CENTRISM: THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY

Whatever the final configuration of the new government, one thing is for certain - the interests of the one percent and our failed economic system will continue to be protected.

IT HAS been two weeks since the final election count and New Zealand is still without its new government. While this might be of concern to the business sector and the politicians that represent them, for most people life carries on as normal. The reality of a failed economic system grinds on; the rising cost of living continues to squeeze, and ever more people are lining up at the food banks, affordable housing is still hard to find, hospital waiting lists continue to lengthen, and we're still going to get more extreme weather events associated with climate change while the government continues to protect the very economic system that is driving climate change.

While the waiting for a new government has provided hours of fun and speculation for a corporate media that loves this kind of thing, for most people it has been of passing concern. In fact, many folk have expressed the view that it has been very pleasant not having politicians in their faces every day.

Perhaps if the final configuration of the new government represented real change, then people might be more hopeful about the future. But the announcement of the new government will mean little more than a change in the seating arrangements in Parliament.  

In an alternative history, we would be ushering in a brand spanking new left-wing government. It would set about upending the neoliberal 'consensus' that has dominated for four decades. It would be a government 'for the many, not the few'. But, unfortunately, we're not living in that alternative history. The present history will deliver us another centrist government and a future that offers us little reason to believe that life is going to get any better.

The new government, like its predecessor, will have no credible answers to the great challenges of our times. We are in the proverbial, our present economic system has failed, and our 'representative democracy' is neither representative nor democratic.  

The definition of insanity, Albert Einstein reportedly said, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcomes. But in his centrist instincts, Christopher Luxon scarcely sounds any different from his predecessors Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins. We are in much more dangerous times and new solutions are required. There are no non-radical solutions left before us. But where are our political actors that will provide us with a new way forward? Where is our politician who, like US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will stand up and be counted and say, 'capitalism is irredeemable'?