Elections time. And lo, a blog.

It has been a long absence, but looking at my last two blog posts they have as much relevance now as they did then: the key difference between National and Labour laid out bare, months ago and still holding true. Say what you like about my profligacy, my blog posts age well.

People have to decide whether they are really benefiting from John Key's NZ (many people are - certainly those earning 100s of 1000s). If you have a family income of 100,000 or less, you really need to take a good look at how important a "pretty nice" prime minister is versus real policies that will have a specific and direct impact on your lives. No vague promises about "better for the economy, so better for you..." That always equates to more dosh for the rich. We've been sold that line by various parties for 27 years.

BTW, I don't buy the "oh, this poor government, they've done well with so many disasters this term." Christchurch sums this up.
There's no disaster in Christchurch. It's not that bad. The government doesn't think its too bad. That ruined, joyless city will climb back to its own feet without any help.
How do I know that? Because our government sees no need to put a levy on our country's super rich. That's what you would do if a city, a country, was in dire straits. That is why we have a state. To organise key resources to meet the needs of all in a crisis. But no, more important the rich - again, I mean 100s of 1000s - have their tax cuts.

So yeah, life is pretty bouncy in Aotearoa these last few years, at least for a few - just look at the PM's photo album. He's gonna look back on this time and laugh and smile...
But at election time, the real question is: how are you all feeling?

*

My browser happened to open to the nzherald.co.nz this morning and unfortunately clicked its way on to a Brian Gaynor column. I know, I should have known better, but I began writing a reply and thought, nah, damn - bloggit. It got me, here, so some good came of it.

The gist was that some individuals cheat welfare off the state so there should be no welfare provided by the state. Such sparkling insight. Such genius. The fact that democracies-are expensive, inefficient and allow room for individual immorality - that's what makes them the opposite of authoritarian - doesn't appear to twinkle in the recesses of complacent, well paid commentators of this ilk.
And how about this gem:

"...one of the features of a welfare state is that it creates powerful interests that will fight to the bitter end for their benefits. This includes voting for political parties that protect their interests."

Face-palm. How out of touch are these oldies? Where's Metlifecare when you need them?
Change "welfare state" to "corporatist state" and you have a far closer model for the current NZ system: since 1984. That there are noisy proponents of "welfarism" is just resistance to the prevailing dogma and ideology: typified by the blithe bankerism of the current government - that if govt expenditure is kept small and private wealth massive and consolidated in the hands of the few, all will be as best as possible for all. Monetary feudalism.

This is not empty rhetoric. The same applies everywhere. The Rugby World Cup was budgeted on a shoestring until the opening day disaster - then the National Government threw fat wads of money at it to save face. I have it from sources that 80 paid and drivered buses were on standby doing nothing for each weekend after. Where's the economic efficiency there?
Same with Christchurch. While Japan's government did its job and spent whatever was necessary to house its people after Fukushima, CERA and EQC had months and months of demolitions and inspections on their books because the government would not fund more hours and work. It was horrendous seeing the heads of these two organisations on TV taking the bullet for National, saying they were doing all they could - and they were - because National didn't want to spend money.
Which, shock horror, is exactly what government is there to do.

National, and ACT even more so, are unable to cope with this basic fact. This is why NZ has been drifting for 3 years. This is why the richer are richer, the poorer are poorer. This is why government policies are ineffective and why issues such as superannuation remain unclear. Key and his cohorts don't like the idea of government governing - except to protect and grow their own personal wealth.

That's why commentators such as Gaynor are relics of a time that no longer exists. They still see things as if welfarism rules our society, when anyone with a decent education, or has tried to kick off their adult lives in the last 27 years, knows we are in a corporatist society: because corporatists like Key back to Lange and Douglas have been in government for the last 27 years.
Clark and Cullen put on a few bandaids but did not change the corporatists agenda, but betrayed those hoping for real change - the misperceived middle class who are in far worse straits than statistics would show. They voted for Key, and the rest is history: tax cuts for the rich, GST for the rest, and a slow bleeding of funds from government services like ACC and Education and inaction on basic cost-of-living so the only solution is to "sell them all off."
Who benefits? Banks. Corporate share-trading institutions.

Yeah. Sounds like Welfarism to me.

Death of Self-Interest: The Moment of Doubt

I keep starting a post on the death of ideological self-interest, but I'm in a patch where I'm being exposed to a lot of stimulating ideas on the subject, a subject which is embedded in our social fabric. There are so many ways of coming at it that my writing keeps branching off into new fields, the boundaries of which are heretofore unseen.

So, unable to spiel on about it (probably unreadably) I shall tackle the topic in bite-sized morsels, see where they lead, beginning with the moment of doubt.

