The Alt Centrist Approach To Work And Employment

If politics is about securing the means of a good life, work and employment are how most people primarily achieve this. Both are therefore at the core of the alternative centrist approach.

The average person in our society, not having a spiritual or religious tradition, neither any intellectual or cultural interests, nor any meaningful family connections, imposes order upon their lives primarily through their employment. Prosocial behaviour is taught through the need to cooperate with workmates and submit to the corporate hierarchy. Work gives many people purpose and keeps many bad thoughts away.

The alternative centrist proposal is that the order imposed by the workplace needs to be balanced by an equal proportion of freedom.

The alternative centrist agrees with Julius Evola that spirituality ought to be the primary focus of a life, and a person’s way of earning a living is less important. Productivity is the measure of slaves; happiness is the measure of free people. As such, the alternative centrist state would not indulge in the vulgar GDP obsession that characterises our merchant-ruled age. Although productivity would be important, this would only be as a means to a happy life. The alternative centrist state would constantly emphasise, in contradistinction to a Marxist or capitalist one, the relative unimportance of wealth (see The Alt Centrist Approach To Spirituality).

The problem with work and employment in the West is that we never came to terms with the fact that we now live in an age of abundance. Our economic model was founded in an age when anyone who didn’t labour was likely to become a major burden to their community. The unemployed were mostly left to starve until the advent of unemployment benefits near the beginning of the 20th Century. Now there is so much wealth that there is no need for the workamania of bygone times.

However, the drive of the employer class to pauperise their workers has remained. Hence a battle has ensued, between the representatives of capital and the representatives of labour. Resulting from this battle was a multitude of laws and regulations concerning work and employment. The reasoning is that these laws should provide for a fair balance between the needs of the employer and the needs of the worker, such that the employer gets his profit and the worker gets his means to subsistence.

Unfortunately for the modern Western worker, he has been driven into a state of wage slavery. Even if the job only occupies his body for 40 hours that week, chances are it occupies his mind for many more. Many people go to bed thinking about their work and wake up in a state of dread. Because the alternative is often destitution, homelessness or imprisonment, the worker puts up with his awful conditions.

This situation has come about by design.

The alternative centrist supports a universal basic income (see The Alt Centrist Approach To Welfare). This UBI would be enough for anyone to renounce the world. Thus it would act as a floor on the level of desperation the worker can be subjected to, and finally give him some leverage, for the first time since the advent of neoliberalism and mass immigration.

With a universal basic income, there would be no need for minimum wage laws. So in one stroke, all of the right-wing arguments about inefficiency of minimum wage laws would be accommodated. The right wing likes to argue that they should have the freedom to work for a pitiful wage if they should so choose (e.g. to gain work experience). Under an alternative centrist system with a UBI, you could employ someone for $1 per hour.

There would also be no need for worker protections when it came to security of employment. The concept of “unfair dismissals” relates to a situation where losing one’s job entails a significant disruption to one’s life. A UBI moderates that disruption. Hence an alternative centrist government sees little problem with the “hire and fire” method of employment.

The universal basic income would defeat the argument that agricultural interests need to import cheap labour to do seasonal work. With a UBI, workers would be free to live cheaply in urban areas for most of the year, and then work hard for a season in an agricultural enterprise, before returning to the cities. By this means, the needs of the citizen for income, the employer for labour, and the nation for cohesion can all be met with a maximum of order, freedom and justice.

Anyone who aspires to more than a student’s lifestyle, however, will probably need a job. Unless a person is born into money, a UBI will only pay for the barest essentials. It will cover cheap rent in an undesirable location, basic foods and utilities, some simple clothing and little more. Aristotle noted that desires tend towards the infinite, so there will be plenty of motivation for people to get work and stay employed. Those who argue that a UBI will turn the workforce into couch potatoes don’t understand how unpleasant the student lifestyle is in the long term, and how difficult it is to meet one’s natural social needs without work and employment. The vast majority of people will desire more and they will need to work to get it.

