Mike Hosking: New Government is wrong to criticise capitalism

A very good piece of writing, by a bloke called Stephen Hickson, who teaches economics at Canterbury University. It's worth a read.

He explains and defends capitalism. And that's important because the new Government is telling us capitalism hasn't worked - and in that, they are wrong. And they were wrong before I read the Hickson piece, he just re-affirms how wrong they are.

Capitalism has not failed, he says. It is, in fact, the opposite. Capitalism and markets have delivered unprecedented increases in living standards and quality of life across a whole range of aspects that we care about that no other system can match.

Capitalism shouldn't even be under this sort of attack.

It started with Winston Peters who, for reasons best known to himself, and that he's still to fully explain, decided the world is ending. And a more dour prediction could not have been made in the announcement of the new coalition.

Part of what drives his thinking is not completely wrong. He worries about the shadow banking industry in China, he worries about the level of debt internationally.

Those are real fears, but they are not leading to disaster. They might lead to some sort of correction, but a correction is not life-threatening, and does not mean capitalism has failed.

Jacinda Ardern seems to have forgotten how to be relentlessly positive as she now sets about preaching on all that is wrong with our land.

And that's one of my great fears. This country, it cannot be forgotten, is actually a global economic star.

Yes, we've changed governments. But we, it can be argued (and I do), haven't changed governments because we don't like what we're doing economically. More people voted for the current economic direction than didn't.

The gap that New Zealand First filled, thus making the left a coalition, could easily have gone with National. Thus meaning we carried on with the status quo.

In broad terms, you might argue this new Government reflects the softer side of capitalism hence they spend a bit more, they intervene a bit more. But the fundamentals are sound and if they push those fundamentals too hard, we are in real trouble.

Governments are not your economic answer. People are. Businesses who have ideas and products and services. Businesses that must be allowed to be productive and creative and prosperous. Businesses that must be allowed and encouraged to explore and expand.

A government is not an entrepreneur or a risk-taker. They're not innovators or visionaries. More often than not they get in the way.

We are doing well, we are doing more than well, and the first mistake this Government makes is by trying to tell us that's not true.