KICKING THE CORPSE

The campaign for a wealth tax suggests that our only pathway to political salvation lies in voting Labour or the Green's again. According to Green Party member Elliot Crossan Labour needs to be 'kicked into action'. But what if Labour, as a progressive force, is dead?

IT IS NOT just ninety-three wealthy liberals who want an increase in taxation. The Green Party is also in favour of the rich paying more. Even the conservative and reticent Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson used her Budget speech to tubthump for her party's favoured wealth tax. 

The obvious problem, and which some of her many critics pointed out in the social media, is that Davidson co-leads a Green Party that has remained slavishly loyal to the Labour Government throughout the past six years, even as the country's level of inequality has continued to widen. Economist Shamubeel Eaqub noted last year that New Zealand was witnessing the 'rise of the landed gentry, with wealth and housing opportunities becoming more hereditary'.

Where has the Green Party been for past six years? You don't need to be a Mike Hosking or Shane Te Pou to know that the Green's have been away fighting the culture wars and angering a lot of people in the process. Perhaps it is the looming general election and the fear that the Green's might have to pay a price for its political ineptitude that has motivated someone even as gloriously out of touch as Marama Davidson to actually address the issues that are pressing hard on the lives of ordinary New Zealanders - like the rising cost of living.

It is not entirely coincidental that a new group is also demanding that the Government tax the rich. System Change Aotearoa seems to be an initiative of folk not outside the orbit of the Green Party and the Labour Party. It held a public meeting over the weekend on taxation. The speakers included Green MP Ricardo Menendez March, Mike Treen of the Labour-friendly Unite Union and Elliot Crossan of System Change Aotearoa. Crossan is also a member of the Green Party. The meeting was chaired by Labour-friendly union official Joe Carolan, also of the Unite Union.

While System Change Aotearoa might be calling for a wealth tax, it is hardly going to lead to system change. It will just fiddle with the machinery a bit. As I wrote in a previous post:

'We do need to remind ourselves that the country already has enough wealth and resources to provide a decent standard for living for everyone. The problem is the wealth and resources are concentrated in just a few hands. Yes, taxing the rich might help to ameliorate the problem of deepening economic inequality but it will not solve it. To solve this crisis we need a fundamentally different way of distributing wealth. That cannot be done under our present economic arrangements.'

Socialism is, of course, the name of that alternative economic arrangement. But the call for a wealth tax is not about socialism but a push to get Labour to include it as part of its election manifesto. Once again and tediously so, the Labour Party is held up as our only realistic pathway to political salvation. Elliot Crossan makes that clear in an article he wrote recently for the Labour friendly Spin Off.

'The Labour government will need to be kicked into action if we are to see this transformative vision realised – and even the Greens and Te Pati Maori’s plans to tax the rich do not nearly go this far. A grassroots campaign to tax the rich and cut taxes for workers is needed, uniting unions and community organisations in a fight for a fairer society. It’s time for real action on Aotearoa’s crisis of inequality.'

Over three decades of devotion to the neoliberal order has turned Labour into the bureaucratic husk that it is now. There are no Jeremy Corbyn's or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's among Labour's MP's. But Elliot Crossan wants to wish into existence a fighting, class-based Labour Party. He and others like him will be encouraged in this futile endeavour by Labour-allied trade union officials who fear the development of a truly independent popular left-wing movement that they cannot control or even influence. They continue their efforts to link present and future struggles to the dead forces of the past.

Incidentally, I briefly expressed some of my concerns to Elliot Crossan on Facebook. I would have welcomed a constructive debate. He defriended me instead.