Robert MacCulloch
Robert MacCulloch is a native of New Zealand and worked at the Reserve Bank of NZ before travelling to the UK to complete a PhD in Economics at Oxford University.
For over a decade I tried, and failed, to persuade our politicians, media folks, and Kiwis more generally how free markets, competition and trade could improve welfare outcomes in this country.
More competition in education with Charter Schools; improving health-care through utilizing markets more in the supply of such services; how more competitive markets could lower prices in banking, food supply, power, housing, and construction in NZ. Not to mention making our labour markets more competitive, instead of ‘jobs for the boys and girls’ that is so prevalent here.
There was scant interest from even National, let alone Labour. As for Stuff, Radio NZ, the Herald, Newshub and leftist academics, they actively hated the whole idea of free markets, calling it a ‘neo-liberal conspiracy’. How ironic today that those very outlets are united in a wild embrace of the wonders of free markets, of not taxing (or “tariffing”) goods and services, not even at 10 per cent, because it totally ruins the integrity of the supply-and-demand pricing mechanism that is best suited to allocate scarce resources.
The editor of the NZ Herald called the entire US cabinet “a [White House] room full of powerful morons”. He quotes the wisdom of “Kiwi billionaire and Zuru co-founder Nick Mowbray” and “Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman” who are against tariffs. Yes, the Herald now loves billionaires who dispense advice on the virtues of free markets. Let’s not mention how Mowbray has all of his factories not in NZ, but in China, which has one of the highest levels of protectionism in the world.
Amusingly, the UK’s most left-leaning anti-globalization newspaper, the Guardian, has now discovered the wonders of free markets. It calls Trump’s tariffs, the “worst self-inflicted wound by any successful economy”. As for the swathe of Kiwis who voted Labour and have their funds in KiwiSaver, they are incandescent with rage about the US president interfering with the functioning of free markets. Why? Because of falls in the value of their KiwiSaver stocks.
According to the logic of ardent leftists in NZ’s media and around the world this past week, should anyone produce at lower cost, cheaper, and at better quality, not just in your own country, but anywhere on the planet, then in the interests of competitive advantage, and comparative advantage, let it happen. Hayek-style creative destruction rules. Because its good for consumers. Good for taxpayers. Good for share prices. Good for the economy. Hang on – that’s sounding like the Association for Consumers and Tax Payers, which is how the ACT Party started.
So let’s thank President Trump for one thing – for uniting the world in the belief that the way to prosperity is through free markets, without the interference in the price system which happens whenever taxes, or government ownership, come into play. I bet that’s not how our twisted mainstream media will play things.
After embracing the ability of unfettered world trade to better allocate resources and launching nuclear attacks on Trump, next week big media in NZ will be back to pushing for capital gains and asset taxes, attacking charter schools, calling privatization evil, attacking the transparent pricing and competition in the healthcare reforms folks that like me have promoted for years, and lecturing us how trade unions, which undermine competitive labor markets, are all great things.
Mafia Godfather Michael Corleone told a corrupt US senator who called him a sleaze ball in the famous movie, “Senator, we’re all part of the same hypocrisy.” Thank goodness for the events of the past week. They’ve been beneficial to the world. The hypocrisy of the left has been exposed.
This article was originally published by Down to Earth Kiwi.
