New Zealand’s “soft corruption” has been called out this week by leading economics professor Robert MacCulloch of the University of Auckland. He’s launched some heavy broadsides at the way that political and business elites in this country are ruining the economy and the political process by their dysfunctional hold on power in which dissent and debate are suppressed using patronage and threats.
MacCulloch’s criticisms come about in the announced closure of his website, which he says is due to pressure from Cabinet Ministers and others. His main complaint seems to be that New Zealand is run by a “chumocracy” of mates whose “cosyism” is leading to national decline.
