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- Date published:
5:04 pm, March 21st, 2026 - 24 comments
Categories: uncategorized -
Tags: community, crisis management, efficiency, ideology, neoliberalism, redundancy, resilience
Resilience is the new buzzword in the cold face of a pending fuel crisis that threatens to derail the economy and life as we know it. Like well-trained neoliberal ideologues, the coalition Government wasn’t planning for an unmitigated disaster, like they had and still no have a plan for growing the economy, not even an apathetic Plan B, but they only rely on market resilience like a ship that rights itself after being struck by a giant monster wave.
To ensure stability against future shocks one could build larger storage facilities. This comes with a cost and this is one of the reasons why NZ’s mandatory fuel stock levels are low by international standards. However, even larger storage capacity runs out during prolonged and sustained crises.
Neoliberals don’t like rules & regulations, least of all mandatory ones imposed by the state. They cut into profit margins of businesses. They impose existential threats to people who are hell-bent on personal freedom. But crises cut into profits too. So, those same people insist that the state protects them against losses, be they in the past, present, or future. In true victimhood, they should not carry the burden of this protection, (many) others should.
Growing or maximising production is seen as a way of increasing profits. Doing more with what you’ve got is the way to go. Doing more with less is even better. This is called optimisation and making things more efficient. But this is confusing and misleading. What if you strip off & out all redundant parts, reduce unnecessary costs (incl. labour costs), minimise reserves and build a bare-bones über-efficient production system (called ‘a business’)? Surely, this will guarantee high profits?
This same attitude is responsible for the mantra that socialising costs is good and in fact desirable. For example, unemployment guarantees a pool of instant workers. This is even baked into the state’s definition of ‘unemployed’ that states that one has to have been actively looking for work in the last four weeks. But in reality, few of those ‘job seekers’ are an exact or perfect match to the job requirements. Many appointees require some degree of training/re-training just as many new recruits do such as batches of fresh university graduates. This takes time and costs money, which is where immigrants become an attractive alternative if the total of relocation costs to the company are less. NZ favours immigrants with job offers, when a suitable local candidate cannot be found (or re-trained, which goes unsaid). In reality, many vacancies are refilled internally where existing employees move sideways or upwards. This only really works well and efficiently if there’s some redundancy present within the organisation and within its labour workforce there’s some diversification of know-how and skills.
When these neoliberal ideas are transferred to managing a nation’s economy, and when associated management ideas are transferred to a nation’s governance, it will work well, won’t it? Arguably, during the past decades of relative geopolitical stability neoliberalism has flourished and many nations have prospered beyond belief. However, those tranquil times are over and there’s turbulence if not chaos everywhere. In such situation bare-bones lean systems don’t serve us well and can, in fact, become an obstacle to our resilience – neoliberalism is like fair-weather gear that’s great for a stroll in the park or a walk along the beach on a nice fine day but we would be ill-equipped if we wore it in rough weather let alone in Search & Rescue operations. Guess what weather we’re experiencing at present.
The coalition Government strictly follows neoliberal dogma with its fiscally responsible austerity measures, even when facing the current fuel crisis – arguably, the coalition Government’s insistence on temporary timely targeted assistance may not be more robust in countering the increase in cost-of-living than a more universal and structural approach, but that would require casting off the neoliberal tinfoil thinking hat. It argues that we (!) must first get our (!) debt levels down and the books back in the black before we can do anything else. Other NZ Governments have made similar comments about ‘rainy day funds’ for economic shocks. However, this does pose a moral dilemma.
On purely moral grounds, could anyone defend accumulating a surplus for a hypothetical future disaster while people starved today?
One approach to resilience that runs counter to optimisation & efficiency is retaining some level old-school capacity & capability. Know-how and skills that took many years to build through experience, at an organisational and personal-professional levels, can bolster resilience. They can pick up the slack, they can repair (older) things, they can do things different ways, they won’t be paralysed if one component of the optimised machinery breaks down or one key part or intermediate product becomes unavailable because of a broken supply chain. So, instead of making a system as efficient as possible, but no more efficient, as Einstein would have said, or instead of larger surpluses or storage tanks, there’s counter-intuitive merit in making systems less efficient to make them more resilient.
In contrast [to carefully planned resiliency], resiliency through inefficiency is much more robust. […] It rests on traditional (or inefficient) ways of doing things, requiring no change or innovation. It does not require active policy interventions, or even acknowledgement of the issue. As long as it is left alone, it will always be there, a reserve of resiliency ready to be tapped. As below, so above: the most inefficient way of producing resiliency is also the most… resilient.
