Getting your message across

March 31, 2008

Elections these days seem to be an increasingly meaningless activity, with little to chose between the mainstream parties in most western countries.

However, a contributer to the Independent Australian website points out a simple but effective way for voters to get their message across at the ballot box. A short, focused statement such as “limit immigration” can be written across the bottom of Australian voting forms without invalidating the vote. I can’t remember exactly what New Zealand voting forms look like, or if writing on voting papers is tolerated, but I’m pretty sure there’s space to write in such messages, so I will certainly be giving it a go in this year’s national elections.

Given the lack of meaningful choice between Helen Clarke’s tired Labour Party, and John Key’s increasingly unconservative, wannabe David Cameron National Party, I haven’t got much to lose.

Leave a Comment » | Alienated voters, Elections | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Mixed messages about self-determination

March 25, 2008

Over at the Oz Conservative blog Mark Richardson points out the left liberal double standard over support for the Tibetan independence movement.

In a particularly poignant passage, he highlights how left liberals should view the riots in Tibet, if they are going to be logically consistent:

“Our imaginary liberal Professor: “Xenophobic Tibetans have erupted in a violent display of bigotry and racism, motivated by fear and hatred of the other. They claim to be defending their culture, but what is Tibetan culture anyway? The Tibetans want to turn the clock back to the grey past, before diversity first brought colour to their country.”

If left-liberals really want to be consisitent in supporting self-determination for different ethnic groups, then logically, they should extent scuh support to European groups such as White Britons. However, you obviously don’t see many left-liberals voicing support for the British National Party, for example.

Here in New Zealand, PM Helen Clarke has taken a softly softly approach over the issue. When the Dalai Lama visited NZ, she was only willing to meet him in an airport waiting longue, and so far has kept quiet about the recent suppression of Tibetan protesters by the Chinese military.

The general consensus in the media is that the government is being diplomatic about the issue so as not to endanger its recently signed free trade deal with the People’s Republic. On talk radio, Radio Live commentator Willie Jackson made a good argument that it’s reasonable for the government to put national economic issues first, but that it’s double standards in foreign affairs can be seen in its softly softly approach with China and its unnecessarily heavy-handed dealings with the government of Fiji.

What I didn’t hear mentioned on the radio was any reference to Labour diplomatic relations with the US and the issue of trade. Since 1984, successive Labour government’s have been perfectly willing to jeopardise a potential trade deal with the US to satisfy the party’s anti-nuclear stance, yet Helen Clarke now appears to be quite willing to grease up to China in the name of economic pragmatism.

Another case of western cultural self-loathing?

3 Comments | Liberalism, NZ foreign policy, Tibet | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

A tale of two rights

March 23, 2008

Say what you like about libertarians, but don’t question their optimism.

At this year’s annual conference, Act list MP Heather Roy has told delegates that they must achieve 8 percent in this year’s national elections. Meanwhile the party is also considering bringing right liberal icon Roger Douglas back from the political sidelines.

Given the current state of the party in opinion polls, and the shift to the centre by the National Party under John Key, this seems a pretty tall order to say the least. Even in its 1990s hayday, Act only managed to gain about 6 percent support and it would no longer have any presence in parliament were it not for Rodney’s Hide’s Epsom seat.

The lack of realism among party faithful is highlighted by the fact that many of them would like to get rid of the populist Hide, even though he is the only member of the Party who has any significant level of public support.

Despite being consistently unpopular with mainstream voters, the party continues to attract a loyal following among the intelligentsia and the business sector. For a party which got under 2 percent of the popular vote in the last election, Act has no shortage of supporters in the NZ blogosphere and on campuses throughout the country.

Like the Libertarian Party in the US, Act has a strong following among educated males in their 20s and 30s, who are suckers for the rugged individualist rhetoric of libertarian ideology. Furthermore, the party seems to have plenty of campaign funding and a relatively strong media presence, with supporters like Business Rountable commentator Roger Kerr. If it can’t get more than 2 percent support with all these factors in its favour, then you have to be pessimistic about its chances of getting 8 percent support this time round.

If Act is the try hard of New Zealand politics, then populist/conservative New Zealand First must be the promising underachiever who never fulfills its potential. Compared with it right liberal counterpart, New Zealand First has almost no support on the Internet, is usually ignored by the media (unless Winston Peters is making a controversial statement about crime or immigration) and appears to receives far less in the way of donations.

