Common fortunes need to be advanced

Jay Kuten PHOTO/FILE

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. The aphorism is Victor Hugo's. His novel, Les Miserables, described the poor and downtrodden of early 19th century France and the revolution their condition fomented. The novel's power lies first in its vivid descriptions of the desperate poor. In Hugo's words, "the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night".

The novel's secondary power is its ability to arouse our compassion for the ground-down poor of that long-ago time and place.

In our own time, in the US and here in New Zealand, we grew up believing in the expansion of the middle class, the decline of inherited privilege and the inevitable rise of a new meritocracy as a natural development of the capitalist system.

In the three decades following the end of World War II, we saw evidence of those inevitabilities as prosperity seemed reachable for anyone with the will and strength of character to work hard and be prudent.

Home ownership, saving for one's retirement, provision of education for the kids that they might exceed our own dreams - that is/was the American Dream and also its antipodean equivalent.

Slowly, during the past three decades, things began to change and equality of opportunity began to diminish in many countries but particularly in the US and New Zealand.

Stagnation of wages and assets happened so gradually that only those affected noticed. Ten years ago in 2003 in the US when the Bush administration reduced taxes on the wealthy, a lone voice - that of French economist Thomas Piketty - spoke out to caution that such policies would lead to further inequality and economic slowing.

He was ignored.

After the near-economic meltdown of 2008, governments in the US and EU and here began to cut back social services and frayed the economic safety nets. In response, 2011 brought those affected into the parks.

The Occupy Movements called attention to the unfair way governmental policies and the crony capitalism of markets had advantaged the 1 per cent, the wealthy, at the expense of the 99 per cent, the rest.

This year Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is a best-seller. His thoroughly researched compilation argues that the dream of equality of opportunity may be just that - a dream.

He demonstrates that economic inequality in the developed world is increasing and that, as similar periods of inequality in history show, the consequences may be dire for social justice and for democratic governance, as monied interests exert greater influence in the political process.

Piketty's work shows that such conditions of inequality of opportunity are actually bad for the economy as a whole, as capital tends to generate better returns than does the return from effective labour. Piketty warns of a return to a rentier society such as existed in England and France before the capitalist enterprise began with the industrial revolution, whose promise was to lift the poor from effective servitude to entrepreneurship.

Recently TV One's presentation of Nigel Latta's documentary, The New Have's and Have- Nots, brought home to New Zealanders the facts of the diminution of economic opportunity and the increasing inequality we face, as hard-working Kiwis struggle to provide for their kids, while opulence grows for a monied few.

What significance should the issue have for our prospective election?

Both major parties have a share of the past responsibility for the present condition of inequality of opportunity. What matters now is policies on offer that have the best hope of advancing our common fortunes.

We need to get beyond old-fashioned ideologies. Ask yourself if you're better off now than you were three years ago or six or 10. Let's also ask which candidate, which party, offers any hope of investing in regional economies like ours.

Some politicians write us off, call us "zombies."

Wanganui could be a thriving, long-lived economy with the right support from government.