Simon Wilson continues to be one of the best columnists the NZ Herald has, his review of the Greens Economic Strategy and the criticism it got is an honest appraisal of where we are as a culture right now…
One of the things about being human is that we’re very good at holding two contradictory ideas in our head at the same time.
We all know the institutions of liberal democracy are failing us. Yet polls suggest most of us believe the solution is to keep on with the economic and political policies that have caused, contributed to and allowed this to happen.
Some of us, including about half of all Americans, have rejected this and now support a tyrant. They forgive his faults, because he’s got his eye on a bigger goal: tearing down the establishment that caused the mess we’re in. Or so they believe.
Even while we lose trust in institutions. Even as we recognise that the mainstream policies we have relied on for so long cannot solve the health crisis or the infrastructure deficit and cannot protect us from the climate catastrophe or the AI revolution. Even as our media ecosystem relies ever more strongly on algorithms designed to destroy society.
Margaret Thatcher said it, most famously: “There is no such thing as society.” If it hasn’t always been obvious what she meant, it should be now. We’re not supposed to think and act communally, for the greater good. We’re not supposed to notice what’s not working and, more pointedly, to do anything about it.
We’re not citizens, we’re consumers. What we’re supposed to do is go shopping.
…we have allowed all tribe no village culture war social media hate algorithms to rip is to pieces while the Billionaire class, the polluters and the mega wealthy keep us fighting amongst ourselves rather than reform the corrupt capitalism causing the deeper material damage.
Simon’s analysis of the Greens Economic Strategy is spot on…
The Green Party has a Green Budget, featuring a wealth tax designed to make free healthcare and early childhood education both realistic possibilities. It also proposes a Ministry of Green Works, to speed the creation of infrastructure that will serve the country resiliently and efficiently through the rest of the century.
The party’s emissions reduction plan sets out a programme the party says will allow us to decarbonise energy generation and consumption while improving public options for warmer homes, better transport and lower power bills. And the Greens also have an $8 billion industrial strategy, which includes a green jobs guarantee for at least 40,000 new jobs.
None of this is fantastical. In fact, much of it draws on the same technologies, such as residential solar, the Government also supports. It’s just that the Greens want to do it at scale and speed, without also indulging the fantasies of fossil-fuel industrialists who believe there is a future for their industries. Also, the Greens want a focus on poorer and more vulnerable communities.
…the predictable scream from the right was as infantile as it was idiotic…
But if there’s one thing guaranteed to generate some frothing at the mouth, it’s Green economics. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the party’s alternative budget was “absolute madness. And kookiness.”
Finance Minister Nicola Willis called it “ludicrous la-la land”, while Winston Peters started referring to “Chloe Marx and Marama Engels”. Such deep thinking.
…all they have to defend and protect their corporate interests are insults in the hope you don’t recognise how corrupt the status quo is…
On Tuesday the Greens released a Fiscal Strategy: a heavyweight piece of economic analysis that builds on the party’s budget plans. At the strategy launch in Wellington, party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said that “no field is treated with more mysticism than economics”, and yet many economists and the politicians who follow them “have nothing to say about why we have a society in which homeless people sleep on the pavement outside luxury stores”.
“We don’t live in a game of Monopoly,” she added. Monopoly, she explained, was invented in the 19th century “to teach children about the pitfalls of an economy based on land speculation and luck.”
…and that’s what we have, an economy based on speculation and luck.
We deserve a true vision for the economy, that works for the people, not the polluters, not the corporations, not the speculators.
The silver lining for the Left is that the burning planet will force these adaptations and changes no matter what the climate deniers claim.
We must be better than this…
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Go the greens .They have stepped up against the bashers who accuse them of not having any real policy and costings .History tells us that when NZ was progressing at its best the governments at that time were borrowing and building stuff for all of NZ not just the 1% .All of the ageing hospitals and schools and state houses along with roads and power lines were built in those times .The greens have flipped the conversation hence the verbal shit talk from the COC .The current government has no other plan than kicking the last cent out of the poor and infirm and crushing the so called idiot of the squeezed middle who swallowed the lies and hate and voted them into government .
Agreed Gordon.
All the legacy parties are doing is kicking the can down the road the same as they have done for the last 40 years.
The Greens are the only party doing the HARD YARDS.
In the Green budget they talk of free medical and free dental services .These would be great if possible BUT I have just made an appointment with my doctor which is 2 weeks away and a dental check up @ $200 which is 3 weeks away. If these were free the wait list would be longer .
It is a typical scenario of Green policies which sound great but are not practical. When Greens get s happened in Australia and Europe spower they lose their supporters because they cannot deliver. This happened in both Australia and Europe
Lots of hysteria from the right because The greens have put up a policy for kiwis not overseas corporations .
The Coalition of Cjaos know the Greens are putting up a better alternative than their slop of ‘governance’ so instead of scrutinizing it and discussing whether it has any value or practically, they smear the discussion with scaremongering insults like Marxism, kookoo, radical, etc.
You know what’s actually radical and kookoo? Not being able to afford your first home because of speculation. Having to decide between heating and food. Having our 2 brands new iRex ferries set to be delivered next year canceled. Taxing the poor disproportionately compared to the corporations. Allowing rich cunts from overseas to buy a piece of our sweet paradise for a low cost of 5 million and barely contribute to the country. Allowing the banks to make record profits during Covid and the current aftermath.
There is one commonality between these things. We are told lies to become truth. That there is no other way to go and you better shut up and keep your head in the mud. When a people’s begin to conflate lies with truth, the country will unravel and head down the same path as the US; a valueless, dog-eat-dog world where violent crime becomes commonplace as the mental and physical hardship done to society becomes unbearable and people justify stealing, killing and so forth in order to survive.
The greed of those well off and rich has made us look at the world likr a cyclops with one eye that only sees a $ sign. Anything beyond making a dollar is seen as ‘radical’ Any long-term proposed solution is denigrated as unrealistic.
We deserve the reckoning that’s coming as our people voted for greed, thinking they can be arrogant enough to toss the other half that aren’t well off to the wayside.
Well done Nathan you managed to get a response form Killer that was brief unlike his normal long rambles
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