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The breakdown of a global order set up to mediate conflict is accompanied by the breakdown of ethical framework. This in turn dissolves logical connection between cause and effect. It is the familiar story of mental illness but taking place in the political arena. Omnipotent judgement occurs, voiced as racial, gender or political paranoia – these judgements escalate into violence which is in turn justified by the omnipotence of authority. A vicious cycle spins like a merry go round, but the result is not merry. So the Bondi shooting mirrored the Gaza and West Bank massacres which mirrored the holocaust which mirrored the Great Depression which mirrored WW1 which mirrored colonial land and resource pillage which mirrored feudal religious strife – round and round and back and forth it goes.

To avoid total chaos, a framework from capitalism is applied by those in power. Real estate is such a framework, with the word ‘real’ meaning physical, immoveable property, which is different from moveable, personal property, which, in comparison, is not ‘real’. This becomes the modus operandi of the Trump administration. Gaza is immoveable land, the Palestinians and their now very meagre possessions are moveable. The immoveable land will have new immoveable infrastructure erected and capital can be accumulated. The only ethic for the individual is the requirement to build a sufficient portfolio of real estate so as to become real and immoveable. Gold used to be a touchstone, now it’s land. Trump knows this, as does Putin and the Middle Eastern oil sheiks.

There is an attempt to turn digital platforms into the equivalent of land, but they will always lack reality.

It is an interesting exercise to adopt this belief system and drive around town, seeing only real estate. Dispense with every other relational framework.

Welcome to the world of Trump.

If you live in Gaza or the West Bank, at the total mercy of the real estate speculator, life is not pretty.

As an epilogue, my grandson has introduced me to the Stranger Things series on Netflix; which is very popular with pre teens. Beginning in 2016 it’s now up to season 5. What strikes me is the nostalgia. Set in the provincial 1980s, men are men and women are women, the Russians are still a Communist threat, people smoke cigarettes, kids ride around town on their bicycles (paedophiles are not an issue), shopping mall level capitalism is identified, the science fiction is sort of goofy, the horror not too horrible, digital effects are limited in scope, the picture is grainy and the lighting less than grandiose and so far I haven’t noticed the music. Adults are beginning to be goofy, but are not yet a total right off; the good guy still has the guts to give the bad guy a hiding and it doesn’t end up in court; and there’s still a hint of tenderness and empathy. My twelve year old grandson likes it and likes that I like it so it must mean something to him past the usual distracting youtube fare of young men inventing odd ball things with noisy enthusiasm. I suspect it is a nostalgia, even among the young who have never experienced the nostalgic world being depicted, but somehow sense that the horror and violence and alienation were more manageable back then. And it is important to him that I share that sense.

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Reading the tea leaves

Last Mayday, we held a forum in Blackball on the concept of a Just Transition as it applies to the West Coast. Among those present were mining advocate Patrick Phelps; Savage and Garth Elliott from the E tū union; Green MP Steve Abel with advisors; Labour MP Damien O’Connor; Otago academic Sean Connelly, who studies regional economies; and activists James Cockle and Rosemary Penwarden from Climate Liberation. Richard Tacon of Bathurst Resources sent apologies, being overseas, and Mayor Jamie Cleine was also away—both had wanted to attend. Noticeably absent, though unsurprisingly, were representatives from Development West Coast, the region’s economic development agency, which has never attended a union-organised event. The runanga have only come once. Part of the issue may be that our gatherings are held on weekends, when local bureaucrats are often away. Nevertheless, around forty people attended and the discussion was rigorous. Prior to the forum, there had already been dialogue between the union and Green MPs, including co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.

At the forum, Phelps argued for mining and its role in supplying resources required for new technologies, claiming that ignoring the market would hollow out communities. Savage proposed the Tiriti model as a national paradigm for dialogue across difference. Connelly affirmed the problem of population loss in regions beyond the urban periphery, and spoke of the “different rhythms of change”—communities being slower to adapt because of heritage and historical injustices. He emphasised the necessity of giving rural New Zealand a voice. O’Connor argued that capitalism must incorporate responsibility alongside property rights. The Greens presented their Ministry of Green Works proposal and the concept of social ecology, while the activists pressed the generational urgency of the climate crisis.

