history – Page 32

Understanding New Zealand: City vs. Country

The division between city people and country people is one of the most telling in all of ethnography, and has been since the start of history. This is as true for New Zealand as it is for anywhere else. In this study, Dan McGlashan, author of Understanding New Zealand, looks at the statistical differences between people who live in the big cities (Auckland, Tauranga, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, referred to here as “Living Urban”) and people who live in the provinces.

This study defines “City” electorates as any belonging to the following list: Auckland Central, Christchurch Central, Christchurch East, Dunedin North, Dunedin South, East Coast Bays, Epsom, Hamilton East, Hamilton West, Helensville, Hutt South, Ilam, Kelston, Mana, Mangere, Manukau East, Manurewa, Maungakiekie, Mt Albert, Mt Roskill, New Lynn, North Shore, Northcote, Ohariu, Pakuranga, Port Hills, Rongotai, Tamaki, Tauranga, Upper Harbour, Wellington Central, Wigram and Tamaki Makaurau.

These electorates tell a story that seems paradoxical on the surface. City dwellers are wealthier than provincial New Zealanders (the correlation being Living Urban and Median Personal Income was 0.37), but they are disinclined to vote for the wealthy party, National (the correlation between Living Urban and voting National in 2017 was, at -0.01, almost perfectly uncorrelated).

Urban people like to vote for the ACT and Green parties more than any others. The correlation between Living Urban and voting ACT in 2017 was 0.37; for Living Urban and voting Green in 2017 it was 0.36. The main reason for this is that young and trendy people support these parties, and young and trendy people live in urban areas.

The strongest negative correlations with Living Urban and voting for a particular party in 2017 were for New Zealand First (-0.60), voting Ban 1080 (-0.52) and voting Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (-0.40). These three could be said to be the truly rural parties.

The two major parties both spanned the rural-urban divide. As mentioned above, urban dwellers do not vote National any more than rural dwellers do, but the grip of the Labour Party on the urban electorates is overstated. The correlation between Living Urban and voting Labour in 2017 was not significant, at only 0.11.

On a racial basis, it’s immediately clear that most rural people are Kiwis of European descent and Maoris, whereas most Pacific Islanders and the vast majority of Asians live in an urban setting. The correlation between being a Kiwi of European descent and Living Urban was -0.28, and between being Maori and Living Urban it was -0.35. This tells us that rural New Zealand is still very much a bicultural affair.

The correlation between being a Pacific Islander and Living Urban was significantly positive, at 0.33, and for Asians the correlation was strong, at 0.60. The reason for this is primarily because these two groups comprise the most recent waves of immigrants, and immigrants tend to establish themselves in major centres first before moving to the provinces. Indeed, the correlation between Living Urban and being foreign-born was 0.61.

Further clues appear when we examine the correlations between living in a big city and age. The correlation between Living Urban and median age was -0.23, on the border of significance, which tells us that the average city dweller is somewhat younger than the average country dweller. However, there were negative correlations between Living Urban and being in either of the youngest two age brackets, between ages 0 and 14 in total.

There were moderately strong correlations between Living Urban and being in either the 20-29 age bracket (0.50) or the 30-49 age bracket (0.51). These are also the age brackets that correlate the most highly with working fulltime and with median personal income. The correlations between Living Urban and being in either of the 50-64 or 65+ age brackets are both significantly negative.

What this tells us is the age-old story of young adults moving to the city for the sake of jobs and wealth, and then moving back out into the provinces again when it’s time to retire or perhaps to raise a family. This pattern of human migration, from country to city and back again, goes all the way back to at least Babylon, so it’s not surprising to find statistical evidence of it in contemporary New Zealand.

Keeping with the theme of employment, we can see that having any of the university degrees is significantly correlated with Living Urban (Bachelor’s at 0.63, Honours at 0.56, Master’s at 0.62, doctorate at 0.48). As described elsewhere, the reason for this is because of the strong correlation between having a university degree and working full-time.

In short, all the capital is in the cities, therefore that’s where the full-time jobs are, therefore anyone wishing to save money (as young, educated people tend to do) must live in an urban area. Indeed, there is a positive correlation (although not a significant one) of 0.18 between Living Urban and working in a full-time job.

This explanation is reinforced if one looks at the correlations between working in capital-intensive professions and living in an urban environment. The correlation between Living Urban and working in a particular profession was 0.58 for professional, scientific and technical services, 0.59 for information media and telecommunications and 0.61 for financial and insurance services. Notably, it was -0.72 for agriculture, forestry and fishing, for obvious reasons.

There was a significant positive correlation between Living Urban and renting one’s house (0.30) and a significant negative one between Living Urban and living in a freehold house (-0.31). This ties in with the observation that people in big cities have a different attitude to wealth generation: they are likely to become educated and earn a large wage with heavy expenses, whereas rural people tend to consolidate and grow wealth by minimising expenses.

