Time is at the heart of Social Democracy

I've been reading recent pieces by Chris Trotter, Bryce Edwards and Pablo, all of whom are talking in different ways about the social strains and changes that neo-liberalism has wrought on the country.

In essence, they are differently recognising that time is at the heart of progressive project. That freeing people as much as possible from the need to generate market income, gives them time to spend with their families and friends, doing voluntary work, relaxing, having fun and enjoying life.

This is a politics for the 21st century. The biggest complaint people have on many issues is that they are simply too busy - not enough hours in the day. Our economic life has truly taken over, in the search for efficiency and endlessly growing material production and GDP.

The consequences are obvious: societies which consume more from the environment than can be sustained, and people who are tired, stressed, angry and actually at some small level, in a state of rage. 

Neo-liberalism is at the core of this for several reasons. It constantly demands more, and demands it from you, based on its individualist basis. It tells you gratification and success only comes from your individual achievements. It has no respect for community or social relations, and denies that anything can actually be achieved by people working together unless they are mediating that cooperation through the market. Its commercialisation of basic human relationships means that a society governed by it is simply not aimed at human satisfaction: humans are meant to satisfy the economy instead.

So we have a tired, stressed society where people want more of the one thing that is finite and is a zero sum game: time.

Labour should put that dilemma at the heart of its programme at the 2011 election. We should raise our voices to being the party that deals with the competing needs of economy and society/family/people for more time to enjoy life by coming out on the side of time, people, family.

That is far easier said than done. It combines well and sort of sits within the "sustainability" mantra of the last Labour government, but goes beyond it several ways.

More time living and less time working may over a period mean that the hard calls on sustainability are more easily managed, but to achieve them is hard.

What kind of economic policy can help deliver more time to people?

• A stronger minimum code in the sense of 40 hrs work followed by tough penal rates - say time and a half after 40 hours and double time after 44 hours
• Consequential focus on productivity and effectiveness in firms and businesses so as to deal with less labour time available for a given output  
• Another week's annual leave, and maybe a few winter public holidays (which we sorely need!) 
• A right to sabbaticals say after five years in the workforce - needs some detail but allowing people to take six months off every five years would be great

What are some of the social policies? 

• Increasing paid parental leave - say to eighteen months between the parents to share as they see fit.
• Perhaps, a more relaxed approach to "unemployment" benefits - the constant nagging of active labour market policies to get into work is generally good, but a less intense approach to this might help.
• Lower costs for tertiary education, which would drive students into less part time work and more part time thinking. 
• Demarketising of some social services (e.g. make health actually free at point of use, maybe experiment with free public transport, abolish school fees ("donations"), etc). 

You begin to get the idea. A worker, family friendly focus would be a revolution in our politics and it would be something that people could actually buy into.

It would however mean giving up the strong emotional attachment that most people in politics - including in the Labour Party - have to the liberal economic policies that have dominated the past twenty years. That would be far from a simple set of discussions and arguments to have, but very interesting.

Perhaps more challengingly, it would need to come along a major renovation and expansion of the Labour Party's organisational structure. The party is actually too small and doesn't make good enough use of modern communications and organising techniques to be able to survive the media and establishment onslaught such a turn in policy would take.

Perhaps most challengingly of all, it would require a rebuild of relationships with the forces on the left who currently regard the Labour Party with what might generously be described as "derision" and perhaps more accurately as fear, loathing and doubt. And not only on the left, but among Maori too.

Just a small workplan. But at the heart of it, a politics that deals with the most important thing we have: time to live our lives and be free to do what we like.

Comments

[sagenz]

Jordan - I posted this at Bowalley but Chris has not responded. Perhaps you can.

Chris - I come from a different part of the spectrum but respect the integrity of what the beliefs espoused in this speech.

I think your analysis of your childhood suffers through a short historical perspective. Our ancestors came to an undeveloped but lush country but worked hard over decades to develop that land. By the early 1950's New Zealand was among the wealthiest in the world. It is my feeling that New Zealand spent (literally) the sixties and seventies transferring that productivity through social welfare and inefficient state owned enterprises. By 1984 the country had reached crisis and there was no alternative.

You may reject that analysis but the simple fable of the ant and the grasshopper is apposite.

