Editorial: Why we call for a left vote PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 03 March 2009 10:39

We are calling for a left vote in this election, which means we are calling for a vote for Labour or the Greens. That does not mean Labour is on our side.

On the contrary, Labour and the Greens have more in common politically with the National Party than they have with revolutionary socialism.
The primary ideology of all political parties standing in this election (with the exception of the Workers Party) is not pro-business or pro-worker or pro-environment or pro-family or pro-Maori. The shared ideology of all these groups is parliamentarianism – liberal democracy.
Labour represents left parliamentarianism and National, right. The broad ideology is the same.
They both accept the separation of the economic and political spheres: Dictatorship not democracy at work, the right of business owners to live off others' work and a limited democracy controlled by state and party bureaucracies.
No party in this election has any intention of changing the fundamental inequalities of capitalism. Labour and Alliance (which is just a left version of Labour) both accept the role of capital in wealth creation. They might like to redistribute wealth towards the poorer sections of society (although Labour has done the exact opposite), but the mechanism that creates this inequality – the idea that possessing a piece of paper, a title deed or stocks and shares, entitles you to live without working, more, to control the wealth that is created by the work of other people.
Left and right parliamentarianism
Labour represents the popular side of the bourgeois ideology, the side that can best rally mass support for the system in times of crisis.
National represents the repressive side of the system. It looks backwards to pre-liberal ideas like religion, so-called family values, British culture and the monarchy but, like Labour, it would never step outside the parliamentary, liberal capitalist democracy.
National, openly representing the rich, has to assemble a coalition of disparate forces from small business, farmers and the professional middle classes. That’s the reason for their name – it’s a broad umbrella because assembling such a coalition is difficult.

Labour are not socialists

Young Labour people suppose we oppose Labour because, although we aim at the same goal, they aim to get there slow, while we are in a rush.
They are wrong. We oppose Labour because they are the misleaders of the working class. Labour uses working class organisation to ensure the continuing profitability of NZ capitalism.
Not since the very first 1930s government has its leadership even been working class. Certainly now, this powerful machine, which claims to represent working people, is firmly under the control of the professional middle classes and business interests.
Some on the far left, such as the Workers Party and the Socialist Worker organisation believe the betrayals of Labour have now reached the point that it is time to abandon any support for them and build a new workers party. There’s nothing we’d like to see more than a party that genuinely represented working people. That’s the entire purpose of all the work that we do. But standing in an election doesn’t make you a party.

Build a workers party to replace Labour

We don’t fight Labour unless we are in a position to replace its leadership because they seek to use working class organisation for capitalist ends. We always criticise Labour and we are always clear that they are a parliamentary party – which means they are not ‘left like us’, they are committed to the façade of liberal democracy, with all the inequality that goes with it. That’s why we encourage people to vote left but to do it without any illusions. Labour is better than National only because it’s a party that appeals to workers as workers – not because it offers anything better.
Labour saves the system from itself. In the Great Depression, when working class militancy was at its height, Labour stepped in and channelled that anger into support for capitalism. The Fletcher family made their fortune building state houses and many other people got rich from the war effort.
In the 1970s, when strikes hit a new high, Labour again came into power on the back of great hopes and, having shattered them, left office. And of course, in the 1980s, it was Labour that introduced the savage neoliberal policies that resulted in the biggest transfer of wealth to the rich in the world for the time. It’s a waste of time for us to worry about whether we end up with a Labour or National-led government. Whatever happens, we will have to fight, especially if the recession bites deeply.

Class war

Like it or not, we are in a class war. The sacking of Cadbury workers is one manifestation, fee rises for us and pay rises for the VC is another. Unless workers and students organise and fight back we will always be the gigantic mindless slave, controlled from above, that ruling class myths of “born to lead, born to succeed” encourage. The first step is to build a socialist, workers party. It is not a task that is accomplished quickly, it’s the work of decades but it has been done many times before in the most varied countries and cultures. We need to encourage leaders from the grassroots, from among workers and students to replace this top down rule with a self-governing society. That's the goal of Socialist Review and the International Socialists Organisation. If you agree with this aim, then join us!