N.Z. Experiment Plot Brilliantly Handled’

Northern Advocate, 30 August 1948, Page 4

N.Z. Experiment Plot Brilliantly Handled’

NEW YORK, Sun.—Reviewing the book “The Politics of Equality: New Zealand’s Adventures in Democracy,” by Dr Leslie Lipson, C. Hartley Grattan in the New York Times says that New Zealand's social experiment “has not, on Dr Lipson’s showing, been brilliantly managed.”

The. author was for eight years professor of political science at Victoria College, Wellington, and consultant to the New Zealand Government. He now teaches at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania.

The reviewer adds: “The record fascinates those who are interested in social experiments, but it is not one that inspires too ardently to imitation, as many New Zealanders for some odd reason think it does.

“This is because, as Dr Lipson rubs in, the results in the end are not at all remarkable in terms of quality of civilisation.”

MEDIOCRITY Grattan says the New Zealander’s dynamic idea is equality, but he adds: “Equality has worked • out too close to mediocrity for comfort.” He continues: “New Zealanders have come close to mastering the problem of guaranteeing a ‘civilised minimum’ to all citizens —they know how to pad the stick. But as the stick has become less and less of a stinger when applied, the carrot (incentive to effort) 1 has lost its savour for all too many people. “New Zealand’s real problem today is the problem of incentives and rewards for exceptional efforts. MORE NEEDED “As Dr Lipson implies, if democratic Socialism is to succeed as a form of civilisation matching and surpassing capitalism, it must be brilliantly run and give'brilliant results.

“It will have to do far more than provide, after a fashion, the basic minima of food, clothing, shelter and seme well-chosen circuses.”

The book has already been attacked by the New York Communist newspaper Daily Worker for trying to establish that both capitalism and socialism can be maintained in the same place and at the same time.