A Slack Effort From Slack

Despite its controversial cover, David Slack’s- Civil War and other Predictions is a disappointing effort that provides few novel insights into New Zealand’s major social, economic and environmental issues.

In the first section of the book Slack canvasses relations between Whites and Maori over the Waitangi Treaty settlement process. He argues that Whites have slowly come round to accepting the Maori point of view and that Maori claims are eminently reasonable. However, as with most discussions of redistribution issues between Maori and non-Maori racial categories and demography are not addressed. Many Whites that oppose redistributing resources back to Maori privately cite racial ambiguity as a primary reason. The Maori population is heavily interbreed with the European population hence the common refrain, ‘why does that guy deserve a treaty handout, he’s Whiter than I am’. Similarly, due to intermarriage, it is very difficult to assess just how large the Maori population actually is and census numbers fluctuate appreciably. Although the Treaty settlement process involves tribes rather than Maori per se, many non-Maori primarily see it as an issue about racial preference.

On the very important topic of immigration Slack glosses over most of the big issues. He seems to dismiss the debate over immigration as ‘cheap political capital’ that occurs ‘every couple of years’ with each immigration wave. However, what matters is who comes and how many. New Zealand is a relatively equalitarian society in large part because of an abundance of land relative to labour, which is maintained by immigration restrictions. Furthermore, despite all the recent economic reforms, the nation still mainly lives off the land through farming, fishing and tourism. Large numbers of immigrants may water down how much of the ‘resource pie’ each person gets. Even worse, if large numbers of unskilled immigrants arrive we may also lose the option of trying to compensate for physical resource depletion by developing hi-tech industries.

Since the 1970s the number of non-western immigrants arriving in N.Z hasn’t been that large so there has not been that much serious disruption. However, what will happen, for example, to New Zealand’s largely Western culture if the country losses its European majority? In Western Countries such as the United States and France where the White majority is now under threat political divisions and ethnic tensions are becoming very serious, as seen in the French street riots and ‘White Flight’ from Southern California.

The issue of immigration is also conspicuously absent from Slack’s coverage of environmental issues. He puts forward some reasonably sensible arguments from Green politician Jeannette Fitzsimons about issues such as peak oil and consumerism but never mentions immigration and population growth. Environmental pollution is essentially caused by two factors- industrialisation and population growth. Hence, if you don’t address population growth (which in New Zealand largely comes from immigration) you are effectively trying to deal with the pollution problem with one hand tied behind your back.

The last section of the books deals with cultural tolerance and political correctness. Slack largely dismisses political correctness as a knee-jerk response to relatively trivial issues. However, he overlooks an important issue that is saturated with political correctness- the treatment of children and adolescents in today’s society. Many people are put off teaching and parenting by the behaviour of children and increasingly ambiguous norms regarding how children can be disciplined. Can teachers shout at children, physically expel them from a classroom? Can parents slap children on the leg, hand e.t.c if them deem it appropriate? What can and can’t I do if I catch a teenager vandalising my car?

On the topic of homosexuality Slack argues that the majority is now in favour of gay rights and people have overcome their bad old ‘1950s attitudes’ thanks to progressive politics. He doesn’t mention though, that changing attitudes to homosexuality may be related to such factors as the relatively small size of the gay population, the containment of the aids problem in N.Z, the development of modern condoms, the end of military conscription and the importance of gays in the modern service economy.

Despite all my criticisms of Slack’s book I will acknowledge that it does cover some issues quite well and there are some intelligent points on legal topics and economic policy. However, when I see a controversial title like ‘Civil War’ I except some really brave, incisive commentary and in this respect Slack fails to deliver.