per cent of New Zealand’s butter exports, 92 per cent of the lamb, and 78 per cent of the cheese. Last year sales of these three products were worth $216 million, or 30 per cent of this country's total export earnings. Outside Britain there is simply no substantial market open for any of them.

It is no wonder then that the clouds of economic anxiety began to gather over New Zealand when in 1958 the European Economic Community or Common Market was formed.

Looking at New Zealand over the past few years, one can sense the air of change. Unemployment has crept into existence, something until recently almost unheard of, and while the government tries to tell us that today we are back to full employment it fails to take into consideration the 11,064 persons that constituted a population loss to New Zealand in 1968, (see Auckland Star, December 10, 1968). Industrial unrest has been greater than ever as workers are trying to maintain their standard of living. Big mergers are taking place with almost indecent haste to constitute a position of strength for the struggle that is almost inevitable. We see Mr Holyoake a very worried man, chasing around the world talking and almost pleading with prime ministers of various Common Market countries in a puny effort to try to avert the disaster that could come to New Zealand if Britain joins the Common Market. We can see a great need for trade union solidarity. But most of all, if there is a lesson to be learned from this, it is that we can see a greater than ever need for socialist organisation for the overthrow of capitalism.

Ernie Higdon, 

Socialist Party of New Zealand.

Obituary: Ernie Higdon (1998)

Obituary from the July 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ernie, who died last September at the age of 71, joined the SPGB as a member of the Camden Branch in the late 1940s. A cable jointer by trade he spent some time working in Rhodesia before emigrating with his wife and children to NZ in 1965. He worked for the Auckland Electric Power Board and was involved in many disputes, local and national as a member of the Electrical Workers’ Union.

Ernie stood for parliament on several occasions, and as the SPNZ candidate in the 1972 election, he campaigned against the Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon. Ernie was a formidable debater—a quality recognised by Muldoon who refused to enter into debate with him during that campaign.

A stalwart socialist Ernie was the driving force in the SPNZ, speaking in Albert Park on Sundays and writing for our monthly journal as well as a steady flow of letters to the editor of the NZ Herald.

Over two hundred people attended the funeral—a testimony to a socialist who walked through life with his principles intact.

The main eulogy was delivered by his son Jon. Other speakers were Auckland MP Sandra Lee and a comrade from the SPNZ who referring to the sickening adulation at the recent funeral of Princess Diana, made the point that none of the parasites of this world royal or otherwise—would be tall enough to clean the boots of Ernie Higdon.

It was a fitting farewell that on his coffin was placed his tools of trade—a blowlamp and his tools of leisure, his fishing rod and reel and a bottle of whiskey. Ernie would have chuckled at that!

Our condolences go to his wife Jean, son Jon and daughter Toni.

Alan Coombes