Surrendering culture to the left

When I was at Canterbury University in the 1990s, the student newspaper featured heated exchanges between left and right-liberals about the value of an arts degree. Right-liberals taking business and engineeering papers dismissed arts degrees as pieces of "toilet paper" with little commerical value. Left-liberals responded by claiming that right-liberals are culturally illiterate and only interested in the narrow commercial value of education.

Whatever the practical or commercial value of an arts degree, most people with arts degrees do get jobs of one form or another and many do get into positions of power and influence, and whether right-liberals like it or not, most people with arts degrees are left-liberals.

In the mid 1980s, right liberals in NZ believed they could negate the influence of the liberal -left by commercialising the state and privatising state assets. They failed to take into account that the culture of the public sector, at both the local and national level, is primarily dominated by the liberal-left.

In state education the liberal-left has gone from strength to strength over the last twenty years despite the best efforts of the liberal right to contain it by fiscal means.

In 1999, I spent a year studying honours level history. At the end of the course the lecturer asked the class about their political views. There were about a dozen people in my tutorial group and I was the only one to claim to have right wing or centrist views. Although some of the group kept their opinions to themselves, most claimed to be left of centre on social and economic views.

Besides monopolising state education, left -liberals are dominant in many areas of international govenrnance, central government, local governmment, public broadcasting, arts management, environmental conservation, mental health (public and private), many areas of the non-profit sector, and in museums and art galleries.

Contrary to the promises of neo-liberal reformers, the state has not been downsized in New Zealand and currently has access to more money and staff than ever before.

In education even commerically orientated courses popular with right-liberals are affected by left-liberal viewpoints. For example, business schools teach the idea that business leaders are "made not born", even though the latest research in psychology and the natural sciences emphasises the genetic aspects of human capabilities.

Left-liberal influence in broadcasting can be seen in the public funding being provided for low- brow programming like prime time soaps and reality television, based on the egalitarian argument that all tastes should be catered for.

Unlike libertarians, traditional and empirical conservatives don't believe that the influence of the liberal-left will simply wither away through fiscal attempts to downsize government. In order to reduce the power of the contemporary liberal left, it will be necessary to carry the fight into the academy and the media to expose its weak intellectual foundations.

More Thoughts on Ghasson Hage's "White Nation"

In White Nation sociologist Ghassen Hage describes limited immigration advocates as "worriers" who are irrationally trying to control something over which they have little influence.
While Hage's definition of traditional conservatives and white nationalists as worriers may have some validity, it also highlights the Marxist mind-set of pro-immigration leftists like Hage.

Since Marxists believe that all ethnic groups are the same, and that natural resource limits have no serious impact on human wellbeing, they have no reason to fear unrestricted immigration.

In contrast, traditional conservatives don't believe that all groups of people are the same and accept that it is often difficult for different groups of people to get along. Conservatives also accept that many natural resources are finite and that different ethnic groups exploit resources in different ways, with varying levels of success, and often compete for control of resources.

Conservatives may well worry a lot about immigration, but they have good reason to. The conservative pessimist-realist world- view is one strongly correlates with what actually happens in the world, as opposed to what may happen in the future.

History shows that differences between ethic groups are not easy to reconcile . History also shows that much of time, people mismanage physical resources and that multicultural societies, with authoritarian governments (such as the Soviet Union) have the worst track records in this respect.

The Marxist view is an optimistic view, which argues the future will be better than the past and that differences between ethnic groups are superficial and in any case will be overcome through collective action.

For Marxists, worry isn't an issue, since sooner or later all things will turn out for the best. In response to leftists like Hage, conservatives could make a counter-claim that Maxists, and other rational cornucopians, are actually worriers of a more profoud type since they unconcouisly hide their worry behind a positivist secular religion.

Interestingly, the portrayal of conservatives as being more neurotic than left-liberals conflicts with findings from psychological studies into the behaviour profiles of liberal and conservatives - such research suggests that liberals in fact have the highest rates of neuroticism.

