Challenging – Honest – Insightful
The full interview is available on Bloomberg from 1:12:30
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-06-22/-bloomberg-surveillance-full-show-06-22-2021-video
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
In the first part of this essay I expressed my support for Prof. Sandel’s views with some qualifications on what I believe are the most important factors in the polarised societies many developed nations are now experiencing. Specifically my view is that this polarity is due to the inequality itself more so than distrust of those with credentials more highly valued by society or by ‘the market’ in our current form of extreme capitalism.
I also said that I felt somewhat disappointed that Prof. Sandel did not devote more pages to sharing his views on how societies can achieve greater solidarity or cohesion. I undertook to share my own views in this second part focusing on the global community at the macro level and on education and family at the micro.
Firstly I must admit that for some time I had planned to write on all three topics separately. In fact, “Investment Theme: Education revolution” is the only Investment Theme that I have failed to complete (that section has been ‘half-written’ since early 2020 – it took a back seat to my writing on COVID-19), and around the same time I wrote notes for another post with a running title of “On the Benefits of Full-time Home Parenting” and another with a running title “Quality Globalisation”. So these are issues on which I have long pondered and formed robust views. While in this essay I link these topics to show how they are inter-related and will be especially important in the Great Reset era, I will also ‘break out’ these sections and post them separately in additional posts to make them more accessible to readers who may be interested in those specific topics.
As I stated in “Morals and Merit: WEF Davos Agenda panel with Prof. Michael Sandel” I found Prof. Sandel’s emphasis on the dignity of work to be worthwhile but diminished somewhat by the rapid advancement of technological innovation which is changing many important linkages within society:
the changes that humanity has reached with the fourth industrial revolution is going to affect our relationship with work as artificial intelligence and automated equipment increasingly carries out necessary functions for societies. I discussed this in detail in “Theme 6: More Time For Personal Fulfillment” on my Investment Themes page.
This enormous change is and will continue to necessitate a major adjustment in society in how we contribute and what are our perceptions of those contributions. After reading Rutger Bregman’s “Utopia For Realists” I immediately became a supporter of the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and I believe it must be central to affording a dignified life for all.
I am a little concerned, however, that the attachment of those on the left of politics with the dignity of work meme may cause them to misunderstand these profound changes. Humanity does not need more work for work’s sake out of anxiety that people will not cope with the change. Nor does humanity need to work to justify and maintain political structures based upon them – I do believe in the value of collective representation of workers, but these organisations must meet the needs of society not the reverse. Societies need to embrace the concept of participation including personal reflection and development, as well as other altruistic activities. My experience is that this inflexibility creates a bias against and rejection of UBI by many on the left which I find disappointing as it could be an integral aspect of inclusion in a dignified society.
It is critical that the work that people conduct is worthwhile so that they feel that they are contributing to society, and it is important that income derived from work is fair relative to all other functions performed in society. At the same time, it is important that there is not a proliferation of low value or even pointless tasks – what Davic Graeber described as ‘Bullshit Jobs’ – as some warped view of a social contract between business and society arbitered by the political class who refuses to lead and thus hopes to retain, at least perceptions of, the status quo.
In my Investment Theme No. 6: ‘More time for personal fulfillment’ I expanded on these views saying that I believed that we will soon embark on a staged decrease in standard work hours. Since writing that piece the COVID-19 pandemic heralding the Great Reset era has accelerated the trends that I discussed.
Reduced working hours is an idea that has been around since at least the Great Depression, and it is attracting renewed attention with Bregman’s ‘utopian realism’ and perhaps that will increase in the Great Reset through the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The debate has taken hold throughout Europe, and the Spanish Government has agreed to trial a four day, 32 hour work week without reduced pay.
I want to be clear that nothing above suggests that huge swathes of employees are currently lazing off – or in Australian vernacular, ‘bludging’ – but I do believe that many doubt that they are adding real value in the tasks which occupy significant amounts of time and even effort. Much of that is due to redundancy as their tasks are not really necessary because they are a part of a process that has become the ends and not the means to an ends, or are duplicated elsewhere within large organisations.^
Another factor, and being a fan of the reality television show “Survivor”, and having gradually realised through life how much of the competitors’ behaviours mirror real life no matter how much they protest they do not behave as such ‘normally’, is that with a lot of human capital and capacity at their direction many ambitious and self-interested managers will direct staff tasks in a manner which advances their own career rather than necessarily adding value to the organisation (much like the questions that I raised in Part 1 of this essay about how much politicians and their staff any longer add value to nations if they have relinquished their role as leaders and decision-makers). Certainly performance indicators might encourage alignment with executive goals, but if those goals are short-term and aimed at superficial factors (with large financial incentives) then that will be the case cascading right down through the organisation. Moreover, if the entire system is built on self-interest and greed, from the political and business elite down, is it really any wonder that most tasks are performed within that framework rather than working towards a broader objective or even a ‘greater good’ bigger than one self?
