There’s been some interesting discussion in the blogosphere in the past week on time and the lack of it in most people’s lives. Both KiwiPolitico and Liberation have highlighted the effects of this on our society and our democracy. Chris Trotter argu…

Two extremely pertinent postings on the deep-seated social malaise undermining our democratic political culture – the first here, by Bryce Edwards, and the second here, by Kiwipolitico’s “Pablo” – have prompted me to post this speech, delivered…

Read these four posts: Chris Trotter, Bryce Edwards, Pablo, Jordan Carter. I’m gonna be firing at them with both barrels tomorrow. Should be fun….

I’ve been reading recent pieces by Chris Trotter, Bryce Edwards and Pablo, all of whom are talking in different ways about the social strains and changes that neo-liberalism has wrought on the country….

The progeny of it in our deeper history and the liberation of it by the neo-liberalism of the past few decades is an argument I readily accept. There are political opportunities presented by it as well as political risks. Dealing with it is not going to be easy for us in Labour, but deal with it we must.

So, again, things feel worse.

http://www.socialreport.msd.govt.nz/safety/assault-mortality.html

Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, of course, but these are now tragedies lodged in the public mind through increased media coverage and sensationalisation.

So when Russell says above that

“things” are tangibly worse.

he is right, things feel worse.

The death by assault rate is the only really reliable crime metric. There is some variation as better medical intervention saves lives that might have been deaths, but not enough to drown the clear downwards trend from the mid 1990s onwards.

The Labour Party needs to stop playing this desperate game – it is an auction they can only lose. They need to stand up, and tell the truth, in a clear and coherent manner. I fear that while Goff is leader, and in charge of the “get tougher” brigade, this will not happen.

What it does have is a different pattern of social deprivation to Europe (and to some degree the US).

In (Western) Europe, most deprivation is in urban areas. The majority of rural areas are comparatively wealthy and safe (with a few exceptions, like Sicily). European tourists tend to expect that when they’re in a remote and attractive rural area, they are fairly safe and don’t need to be as wary as they would be in a city.

In NZ, the development and then closure of rural industries has led to a high rate of social deprivation in the countryside. Coupled with the tendency for educated kids to leave rural towns and not return, that makes places like Tokoroa somewhat unpleasant (although I would add that lots of perfectly decent and nice people live and work there).

So I guess the fact that tourists need warning about rural NZ isn’t surprising. It isn’t Lagos though, or even Nairobi.

That’s how I pretty much see neoliberalism (as I pointed out today at the standard both Reagan and Thatcher increased government spending) – they speak in the rhetoric of a free market, but the result of their deregulation, or re-regulation, is not a freer market, but an entrenchment of privilege and a furthering of corporate plutocracy and greater state subsidization of corporate profits, at the expense of the bulk of the people. They intervene in the market as much as any centre left government they just do it more so on behalf of the corporate elite. Hollow consumerism, “ostentatious material wealth, shallow celebrity culture, over-the-top conspicuous consumption” none of these things are inherent to a market system. It is the state-corporate system that instills this. I would posit, as many others have, that it is the state-corporate oliogarchy that has sought to atomise us in order to better control us. Much more should be said about overproduction, the state fostering thereof and our consumerist lifestyle. Undoubtedly inequlatiy and poverty breeds crime, but so to does a lack of freedom. As Proudhon said “Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order” As you say the left often proposes decriminalising various low level offenses – these are not all simply social measures but market ones. For instance decriminalisng the use and sale of recreational drugs would allow people to legally engage in market activities, selling and buying drugs. The state criminalises engagment in what should be a legitimate form of income and foisters the cost of enforcement of these absurd laws and imprisonment of people, who have harmed no one else, onto the taxpayer. People who are, largely, poor. One more thing I would like to point out there need be no conflict between individualism and cooperation. So I’m nitpicking, but I think you make some really great points. Points that are all too infrequently made when discussing crime in this country.