In reflecting on my reasons for writing posts on topics such as immigration, I will admit that concern for the future is a significant motivating factor. However, a far bigger factor is concern for intellectual honesty and a distaste for political correctness. Part of this comes from a working/lower midle class contempt for cultural self-loathing and intellectual dishonesty.

New Zealand's Anti-Australian Foreign Policy

In last weekend's Press there was a feature article on New Zealand's relations with the US entitled "Pecking orders". The author of the article concludes that New Zealand has not suffered in trade terms with the US by our nuclear free policy or stance on Iraq.

However, the writer failed to discuss New Zealand's foreign policy towards Australia, and how trans-tasman tensions affect our relations with the US. Arguably New Zealand's foreign relations with Australia, our number one trading partner, are of greater strategic importance than our own relations with the US.

New Zealand is materially incapable of serious military action without Australian help and New Zealand's departure from ANZUS was a much greater inconvenience to Australia than the US, which has no immediate interests in the South Pacific.

In discussing NZ's failure to secure a free trade deal with the US, where Chile and Australia have succeeded, former Ambassador to the US John Wood argues :"We've been disadvantaged, ultimately not by American decisions, but by the Australian decision to negociate with the US alone. On are our won we're one-fifth of the Austraian market, so we're always going to be well down the queue". My intepretation of this is that if New Zealand isn't going to support Australia in regional defence, then why should Australia go into bat for New Zealand in its relations with the US.

Futhermore, if New Zealand does go it alone in negociations with the US, then it isn't likely that the US is going to pay us much attention.The fact is New Zealand is a small obscure country with little international influence and it needs Australian help to project its interests.

Similalry, Australia needs all the help it can get in establishing a credible military presence in the South Pacific. Therefore it makes sense for New Zealand to support Australia and stop arrogantly presenting itself as some kind of "Switzerland of the South Pacific" with delusions of grandeur.

In the world or realpolitik, nobody likes a smartarse.

Housing Affordability

Accoring to an article on the New Zealand Herald website, the country's three largest cities are now among the 50 least affordable cities in the OECD in relation to local wage rates. Given that over 60 percent of the population lives in the three main centres (Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) this means that a high proportion of the population are likely to be priced out of the property market.

Australia also did very poorly in the survey, with Canada taking out the top spot as the country with the most affordable house prices. This is a major concern since traditionally, both Australia and New Zealand have been part of the exclusive club of high wage/cheap land countries that includes the United States and Canada.

One of the authors of the survey blames red tape and planning restrictions for high property prices and there seems to be some truth in this - property developers in Canada and the US don't (in most areas) have to deal with legislation like the Resource Management Act and have a lot more freedom to build on city margins.

However, there are other important reasons for the high cost of housing in New Zealand. The number of people with second homes is increasing while the lack of a capital gains tax and high withholding taxes help makes property more attractive than other investments. Mortgages are now easier to get than ever before, and many people rush into buying expensive homes at high interest rates for fear of missing the housing boat altogether.

Immigration is another big factor. Immigration levels are relatively high in New Zealand and the vast majority of immigrants move to the three main centres, with Auckland receiving the lion's share. Desite the US being a relatively affordable country for housing, Los Angeles came out as the world's least affordable city. Los Angeles, as many Americans will tell you, has a very high level of immigration with many people arriving illegally from Mexico.

Reducing red tape and easing planning restrictions will help ease the housing shortage but such reforms can only go so far. Much of the land around Christchurch and Auckland is good quality agricultural land and councils are right to be concerned about urban sprawl swallowing up good, flat agricultural land in a mountainous country like New Zealand.

Declining home ownership should also be a major concern for the National party. Historically, home ownership makes voters (especially women) more conservative and declining home ownership will play into the hands of the Labour party who can promise to "solve" the housing problem with token schemes that don't really fix the problem.

High property prices are also linked to family formation, and US evidence suggests that voters in states with a high proportion of home owning married couples are more likely to vote Republican.

Genetics and Business

A recent article in Christchurch’s Press entitled “Mental stamina gives edge”(Saturday, January 13, not online) points out that management theory over the last 30 years has not given sufficient consideration to genetic factors.

