21st Jan 2016

Absurd, abhorrent and avoidable

Oxfam’s report this week on how the 62 richest people in the world have more money than the poorest 3.6 billion combined should have caused a national outcry. But buried as it was amongst headlines about who is breaking up with whom, in a sad indictment on what passes for news in this country, it barely raised a murmur.

“The fact that such an obscenely unequal distribution of wealth fails to engender outrage illustrates how brainwashed we have become,” says Peter Malcolm of advocacy group Closing the Gap.

“New Zealand used to be a country with strong beliefs about everyone being born equal. Now some are considered more equal than others and therefore more deserving of material wealth.

“Those of us fighting inequality often struggle to understand why so many people continue to vote for regimes that support this unfair distribution of money.

“What it comes down to is that ordinary kiwis have bought into the myth of trickle down economics.

In the face of all evidence to the contrary, such as Oxfam’s report, we believe that anyone can become rich if they work hard, and that we deserve whatever wealth we can lay our hands on while “The media colludes in these fantasies by focusing on showcasing the lifestyles of the rich and famous, dangling material aspirations in front of us. At the same time, the struggling poor are portrayed as lazy, dangerous and the authors of their own demise.

“But what research like that conducted by Oxfam shows is wealth stays with the rich. It doesn’t trickle down to you and me. And that’s by design. The very wealthy influence laws that are designed to protect themselves and their money. At the same time, much of the social welfare system has purposefully become geared towards punishing poor people for their perceived shortcomings.

Malcolm says New Zealanders need to wake up the false dreams they have been sold and realise that society does better as a whole when income and wealth distribution are more equal.

“There will always be a disparity between those who have the most and those who have the least,” he says. “That in itself is not the problem. The problem is when the gap becomes obscene and the few have more money that they could ever need while the many are struggling to cope day to day.

“Closing the Gap wants kiwis with a conscience to join us to fight this absurd, abhorrent and avoidable distribution of wealth.”

ends

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