National Interest: Mr Key's version versus the alternative

Ms O'Sullivan has praised Mr Key's Crafar decision "a victory for economic rationalism over blind xenophobic nationalism". So it might seem. But it is not obviously in the national interest, unless one takes Ms O'Sullivan's market rationalism seriously (as Mr Key clearly does).

How come? There are at least two versions of national interest. The one derives from the Westphalian state thesis, in which national interest was reduced to the interest of a ruling elite - originally absolutist monarchs, but, in the modern era, dominant fractions of Capital. Thus, when Ms O'Sullivan and Mr Key promote things like privatisation, the sale of farmland to overseas buyers, and measures such as the Hobbit legislation, they are promoting outcomes that serve a narrow definition of national interest, usually a fraction of the wealthy population (often financial Capital) that benefits from such measures. We, the hoi-polloi, are told that positives trickle down to us from such measures, but inequality data tell us something very different.

The alternative - a "democratic" national interest - does not start and end with economic efficiency and short-term gains for particular, advantaged elements of our population. It takes a longer and inclusive view, asking what is in the interests of the population as a whole, rather than of a select few. So it might ask what the implications for NZ share milkers might be of wholesale selling of land to overseas buyers. It might ask about previous asset-stripping as an effect of privatisation. It might wonder whether significantly disadvantaged labour conditions are justified simply because a local elite film producer gets his knickers in a twist.

Mr Peters understands this clash of "national interests" very well. I would hope that Labour does, too