If working hours for individuals were reduced I believe there would be a number of consequences: even after spare capacity of human capital is absorbed, i.e. unemployed and underemployed people are brought into the workforce, aggregate hours would be reduced, resources would be more critically aligned with organisational outcomes as value creation is prioritised (as the ultimate arbiter of management performance), worker productivity would thus increase, and employee satisfaction would increase benefiting society even before we consider the positive uses of that extra time for people and society.
This transition would lead to a drift in perceptions of identity for many in society, with that I agree.
However, that is not as great a concern at a society level as many individual readers might infer, or even fear if they transfer their own anxieties, because it has been a folly and unhelpful to humanity to wrap too much of our identity in the role that we play in society from which we earn our income. That trend in itself is a consequence of credentialism.
The truth is that our potential to contribute to humanity is infinite and the various ways in which we do that need to be more deeply respected and imbedded in our individual and collective identities. In fact, some of these other contributions to humanity are impeded when focus is disproportionately placed on the income-earning role. Hereon I discuss three important roles, being a contributive global citizen, being an educated and informed citizen, and parenting and connectedness within the ‘village’.
Solidarity at the national level is preferable to having polarised societies, indeed, but the true challenges to a sustainable and thriving humanity depend on cohesion of the global community. That reality is increasingly understood in the battle against the climate crisis and it has been reinforced through the COVID-19 pandemic, and especially in our understanding that we all remain vulnerable while others do due to emergent variants.
A topic which I have long planned to write on is to introduce the concept of ‘Quality Globalisation’ as opposed to the quantity form that has prevailed up until now. This concept came to me over a year ago when watching Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Bank of India and before that Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund, on Bloomberg lamenting the pulling back from globalisation by businesses which he was concerned would accelerate in the pandemic. He felt that it was an expression of isolationism and therefore a mistake for the world.
Even though I am extremely pro globalisation in the sense that I desire a cohesive global humanity, I do not agree that ‘globalisation’ need be based only, or even mainly, on shared economic interests. In fact, I can see pitfalls to that conceptualisation – the Australian/Chinese trade tensions, is just one example.
‘Quality Globalisation’ must have its foundations at the human level, at a general level of respect and love for humanity.
The real overriding issue must always be what is good for the people, not what is good for the economy. I believe in free trade because generally it is good for people. However, I have a problem with laissez faire free trade where, even if economic data might suggest it is good for ‘the economy’, benefits mostly accrue to the wealthy owners of capital while some people are hurt by the trade, and while the poor in the low-income country, who should benefit most, only capture a small portion of benefits which permits a lifestyle only slightly above a subsistence existence thus remaining vulnerable to market dysfunction and/or natural phenomena.
Let’s take the textile industry as an example, where production was shifted offshore from developed nations to developing nations because production there was much cheaper. The owners of capital, the shareholders of large retailers, benefited by increased profits which flowed through in dividends and capital gains. The low-skilled workers lost and their continual feeling of being forgotten has been a hallmark of the emergence of ‘Trumpism’. So low-skilled workers lost a great deal while consumers, excluding those who were low-skilled factory workers, in net terms gained a little by clothing cost increases remaining subdued.
Bangladesh is one country that has developed a strong textile industry in recent decades as retailers sourced fabric and finished garments from low cost countries. Every once and while we learn of another tragedy in a textile factory which for a moment focuses attention on the reality that these cheap prices for clothing are obtained by paying poor people low wages and having them work frequently in unsafe conditions.
The end result has been that the poor in Bangladesh did not gain very much for the loss suffered by the low-skilled factory workers in the developed nation, while the already wealthy gained significantly.
Moreover, if the industry exited the country to either an even lower cost country or back to a developed country (mostly through sophisticated automated industrial production which involves few low-skilled jobs), those jobs will dry up leaving the workers little better off than before. This has been witnessed in real-time through the pandemic where retailers cancelled orders with their Bangladeshi suppliers and many female workers resorted to prostitution to earn an income for their families.
