Story: Ideas in New Zealand

In the 1930s, in response to human need as much as a consequence of new economic theory, the Labour government took the state into new activist directions. This National Film Unit series, The years back, discusses the areas in which the government began to intervene to promote demand-driven growth. This included guaranteed prices in the agricultural sector, import licensing to encourage local manufacturing and major public works schemes. In such ways the Labour government in effect firmly rejected a pure laissez-faire economic system and accepted, in practice if not in theory, a Keynesian view of government intervention to encourage demand.