I like reading columns and other commentary by Richard Prebble. Partly it’s because quite some time ago, we were members of the same political party (no, not Act).
But mainly it is because he has a knack for making complex things seem simple. This knack is useful for sloganeering but can be misleading from an analytical point of view.
In a column for the Herald Prebble announced that “The Greens and Te Pati Maori have embraced the politics of redistribution”. To borrow a phrase which Prebble used to use a lot, “I’ve been thinking” about that. I think that in this case Prebble may have been thinking that this was a negative thing, though he did go on to suggest that, having reduced the idea of “redistribution” further to mean “tax the rich”, and mixing the Labour Party in with it, the group could win the next election.
Protesters leave Moutoa Gardens Pakaitore and block State Highway 3 during Te Pāti Māori protests against the new Government's Maori policies. Photo / Bevan Conley
One might hope he is right in his election prediction, but he is wrong in his simplification. Leaving aside the possibility Labour might find “progressive tax reform” written on the back of the blank sheet of paper which its leader says is its current policy draft, I want to focus on the Green and Te Pāti Māori positions.
I speak for neither of those parties, but I have expressed the view that if we are going to move beyond a very narrow pendulum swing each election, then their positions and those of other community, interest and activist groups are where the future is to be found. So it is from here on “redistribution”.
Social democratic parties around the world have been centred on redistribution of incomes through various means, in particular through use of taxation and social payments but including government ownership and programme delivery. That impulse if not the fervour or capability to deliver still lingers in our Labour Party.
This approach has its limitations. One fairly obvious one is that those who are having income or opportunities for income taken off them tend to resist this, and even though a minority, they are disproportionately influential through the income and assets they have. So it’s an ongoing tug of war.
The second is that it leaves the main levers for community living standards still subject to a greater or lesser extent in the hands of the privileged.
So in Aotearoa terms, what was labelled the “Quest for Security” or “Applied Christianity” always was a restriction on what seemed the natural order of market and elite control. Hence “redistribution” was necessarily taking away something.
A third and in recent years more pressing issue is that there many areas of life which fall outside the limits of the universalist and monocultural and centralised redistributive model. The fault lines became obvious as environmental degradation exposed the limits of economic activity on the 19th and 20th century model; feminism and gender diversity became open and significant claims; and indigenous rights challenged both the old social and economic models. You can add migrant group issues to those recently and more importantly in the near future.
That is why Te Pāti Māori and the Greens are important in this context. It is because they are not simply about the old redistributive model but because they and their supporters live in the new world not the old. So do many community activist groups who are not necessarily even players in the electoral game. You might call it “redistribution plus” or “beyond redistribution”. I know some of the younger and more radical participants use the term “revolution”.
Rob Campbell.
What all this means is that redistribution in its modern form is about redistributing economic and social power:
The power to shift focus from narrow models of “economic growth” to sustainable activities;
The power to assert sovereignties over legitimate interests and aspirations not repress, ignore or cover them up;
The power to positively promote social respect and support as central to how we conduct our affairs not as supplementary to an old economic order.
So the problem the old parties have is not new parties wanting the same old scraps from the same old table - it’s bigger and deeper than that.
Rob Campbell is a professional director and investor. He is chancellor at AUT, chairman of Ara Ake, chairman of NZ Rural Land, and an adviser for Dave Letele’s BBM charity. He is also the former chairman of Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand).