By the end of the day, key questions had emerged:

• Who should decide the direction of our green future—who plans the projects and jobs? 
• How do we find out what those needing to transition actually want to transition to? 
• How do we encourage participation and engagement? 
• What are our shared values? 
• What decision-making processes do we need for a Just Transition, and how do we support workers and communities through it? 
• How do we insert community voices into fast-track or political processes? 
• How do we involve young people in local issues? 
• Who has the power to make change? 
• How can we pursue sustainable industrial policy amid global instability? 
• How do we hold extractive companies accountable for funding and for leading Just Transition? 
• How do we deal with mining companies’ ingratiation into local life, making them seem indispensable? 
• How do we build societies of mutual aid? 
• How do we honour Te Tiriti if mana whenua hold differing positions on extraction? 
• How do we address planned obsolescence and the need to reduce consumption? 
• Can increased mining royalties be retained on the Coast? 
• How do we move beyond polarisation—“us versus them”—around extraction? 
• Will corporations consider Just Transition or simply close operations? 
• Can any real solution exist within capitalism and the party-political system?

Posing these questions opened space for meaningful dialogue, even glimpses of action—but also a default position of old suspicions. Green supporters distrusted miners; miners distrusted environmentalists. This mutual suspicion revealed a fundamental relational fracture. And as always, the elephant in the room remained: who controls power and resources?

—

### After the Forum

Two months later, two activists from Climate Liberation Aotearoa abseiled into a coal bucket at Stockton Mine, remaining there for three weeks and causing losses of roughly $300,000. Their protest targeted Bathurst’s use of fast-track legislation to extend the mine’s life by up to twenty years. That act seemed to end dialogue, particularly when Green MPs publicly supported the protest.

To understand the situation more deeply, I interviewed several key players: Richard Tacon, CEO of Bathurst; former mayor, Jamie Cleine; E tū organizer, Garth Elliott; and activist, James Cockle of Climate Liberation.

—

### Richard Tacon: The Employer

Tacon began his career as an underground miner and describes himself as a sympathetic employer of the mine’s 350 workers and 75 contractors. He supports a unionised workforce, arguing that it simplifies management. Bathurst replaced allowances with a generous hourly rate and a profit-sharing scheme that rewards all workers (including management) equally.

He acknowledged the right to protest but found the length of the Stockton sit-in divisive: “Eyes flitted suspiciously at the supermarket—was that stranger an activist supporter?” he said. He defended Stockton coal as “youthful” and “pure,” claiming that, in smelting it acts like baking soda in a cake mix and reduces overall emissions—though this benefit is not recognised in carbon accounting.

Tacon noted Bathurst’s efforts to collaborate with those exploring alternative coal uses: carbon foam for local energy storage and construction, and carbon filters for water purifying. These would require less coal and smaller operations. He pointed to Bathurst’s infrastructural fund for local start-ups and its contributions to flood recovery. Mining provides roughly 25% of Buller’s economy. He lamented that DOC land classifications have pushed what was once considered development land into the conservation arena, but maintained that Bathurst operates sustainably, avoiding boom-bust cycles. If granted extension, Stockton could run another twenty years.

“We can’t go back to pre-industrial times,” he said, “but we do have to use less.”

—

### Garth Elliott: The Union

Elliott sees E tū’s role as giving workers a voice and raising awareness of broader social issues. “Workers are protective of their industry—it pays their bills,” he said. Though they recognise changing weather patterns, many resist linking them to climate change. “There’s denial when it comes to floods and their causes.”

Mining remains a short-cycle industry, he said—“maybe twenty years, not a lifetime.” Workers move on rather than slow down with age, and their children often head to Australia. The Westport economy is precarious: Talley’s, he said, is “anti-union and structured around worker vulnerability.”

Regarding the coal-bucket protest, Elliott was blunt: “The workers were horrified. It was completely unsafe. If there’d been an accident, months of investigation would’ve followed. They were very pissed off. And then Chlöe and Steve supported the activists. That sent a message: Never trust the Greens.”

He warned that this divide could have political consequences, with a distrust of a Labour coalition which contains the Greens feeding populism, “through just one stupid moment of activism.”

—

### Jamie Cleine: The Mayor

During his time as mayor, Cleine impressed with pragmatism and open-mindedness. He described Westport’s economy as heavily weighted toward the primary sector (40%), with mining providing 25% of that and tourism only 3%. Nationally, mining represents just 0.8% of GDP, but 25% on the Coast. “Anti-mining lobbyists,” he said, “don’t understand how vital it is here.” Productivity, too, is high—$216,000 per job compared to $149,000 nationally.

Westport faces the reality of climate change directly. “We can’t control emissions,” Cleine said, “so we have to manage the effects and build resilience.” Relocation from flood-prone areas will require funding from government, insurance, banking, and community—a practical expression of Just Transition. “The good times have to pay for the bad.”

