When politics is all tip and no iceberg

Politics needs style as well as substance—but what do we do when politics collapses into comms?

New Zealand politics contains its share of immortal lines. David Lange, debating the morality of nuclear weapons in 1985, told his opponent that he could “smell the uranium” on his breath. Michael Joseph Savage described his government’s social welfare policies as “applied Christianity”. Don Brash allegedly told US officials that New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy would be “gone by lunchtime” if he were elected. They illustrate a timeless truth—that politics has always been about persuasion, about style as well as policy substance. But now, and especially under this government, it seems that politics is more about the message and less about the results. We might even say that politics, and by extension the art and act of government, doesn’t just depend on good comms. These days, politics is comms. Continue reading

*“New Zealand is in a fortunate position of not having to rush the vaccine roll-out …”: a message from happier times. Source: “Your COVID-19 vaccination in Northland and Auckland”*

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Sweeping generalisations about the minimum wage can do more harm than good

Should we keep raising the minimum wage in the coming years? “It depends” may not be the most tweetable answer, but it might be a bit more useful.

When a white man in a suit tells you to be suspicious of “white men in suits”, should you trust what he’s about to say? That’s the rather odd opening to a recent article, “There’s no downside to raising the minimum wage”, by Craig Renney, an economist at the Council of Trade Unions. He makes a series of sweeping generalisations in support of minimum wage increases, via an assertion that we should be “suspicious when people tell the lowest paid in our society that they shouldn’t get any pay rise ‘for their own good’”. But is that really what’s going on in the debate about the minimum wage? Let’s take a look at the sources Renney himself cites. Continue reading

“Liberal moral puritanism” on campus

A recent study into the moral education provided by universities may give us a glimpse of our future.

You may or may not be surprised to know that going to university tends to push students to the political left. But what it means to be on the left, and what those students are receiving as wisdom, appears to be changing. A new study in the American Sociological Review traces this development on US campuses, with the authors noting a rise in what they call “liberal moral puritanism.” There's an imperfect relationship between the American culture wars and New Zealand's own social conflicts and university culture, but there's a sufficient connection between the two to find this study thought-provoking. Continue reading

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A Place to Stand

October 2021 | Politics as comms; minimum…