Poverty – not an insoluble problem
I have recently been travelling a bit and will be doing so again off and on until December so posting will be a bit sporadic.
I have opened comments up for signed up members in case anyone wants to make a comment - if so please be polite etc. I don't have the time or inclination to moderate commens so if this goes to hell in a handcart I will close the comments facility.
The mega-strike
Thursday’s mega-strike, in spite of the weather, seemed to be a major success and gave a strong middle finger to those ministers trying to split members from their unions and the public from both unions and their members. Here is a link to an interview I did on the background to the strike: https://youtu.be/Zn_2HmFUdEU?si=qeBGlHMQIybVcEqg
A bit off tangent
I recently came across a book, Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp (Penguin, 2025) in which he makes the point that the collapse of empires may well have improved the lot of the majority of the falling empire's populace - who may not even have noticed that the empire was collapsing. Kemp quotes an ancient text, Admonitions of Ipuwer lamenting the loss of the Old Egyptian Kingdom c 2181-2500 BCE. Among the many ‘evils’ caused by the collapse were that The corn of Egypt is common property’,… the poor man has attained to the state of the Nine Gods,…magnates are in the labour establishment…Servants spoke freely. The nobles lamented. And the poor rejoiced.
Who would have thought!
Which leads into the main theme of this post.
Poverty can be cured
Those of you who follow the ABC news may have noticed a story posted today” Is it cheaper to end poverty than to maintain it? Research says yes” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-28/cheaper-to-end-poverty-increase-jobseeker-than-maintain-hardship/105866692 Another problem along with supermarkets and housing where you just need to change the name of the country.
In the context of Aoteroa New Zealand I have recently finished reading two books which deal with the foundations and the cost of poverty in this country. Both flowed from one of the more important conferences of recent years. In 2024, when Rebecca Macfie, then the JD Stout Research Fellow at the Stout Research Centre f at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, she along with Brigitte Bonisch-Brednich and Graeme Wimp organised a three day conference, Pakukore: Poverty by Design.
The carefully constructed conference programme worked from the starting point that poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand is not the result of some ‘invisible hand’ but exists as a matter of deliberate political and economic intentions and actions. The theme of the conference was that this position can and should change. The conference talks can be accessed at https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/stout-centre/about/events/previous-events/pakukore-poverty-by-design-conference
Pakukore: Poverty by Design edited by Rebecca Macfie, Graeme Whimp and Brigitte Bonisch-Brednich,( BWB Texts, 2025) contains a selection of papers from the conference.
The great strength of the book and the conference is the blend of more academic papers with others that are grounded in the practical experiences and the life of communities aspiring to improve their own situation. The papers in the book also have the value of looking beyond economics into other areas that create or embed poverty such as the long-term impact of early childhood health problems and educational disadvantage. More postively there are also may stories of community level initiatives to ameliorate at least some problems.
Community initiatives are also the theme of the second book, Hardship and Hope: Stories of Resistance in the Fight Against Poverty in Aotearoa by Rebecca Macfie, (BWB Texts, 2025) The book is a series of case studies “stories of people, communities and organisations that refuse to accept an Aotearoa New Zealand riven by poverty and stolen potential, and who chose to act for change.” Rebecca wrote these stories between 2023 and 2025.
Both books consist of relatively short, digestible, chapters and can be highly recommended. Pakukore in particular provides a concise (200 pages) introduction to the problem of poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand. It makes the real costs of poverty, both for those in poverty and for society generally, clear and in particular drives home the point that the impact of poverty not only leads to lifelong, and inter-generational, disadvantage but does so at a significant economic cost for society as a whole.
Most importantly it drives home the point that poverty can be minimised if not largely eliminated and explains the reforms necessary to achieve this. At the heart of the proposed reforms is the need for an expanded and fairer revenue base and a reversal of the gross inequalities in wealth that developed after the libertarian attack of the 1980s and 1990s.
Unfortunately reform needs political will. That is clearly lacking in the current neo-liberal coalition “we’re sorted” government that sees poverty as an economic tool rather than a problem, and regards the poor as in need of a bit of “tough love” to sort them out. Perhaps if those ministers appreciated that most of them were "sorted" from the moment they were conceived, unlike those in poverty who faced the opposite problem, they might be a little more open to reform – although probably not.
Unfortunately we also have an opposition that seems to have little appetite for any but minor incremental change. Tweeking the repealed bright line test as a capital gains tax is not a social revolution or even a particularly bold reform and is unlikely to halt, let alone reverse the growing inequality of the last 40 years.