Dr Wayne Cartwright is an economist. As in schooled and trained in the 70s, and deeply invested in the "science" of capitalist economics that has dominated the world for the very same period. It was his life's work, what he taught and studied every day. Until, in the late nineties, he encountered a moment of doubt.

He framed this moment as being a catholic priest who no longer believed his own dogma. The comparison is one I have used many times myself, and it is stunningly apt. The Catholic Church emplaced a social order that allowed their monarchs and vassals - who were essentially brutal, robber barons - to rule by the divine right of kings.
The same is the case today. The "science" of our economists is also used to establish a social order, where the divine right of global capital holds the same, undemocratic and ruthless sway over the world that the swords of England's monarchs held over their subjects.

These moments of doubt are crucial. Everyone has them, and they deal with them in different ways. It is often a small thing, that finally ticks over, the last straw. Dr Cartwright's moment was realising in 1997 how grotesquely unsustainable NZ dairying had become in such a short time, and how desperate the industry was to grow further, all because of the precepts laid down by his economics.
Not an especially dramatic insight, you'd think, but in these moments you're on a precipice. You can either dig in, bury your head further - Dr Cartwright had every reason to, he'd committed 40 years to this ideology, it was his livelihood, and there is a massive framework of influence and wealth, of media, ready to support this outlook; or you can face facts, and search for another way.

The well-respected economist, Dr Wayne Cartwright, became a realist. He realised that the science he had been trained in no longer existed. He realised this because he is a scientist. And his economics had been proven wrong.

Economics ceased being a science when it started ignoring results. It became a dogma. It refused to accept consequences, externalising the environment, therefore securing the integrity of its own abstract, fantastical fairytale. And the wealth this ideology garnered for the world's elite and corporate citizens totally eliminated the idea of "consequences" from our vocabulary.

Terrorism? Inexplicable aggression. Climate Change? Cyclical. Disgust with the rich? Envy.

In 1961 we used 30% of the world's sustainable capacity; In 1999, we were using 120%. But there are no problems, only opportunities. No consequences, only challenges.

Except for the poor and out-of-work and dispossessed in society, the marginalised, the growing numbers struggling to meet the rising cost of living. That's just the consequence of their actions.

The current set-up benefits the wealthiest 10% in the world, in our country, very nicely. They don't want us examining the fundamentals underpinning the structures of power. They want us to crawl over each other, chain our intellect, sacrifice our integrity just to be one of them. And many people do.

But there's never enough room at the top. The fairytale will never be real for 80% of the population. And more and more people are facing that moment of doubt, exponentially so as the obvious becomes blindingly obvious. And if an economist can choose the right side - the realist's side - that's reason to hope.

(Dr Cartwright is one of many published in the paper Strong Sustainability for New Zealand)

Lullaby of the Fuzzy-headed Book-Huggers

The Standard flags the keen appraisal of former Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimmons about the real cost and beneficiaries behind National's Emission Trading Scheme. It tallies up to $2 Billion a year in corporate welfare.
The more corporations pollute in the pursuit of their profits, the more we the people pay.

And for those keeping score of who's who as beneficiaries of our taxes: that's,
community education, poor solo mums, retirement fund = bad!
well-to-do MPs, rich polluting companies = good!

Those who warn about climate change and environmental damage are often labelled warm-fuzzies, or tree-huggers, or whatever - but I'm not. I'm a hard-arsed realist. I'm realistic, that money will always be there to be made; people will live and die, societies crumble and reform. But our world, our wildlife - our inheritance and legacy - once lost, that can't be brought back by a fancy fiddling of numbers and a pass around of the hat. That's just reality.

And people like me have been around for ages. For forty years, we've been talking about the environment and limits to growth, ever since the Club of Rome. And every time, Money talks back. And it says. "There are no limits - so long as government doesn't place any limits. We can grow forever. We'll get cleaner, promise - new technology will lead the way!"

It is a sweet lullaby: our fresh-faced economists are taught it in chapter 1 so they can set their impressionable minds at ease and they can get on with the important business of being trained to succeed within the established political and economic order.

Every five, ten years, the same conversation; every time, the same song is sung. Money Talks, and Government fails us, because industry are given no incentive to do anything different. If they paid for their pollution, that would be a good economic incentive to actually start researching and implementing that fabled new technology.

So, ultimately, who are the fluff-headed book-huggers? And who are the realists?

You know, the winged fantails used to be EVERYWHERE when I was a kid. 20 years on.... not so much. I find that sad. Fantails, gone. National Parks, dug up. Water - well, it's already scarce in Australia. That matters to me - enough that I'd like to see some of the considerable wealth of our small country - dollars are literally power in this respect - invested in protecting these things; in ambitions other than making more money that the wider community never benefits from.

And I reckon, maybe there are more of realists like me than the Money in this country is counting on. I reckon that unless they get the facts on the ground right, National might leave a door open. It only takes a small swing... Their reign might be shorter than they think.