He noted growing youth interest in nature-based projects, like carbon sequestration in wetlands, and said that Bathurst’s infrastructure fund was, “a drop in the ocean but a start.” With limited rates revenue, Council can only facilitate initiatives like the Westport Master Plan. “No one else in the world is talking about how to do relocation,” he said. One of Council’s roles, he added, “is to read the tea leaves from Wellington.”

Cleine believes the Greens understand Westport’s situation but are constrained by their urban base. “Most locals feel policy is being imposed.” Development West Coast, despite a chequered record, remains key, though energy and transport costs limit new industries. Ideally, royalties and tourist levies would provide secure local funding streams. “The population has to grow,” he said, “preferably with people bringing their jobs. More people means infrastructure that breaks even.” He gave an example of an events and sports centre with substantial community use but which still loses a million dollars a year because of the small population.

—

### James Cockle: The Activist

Cockle described the Stockton sit-in as “a peaceful direct action to impress upon Bathurst the need to drop its extension plans.” The twenty-year extension, he argued, would cause further ecological degradation. On accusations of endangering safety, he replied: “Mining is violent. We took great care for our safety—but what about the safety of the planet?”

He rejected the argument that Stockton coal is needed for “green” steel: “We need less steel, not more. Much is wasted. We’re building six storey buildings from wood now.” To him, the Coast’s DOC estate is a national taonga, belonging to everyone. “We must accept that coal mining will end,” he said. “Technological fixes—carbon foam, carbon capture—never deliver.”

Cockle cited Jeanette Fitzsimons’ *Jobs after Coal* report, noting its finding of a two-tier Coast society: well-paid miners and an underpaid remainder. For him, Just Transition is revolutionary. “You can’t achieve it by tinkering. The Left failed to look after workers, and that’s why some move right. There has to be a revolution.”

After our interview, he told me by email he had once considered moving to the Coast, but it was too far from family in Dunedin.

—

### Drawing the Threads Together

In summary: a pro-union company rationalising coal production while funding local infrastructure; a union aware of the crisis but facing worker denial; a Green Party which is anti-mining yet pro-union and unable to risk its urban support base; activists taking direct action out of urgency and risking a populist backlash; a mayor focused on climate resilience and fiscal realism; and mana whenua supportive of the mining company. All this unfolds on whenua seen by locals as their working backyard and by urban New Zealanders as a national treasure. And this whenua, ultimately, is part of the commons.

Any solution will require radical change. With colleagues, I’ve been working on an updated *Communist Manifesto*, addressing inequality, reclaiming the commons, empowering workers, restoring collective decision-making, rejecting violence, and honouring the Indigenous voice.[1] We’ve also drawn on Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s idea of “hospicing modernity”—the need to gently lay to rest the industrial-colonial project built on separation and violence. [2] New research on trauma offers a parallel lens: allowing a focus on the politics of dissociation which occur under overwhelming stress. [3] Synthesising these perspectives begins to suggest a new methodology based on relationship.

In the case of Westport, the first task would be to *destress* the situation—to ensure safety: of jobs and incomes, housing, and environment. From that foundation, community dialogue could widen, rejecting all forms of violence and confronting the violence inherent in open-cast mining itself. Workers would trace the journey of their product; activists would reflect on the impact of their actions on local lives. Education would explore how modernity imposed and continues to impose separations—between people and land, between communities of location and interest—and imagine futures beyond them.

The company would join the conversation. What would it mean for a company to be made “safe”? Can shareholders be part of that process? Who are they, and how are they connected to this place? Could the forces of capital take part in such a dialogue?

How does this community relate to others under stress, both nationally and internationally? Would wider society tolerate or support such shifts? Ultimately, these conversations must be repeated, both nationally and internationally, especially when new threats arise. Over time, they lead to concrete actions. But what governance structures would facilitate this process? What changes are required?

Perhaps all this sounds utopian. Yet it is urgent that we begin to evolve a methodology that offers possibility rather than despair—one that allows us, finally, to read the tea leaves together. Interestingly, it began to happen in Taranaki, albeit briefly.

[1] https://www.tepuawai.co.nz/Updating-the-manifesto.php

[2] Machado De Oliveira, Vanessa, Hospicing Modernity, parting with harmful ways of living. North Atlantic Books. US, 2017.

[3] Bloom, Sandra L. Creating Sanctuary, toward the evolution of sane societies, Routledge, New York and London, 2013.

