Couldn't agree more. The greed and selfishness of our 'leaders' is turning life into a misery for many, if not the majority, of New Zealanders, and those people apparently care not one bit about the horrors they have created. Like Bryan, I'm old enough to have benefitted from free education, and a health system that was one of the best in the world. Yes, it was funded by a high marginal tax rate - over 60% for the higher end of incomes - and as in the Scandinavian countries that still use that approach, everyone benefitted. The rich didn't curl up and die because they were losing a bit more of the cream, and the poor were safe, with stable homes, access to a doctor when needed, and schools that, in the main, gave all children a decent education. We have, as a society, gained nothing from neoliberalism, and we've lost our humanity.
Its true higher wealth tax would improve things a bit, but I contend that in our present entirely private bank debt primary issuance money system, redistribution of taxes cant ultimately fix the systemic inequality caused at the very point of issuance of what we use for currency, only fixing that can?
Hmm, written by a true believer in the 'Welfare for the Rich', I think. Tax from the rich might not solve every problem of the economy, but it would sure help! if only we had a government that had the will to do something about it, but we haven't one of those for some time!
I hope you have got me wrongly pegged for someone not wanting to do anything about the ever increasing financial inequality in our country, and don't want to go stomping all over Bryan's Substack, but I started a movement advocating for the one thing I contend needs to be done that can do the most to relevel the playing field.
You can take a look here. I would love your feedback:
Yes, I want a country, society, community that is fit for human habitation. We are now far far beyond this, and with the RSB it is going to get worse. I am not a commodity or a business, let alone a corporation.
I think that the people who support this neoliberal concept are those who have done well for themselves and take on the idea that anyone else could have done the same, ignoring the multitude of reasons why some fall through the cracks from no fault of their own. And being 'sorted' means there is no need for a welfare system and it's really divestment they want.
There's a lot of anxiety globally about existential risks and empathy for strangers seems the first thing to abandon, even though collectively we could resolve these issues. I've no idea how we can change that, but keep writing and perhaps more will see the light. Thanks again.
The Private Bank Cross-owned Corporate Complex is very clever in its non-military financial invasion plans, in the way it makes a few in a couple of generations of their targets very wealthy in the transition of the commons of nations into their hands. Then they screw all future generations into the very ground they stole out from under them.
Great piece, Bryan. I happened to watch Ruth Richardson on Q&A last night, and was struck again by how thoroughly disconnected politics had become from reality when the language of economics came to dominate. Old Ruthless was able to pat herself on the back about the numbers and the indicators etc and ignore Jack Tame's protests about the sudden increase in the numbers of families living in poverty under her watch. Nauseating.
Well written Bryan, I have always hated the financialisation of so many parts of our society. In the middle of Covid I really believed that we would come back better and kinder, but the forces of greed and big business made sure that didn’t happen - sad!
Yes, I too hoped the Covid experience might reset our goals - in my township there was an explosion of local enterprise - deliveries to your doorstep of locally grown fruit and veg, eggs, the local bakery's family pies and bread - and family groups walking past waving or stopping for a long distance chat. Instead of maintaining that sense of community we have so quickly slipped back to "normal". So now we have a govt which operates as if it is only a larger form of a business, a leader who is not a governor for all, but just a CEO for those he represents (lobbyists). I was struck with an article in this morning's Newsroom on housing. It highlighted the disbanding of whole communities when social housing is torn down. Together with the fact that no one, including and especially the govt, knows where the affected people have gone. That constant dislocation of community must surely be at the root of many of our social problems - truancy, loneliness, crime, violence, etc. It bothers me that many now in positions of power know no other than the neo-liberal view of life - so we can't count on them for change. But there are signs that some communities are pushing back - and will succeed if more get in behind. Whilst the following article is usa in origin, it has some great suggestions for change - https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/05/building-alternatives-key-counter-authoritarianism/
Exactly, I am always trying to aciculate this history. I think though we need to reclaim the term "Welfare state" and stop allowing it to be a dirty word. We all benefit directly and indirectly for being a Welfare state with social responsibility for each other.NZ should be proud of this history. My other pet hate is we have to save for our "retirement" we had a welfare system from cradle to grave. What do we actual need in retirement, housing, food, health care, a little entertainment all affordable with adequate government funded super. Live simple so others simple live. It is a national shame that we need such charities as food banks, kids' cam, they should only need to pick up the slack. What would it take to get your article into mainstream media.
