There is a lovely and heartwarming biographical piece in the NZ Herald on David Cunliffe, the Leader of the Opposition and the potential alternative Prime Minister to John Key. For some further reading, in the New York Times Paul Krugman - Nobel Prize winning economist - sets out in very simple terms the American economic problem and solution. What do David, John and Paul have in common despite their political differences? Also, and apart from having first names drawn from the Bible ... and apart from their liking for President Obama?
I suggest all three have in common their desire to see the respective economies of NZ and the USA perform better. All three know there is poverty, sometimes appalling poverty within the two economies and they all want to see people freed from poverty. Differences between the three concern 'how' people will move from poverty to plenty.
The politics of Jesus offers some intriguing as well as challenging things to say about poverty and its relief. Within the political statements (in word and in deed) made by Jesus is a 'bias to the poor': they are blessed, he feeds them when hungry, he approves reaching across cultural and racial barriers to mend their wounds, he heals those on the margins of society and restores them to the centre, and he instructs a rich person to sell everything and give it to the poor.
Further, the general ethos of the kingdom of God is utterly egalitarian. Whether we go to the Epistle of James with its critique of congregations who offer better seats for the rich, or to the first chapters of Acts and see the early church living out a communist vision for community life, we see in the New Testament that Jesus' words and example impacted his followers deeply and transformatively.
Yet Jesus also said something which is arresting in its profoundness and in its continuing relevance. "You will always have the poor among you." By saying that at the point of receiving an extravagant gift, Jesus opened the way - followed by Christians ever since as justification for building extravagant churches - for a bifurcation on the use of wealth by his followers. But a profound sociological insight has been left to us: there will always be poor people. Whether we are strictly capitalist or communist, pursue some kind of pure Christian or Islamist vision for society, work miracle through social democracy and the welfare state, there will always be poor people. This is both depressing (is it forlorn to attempt to eradicate poverty?) and realistic (we should do our best to help the poor but not under the pretence that we have the power to eradicate poverty).
Fast forwarding to our Down Under society and its politics, there is something profoundly depressing about stories of poverty, regularly wheeled out on the pages of our papers. I cannot recall one such story where there was not a responsibility factor on the part of the poor person or family. That is, no matter how appallingly they may have been treated by a landlord or employer, or ignored by a government agency charged with finding housing and paying benefits, there was a factor in which they themselves played a role (e.g. committed a crime, spent money unwisely, mistreated a house in which they were tenants, unwisely moving from one part of the city to another). In other words, a factor (and stressing the word 'a') in NZ poverty is the question of acting wisely or foolishly (about which the Bible also has more than a few things to say). The reality of life today is that whether we had a government with more money to pay out more to the poor, there seems to be an inordinate capacity on the part of some to nevertheless make choices which lead to deeper poverty rather than to escape from poverty. Jesus' insight captures this phenomenon.
Acknowledging these matters does not let followers of Jesus off the hook in regard to social responsibility. Society through parliament has many opportunities to make decisions for the betterment of people, even if some potential beneficiaries will not make use of the opportunities given them. If there is any one matter confronting us this election, it concerns housing.
Speaking anecdotally, after four and a half years back in Christchurch, this winter I have personally encountered homeless people in the context of the outer suburbs for the first time. A tiny sign of a larger iceberg of need in our city which is particularly short of affordable housing post the quakes.
One part of the politics of Jesus is the manner in which Jesus instructs his followers to recognise that we all share in responsibility for the needs of others. Affordable housing is easy to declare to be a government problem. But it is something we all share in. If you want an affordable house in NZ today it is measurably more possible at the stroke of a pen as more land is made available by councils and government to build houses on; but the quid pro quo is that the value of my house might decline as a result. Am I willing to pay the price for your assistance into better housing? There is also the small matter of whether I am prepared to pay more tax in order for you to have a better accommodation benefit.
And, as Paul Krugman might say, if the government gets involved in building more houses, there will be more opportunities for people to be gainfully employed!
17 comments:
Poverty in the USA and poverty in NZ are completely different things. Basically we have a welfare state -- they don't.
It is apples and oranges, though those who want to make politics of it won't want to recognise that.
Hi Anonymous,
Please use a name!