This can be practised easiest at a community level where profit motives are much less present. Communities contain a wealth of experience, a depth of know-how, and don’t require management structures or Kafkaesque bureaucracy to make decisions and swing into action. Community IT support is the best and community HR doesn’t hire & fire willy-nilly after another episodic cost-cutting restructure to improve efficiency & productivity!
It might feel like going backwards, like going down a path to the past marked by willowed knotty old trees of nostalgia, but it’s a fact that modern technology is often too reliant and incapable of adaptive changes required in crisis situations and this then turns into a liability – that includes AI. True resilience doesn’t exist in neoliberal (free) markets – the more unregulated they are, the less resilient in crises – true resilience resides in our (local) communities. And nothing brings community together more and lifts the community spirit higher than a crisis.
"This can be practised easiest at a community level where profit motives are much less present."
Also, volunteers abound in communities, large and small. Their work, often unseen and unheralded, is central to the successful functioning of communities, whether those are progressive of conservative. Neolibs, I suspect, have an ideological blind-spot that renders volunteers invisible to them.
In its most extreme form, neoliberalism would probably argue that there oughtn't to be anyone with enough time or energy to spare for volunteering, because they should all be fully occupied already! Apart of course from the "necessary few" who are kept out of work pour encourager les autres.
"In its most extreme form", does Neoliberalism refuse to support retirees? Many volunteers in our community are pensioners.
Pensioner-volunteers are also less likely to collect volunteer ‘bragging points’ to fill their CVs with. The number of CVs I’ve seen decorated with volunteer acts shows the true meaning of virtue signalling. Giving one’s time often happens behind the scenes without certificates or even formal acknowledgement. I’ve heard of anonymous donors but rarely of anonymous volunteers as if it’s an oxymoron.
I think there’s a whole Post to be written on the tension between neoliberalism, volunteering, and charity/philanthropy.
Yes.
And it also includes, as stated on the Ministry for Women website:
So here's my top 10 countries who are IMHO best set up to weather the massive 2026 storm:
1. Australia. Rich, strong governance, strong institutions, unthreatened, almost never falters
2. Switzerland. Rich, strong governance, strong institutions, bullet proof
3. Norway. Rich, strong governance, low oil reliance
4. United States. Economically dynamic and world leading, degraded institutions, energy independent
5. Canada. Wealthy, strong institutions, reinventing itself
6. Saudi Arabia. Rich, uneven institutions, rapidly rising world power, global oil leader
7. Denmark. Wealthy, strong institutions, socially coherent, energy independent
8. Sweden. Rich, strong institutions, resilient economy
9. Ireland. Rich, good institutions, high tech low corporate tax economy
10. Germany. Rich, good institutions but increasingly corroded, high tech economy with significant risks.
I'd put China at 11.
Of the "neoliberal" countries, the USA would the prime example, but so is Saudi Arabia as a neopatrimonial variant. Real life doesn't always reward leftie virtue, and the top 6 are going to get out of this fine.
"Get out of this" … and into what?
Out of the frying-pan, into the fire!
J’accuse?
You make it sound like it’s some kind of imposter syndrome to call yourself Leftie.
Your list is fairly useless and [therefore] irrelevant. It only lists 10 countries and NZ is not one of them yet it weathered the Covid-19 storm quite well, didn’t it? Are you suggesting we emigrate and/or emulate, i.e., move and/or become rich & wealthy? That sounds neoliberal to me.
You’re glossing over the economic vulnerabilities of those countries, the high price they have to pay to restore/repair their fragile & sensitive infrastructure (and relatively high dependence on advanced technology) or to simply maintain and keep it operational, and the danger that inequality will lead to social unrest during a crisis. The temptation is the return to normal ASAP after a crisis, to BAU, and not to invest in systemic improvements and in my opinion, neoliberalism grows this temptation and short-sightedness. You may wish to read an article about ‘disaster inertia’ that I linked to 3 days ago.
Strong government and institutions are a positive factor for resilience. The neo-authoritarian approach of the Coalition to reduce state control, cut the public service sector, and privatise & sell out runs counter to this.
High trust in government institutions is a must for effective crisis management. Do I even need to demonstrate the neoliberal effect on this? Bring on the 3rd Covid-19 Inquiry.
Diversification is a positive factor for resilience. The Coalition has no plan for diversification of the economy and maintains duopolies and limited competition with an obsessive focus on export of primary products, tourism, and immigration.
The most important factor is, as per OP, social cohesion and the huge human resource in our communities. This doesn’t gel with the neoliberal atomisation of society (cf. Maggie Thatcher). In fact, this doesn’t just apply to crises but equally or even more so to how we could re-structure our economy (and society] to become more inclusive, equitable, and prosperous (and not just economically) – too virtuous for you?
In short, the neoliberal solution, at least as practised here in NZ, is: more, more of the same, and the same-old-same-old.
