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:
“Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.”
—J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)
“All you can be sure about in a political-minded writer is that if his work should last you will have to skip the politics when you read it. Many of the so-called politically enlisted writers change their politics frequently.... Perhaps it can be respected as a form of the pursuit of happiness.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)