According to psychologists, having a high level of “mental energy” is essential for success in business and “positive” mental energy comes from interest and curiosity.

Generally, it is people with high IQs who have high levels of curiosity and who can sustain interest in mentally demanding challenges, and twin studies indicate that IQ is largely a genetically determined factor. Similarly one of the other main factors in business success is a low level of neuroticism, which is also determined by genetics.

According to Amanda Sinclair, a professor of management at the Melbourne Business School, “mental stamina” is not a very glamorous characteristic and in business management people don’t tend to associate with the “dazzle of leadership”. Sinclair states that research into “mental stamina”, has been downplayed as a significant factor in business leadership because it has not been fashionable to think of leadership as being genetic.

The author of the article goes on to point out that business schools have an investment in the belief that leaders are “made not born”. In recent decades there has been an enormous amount of investment in business school training with MBA programmes seen as essential for training managerial elites.

However, if leadership and management ability are largely determined by native intelligence and temperament, then society shouldn’t be putting so much time and money into generic business management training. Hopefully, this means that elites in business and government can now spend more time acquiring real world experience in the specific fields in which they intend to work.

At the university level, this should also give them the opportunity to address their cultural and scientific ignorance by taking more papers in subjects like history and the natural sciences.

Thoughts on Joining Australia

Although forfeiting New Zealand’s sovereignty and joining Australia seems like a very un-conservative idea, there are a number of strong arguments in its favour.

In the decades following Britain’s entry in the European Community, New Zealand has become an increasingly uncertain and directness nation. Successive governments have introduced stop-start reforms with inadequate forethought and foreign policy has lurched from unqualified support for the US to pretentious left wing sentimentality.

With a heavily centralised political system bewildered voters have witnessed a succession of incoherent governments seriously out of tune with the pragmatic instincts of the majority of the population.

The 1984 Labour government damaged the credibility of fiscal conservatism in NZ by associating it with Chardonnay socialist posturing and gun-ho yuppie recklessness.

In fairness to the politicians though, it was always going to be tough. The political and economic connection with Britain provided the country with a high standard of living and a strong cultural focus. For the country to sustain a strong economy and a high level of cultural self-confidence the nations politicians would have had to challenge a number of strong vested interests and fashionable assumptions.

In Waltzing with Matilda, Bob Catley points out that Australia has been able to steadily and thoughtfully introduce essential economic reforms which New Zealand governments have only been able to implement in a half-hearted or rushed manner.

For example, Australia introduced means testing for benefits in the 1980s, while in New Zealand means testing for pensions isn’t even on the agenda. The Lange government gave away a number of state assets at bargain prices in the 1980s while Australian governments have thought long and hard about how to get the best price for key public assets.

This is because in Australia’s federal political system government policies have to “sold” (Catley’s phrase) to the electorate before they can be implemented by central government. In contrast, New Zealand governments have hidden reforms behind misleading rhetoric and have subsequently lost public support at key times.

If New Zealand were a state of Australia, then it would benefit from being part of a well-established federal government that has a proven record of economic pragmatism. Australia is also New Zealand’s largest trading partner and economic amalgamation would significantly reduce transaction cost between the two countries.

In social terms New Zealand’s Labour government has pushed through changes at a faster pace than most of the electorate is comfortable with. This was particularly noticeable in the 2005 election where there was an unprecedented urban/rural split, with provincial centres overwhelmingly voting against Labour’s socially liberal policies.

In contrast, both of the two main political parties in Australia have a more socially conservative orientation. This can be seen in the Liberals support for tax incentives for having children and in Labour’s arguably more cautious immigration policy.

This greater social conservatism again stems from Australia’s more decentralised political system, which allows smaller towns and cities more influence over the political process than in New Zealand.

In New Zealand, the left has far too much influence over foreign policy. Unhinged from previous alliances with Australia and the US, New Zealand is now an isolated western country at the mercy of pro-UN internationalists with an anti-western agenda.