Aren't our two 'poverties' converging? There is more welfare in the States than there used to be; there are more beggars on the streets of our large cities than there used to be.
Hi Peter
The poor will always be with us as Jesus said, so our efforts are those of alleviating the suffering of the poor.
I note your questions:
Am I willing to pay the price for your assistance into better housing? There is also the small matter of whether I am prepared to pay more tax in order for you to have a better accommodation benefit.(NB: there is the assumption in this last question that the beneficiary has not paid tax of their own in the past).
These questions are indeed indicative that giving requires something of us. So we are left to choose whether and how much we give, and our attitude towards our giving.
There is also the biblical concept of, 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. Prompting such questions as:
If I end up homeless and my brothers and sisters who are housed, choose not to help in order to preserve their assets value, what does that say about my worth? Could I adequately survive on a $40 weekly accommodation allowance if I was in that situation?
A personal example re housing. A person, known via a relative, who is on an invalids benefit recently had her rent raised due to increasing housing costs. Her benefit housing allowance does not increase proportionally so the increased expense comes out of... ummm.... well.... just lets say she was still able to maintain a sense of humour and say it was easy for her not to feel the pressure to offer hospitality at home because there was never enough food in the cupboards... These sort of stories where beneficiaries haven't necessary made poor choices (although why beneficiaries should be singled out as if we all don't make bad choices at some point in time) probably don't reach the media so often because they don't offer much scandal or drama.
Blessings
Jean
Hi Peter
Re NZ and the US welfare systems, yes we probably are converging but we are still a large way off...lets pray their welfare provisions increase and ours not decrease.
Blessings
Jean
Hi Peter
I really appreciated how you worked through the complexities of the issue of poverty. It's easy to have a polemic opinion (depending which side of the political divide you position yourself)but your piece shows the interconnectivity of a range of factors that lead to poverty.
Cheers - Chris
Hi Peter
I really do struggle to understand your apparent insistence upon always seeing John Key and National in the best positive light, even when it stretches the boundaries of plausibility - a courtesy you do not extend to any of the other parties.
You say National acknowledges poverty, and simply has different ideas to other parties about how to address it. But comments from Bill English and Paula Bennett have indicated they see our poverty as "merely relative" and therefore not real. This is of course wrong for two reasons: firstly, if you actually read the sections of reports where poverty measures are defined (e.g. the Household Incomes report), they specifically say it would be a mistake to take the measures as entirely relative; they're a mixture of relative and absolute. And, secondly, humans are relational beings, so relative factors like inequality matter to us, and have real, measurable, absolute negative effects on our society (worsening everything from crime to mental illness to break-down of trust to social immmobility to obesity to teenage pregnancy - see references in the previous link).
National's strategies with basically all of our society's problems, from the NZ/Chch housing crises to inequality to poverty to unemployment to the connection between violence and how we construct masculinity to rape culture, basically seem to fall into three categories: (a) deny there's a problem, (b) blame individuals and let the system off the hook, (c) suggest that the way to fix the problems is to leave the market and economic growth and their pro-rich neo-liberal economic systems alone to solve the problems in some magical future where trickle-down economics actually works and capitalism solves the very problems it causes. Ie: capitalism has a fever, and the only prescription is more capitalism. I argue this is because the right-wing mindset is ideologically committed to believing the status quo system (be it capitalism or hetero-patriarchy) is basically fair (see my earlier lengthy comment about right/left wing).
tbc...
cont...
As far as I'm aware, Key himself has not denied poverty; in fact as Leader of the Opposition he spoke eloquently about the "underclass" he grew up among (though of course he benefited from a far more extensive welfare state than today's "underclass", as this cartoon points out). But in six years as Prime Minister, he hasn't done anything to move beyond categories (b) and (c). In the John Campbell "At home with..." interview (see my previous comments and references) he said he was concerned for vulnerable children, especially beneficiary children. But he refuses to help them while their parents are still on benefits. His only ways of helping them are (1) continuing Labour's Working for Families policy, which he dismissed as "communism by stealth" at the time, and which has successfully decreased poverty among working families but not among beneficiary families because it doesn't assist them, (2) getting beneficiaries into work. But (2) is necessarily limited by the fact that unemployment has increased on his watch and a certain degree of unemployment is inevitable with the way the economy is set up - in fact, Key ridiculed Labour's goal of getting unemployment back below 4%. So by his own admission, "the beneficiaries will always be with us" and their children get basically nothing from this government except welfare deliberately set at poverty levels in the 90s and stagnating ever since, and made more difficult to obtain/retain under the current government even in a time of high unemployment.
