Frank Greenall: Nordics show us the way

Frank Greenall

LAST week's question was: How has New Zealand, relative to other countries, plummeted so far down the ladder in major Quality of Life (QoL) indicators.

I listed six or seven examples - such as youth suicide and child poverty - where we now sadly feature highly in the race to the bottom. It wasn't a comprehensive list for space reasons - it didn't even include other chart-topping disaster zones such as domestic and child violence, incarceration, and obesity.

Clearly, some sort of toxic malaise has infiltrated our social fabric. But how exactly?
Some say: "Stop whinging, we don't how lucky we are" - but that is exactly the point. What we're talking about here are relative, not absolute, socio-economic indicators.
Our wealth of natural assets and past innovative social policies should have seen us continue to lead. Yet instead, despite material gains in recent decades, our QoL standards have bolted the other way.

So let's look again to the Nordic countries for a basis of comparison. Overall, the Nordics are committed to full employment, responsible unions, free and universal higher education, health and retirement care, and affordable public transport and housing.

All good "socialist" goals that no one in their right mind can argue with, yet, at the same time, the Nordics outstrip the supposed uber-capitalists at their own game, such as entrepreneurship and patenting rates. Very interesting.

Remember the slogans? "Trickle Down", "A rising tide floats all boats" and so forth...
The message was: Anything that inhibits business "growth' was a cost to all, and therefore business must have the capacity to respond flexibly to changing circumstances.

The sub-text was that unions were baddies because they stifled flexibility in the labour market - ergo, deunionise and we'll all be in cream.

To quote Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz: "That American workers have done so badly for three decades should cast doubt on the mythical virtues of a flexible labour market."

He adds that unions are necessary to "correct what would otherwise be an imbalance of economic power".

Stiglitz's "balance" is not just about having a tidy equation. It recognises that a healthily remunerated workforce, underpinned by equally healthy social security and workplace provisions, is a key component of an efficient and buoyant economy - particularly when that same workforce needs the wherewithal to consume the services and goods available.

The Nordics have had the sense to recognise this basic reality, and mandated their governments to support responsible union advocacy. There are occasional union train crashes, but that's no reason to eliminate trains.

The Nordics now soundly outperform American QoL stats in large part through their robust unions, as they also do with many other countries (including us) similarly suckered by neo-liberal myth.

Full employment is another Nordic criterion vital to social progress and, while it's an elusive goal, they have all manner of support services to maximise success rates.

Conversely, Kiwis have gone out of the way to create and hothouse an intergenerational disengaged underclass that is now the fuel driving many of our major growth industries.

Sadly, these industries are the bottom-of-the-cliff multiple government agencies that very expensively - but vainly - attempt to deal with this social dysfunction.

The Nordics have had the brains to construct social support fences at the top of the cliff and get to put the dividend they save on bottom-of-the-cliff casualties into high return socio-economic initiatives.

Our own downward spiral of recent decades represents a raft of squandered opportunities. Although mainly initiated and perpetuated by ideologically-captured successive governments, it has been aided by apathetic elements of the electorate. No doubt they got distracted by blowfish lips and crab claw breasts.

Blowfish lips and crab claw breasts? Check them out on TV - the programme's called Botched, which about sums it up.