As much as certain people would like to deny this fact, the evidence and truth remains that income inequality in New Zealand is growing far too rapidly. An opinion piece in the NZ Herald talks about what that dynamic does to us at an individual level and for once, I think the Herald got it right.
“The naïve view of inequality is that it only matters if it causes poverty. But the truth is that we have deep-seated psychological responses to the levels of inequality in society. Our tendency to equate outward wealth with inner worth means that inequality colours our social perception. It invokes deep psychological responses – feelings of superiority and inferiority – and affects the way we see and treat each other”.
What came to mind when I read this piece is something that I once heard my dadi (paternal grandmother) say in the context of her own life experiences, which is that there’s nothing wrong with having money but those who have more of it are less likely to let go if it to help others, while those who have less are more willing to give to others.
This is obviously a generalisation. I myself have never known that feeling of not having enough for the bare necessities, and there are thousands of millionaires out there who give massive amounts of money and resources to those in need. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having money, but the essence of that statement and that sense of entitlement by a significant few remain. All you need to do is look at how unwilling we, as a society, are to raise the minimum wage. The United States’ 1% is an example.
The prevalence of the individualistic culture we’re all part of erases the sense of responsibility we should have over our fellow neighbours and creates the notion that ‘if I can do it, what’s stopping you?’ Or ‘I earned what I have through sheer hard work so you can just get off your lazy ass and do the same’. I personally reject the myth that single parents who work 2+ jobs and still struggle to make rent don’t work hard enough.
Saying baseless statements such as that perpetuate the myth that we’re all on an equal playing field, that there is no such thing as privilege. I recently purchased a new mobility vehicle, which the government paid $12,000 towards and we had to make up the rest. Now, for anyone who knows anything about mobility vehicles, that amount is not nearly enough, but we were able to top it up. This isn’t the case for everyone in the disabled community. This means that while they’re busy trying to save up the remaining amount, they have no way of getting around (except for taxies, which aren’t cheap either). This in turn reduces their opportunities for earning an income, thus their opportunities for purchasing that vehicle.
And that is how inequality prevails. What my dadi was ultimately saying, as I only gave one sentence from a much longer conversation, was that you can have all the money and material possessions your heart desires, but the fact will always remain that you live in a wider community and you are no more superior than anyone else if you have more than them just because of the context that you just happen to live within.
Basically, in intersectional speak: check your privilege.
Today most of the wealth is made by paper suffling and financial transactions. The production of goods & services export growth etc is minimal apart from the dairy sector. Most of our productive State Assets have been flogged off to offshore institutions who now reap the benefits.
If we don’t have productivity both domestic & export we don’t have a viable economy to produce jobs & wages to support and sustain society.
Wrong.
1.) In today’s society having money entitles you to live off of others work essentially turning those others in to serfs/slaves.
2.) As Piketty has shown, having wealth accumulates more wealth at a greater rate than society actually creates it resulting in more poverty.
3.) Great wealth confers more political power which tilts society into favouring the already rich.
All of this results in the eventual collapse of society.
So, yeah, there’s lots of things wrong with having money.
Oh, and this.
Funny thing is that the Rugged Individualists who parrot that line are, for the most part, not millionaires themselves.
Funny that.
So what’s stopping them? Why don’t these Rugged Individualists “just get off [their] lazy ass” and all becomes millionaires?!
Answer, because we are all different.
Actually, the real answer is that they can’t. You really can only have a few rich people as there’s a limited amount of people in total and the rich get that way by taking from as many people as possible.
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