Thank you Bryan, from another post-war baby. You know, I always thought, in my naivety, that everyone would be supportive of the 'greater good'. Why wouldn't you be - what a super country it could be! I continue to be baffled that that is not the case. This government is actively working to improve the lot of the wealthy, and make things tougher for the less privileged, and their supporters must agree with that viewpoint. I know I'm stating the obvious, but I still wonder how it has come to this.
Thank you Bryan. You have given concise and sobering clarity to the "pickle " that we as a society find ourselves in.
One thing that really saddens me is our - so called - labour party has bought into this bs. The party of the working person really isn't anymore, and is just one side of the same neoliberal coin
While no time is perfect, there were systems in those times which were very clearly far better, not just for a few but for all of us. The idea of free health & education in these times is for most younger people unheard of, & yet it worked extremely well.
Fairness. Empathy.
These are terms which the present govt & to their shame, (If they had the capacity to feel shame) all those who've continued the evil of Neo Liberalism since the Roger Douglas/David Lange govt which first imposed it, apparently lack the capacity to comprehend.
Or possibly, knowingly deny.
As far as I know,just one person who was involved in one of those govts has since made an apology for the damage done, (having finally recognised it years later) & that was Jim Bolger.
I do sometimes wonder what the long term effect might be, if every person in our world had access to education throughour their lives. I strongly suspect that our world might become far better as a result.
I can recall being taught when we were kids that greed was something to be thoroughly ashamed of, yet now we have many people who are blatantly greedy & don't mind showing that & in fact are proud of it.
I tend towards the view that there's somthing very badly wrong about those who become crazed by greed.
And - I'm old enough to know that it was not always like this. And it does NOT HAVE to be like this.
We have to change our society, for the good of us all, especially out descendants.
A beautifully crafted and informative 'no-bullshit' history lesson of a 'post'. In a sane, non-sociopathic society, it would be automatically collected/recorded, so it could become part of the required cultural education of every generation after ours. Thanks Bryan.
Insightful as always. I share your disdain for the financialisation of care via the “social investment” model. But if I may offer a vital historical addition that often gets overlooked, even the best social critiques:
What’s missing in your compelling long view is the Labour Party’s foundational, though ultimately thwarted, attempt to shift New Zealand’s monetary sovereignty away from the private banking oligopoly it inherited from our colonial setup. Yes, Labour built the welfare state, but for a brief period in the late 1930s, it also wrestled with the very system that made social injustice systemic: the power of private banks to issue the nation's money as interest-bearing debt.
In 1936, under pressure from John A. Lee and others, Labour used Reserve Bank credit, not private bank loans, to finance the first wave of state housing. This was monetary financing via Treasury instruction, not debt owed to private creditors. But this policy was short-lived. London bankers threatened financial sanctions, and New Zealand’s fledgling experiment with public money creation was rolled back. Ever since, the welfare state has had to beg and borrow from the very system that profits off public hardship.
The shift to “social investment” is the endpoint of a private bank–centric monetary regime: one where even compassion must pass a financial KPI test, and public services are set up to fail, so they can be sold off. The only true remedy is to restore our monetary system as a public utility—not a private profit engine. That was Labour’s original, radical intent, before they blinked.
Until we correct this foundational flaw, all debates about public service models, welfare vs. investment, or privatisation vs. nationalisation will be tinkering around the edges of a system designed to fail the public by foreign financial invasion design.
Until we tackle what the private banking network, presently still in control of our money system, is doing to us, we remain enduring an imperial-dominion strategic framework.
Couldn't agree more. The greed and selfishness of our 'leaders' is turning life into a misery for many, if not the majority, of New Zealanders, and those people apparently care not one bit about the horrors they have created. Like Bryan, I'm old enough to have benefitted from free education, and a health system that was one of the best in the world. Yes, it was funded by a high marginal tax rate - over 60% for the higher end of incomes - and as in the Scandinavian countries that still use that approach, everyone benefitted. The rich didn't curl up and die because they were losing a bit more of the cream, and the poor were safe, with stable homes, access to a doctor when needed, and schools that, in the main, gave all children a decent education. We have, as a society, gained nothing from neoliberalism, and we've lost our humanity.
