“Farmers’ sons with whom we have no quarrel” – workers reflect on the 1913 defeat
Last of three articles on workers and farmers in 1913 in New Zealand The day after the call for a general strike went out, five leaders of the fighting unions […]
Category Archives: petty-bourgeoisie
When the countryside marched on the town: Massey’s Cossacks in 1913
[Second of three articles on workers and farmers in 1913] Both the Red Fed leadership and the IWW in Auckland proved unable to recognise the significance of the coming to […]
The other exploited producers – origins of the class of working farmers in New Zealand
(First of three articles on workers and farmers in 1913 New Zealand. Long-time readers of this blog may notice that this article overlaps substantially with a post from 2015 entitled […]
The liberal censors extend their reach
The self-appointed liberal censors have struck again in New Zealand. Emboldened by their success in no-platforming the visiting Canadian rightists Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern, and then disrupting a campus […]
Mathematics falls from grace – Part 1
Science, Eugenics, and Statistics Much of what is taught as higher Mathematics today was developed in the 16th and 17th centuries, as part of a tremendous flowering of natural science […]
How to defend democratic rights and political space – case study of a political victory
Renée Gerlich is a feminist and blogger living in Wellington, New Zealand. She holds that New Zealand was wrong for decriminalising pimps and punters along with prostituted persons in the […]
The Twitter Bonaparte casts a shadow: two articles on Bonapartism
Part 1: the second Bonaparte (and the first) In 1848 the continent of Europe was engulfed in the flames of revolution. Absolute monarchies, princes and dukes were overthrown in Denmark, […]
Cultural appropriation, race-baiting, and the power of fiction: in defence of Lionel Shriver
US novelist Lionel Shriver ruffled a few feathers – to put it mildly – when she spoke at the Brisbane Writers Festival in September. Shriver took aim at ‘identity politics’ […]
Why the founding of the Labour Party was a historic advance
“The first great step of importance for every country newly entering into the [working class] movement is always the constitution of the workers as an independent political party, no matter […]
Capitalist farmers and family farmers
[Origins of the working class in New Zealand, Part Four] The big capitalist farmer-land-speculators, dislodged from their position of dominance in the New Zealand parliament by the Maritime strike in […]
