MEDIAWATCH: Chloe is right – the polluters & plutocrats are a threat to democracy

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
50
1684

Chloe is right – the polluters & plutocrats are a threat to democracy…

Chlöe Swarbrick: Climate change has arrived while politicians argue the status quo

I’ll let you in on a bit of an open political secret. The over-egged debate we’re having about wealth taxes and the lack of mainstream political interest in frightening climate change news are driven by the same forces: a long-time status quo bias for the rhetoric of “individual responsibility” over collective responsibility.

In a flood, you could have 10 people working together to build a boat big enough for all of them. Or you could have one person hoarding the materials necessary, scolding the others that they simply didn’t work hard enough to survive. The boat wouldn’t be built. Those rising waters won’t care who held the most status or the most money.

While the usual characters were busy attacking any possible future of an economy that might rebalance grotesque wealth inequality this week, ground-breaking scientific research from Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, GNS Science, Niwa, University of Otago and the Antarctic Science Platform told us that without immediate action, in less than 20 years, “once-in-a-century” floods will be knocking on the door of our capital city every single year.

- Sponsor Promotion -

One of these issues is about whether we have the guts to do anything about the fact, as discovered by renowned inequality researcher Max Rashbrooke, that 70 per cent of wealth is held by 10 per cent of people in this country. The least wealthy half – 2.5 million New Zealanders – own just 2 per cent. The top 1 per cent, meanwhile, own 25 per cent – or one in every four dollars of wealth.

National and Act say there’s nothing wrong with this slide into aristocracy and want to supercharge it with a swathe of tax cuts paid for by low income earners and potential cuts to public services. Labour aren’t yet sure if they’re ready to do anything about it.

…Chloe is right.

In 2010, the 388 richest individuals owned more wealth than half of the entire human population on Earth

By 2015, this number was reduced to only 62 individuals

In 2018, it was 42

In 2019, it was down to only 26 individuals who own more wealth than 3.8 billion people.

And in 2021, 20 people owned more than 50% of the entire planet.

Last month the richest man on Earth bought one of the most important social media platforms.

The Big Tech Tzars have manipulated our collective fear, ego, anger and insecurities through social media in a way that has led to the largest psychological civil war ever launched against one another.

Meanwhile, the planet burns and every aspect of our existence is monetarised for big data to sell us more stuff we can’t afford. We are alienated and anesthetized by a consumer culture that keeps us neurotic and disconnected. Our work, our existence, every move we make are all built to suck money to a minority class that sits above us while under neoliberalism, globalization, financialization, and automation, our existence as individuals has only become more disposable.

This isn’t progress.

The Greens must articulate a different economic vision that builds solidarity and universalism rather than pure temple identity politic aesthetics or the Greens will miss out on having real leverage when negotiating with Labour to form the post 2023 election.

 

Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.

If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media

50 COMMENTS

  2. It’s not like I don’t hear what she’s saying, I do!

    Short of a Cuban style revolution, NZ has as much chance of fixing pure greed as we do making a stitch of difference with world climate change. None!

  3. Wealth inequality numbers are silly. If you have 5000 people who save nothing at all, then the guy who saves $10k has more than 5000 people. It’s emotive nonsense.

    Income inequality, on the other hand, is real and concerning.

    • I agree that the wealth inequality numbers don’t really tell you much how society is organised. A change from 388 people to 20 people in just 10 years is all about stock markets and how they reward innovation.

      Apple has very quickly become the most valuable company (by stock market valuation) in the world. Tesla is by far the most valuable car company in the world, even though it produces only one tenth the number of cars as Toyota. But it was the first major electric car company and is rapidly growing. Tesla’s outsize valuation has made Elon Musk the wealthiest man in the world.

      What could be done about this? A wealth tax could only be paid by actually selling part of the portfolio given that the valuations are not backed by realisable income. Maybe that is the intent. Spread the ownership of the portfolio by downsizing the very large shareholdings that some people have. That was done to land estates in NZ in the nineteenth century, to the general benefit of hugely expanding family owned and operated farms.

      I suspect there may be a fair bit of support for wealth taxes on seriously wealthy people.

      What is the level of serious wealth?

      Obviously we will all have our own views. I suspect for most people it is a level of wealth that takes someone completely beyond typical middle class aspirations. In New Zealand that is probably $50 million and beyond, well over what a very large Lotto win can produce, which might be seen as a token of New Zealand wealth aspirations.

      • Trying to tax innovation or assets is not the objective of these discussions, professor. Fairness is what kicked off the wealth tax debates.

        Ultimately the left want more rights and freedoms rather than aesthetic pleasures and comfort.

  4. Martyn I hope you warned Mark ( a commenter on your Lim piece) that you were going to use such a risqué photo of Chloe with this article. Though maybe not quiet as brazen I can still see the skin on her chest below the shoulder line. This is not the way.

  5. Chloe Swarbrick: “In a flood, you could have 10 people working together to build a boat big enough for all of them. Or you could have one person hoarding the materials necessary, scolding the others that they simply didn’t work hard enough to survive. The boat wouldn’t be built. “

    Thing is, I doubt the Greens would get the boat built either. They’d be too worried if the ten boat builders were truly representative of society and if one of the co-captains of the ship should be non-binary instead of male.

  6. Being an entrepreneur in NZ means that you have figured out the best way to exploit poor immigrant workers.

  8. Chloe is 100% right but I have 0% confidence in the Greens ability to do anything about it. Not just because of their lack of electoral support but because of their hyper focus on identitarian navel gazing.

Comments are closed.