I am of the same generation, and I also could not agree more.
Absolutely agree, Judy! Thanks very much Bryan, I grew up in that generation you described!
Hi Judy,
Its true higher wealth tax would improve things a bit, but I contend that in our present entirely private bank debt primary issuance money system, redistribution of taxes cant ultimately fix the systemic inequality caused at the very point of issuance of what we use for currency, only fixing that can?
Hmm, written by a true believer in the 'Welfare for the Rich', I think. Tax from the rich might not solve every problem of the economy, but it would sure help! if only we had a government that had the will to do something about it, but we haven't one of those for some time!
Hi Maggie,
I hope you have got me wrongly pegged for someone not wanting to do anything about the ever increasing financial inequality in our country, and don't want to go stomping all over Bryan's Substack, but I started a movement advocating for the one thing I contend needs to be done that can do the most to relevel the playing field.
You can take a look here. I would love your feedback:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/peoplescredit.nz
Yes, I want a country, society, community that is fit for human habitation. We are now far far beyond this, and with the RSB it is going to get worse. I am not a commodity or a business, let alone a corporation.
Well written Bryan.
I think that the people who support this neoliberal concept are those who have done well for themselves and take on the idea that anyone else could have done the same, ignoring the multitude of reasons why some fall through the cracks from no fault of their own. And being 'sorted' means there is no need for a welfare system and it's really divestment they want.
There's a lot of anxiety globally about existential risks and empathy for strangers seems the first thing to abandon, even though collectively we could resolve these issues. I've no idea how we can change that, but keep writing and perhaps more will see the light. Thanks again.
Hi Alan,
The Private Bank Cross-owned Corporate Complex is very clever in its non-military financial invasion plans, in the way it makes a few in a couple of generations of their targets very wealthy in the transition of the commons of nations into their hands. Then they screw all future generations into the very ground they stole out from under them.
Isn't the sign of a civilsed society how we care for our most vulnerable?
I can only conclude that we are no longer civilsed.
Great piece, Bryan. I happened to watch Ruth Richardson on Q&A last night, and was struck again by how thoroughly disconnected politics had become from reality when the language of economics came to dominate. Old Ruthless was able to pat herself on the back about the numbers and the indicators etc and ignore Jack Tame's protests about the sudden increase in the numbers of families living in poverty under her watch. Nauseating.
Well written Bryan, I have always hated the financialisation of so many parts of our society. In the middle of Covid I really believed that we would come back better and kinder, but the forces of greed and big business made sure that didn’t happen - sad!
Yes, I too hoped the Covid experience might reset our goals - in my township there was an explosion of local enterprise - deliveries to your doorstep of locally grown fruit and veg, eggs, the local bakery's family pies and bread - and family groups walking past waving or stopping for a long distance chat. Instead of maintaining that sense of community we have so quickly slipped back to "normal". So now we have a govt which operates as if it is only a larger form of a business, a leader who is not a governor for all, but just a CEO for those he represents (lobbyists). I was struck with an article in this morning's Newsroom on housing. It highlighted the disbanding of whole communities when social housing is torn down. Together with the fact that no one, including and especially the govt, knows where the affected people have gone. That constant dislocation of community must surely be at the root of many of our social problems - truancy, loneliness, crime, violence, etc. It bothers me that many now in positions of power know no other than the neo-liberal view of life - so we can't count on them for change. But there are signs that some communities are pushing back - and will succeed if more get in behind. Whilst the following article is usa in origin, it has some great suggestions for change - https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/05/building-alternatives-key-counter-authoritarianism/
Exactly, I am always trying to aciculate this history. I think though we need to reclaim the term "Welfare state" and stop allowing it to be a dirty word. We all benefit directly and indirectly for being a Welfare state with social responsibility for each other.NZ should be proud of this history. My other pet hate is we have to save for our "retirement" we had a welfare system from cradle to grave. What do we actual need in retirement, housing, food, health care, a little entertainment all affordable with adequate government funded super. Live simple so others simple live. It is a national shame that we need such charities as food banks, kids' cam, they should only need to pick up the slack. What would it take to get your article into mainstream media.
