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Withering away of the proletariat alert: the New Zealand Labour Party is redefining up the working class
01 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in income redistribution, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: The withering away of the Labour Party, the withering away of the proletariat
Andrew Little is looking to update Labour's definition of the 'working class': stuff.co.nz/national/polit… http://t.co/AQ9mJL7CQf—
NZ Stuff Politics (@NZStuffPolitics) November 30, 2014
The vanguard of the working class has decided the working classes are a bit too small these days to survive politically. The party vote of the New Zealand Labour Party was its lowest since its foundation in 1919 in the New Zealand 2014 general election.
Small-businesses owners, the self-employed and those on contracts are “workers”, Labour’s new leader Andrew Little says. Little has used his first major speech as leader to challenge Labour to update its definition of working people:
People on middle incomes, people who own a small business, people who work on contract who are doing their best to earn a crust and get ahead, they are feeling forgotten – mostly because in policy terms they are
Back in the day, a large number of Labour Party politicians were asked why did they join the Labour Party. Their answer was the Labour Party promised a better deal for the working man.
Unfortunately for the New Zealand Labour Party, the traditional working class is simply are not enough votes to form a government even when you add in the precariat. The party vote of the Labour Party in New Zealand in the last two general elections is been in about 24%. Two thirds of the New Zealand electorate gave their party vote to non-left parties. The party vote of the Labour Party and the green party summed to only 33% of the vote.
What is worse, if you are to believe these Daily Mail graphics, both the traditional working class and precariat area are a bit old, in case of the working class, they are retirement age. The average age of the working class is 66 and the average age of the precariat is 50.
Even the emergent service worker class is a bit of a disappointment for the Labour Part because they don’t seem to be the stock of shop-floor militancy, higher taxes, more regulation and a more generous welfare state. The emergent service workers have semi-skilled and skilled jobs with career structures and the potential for self-employment.
All in all, the left-wing political parties in New Zealand are in a bit of trouble.The green party is tapped out at a party vote of 10% because their hard left policies limit their growth into the middle class vote. The withering away of the proletariat is leading to a withering away the Labour Party.
Both the Labour Party and the Greens are full of university educated, middle-class radicals whose higher tax and bigger government agenda simply doesn’t appeal to the middle-class vote.
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