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NZ Perspectives: 2023 and beyond

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Miles Lacey
19 September 2023

2023 is an election year in New Zealand. Opinion polls put Labour and National within five points of each other until the most recent polls in September 2023 in which Labour slumped below 30%.

While support for National has remained steady they have not been the main beneficiaries of Labour's slump in the polls.  Rather, it has been the minor parties, especially ACT. 

Neither major political party has managed  to gain the support of at least 40% of those polled since Chris Hipkins became Prime Minister in February 2023. This, more than anything, indicates that neither major party have the answers to address the big issues that voters are facing.  A low voter turnout resulting in a National-led victory is the most likely outcome.

Read more: NZ Perspectives: 2023 and beyond

Are you a Communist? Then get organised!

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Miles Lacey
19 August 2023

In Autumn 2022, the Fraser Institute ran a survey that asked respondents in the United States, the  United Kingdom, Canada and Australia about what sort of economic system they would prefer: capitalism or socialism?

Among 18--34 year olds there was a clear preference for socialism in all countries. A significant minority even agreed with the statement that `Communism is the ideal economic system'. This despite the fact that pro-capitalist ideas have a monopoly in the mass media. 

The survey also asked respondents how they would favour paying for socialism. A new wealth tax on the top 1% was the most popular option, favoured by over two thirds of respondents. Higher income taxes on the top 10% of earners was favoured by over a half. 
  
A similar survey conducted in New Zealand would most likely yield a similar result. 
  
Despite its popularity, none of the major parties plan to implement a wealth tax anytime soon - Chris Hipkins definitively ruled it out as Labour party leader. Anything that directly targets capitalist wealth is off limits. For politicians of all stripes, this is a sacred principle that must be upheld at all costs! 
  
The reality is that people work, alienated from each other, to produce riches that benefit a handful of capitalist billionaires. Their privilege and our wage slavery depend on the continued existence of a system based on private property, the market economy and the nation state. The system reached its limits some time ago. The working class cannot buy back all of the wealth it produces and thereby realise capitalist profit. 
 
Capitalists have tried to maintain profits by squeezing workers, cutting taxes, privatising pubic industries, speculating on the stock market, and using state power to dominate competitors and carve out spheres of influence on the world stage. The result is a world plagued by poverty, crises, and war. 
 
People are beginning to realise that the system itself is the problem. The system will not change through elections, but through struggle. Workers are turning to industrial action. This must be combined with a political struggle. Ultimately, it must lead to mass revolutionary action and socialist revolution. 
 
The global working class creates all the wealth and is the most numerous and potentially most powerful force in human history. The International Marxist Tendency is working to build a revolutionary leadership trained in Marxist theory, that can lead the movement to the complete abolition of capitalism. Don't just tax the wealth, expropriate it!
  
If this sounds like you, please join us. Our aim is to build an organization here in Aotearoa New Zealand that intervenes in the movement of the working class, with the ideas and perspectives that lead it to victory. 
 
 
Join the Communists!
 
 
 

Reflections on the 9/11 attacks

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Miles Lacey
05 July 2023

On Tuesday September 11, 2001 the world was changed forever by the most devastating terrorist attack in history.

2,996 people (including the 19 terrorists) were killed and many more injured after two planes crashed into the World Trade Centre towers in the heart of New York's financial district. Just 18 minutes after the first explosion there was a second blast as another plane hit the other tower.

Read more: Reflections on the 9/11 attacks

The Ukrainian war: an internationalist class position – IMT Statement

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Miles Lacey
02 March 2022

The first casualty of war is truth. This is also the case of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Marxists need to be able to cut through the fog of lies and war propaganda and analyse the real reasons behind the conflict; what has caused it; and the real interests that lie behind the excuses and justifications of the different parties involved. Above all, we must do so from the point of view of the interests of the world working class.

Read more: The Ukrainian war: an internationalist class...

THE BETRAYAL OF AFGHANISTAN

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Miles Lacey
28 January 2022

By Miles Lacey

 images 4


Above: Taliban Insurgents enter Kabul, Afghanistan (Source: The Guardian)

On August 15th, 2021, Kabul fell to the Taliban insurgents the United States and their Western imperialist allies had been fighting against since November 2001.

