Category Archives: Political Economy & History

Marshall and Sutch

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Letter in New Zealand International Review, July/August 2002, Vol XXVII, No 4, p.33.

KeywordsPolitical Economy & History

In his review of Keith Eunson’s Mirrors on the Hill, Bruce Brown asks ‘who reads [Jack] Marshall’s autobiography?’, and answers ‘the two volumes are an excellent source of much recent political history (for example on Bill Sutch).’ (NZIR May/June 2002) They may be source of political history but the coverage of Sutch is inaccurate, imbalanced, and unsatisfactory. Many of the errors are addressed by Sutch’s widow, Shirley Smith, in a letter deposited at the Alexander Turnbull Library. My concern here is the balance.

The New Zealand Health Reforms in Context

This entry was posted in Governance, Health, Political Economy & History on by .

Published in Applied Health Economics and Health Policy. Final version of the article.

Keywords: Governance; Health; Political Economy and History

Abstract: The New Zealand health sector reforms of the 1990s have to be seen in the context of the long term development of the New Zealand health system. The evolutionary change between 1938 and 1990 was abruptly replaced by the revolutionary policy of commercialisation from 1991 to 1993. …

Jane Kelsey at the Crossroads: Three Essays

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Political Economy & History on by .

(Wellington, Bridget Williams Books, 2002), ISBN 1877 242918; $34.95

Review for AUS Electronic Newsletter

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History

Students and the general public have found invaluable the sequence of books Jane Kelsey has produced on contemporary New Zealand society and governance, beginning with a study of how the Labour Government dealt with Treaty issues, working through the New Zealand experiment and now a couple on New Zealand in a globalised world, the latest of which is three essays in At the Crossroads (although, curiously, the cover shows a signpost at Bluff, the end of the country). Reviews of her books usually go to the extremes of the paean or condemnation. ….

Centrifugal Forces

This entry was posted in Listener, Political Economy & History on by .

Listener May 18 2002

Keywords: Political Economy & History

The breakup with the Alliance was probably inevitable, although had the government not committed troops to Afghanistan it may have happened after the election. While there were particular and personal elements in the party breakup, it also must be seen in the context of the conventional political spectrum. Labour, under Helen Clark, has command of the political centre of New Zealand, the party shifting from its centre-left traditions. No centre-left party could have readily engaged with Afghanistan (not after Vietnam) while its economic advisers include many rogernomes. The impression is its economic policy framework is essentially a continuation of the late 1980s, with a few minor modifications: a kinder gentler rogernomics?

Cutting off the King’s Head:

This entry was posted in Governance, Listener, Political Economy & History on by .

The Bill of Rights and the National Library and Archives
Listener 4 May, 2002.

Keywords Governance, Political Economy & History

While I have considerable sympathy for historian Jamie Belich’s plea to teach more New Zealand history in our schools, the Seventh Form course on the Tudors and Stuart periods is attractive, given its foundational role in the development of Westminster style governance. Or I thought it was attractive, until I learned that the study ends in 1660. …

Brian Easton Reviews the Nationbuilders

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Letter to “N.Z. Political Review”, Autumn 2002.

Keywords: Political Economy & History

While there is some dispute as to what a reviewer owes an author there is no doubt that he or she has obligations to the review’s readers, obligations which Simon Boyce manifestly fails to meet in his so called ‘review’ of my The Nationbuilders (Nov/Dec 2001).

Science and Nationbuilding

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Political Economy & History on by .

Revised paper presented to the Rotorua Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1 May 2002

Keywords Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History

The Nationbuilders is a book about the economic social and cultural development of New Zealand from 1932 to 1984 when a group of visionary New Zealanders developed the nation. The story is told through a set of biographical essays, but while some have read the chapters separately for the individual stories, in fact the book has a series of themes, which the lives illustrate.

Terrorism and the WTO: The Importance Of the Rule Of Law

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener, Political Economy & History on by .