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Approaching the apocalypse

Gaza has become a prophetic image of the apocalyptic future: the senseless destruction, the rubble, the rampaging gangs – including a nation’s army; the sadism, the cynicism, the suffering of families, world leaders who are ga-ga or fascist… it becomes a site of trauma (overwhelming stress) having to be processed (or otherwise) by the global community.

Appropriate then, that I should happen to come upon a book about trauma (Creating Sanctuary, toward the evolution of sane societies, by Sandra L. Bloom), and find the following highly political statements:

‘It is a fundamental and absolute moral responsibility that we bear witness to the pain and suffering that is all around us and that we join together to liberate the human body, mind and soul from the wrack of trauma re-enactment that is stretching our social body to the limit of endurance.’

 ‘We are basically compassionate and social creatures but abandonment and suffering can twist us up. People who have lost their way can make terrible decisions, whether they live on the streets shooting up, whether they run corporations or whether they run for Congress. It is up to the rest of us to hold them accountable and stop the madness.’

‘… do we rise above primitive biological drives and instead come together, bonded by reason and a desire to seek greater meaning in what has happened and seize this opportunity to transform this tragedy into a heightened state of social consciousness, finding the courage to blaze new trails on the road to social harmony?’

‘Our existing structures no longer adequately hold us. We lack methods to solve problems that are global, interconnected, ecological and biopsychosocial. We lack an alternative vision for the future. It is impossible for an old paradigm to be overturned until a new paradigm is born.’

‘What does it mean to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Basically, civilisation needs a new operating system and new programmers and we need it within a few decades.’

‘How do we create environments now that are truly supportive to life? With slow and laborious efforts, fitful starts and many stumbles, there are people out there in every discipline who are struggling to find and define a new way of being, of learning, of acting, of working, of playing, of healing in the world. Now we need to reach out and find each other in order to create a community of care, of concern, of commitment.’

Of course the psychiatrist is absolutely right, but how does the revolution occur? How is the madness stopped? How are they held accountable? There are people and groups defining something new but they are small and the task of them reaching out and finding one another and then reaching out to the rest of society is a big one given the tight time frame. At this stage the IDF would appear stronger than the psychiatric sanctuary or the protest march or the sit in or the flotilla or the national strike. The flotilla was resonant for it brought those kidnapped into closer proximity to the Palestinian experience. National strikes ring alarum bells, but … there is a further issue. As Naomi Klein has pointed out, the elite have no positive vision, they are envisioning the death of civilisation as we know it. That is their programme and woe to anyone who attempts to establish a more benign operating system.

Within the trauma model the task of healing involves the functional self and the traumatised self, gathering and embracing the traumatised fragments with compassion and understanding in order for integration to take place.

I don’t know yet how whether that translates into a model of political action. At Kōtuku we have been on a humble political journey. It began with a some elderly activists constructing a timeline of campaigns we had been involved in and realising that since 2000 things had become incoherent, with theory breaking down. We then tried updating the Communist Manifesto, that most potent of 19th century political tracts which led us to similar conclusions to those of the trauma author. Different spaces, same conclusion: the need for revolution, for a reprogramming of the species.

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Just a thought

Given the current global order and its leakage south e.g. the Charlie Kirk vigils held around the country and throughout the South Pacific, it is possible (and without being accused of heading down a rabbit hole) that local lefties and community activists should have structures in place which can resist a fascist revival. Outrage, protest, faith in the judicial system, certain constitutional safeguards and the party system (of late there is talk of reviving the Alliance) may lack sufficient coherence and resilience.

Since, some years ago, sitting and chatting on a bus alongside a committed activist who had literally thrown her adult life into the hands of God and his followers for her accommodation and daily sustenance as she moved around the country, I have been aware of the organisational skill, commitment and capacity of the Christian nationalist right. In the US, tea parties, MAGA and organisations like Turning Point have provided a grass roots base of ambition and resilience.

We could be only an election away from a significant shift to the right in Aotearoa. Of course, hopefully not, but, on the left, is there a need for cells, playing with identity, an increased commitment, keeping an eye out for infiltration, and worrying about communication safety?

Just a thought.

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Working on Brecht

This year we have chosen the German playwright, Bertolt Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle as the classic for our Blackball Bathhouse production. I’ve never directed a Brecht before. The cast size is usually formidable and there’s a sense that it needs a large stage and technical requirements that would be a challenge for the community scale on which I have always worked. And then there’s always the ‘mystery’ of his distancing techniques, using song, scene titles and exposing the techniques of illusion to prevent easy emotional involvement, with a lot of these techniques now run of the mill; but as well the sense that Brecht is very good at emotional involvement – who could ever forget the silent scream of Mother Courage as she discovers the death of her son?

