Protest over monetarists

Press, 2 December 1989, Page 16

Protest over monetarists

The meeting of an international economic group, the Mont Pelerin Society, in Christchurch this week has drawn fire from the Campaign against Foreign Control in Aotearoa organisation. The compaign’s secretry, Mr Murray Horton, said the society was one of the intellectual powerhouses of the economic “New Right,” with a monetarist approach to life.

There was no harm in holding such a meeting if it was purely academic, he said, “but the meeting • involves key decisionmakers and the people who have the power to influence the movers and the shakers of economic policies.”

Mr Horton was one of about 50 people from several groups who protested outside the closing function of the society at Mona Vale.

The Mont Pelerin Society was formed in 1947 and is named after the first meeting place, in Switzerland, of 36 scholars, mostly economists, who discussed maintaining a free society and liberal democratic order.

The society describes its membership as some of the world’s most eminent economists, political scientists, philosophers and thinkers. The reason for holding the meeting in New Zealand this year was prompted by interest in New Zealand’s economic reforms, the society said.

Topics being covered at the conference, which ended yesterday, included New Zealand reforms, aid, trade and development in the South Pacific, and economics, politics and the environment — which examined such issues as “green” politics.