Listener 23 February 2002

Keywords Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History

I fear the terrorists have won. Oh sure, they may all be eventually eliminated by the efforts of the Western Alliance, but another generation will rise, who will have had confirmed that the methods of bullies and thugs are justified. …

Mind Your I’s and Q’s

This entry was posted in Labour Studies, Political Economy & History on by .

Book Review of Capitalism and Social Progress: the Future of Society in A Global Economy, by Phillip Brown & Hugh Lauder (Palgrave, $67.95)
Listener 16 February, 2002.

Keywords Political Economy & History; Labour Studies

The book recalls ‘in the aftermath of the Second World War the state emerged with a new mandate to create greater economic security and opportunity, where all would see their slice of the cake increase even if some were getting more than others.’ It was a ‘“Golden era” of western capitalism … built on “walled” economies of massed-produced goods and services which offered a decent family wage to low-skilled workers. … Much of the prosperity in this period depended on a political settlement between the state, employers and workers.’

Notes on Sutch and UNICEF

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The following is an attempt to write down what seems to be known about Sutch and the saving of UNICEF. This was a note which backgrounds pages 133-135 of The Nationbuilders. It was finalised 22 December 2001.

Keywords: Political Economy & History;

Sutch at the United Nations

In the mid 1950s, Sutch wrote
“I was New Zealand delegate for three years on the Economic and Social Commission of the United Nationsand was Chairman of the United Nations Social Commission in 1948/49, Chairman of the Board of Inquiry into the United Nations Staff conditions in 1949, Chairman of the Executive Board of the United Nation’s Children’s Fund in 1950 and Chairman of the UNICEF Administration and Budgeting Committee and Committee on Fund raising from 1948 to 1950.”

The Treasury and the Nationbuilding State

This entry was posted in Governance, Political Economy & History on by .

Revised Paper for the 2001 Conference of the New Zealand Historical Association, December [1]

Keywords: Governance; Political Economy & History

My just published The Nationbuilders is an account of the creation and implementation of the idea of using the state to develop a nation, especially the national economy, but also in a number of other areas such as cultural policy and the environment. The story is told through a series of biographies of New Zealanders who were closely involved in nationbuilding. While I hope the book is a contribution to New Zealand biography, the book’s structure was the best way I could think of presenting the idea of nationbuilding for a general New Zealand audience. Among the alternative approaches would have been a rather dreary academic account of the origins and development of the idea, which would however have had the merit of being able to draw more directly on parallel developments in other countries. Another approach would have been to tell the story through institutions rather than people. Today’s paper is an example of this approach, for it looks at the central role of the Treasury in nationbuilding period, taking material from the book and presenting it a different way. In doing so it sharpens some of the themes, and allows the relating of the Treasury story to some the issues it faces today, reminding us that an understanding of the past can help understand the future.

Nationbuilding and the Textured Society

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Labour Studies, Political Economy & History on by .

The Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture 2001.

This is a revised version of the paper presented on Tuesday 23 October.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Labour Studies; Political Economy & History

I did not know Bruce Jesson as well as many of you in the audience, although I may have known him longer, for we went to the same high school. Bruce was in my younger brother’s class, so I only just knew him then. While I have a memory of him gawky in the dreary school gray, it may be this is re-created because we all looked awkward in the uniform, so it is easy to imagine with hindsight. We did not overlap at university, but I recall being stunned by the occasion in 1966 when Bruce and some friends burnt a Union Jack in front of the governor-general, asking why we were upset about damaging a foreign flag, We were already refusing to stand up in the cinema for ‘God Save the Queen’, but that protest lifted the level of analysis, challenging us to think more deeply about what being a New Zealander really meant. However, it was not really until the 1970s I began to link with Bruce, first by reading his wonderful journal, The Republican , and later visiting him in Auckland.

Elsie Locke: 1912-2001.

