We need bold change in the name of fairness

‘‘EVERYTHING must change so that everything can stay the same.’’

So says the Rabelaisian hero of Prince Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard.

Published in 1958, Lampedusa’s unfinished, posthumouslypublished novel catalogues the efforts of the fictitious Prince of Salina to preserve his aristocratic way of life amidst the tumultuous social, economic and political upheavals attendant upon the 19thcentury unification of Italy.

Like the Prince of Salina, New Zealand also faces a Herculean effort to preserve its way of life in the midst of tumultuous events.

As the nation emerges from its Covid19 Level 4 lockdown and into the economic havoc which the pandemic has wrought, its citizens will need all the guile and flexibility of Lampedusa’s hero. But before dealing with the ‘‘how’’ of national recovery, New Zealanders will need to address the ‘‘what’’.

What, precisely, do we need to preserve? What beliefs, institutions and values must remain nonnegotiable?

More importantly, what ideas, organisations and orthodoxies should we be ready to let go? Only when we have sorted out the answers to these questions can the practical work of recovery and resurgence begin.

Each of us will present a slightly different set of ‘‘must haves’’ and ‘‘no longer requireds’’.

Here, for what they’re worth, are mine.

The core belief of the archetypal Pakeha New Zealander is that Jack and Jill are as good as their masters. If you are looking for the reason why so many people travelled halfway around the world to settle these islands, then you will find it in the settlers’ desire to begin again in a new land where people’s hopes aren’t circumscribed by the circumstances of their birth. Where personal success and fulfilment no longer depend on who your parents are. Where it is possible for ordinary people to make something of themselves on their own terms. Where the future is fashioned by ‘‘us’’ — not ‘‘them’’.

It is this belief that undergirds New Zealand’s core institutions: a House of Representatives, democratically elected; independent courts of law; publicly funded health and education providers; a welfare safety net to support us through times of adversity; an independent news media to keep us informed and hold our leaders to account; trade unions to defend workers’ rights on the job. Take away these core institutions and Jack and Jill’s masters will very soon reign supreme.

The core value animating these institutions is fairness. For the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders nothing can be good if it is not also fair.

A more highfalutin people might have designated justice as their core value: but for Kiwis the notion that everybody is entitled to ‘‘a fair go’’ says it just fine.

It is interesting to speculate about the extent to which these Pakeha beliefs, institutions and values have been influenced by the Maori concepts of kotahitanga (unity), whanaungatanga (kinship), kaitiakitanga (stewardship) and wairuatanga (spirituality).

What is not in dispute, however, is that the ultimate sources of wellbeing in both cultures have complimented and reinforced each other down the years.

This, then, is the ‘‘what’’ that I would be willing to change everything to keep the same. As to the ‘‘how’’, I can think of no better example to cite than Franklin D. Roosevelt, the American president who guided his people out of the very depths of the Great Depression.

The day he was inaugurated, most of America’s banks had closed their doors. Hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens had lost their lives’ savings. Millions more had lost their jobs. The line from Roosevelt’s inaugural address that is most often quoted is: ‘‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself’’.

However, the FDR quote that captures my imagination, and which is most relevant to our own time, is this.

‘‘The country needs and unless I mistake its temper the country demands bold persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails admit it frankly and try another. But above all try something.’’

Standing in the way of ‘‘bold persistent experimentation’’, however, are the ideas, organisations and orthodoxies that constitute its deadliest foes. The idea that human beings are made to serve the economy, rather than the economy being made to serve human beings.

Unregulated capitalism is the organisational expression of this idea, and neoliberalism is its orthodoxy.

These are the things we can lose.

❛ The core value

animating these institutions is fairness. For the overwhelming

majority of New Zealanders nothing can be good if it is not also

fair.