I have been asked why I joined the National Party Club. I joined the National Party Club because I see the danger of revolution in New Zealand as so great that I think it is time for all good men to close ranks to maintain the status quo.

The New Zealand Government does not take seriously the possibility of revolution in New Zealand. I wish to establish that this possibility exists, and that it is in fact a near certainly.

A revolution is an occasion when a group of people, previously without political power, seize political power by dispossessing the original possessors of that power. In Marxism, the groups engaged in a revolution are seen as economic classes, the capitalists and the workers, and so forth.

In New Zealand there are no evident classes of this sort. New Zealand is more obviously an egalitarian society than any other, and almost as obviously a classless society.

But this fact should not lull one into the disbelief that revolution is impossible. Even in an egalitarian society power can be monopolised by a few people, so counterposing two opposed groups, those with power and those without.

Indeed, where this exists in an egalitarian society, there is no doubt that a revolution is inevitable, because it is certain that an egalitarian society must of its nature require power to be diffused among all members.

As no one would say that power is so diffused among all New Zealanders, the possibility of revolution exists.

In the broadest terms, political power is the power to direct other men. It is the power which a man exercises who is master over another man in any way.

Such power in New Zealand, in the broadest sense, is managerial. In New Zealand, one man directs another not because he has a financial advantage, or a military advantage, or an intellectual or cultural advantage. He directs that man simply because he is a manager.

Government in New Zealand is managerial. It manages New Zealanders. The managerial hierarchy runs in New Zealand down from Cabinet, to heads of departments and leaders of commerce, to branch managers, supervisors, overseers, foremen.

Workers

At the base of the hierarchy are the workers, clearly the majority of New Zealanders, who are under supervision, under management.

The essence of being a worker in New Zealand at present is to be under management, and to be under management means exactly to be without complete responsibility and discretion over one's job.

This hierarchy of management might seem the most natural and proper thing in the world to most people. But what it seems to them is not the whole story.

It is axiomatic that no man is good enough to be another man's master. If so, then no man is good enough to be a manager, since a manager is a master.

It is true that society cannot exist without management, but there is no reason why management should be separated from work.

The worker can be his own manager, individually with respect to his own job, collectively through workers' councils with respect to the collective effort, and so by delegation to higher councils to the national effort. A society of this sort can exist.

The principle of such a workers' society is responsibility and discretion to the man who does the job. If a worker is not able to exercise that responsibility and discretion, then he should be doing some other job where he can.

Better?

Allowing that a workers' society might be feasible, it is of course true that one must first show that it is preferable to a managerial society.

It is in fact preferable because a managerial society is undesirable for a number of reasons.

First, the restriction of power to a few, militates against egalitarianism, and we allow that egalitarianism is desirable.

Second, a managerial society is grossly inefficient. This can be seen by looking at New Zealand. Neither the managers nor the workers in a managerial society are functionally at all useful.

Wasted

Management is total confusion, and workers under management are largely unproductive, because most of their effort is wasted.

Thirdly, management is parasitic because its activity can be carried on directly by the workers.

Managers individually arc parasitic in many cases because they individually do not contribute anything at all to the work process. Most managers are idlers.

Fourthly, management invariably leads to the collapse of the work system, be it firm or nation, that it is managing. This can be seen in many businesses and in New Zealand on the national level.

On these four plain counts the undesirability of management is plain.

Workers are realising that management is undesirable. This realisation is gradual, but in view of the total incompetence of New Zealand management the fact can no longer be hidden, and must inevitably be recognised within a short period.

When the realisation is widespread, then there will be a revolution against management. The power which management confers just simply will be taken into the hands of the workers.

The managerial system has survived so long in New Zealand because it is a social hangover from a time and society when the middle class was dominant over the workers.

At that time the middle class had an economic advantage, and the middle class government a military advantage, over the workers.

But here in New Zealand there is no middle class, no economic advantage and no military advantage. Nothing, therefore, is supporting our managerial system in existence. Accordingly, when our workers turn against it, it must disappear overnight.

Inevitable

There is no means within our society to stop the inevitable revolution of the workers against management. Government is powerless in this. Its -agencies of police and military would be totally ineffective against an uprising of the workers.

There is no possible means of controlling New Zealanders by economic pressure. There is no chance at all of setting up a Fascist state, a police state, or a dictatorial state, simply because the majority of New Zealanders, as it happens workers, would not accept such a stale from anybody who tried to impose it.

Not Long

The revolution is both inevitable and absolutely irresistible. And it is coming soon. The present economic difficulties of New Zealand have tended to muffle the dissatisfaction of workers with management, which is the cause of all their personal grievances.

But the same economic difficulties must in time produce a far greater revulsion against the managers, because those difficulties show up inescapably the incompetence, destructiveness, and unprofitableness of managers.

Principles

The workers' society which will follow this coming revolution will be organised upon three principles, worker responsibility and discretion as previously stated, the principle that every man, woman and child is of a right entitled to food and shelter, and the principle that the sole purpose of work is the satisfaction of the people's needs and interests.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party