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  • Added August 15th, 2014
  • Filed under 'All Sorts'
  • Viewed 1729 times

Whose World?

By Helen Watson White in All Sorts

reflections on how 'society' has turned into an 'economy' to the detriment of people

WHOSE WORLD?
"The world is divided between those who know the score and those who don't," says a character called John in Robert Lord's 1971 play It Isn't Cricket. The play's title refers to a big lie that someone has told to gain allies and friends and get ahead. Lord's character John considers himself a "man of the world", which implied a number of things at that time: that you had to "make it" in the world, especially if you were a man; that the world in which you were successful was the "real world" out there, the public and economic world; you had to be present in this world (difficult if you were out of work), cultivating relationships to "get on".
When I was working as a teacher in 1971, domestic and social life was not considered to be part of the "real world"; it was a kind of adjunct to the main (and mainly male) sphere of activity, rarely acknowledged as the support that it was and still is for those who "go out to work". It wasn't seen as a resource. Yet without what has always been a large unpaid female workforce -- from church and charity workers to sewing- and-cooking mothers and grandmothers -- the whole economy would have ground to a halt long ago, as former National MP Marilyn Waring said in her book Counting for Nothing.
The Mission's Laura Black, speaking at a recent Open Education night at Mornington, pointed out how "the world" has changed since the 1950s and 1960s, when most of her audience grew up. It has even changed since the 1970s, when Robert Lord's play was written. Rogernomics in the 1980s and Ruthenasia in the 1990s - that is, policies promoted by Roger Douglas under Labour and Ruth Richardson under National - changed things forever. As I understand it, both these influential parliamentarians equated "the world" with "the economy".
One of the things that stood out for me in Laura's analysis was the effect of this: that we have all become, in our primary identity, consumers (in an economy) rather than citizens (in a democracy). The grand assumption, which has a certain simplicity, is that every young New Zealander is capable of learning how to live in the world (that is, the economy) through getting an education and then a job. That is how they become good consumers/citizens -- who can vote for anybody at all, but are most likely to vote for those who perpetuate the grand assumption. Why? Because there's money attached to it, easy money. Although that oh-so-simple assumption is often hidden, embedded in politicians' speeches, it has the powerful character of myth. I reckon it is very close to a lie. And it's told and retold by those whose interest it serves: people who want to "get on", and don't want to be bothered by the fact of 365,000 children living in poverty and hardship.
Laura explained how "intergenerational deprivation" has meant that those children bear the effects of poverty on their brains and bodies before they even start school. Because there are not enough jobs for the parents, let alone the school-leavers, the simple phrase "get a job" is for many impossible. At the same time, money is everything, because without it you can't buy the necessaries. Spending money has become like a reason for being, but it wasn't always so.
Many things that used to be free now involve money. While my university education was free, students post-Roger-and-Ruth have copped whopping fees; where there used to be free milk and apples as well as free education and sport in schools, getting-an-education now requires children to buy the latest technology for their studies. Where we walked to school, many children are driven to childcare and school
by parents who must work all hours to survive in the economy. If their work is underpaid, they might need two jobs.
The cost of running a car is high, but there are not always buses that connect people's places of work with the places that their children are cared-for and educated; and if you are on any kind of benefit, you probably can't afford a car. Yet when the number of schools is cut down, children have to travel further to school, and the same thing has happened to users of post-offices, libraries, banks, shops, sports- centres, when those facilities are not (or no longer) available in their community.
Their community. That raises a crucial issue. I feel that the process of turning our society into "the economy" (Margaret Thatcher having said there is no such thing as society) turned us all into individuals, battling on alone, each with the imperative to earn their own money, get that rare job ahead of all the other applicants, look after No.1. The best message of the Mission, the Hub, the (NEV) Valley Project and our Church is: you are not alone.
Recently I found a 1979 copy of the feminist magazine Broadsheet, in which my friend Margaret Crozier was interviewed as the new leader of the Values Party, the first woman in our history to head a political party. Although in the 1970s she had a young son, and met all kinds of resistance (as I did) to the very idea of childcare, she was certain that getting into politics was the way to make a difference. Having learned how "the system knocked people back at all levels", she developed a never-say-die doggedness in the face of prejudice, and achieved great things - not for herself, but for her values, which are all community values. In terms of her later work at Greenpeace, here and in Amsterdam, they are global community values.
Asked whether you can be a feminist and a politician, Margaret said in 1979: "I'm a feminist first, and you can't stop being a feminist; it
changes the way you look at the world... I feel that solutions have to be reached and hammered out politically. But if I was primarily a politician and wanted to make a career for myself in politics, I would have joined one of the conventional parties and looked for a seat in Parliament. However, I have a conviction that you very easily get co- opted into the system working that way, and I really want to stand for change, first and foremost."
The Values objective was described as "a just, sustainable, socialist [don't get a fright], community-based society." Her contest for the leadership was "over how to pursue those objectives of survival, democracy and justice." The most interesting part of the interview, to me, was the fact that she beat her opponent (by only 11 votes) through her interest in promoting social and community projects as the party's chief drive. She was to be paid $500 a year plus expenses as party leader, while working in a community partnership: "she is paid by the Government, as part of its temporary employment scheme, to research worker participation in industry, and to investigate ways in which businesses could be more co-operative. This research is being done for the Methodist Church." Am I surprised?
-- Helen Watson White
HELEN WATSON WHITE is a Dunedin-based writer and reviewer and a theatre critic since 1974. CONTACTS: watsonwhite@xtra.co.nz