On college campasses there are few NZ First supporters, and the party doesn’t even field candidates in many parts of the country.

However, despite these limitations, it consistently does better than Act in national elections, and on a good day is capable of winning 10 percent of the vote.

Thus the problems of the new right, are the opposite of those of the old right. The new right has a strong infrastructure and ideological base, but lacks popular support, while the old right has plenty of potential voters, but has almost zero support among the chattering classes and lacks a strong party infrastructure.

Leave a Comment » | Libertarianism, NZ first, nz politics | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

NZ wine growers and labour shortages

March 19, 2008

According to the Press (“Wine growers fear shortage of workers,” Saturday, March 15) Marlborough’s wine growers say their may be a significant shortage of workers for this winter’s pruning season due to bureaucratic issues with the government’s new Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme.

Under the new scheme Malborough growers are entitled to employ workers from the Pacific Islands, who are pre-selected by the department of labour, to fill seasonal labour shortages. The growers claim it is taking too much time to get the workers processed and in the meantime experienced workers from other countries are having to leave as their visas run out.

Whether the claims about problems with the scheme are accurate or not I don’t know, but the viticulture industry doesn’t seem very clear about where these “experienced workers” are coming from, or what sort of a risk they pose in terms of overstaying.

In a previous Press article it was stated experienced workers had came from countries such as “Indonesia, Thailand and the Czech Republic,” which seems an odd assortment of countries (I would have thought it unlikely many workers from a country like the Czech Republic would bother to take up seasonal work in New Zealand when the wages here are likely to be only marginally higher than at home).

On the other hand, its obvious that workers from Indonesia would be keen on working for New Zealand wages as wage rates in Indonesia are presently very low. Among the numerous problems with employing workers from very poor countries is they are likely to work at much lower rates than locals and are much more likely to overstay than workers from middle income countries.

Arguably there is a reasonable case for allowing experienced workers from middle income countries to come back for a couple of seasons, but this should not be extended to workers from third world countries who pose a much higher risk of overstaying. This seems like a reasonable compromise situation which would help improve the image of the rural sector in terms of immigration issues. It’s also important to take into account issues of cultural compatibility in the event workers do overstay and end up living among the local population. In this regard workers from impoverished Muslim countries pose the greatest risk at present.

In my view, prospective workers from pro-western regions such as Eastern Europe, and middle-income South American countries, such as Uruguay and Argentina, should get preference over those from third world nations like Indonesia.

2 Comments | Labour shortages, NZ economy | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Back on the couch?

March 17, 2008

There’s been a lot of talk over the last couple of weeks over a new UK-US study concerning the effectiveness of new generation anti-depressants and whether “talk therapy” should be promoted instead.

An article about the issue in the Press ( “Depression experts take steps toward alternatives to anti-depressant drugs” Saturday, March 11) says that new-generation anti-depressants, such as Prozac, may be effective in treating only the most depressed patients, and that counseling may be more appropriate for mild to moderate depression.

The popular image of Prozac is of a kind of part Soma, part miracle cure, but in scientific circles the limitations of new-generation depressants have been known for some time. Contrary to popular belief, many doctors say older generation tricyclic anti-depressants (such as Imipramine, which was originally trailed for schizophrenia) as just as effective as modern designer drugs.

The latest drugs are only superior in the sense they tend to have fewer side effects.Not only are anti-depressants no more effective today than when they were first introduced in the 1950s, but scientists have little idea why people’s responses to them are so idiosyncratic.

Some people respond very positively, while for others there is no effect whatsoever. It’s the same situation with many other drugs such as Ritalin, which is used to improve attention in those with ADD/ADHD. That said, talk therapy isn’t necessarily going to work any better. Mental health professionals calling for increased public funding of talk therapy forget that one of the reasons why drug therapy has become so popular is because psychotherapy, which was all the range in the 50s and 60s, is today seen as a spectacular failure.

Admittedly, counseling probably does help in some cases, particularly for those for acute problems, and with the decline of organised religion, many people today lack any sort of respected figure they can confide in. However, for those with chronic mood disorders it’s highly questionable that the therapeutic liberal state can provide much help.

Depression is hardly a new phenomena, ans it seems to have increased over the last few decades as society’s become more liberalised and atomised. In the 1930s and 1940s people had a lot more to be worried about that they do today, yet society was arguably happier than it is today. Certainly crime and suicide rates were pretty low considering economic problems were far more acute and anti-depressants had yet to be invented.

