A ticket out of hell
I’ve spent years trying to understand why:
1. Right wingers hold the world view they do
2. Why poor people so frequently vote against their own self interest.
The answer, I conclude simplistically, lies in the aspiration that all (mostly) of us have: to be wealthy, and to stay that way. Even me. Probably you - to some degree at least.
Of course, it’s a values thing. My values are superior to those people who vote for market values over human values. I know the happiness of many is more desirable than the happiness of a few. I would go so far to say is that I cannot be truly deeply happy when there is untold suffering around me. I may not have money, or own my own home - but I am morally superior.
Here I am standing atop the Moral High Ground, with my chin held at a righteous angle and a halo blinding anyone within half a mile radius - locked in an ages-old battle with the people with all the money.
Stalemate. ‘They’ sure as hell aren’t going to step back from their position, and in this context with the media and legislative practice as it stands, they hold all the power. The more I moralise at them, the tighter their fingers wrap around their coin purse. And somewhere under the deep folds of my monk-like robe I harbour a sliver of resentment and envy for their success, and a hope that one day I will be as filthy rich as them.
I can have all the morals in the world (and maybe this is the currency that we can use to bribe security at the pearly gates, but probably not) and it’s not going to make a lick of difference in this debate. No, I have to dismount my beloved high horse and with the last skerrick of power that I have left in this economic paradigm I have to summon all my creativity and energy and actively redefine ‘wealth’. I need to embody and inhabit a life that is imbued with a richness and simple pleasures, and show that it is a viable and desirable alternative: its a ticket out of hell.
You get what you focus on, right? So if you are focused on money - that’s what you get. Money, being a piece of paper with no inherent value means you get no real meaning or value in return. Humans assign values to things. And in this current Corporatocracy, corporations are trying to tells us what value to give things.
We have to start assigning value to our time, to a life well lived, to real food, to friends and creativity.
It’s time to unpick, question and unravel the narrow definition of rich. We will all be better off for it.
“Oh it’s too simplistic!” I hear you cynicise. Ok, we have to march for fairness at work, angrily demand wages that people can live on, etc. But we can’t just complain about terrible inequality ‘until the cows’. No, we have to be creative and clever and savvy and as wiley and tenacious about rebranding wealth as those who defend the right to wealth have been about protecting financial models that benefit them.
Not only is this a viable strategy - It’s already working. In Grey Lynn in Auckand, home to Auckland’s Young Professional Left Brigade, you will catch people at the local market bragging about their gardens and worm farms and how many times they cycled to work last week.
And what’s not to brag about? Lets face it; spending less means working less. Who wouldn’t want to work less? We should be skiting about how much time we have off with our kids, how little money we spent on groceries, how many books we read and how great our ukulele playing is getting. We need to reclaim a rich life, dispense with all the things that are getting in the way (crippling mortgage repayments, plasma TVs, the latest electro-gadgets, convenience foods, overseas holidays…).
Redefining wealth is simple and free. We do it every time we choose to grow and make instead of buy, each time we consciously choose not to have a telly and take our kids to the beach, buy second hand, re-use something, fix something, make jams or preserves.
Do it well! Enjoy it! Relish the lovely smells in your kitchen, the satisfaction of a job well done, grease on your hands. Reclaim your time and your abilities.
We need to do this proudly and loudly, helping connect the ideas of freedom with spending less. Spending less means working less.
Not only will the earth breathe a sigh of relief, humanity can relaaaaaax. Work a day less, potter around. Welcome to a life worth living, and handing on.
