Book Reviews "Reclaiming The Future: New Zealand And The Global
Economy" By Jane Kelsey. - Liz Griffiths It is one of those things we'll never know. Did Roger Douglas and Jim Bolger really believe the spin that "There Is No Alternative" (TINA)? It is hard to believe that anyone with half a brain could really think the push for privatisation and deregulation was an only option. So, why push a con? It requires rather to ask who was pushing it and why - that is, who was to benefit, who is benefitting, and why did politicians so willingly buy into it? In policy setting there are always many options and blends of options. The TINA rhetoric is the stuff that dictatorships are made of. Only simpletons and madmen in my view believe in single options. Jane Kelsey's book is worth reading. Her earlier book "The New Zealand Experiment" (1993), was a major attempt to analyse what TINA policies were doing to the fabric of our social structures. Now she presents her findings of the neo-liberal orthodoxy that was implemented and experimented with in New Zealand. "I set out to test the orthodoxy of the 1990's - that globalisation is irresistible, inevitable, and desirable. The book challenges the belief that New Zealand is leading the world towards some free-market nirvana". "Reclaiming the Future" is an observation and reflection about events that have occurred in our country. Kelsey provides good background to many of the global bodies that have overridden our own Government's power and control, and weakened social and environmental protections that were in place. She does not attempt to provide a simplistic blueprint for the future, but upholds that, with democratic processes and remaining rights, we have some ability to reclaim what we can of our destiny. It is important to see who the power brokers are and how they operate both within our society and internationally, and as well to fully grasp the role of propaganda. Free trade and uninhibited investment rules simply mean that the already rich and powerful can even more thoroughly obliterate the tiniest traces of local enterprise. "Free" means freedom from rules; and not some airy fairy notion of niceness. New Zealand has already dutifully sold too many of its major infrastructural assets – ostensibly to reduce our national foreign debt (but, in fact, it has rocketed up from $16 billion in 1984 to $109 billion today). Now, with fewer assets to back our debt, and the gap between rich and poor one of the only things growing strongly, the State civil service and local body services are still being targetted by transnationals as new lucrative investments. Kelsey is asking us to be clear. Is this what we want for our country. Even the word "our" is politically a suspect word these days. An Exceptional Book "Reclaiming the Future" is an exceptional book. If I could make it compulsory reading for senior high school students and a core reference university text I would. I would like to have all current and potential MPs read and debate the issues it contains. I would welcome wider public understanding of the histories and roles and mismanagement of bodies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organisation (WTO), and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Then we might be in a position to argue and better evaluate the current discussions about Helen Clark's and Labour's current involvement in the proposed Singapore Free Trade Agreement - another bid, as I see it, for control of investment and trade related activities by transnational corporations (TNCs). Kelsey asserts that the "claims that New Zealand was leading the world down the free market path, that we were trail blazing and others were following, have been found to be deeply misguided". Too much still happens well out of the full glare of the floodlights. Scurrying little people darkly pushing self interested agendas. I said that, not Jane Kelsey, but I believe our concern is shared. We are fortunate to have researchers of Kelsey's calibre who persist in presenting an alternative point of view to TINA, and despite all the attempts to villify and marginalise her. Such is the power of the New Right-owned and operated media and public relations control. However, there is a positive note to all this. There is, in fact, a growing awareness of the designs and methods of the "elite" powerful fortune grabbers. There are numerous forms of local and national resistance occuring and these alternatives are to be tended and encouraged. It is not only in New Zealand that these reactions are happening; the French have always been good at it - but so too have the Americans with their tariffs and quota restrictions - all the things that we like lambs meekly forgo. Local councils are trying to preserve their communities and protect social and environmental damage. These are encouraging. What sort of future do we want? Kelsey is inviting us to become better informed and think harder. This book is too valuable to just quietly fade. Buy it; read it; discuss it. I can only strongly recommend it as another of these excellent books. Foreign Control Watchdog, P O Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand/Aotearoa. December 1999. Email |
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