leading and learning: The Kiwi Dream: New Zealand as Caring and Creative country/ the need to resolve the inequality caused by the 'free market' nightnare

This is a bit of a rant and rave!! Excuse the repetition.

It seems the New Zealand Labour Party is aligning its efforts around the vision:

The Kiwi Dream

‘We’re backing the Kiwi Dream’.

A dream of houses, jobs, health care, sustainable growth, regional development and opportunity for all in education; about equality, equity, inclusion and fairness.

Underpinning all the above is a renewed protective role for the state in the lives of citizens that have fallen behind the past three decades.

The current right-wing government demonised the previous Labour

The myths of market forces

government’s ideology as a ‘nanny state’. The current government’s ‘free market’ ideology is based around privatisation, individual choice ( for the wealthy), and business led efficiency. An ideology premised on the idea that the ‘market’ will sort things out and wealth will ‘trickle down’ to the benefit all. At the time it was said ‘there was no alternative’- TINA.

It has to be made clear, market forces cannot solve the problems facing us - and indeed have created the inequality that is leading to a range of problems.

There will be no space for a 'Kiwi Dream' for all until we point out the failures of the market forces nightmare which has only rewarded the 'winners'.The neo- liberal ideology needs to be identified and shown to be failing before a new ‘dream’ , vision, or ideology has any chance of capturing the minds and hearts of the voters

The differences need to be made clear

As a result of the 'demonizing' he so called 'nanny state' has been replaced by a ‘big brother’ or 'corporate state', one that benefits the wealthy, the big business elite and the growing power of international corporates. As a result the ‘rich have got richer and the poor poorer’. Now that we have had three decades of ‘free market’ ideology it is time to evaluate its

All too true

so called 'trickle down' success for all people.

We need to understand the ideology that has underpinned the policies that have been 'normalized' the past three decades.

We need to challenge the status quo as the neo-liberal ideology has become accepted as the way things are done.

We need to utilize the same strategy used by Margaret Thatcher,

Ronald Reagan and Roger Douglas when they introduced their neo-liberal free market ideology. They did this by demonizing the welfare

Back to the future!

state consensus that had been the norm since WW2.

If this neo-conservative ‘free market’ ideology is not identified then the status quo will be hard to shift particularly as it is supported and justified by the business elite and a complicit press and media.

Any opposition has to educate the people to appreciate that the state has a vital role to ensure all people get a fair deal and that only the state can solve the inequality that has resulted from the failing‘free market’ ideology.

Things are getting worse for too many

Achieving this new 'Kiwi Dream' has to be accepted as the only way (TINA) to remedy the 'winner loser' gap if all New Zealand citizens have the opportunity to reach their potential. Only a benevolent state can provide an environment that provides opportunities for all.

Evidence for the failure of market forces need to be shared.

Richard Wilkinson’s short video is a good start. Watching it has the power to make, all but the hardened ‘free market’ converts, feel ashamed about New Zealand’s poor showing compared to other nations.

A must watch - look for NZ

Wilkinson's presentation shows that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows that inequality, resulting from neo-liberal policies, effects negatively on health, lifespan, imprisonment, educational achievement , economic growth , social cohesion and trust.

A lost dream?

Wilkinson's international data needs to be reinforced by specific evidence of inequality in New Zealand data across such fields as housing costs , jobs, salary differences, educational success , incarceration numbers, and child abuse. New Zealand sadly is a leader in income inequality creating a range of depressing social ills.

Inequality is harming us all by destroying the social fabric that was once a feature of New Zealand.

It has to be made clear that the current 'market forces' ideology in New Zealand caters for only for the wealthy.

Worse still the values underpinning the market economy has led to the development of divisive attitudes of superiority and inferiority; we have become a society premised on achieving individual status based on consumerism. We are now a judgmental society based on how well off we are - those who are left behind have only themselves to blame.

The ‘free market’ ideology has had its day. Although it may have had success in the early days it is no longer viable – the freedom from government regulation has resulted in a growing environmental crisis along with divisive inequality with all its

Poverty - a major growth area

associated social problems. Such issues can no longer be ignored.

The growing power of corporate power, as seen in the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement is in conflict with our sovereignty. As well there is the issue of corporate avoidance of paying appropriate taxes resulting in the top 1% owning almost 50% of global wealth.

.
To develop a new story to inspire New Zealanders needs more than talking about a ‘Kiwi Dream’. The destructive aspects of the ‘free market’ need to be identified and its failings made common knowledge before a real alternative can be accepted.

The ‘free market’ ideology has meant less and less state intervention and lower taxes for the rich.

It has meant privatizing public services, contracting them out to private providers. Short term business efficiency is now the model to emulate. Salaries for

executives have reached astronomical figures while for the majority wages have stood still. Many people, employed as independent operators, face a precarious future. As well many people in jobs are now the employed poor, often having to have several jobs to make ends meet.

Those supportive of market forces driven by self-interest have little sympathy for the less fortunate. The poor are increasingly seen as responsible for their own poverty; the rich are the new righteous.

The ‘free market’ was based on a myth of a ‘level playing field’ but the reality is different. We do not start with equal opportunity. Those who fall through the cracks now face an uncaring faceless bureaucracy while the wealthy get away with tax avoidance.

The ‘Kiwi Dream’ has to be based on ensuring opportunities for all and this means positive action to assist the less fortunate get a fair chance. It is longer good enough to wait for wealthy to ‘trickle down’.

The behaviours of those with a belief in market forces value individual need above the common good of society. In contrast those who are aligned behind a new Kiwi Dream place opportunity for all and the need to value the common good as central to their behaviours. The future cannot be seen as either/or but there needs to be a re balancing - to place equality, equity and fairness as

central.

To achieve the ‘Kiwi Dream’ will require people who are proud to care for the less fortunate. People who see potential in every person if given the opportunity People who believe in the common good. Such a dream links back to kind of country we were known for before the destruction created by the depression and WW2.

Facing up to the problems created by free market thinking is not about being personally critical of opposition politicians but attacking the the beliefs that underpinning their policies and actions.

We need to make clear that the current policies have led to a growing rich/poor gap, a demeaning inequality that, if not faced up to, will affect us all. The 'Kiwi Dream' is about protecting and valuing the common good in the face of private need or self-interested greed; it about uniting our growing divisive society.

Once the failures of the ‘free market' become obvious only then will their be space for a real alternative – the Kiwi Dream’. A dream where the state plays an important role in creating the conditions and infra-structure to ensure all people can contribute to and feel part of the dream.

A real alternative 'dream' with a range of policies in place to achieve it.

An alternative that reaffirms our identity as a caring and creative people.

'Before we can usher in the new the old must be put to rest'

Game of Thrones Series 6/10

'Last year's words belong to last years language and next year's words await another voice.And to make an end is to make a beginning'. T. S. Elliot.

A vision/dream/story I like:

We are not just aiming to change the government, we are aiming to change the direction of our country. You can’t change things overnight but, with a Labour Government, New Zealand will be fairer, smarter, greener and more proud of its identity. It will be a New Zealand which, at the end of the day, we will feel much happier to leave to our children.'

David Cunliffe Labour Leader July 2014

Other blogs with the same theme:

Nigel Latta on inequality.

Pope Francis and Thomas Piketty on market forces and inequality