I would be interested in your view on that context.

Additionally you seem to view leisure as the only fulfilment of humanity. There is some value in the "joy through work". Think of your satisfaction after a lot of time spent researching and writing. Your product is thoughtful writing. Would you prefer just to sit in front of a television drinking beer and eating bbq. Is that genuine fulfillment?

Equally the house builder, the farmer, the engineer and even the meat factory worker expertly butchering a carcass can get satisfaction from work. I would accept it is difficult for a Mcjob worker to gain satisfaction but to me that is more critical to address than simply questioning the basic need for work.

It is interesting to note how much smaller the France workforce is compared to NZ & Anglo saxon countries. From memory somthing like 20-25% less in employment (NB not unemployed) A society in gentle leisurely decline.

There is a balance to be had in there somewhere and I am sure we do not have it right.
Thoughts?

[sagenz]

Jordan - I also have to say that your workplan seems to ignore any crisis in productivity or the fact that health outcomes will continue to decline as our economy falls further behind.

You seem extraordinarily complacent about the need for economic growth to improve peoples circumstances. Under your model there would be no internet because there would be no market incentive

[Jordan Carter]

Sage - I think your narrative of NZ's history is convenient but wrong. We were at the height of our wealth in 1950 due to a commodity boom caused by war. The economy only really began to diversify away from agriculture in the 60s, but was then burdened by fortress policies that had to be swept away. Unfortunately they were swept too fast and did a lot of damage, and only now have we really returned to some kind of stable equilibrium from which we can build.

In terms of the dignity of work, I agree. My party stands for just that: our proudest achievement from the last nine years was seeing unemployment down from 7.2% to historic lows of under 4%. There is no contradiction between accepting the dignity of work and arguing that people should be free to spend less time doing it, and spending more time doing other things - should they wish to.

My post wasn't about the economy or productivity. I have plenty to say about them but the post was getting long enough. Obviously the productivity challenge is key to people being able to work shorter hours. The evidence of the past ten years is that massive re-employment of people who haven't been working for ages does not help productivity, but I suspect you and I differ both on that lesson and on the prescription of how to make productivity grow faster.

[Neil]

"Neo-liberalism is at the core of this..."

History has shown that people who think they have found the One Reason why Everything Is Wrong generally wind up making things a lot worse.

This is all very shallow Jordan - does the future of Labour really lie with "More holidays for all"?

Yes there are all those evil people out there who actually enjoy having consumer goods like TVs and even computers but even if The True Labour Party re-educates people out of all that there will still be a need for things like education and health.

Believe or not those services require people to work. And that means having some system of organising the effort that people put in. Dismiss that as market income if you like.

You really are just sounding as dogmatic as the so-called "neo-liberals" you despise so much.

[sagenz]

Jordan - we agree on some things. I look forward to your economic prescription for raising productivity. your govt instituted policies forcing people to work harder not smarter. employment went up briefly due to artificial labour market constraints. That has all come tumbling down now.

The labour govt destroyed productivity growth and claimed responsibility for a commodities boom that helped the economy. They also allowed an overinflated exchange rate and cheap credit to fuel excess consumption. There was no balance in the last 9 years. And neither your post nor Chris Trotters addresses the need for balance. Neither all work nor all play.

[Jordan Carter]

If there was no balance in the last nine years, it was because the focus was on working harder. Some of the biggest things that would help productivity in the long run - cheaper cost of capital thru higher savings via Kiwisaver, and better incentives to invest in R&D thru the tax credit - have been shafted by the new Government. So don't lecture me on the right's ability in this area.

I'll post something considered on it in the next week or so, keep your eyes peeled :)

[Jordan Carter]

Neil, your presumptions are disabling you from understanding what I am doing. Just because something is at the core of a political project does not imply that it is its sole policy agenda. Only an idiot would think it could be.

And as far as the dangers of utopias go, saying people might want to enjoy more of their lives outside work is pretty innocuous.

I have no issue with people liking consumer goods. Or not liking them. Or wanting to work seventy hour weeks, or not wanting to. Don't mind, not my place to care. What I do care about is the signals society sends about the acceptability, or otherwise, of taking more time to enjoy life.

