8 July 2025
NBR Rich List. Reader comment from Bryce Edwards Integrity Institute substack
Every year NBR publishes its "Rich List" and every year commentators of the right and the left respond with moral judgements which are utterly predictable because they are purely ideological and do not even pretend to have any empirical basis.
The right will insist that the Rich Listers have been rewarded for their "hard work". Yet no effort is made to demonstrate in every particular case that "hard work" is the explanation for their wealth. Even the most cursory examination of the list reveals that inheritance is a large factor in the wealth of most of the individuals and families. "Who you know", whether in politics or business, is also of vital importance.
"Hard work" is the definitive explanation of wealth only if we include the hard work of our parents and grandparents, and of all the people in their employ, as well as all the people that we ourselves may have employed in the process of acquiring wealth. But that simple and obvious truth would hardly suit the purposes of the ideologues of capitalism.
The left takes a similarly dogmatic ideological position. The wealth of the rich, they insist, should be taxed for the greater good of society. Yet it is only a presumption that the state would spend that wealth in better ways than the rich themselves. New Zealand's Rich Listers have a penchant for gathering up automobiles, aeroplanes and islands in the gulf, while building mansions in the most scenic locations. "Not much public benefit in that", one might say. Yet there may be some inadvertent benefit to the public, particularly if one takes the long term view that assets preserved for strictly private benefit can be turned to the public benefit in some future dispensation.
Then again, if, as their courtiers imply, the rich use their wealth to engage in direct charity, or invest it in productive enterprises that produce necessary goods and employ willing workers, then it would make no practical difference if 119 individuals and families controlled all of the nation's wealth.
Of course if we look beyond ideological dogma, which is to say if we start examining the individual cases on the Rich List, something which both right and left seem loath to do, then we form a different perspective, and the argument for "taxing the rich" begins to look more plausible.
Yet, taihoa. The left is making another presumption, which is that the state will spend the extra tax revenue wisely and compassionately. In the actual present political context, there is little possibility of that happening. Whether under a National or Labour led government, any time in the current decade extra tax revenue will go to meeting President Trump's designated objective for vastly increased military expenditure by vassal states of the US. It will not go to health, education, social services or even necessary infrastructure.
Aside from the opportunity presented for political posturing, the real advantage of the Rich List is that it helps to show us how New Zealand capitalism works. The value of the list is not that its members are exceptional, but that the 119 listed are representative of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of New Zealand capitalists who share similar characteristics. Yes, hard work is a factor, but inheritance is important, and cheap labour is critically important. New Zealand capitalists will take labour from wherever it is cheapest. They will import RSE workers from the Solomon Islands, or they will shift their manufacturing to China, Vietnam, or Thailand. The Mowbray family is a case in point. Their wealth was not and could not have been acquired in New Zealand. Chinese workers and American consumers worked together to make them into billionaires. It could not have happened here, because in New Zealand, the market is small and the costs of production are so high as to be uncompetitive. Why? Not because the New Zealand worker is overpaid, but because non-productive capital, principally working through infrastructure charges (e.g electricity) and the property market, takes an inordinate share of the national income. The Mowbrays are not the only "New Zealand" capitalists doing all their manufacturing offshore and directing most of their product to offshore markets. It is the norm for almost all successful manufacturing capitalists. So these "New Zealand" capitalists are practically indistinguishable from foreign capitalists. That is part of the reason why they want New Zealand to be opened up to more foreign capital, that is to say people like themselves who will strengthen their position within the New Zealand economy and society. Their actual impact within New Zealand is limited to buying up desirable blocks of real estate. We see their helicopters flying to and from their island hideaways, but we really would have no idea whether the passengers in those craft are New Zealanders, American, German or Chinese. And it makes no difference to us.
The Mowbray name has a long history in the top echelons of New Zealand capitalism, going right back to 1864, yet so far as I can surmise the Zuru branch of the family have no direct connection to the Mowbrays of DIC and DFC fame. So we can accept that although they had a helping hand from affluent parents, their wealth is largely newly acquired. Yet that is clearly not the case with most of the other Rich Listers. Much wealth is inherited in New Zealand, and in many cases that inheritance can be traced right back to the raupatu. And inherited wealth is increasingly important not just to the top 119, but to the three million or so who constitute the most affluent 60% of the population. The bottom 40% inherit only poverty.
But it is not just the poor who suffer harm from the regime of inherited wealth. The need for a material inheritance is hugely damaging to the morale and the morals of the children of the middle classes. The Rich List shows us where New Zealand is heading, and it is not to a good place.