Indeed, while there was virtually no correlation (0.01) between Living Urban and being unemployed, there was a significant correlation (0.27) between Living Urban and working for a wage or salary. This also ties in with the aforementioned fact that the jobs on offer tend to be where the major accumulations of capital are.

Dan McGlashan is the man with his finger on the statistical pulse of New Zealand. His magnum opus, Understanding New Zealand, is the complete demographic analysis of the Kiwi people.

For the House-Buying Power of 26 Years Ago, The Average Kiwi Wage Would Have to Be $79.25/hr Today

Housing is commonly left out of inflation measures, which is why low inflation rates are always reported. Unfortunately for Kiwis, the reality is that housing costs make up a large and ever-growing proportion of our expenses. This study will show that the average house-buying power of the average Kiwi worker is less than 40% of what it was 26 years ago.

The average house price in New Zealand on the 31st of January 1992 was $105,000, according to Real Estate Institute of New Zealand figures. This is as far back as figures go – 26 years. The average wage in New Zealand was $14.72 in the first quarter of 1992, according to Trading Economics. Assuming a 40-hour workweek, this works out to an average weekly wage of $588.80.

If a person saved 50% of their average wage in 1992, they would save $294.40 a week, which would be $15,351 per year. This would allow that person to buy the average New Zealand house after 6.84 years. So a person who completed university at the end of 1991, at age 21, and got a job at the average wage with their Bachelor’s degree, could expect to own an average house, mortgage-free, before age 30.

Saving half of one’s income is some feat, however, especially if one also has to pay rent or a mortgage. Saving 25% of the average wage, a more attainable proportion, would see a person in 1992 save $147.20 a week. This would be $7675 per year, which makes the average house attainable after 13.68 years.

Still, that means that in 1992, anyone who was willing and able to work at the average wage could own their own house outright within 13.68 years if they could only save a quarter of their income. This means by age 35 if they graduated from university at age 21 and saved a quarter of their income after then. Easy times.

In 2018, things are very different. The average wage has now gone up to $31.08 by the second quarter of 2018, but the average house price has jumped to $560,000 in those 26 years.

Using the example above, a person who qualified from university at the end of 2017 at age 21, and who immediately got a job at the average wage, would earn $1,243.20 per week. 25% of this is $310.80, which works out to $16,206 per year. Because the average house price is now $560,000 in New Zealand, that means that the average Kiwi worker now has to work for 34.56 years before they can expect to own their own house outright.

This means that the average Kiwi in 2018, even if they graduated at age 21 straight into an average wage and saved 25% of their income perpetually, still couldn’t afford to own the average house freehold until age 55, whereas such a thing was attainable 26 years ago by age 35. The middle-class dream is now dead in New Zealand. Kiwis are now tenants in what used to be our own country, enslaved by capital.

Another way of looking at this grim equation is that the average wage in 2018 has a mere 39.6% of the average-house-buying power that the average wage had in 1992. Even a person who managed to save 50% of the average wage from age 21 – a frankly incredible feat in today’s economy – couldn’t own the average house until age 39.

To correct this imbalance, the average wage would have to rise 155%, from $31.08 to $79.25. This is the cold, hard maths of our situation: the average wage would have to be almost $80 to give the average Kiwi worker the same chance of owning the average home as in 1992.

Note that an average wage of $79.25 an hour would represent no change in wealth from 1992. Even with an average wage that high, we would still have no more average-house-buying power than the average wage did in 1992. All of the benefits of the last 26 years of technological and logistical advances would go to their creators and the capital that financed them.

$79.25 is what the average Kiwi worker would have to make per hour today, in order to have the same average-house-buying power as they would have had in 1992. If the average worker got a share of that, the average wage would be over $100 per hour.

Note also that it’s much harder to get a job paying the average wage at age 21 now, compared to 1992. A Bachelor’s degree is no longer the mark of excellence that it was in the mid 1990s – now one needs a Master’s degree to be at that level, which means two more years of no earnings and borrowed money. Moreover, the open borders of neoliberalism mean that you now have to compete with half of the planet just to get that one job.

Note thirdly that $560,000 is the average New Zealand price and is no way representative of Auckland or even Christchurch or Wellington. If you want to buy an average house in a relatively major centre you will be looking at paying even more than $560,000.

In summary, the Baby Boomers of New Zealand have subjected Generation X and the Millenials to what can only be described as intergenerational rape.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis).

Bannination

Who Are the Sweden Democrats?

“Keep Sweden Swedish” – a campaign poster for the Sweden Democrats

Shockwaves will go through the West in the aftermath of the Swedish General Election on the 9th September. Opinion polls are suggesting that the post-war Swedish consensus is about to be shattered, with it looking increasingly likely that the Sweden Democrats are going to win the most seats. This essay seeks to explain who the Sweden Democrats are and how they rose to prominence.