I have though, worked a lot using the techniques of Augusto Boal, acknowledged as Brecht’s successor and someone who has more thoroughly realised Brecht’s aims of making the audience actively aware of the underlying structures of oppression. For Brecht remained in the mainstream theatre, in the West playing to the usual middle class theatre goer. In East Berlin, his theatre had state support and could operate without the stringencies of market forces. In the 21st century West, Brecht productions professionally have become few and far between but he is often produced by colleges and the amateur actor suits his work, except of late, the consumer – identity politics – social media- individual has a sense of personality that feels a long way away from the peasant or old time soldier.

As I worked on a manageable size script and something that will work in the old bathhouse, I have struggled to find a way in, to find a resonance that will make a production live. Slowly and unusually, I have begun to unpack and personally align with, the subjectivity at work, the personality of the writer, the psychological drivers, the social relations at work or desired, rather than the political dynamics and began to realise that this was his goal, to show the relations beneath oppressive economic and political systems and that this is, in our current society, a useful task. Think of the chaos of Trump era capitalism and the relations of greed, venality, violence and corruption at work, more important than the politics. In fact these social relations are the politics.  The market and nationalism are mere disguise.

And with Brecht there is the hope of better relations, of friendliness between strangers, of justice within a society, simple goals, surely realisable, but then? In fact the simplicity is almost overwhelming. Brecht’s aesthetic, which is what productions  often focus on, is tied to the mystifications of capitalism.  Underneath is this simple desire for a better world which is driving the almost boyishly naïve writer.

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A pre-revolutionary era

Let me pick up on a theme I introduced in January of this year, for it is a theme that hasn’t gone away, in fact becomes more relevant.

In the New Year post I pointed out that In the late 19th century Russia was a ferment of political angst: an authoritarian Emperor influenced by Rasputin the evil advisor, secret police, dungeons, political opponents sent to Siberia, peasant revolts, revolutionary anarchists and a beginning communist insurgency, but one lacking a developed proletariat…  My suspicion that we are in a similar period gathers evidence: the horror of Gaza, the planet on fire, the authoritarianism and venality of Netanyahu, Trump and J.D. Vance (and others), the militarising of the police and calling in of the army in Western ‘democracies’ and the powerlessness of normal political processes add up to a climate of terror.

In Russia, the anarchists threw bombs and assassinated leaders in acts of individual terrorism and became martyrs. Terror is extreme fear caused by violence and bloodshed, a mechanism of intimidation and an instrument of political coercion. The issue with terror is that the state is better at it and has far greater resources. Yet the terrorist act, in the minds of individual proponents, was validated by the way that it brought to the surface the fact that the state is based on terror. It became then a clarification.

Seen in this framework, the Hamas act of terror on Oct 7th two years ago has unleashed and revealed the full blown terror on which the Israeli state is based – no one can ignore this fact. But it has also revealed the continuing underlying terror of the post-colonial North with its ties to Israeli. It’s almost as if their leaders are surprised as they play out this emanation, as they’re forced to take off the mask of respectability, each in their own way. To take one example, it is, if judged from the viewpoint of common sense, inconceivable what Labour is doing in the UK.

Accordingly, the mask of a system of ‘democracy’, which still pretends to carry in the basement of its psyche the belief in liberty, equality, fraternity, is removed, to reveal the real motor of the system: greed and racism.

Here, in Aotearoa, we are just starting, but you can see how it may develop as the need to commit to an independent Palestine arrives. The terror here will be limited, dictated to by the shape of our colonial past. It starts with the prevarication of our Uncle Tom (Winston), then the eviction of Chloe from the parliamentary chamber for telling the truth. David Seymour is the one who would enjoy administering state terror, once again, typically, in boyish fashion; becoming, to use the familial use of the word, ‘a little terror’.

And then what? Some event; in Russia it was the impact of WW1, churns the ferment to the point of either collapse or revolution. Now, in this early part of the 21st century, a younger generation have wakened; the realisation that the strike is an effective and necessary weapon has surfaced; judicial martyrdom is being chosen by elders; there is fear for the planet… as the Palestinians are being subjected to ever more extreme terror, in various walks of life people are increasingly prepared to act in solidarity, past the approval of the system.

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Hope?

It can feel difficult to keep having opinions in this era where opinions seem to count for little.