Labour’s vision of New Zealand as a nuclear free “Switzerland of the South Pacific” is both conceited and naive. While Australia may have been mistaken to support the poorly conceived war in Iraq, it has enough self-awareness to realise that it is a western power in a potentially hostile region and that it needs to cooperate with other western powers.

In a cultural sense, it is doubtful that many Australians adhere the fashionable view that Australia is an Asian nation. Whereas the case for European countries joining the European Union is purely a rational or economic one, the case for joining Australia also has a strong cultural component, since if New Zealand became a part of Australia then the anti-western agenda of the country’s liberal left would be dealt a heavy blow.

Perhaps the biggest argument of favour of amalgamation is immigration patterns. Although the non-western proportion of the population in both countries is increasing rapidly, the situation is much more acute in New Zealand. Within 30 years it is likely that most of New Zealand’s population will be of non-western origin. Hence, at that point it may well cease to exist as a western-style democratic state.

By joining with a more self-sufficient and economically vigorous country, it will have less reason to import so many people from non-western backgrounds, who are likely to want a more authoritarian form of government to protect them from rising crime and a real or imagined populist backlash.

Although there is no guarantee that Australia will not go the same way as New Zealand, its greater size, income and cultural self-confidence mean that it probably has a better chance of surviving as a western nation than a small, isolated country like New Zealand.

It reality a merger with Australia may prove to be politically impractical, however, an amlagation movement would at least force National and Labour to take a more hard headed look at the country’s long term interests.

Egocentric Whites?

In White Nation Lebanese Australian Ghassan Hage argues that Australian whites have an unrealistic Anglo-centric attitude to immigration and they should wake up and accept the reality that regulating immigration is beyond their control.

Hage argues that both white nationalists and white multiculturalists are “worrying” over an issue over which they have no control. According to Hage, non-white immigration is inevitable and that political multiculturalism is driven not by white liberals, as One Nation voters assume, but by the enterprising efforts of non-white immigrants themselves.

Hence it is egocentric of whites to presume that can control immigration (for better or worse). Public opinions polls on immigration, in Hage’s view, are a “laughable” anachronism because they wrongly assume that the country as a whole is still interested in the opinions of white Australians after decades of non-white immigration and integration.

However, a strong case can be made that Ghassan Hage’s, White Nation (published in 1998), is itself a laughable anachronism. Like many on the left, Hage glosses over the important issue of different degrees of integration among different groups of non-whites.

Since Hage only discusses successful not white immigrant groups such as East Asians, he can portray working class white Australians as over-privileged losers, daydreaming about the past while depicting non-white immigrants as competent realists working towards the future.

However, not all immigrant groups are successful self-starters who have gained social and economic power through their own efforts. France, is currently dealing with the embarrassing problem of a large (and growing) non-white minority that is proving incapable of fending for itself and integrating into the French economy.

The continuing challanges Australia faces in trying to integrate its indigenous people also highlights the fact that cultural integration is not inevitable, and that some non-white groups can indeed become a burden for other ethnic groups

Hage also blurs the distinction between Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism. This allows him to suggest that because Anglocentrism is on the wane, Eurocentrism in Australia is also dead and buried. Most of the successful post war integration though, which Hage refers to in One Nation has been non -Anglo Celtic white immigration.

Non-white immigration in Australia only became significant in the 1970s and for the time being at least, whites are still clearly in the majority. Multiculturalists who refer to the United States and Australia as “cultural melting pots” are referring to the successful assimilation of non-British Europeans and Jews in the period from 1900-1965.

Since significant non-white immigration has only been occurring for a few decades, the verdict is still out on whether whites have the ability to manage it.

Another factor that is completely overlooked by Hage is the possibility that different ethnic groups may team up with whites to influence immigration patters. In New Zealand for example, the centre-right National party is attracting significant East Asian support, while the centre-left Labour party has a growing support base among Polynesians and South Asians. Such ethnic power play could work to strengthen or weaken white power in the political process.

From a rights perspective Hage implies that whites do not a mandate to try to regulate immigration for their own benefit. The fact that he should mention this when he has already stated that non-white immigration is “inevitable” is not only bemusing, but it also leaves an ethical vacuum in which no one has a right to say who should and shouldn’t become a citizen.

