The Flight of the Kiwi: Economic Growth and Society in New Zealand
| Published date | 01 December 1981 |
| Date | 01 December 1981 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070208103600410 |
| Subject Matter | Money and Markets |
HARVEY
FRANKLIN
The
flight
of
the
kiwi:
economic
growth
and
society
in
New
Zealand
THE
BACKGROUND
New
Zealand
began
its
European
era
as
something
of
an experi-
ment.
Edward
Gibbon
Wakefield
attempted
to
circumvent
the
pressures
of
capitalist
Britain
by
seeking
a
middle-class
prosperity
for
his
colonists.
The
working
class
who
accompanied
them,
rather
than
wait
to
be
raised economically
and
socially
by
the
Wakefield
scheme,
struck
for
an
eight-hour
day
immediately
upon
their
arrival,
and
they
achieved
it,
in
1840.
The
crown
and
clergy,
anx-
ious
to
protect
the
native
population
against the
worst
conse-
quences
of
European
civilization,
assumed
total
protection
of
the
Maori people
by
the
Treaty
of
Waitangi.
The
quest
for
prosperity,
a
humanized
form
of
capitalism,
and
responsible
race
relations
have
remained
the
enduring
objectives
of
the
New
Zealand
experiment
to
the
present
day.
Their
achieve-
ment
has
rested
upon
an ever
increasing
degree
of
state
interven-
tion,
a
feature
which
has
created
a
vast
misconception
amongst
observers
and
citizens
alike
concerning
the
true
nature
of New
Zealand's
'socialism'.
This
socialism
has
never had
much
to
do
with
doctrinaire
socialism.
State
intervention
in
New
Zealand
has
been more
of
a
response
to
a
widely
held belief
in
egalitarianism,
so
central
to New
Zealand
political
life
(it
is
after
all
the ethos
which
resolves
any
conflicts
that
arise
between
the
competing
ob-
jectives
of
the
New
Zealand
experiment)
that
all
the political
parties
have
to
retain
it
as
central
to
their
own
thinking,
pushing
Professor
of
Geography,
Victoria
University
of
Wellington,
New
Zealand;
author
of
Trade,
growth
and
anxiety:
New
Zealand
beyond
the
wetifare
state
(1978).
ECONOMIC
GROWTH
AND
SOCIETY
IN
NEW
ZEALAND
899
to
the
periphery
of discussion any
doctrines
or
ideas
that
might
really
distinguish
them
from
one
another.
Thus
the
Labour
party
abandoned
long
ago
any
real
interest
in
the
class
war
or
in
the
nationalization
of
the
means
of
produc-
tion.
Supported
by
the
trade
union
movement
it
is
currently
com-
mitted
to
increased
government
spending
for
social
purposes
at
a
time when
even
the
working
class
complains
bitterly
about
the
high
marginal rate
of
taxation.
The
Social
Credit
party
-
with
two seats
in
the
house
and
the
support
of
20
to
30
per
cent
of
the
electorate
according
to
various
polls
-
has
disavowed all
that
is
distinctive
about
its
monetary
policy.
In
a
period
of
inflation
it
is
the
party
of
cheap
credit
for
the
small
businessman
and
a
haven
for those
resentful
of
Labour's
trade
union
affiliations
and
Na-
tional's
big
business
connections.
The
Values
party
with
its
con-
cern
for
the
environment
and
an
interest
in
alternative
economies
and
life
styles
has
been
dropped
by its
middle-class
supporters.
Following
the
onset
of
straitened
economic
circumstances
they
sensed
that
its
policies,
if
ever
applied,
would
restrict
economic
growth
and
lead
to more
taxation.
For
the
majority
of
the
elec-
torate,
the
Values
programme
is
too
6litist
to
gain
any
widespread
support.
Two
parties
with
real
socialist
ambitions,
the
Socialist
Unity
party
(Moscow)
and
the
Communist party
(Peking),
have
minute
followings
among
the
electorate.
Their
actual
power
lies
in
a
capacity
to
engender
industrial
disruption
by
controlling
some
of
the strategically
placed
official
positions
in
the
trade
union
move-
ment.
The
National
party
is
the
only
mass
party
with
anything
ap-
proaching
a
distinctive
ideology.
It
calls
itself
the
party
of
free
enterprise,
but
for
the
greater
part
of
the
postwar
era
it
has
gov-
erned
and
embellished
one
of
the most
regulated
economies in
the
free
world.
Under
pressure
from
some
of
its
influential
but
minority
supporters it
promises
to
deliver
the
economy
from
its
bureaucratic
bondage
but it
proceeds
warily,
sensitive
to
any
move
that
might
destabilize
its
political
support
in
an
electorate
where
it
has
never
won
a
notable
absolute
majority.
To
understand
contemporary
New
Zealand
-
the
present
pol-
itical
and
economic
stasis,
the
rhetorical
conventions
of
its society,
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