It would be great if only the cohesive countries recovered well from crises, but it's far more complex than that.
New Zealand has not weathered the COVID crisis well other than in the first two years. We are in a long term economic recession that was apparent by 2023. Our health system and health outcomes are mostly worse due to the implementation of health reforms that Labour started.
If New Zealand was so good at recovering from crises compared to the rest of the world, we'd all be millionaires compared to most of the world. We ain't.
The list of the top 10-11 countries to withstand global crises are pretty consistent no matter what kind of crisis it is, and their politics doesn't determine whether they are in that list.
What matters to their long term prosperity is:
do they have things to trade that the world very strongly needs;
do they have a shit tonne of wealth to start with;
do they have strong institutions;
do they have active membership into multi-national collectives like the US states, Canadian states, China, the EU, or similar.
… it's not determined by whether they enact neoliberal economics or not. And some of the very successful countries have very little social cohesion at all.
Don't forget happy happy (small) Finland and (tiny) Iceland.
https://www.nordiclabourjournal.org/finnish-preparedness-a-model-for-the-nordic-region/
The business sector would favour longer election cycles, I’d imagine. It also has a more efficient feel to it, doesn’t it?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/19-10-2017/no-to-elections-maybe-we-should-only-have-them-every-four-years
Shorter election cycles are more responsive, which could Trump efficiency.
Maybe what/who those cycles are responding to is a problem.
Making informed choices is key – some of my teaching and research endeavours were crippled by early ‘toss of a coin’ wrong turns. Imho, neoliberalism was a socio-economic wrong turn, and NZ is now far down that path – or perhaps it's a well.
Iceland got close to being entirely financially wiped out in the 2008 GFC, and is now accelerating moves to properly join the EU. Happiness has nothing to do with being a successful country, weirdly. New Zealanders are consistently content overall, but as a country we grow measurably weaker by the year.
Still leaves Finland
Weirdly human, if you believe that 'happiness' and 'success' are subjective states.
Ah Finland, that "happy" sexless, inbred, super-high domestic violence, suicide capital of the world.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country
I think that you’ve watched too many movies that ended with Fin.
The COC NATIONAL/ACT/NZF all embrace the Neoliberal Doctrine
That it?
" The COC NATIONAL/ACT/NZF all embrace the Neoliberal Doctrine.
Include the NZLP and TOP to the list.
Sigh
Another meaningless comment that shows how lazy people have become and don’t even read [the OP] properly nor bother to put a coherent argument together.
Unbridled neoliberalism easily makes way for neo-authoritarianism thanks to the banality of absent accountability, cowardly complicity, political apathy, lazy lethargy.
I think the piece is right that we’ve optimised away resilience. Where I disagree is both the cause and the proposed fix.
This isn’t really about neoliberalism in itself. It’s about incentives. Any system, public or private, that rewards cost minimisation, utilisation, and short-term performance will tend to strip out redundancy.
That’s not unique to neoliberal economies; it’s a general feature of optimisation under constraint.
Neoliberalism does amplify that dynamic by privileging cost discipline and resisting mandated slack. But it doesn’t remove agency. Governments still choose reserve requirements, regulatory floors, and what counts as “efficient.” If we’ve ended up with fragile systems, that’s not an ideology running out of control: it’s a set of deliberate policy choices with predictable consequences.
Where I think the piece really falls down is in treating inefficiency itself as resilience.
Redundancy and resilience are not the same thing as inefficiency. Poorly designed “inefficient” systems can be just as fragile, sometimes even more so, because they lack clarity, coordination, and accountability. Simply preserving old ways of doing things or avoiding optimisation doesn’t magically produce robustness; it can just as easily produce stagnation and failure under stress.
Likewise, the idea that “true resilience resides in communities rather than markets” is too romantic. Communities are valuable sources of adaptability and local knowledge, but they also have limits:
In practice, resilient systems tend to be designed, not accidental. They combine:
You can absolutely build that within a market-based system. But only if you explicitly price or mandate resilience, rather than assuming it will emerge from either markets or “inefficiency.”
So I’d reframe it this way:
The problem isn’t neoliberalism per se, and the solution isn’t inefficiency. The problem is that we’ve built systems that optimise for the wrong thing. The solution is to change the incentives so resilience is treated as a first-class requirement, not a by-product or a nostalgic fallback.
I don’t think neoliberalism is terrible because it’s evil. I think it’s terrible because it rests on deeply flawed assumptions about markets, the state, and human behaviour, and those assumptions have become so embedded in public policy and economic thinking that they’re often treated as neutral common sense rather than contested ideology.
"I think it’s terrible because it rests on deeply flawed assumptions about…"
All of those things. Seems we need to define core values, then adjust our practices accordingly. Anyone care to present a list?