A major problem in countries with liberal immigration policies is economic inequality. If, as Hage seems to suggest, recent immigrants themselves should have a greater say over immigration policy, then the Australian welfare state is likely to become overburdened and the cheap land/ expensive labour arrangement which had been the cornerstone of Australian economic equality could be decisively undermined.

Given that unrestricted immigration could potentially turn egalitarian Australia into something closer to a “libertarian aristocracy” like Brazil, it is no wonder that working class white Australians are concerned with losing control over the immigration process, even if Hage is right to conclude that their power to influence the process is at present fairly limited.

Hage tries to reassure Australian whites that although they have no power to influence immigration, non-white immigrants are “rational” people who won’t want to destroy the country’s prosperity by irresponsibly flooding into the country and undermining Australia’s high quality of life.

However, immigrants from impoverished countries are likely to have a much weaker definition of what constitutes a high quality of life than those from lightly populated developed states. Even those from developed East Asian countries are likely to have a different conception of the "good life" to most European Australians.

Hage argues that whites do have a right to defend their own culture, but only as an ethnic lobby group and not as a “white aristocracy” which claims to act in the best interests of the citizentry as a whole.

What Hage doesn’t seem to appreciate however, is that for the last 200 years, whites have been deliberating repressing the very sort of clannish self-interest, which he seems to promote. Part of the reason why whites have been so successful in this period is because of their aversion to such things as cousin marriage and political nepotism, which are still the norm in many parts of the world (hat tip to Steve Sailer).

Although there are some interesting aspects to Hage’s analysis, his liberal (and decidedly undemocratic) premises lead to only one workable type of solution- an expansive immigration policy with an authoritarian society and a libertarian economy. However, Hage is unwilling to come clean about the inevitable corruption, inequality and crime that goes with such a society.

Ad Hominem Ad Nauseam

In The Death of the West Patrick Buchanan points out the political differences between the Democrats and the Republicans are inconsequential yet the level of bitterness in mainstream American politics has never been greater.

In New Zealand there is also little difference in the policies of the two main parties, National and Labour. However, over the last few years there has been a marked rise in personal attacks directed against rival politicians.

Among neoconservative bloggers, and among Young Nats on student campuses, there is an intense dislike of Labour leader Helen Clarke, who is often compared to Joseph Stalin in drag. This is despite the fact that Labour’s policies aren’t that much different to Nationals.

Political correctness is one possible reason why politics has got so personal and abusive. Many people are afraid to say what they really think and so prefer to vent their frustrations through personal attacks rather than by explaining why they are opposed to particular policies.

Another factor is the rise of the liberal-right. Libertarians have an intense dislike of state interference in the economy and will latch onto any differences in tax policies between parties no matter how small. As I have mentioned before, libertarianism is a socially acceptable (and often petty) form of political incorrectness since it only really focuses on economic issues and surrenders the cultural sphere to left liberals.

In New Zealand this can be seen in the “ACT guy, Green girl” trend, where an economically conservative/socially moderate male has a socially liberal/economically left wing partner who is oblivious to the male partner’s economically right wing tendencies.

Buchanan believes that the main differences in US politics are in the cultural realm, but for tactical reasons voters continue to support the mainstream parties:

“A hundred times in the campaign of 2000, a voter would come up to me and say that he or she believed in me, and agreed with me but could not vote for me”.

In NZ there is now a pronounced split in the rural/urban vote with the provinces overwhelmingly pro-National. Rural outrage with Labour’s socially liberal manifesto could be seen in the attempts by the Exclusive Brethren to influence the outcome of the 2005 election - a course of action, which attracted considerable unwelcome attention for the normally secretive sect.

No doubt party strategists believe personal attacks are a good strategy. Labour’s campaign to discredit Don Brash certainly achieved its objective. However, it has done little to reduce support for National, which has arguably benefited from Labour’s attacks on its leader, since personal attacks take the focus away from policy shortcomings.

