Dick Ryan: Changing of the Guard?

Dick Ryan

It is abundantly clear that in the so called Capitalist World, the average voter is fed up with the capitalists and the politicians who continue to prop them up.

They are becoming increasingly aware that the rich are getting much richer and the poor remain. In particular many of the middle of society realise that the economic style of neo liberalism is exacerbating the inequality. That title expression must have been dreamt up by their PR boys as they are neither near, new or in any stretch of imagination, liberal.

So there are calls for change, and the rise of fringe groups at the extreme edges of the political spectrum, and in the middle ground a viewpoint of 'a pox on both your houses'.

The majority are now realising though far too lagardley, that their standard of living is in decline. This country was in the van of the monetarism movement. To paraphrase Maggie Thatcher, she suggested that Roger Douglas did to the hapless kiwi what she could only dream of doing to the Brits.

Unfortunately most dont have the first idea what the problem is , and so equally no idea of the cure. We monetary reformers were hopeful that the '08 crash would alert the world and we could start again with a clean economic slate. But when the necessary cash was created by governments and instead of being distributed to the people, was handed over to the banking system which had caused the problem in the first place, it was obvious that the establisments held the leaders in thrall.

New Zealand being at the end of the line is often the last to know. So it is with the demise of the ludicrous idea that the marketplace will somehow know what is good for us. The signs are here of course with the housing bubble, and with the increase in homelessness.

Perhaps because most of our banking and investment is owned and controlled overseas, we ignore these elephants in the room, as they dole out the debt money they create.

It has often occurred to me, especially when under fire from the said establishment for being too negative and detracting from their plan, that this country is too well endowed in the first place. It is true that we are comparatively well off, but to blindly follow the other developed countries down the path of post industrial stagnation, when, with a little course correction and the taking back of our own currency creation we can reverse the present inequality slide and return to our rightful place.

We should not flinch from taking the steps to become self reliant again just because the politicians tell us that utopia is an impossible dream. Tell that to the Swiss who live in the nearest thing to a democracy in the world so far.

The largely unfulfilled promise of what real democracy entails - that is, direct binding citizen power to set socio-economic agendas and priorities, contrasts dramatically with the many variations of so-called 'representative democracy' extant everywhere today. Instead modern governments are without exception dominated by a diminutive, albeit not necessarily harmonious or even homogenous, permanent elite. Here we might call it the Establishment. Prime Ministers, MPs, mayors,judges and ministers may come and go, but the establishment remains in place, intact and in charge.

The irony of this democratic shortfall, is that the technology and the communications facilities are now quite able to network all citizens, especially in a median educated populace like NZ, so that we could all enact policies and laws. As a society we could decide on specific implementation of budgets and regulations, and feel suitably involved to try and make them work.

And looking back on the important decisions of the last fifty years, I could argue that we have consistently steered in the wrong direction. Thus the chances are that our collective wisdom could only result in a better, more egalitarian, and economicaly and environmentaly sounder outcome.

Commander Dick Ryan spent twenty years in the Royal Navy. He now lives in Hawke's Bay and is the Democrats for Social Credit candidate for Tukituki in the upcoming general election.