The alternative centrist government would not seek to expand beyond the existing size of Western governments. However, it would maintain a Ministry of Works. This would employ a considerable number of people in national infrastructure projects.

Beyond a Ministry of Works, the alternative centrist government would leave most employment to the free market. The goal would be to facilitate the creation of internationally competitive firms, so as to maximise the nation’s return on the investment in education and infrastructure that made the firms possible in the first place.

Regarding specific jobs, the various schools would seek to link up students to firms in the appropriate industry. In theory, the schools ought to prepare people for whatever employment currently existed in the various realms (see The Alt Centrist Approach To Education). So in the realm of clay, the schools would funnel students towards agricultural, labouring, retail and simple trades. In the realm of iron, towards military, police and security jobs. In the realm of copper, towards more advanced trades, entertainment and the arts. In the realm of silver, towards business and administration jobs. Those in the realm of gold will seldom be employed, other than to learn experience.

This chapter is from The Alternative Centrist Manifesto, the upcoming work of political philosophy that offers the answers to the political problems of the West.

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Economic Zone Mentality

Social observers in places like New Zealand, America, Australia, South Africa, Argentina etc. have noticed that the mentality of the New World is different to the Old World when it comes to co-operation. Although individuals in the New World are at least as friendly as individuals in the Old, the societies of the New World are much nastier. How to explain?

The usual story is that people in the New World are rugged, pioneering settlers and homesteaders. Although they might be willing to lend a hand personally, they are suspicious of government assistance, which they see as a loss of independence. People in the Old World, in comparison, are a bit soft and lazy. Hence they vote for a generous safety net.

In truth, New Worlders vote for low levels of government assistance because they are afflicted with something known as Economic Zone Mentality.

This essay contends that Economic Zone Mentality is a manner of approaching politics and justice that is characteristic of economic zones and not true nations, and is particularly common in the New World. It’s not necessarily selfish, but usually is, reflecting an every-man-for-himself psychology that is anathema to true civilisation.

An actual nation is like an extended family. Examples are Japan or Finland. In an actual nation, the logic is that the Establishment exists to provide for the people. The people might have to pay into the Establishment in the form of taxes, but they can expect to get out more than they put in, because the Establishment will provide services at scale. Thanks to economies of scale, members of actual nations get to enjoy high standards of living, even if they’re poor.

An economic zone is like a plantation. The people who live in it aren’t family. Some of those people are the owners, and the others are there on the graces of the owners. In an economic zone, the Establishment exists to facilitate wealth extraction. The happiness of the people who live there is not an important factor.

In an economic zone, all that matters is economic production. The logic is that the Establishment exists to take, not to give. There may or may not be economies of scale, but it doesn’t matter if those living in economic zones enjoy high standards of living. They are there to work. As a result of all this, there is massive economic inequality.

In actual nations, governments do a lot more to take care of their own people in comparison to economic zones. Welfare support is much higher in Europe than in America, Australia or New Zealand. Higher education is usually free, and when it isn’t student loans are usually interest-free. Healthcare tends to be universal. The logic is that public goods benefit the nation, and therefore are universal goods.

Actual nations take measures that are unthinkable in economic zones, such as the upcoming Swiss referendum on whether to cap the population. In economic zones, it’s well understood that the size of the economy is primarily a function of the size of the population. To cap the population, in Economic Zone Mentality, is like throwing money away. Only people in actual nations could see the merit in it.

A particular characteristic of economic zones is that production of anything non-industrial is considered worthless. Cultural production is worthless; you can’t eat literature or music. Intellectual production likewise, unless it has direct industrial applications. Spiritual production has the least value. Anyone engaged in these three pastimes is considered a thief of actual production. This attitude is the main reason why New World countries are considered cultureless by Old World ones.

In Economic Zone Mentality, a person’s job is their identity. Engineers are the highest status, because they do the most resource extraction. Healthcare workers are the lowest status, because the well-being of people is not important. And without a job, you are no-one. To be unemployed is to be a criminal. It is a violation of the social contract. In a nation, the social contract is that sometimes you give, sometimes you take. In an economic zone, the social contract is that you work in exchange for being allowed to exist.