A factor that needs more investigation is the connection between cultural Marxism and personality politics. Since, post-modern theory claims there is no way to assess things with a reasonable degree of objectively it makes sense to judge the message according to the values and behaviour of the messenger, rather than assess the message itself.

Or to put this in political terms- it makes sense to try and discredit your opponents rather than their policies.

New Zealand's Rudderless Economy

Helen Clarke’s nu-Labour government now appears to be bereft of ideas on economic development.

The government is siting on a substantial surplus but has no strategic plan about how to spend it. It is also making no attempt to help the struggling farming sector, which is suffering from the high dollar.

As Colin James points out, the government has talked of increasing research and development spending but has done little in practice. In the last budget, just $25 million in new funding was allocated for scientific and industrial research while $2.2 billion was directed into social spending. Similarly, Michael Cullen’s incentives for increasing national savings are half-hearted at best.

To help exporters the government also needs to do something about the country’s persistently high interest rates, which are the main factor behind the overvalued New Zealand dollar.

However, after three and half decades of middle class welfare it is now very difficult to help the productive sector without causing serious inflation. If the country had fewer middle class welfare recipients, then perhaps it wouldn’t have such an inherently inflationary economy.

The first big mistake was made by Robert Muldoon, when he irresponsibly promised to raise pensions in the mid 1970s. He also refused to reform the country’s overly generous superannuation system when it became increasingly unaffordable in the early 1980s. This has effectively tied producerism to the elderly welfare lobby. Subsequently, we now have a situation where the “producerist” New Zealand First party depends for its support on generous welfare promises to elderly superannuants and affluent pensioners.

The centre-right National party is more fiscally responsible in terms of welfare spending, but is still hesitant to introduce Australian style means testing for pensions and benefits. Furthermore, in terms of economic development, National is just as bad as Labour. It is disinterested in increasing spending on research and development and is even more apathetic about introducing savings incentives.

About the only glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel is Don Brash’s recent exit from politics. This means that a workable National- New Zealand First coalition becomes a more likely possibility.

However, for such an alliance to work, New Zealand First would have to accept means testing for welfare benefits while National would have to take serious steps to boost savings and investment. This seems unlikely unless the economy takes a serious nosedive or the business sector finally loses patience with the status quo and initiates a campaign to join Australia.

Such a campaign might be enough to shake the three main political parties out of their present complacency

The NZ Media's Pacific Agenda

In the New Zealand media there has been conspicuously limited coverage of the recent ethnic tensions in Tonga.

During the rioting in the nations capital in November 2006 eight Chinese immigrants were killed and a large section of the city was destroyed by fire. A number of ethnic Tongans are currently on trial for inciting violence and damaging property.

However, the story has been given little coverage on New Zeland television. This has been particularly noticeable on the left-of-centre TV One News.

In contrast, there has been extensive coverage of the Fiji coup even though the events in Fiji have unfolded peacefully and have had little real impact on New Zealand. Although many New Zealanders do have property in Fiji this doesn’t really explain the media’s intense fascination with the country’s politics. The last coup in Fiji had very little impact on New Zealand citizens living in Fiji or owning property there.

Furthermore, there are probably just as many Tongans living in New Zealand as ethnic Fijians, so it seems odd that the media is neglecting events that are directly relavant to this section of the population.

The coverage of events in Fiji also glosses over the significant ethnic tensions between native Fijians and Indian immigrants. Hence, it appears that the media wishes to downplay the problems of ethnic tensions in the region for fear that this might play into the hands of limited immigration advocates. Meanwhile it wishes to show that problems with democracy in Fiji are due to a small number of nativist military leaders and that western style democracy will prosper if the military are kept in check.

However, one of the primary reasons why Fiji is prone to military takeovers is because its democratic government is corrupt and inefficient- a trait it shares with most other government’s in the region. Despite what Helen Clarke and the NZ media may think, New Zealand is not going to be able to turn the South Pacific into a model region of democracy and prosperity.

As a successful western country, New Zealand should not be looking at the region through rose- tinted glasses.