The atomisation of the individual arguably began in the 1960s, with the mistreatment of Vietnam vets being a classic early example of a group suffering mental ill-health, in this case thanks to a lack of communitarian spirit from anti-war baby boomers. However the breakdown in community spirit didn’t really begin in earnest until the late 1970s as migration, immigration and economic liberalisation reached unprecedented levels, and modernist failures in town planning (think Britain’s dysfunctional tower blocks of the 1960s) came home to roost.

From a mental health perspective, this atomisation process has helped robed the depression prone individual of any sense of purpose which may help them transcend their own personal problems.In modern western society nationalism is frowned upon, the wealthy lack any sense of noblesse-oblige, anti-social behaviour has risen, fewer people are willing or able to raise a family, and personal gratification is seen as the individual’s primary goal.

Given such a narcissistic environment, it any wonder so many people are wallowing in their own personal misery?

Leave a Comment » | mental health, modern society | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

A producerist approach to labour shortages

March 12, 2008

If global warming is the great bogeyman of left-liberals, then the conservative equivalent seems to be slowing birth rates and population decline. If discussion on many mainstream conservative blogs is anything to go, the West is close to collapse due to its low birth rates and must let in increasing numbers of non-western immigrants in the interests of economic survival.

Sure declining birth rates are a major concern but you don’t come across quite the same level of panic on ethno-nationalist sites, since ethno-nationalists don’t tend to support free market capitalism with its market populist system of labour allocations.

For communitarians and nationalists, the market is a tool to serve the people, not an end in itself. If low birth rates really are imperiling western civilisation, then we need to consider intervening in the free market to ensure that scarcer labour supplies are directed away from non-essential service-industry activities, and towards areas which are essential to long-term economic sustainability.

Many people certainly have short memories, less than 15 years ago, the English-speaking West was grapling with high unemployment caused by massive de-industrialisation. The main concern back then was figuring out what over qualified university graduates and ex-industrial workers were going to do, and many ended up in low-wage service industry jobs or dubious post-modern occupations like counseling and public relations.

Today, we know longer have to worry about creating occupations and in theory can focus on directly labour to where it is most needed. However, in the meantime most conservatives and right liberals seem to have forgotten that we have large numbers of workers engaged in low productivity service jobs and that we are continuing to train more workers for such occupations.

Here in New Zealand for example, we have an excessively large retail sector for the size of our economy, and it would be advantageous if the government encouraged more workers into other sectors by restricting applications for new mega stores and shopping malls.

There are also some sectors of the service economy with negative social pathologies which we can consider shutting down altogether or at least severely restricting. If we have a serious labour shortage then prostitution should be made illegal, and gambling should be tightly restricted.

There is also a good case for restricting planning applications for fast food restaurants which encourage obesity and ill-health, as well as diverting labour from other, more productive fields like manufacturing and horticulture.

The liberal right will argue that the government shouldn’t interfere in the economy to direct workers into particular industries, however we already do this anyway through selective funding of public education and there’s nothing particularly radical about trying to manipulate the labour supply in the interests of economic sustainablity. Indeed, most East Asian countries already follow a relatively producerist approach to training and education, with little public funding for service industry based training.

Through the tertiary education system the government has considerable power to affect the future labour supply and there is plenty of fat to trim: entry can be restricted to sports, recreation, liberal arts and generic business courses while incentives to encourage students to take practical and technical courses which address key labour shortages can be further increased.

The relative success of Labour’s Modern Apprenticeships initative show’s how quickly things can be improved where there is political will and proper liaison with the private sector. One of the strengths of using a corporatist/producerist approach to help deal with labour shortages is that it can have a significant impact in a short space of time.

While it will take 30 years for a baby-boom to have any impact on the labour supply, an aggressive program to direct labour towards essential services and export industries could bear serious fruit in 5-10 years.

1 Comment | Demography, Labour shortages | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Falling home ownership rates not just lifestyle related

March 10, 2008

A report out by CHRANZ indicates that high prices, as well as social factors have influenced the decline in home ownership in New Zealand over the last few decades.

Home ownership in New Zealand peaked in the 1980s at 73.7 percent, but had fallen to 66 percent by the time of the 2006 census, while the drop in home ownership among the young has occurred in all English-speaking countries the report indicates New Zealand is unusual in not maintaining overall home ownership rates reached in the 1980s.