The US President is an authoritarian bully without disguising the fact, the genocide in Gaza intensifies, the Europeans arm themselves in a historic repetition of preparation for world war, Netanyahu nominates Trump for the Nobel Peace prize, the Israeli’s build a ‘humanitarian’ city in order to herd Palestinians into a place of final erasure – parody is not a descriptive word anymore. Nor are ‘respect’, ‘diversity’, ‘dysfunction’, ‘trauma’, ‘resilience’, ‘counsel’, ‘safety’, ‘democracy’, ‘peace’ – the list goes on.

As does daily living for us fortunate ones: the birds sing at dawn and begin preparing nests, people complain about the cost of living and rest home fees, have birthdays, the cat seeks warmth, an elderly relative takes a worrying turn for the worse, the rhododendron trees ready for Spring…

And then Francesca Albanese appears like a diva, speaking truth to power, like a William Blake poem and we gasp. The Hague group of countries meet and demand (how sad we are not part of it) that nations and corporations uphold international law,  Harvard University tells Trump to get stuffed, LA migrants and supporters keep battling the ICE thugs, the word solidarity appears in discourse amongst academics, lawyers, students, local body representatives, citizens…

Are we finally waking up?

Are we hearing the death rattle of the old colonial order?

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Denouement

As the Gaza genocide reaches its denouement, the horror worsens. Now the starving Palestinians are pushed into a narrow strip of land to the south, where a game of Russian roulette is played as they are picked off when they scavenge for food. Gangs are armed by the IDF to create even more havoc. When the situation becomes equal to that of the death camps the fence which separates the area from the Sinai will be breached and the the remaining population will pour throughthe hole into the desert where presumably, aid organisations will be allowed to tend to a now homeless and stateless population; the fence will be restored and the genocide complete.

Meanwhile a global order without ethical framework watches the event as yet another spectacle. The West, China and Russia continue to trade with Israel, and the Arab nations build super yachts or are subservient to their Western masters. Only the ordinary people express outrage – to no avail – the only hope would be a conscious united working class willing to bring the sorry system down.

The puppeteers trash the puppet stage

Punch and Judy joust with bombs in their teeth

The spies screech with laughter

What a piece of work is man.

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Contradictions

The economic trajectory of the charity is suddenly of interest because of the cuts to human services and a move to dismantle the state and trash its role in the maintaining of what’s left of social democracy.

Charity began as a Christian duty of citizenship, both a material offering from those with plenty to those in need, but also an offer of Christ-like love; something akin to aroha. The church itself, via nuns and monks, gave alms and succour to the poor.

With the advent of capitalism, the very rich gave some of their money to the poor or to support good works done by others for a number of reasons: the limits of private consumption, to continue the concept of Christian charity, to feel good – the poor can be interesting, grateful and sometimes irascible, to flirt with loss, to have control of things at the community level and to avoid revolutionary fervour.  The administration became formalised with the creating of charities so that others can add to the coffers of the rich. So you get the Bill Gates Foundation and the like. The state plays ball by giving tax free status to the work of the charity and a tax credit to those who donate.

The NGO charity enters the scene, doing some of the governments work and being paid to do so by the state. This becomes unstable when the entrepreneurial charity spawns profit making companies which donate profit back to the charity, but can also use the model to avoid tax. And then there are multinational charities with a specific expertise setting up and seeking government and sometimes private funds in a variety of countries. A false yet competitive market begins to operate. With charter schools, but also with some health and other initiatives, the relationship with the state provider of similar services becomes tetchy and ideological, for the new right is intent on dismantling the state, with the very rich (with various fancies in mind), wanting to establish and have control of company towns and city states and colonies in outer space or they have the impulse to comfortably bunker down as the planet dissolves.

Diversity becomes a contested model with the private provider arguing that they are filling niche needs. At the same time new right ideologues are rubbishing the diversity established by the ‘woke’ bureaucracy as they administer what’s left of the social democratic state.

On the Left, the anarcho syndicalists are also wishing to radically change the nation state, advocating instead a federalist model, with local control of the commons and the tax take and mutual aid groups providing services. In some ways they mirror the new right but with a different, communist goal in sight.

The only clarity in these puzzling times is to peer with a Marxist eye at the relations of production and to see who owns and/or controls the means of production. If the charter school is owned and run by a co-operative of parents, teachers, students and support workers, leaving the state to provide funding and to monitor overall standards, well and good. If not, forget it. Same with everything else.

This new model could replace the charity model which is increasingly fraught with contradiction.

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