In fact, while this government has done a lot to increase poverty and make the lives of the poor harder (shifting tax burden onto the poor, punishing the victims for unemployment, reintroducing the youth rate, unemployment, school closures, etc), I struggle to call to mind ANYTHING they've done to help out the poor - except for a few election bribes in this year's budget (which are definitely good things, but they're just toned down versions of left-of-NZ-First parties' ideas).
They've done basically nothing about the Expert Advisory Group's child poverty recommendations, and they refuse to even respond to ten new suggestions from Bryan Bruce (Inside Child Poverty).
Perhaps most damning of the above is the fact that National are the only party who refuses to commit to cross-party talks about how to tackle child poverty. In fact, there are already such cross-party talks on inequality and child poverty, and - surprise, surprise - National are the only party who does not attend.
So, Peter, how can you honestly say National wants to fix child poverty?
Re: "you will always have the poor among you;" while I pretty much agree with your comments on this, your points could be strengthened if you read Jesus' statement in light of the passages in Deuteronomy he's alluding to:
"there need be no poor people among you ... if only you fully obey the Lord ... and ... all these commands" (Deut 15:4-5)
"If anyone is poor ... in ... the land ... be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need." (Deut 15:7)
"There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy" (Deut 15:11)
Note how within the same chapter it moves from "there need be no poor" if you fully obey God and his commands, to "if anyone is poor" to "There will always be poor." There is a profound realism here: Israel will never fully follow God and his commands, so there will always be poverty. Poverty is a sign that the system is not in full compliance with God's will. But the perennial existence of poverty does not mean we should give up, but that we need to perenially help the poor and needy. This is why there are rules in the Law about gleaning, legal obligations on the rich to assist the poor, not making someone naked, unsheltered or completely destitute even if they owe you money, caring for people even if they have become your slaves, and of course the cancellation of debt, freeing of slaves and return of land, to prevent wealth/land accruing in a few hands. God's laws work in the exact opposite way to the laws of capitalism as recently outlined by Thomas Piketty: capitalism concentrates wealth in a few hands, while Torah has periodic cancellations of inequality to prevent inter-generational wealth/poverty concentration - and please note this Jubilee inequality-cancellation is universal, regardless of whether the inequality happened because of personal choices, systemic factors, oppression, luck or all of the above.
Jesus quotes the third of the above verses, in order to make a point against the utilitarian and/or hypocritical (depending on the gospel) Judas Iscariot: that although we can and should help the poor, there are other good uses of our resources too:
"The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want." (Mark 14:7)
But this is not the last time these verses from Deuteronomy are referenced in the New Testament...
tbc...
cont...
When the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon the early church, they finally do manage to eradicate poverty among them, by sharing everything they have:
"All the believers ... shared everything they had ... God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them." (Acts 4:32-34)
This shows it's possible for us too, even without the benefits of modern industrialisation and technology and the privilege the West have plundered from the rest. That is to say, it's possible for the church - perhaps not for secular nations, which lack the Holy Spirit and struggle to obey God and lovingly share the way the early church did.
So, yes, it may be true that we'll always have poverty under capitalism or communism (though I don't know why you're bringing up communism when it's not one of the options in our upcoming election), but that's because capitalism and communism don't do things God's way. The existence of poverty is still a sign that the systems aren't in compliance with God's will, and we need to call the systems to account and work against poverty on four levels: (a) living the kingdom, where there is no poverty, (b) reforming systems to minimise poverty, (c) assisting the poor as long as there is poverty, (d) calling to account the rich about their relationship to the poor, their oppression of them and their responsibility to them, regardless of the cause of their poverty. Jesus' comment should never be used as an excuse to defend systems that create poverty, or political parties that essentially ignore it.
