How much is enough?
If you work for wages as most of us do, or are salaried or even employed as a consultant (say for example, like the ‘unelected to the office of Prime Minister’ ex-prime minister Bill English) then your time is the commodity you have for sale. Now, thanks to the charming ACT sociopath Brooke Van Velden, and her anti FPA’s bill, there is no bottom limit placed on the value of one’s most precious commodity i.e. one’s labour. (You know, like back in the days of the lock outs where workers turned up each day to see if they could gain a casual days employment at whatever rate the factory owner was prepared to offer. No worker ever quibbled because to do so meant rejection, blacklisting and a long line of other unemployed workers behind you eager to do the bosses bidding)
What this means in reality is that if you are brain surgeon as opposed to a road sweeper, never mind how effectively each carry’s out their task, the brain surgeon is going to carry home more beer tokens than the road sweeper for a flat 40 hour working week. All good you say, that’s the way of the world. But is it this simple? The value we place on employment varies between manual non-skilled, semi-skilled then skilled, through craft guild status, and trades qualifications, to journeyman qualifications, then into further and tertiary education qualifications via health, education, management, engineering in all its iterations, on through scientific fields etc, etc, et al! And it doesn’t end here because whatever value and differential remuneration is offered for each job description within one country this can be improved upon simply by emigrating to another country where your occupation is afforded a higher value or status, or simply more money for the same work!
I’m digressing here away from the main thrust of my argument. In a sense, whatever path our lives follow into employment, we all understand that those with a specialist skill, be it practical or theoretical, are going to enjoy a higher status with regard to financial remuneration. As a simple observation, even within our tiny country Aotearoa New Zealand, the divide between those with ‘flipping great wads of cash’ and the rest is widening year by year and to paraphrase from ‘The Spirit Level’ a book by Kate Pickett and Richard J Wilkinson this gap needs addressing. We live in times where people you and I could brush past in our local airports, restaurants, and streets have more personal wealth than they could ever reasonably expect to need in order to live a rich and full life. At the same time each and every one of us, including the our law makers such as Brooke Van Velden, Christopher Luxon, Christopher Bishop and Winston Peters brushed past another demographic that barely has enough to survive from day to day and certainly not with dignity or good health.
So my question is a simple one. How much is enough? Shouldn’t it be that everyone has access to:
affordable, long term, warm, appropriate housing?
Free education and health care (including dental) from cradle to grave?
Enough food to sustain a healthy diet?
A universal basic income (UBI) that celebrates the diverse talents of each and every one of us?
Mobility, be it private or public transportation systems, and lastly
A fair distribution of the wealth of a country.
We have all read or seen this week and in past one’s the directive from our law makers to find 6% cuts in budget costs. For some this has inevitably meant unemployment as agencies, government departments and other institutions struggle to implement these demands, whilst for others this seems to have signalled yet more avenues to enrich their already bulging purses. I won’t go into the minutiae of this here, it has been well intimated by journalists and political commentators with far greater access to the nitty gritty than me. What I will close this musing on is two observations one by Gordon Campbell on 24/5/24 concerning previously mentioned Bill English questioning his ability to provide an impartial review of Kaianga Ora and secondly Lloyd Burr 25/5/24 and his observation that our law-makers should be making the same 6% savings in their expense requirements.
I have been aware and under the influence of The Right Honourable Bill English since I first arrived in Gore to take up a teaching position in 1987. This is a man who might qualify potentially as a person who has more wealth that he would ever require, even before he became a member of parliament. I am sure that in his own mind he believes that he has worked across his life in the parliament to better the lives of all New Zealanders. This view would certainly be shared by most if not all National supporters. His parliamentary superannuation alone would represent a king/Queens ransom to a great swathe of Kiwis. Good on him, he’s earned it.
How much is enough?