I Have Been Thinking.......

You may have been wondering about all this korero in politics such as left, centre and right. Back in the day left meant various ideologies from Communism (extreme left) to Socialism (left) and Social Democracy (centre left). Labour straddled the centre left. The extreme right meant Fascism, right meant capitalism and centre right meant capitalism plus social conservatism. National straddled the centre right. 

That was then. Since the introduction of "more market", the selling off of state assets, and something called neo-liberalism , but was introduced by Labour and continued enthusiastically by National, the economic and political concepts of left and right have become blurred. Under a first past the post system of elections this ideology which purports to come from Milton Friedman of the USA (extreme market) was cemented into the economic and political korero of our time. However the impact of this ideology has resulted in the rich getting richer, the poor numbers increasing dramatically and the cost of housing increasing. 

The introduction of MMP and the growth of minor parties has highlighted the excesses of capitalism. Minor parties have introduced into politics those issues like the environment, tangata whenua interests, New Zealand as distinct from global issues, that would otherwise have been ignored ahead of major party concerns that cover the broad spectrum of centre-left and centre-right. 

An Economic Activity: 

Our tupuna harvesting kumara in a largely subsistence

economy of those times.

These trends of course are determined by major economic and social change since the hey day of Labour and National governments from 1935. The "working class" are no longer only the skilled and unskilled. Technical knowhow and the explosion of skills has multiplied a hundred fold. The middle class are now richer. As we all know the days of full employment and cheap housing are long gone. We do have an "under class" who are the poor as defined by level of income and the unemployed. 

I am not trying to tell you who to vote for but as you know we now have choices. Most important on election day however is: VOTE. KAUA E WAREWARE. KAUA E MANGERE. If you don't vote then don't moan.