One last comment: personal responsibility and social/systemic factors when it comes to things like poverty are not an either/or - it seems both are almost always at play, and they almost always interact. Politics ought to address social/systemic factors that cause poverty and encourage poor choices, and encourage social/systemic factors that reduce poverty and encourage good choices. I for one am very grateful for the social/systemic factors in my life (e.g. raised by married, stable parents with middle-class jobs, a strong Protestant work ethic, healthy lifestyles and time for their children; living as a Pakeha in middle-class areas; attending good schools and good churches with good opportunities, etc) that have helped me to make positive choices and stay out of poverty. You observe that there is always some element of personal responsibility in the stories of poverty you read in the newspapers. In my experience, personal relationships with poor people offer a far profounder insight into their lives than newspaper stories. My (limited) experience of these personal relationships suggests that poor people make poor choices in direct proportion to the extent to which they've suffered through no fault of their own. People exercising personal responsibility poorly is certainly not an excuse to avoid social responsibility - in fact, it suggests all the more the need for social responsibility.
Hi Caleb,
The most important action a government can take to assist the poor is to work on the overall shape, soundness and structure of the economy. I do not resile from seeing the Key-led government in a positive light from that perspective, particularly when the alternatives being offered currently do not seem able to offer a better overall programme.
Comparing specific initiatives/promises to help the poor are all very well, but all have a price tag which takes us back to the overall economy and how it is performing.
For a point of historical comparison, I thought that Clark/Cullen as a combo did a great job when they held the levers of power. Running the overall economy well is not a prerogative of National-led governments.
It is a black mark against Key and co that where they have either come up with some initiatives, or have maintained some policies they formerly criticised (as detailed by you), they are essentially plagiarising. It would be good to see some 'original' initiatives coming from them. Even charter schools which seem to offer hope for some people to break out of cycles of poverty are an initiative of ACT!
I suppose you haven't spoken to many teachers about charter schools.
It is early days, Caleb, to judge the success or failure of charter schools, but I imagine they would not have been proposed if all our schools were working well. (Many are, by the way ... ).
They would not be proposed if our government and its coalition partner ACT did not have an ideological commitment to privatising everything. Our schools are doing well globally. There is always room for improvement, but rather than listening to education professionals about how to improve our schools as Labour are doing (note the endorsement from the teachers' unions for Labour's education policy, and condemnation of National's), they're charging ahead with their own ideological agenda. The same things being tried by this current government (charter schools, increased focus on assessment, misplaced focus on improving the quality of individual teachers rather than acknowledging that socio-economic status is the chief determinant of education outcomes, or that teachers require collegiality, not competition, to provide quality teaching) have been tried and failed in the UK and US, as well as making overworked teachers even more overworked and giving them less time for actual teaching.
It is indeed early to judge the success or failure of charter schools in NZ (not elsewhere), but they're charging ahead anyway on the basis of improper information from their trials, where they pumped many times more money per pupil into charter schools with tiny class sizes and then boasted of the results even though there were no comparable results from public schools with equivalent funding.
In lieu of actual teachers to talk to, you may enjoy subscribing to the Save Our Schools blog, written by teachers. Here's their posts on charter schools.
Hi Caleb
ACT may have an ideological commitment to privatising everything, National does not.
The post you link to about charter schools is a press release which says nothing about the form and content of charter schools in terms of what they promise by way of a potential successful alternative means of education for those young people failing in the current system (which, I stress, is mostly successful).
I believe in providing choice in education. Do you?
I linked to all entries on the blog tagged with "charter schools" - if you scroll further down you'll find many more things said about charter schools.
I believe in choice among quality options, and untrained teachers, profit motives, performance pay and excessive focus on assessment do not make for quality education options. I do not believe in "choice" as an ideological smokescreen for corporatisation of schools, and neither do almost all teachers.
National do have an ideological commitment to privatising most everything that can possibly be privatised (probably not, I'll grant, things like police), but they are also aware of political realities. They privatise as much as they can get away with.
Hi Caleb
My question about privatisation is 'Why should the government run anything other than the police, military forces, customs and immigration, foreign embassies,most schools and the welfare system?'
Government run railways, airlines postal and telegraph businesses tend to be accidental acquisitions of processes better run in a competitive business environment by business people with appropriate expertise.
I do not think it is 'ideological' for a political party to constantly review what government should and shouldn't be involved in: it is simply sound stewardship of tax dollars taken from workers.
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