The spectacle of thousands of Afghan people and Western civilian and military personnel trying to frantically board any aircraft flying out of Kabul International Airport in August 2021 was broadcast around a stunned world. 

Read more: THE BETRAYAL OF AFGHANISTAN

CHINA AND THE PACIFIC: A NEW IMPERIALISM?

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Miles Lacey
28 January 2022

By the Socialist Appeal Editorial Board

 

For most of the post-war period the Pacific region was treated like a United States lake. As the colonial territories of Australia, France, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States became independent between 1962 and 1994 they tended to side with the Western powers, with the exception of Vanuatu. 

Read more: CHINA AND THE PACIFIC: A NEW IMPERIALISM?

THE 1981 PATCO STRIKE: HOW REAGAN BETRAYED THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS

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Miles Lacey
17 October 2021

by Rufus Tyler

The 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers' strike was one of the largest strikes by federal employees in the United States.  This strike had ramifications that would be felt world wide by the working classes, especially in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.  It would also mark the ultimate betrayal by a man whose reputation for selling out workers to serve his personal and political ambitions.  That man was Ronald Reagan.

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers' Organisation was the industry's union. They had been incorporated in 1968. 1968 was a turbulent year, the Prague Spring, the Paris Riots and the Tlatelolco massacre, where 325 were killed, hapenned abroad while in the US Martin Luther King, Jr and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy were both assassinated.

Read more: THE 1981 PATCO STRIKE: HOW REAGAN BETRAYED THE...

GRENADA - THE FORGOTTEN INVASION

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Miles Lacey
18 July 2021

 United States soldiers with prisoners in Grenada: 1983. 

Source:  www.thoughtco.com 

By Rufus Tyler

“There was a rebel village five clicks down the road. Word came down from top brass: make it disappear. We…we didn’t know any better. We were…we were kids. I watched myself pick up the flamethrower…I just…went…off.” - SNL Introduction to Puppetry skit, illustrating popular culture's impression of the 1983 invasion of Grenada.

Read more: GRENADA - THE FORGOTTEN INVASION

CLIMATE CHANGE: CAPITALISM IN CRISIS

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Miles Lacey
31 May 2021

 

Flooding in Brazil 2020.  Source: CGTN

 

By Rufus Tyler

 

"State of the environment and the Socialist versus the Capitalist response to It".

 

This article will discuss the extent of the problem by covering two main points:(a) Anthropogenic (man-made) climate change and its adverse effects and (b) the effect of global warming on crops and commodities, and how it affects the working class.

Read more: CLIMATE CHANGE: CAPITALISM IN CRISIS

1968 - THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION

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Miles Lacey
31 May 2021

 

Soviet tanks roll into Prague in Czechoslovakia on August 21st, 1968. Copyright: www.historytoday.com

 

By Rufus Tyler

 

1968 was a turbulent year for the bourgeois. There was widespread discontent in France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Pakistan, and widespread anti-war protests in the English-speaking countries. 1968 marked the high tide of capitalism, there had been unprecedented economic growth since WWII, as a result the proletariat was growing too. Revolutionary fervour was on the upswing as well, thanks to the Cuban revolution and Che's adventurism, plus the ongoing wars of liberation in Africa: Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia, Guinea-Bissau. These struggles fired up the youth in the West and Latin America.

Read more: 1968 - THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION

THE CARNATION REVOLUTION OF 1974

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Miles Lacey
28 May 2021

 

 

By Rufus Tyler

 

Portugal is a small country in Southwestern Europe with about 10.8 million people (2017 estimate) the median age is 42.2. It's about a third the size of New Zealand. It borders Spain and the Atlantic Ocean. Since joining the then European Community in 1986 the economy has become increasingly service-oriented. Over that time neoliberalism has unleashed a series of reforms like privatisation that have resulted in increasingly precarious working conditions. In 2011 it received a rescue package from the IMF bringing Austerity measures that pushed emigration to levels not seen since the 1960s.

Read more: THE CARNATION REVOLUTION OF 1974

ALLENDE’S LEGACY

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Miles Lacey
28 May 2021

By Rufus Tyler

 

In September 1970 Salvador Allende was elected into government at the head of a left-wing coalition, the Unidad Popular (UP). Even though the coalition was reformist, the bourgeoisie still feared the revolutionary potential of the UP government:

Read more: ALLENDE’S LEGACY

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