You haven't addressed that issue at all. You have decided I want to impose something on people, and attacked a straw man. If you want to have a reasoned debate, coming here on my own site and calling me shallow isn't the way to do it. Play nice, or don't play.

[Neil]

I'm going to stick to "shallow".

"time" is the issue but the problem for our species is the exchange of time. an equitable exchange.

But you have reduced all of our problems to the evils of "neo-liberals". so how come after 9 years of the social democrat Labour govt we haven't attained Utopia?

and you keep on with the dichotomy betweeen depressing "work" (nasty capitalist market) and enjoyment of life. I bet Bill Gates and Steve Jobs enjoy life.

I think one engages with life rather than "enjoying" life.

[sagenz]

Jordan the evidence of productivity trend gains from 1993 through 2000 then dipping since then is clear. There was certainly a boom during the war that further enriched New Zealand but that was from a base taht had been built up over decades. It did not magically start in 1939.

I fundamentally disagree with your and Chris Trotters position that there is no work satisfaction to be gained. The satisfaction comes through aspiring to and achieving excellence whether the worker be artist, teacher, nurse, farmer.

Setting the argument in terms that only leisure time has value is a guaranteed way to long term poverty.

Ask yourself why you work if you get no satisfaction from it.

[George Darroch]

Sage, the productivity gap began when NZ adopted neoliberal practices - which reduced protection for capital intensive manufacturing, and drove up unemployment thus dramatically reduced the comparative cost of labour relative to capital.

http://homepages.inspire.net.nz/~idiot/images/nzproductivity.png

[George Darroch]

Anyway, one can hardly say that productivity growth was better under the hard-right National Government of the 1990s. The evidence simply isn't there.

http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/speeches/2190297-3.jpg

[Jordan Carter]

Sage! You are creating a strawman that does not exist. I *never said* that people don't derive satisfaction from work. That is a *ridiculous* point of view for many people's experiences. I derive lots of enjoyment from my job which is why I work long and crazy hours on it.

However: a lot of people, including many of the people the Labour Party is in politics to represent, do NOT derive a lot of pleasure from their jobs. Doing more burger flipping, or cleaning, or trench digging, etc, is probably not preferable to doing less of it.

And even me, I like my job but I would like it just as well if the norm was working fewer hours and having more time to do other things.

So: stop trying to knock down a strawman that I have not created.

And on the other hand: think about the productivity stuff. If you had to choose between getting more people into jobs or rates of productivity growth, what would you choose? It's well established that a sharp decline in unemployment leads to lower productivity growth, as people get up to speed. If unemployment had remained low for the next five years, I would expect to see productivity growth back up as people who had been joining the workforce became more productive; as their labour was matched by greater investment in plant and technology, etc etc.

Further, our policies to increase savings and thus investment, and a greater focus on research, were the way to go. They have been undone. That choice, by National, will lead to lower productivity growth in the long run. How can you defend that?

[Jordan Carter]

Neil, you can stick to what you like. I'm happy to engage with you when you can argue and avoid name calling.

[sagenz]

Jordan - I was extreming to illustrate the point about your not working if you dont enjoy it. I am not sure that you would work less hours and do nothing but rather you would work the same hours and try to achieve more and produce more satisfaction. I think that is the point.

To me the key is to focus on productivity and job satisfaction rather than your plan which seems aimed at loading business with costs by giving people more time off for no productivity gain.
"including many of the people the Labour Party is in politics to represent" - I hope Labour are there to represent everyone fairly. It is a flaw in your politics that you are that open with a statement like that.

As far as the points you make
"I would like it just as well if the norm was working fewer hours and having more time to do other things."

"If you had to choose between getting more people into jobs or rates of productivity growth, what would you choose?"

You just contradicted yourself there. i believe in productivity gains to allow us more leisure. If someone pays me to do a job that takes 8 hours and i find a way to do it in 4 then I get to keep the productivity gain we are both happy.

I reiterate "The satisfaction comes through aspiring to and achieving excellence whether the worker be artist, teacher, nurse, farmer." productivity and job satisfaction should be prime focus, not unsustainably loading leisure costs onto employers.

George - you are talking bullshit. go to my website and google productivity - I have blogged the numbers and how labour fucked things up. National had a growth trend from 93 through 2000 that was gone a few years later