Thanks . It would be difficult, if not impossible to get my opinion pieces published on main stream media . Which is why I started my substack
Mores the pity Bryan!!!!
Thank you Bryan, from another post-war baby. You know, I always thought, in my naivety, that everyone would be supportive of the 'greater good'. Why wouldn't you be - what a super country it could be! I continue to be baffled that that is not the case. This government is actively working to improve the lot of the wealthy, and make things tougher for the less privileged, and their supporters must agree with that viewpoint. I know I'm stating the obvious, but I still wonder how it has come to this.
Thank you Bryan. You have given concise and sobering clarity to the "pickle " that we as a society find ourselves in.
One thing that really saddens me is our - so called - labour party has bought into this bs. The party of the working person really isn't anymore, and is just one side of the same neoliberal coin
I’m with you Bryan. Thank you.
While no time is perfect, there were systems in those times which were very clearly far better, not just for a few but for all of us. The idea of free health & education in these times is for most younger people unheard of, & yet it worked extremely well.
Fairness. Empathy.
These are terms which the present govt & to their shame, (If they had the capacity to feel shame) all those who've continued the evil of Neo Liberalism since the Roger Douglas/David Lange govt which first imposed it, apparently lack the capacity to comprehend.
Or possibly, knowingly deny.
As far as I know,just one person who was involved in one of those govts has since made an apology for the damage done, (having finally recognised it years later) & that was Jim Bolger.
I do sometimes wonder what the long term effect might be, if every person in our world had access to education throughour their lives. I strongly suspect that our world might become far better as a result.
I can recall being taught when we were kids that greed was something to be thoroughly ashamed of, yet now we have many people who are blatantly greedy & don't mind showing that & in fact are proud of it.
I tend towards the view that there's somthing very badly wrong about those who become crazed by greed.
And - I'm old enough to know that it was not always like this. And it does NOT HAVE to be like this.
We have to change our society, for the good of us all, especially out descendants.
A beautifully crafted and informative 'no-bullshit' history lesson of a 'post'. In a sane, non-sociopathic society, it would be automatically collected/recorded, so it could become part of the required cultural education of every generation after ours. Thanks Bryan.
This post should be required reading for children in schools throughout Aotearoa.
Hi Bryan,
Insightful as always. I share your disdain for the financialisation of care via the “social investment” model. But if I may offer a vital historical addition that often gets overlooked, even the best social critiques:
What’s missing in your compelling long view is the Labour Party’s foundational, though ultimately thwarted, attempt to shift New Zealand’s monetary sovereignty away from the private banking oligopoly it inherited from our colonial setup. Yes, Labour built the welfare state, but for a brief period in the late 1930s, it also wrestled with the very system that made social injustice systemic: the power of private banks to issue the nation's money as interest-bearing debt.
In 1936, under pressure from John A. Lee and others, Labour used Reserve Bank credit, not private bank loans, to finance the first wave of state housing. This was monetary financing via Treasury instruction, not debt owed to private creditors. But this policy was short-lived. London bankers threatened financial sanctions, and New Zealand’s fledgling experiment with public money creation was rolled back. Ever since, the welfare state has had to beg and borrow from the very system that profits off public hardship.
The shift to “social investment” is the endpoint of a private bank–centric monetary regime: one where even compassion must pass a financial KPI test, and public services are set up to fail, so they can be sold off. The only true remedy is to restore our monetary system as a public utility—not a private profit engine. That was Labour’s original, radical intent, before they blinked.
Until we correct this foundational flaw, all debates about public service models, welfare vs. investment, or privatisation vs. nationalisation will be tinkering around the edges of a system designed to fail the public by foreign financial invasion design.
Until we tackle what the private banking network, presently still in control of our money system, is doing to us, we remain enduring an imperial-dominion strategic framework.
Very much appreciated your Arricle, as always, Bryan. How to get this selfish lot to see the light?
I totally agree with you Bryan. Ngā mihi nui.