A Critique of Crisis Theory- a Socialist day school with Mike Treen
The following is based on talks given by Mike Treen, national director of the New Zealand Unite Union, at the annual conference of the socialist organisation Fightback, held in Wellington, May 31 - June 1, 2014, and a seminar hosted by Socialist Aotearoa in Auckland on October 12. The National Business Review reported a comment by our Minister of Finance Bill English on August 15 that he had occasionally pointed out in speeches to business audiences that New Zealand has had post World War Two recessions roughly every 10 years: in 1957-58; 1967-68; the mid 1970s; the mid 1980s; 1997-98 and 2007-8. He would observe laconically: “You'd think we would see them coming” But of course bourgeois economists, commentators and journalists don't generally see them coming. One problem, however, is that sometimes the Marxist alternative sees them coming a little too often. But it is a simple fact of life that capitalism has had economic crises on a periodic basis at least si