ABSTRACT
From 1984 until 1999 New Zealand was embroiled in a radical experiment in free market economics. The simultaneous embrace of lifelong learning and market forces was at the root of the problem. In 1984 new-right ideology con-tained two elements. The neoliberal element was committed to the free market and wanted to substitute it for the state. The second, a neoconservative element, was fundamentalist and espoused conservative moral values (anti-socialist, anti-feminist, anti-Maori). It abhorred ‘dependency’ on the state and claimed to speak the ‘truth’ and, most astonishingly, to eschew ‘polities’ (Prebble, 1987).