In Economic Zone Mentality, all criminals are forgiven as soon as they get jobs, and all decent people are criminals as soon as they stop working. Crying about one person on the dole, and ignoring landlords sucking out a hundred times more unearned income, is typical.

Much confusion arises when people expect natural, national mentality in an economic zone.

In all societies, your right to criticise society comes from your social status. In proper nations, many social critics are artists, who have high social status. But in Economic Zone Mentality, artists are low status. So when Eleanor Catton won the Booker Prize, many expected that she would have earned a certain degree of respect for the achievement, and that this would have conferred some right to comment on society. But media maggots like Sean Plunket just called her a “traitor” and an “ungrateful hua” (ironically, Catton was criticising Economic Zone Mentality in New Zealand). She now lives overseas.

Economic Zone Mentality is to act as if a person’s net worth and their merit are the same thing. In proper nations, a person gets respect for being wealthy, but no more than they get for being honourable, or educated, or physically fit, or disciplined. In economic zones, a person’s portfolio value is like a scorecard. Honour, education etc. have no value in and of themselves, only to the extent that they enable resource extraction.

It’s becoming apparent to many Westerners that they live, not in actual nations, but in economic zones. Their countries are workplaces and not homes. This is why housing is severely unaffordable in New Zealand and Australia: rather than being homes for the Anzac people, these countries are workplaces for international banking and finance interests. Housing is becoming severely unaffordable in America and much of Europe for similar reasons (Europe didn’t start with Economic Zone Mentality, but is developing it as it becomes more multicultural).

The end result of Economic Zone Mentality is to turn everywhere into a pile of slag and garbage. The only solution is to develop and support genuine cultural initiatives.

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Explaining The ‘Young Couple Buys House’ Propaganda

Observant Kiwis will have noticed a recent deluge of articles featuring young couples who have just bought a house. These are presented as heart-warming tales of plucky young people overcoming the odds, but they’re actually very insidious works of propaganda. This essay explains.

The New Zealand housing crisis is now so bad that, if it was half as bad, houses in Auckland would still be considered “severely unaffordable”. The Demographia international housing affordability survey (link goes to .pdf) considers a country’s housing to be unaffordable if it is three times the median household income, and severely unaffordable if it is more than 5.1 times the median household income.

According to the housing affordability calculator at interest.co.nz, the average New Zealand house price was 8.43 times the median household income in July 2021. The average Auckland metro house price was 11.32 times the median household income. These figures mean that even second-tier cities like Nelson and Dunedin are severely unaffordable. The thought of owning one’s own home, once considered a standard part of life, is now just a distant dream to most Kiwi workers.

This housing crisis is having severe consequences. It has meant that great numbers of young Kiwis have seen their dreams evaporate. Their hopes – if not expectations – of raising a family that they could be happy with are gone. Raising a happy family is a function of many things, but one of the most important ones is security of housing. Security of housing is only for the rich when the median house price is ten times the median household income.

Without a hope of raising a happy family, many people give up. The prospect of genetic immortality through one’s offspring appears to be the fundamental drive keeping great numbers of people going. Without it, a deep sense of anomie sets in, usually followed by nihilism. This latter condition can lead to all manner of atrocities, as the 20th Century demonstrated beyond doubt.

The obvious risk facing Western society in coming years is, by now, apparent to most. The widespread anomie and nihilism brought about by the housing crisis could lead, in short order, to equally widespread chaos and destruction. In other times and places, an entire generation getting locked out of housing would lead to civil unrest. The ruling class knows history, so they know that mass violence is potentially not far away.

Kiwis are a gutless slave race, as shown by our current wretched state, but even we will protest if we’re all made homeless. It’s to pre-empt these potentially riotous emotions that the mainstream media runs so many “Young couple buys a house!” stories. Their intention is to normalise the idea that a typical young couple can easily buy a home in today’s market.

