Free enterprise

Press, 6 May 1980, Page 24

Free enterprise

Sir, — How preferable is it to live under free, enterprise with bitter social division and with insanely rising crime rates and inflation, than under an oppressive but duliy-secure Soviet system? Besides domination by. the huge multi-national conglomerates does not constitute free enterprise. Even granting . that most investment in .hese giants’ branch enterprises here is in New Zealand, this only serves to create an uppercrust internationalist set of New Zealanders who confuse over-developmental bursts of affluence with social health and progress. Mr Quigley “fiddles” * with using both sides of his office paper “while Rome burns,” but his real job is to promote free enterprise while protecting the weak and small so that they can become strong and small, and able to resist being gobbled up by Mr Big, whether Mr Big be the

union boss or the managing director.- — Yours, etc., B. P. LILBURN. May 4, 1980.

Sir, — Frank A. Smith (May 2) convincingly stated the advantages of free enter-* prise over socialism. The history of socialism in New Zealand shows beyond doubt that it has fed successfully on the ability of the self-em-ployed to create with our export yield dictating the economic growth. The; fluke trading conditions experienced in the post-war boom have ended and 'we are now faced with a highly competitive trading position. The fraud of socialism becomes more apparent as the National Government departs from its private enterprise plank and obligingly sets up a powerful bureaucracy. The path is being made easier.for acceptance of complete state control. As business confidence cracks under Mr Muldoon’s fine tuning only the public servants, trade union executive and bureaucrats prosper# The reason socialism will not work is quite apparent as “socialists won’t work.” Apart from being just a political and economic theory socialism is an artificial quality which even Mr Rowling and the late Norman Kirk could not define# — Yours, etc., L. J. STEVENS. May 2, 1980.