A Study of the Socialist Thought of the New Zealand New Left

The New Zealand New Left was born in the 1950s and declined in the 1970s; its methods of social movement and guiding ideology differed from those of the traditional Left. It criticized the political and economic system of capitalism and its political currents, aiming to explore a new socialist path that transcended traditional communism and social democracy. It emphasized New Zealand’s colonial history and the social rights of the Māori people, stressing the need to combine New Zealand’s indigenous Māori culture with socialism to build a socialist society with New Zealand characteristics. At present, the focus of the New Zealand New Left’s struggle has shifted from social movements to academic theoretical research, attempting to reconstruct the socialist ideal, and it has had a certain influence in New Zealand.

新西兰新左翼诞生于20世纪50年代，并于70年代式微，其社会运动方式与指导思想有别于传统左翼。它对资本主义政治经济制度和政治思潮进行批判，旨在探索一条超越传统共产主义和社会民主主义的新社会主义道路；它重视新西兰的殖民历史和毛利人的社会权益，强调要将新西兰本土毛利人的文化与社会主义相结合，建设一个具有新西兰特色的社会主义社会。当前，新西兰新左翼的斗争重心已经从社会运动转为学术理论研究，试图重构社会主义理想，在新西兰产生了一定影响。

I. The Historical Evolution of the New Zealand New Left

一、新西兰新左翼的历史演进

Many scholars believe that the term “New Left” was first proposed by a group of former members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, describing it as a “middle-class movement” that was not only estranged from the working class but even in a hostile relationship with it. Some American scholars argue that the New Left, unlike the Old Left which focused on the working class and its struggles, was a group of radical students predominantly composed of young white males, relatively neglecting the mobilization of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, women, gay liberals, and left-wing Vietnam War veterans. In comparison, the New Zealand New Left shared some common features with the European and American New Left, such as a focus on student movements, but also had its own particularities, such as a period of emphasis on building ties with the working class.

不少学者认为，“新左翼”一词最早由一批原英国共产党人提出，是“中产阶级运动”，它不但与工人阶级疏远，双方之间甚至是敌对状态。一些美国学者认为，新左翼并不同于老左派专注于工人阶级及其斗争，而是一群以年轻白人男性为主体的激进学生群体，相对忽视对非裔、拉丁裔、印第安人、亚洲人、妇女、同性恋自由主义者以及左派越战老兵等群体的动员。相比之下，新西兰新左翼既有欧美新左翼的一些共同特点，如关注学生运动，也有其特殊之处，如一个时期内强调与工人阶级建立联系。

From its rise in the 1950s to the present, the development of the New Zealand New Left has roughly gone through three stages.

从20世纪50年代兴起至今，新西兰新左翼的发展大致经历了三个阶段。

(1) The Origins of the New Zealand New Left (1951–1968)

（一）新西兰新左翼的起源（1951—1968年）

In 1951, the Communist Party of New Zealand led and launched the largest strike movement in New Zealand at the time, historically known as the “1951 New Zealand waterfront strike.” [1]1 The 1951 New Zealand waterfront strike was a major industrial dispute involving waterside workers, which was met with extensive state repression, including the deployment of troops and the use of emergency regulations. However, the strike movement was quickly blockaded and suppressed by the authorities, resulting in a disastrous defeat that dealt a severe blow to the Communist Party of New Zealand. Some people even asserted that the class struggle emphasized by Marx and Engels was outdated. Under the influence of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, [2]2 The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 was where Nikita Khrushchev delivered his “Secret Speech” denouncing the cult of personality of Joseph Stalin, causing widespread ideological upheaval in communist parties internationally. the socialist camp successively experienced the “Poznań events” and the “Hungarian events,” [3]3 The Poznań events (June 1956) were a workers’ uprising in Poland suppressed by the Polish army; the Hungarian events (October–November 1956) were a nationwide anti-Soviet uprising crushed by Soviet military intervention. which once again caused ideological shock among New Zealand leftist groups. The New Zealand New Left was a product of this international situation.

1951年，新西兰共产党领导发动了当时新西兰规模最大的罢工运动，史称“1951年新西兰海滨罢工事件”。但罢工运动很快遭到当局的封锁与镇压，从而遭遇了惨败，给新西兰共产党造成了严重冲击。一些人甚至断言，马克思、恩格斯强调的阶级斗争已经过时了。在1956年苏共二十大的影响下，社会主义阵营相继发生了“波兹南事件”“匈牙利事件”，再次给新西兰左翼团体造成了思想震动。新西兰新左翼便是这种国际局势下的产物。

The early New Left did not believe that New Zealand had already become a classless society, but it basically agreed with the assertion that “class struggle is outdated.” For example, Jim Delahunty, leader of the Wellington “Socialist Forum,” believed that New Zealand workers were more like the “worker aristocracy” described by Lenin, rather than the proletariat described by Marx and Engels, because they had gained increasingly substantial material benefits in the process of capitalist development; although they were still exploited, they lived quite comfortably. The early New Left members were mainly composed of students, teachers, civil servants, etc. Although they paid attention to class issues, they did not engage in in-depth discussion of them, and their ties with the working class were not close enough.

早期的新左翼并不认为新西兰已经是无阶级社会了，但基本认同“阶级斗争已经过时”的论断。例如，惠灵顿“社会主义论坛”领袖吉姆·德拉亨蒂认为，新西兰工人更像是列宁所描述的“工人贵族”，而不是马克思、恩格斯所说的无产阶级，因为他们在资本主义的发展过程中获得了越来越丰厚的物质利益，尽管他们仍受到剥削，但却生活得很舒适。早期新左翼成员主要由学生、教师、公务员等组成，他们尽管关注阶级问题，但并没有对此进行深入讨论，与工人阶级的联系也不够密切。

(2) The New Left during the Period of New Social Movements (1968–1976)

（二）新社会运动时期的新左翼（1968—1976年）

In the 1960s and 1970s, under the influence of the climax of new social movements in the West, the New Zealand New Left began to adopt methods such as strikes and sit-ins to resist. At that time, the core members of the New Left numbered only 500–600. The limited results of their struggles gradually made them realize that no matter how radical they were, they could not change the social status quo. Therefore, they began to strengthen cooperation with the working class, frequently participating in protest activities organized by trade unions, and at one point formed an alliance with radical workers and trade union leftists.

20世纪六七十年代，在西方新社会运动高潮的影响下，新西兰新左翼开始采取罢工、静坐等方式进行抗争。当时，新左翼核心成员只有500—600人，斗争结果的有限性使他们逐渐认识到，无论多么激进都无法改变社会现状，因此他们开始加强与工人阶级的合作，时常参加工会组织的抗议活动，一度与激进的工人群众、工会左翼结成联盟。

After the 1970s, the New Left began to seek ties with the domestic working class, establishing People’s Unions in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and other places. Focusing on some prominent issues facing working-class communities, such as poor housing and sanitary conditions, excessively high rents, and an excessive number of impoverished people, they organized workers to carry out a series of struggle activities. But frankly speaking, although the People’s Unions won support from many working-class communities, they did not carry out many practical struggles and were merely a flash in the pan. During this period, although the New Left established connections with the working class and trade unions, the cooperative relationship between the two sides was not lasting. The main reasons were: on the one hand, most New Left members were far removed from factories and workers, their understanding of the demands of the working class and the class situation in New Zealand society was not deep enough, and they believed that, as highly educated individuals belonging to the middle class, they were entitled to privileges, attempting to lead the working class in an elitist manner, and thus could not fully mobilize the working class for effective resistance; on the other hand, workers were also suspicious of the New Left, considering them to be children of the wealthy who wasted workers’ tax money on numerous social activities.

70年代后，新左翼开始寻求与国内的工人阶级建立联系，在奥克兰、惠灵顿、基督城等地成立了人民工会。它们围绕工人社区面临的一些突出问题，如住房卫生条件差、租金过高、贫困人口过多等，组织工人开展了一系列斗争活动。但坦率地讲，人民工会虽然争取到了很多工人社区的支持，但它们开展的斗争实践并不多，只是昙花一现。这一时期，新左翼虽然与工人阶级、工会建立起联系，但双方之间的合作关系并不持久。主要原因在于：一方面，大部分新左翼成员远离工厂、工人，对工人阶级的诉求和新西兰社会的阶级状况认识不够深刻，而且他们认为自己受过高等教育，属于中产阶级，理应享有特权，试图以精英主义的方式领导工人阶级，因而并不能完全发动工人阶级进行有效抗争；另一方面，工人对新左翼也存在猜忌，认为他们是富家子弟，且在大量社交活动中浪费了工人的税款。

With the Labour Party reforms in the mid-1970s and the withdrawal of New Zealand troops from the Vietnam battlefield, the New Left movement, which had been dominated by social movements and protest activities, fell into a trough. It began to concentrate on propaganda for anti-war, nuclear-free, anti-racist, and women’s liberation causes, no longer opposing the authorities through workers’ movements and class struggle, nor did it propose specific struggle strategies or goals. Clearly, these struggles were insufficient to attract the working class to fight alongside them, nor could they change the relations of production in New Zealand society; they remained confined to single-issue social movements.

随着70年代中期的工党改革与新西兰军队撤离越南战场，以社会运动和抗议活动为主的新左翼运动陷入低潮。它开始集中进行反战、无核化、反种族主义、妇女解放等宣传，不再通过工人运动与阶级斗争反对当局，也没有提出具体的斗争策略和目标。显然，这些斗争不足以吸引工人阶级与之并肩战斗，也不能改变新西兰社会的生产关系，仍然局限于单一议题的社会运动。

(3) The New Left Shifts to Academic Critique (1976–present)

（三）转向学术批判的新左翼（1976年至今）

From the mid-to-late 1970s onwards, the political practice and social movements of the New Left gradually stagnated, and New Left intellectuals turned more of their energy to academic theoretical critique. They mainly criticized the capitalist society, politics, and economy of New Zealand in different periods from the fields of sociology, history, political science, and economics, but their stance was not solely Marxist; it included social democracy, Weberianism, and neo-Trotskyism. Therefore, the forces of the New Left were relatively scattered in terms of academic research and theoretical systems.

自20世纪70年代中后期开始，新左翼的政治实践与社会运动逐渐陷入停滞，新左翼知识分子转而将更多精力投入学术理论批判。他们主要从社会学、历史学、政治学、经济学等领域，对不同时期新西兰的资本主义社会、政治、经济状况进行批判，但其立场并不单单是马克思主义的，其中不乏社会民主主义、韦伯主义、新托洛茨基主义。因此，新左翼力量在学术研究与理论体系上比较分散。

In the late 1970s, the academic critique of the New Left mainly focused on the welfare state and the new middle class; after the 1980s, the focus of their critique was almost entirely on neoliberalism. The New Left was divided into several schools: the classical Marxist school was deeply influenced by Ernest Mandel’s “late capitalism” thesis, [4]4 Ernest Mandel (1923–1995) was a Belgian Trotskyist economist and theorist, best known for his work *Late Capitalism* (1972), which analyzed the structural crises of post-World War II capitalism. and had limited contact with the neo-Marxist schools emerging in Europe at the time. The social democratic school mostly turned a blind eye to the structural problems facing the capitalist mode of accumulation, still firmly believing in the effectiveness of Keynesianism. During this period, the number of academic journals founded by the New Left gradually increased, with *New Zealand Monthly Review*, *The Republican*, *Race, Gender, Class*, *New Zealand Political Review*, and *New Zealand Sociology* having a certain influence, but they suffered from a lack of richness and diversity, as well as a shortage of theoretical debate and theoretical innovation. After the 21st century, with the passing of the older generation of theorists and some younger scholars gradually abandoning their political stance, the position of the New Zealand New Left in academia was further marginalized.

70年代后期，新左翼的学术批判主要集中于福利国家、新中产阶级等；80年代后，其批判落脚点几乎集中于新自由主义。新左翼内部分为几个流派：经典马克思主义派深受厄尔奈斯特·曼德尔“晚期资本主义论断”的影响，与当时欧洲兴起的新马克思主义学派接触有限。社会民主主义派大多对资本主义积累方式面临的结构性问题视而不见，仍坚信凯恩斯主义的有效性。这一时期，新左翼创办的学术期刊数量逐渐增多，《新西兰每月评论》《共和党人》《种族、性别、阶级》《新西兰政治评论》《新西兰社会学》等产生了一定影响，但存在丰富性、多样性不足的问题，也缺少理论辩论和理论创新。21世纪后，随着老一辈理论家的离世，加之部分年轻学者逐渐放弃政治立场，新西兰新左翼在学界的地位进一步被边缘化。

II. The New Zealand New Left’s Critique of the Welfare State and Neoliberalism

二、新西兰新左翼对福利国家和新自由主义的批判

Because the members of the New Left came from scattered political groups, it is difficult to clearly and completely summarize its theoretical system. Overall, based on a Marxist stance and enthusiasm for the workers’ movement, the New Zealand New Left conducted an in-depth critique of the welfare state and neoliberalism.

由于新左翼成员来自分散的政治团体，因此很难清晰且完整地概括其理论体系。总体来讲，新西兰新左翼基于马克思主义立场及对工人运动的热情，对福利国家与新自由主义进行了深入的批判。

(1) Critique of the Bourgeois Welfare State

（一）对资产阶级福利国家的批判

In the view of New Left scholars, the welfare state that the New Zealand Labour Party imported from Britain merely reconciled class interests in the name of “national interest,” but national interest is not equivalent to the interests of the proletariat; this policy was in essence only an “outpost” for capitalism to plunder wealth. They also hold that the welfare state is problematic from its theoretical origins to its policy propositions and then to its political practice: welfare legislation is not the result of capitalist economic prosperity but one of the necessary conditions for the existence of the capitalist economy; welfare legislation preceded economic growth. The emergence of the welfare state was not accidental but an inevitable outcome of the development of the capitalist system, developed to avoid the political and economic realization of Marx’s prophecy that “capitalism is inevitably doomed.” As David Bedggood argues, the welfare state was the result of capital accumulation in a specific period; postwar welfare-liberal discourse was rooted in the normalization of state interventionism, and the state played an important role in the formation of the “affluent society,” as did large-scale international interventionism. Historically, New Zealand, as a semi-colonial economy with weak national power and extreme dependence on foreign capital, had the characteristic of foreign intervention in its capitalist development from the very beginning.

在新左翼学者看来，新西兰工党从英国舶来的福利国家只不过是在“国家利益”的名义下调和阶级利益，但国家利益并不等同于无产阶级的利益，这一政策实质上只是资本主义攫取财富的“前哨站”。他们还认为，福利国家从理论起源到政策主张、再到政治实践都存在问题：福利立法并不是资本主义经济繁荣的结果，而是资本主义经济存在的必要条件之一，福利立法先于经济增长；福利国家的出现并非偶然，而是资本主义制度发展的必然结果，是为了避免在政治和经济方面出现马克思所预言的“资本主义必然灭亡”而发展起来的。就像大卫·贝德古德认为的，福利国家是特定时期资本积累的结果，二战后的福利自由主义话语植根于国家干预主义的常态，国家在“丰裕社会”的形成中发挥了重要作用，同样发挥作用的还有大规模国际干涉主义。新西兰历史上作为一个国力弱小、极度依靠境外资本的半殖民地经济体，其资本主义发展从一开始就有国外干预的特点。

New Left scholars further point out that the welfare state led to the legitimization of capitalist power and inequality in wealth distribution. Under the influence of the so-called “welfare consensus,” the populace imperceptibly accepted the demands of capitalist political power, lost their rational cognition of the bourgeois regime, and found it difficult to realize they had suffered injustice. In this sense, under the cover of the welfare state, people were systematically alienated. At the same time, the welfare state did not reduce labor costs but inherited the market function of maintaining the unequal social relations of the capitalist system, further consolidating the exploitative system under the guise of an “affluent society” and “prosperity per capita,” and designing numerous methods to transfer social public wealth into private hands. New Left scholars frankly state that the “redistribution of wealth through taxation and social services” by the welfare state essentially imposed on the working class the obligation to share the burden of capitalist economic inflation, further leading to “unequal distribution of wealth, while those oppressive and mystifying administrative and cultural institutions continue to deceive the people.”

新左翼学者进一步指出，福利国家导致了资本主义权力的合法化和财富分配的不平等。在所谓“福利共识”的影响下，民众潜移默化地接受了资本主义政治权力的要求，失去了对资产阶级政权的理性认知，很难意识到自己遭遇了不公。从这个意义上说，在福利国家的掩盖下，人被系统性地异化了。同时，福利国家并没有降低劳动力成本，而是继承了维持资本主义制度不平等社会关系的市场功能，在“丰裕社会”“人均繁荣”的幌子下进一步巩固了剥削制度，并设计出大量将社会公共财富转移到私人手中的方法。新左翼学者坦言，福利国家“通过税收和社会服务进行的财富再分配”，实质上是向工人阶级强加了分担资本主义经济通货膨胀的义务，进一步导致了“财富分配不均，而那些具有压迫性、神秘性的行政机关和文化机构则负责继续欺骗民众”。

(2) Critique of Neoliberalism

（二）对新自由主义的批判

From the mid-to-late 1980s, New Zealand sociology, which had originally represented a left-wing stance, was eroded by the rising ideology of neoliberalism, gradually replacing class identity with identity politics in its discourse system. This shift safeguarded the interests of the bourgeoisie, which controlled the means of production and had purchasing power. New Left intellectuals gradually recognized that the Labour Party’s neoliberalization had reshaped New Zealand’s society, politics, and economy.

20世纪80年代中后期，原本代表左翼立场的新西兰社会学被日渐兴起的新自由主义思想侵蚀，在话语体系上逐渐用身份认同取代阶级认同。这一转向是保障了掌握着生产资料且具有消费能力的资产阶级的利益。新左翼知识分子逐渐认识到，工党的新自由主义化重塑了新西兰的社会、政治与经济。

According to the French Regulation School, the neoliberal economic model was a new regulatory system adopted by European and American countries to cope with the “stagflation” crisis of the 1970s. It basically negated the welfare state, supported the suppression of workers by capitalists, supported the profit demands of financial capital, and supported “shareholder primacy.” However, it cannot be denied that it was also a new phase and new policy succeeding Keynesianism. But the situation in New Zealand was different. It had successively been dependent on the British Commonwealth and the United States, and its capitalist development relied heavily on transnational capital and foreign political forces. New Left scholar Bruce Curtis pointed out sharply that neoliberalism in New Zealand was merely an absurd lie, creating an asset oligarchy, and the Labour Party’s neoliberal policies would not eliminate these monopolies but would instead strengthen the power of transnational monopoly capital.

按照法国调节学派的观点，新自由主义经济模式是欧美国家应对70年代“滞胀”危机的新调节体系，基本否定了福利国家，支持资本家对工人的打压，支持金融资本的获利要求，支持“股东至上主义”，但不能否认的是，它也是续接凯恩斯主义的新阶段与新政策。但新西兰的情况与此不同，它先后依附于英联邦和美国，其资本主义发展严重依赖跨国资本与境外政治势力。新左翼学者布鲁斯·柯蒂斯一针见血地指出，新自由主义在新西兰只是一个荒谬的谎言，制造了资产寡头，而工党的新自由主义政策不但不会消除这些垄断，反而会强化跨国垄断资本的实力。

To further explain the ongoing crisis that neoliberalism brought to New Zealand society, Paul Dalziel and Caroline Saunders proposed the concept of “wellbeing economics.” Its core idea is that individual citizens, community groups, markets, and governments work together to enhance people’s capabilities, enabling them to lead lives of value; although the capitalist system has flaws, it has nonetheless created an “affluent society,” and “wellbeing economics” would recreate this prosperity. The New Left does not认同 the interpretation of “wellbeing economics,” arguing that its problem lies in presupposing the positive side of capitalism and solving problems based on that premise. But capitalism is not like that; its basic driving force is profit-making, and neoliberal reform merely slows the surface speed of capitalist profit-making. Neoliberalism further led to class polarization in New Zealand, widening the gap between rich and poor.

为了进一步解释新自由主义给新西兰社会带来的持续性危机，保罗·达泽尔和卡罗琳·桑德斯提出了“幸福经济学”概念。其核心观念是：公民个人、社区团体、市场和政府共同努力，提高人们的工作能力，使人们过上有价值的生活；资本主义制度虽有漏洞，但它毕竟创造了一个“丰裕社会”，“幸福经济学”将再造这种繁荣。新左翼并不认同“幸福经济学”的解释，认为其问题在于预设了资本主义美好的一面，并基于此解决问题，但资本主义并非如此，其基本动力就是盈利，新自由主义改革只不过是使资本主义盈利的表面速度放缓而已。新自由主义进一步导致了新西兰的阶级分化，贫富差距被进一步拉大。

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, New Left scholars analyzed the logical relationship between globalization and ecological disaster based on Marxist dialectics of nature. David Neilson rethinks the ills of capitalist economic globalization and neoliberalism from the dimension of ecological crisis: “The bourgeoisie and middle class of developed countries traveling around the world made the greatest contribution to the global spread of the novel coronavirus.” Through various commercial or entertainment projects, they moved freely around the world, bringing the virus to low-income working groups everywhere. That is to say, the transfer of the novel coronavirus to the “relative surplus population” caused the global pandemic. The global pandemic of COVID-19 highlighted the political and class nature of the virus, which is precisely the result of the globalization model dominated by neoliberalism. From an ecosocialist perspective, one of the inherent essences of the capitalist mode of production is the exploitation of nature; neoliberalism expanded and intensified the exploitation of relative surplus value in this process, while simultaneously fettering the development of social productive forces. The COVID-19 pandemic fully exposed the decay and backwardness of capitalism. More fundamentally, the expansionary and destructive nature inherent in the capitalist mode of production was further strengthened under the neoliberal system.

针对新冠疫情，新左翼学者基于马克思主义自然辩证法分析全球化和生态灾难之间的逻辑关系。大卫·尼尔森从生态危机的维度重思资本主义经济全球化与新自由主义的弊病：“发达国家周游世界的资产阶级和中产阶级为新冠病毒的全球蔓延作出了最大贡献”，他们通过各种商业或文娱项目在世界各地自由往来，将病毒带给各地低收入的劳动群体。也就是说，新冠病毒向“相对剩余人口”的转移造成了疫情的全球大流行。新冠疫情的全球性大流行凸显了病毒的政治性与阶级性，这正是新自由主义主导下的全球化模式所导致的。从生态社会主义角度来看，资本主义生产方式的内在本质之一是对自然的剥削，新自由主义扩大并强化了这一过程中对相对剩余价值的剥削，同时禁锢了社会生产力的发展，新冠疫情的大流行充分暴露了资本主义的腐朽与落后。更为根本的是，资本主义生产方式本身所具有的扩张性、破坏性在新自由主义体系下进一步被强化。

III. The New Zealand New Left’s Reaffirmation of the Marxist Class Standpoint

三、新西兰新左翼对马克思主义阶级立场的重申

Behind the New Zealand New Left’s critique of the welfare state and neoliberalism lies its Marxist standpoint, especially the standpoint of applying Marxist class theory to New Zealand’s reality and seeking theoretical innovation.

新西兰新左翼对福利国家、新自由主义批判的背后，反映的是其马克思主义立场，尤其是将马克思主义阶级理论应用于新西兰实际并寻求理论创新的立场。

(1) Analysis of the Class Situation in New Zealand

（一）对新西兰阶级状况的分析

Since the 1960s, the New Zealand Labour Party has avoided discussing class issues, while the New Zealand Communist Party in the same period experienced severe internal attrition due to the split in the world socialist camp, engaged in a mechanistic interpretation of Marxism, and suffered from ideological confusion within the Party, with its organizational principles and systems existing in name only. The New Zealand New Left, however, starting from Marxism, redefined classes in New Zealand’s capitalist society and returned to the category of class in analyzing social issues. Patrick Angley argues that New Zealand has undergone three social transformations since the 19th century, all involving major changes in class relations and class structure, but most New Zealanders lack enthusiasm for this topic and even deny the existence of class consciousness among the New Zealand populace. This stems from New Zealand’s historical “egalitarian ideal,” combined with the leap in social productive forces and the transformation of the socioeconomic model, leading to the individualization and fragmentation of people’s self-perception. However, this does not mean that class is insignificant in New Zealand society; the structural inequality of social, economic, and political resources in New Zealand highlights that it remains a class society.

20世纪60年代以来，新西兰工党对阶级问题避而不谈，而同时期的新西兰共产党却由于世界社会主义阵营的分裂而出现了严重的内耗，对马克思主义进行了机械化解读，党内思想混乱，组织原则和组织制度形同虚设。而新西兰新左翼则从马克思主义出发，重新定义新西兰资本主义社会中的阶级，回归社会问题分析中的阶级范畴。帕特里克·安格里认为，新西兰自19世纪以来经历了三次社会转型，其中都涉及阶级关系和阶级结构的重大变化，但大多数新西兰人对这一话题缺少热情，甚至否认新西兰民众中阶级意识的存在。这源于新西兰历史上的“平等主义理想”，加上社会生产力的飞跃与社会经济模式的转型，民众的自我认知走向了个性化和碎片化。但是，这并不意味着阶级在新西兰社会无足轻重，新西兰社会、经济和政治资源的结构性不平等凸显出它仍然是一个阶级社会。

Another issue that has drawn the attention of New Left scholars is the positioning of the “new middle class.” Angley observed the major changes in New Zealand’s social class structure during this period, arguing that the working class had begun to transform into the middle class, a shift caused by the expansion of material production and new technological advances leading to greater division of labor and the replacement of manual labor by machinery. Similarly, Rob Steven further introduced Samir Amin’s theory of “unequal exchange,” arguing that since World War II, New Zealand society has been divided into four distinct classes: the bourgeoisie, the middle class, the petty bourgeoisie, and the working class. For the definition of the middle class, he followed the classic interpretation of Henri Lefebvre: “The power structure undoubtedly depends on the middle class, that is, on their ambiguity. In terms of production and consumption, they are attributed to economic reality.” He argued that the middle class is not a class-for-itself and cannot serve as an independent social force separate from the bourgeoisie and the working class, due to its contradictory position in modern capitalist society—it must both surrender surplus value to the bourgeoisie and oppose the working class. After analyzing the formation of the petty bourgeoisie, Steven concluded: “If the legitimacy pillar of the New Zealand bourgeoisie’s rule is the middle class, then its foundation is the petty bourgeoisie, who work for themselves but do not employ wage laborers.” In Steven’s view, the petty bourgeoisie sees itself as independent of both labor and capital, rather than as situated between the two.

引起新左翼学者注意的另一个问题是“新中产阶级”的定位问题。安格里看到了这一时期新西兰社会阶级结构发生的重大变化，认为工人阶级开始转型为中产阶级了，这种转变是由物质生产的扩大和新技术进步导致更多的劳动分工和机械替代人工所引起的。与其观点类似的是罗伯·史蒂文，他进一步引入萨米尔·阿明的“不平等交换”理论，认为二战以来新西兰社会分为资产阶级、中产阶级、小资产阶级、工人阶级四个不同阶级。对于中产阶级的定义，他延续了利·列斐伏尔的经典解读：“权力结构无疑依赖于中产阶级，即依赖于他们的模棱两可。在生产和消费方面，他们被归因于经济现实”。他认为中产阶级并不是一个自为的阶级，不能作为一支独立于资产阶级和工人阶级的自为的社会力量，这是由于中产阶级在现代资本主义社会中的矛盾地位造成的——它既要向资产阶级交出剩余价值，又不得不与工人阶级对立。史蒂文分析小资产阶级的形成后认为：“如果说新西兰资产阶级进行统治的合法性支柱是中产阶级，那么它的基础则是那些为自己工作但没有雇佣工资的小资产阶级。” 在史蒂文看来，小资产阶级认为自己既独立于劳动又独立于资本，而不是介于二者之间。

(II) A Re-Excavation of Marxist Class Theory

（二）对马克思主义阶级理论的再发掘

In their analysis of New Zealand’s class situation, the New Left adhered to Marxist class theory. According to Marxism, the relationship between capital and labor defines class relations in capitalist society, namely, through the subordination of the labor process to capital and the mechanism of capitalist exploitation, which forcibly crowds the majority of the laboring population under the same “roof,” forming a vast industrial proletariat. However, with the global expansion of neoliberalism, the New Left discovered that new changes in capitalism have altered the pattern of the modern laboring population. The once abstract and unitary concept of the proletariat has been concretely stratified, and the class structure of the world’s laboring population exhibits multiple pathways of formation, a trend further intensified by the uneven and insufficient development among contemporary nation-states.

新左翼在对新西兰阶级状况的分析中坚持了马克思主义的阶级理论。根据马克思主义，资本与劳动的关系定义了资本主义社会中的阶级关系，那就是通过劳动过程对资本的从属关系以及资本的剥削机制，将大多数劳动人口强制性地挤到同一“屋檐”下，形成了数量庞大的工业无产阶级。但随着新自由主义在全球的扩张，新左翼发现，资本主义的新变革已经改变了现代劳动人口格局，曾经抽象单一的无产阶级概念被具体分层，世界劳动人口的阶级结构展现出多种生成路径，而这种趋势又因当代民族国家之间不充分、不平衡的发展进一步被强化。

The New Left argues that under new historical conditions, a re-excavation of Marxist class theory is necessary. They philosophically criticized Althusser’s “epistemological break” theory. In Althusser’s view, only Marx’s mature works can be regarded as scientific treatises, a division that leads to the disappearance of the distinction between “class-in-itself” and “class-for-itself” in the Marxist concept of class. Steven criticized: “If a wage laborer identifies with bourgeois ideology and politically supports the bourgeoisie, then an Althusserian would classify this laborer as bourgeois.” Therefore, the New Left sought to clarify some basic issues concerning the concept of class, focusing on the distinction between “class-in-itself” and “class-for-itself,” and the subordination of the labor process to capital. For example, David Neilson criticized Erik Olin Wright’s “contradictory class locations” theory, arguing that the latter’s analysis conflates class with the mechanisms of exploitation and distribution, one-sidedly assuming that class is exploitation. Although exploitation is the basis of Marx’s analysis of class, it is fundamentally different from class itself; class analysis requires distinguishing between the mechanisms that generate class and class itself.

新左翼认为，新的历史条件下需要对马克思主义阶级理论进行再发掘。他们从哲学论上批判了阿尔都塞的“认识断裂论”。在阿尔都塞那里，只有马克思成熟时期的著作才能被视为是科学的论著，这种划分导致马克思主义关于阶级概念中“自在”和“自为”区别的消失。史蒂文批评道：“如果一个雇佣劳动者认同资产阶级的意识形态，并在政治上支持资产阶级，那么阿尔都塞主义者就会将这位劳动者归为资产阶级。”因此，新左翼想要澄清关于阶级概念的一些基本问题，就需要集中在“自在阶级”和“自为阶级”的区别、劳动过程与资本的从属关系等问题上。例如，大卫·尼尔森批判了欧林·赖特的“矛盾阶级论”，认为后者的分析将阶级与剥削机制、分配机制混为一谈，片面地以为阶级就是剥削。虽然剥削是马克思分析阶级的基础，但它与阶级本身是有本质区别的，进行阶级分析需要区分产生阶级的机制以及阶级本身。

The New Left adheres to the Marxist theory of proletarianization, endorsing E.P. Thompson’s statement that “class is a social and cultural formation that takes shape in the process of concrete historical struggles and popular movements.” The New Left argues that the process of proletarianization develops through two stages of the subordination of labor to capital: “formal subordination” deprives people of the means of independent survival, and “the subordination of the labor process to capital (it is capital’s own process), with the capitalist entering this process as manager and director; for the capitalist, this process is simultaneously a process of directly exploiting others’ labor.” The concept of “real subordination” highlights the establishment of the capitalist mode of production, which is “a mode of production that changes the real nature of the labor process and its real conditions.” Therefore, the real subordination of labor to capital establishes the relations of production that enable the continuous accumulation and expansion of capital, while also being the means to fully place labor under the power of capital.

新左翼坚持马克思主义无产阶级化理论，赞成E.P.汤普森所说的“阶级是在具体的历史斗争中和人民运动过程中自我形成的社会文化形态”。新左翼认为，无产阶级化的过程是由劳动从属于资本的两个阶段发展而来的：“形式从属”让人们失去了独立生存的手段，“劳动过程从属于资本（它是资本本身的过程），资本家作为管理者、指挥者进入这个过程；这个过程对资本家来说，同时又是直接剥削他人劳动的过程”。“实际从属”的概念突出资本主义生产方式的建立，是“一种使劳动过程的现实性质及其现实条件都发生变化的生产方式”。因此，劳动对资本的实际从属确立了使资本不断积累扩张的生产关系，同时也是将劳动完全置于资本权力之下的手段。

To a certain extent, the theoretical explorations of the New Left were influenced by Neo-Marxism, while also incorporating the theories of non-Marxist scholars such as Weber and Bourdieu. This led them either to understand class theory one-sidedly from a philosophical-sociological perspective or to directly equate Marxist class theory with empirical economic analysis. The problems exposed by these one-dimensional academic studies are precisely as Marx said: “If I do not know the factors on which these classes are based, such as wage labor, capital, etc., then class is an empty phrase.”

新左翼的理论探索一定程度上受到了新马克思主义的影响，同时还掺杂了韦伯、布尔迪厄等非马克思主义学者的学说，这就导致他们或是片面地从哲学社会学的角度来理解阶级理论，或是将马克思主义阶级理论直接等同于经济学的实证分析。这些单向度的学术研究所暴露出的问题正如马克思所说的：“如果我不知道这些阶级所依据的因素，如雇佣劳动、资本等等，阶级又是一句空话。”

IV. The New Zealand New Left’s Conception of Moving Toward Socialism

四、新西兰新左翼关于走向社会主义的设想

On the basis of criticizing the welfare state and neoliberalism, the New Zealand New Left focused on academic discussions of Marxist class theory and, in light of the real problems of capitalist society, put forward their strategic conception for achieving socialism.

新西兰新左翼在批判福利国家和新自由主义的基础上，聚焦于马克思主义阶级理论的学术探讨，在结合资本主义社会现实问题的基础上，提出了他们关于实现社会主义的战略设想。

Politically, the New Left strongly calls for overthrowing the long-term oppression of New Zealand by colonialism and neoliberalism. The New Left argues that New Zealand has a long history of colonization in its modernization process. Early British colonists completed the colonization of New Zealand through land annexation, the elimination of the Māori, and immigration. In this process, British colonists, through force, religion, and ideological suppression, brought devastating destruction to Māori society. The governor system propped up by Britain became the “midwife” of New Zealand’s historical evolution, and a mode of rule based on the capitalist economic base began to be introduced. After World War II, New Zealand transformed from an early agricultural and raw material colony into a “new colony” dependent on the international market. During this period, New Zealand’s monopoly oligarchs and transnational capital, through their monopoly positions in financial capital and foreign trade, seized political discourse, thereby achieving the goal of controlling state affairs. The penetration and development of neoliberalism in New Zealand was merely a “new colonialism” under a false banner; the more fully neoliberalism developed, the larger the scale of monopoly, the more it reflected New Zealand’s political attribute as a “new colony.” Curtis argued that in New Zealand, monopoly is actually difficult to distinguish from new colonialism, and within the ruling class, there has always been a struggle between the domestic bourgeoisie and the transnational comprador bourgeoisie, with the latter enjoying greater political power. In New Zealand, the victory of capital and the realization of its political interests were achieved against the backdrop of neoliberalism. “So-called autonomy, regarded as a myth of New Zealand autonomy, is merely the reality of new colonialism.” The New Left places particular emphasis on racial issues, advocating for the empowerment of ethnic minorities, and calls for uniting with the left wing of the Labour Party to establish a proletarian alliance composed of the working class and ethnic minorities.

在政治上，新左翼强烈呼吁推翻殖民主义和新自由主义对新西兰的长期压迫。新左翼认为，新西兰在现代化过程中有漫长的被殖民历史，早期英国殖民者通过吞并土地、消灭毛利人以及移民完成了对新西兰的殖民。在此过程中，英国殖民者通过武力、宗教和意识形态镇压，给毛利人社会带来了毁灭性破坏，由英国扶持起来的总督体系成为新西兰历史演进的“助产士”，建立在资本主义经济基础之上的统治方式开始被引入。二战后，新西兰从早期的农业和原材料殖民地转变为依赖国际市场的“新殖民地”。这一时期，新西兰的垄断寡头与跨国资本通过金融资本和对外贸易的垄断地位，攫取政治话语权，从而达到了掌控国家事务的目的，新自由主义在新西兰的渗透和发展只不过是打着幌子的“新殖民主义”，新自由主义发展得越充分，垄断规模越大，就越体现新西兰“新殖民地”的政治属性。柯蒂斯认为，在新西兰，垄断实际上与新殖民主义是难以区分，统治阶级内部一直存在本国资产阶级与跨国买办资产阶级之间的斗争，而后者享有更大的政治权力。在新西兰，资本的胜利及其政治利益的变现是在新自由主义背景下实现的，“所谓的自治，被看做神话的新西兰自治，只不过是新殖民主义的现实”。新左翼尤其重视种族问题，强调赋予少数族裔权利，并主张联合工党左派，建立起由工人阶级和少数族裔共同组成的无产阶级联盟。

Economically, the New Left holds that for New Zealand to move toward socialism, the dominance of finance capital urgently needs to be replaced. Since the implementation of neoliberal economic policies, the monopoly and concentration of finance capital have further intensified, leading to a more severe polarization of wealth distribution. Data from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand show that over 85% of assets are held by the country’s four largest banks. Data from the New Zealand Household Economic Survey (HES) also indicate that the wealth gap between ordinary New Zealanders and the rich continues to widen, with the top 10% of the wealthy controlling over 60% of the nation’s wealth. At the same time, New Zealand’s financial sector and foreign trade are heavily dependent on international capital. World Bank data show that New Zealand’s net foreign investment hit a record low in 2022, at -6.97 billion US dollars. This means that international capital exerts enormous influence over New Zealand’s economy; once an international financial crisis erupts, New Zealand will be severely impacted. The New Left calls for a thorough transformation of finance capital and a change in New Zealand’s long-standing colonial-dependent economic structure. In recent years, some New Left scholars have also paid particular attention to the productive economic conditions of the Māori people, proposing a “Māori socialist economy.” They emphasize that socialism is not only about liberating the productive forces of New Zealand’s white immigrant population but also about liberating the productive forces of indigenous ethnic minorities represented by the Māori—this is a distinctive feature that sets New Zealand apart from other Western capitalist countries.

在经济上，新左翼认为，新西兰要走向社会主义，金融资本的统治亟需被替代。新自由主义经济政策实行以来，金融资本的垄断和集中程度进一步加剧，导致财富分配出现了更严重的两极分化。新西兰储备银行的数据显示，超过85%的资产由新西兰四大银行持有。新西兰住户经济调查（HES）的数据也表明，新西兰普通民众与富人之间的贫富差距在继续扩大，前10%的富人掌握了60%以上的国家财富。与此同时，新西兰金融业和对外贸易严重依赖国际资本。世界银行数据显示，新西兰对外投资净额在2022年创下历史新低，为-69.7亿美元。这意味着国际资本对新西兰经济影响巨大，一旦爆发国际金融危机，新西兰将受到严重冲击。新左翼呼吁，要彻底改造金融资本，改变新西兰长久以来的殖民依附型经济结构。近年来，部分新左翼学者还特别关注毛利人的生产经济状况，提出“毛利社会主义经济”。他们强调，社会主义并不只是解放新西兰白人移民的生产力，也要解放以毛利人为代表的本土少数族裔的生产力，这是新西兰区别于其他西方资本主义国家的特殊之处。

Ideologically, the various factions within the New Left have different understandings of socialism and the means to achieve it. The Marxist revolutionary faction and the neo-Trotskyist faction advocate a return to Marxism-Leninism in thought, the establishment of an anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist united front, timely attention to changes in the numbers and thinking of the bourgeoisie, the middle class, and the petty bourgeoisie, and flexible action. For the petty bourgeoisie, they become “candidates for an alliance with the working class only when they recognize the impact of monopoly capital and imperialism on them.” David Bedggood argues that there is no such thing as “market socialism” or “people’s capitalism” in New Zealand, and therefore he proposes a “theory of transcending capitalism,” emphasizing that to transcend dependency and transcend poverty means to transcend capitalism. He stresses that only through political mobilization of the working class and its international allies, and through revolutionary transformation of capitalist social relations, can this inequality be eliminated. However, Bedggood does not outline a clear blueprint for a strategy of struggle, and within the New Left he is regarded as a neo-Trotskyist, an old leftist holding outdated revolutionary views. As a major representative of the new generation of the New Left, David Neilson maintains a Marxist stance in theoretical research, but when it comes to concrete practical strategies, he shifts to being a democratic socialist, with his solutions blending Marxism and democratic socialism, reflecting a pragmatic style. He proposes establishing a democratic socialist transnational/local political-economic regulatory model based on international cooperation; introducing Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony into democratic socialism, and constructing an “anti-hegemonic,” universally inclusive, and friendly model of democratic socialist development on the principle of solidarity and mutual assistance among nations and ethnic groups. However, his democratic socialist regulatory scheme contains considerable utopian elements and compromises, making it fundamentally unworkable under the current difficulties of globalization.

在思想上，新左翼内部各派对于社会主义及其实现方式有不同的理解。马克思主义革命派与新托洛茨基派主张思想上回到马克思列宁主义，建立反垄断与反帝国主义统一战线，及时关注资产阶级、中产阶级和小资产阶级数量与思想变化，灵活采取行动。对于小资产阶级来说，只有当他们“认识到垄断资本和帝国主义对他们造成影响时，才会成为工人阶级同盟的候选人”。大卫·贝德古德认为，新西兰根本就不存在所谓的“市场社会主义”或“人民资本主义”，因而他提出“超越资本主义论”，强调要超越依赖、超越贫穷，就意味着要超越资本主义。他强调，只有通过对工人阶级及其国际盟友进行政治动员，通过对资本主义社会关系进行革命性变革，才能消除这种不平等。不过，古德贝德并没有描绘出清晰的斗争策略蓝图，新左翼内部也将他看做一个新托洛茨基主义者、一个持陈旧革命观的老左派。作为新左翼新一代的主要代表，大卫·尼尔森在理论研究方面坚持马克思主义立场，但当涉及具体现实策略时又变为民主社会主义者，其解决方案糅合了马克思主义与民主社会主义，体现了务实主义的风格。他提出，在国际合作的基础上建立民主社会主义跨国/本土政治经济调节模式；将葛兰西的文化霸权理论引入民主社会主义，在各国家、各民族团结互助的原则上，构建一个“反霸权”的、普遍包容的、友好的民主社会主义发展模式。不过，其民主社会主义调节方案带有很大的空想成分与妥协之意，在当前全球化困境下根本无从实施。

V. Conclusion

五、结语

From the 1950s to the present, the New Zealand New Left has shifted from broad participation in social and political movements to theoretical research and academic critique, advancing the development of the leftist movement in New Zealand on both theoretical and practical levels. In this process, the New Zealand New Left has also revealed its limitations. From the perspective of the social movements it initiated in the early period, there was a gap between the New Left and the working class; it did not regard the working class as an ally and overlooked the new changes under the wave of new social movements. From the perspective of the theoretical research and academic critique it conducted in the later period, the New Left’s theory lacks systematicity and normativity; its understanding of Marxism has been influenced by other schools of thought, lacking scientific judgment and a clear framework, and its understanding of scientific socialism carries subjective overtones. From an organizational perspective, the early New Left lacked a major leading collective, its internal composition was heterogeneous, and New Left organizations in different regions acted independently; after turning to theoretical critique, internal factionalism and ideological divisions persisted, with no realistic and constructive strategy for achieving socialism being proposed, and its influence among the proletariat and the broad masses of the people remained limited. To this day, with the strong rise of the “Red-Green Alliance” between the New Zealand Labour Party and the Green Party, the New Left has fallen into a trough both ideologically and politically, with its political and academic status further marginalized. Nevertheless, its theoretical research and academic critique of capitalism remain worthy of our attention.

20世纪50年代至今，新西兰新左翼从广泛参与社会政治运动转向理论研究与学术批判，从理论与实践层面都推动了新西兰左翼运动的发展。在这个过程中，新西兰新左翼也体现出了局限性。从早期开展的社会运动看，新左翼与工人阶级之间存在隔阂，并没有把工人阶级视为同盟军，忽视了新社会运动浪潮下的新变化。从后期开展的理论研究与学术批判看，新左翼的理论缺乏系统性、规范性，对马克思主义的理解受到其他流派的影响，缺少科学的判断与清晰的架构，对科学社会主义的认识带有主观色彩。从组织方面看，早期的新左翼缺乏主要领导集体，内部构成庞杂，不同地区的新左翼组织各行其是；在转向理论批判后，其内部依然存在派别林立、思想分歧较多的问题，没有提出具有现实性和建设性的实现社会主义的策略，在无产阶级和广大人民群众中影响力有限。时至今日，在新西兰工党与绿党的“红绿联盟”的强势崛起形势下，新左翼在思想上和政治上都陷入了低谷，政治与学术地位进一步被边缘化，但其关于资本主义的理论研究与学术批判仍值得我们重视。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心