Re: M-TH: Is NZ a bloated semi-colony?
Gidday Dave Yeah I pretty much agree with the first paragraph, from my perspective differential rent on pastoral production was the basis for NZ's sad and deeply flawed little variant of fordism - fordism in the sense that Jessop has advanced (Bastard keynesian economics+welfare state+some way of paying for it). I'm getting into the business of trying to quantify some of the these flows and work shy wide boy that I am I was fishing to see if you had any quantitative data. Interestingly enough for this argument Dave Neilson has just recently marked a doctorate for a student of Rob Stevens that deals pretty much with the role of differential rent in the NZ Aussie economies. I havent read it yet but I'll dig out the reference if you like. I'm probably closer to Rob Steven than you in that I see the economic patterns evident in the NZ economy prior to the seventies as being intimately related to the consumption patterns of the english worker, strongly prior to WWIIless directly post war. I've been trying to get a model of the NZ economy to fly thats built round a variant of the post keynesian idea of balance of payment constrained growth (thirlwall's law) that has our propensity to export being exogenously (to our economy) determined and an endogenous determination of the propensity to import. Sadly this is flying as well as a one winged jumbo at the moment- maybe its just a bad idea but I like it. I'd agree that NZ's existence has become, unlike myself, less bloated and more emaciated with time but would tend to see this as related to the decline in the differential rent on pastoral production that we have extracted from the carnivorous denizens of the core capitalist countries. As to the removal of protection for the internal economy I dont think this is reducible to the needs of international financial capital alone, though it very well maybe compatible with their interests, as I'm sure that international financial capital could have lived with considerably less in the way of liberalization in NZ - Why did we go so far so fast when other economies have been way more circumspect in pursuing this trajectory?\ cheers Bill -- From: "Dave Bedggood" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: M-TH: Is NZ a bloated semi-colony? Date: Fri, Oct 8, 1999, 5:43 AM Gidday Bill, Yes NZ earned differential rent on its pastoral production for much of its history I agree. But a lot of this dissappeared into the hands of the financiers, banks etc who had the mortage on the land etc. i.e. much of it back to the motherland. That part which was retained by the owners of the best land became the capital fund for a weak national bourgeoisie which set up factories in backyard sheds with tariff protection and then state subsidies to survive. I don't take the view that NZ was part of the centre living off the British working class (like Rob Steven) or the periphery for that matter, but like most of the white-setter colonies was a 'special' sort of privileged semi-colony so long as protection was tolerated by and profitable for imperial finance capital. I would venture to say that the loss of this protection has sent NZ down the semi-colonial stakes towards a less bloated and more emaciated existence. What do you say? Dave --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Is NZ a bloated semi-colony?
Gidday Bill, Yes NZ earned differential rent on its pastoral production for much of its history I agree. But a lot of this dissappeared into the hands of the financiers, banks etc who had the mortage on the land etc. i.e. much of it back to the motherland. That part which was retained by the owners of the best land became the capital fund for a weak national bourgeoisie which set up factories in backyard sheds with tariff protection and then state subsidies to survive. I don't take the view that NZ was part of the centre living off the British working class (like Rob Steven) or the periphery for that matter, but like most of the white-setter colonies was a 'special' sort of privileged semi-colony so long as protection was tolerated by and profitable for imperial finance capital. I would venture to say that the loss of this protection has sent NZ down the semi-colonial stakes towards a less bloated and more emaciated existence. What do you say? Dave Dave, You make the claim that surplus value has been pumped out of NZ by finance capital from the 1840's to the present I'm interested in what empirical evidence you have regarding the inflows/out flows of surplus value in the NZ economy - my impression is that for chunks of our history, for instance part of the 50's,60's and early seventies, that our agricultural produce sold at prices considerably in excess of there value in foreign markets, indicating an inflow of surplus value. Naturally I stand to be corrected on this point. cheers Bill Cochrane --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Is NZ a bloated semi-colony?
Gerry, As far as I know the Lenin criteria for imperialism/semi-colony/colony has not changed, much as the post-als would like us to believe the opposite. Surplus value pumped out of NZ by finance capital from the 1840's to the present confirms NZ as NOT imperialist, despite its relatively priviledged white aristocracy of labour. NZ is closer to Argentina which Lenin characterised as a "financial colony" of Britain. Today its financial dependency is spread over Australia, Britain, Japan and the US. I regard Australia as sub, or semi-imperialist, at most a very minor imperialist state, since it generates a relatively larger proportion of surplus outside Australia, including NZ. In reality, NZ economically is a sort of 7th state of Australia. But Australia still has considerable surplus sucked out by US, Japanese etc capital. When it comes to the crunch I would not defend Australia against any other imperialist power. Bob's understanding of imperialism is stuffed by the Sparts who don't want to take the side of semi-colonies, especially LA ones, against their own prized US, unless absolutely forced to do so by the intrusion of reality. Much easier to sell dual defeatism to the US labor aristocracy -even the middle class as its close enough to pacifism- than taking the slogan the "main enemy is at home" seriously. This dates back to the 2ww period with the SWP (US) failed to clearly pose the national question in the LA semi-colonies, especially Argentina, in relation to the US (not to mention the sell-out on the question of fascism). In other words, the Sparts use subjective categories that happen to fit in with their US chauvinist stance on the world. Fundmentally, this method is imperio-centric since it puts the consciousness of the US labor aristocracy at the centre of its world. In a war between the US and NZ I will bloc militarily with the NZ bourgeoisie. Dave Hi Dave (B). I must have missed this before: In reality these are imperialist troops (or in NZ's case of a bloated semi-colony) prepared to back up the Indonesian military if it can't keep the lid on the upsurge of mass struggles. The cross class backing they are generating at home now will serve the imperialists well if it comes to that. There is agreement between us regarding whether Australia is an imperialist nation (it is), but why do you consider NZ to be a "bloated semi-colony"? It would seem to me that if we can characterize Australia as imperialist, then we should also characterize NZ as imperialist. Jerry --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