If it was widely believed that a young couple could easily buy a home in New Zealand today, much of the discontent from the way the country is being run would be neutralised. Any young person complaining about how much easier the Boomers had it could simply be referred to the young couple in the NewsHub article linked in the first paragraph.

“If they can do it, why can’t you?” the Boomers will cry. You just need to get off your arse etc.

At times like these, it has to be borne in mind that the mainstream media is owned by international banking and finance interests, and so the media only runs stories that serve those interests. Banks want the highest possible house prices, because that means the maximum possible mortgage profits. To that end, they want to normalise mass immigration and million-dollar mortgages, and to abnormalise multi-generational housing.

Ultimately, the reason for all the “Young couple buys house” propaganda is to stop young people from getting angry at the intergenerational rape being committed against them by the Boomers. Pre-empting this anger will allow those Boomers to ride the gravy train for as long as possible.

The mainstream media will do everything it can to create the impression that homeownership is still normal for young people, and to deny the grim reality that even families with two working adults have trouble owning the roof over their heads. If they would admit the latter, they would run the risk of powerful revolutionary sentiments taking hold.

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How Long Until Wages Catch Up To The Housebuying Power Of 1992?

The long-term strategy for building economic wealth appears to be holding house prices steady while waiting for wages to catch up. This article does the maths to answer one question: how long until the average wage has the same housebuying power of the average wage in 1992?

In 1992, the average New Zealand house price was $105,000. The average wage at that time was almost $15 per hour. This means that most Kiwis found themselves able to buy a house after 7,000 hours of labour.

By 2021, the average New Zealand house price has climbed to some $750,000, while the average wage languishes at around $34 an hour. This means that most Kiwis today are looking at putting in 22,000 hours of labour before they can get to the position of homeownership.

Economists predict that the average New Zealand house price will increase by double-digit percentages in 2021. 5% increases are expected for the two years after that, up until March 2024, which is as far ahead as anyone responsible will try to predict.

Let’s make two assumptions: firstly, that these forecasts are broadly correct; secondly, that house prices stop increasing after March 2024, allowing wages to catch up.

This suggests that house prices will top out at a national average of about $910,000 ($750,000 x 1.10 x 1.05 x 1.05). This assumes that they increase by around 10% in the year to March 2022, and then 5% for the two years after that, before remaining stable thereafter. The reality is, of course, anyone’s guess, but let’s say for simplicity’s sake that house prices reach $910,000 by March 2024 and then stay there in perpetuity.

To buy a $910,000 house with 7,000 hours of labour, a worker would have to be getting paid $130 per hour. Assuming that all other things (labour share, taxes, rents, non-rent living costs) are equal, $130/hr is what the average wage would have to be for the average worker to have the same housebuying power as the average worker in 1992.

As mentioned above, the average wage in New Zealand is around $34 right now. This means that it has to increase 3.82 times for the average worker to have the same housebuying power that the average worker had in 1992 – without house prices increasing beyond March 2024.

Wage growth over the past 28 years in New Zealand, from just under $15 an hour in 1992 to around $34 an hour at the end of 2020, has run at about 3% per annum.

If we assume future wage increases of 3% per annum, and no further house price increases beyond March 2024, then we will have to wait around 48 years for the average wage to catch up to the housebuying power that the average wage had in 1992.

In reality, it’s unlikely that house prices will remain exactly the same for the next 48 years. When the Boomers start dying off en masse, beginning in about 15 years, the demand for housing will rapidly fall all across the Western World. At that point, house prices could go in any direction depending on how much immigration takes place.

Of course, if house prices continue to increase beyond March 2024, then wages will simply never catch up. The West will become more and more verticalised until we effectively regress into a feudal-style economy where 99% of people are renters for life.

What can be said with confidence, however, is that it will take around half a century, at current rates, for wages to catch up to the point where the average worker has the same housebuying power they had in 1992. And that is even if one assumes that house prices don’t continue to increase.

If you enjoyed reading this article, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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