Middle class suffering

Middle class Aucklanders are becoming ‘‘disenfranchised’’ by the cost of housing, according to prominent businessman Michael Stiassny.

Stiassny, who is chairman of Vector and senior partner of KordaMentha, told an Auckland University Business School panel on Monday that Auckland’s property market is undermining the sustainability of the city.

‘‘The middle class is being disenfranchised and disappearing. ‘‘We need nurses to be able to live and work here. We need teachers, police, we even need office workers at Vector.’’

Stiassny has just returned the United States, and felt the directors there were ahead of their Kiwi counterparts. ‘‘These people have embraced ‘conscious capitalism’ in a wider sense – they are far clearer about their obligation to sustainability.’’

Conscious capitalism is a style of capitalism in which trust, compassion, collaboration and value creation are as essential as competition and freedom to trade. Stiassny said that in the United States and many other countries, people were losing faith in political and business leaders, and governments were losing their legitimacy.

‘‘There is a vacuum and when there is a vacuum something fills it – populism.’’ Businesses in the United States seemed to appreciate they need to fill that void with conscious capitalism, he said.

WORLDARCHITECTUREFESTIVAL.COM Auckland must be made a place where the middle class can afford to live, Michael Stiassny says.