It’s the Swedish Summer of 2008. The country has been rocked by the news that the Sweden Democrats, considered by most to be neo-Nazis, have just come over the 4% threshold in latest opinion polls. If they can maintain this level, they will enter the Riksdag (Parliament) at the next election. I’m sitting at the waterfront, not far from the centre of Stockholm, discussing the situation with a politically engaged friend of mine, a member of the Social Democrats.

I had just spent the summer in the North of Sweden, a vast and rural area, long known as the heartland of the Social Democrats. The Far North has always been poorer than the Swedish South, for a variety of reasons, and therefore somewhat dependent on government assistance. Many people up there are unemployed and on benefits, and they were not happy about immigration.

Talking to these people and listening to their grievances, I got a sense that the bounds of solidarity had been extended too far in Sweden. These people had been raised to think of Sweden as a giant family, where the high levels of homogeneity meant that everyone had something in common, and so everyone looked out for each other. The mass importation of Muslim and African immigrants could only mean less solidarity for the rural Swedish poor, which was reflected in their poverty.

For whatever reason, this unhappiness with the state of the nation was not taken seriously by the ruling classes. Sweden Democrat voters are poorer and less educated than average (like nationalist voters elsewhere) and the attitude of the Swedish ruling classes seemed to be that these people could be dismissed as simple racists and hicks.

It was apparent from talking to my friend in Stockholm that this grievance movement was not being taken very seriously. Of course the Swedish poor are poor, the argument went, but the refugees are even poorer, so it’s fair that the Swedish poor are made to go to the back of the queue in favour of the refugees. If they didn’t like that, then they didn’t appreciate how good they had it in Sweden, which was of course the world’s best at everything.

In any case, the rural poor were usually just smygracister – a word that describes a person who makes decisions out of racism, but is too ashamed to admit it. I pointed out that calling these angry people who felt betrayed ‘racists’ was not going to help the situation. In fact, it would make them feel that their anger was justified and that the government and the ruling classes had truly betrayed the Swedish people.

But the denial persisted. The Muslims and Africans would “försvenskar sig” (make themselves Swedish) and they would then be exactly like us, and all of the grievances would disappear. Being a psychologist, and having a deep interest in history I knew that the immigrants didn’t give two shits about becoming Swedish, or about Sweden in general. Sweden was, to them, just a bitch to be exploited and used. The fact that she gave herself so willingly was ample justification.

Few agreed with my dire prognosis at the time, but having met and spoken to Sweden Democrats voters, I knew that their movement would only grow in strength. Because the grievances of their voters would not be met, their march to power was inexorable, and that would not be a good thing for a foreigner like myself. For that reason, I decided to leave Sweden in 2008.

Sweden Democrats voters are the disaffected poor, who have come to feel that they are not represented by the neoliberal tag-team of the Social Democrats and the Moderates. They are the people who have lost out from neoliberalism, and from the freedom of capital to drive down wages through strategies such as mass importation of incompatible Third Worlders. They are not just dumb hillbillies who have been aggravated by far-right wing rhetoric.

The way they felt about mass immigration was how I would feel if my parents gave my inheritance away to some random strangers because they felt kinder helping strangers than helping their own family.

Sweden Democrats supporters feel deeply, deeply betrayed by the decision of the Swedish ruling classes to open the borders to the Third World. If you are Swedish, and poor, and you need help from the state for the sake of a physical or mental illness but can’t get it because of a lack of funding, it’s extremely difficult, and galling, to watch the government spend money on refugees.

The heaviest concentration of Sweden Democrats voters is in the Far South, which is also the area with the heaviest concentration of Muslim and African immigrants. In some areas in Skåne, the Sweden Democrats are predicted to get over 40% of the vote – which will be most ethnic Swedes. These are the people who have seen first hand the effects of mass immigration, and they understand more than anyone else how much has been lost, and how bad things could get.

These people are not bad people, and they’re not stupid losers. They’re simply people who have been lied to and betrayed by their rulers, and are angry and trying to take action to prevent further losses and humiliations. They’re not necessarily nice people, and they’re not necessarily open-minded, but neither of those things will stop them from getting their will through.

It’s already apparent that the other parties will work together before they allow the Sweden Democrats into power. After all, the Social Democrats and the Moderates are both neoliberals, and mass immigration is one of the main policy planks of neoliberalism. This can only mean that the Sweden Democrats will continue to grow in strength until the day where they take power outright.

When that day comes, anything can happen. The Sweden Democrats, and their supporters, utterly despite both the Social Democrats and the Moderates, and will be more than happy to throw everything out the window in order to stop Sweden from disintegrating into a Third World country. Anyone who suffers from this, Swede or otherwise, will be considered merely collateral damage.