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A revised version of a paper presented to the Friends of Turnbull Library, November 22, 2001

Keywords Political Economy & History;

Towards the end of her life, Elsie Locke asked me – ‘insisted ‘would be a better word. – to reread her prize winning essay ‘Looking for Answers’, published in Landfall of 1958. She was, I think, looking back over her long and productive life, and was reflecting on her period in the Communist Party from 1932 to 1956 which the essay covered. This essay is a response to Elsie’s request.

Who’s Hugh

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Listener, Political Economy & History on by .

Review of BATTLE OF THE TITANS: Sir Ronald Trotter, Hugh Fletcher and the Rise and Fall of Fletcher Challenge Bruce Wallace (Penguin $34.95)

Listener 17 November 2001.

Keywords Business & Finance; Political Economy & History

In 1908, James Fletcher, a 22 year old Scot arrived in New Zealand with ‘a few pounds in his pocket’ and carpenter skills which he used to found a building company which expanded into Fletcher Holdings. By 1955, his son, also James, persuaded father and the New Zealand government that not only should Fletchers build the huge pulp and paper factory at Kawerau, but it should own part of it. In 1981, Hugh Fletcher, the son of the son, amalgamated Fletcher Holdings, Tasman Pulp and Paper, and the sprawling Challenge Corporation to form Fletcher Challenge, the biggest New Zealand business amounting at the time to almost a tenth of the capitalisation of the New Zealand share market.

Bruce Jesson: 1944-1999

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Political Economy & History on by .

This is the envoy of The Nationbuilders. The book is now out of print and the chapter is published with permission. Other items on Bruce on the website are as follows:
His Purpose is Clear: Reflecting a Life of Thought and Experience (February 1999)
Global Warning: What would have Bruce Jesson have said about APEC (September 1999)
Nationbuilding and the Textured Society (Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture, October 2001)

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Political Economy & History;

It would be wrong to end this book with the post-1984 colonials. But it is not easy to write about the new millennium nationbuilders for they are still alive and active. Some will try to revert to earlier versions of nationbuilding, with little recognition of the changes which have occurred which make its policies, if not its objectives, obsolete. The significant ones will be those who pursue the aspirations of their nationbuilding predecessors, but recognize the changing economic and social environment. It is for them to tell us about what they mean by their nationbuilding, although they are likely to do so – if their predecessors are any guide – by their actions rather than their words.

Building a Nation

This entry was posted in Listener, Political Economy & History on by .

Listener October 20, 2001

Keywords: Political Economy & History

That great New Zealand nationalist historian, Keith Sinclair called it the ‘LBW syndrome’. In his day it was ‘Leading-the-Bloody-World’, the attitude that New Zealanders claimed to be the best at everything that mattered. …

Four Books on New Zealand Broadcasting (review)

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Prometheus 2001, Vo1 19, No 3, p.265-6.

Keywords: Political Economy & History;

P. Day, Voice and Vision: A History of Broadcasting in New Zealand, Volume Two (Auckland University Press in association with the Broadcasting Trust, 2000). 456pp.
P. Day, The Radio Years: A History of Broadcasting in New Zealand, Volume One (Auckland University Press in association with the Broadcasting Trust, 1994). 352pp.
B. Spicer, M. Powell & D. Emanuel, The Remaking of Television New Zealand: 1984-1992 (Auckland University Press in association with the Broadcasting Trust, 1996). 207pp.
I. Carter, Gadfly: The Life of James Shelly (Auckland University Press in association with the Broadcasting Trust, 1993). 339pp.

Remaking New Zealand and Australian Economic Policy by Shaun Goldfinch

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Political Economy & History on by .

New Zealand Books August 2001, p.8-9.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Political Economy & History;

Shaun Goldfinch’s Remaking New Zealand and Australian Policy: Ideas, Institutions, and Policy Communities is the latest version of what is becoming the standard account of the origins, implementation, and outcomes of the economic changes of the 1980s and 1990s. It goes something like this.