PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF NEO-LIBERTARIANISM Part I
David Seymour dances on stage
The funders of ACT must have been over the moon when David Seymour returned to Aotearoa a fully-fledged acolyte graduating from the right wing think tanks of the Atlas Network and ready to roll as their new leader.
The Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, as ACT was originally called, is supposed to be an advocate for consumers and taxpayers.
It no longer is or rather it’s the champion of the no or low taxpaying wealthy. Consumers and taxpayers, instead of being protected, are faced with escalating costs of basics like accommodation, food and utilities. This is being borne out in the economic downturn showing lower than expected retail sales. Even ACT’s founder Roger Douglas is critical of ACT Party policies and says the party has swung too far towards libertarianism and protecting the interests of wealth.
Checking a list of those who fund ACT, he’s right. They fund the party out of self-interest rather than from any sense of making Aotearoa a better place to live for all its citizens.
If you can be bothered torturing yourself, watch Seymour’s state of the nation speech where he extols the virtues of the colonists and castigates anyone who dares complain about the status quo we live in. If you skip past the paean to the virtues of his own MPs and start at 5.57 the way his eyes light up like an old time stump preacher is something to behold.
I have said before that Seymour is a danger to democracy and the way he’s been permitted to dominate the current coalition government is gobsmacking. ACT and its MPs are not being held accountable by the Prime Minister so one wonders what kind of barrel did Seymour hold Luxon over to get the freedom to do as he pleases.
It certainly can’t be called a National-led coalition. A state of the Nation speech delivered by the Prime Minister should be on behalf of the government. When a minority party stands up and gives a speech which differs markedly from that of the PM, that party is literally thumbing its nose at the government it’s part of.
If you think about how ACT has insinuated its its MPs into every area of government. Especially David Seymour and Brooke Van Velden. Her anti-worker reforms have already and are set to further reduce workers’ rights and remedies. And Seymour’s are set to significantly change our constitutional framework. Not only that, in a month or so he becomes Deputy PM. Given the way he dominates the headlines now I can imagine we will hear far more of what Seymour thinks and does than our floundering PM.
To me Seymour is the epitome of an Ayn Rand hero. “He gets immense enjoyment from shocking people, amusing them with his cynicism, ridiculing before their eyes the most sacred, venerated, established ideas. He takes a real delight in opposing people, in fighting and terrifying them. He has no ambition to be a benefactor or a popular hero for mankind.”
I also classify Seymour’s philosophy as a hybrid of Libertarianism combined with a spicing of Neoliberalism and a good chunk of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism.
Libertarians advocate for the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination, emphasising the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice.
In an article by Klejton Cikaj in The Collector, Cikaj cites David Harvey who says of Neoliberalism, “Neoliberal policies were designed to unleash the powers of the market, which neoliberals believed lay still latent due to government regulations keeping them in check. Capital had to become global, faster, larger, and more dynamic in order to free countries from their apparent stagnancy. The state was to be withdrawn from its points of intervention in the economy. Its duty would be to create the markets, maintain strong property rights, and expand them elsewhere—by force if needed. Everything else would be an overreach of government.”
Ayn Rand described Objectivism as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". I’m not sure if it’s happiness Seymour is after but he sure is resolute in putting forward his ideas and ideals.
Lately I’ve been reading Ryan Ward’s Substack, Free Market Moralism. He explains a lot of this stuff far better than I do. You should check it out. Here is his substack on neoliberalism.
Love him or loathe him David Seymour is a master at grabbing the headlines. Recently Seymour's hapū, Ngāti Rēhia, formally requested that he not attend the Waitangi commemorations. Undeterred, and because like Ayn Rand’s hero he gets ‘immense enjoyment’ out of thumbing his nose at such requests, he went. A friend asked me why I thought he attended despite not being welcome and I told her that it was because he wants to always be in the spotlight. If the glare of media attention is on him then it is not on anyone else and that’s good for the brand. Even if it’s negative.
Part II looks at the genesis of the Neoliberal reforms and the continuation of them in the systematic destruction of our egalitarian society.
Or we could consider a possibility that instead of being a bit gormless, and being lead by his nose. Luxon is also an Atlas supporter, and this is part of the long game. He comes back to NZ, joins National, poses as the next coming of a strong leader, so that the real brains with a tiny political party can come to the table. With all the policies already written, and agreed to, in the ( negotiating)
It’s cunning, and has blindsided our political system.
We can protest, tut tut , and read and be horrified. But the real deals have already been done.
Mean while Luxon flys about in bad fitting suits, to far flung places, making like an important person, being over familiar and generally embarrassing all of us.
Doesn’t matter, his purpose has been achieved, long ago in that private negotiating room.
He is a Trumpian political animal: all public attention is good. Totally amoral, lives for nothing but being in the limelight, and scoring political points.