Isn't it funny how things go in circles?
In Victorian times there was a popular little ditty:
"The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And ordered their estate."
It told of a highly structured society, high and low, and more importantly, made it clear that this was not something mere mortals should question or seek to change, as it was God who did this. It was He who ordered their estates.
The Victorian times, up to World War 1, had the greatest accumulation of wealth in the hands of the aristocracy, landed gentry and the newly rich business class that Britain had ever seen.
World War 1 and World War 2, interrupted by the Great Depression, saw the end of this era of glorious wealth and an era of much greater equality entered into British society.
The Victorian era of unbridled wealth was not rigidly implanted into New Zealand society by the early settlers — too many of them were of only intermediate wealth to be able to establish such a rigid class hierarchy.
However, a class system was transplanted, although it was of a less extreme nature.
But the effect of the wars was felt in New Zealand and the post-war era of the ’50s and ’60s saw a period of egalitarianism and social classlessness not seen before or since.
It was a source of pride that New Zealanders spoke of this land as being a place where Jack was as good as his master.
This era of wealth equality, of social mobility, of general equality and of a great acceptance of the equality of all New Zealanders was partly a result of the social effects of the war and partly a result of the first Labour government’s social programme, which was itself at least partly based on the social equality engendered by the war(s).
Such a change from "the rich man at his castle ... ". But isn’t it funny how things go in circles?
Today we have a society increasingly divided by wealth; a society where the wealth of the nation is increasingly held by fewer and fewer people; where poverty is growing and where intergenerational poverty is increasingly becoming an everyday accepted fact of life.
The poor man is back at his gate.
Well, maybe not. It is quite possible he doesn’t even have a gate.
More likely it is someone else’s gate that he has to rent or it is a temporary, maybe even an emergency accommodation gate, or maybe it is just a piece of footpath in a shop doorway.
Lets go back to the word "funny", mentioned at the beginning. Isn’t it even funnier that God is back in the equation?
Today is the era of the many and varied examples of the "prosperity religion".
The clock — it would have to be a fob watch or a grandfather clock — has wound itself back and we are again at a time when some rich people believe they are rich because God wants them to be rich.
It would be an interesting undertaking for an investigative journalist to discover how many leading lights in the current coalition government espouse the beliefs of such religions.
While the number of such congregational faithful may be limited, their proselytising effect is much more far reaching and insidious.
Many people would not wish to say, "I’m rich, because God made me rich".
Our nation’s religious beliefs might have found that common place 100 years ago but today it would not really be acceptable.
However, the expression "I deserve to be rich" is certainly an acceptable, if somewhat watered down, statement of belief.
"I deserve to be rich because ... " — it does not really matter what follows, as one rationalisation is just as good as the next.
It is the statement "I deserve to be rich" that is the key. It is quite fundamental.
Have you ever seen a one-sided coin? No, I don’t mean a coin with two heads or two tails; such a coin still has two sides.
I also don’t mean a coin with a head on one side but blank on the other. Obviously, it still has two sides, a head side and a blank side.
I mean, have you ever seen a coin with only one side and, well ... nothing. Obviously, the answer is no. It is an impossibility. You can’t have a one-sided coin.
Similarly, you can’t have a one-sided belief such as "I’m rich because I deserve to be rich" without having the other side, which is "he is poor because he deserves to be poor".
The two beliefs are inseparable. If you have one, the other must exist.
What does this mirror image of "I deserve to be rich" mean?
It means that a child that will be born today in, shall we say, Mangere to a solo mother, deserves to be poor.
It means that a child born to a mother married to an addict deserves to be poor. It means that a 12-year-old child with two parents who between them work five jobs for a total of $40,000 a year ($20,000 of which must go on rent) deserves to be poor.
This is the reality of what happens when we take the simple statement "I deserve to be rich" to its logical and obvious conclusion.
There are not a lot of New Zealanders who will actually espouse this belief. Few will say, "that baby deserves to be poor", or "that child deserves to be poor".
But the reality is that, by being sucked along by the few who believe that they are chosen by God to be rich or by the many who believe they deserve to be rich because they work hard, all of us are actually agreeing with both sides of the coin.
We can’t say we are rich because we deserve it, unless we also say they are poor because they deserve to be poor.
So here are some interesting questions.
If we genuinely believe that no baby, through the accident of birth, actually deserves to be poor, then at what stage in their lives do we say they deserve to be poor? Is it when they are 7, or when they are 14 or 37?
If a baby does not deserve to be poor then what can be done to ensure that baby has the same advantages as at least a moderately wealthy child, so that the child has a chance to leave their background behind them?
Does this mean that we must ensure we redistribute wealth in such a way as to ensure equity and fairness for all?
What does this tell us about tax cuts and rental property mortgage subsidies?
■Bill Verrall is a Fiordland writer.
