Janet CollinsRich versus Poor and the so-called “Politics of Envy”
July 17th 2008 09:17
A debate last week between some of our most qualified people on poverty got my attention. Only the rich will be at home in Australia in 2020 was the subject of the debate. A sociologist and an economist debated that it would only be the rich at home in 2020, one arguing that even today one in every eight people earned as little as $250 a week. The other put a strong case forward relating to median incomes sliding backwards.
Two others, an executive director and a company director rejected the idea that things were getting tougher and somehow convinced an audience that everyone was actually better off and they would continue to be so. They won the debate.
The executive director was one, John Roskam, from the Institute of Public Affairs. For those who don’t know what this is it is an established right wing think tank. As reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Roskam used for theatrics sake a hypothetical. It went something like this:
If I was to give one person whom I will call (A) $20 and then give another person whom I will call (B) $50, (A) would be envious of (B) but would still be better off. He called it the “politics of envy”.
This is the conservative argument in all things relating to the economy. It masks however what has been happening in Australia over the past few decades. I would challenge Mr Roskam with a hypothetical of my own which would go something like this:
Give (A) 50c extra an hour and in return they would give up regular hours, sick pay, holiday pay, long service leave and any ability to negotiate anything better. The savings a company would make can be given to (B) by way of extra yearly bonuses, maybe even shares in the company.
That’s more like what has been happening for decades. We’re kidding ourselves if we believe anything else.
Two others, an executive director and a company director rejected the idea that things were getting tougher and somehow convinced an audience that everyone was actually better off and they would continue to be so. They won the debate.
The executive director was one, John Roskam, from the Institute of Public Affairs. For those who don’t know what this is it is an established right wing think tank. As reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Roskam used for theatrics sake a hypothetical. It went something like this:
If I was to give one person whom I will call (A) $20 and then give another person whom I will call (B) $50, (A) would be envious of (B) but would still be better off. He called it the “politics of envy”.
This is the conservative argument in all things relating to the economy. It masks however what has been happening in Australia over the past few decades. I would challenge Mr Roskam with a hypothetical of my own which would go something like this:
Give (A) 50c extra an hour and in return they would give up regular hours, sick pay, holiday pay, long service leave and any ability to negotiate anything better. The savings a company would make can be given to (B) by way of extra yearly bonuses, maybe even shares in the company.
That’s more like what has been happening for decades. We’re kidding ourselves if we believe anything else.
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I didn't see the debate ether but it was in the Sydney Morning Herald last week under an article "Division in rich debate on poverty". My guess is that it is probably on the Institue of Public Affairs website, although I haven't looked.
Ironically, the article underneath was about the $21.66 per week that was granted to Australia's lowest paid workers "Money pleases workers, angers business".
Forget Roskam's $20, business is crying over ths one.
Janet