I guess having spent a good portion of my life either involved behind the scenes with the Labour Party or standing as a candidate in local elections I’d be expected to have strong views on political campaigns. I’m no longer a member of any political party. I’m fiscally dry (as expected of an accountant) but I’m socially liberal.
I should start by saying that I cannot understand the debate about no additional taxes. I’d happily pay more to support a more decent society than we have right now. I would start with death taxes.
This post will focus on the issues which are at the front of my mind. I consider the current coalition government to be amongst the worst organized and most unfeeling governments I can recall. If you disagree with this view, then stop reading right now as the rest of this document will offend you.
I haven’t covered the ignominy of the Fast Track legislation established to push through the projects of party donors; or the worst relationship between Central and Local Government that I can recall; or the appalling approach to environmental matters; or issues regarding the Treaty. The list goes on and on.
The fact that Central Government had to abandon its desire to rearrange Local Government before parliament rose says lots about the faulty nature of so much of its ill-considered legislation.
However, here’s a few thoughts:
The Economy
An economy based on Neo-liberalism has reduced society into a series of contracts measured in dollars between all of us. This too often has caused an evaporation of compassion in our society. The glue which holds us together as a caring society is where community agencies combine the goodwill of the caring of citizens with financial resources from central government. These financial resources have become a rapidly ebbing tide under our current government. Each day we listen to more stories of communities struggling and the neo-liberal mantra is always that all we need to do is to grow our economy.
I thought that David Slack summarized things well when he wrote:
- We have been so intent on honouring the false gods of individual rights and property rights and the mythical efficiencies of The Market and the right to make a buck that we have made reward and opportunity an impossibility for vast numbers of us. Meanwhile we have demonised the whole idea of tax.
- A society that lionises billionaires and waits for science to fix the climate crisis and paints tax as some kind of malevolent disease was never going to do very well, and that’s what we’ve got.
Like most people concerned about where to find solutions to the rot in our neo-liberal system I read lots of articles testing new ideas. I found this interview between George Monbiot and Jeremy Lent recently very inspiring https://www.youtube.com/live/4-r-tUh2RkM.
I went and purchased the Jeremy Lent book Ecocivilization – Making a World That works for All on the strength of this interview. It is one of the most challenging books I have read for years. It takes our existing financial and legal system apart on and rebuilds it into something very different but so much more inclusive than what exists currently.
Read more…
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