One of the most telling findings which indicates that housing affordability has played a significant part in declining home ownership, is that home ownership used to be higher in cities than in rural areas and small towns – a situation which has now been reversed, thanks to the increasing cost of urban real estate relative to wage rates.

Arguably the most worrying thing about declining home ownership, is that younger generations aren’t saving much either, so those who are unable to save for a home are likely to be worse off than their parents in the future.

Given that neither National or Labour have any serious proposals for addressing the problem in the short term, those who are unable to afford get on the property ladder will have to hope that the coming decline in property prices provides more affordable housing without ushering in a new age of high interest rates and economic stagnation.

Leave a Comment » | Housing, NZ economy | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Here’s to sexual liberation – warts n’ all

March 6, 2008
Over the weekend I was watching one of those Sunday night yuf’ issue documentaries, which in this case was about the alleged promiscuity (or sexual confidence, depending on your political outlook) of young New Zealand women.

The documentary (on TV1′s Sunday current affairs show) revolved around an interview with four guys and four girls, who went on to discourse their antics out on the town and the guys made some typically ambitious claims about how many times they’d scored.

A noticeable thing about the interviewees (of both sexes) was that despite their apparent sexual confidence, none of them looked particularly attractive, but certainly made up for things in terms of “attitude” and extroversion, which seems to the most significant variable in how many partners someone ends of sleeping with.

While the interviewer at least spared the women having to answer any quantitative questions about their sexual habits, it was also apparent there were some class differences in sexual attitudes illustrated during the the interview.

The most sexually conservative of the women, also happened to be the most middle-class and well-spoken, while the most sexually confident of the group came across as the most working class. At the end of documentary the interviewer then revealed that the middle class-sounding woman was intending on giving up drinking heavily and cutting back on her partying activity, after a series of “unsafe” one night stands while the other more down-to-earth women appeared to have no intention of changing their Friday night revelry.

Underneath liberal rhetoric about empowerment and equality, it seems class and temperament loom large in influencing people’s sexual behaviour.

Things got a bit confusing though, as the interview moved onto the topic of sexual diseases.After showing the males some unpleasant pictures of genital warts and other nasties to get across the safe sex message, the decidedly middle-class female interviewer ( Janet McIntyre) then took issue with the guys for discussing the point that people still tend to be judgmental of women who sleep with a lot of different partners.

The idea that traditional social mores may help contain the problem of sexual diseases seemed to take a back seat to the liberal principle that the individual must be free to make their own choices without censure.

In defence of the enlightenment principle of free speech, Voltaire is famous for saying: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

In today’s sexual politics the creed of empowered middle-class liberal woman seems to be something like: “Personally I wouldn’t be caught dead sleeping around, but I’ll defend to the death your right to be a bit slutty.”

2 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

The rise and rise of Stuff White People Like

March 2, 2008

One of the most extraordinarily popular blog sites over the last month or so has been the US satirical site Stuff White People Like, which takes a humorous look at trendy white liberal Americans.

It’s comments threads are now so long that I won’t dare opening them for fear of my computer (or my brain) ceasing up, and the hit counter has now reached over 6 million. Last time I looked, about two weeks or so ago, it stood at about 2 million – an amazing increase by anyone’s standard.

One of the surprising things about the blog is the amount of hostility it has generated, with a large number of critical commentators arguing, possibly from a white nationalist or perhaps homour-deprived white-liberal perspective, that the blog constitutes an unjust, jealousy driven attack on successful middle-class whites. According to Steve Sailer this particular controversy has now been silenced since the author has turned out to be a middle class white himself.

Personally, I wouldn’t have minded if the author had turned out to be a non-white. I’m all for people breaching the modern liberal taboo that people shouldn’t be allowed to make fun of other races and cultures.

For racialist whites to argue that non-whites shouldn’t make fun of whites is just as hypocritical as liberal whites who support “free expression” complaining about aging conservative comics making racist jokes about minorities.

Anyway, while it’s a pretty entertaining read, I don’t think it’s quite as good as its massive popularity suggests. For example, does an elegantly amusing, but hardly side-splitting post about the white liberal penchant for bottled water really justify 400 plus comments?

If you’re that excited by clever satire, then try checking out some of the great post by the relative blogging minnow Dennis Dale, who in all fairness is a step up in quality from the less cerebral offerings of Stuff White People Like, and throws in some pretty thoughtful political musings as well.

1 Comment | Blogging, Humour | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman