Politics
The politics of ZAP can be seen as libertarian-minarchism. ZAP courses combined material from the John Birch Society with other free enterprise materials. In addition one of the principal texts was Frédéric Bastiat's The Law which advocates restricting government to the operation of law and order in society, and that redistribution of wealth should not be contemplated. ZAP also contended that the mixed economy of New Zealand was contrary to the interests of the people. A goal of the organization was reducing the power of trade unions and supporting the right to decide conditions of work within individual enterprises. In 1980 members of ZAP circulated an anti-union petition in Christchurch. Members were also known to approach people on the street "shouting about unions, or democracy, or bang on the roofs of Lada cars berating their owners for driving a communist car."
Read more about this topic: Zenith Applied Philosophy
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a “biological” need.”
—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“From the beginning, the placement of [Clarence] Thomas on the high court was seen as a political end justifying almost any means. The full story of his confirmation raises questions not only about who lied and why, but, more important, about what happens when politics becomes total war and the truth—and those who tell it—are merely unfortunate sacrifices on the way to winning.”
—Jane Mayer, U.S. journalist, and Jill Abramson b. 1954, U.S. journalist. Strange Justice, p. 8, Houghton Mifflin (1994)