Similar observations have been made in different countries across different industries with the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic proving that the model of industrial globalisation has not allowed the poor in low-income nations and migrant workers to increase their economic resilience
What needs to happen for globalisation to be ‘worthwhile’ – or of sufficient ‘quality’ – to humanity is that the benefits of production in developing countries be spread to the most vulnerable, in the form of higher wages and better safety standards. This might involve higher costs to consumers, and it should involve less profits flowing to the wealthy owners of capital.
In the developed country, there needs to be greater social spending to spread across the whole of society the costs from the loss of the industry. This ultimately will take the form of a UBI, but before then may be in the form of reactive industry-specific payments to affected workers and programs to support reskilling.
If that occurs then it will definitely be a significant step towards ‘Quality Globalisation’.
There is another aspect, however, that needs to be addressed, and it relates to the quality of the goods produced.
In my post “Coming Soon: ‘Product Miles’ like Food Miles” I highlighted the sheer waste inherent within the move towards a throw away society where ‘westerners’ have become ‘addicted’ to a cycle of continually replacing low quality cheap goods.
Since writing that post the European Union has moved to introduce a border carbon adjustment tax as a pricing mechanism to reflect the environmental consequences of trade in that product, just as I had predicted in my earlier post, which will come into effect in 2023.
This is only the start of this necessary adjustment and it is a critical step in the progress towards ‘Quality Globalisation’ where only quality goods with working lives inline with the amount of resources gone into producing and ultimately disposing of them will be economic to trade over significant distances and across national borders.
The concept of ‘Quality Globalisation’ goes even further, however; it encompasses a mindset as much as a trade policy regulatory framework for environmental sustainability. It is about bureaucracy and everyone in society identifying closely with the global community – a genuine ‘Global Village’.
In reality, this is not a new concept as the great four-term US President Franklin D. Roosevelt spelled out the lessons of the period of his presidency in his Fourth Inauguration speech:
We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger. We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.
I have previously argued for the insertion of a Rooseveltian clause in the legal constitution and/or instruments of all nations, presumably as a requirement to sit under the auspices of the United Nations, which is essentially based on these luminous words of FDR.
It would recognise and focus attention on the fact that to discharge an oath to address the concerns and/or interests of any subgroup of people – whether that subgroup is based on geography (national or regional), or common interests or beliefs – the most basic premise is that caring equally for all members of the human community is the best way to advance the interests of any and all subgroups of people.
The obvious question is this: given a long history of being manipulated into parochialism, including nationalism or religious beliefs, by powerful interests, how do we change the mindset of people so that they identify with a global humanity above these human-defined subgroups?
In “Racial Prejudice And Bias: A matter of degrees” I said that openness to the world is not dependent on the possession of a passport or any particular credentials, but on the possession of an open heart.
Furthermore, without an open heart a mind can never be truly open, because only by loving all people can we be open to the full potential of humanity.
Thus most of this work must be aimed at opening the heart of more in society to connection with human diversity.
Even with superficial thought two things become immediately apparent to me – there are very many ways that openness to other cultures can be cultivated (literally the only limit is one’s imagination), and it must start with children.
In “Racism and Political Correctness” I highlighted how Australia’s education system presently is falling short on teaching about diversity values in my experience, and that it is vital to engage radicalism in schools to decrease societal disturbance including from terrorism.
The ease with which we can communicate real-time around the world, proven in the pandemic, shows that this technology can be opened up to create personal connections for students around the world. Even language barriers are declining continually with translating technology developing rapidly. It should be possible right now, for instance, to co-teach classes across national borders which would allow for working groups of children to work with children in other nations and even across time zones. This is happening now in business, and there is no reason why it cannot happen in our education system.
This type of thinking to create genuine emotional intelligence surely is at least as critical to contemporary childhood and early adulthood educational and emotional development as any other cognitive skill.
A new anecdote on racism and prejudice is pertinent here. In “Racial Prejudice And Bias: A matter of degrees” some of the anecdotes were from a friend who moved to Australia in recent years to take up a high-level managerial role in the resources industry. Thankfully he was well prepared by conversations we have had on the truths about living in Australian society and working from the perspective of being from a minority culture. More recently he relayed that he had a new middle-aged woman commence work under him – his direct report recruited this person – and on her first day, after introducing himself to her, she objected directly to him about his name and asked “where are all the Johns and Jacks?” Seeking to be open-minded to her intentions, and trying to be courteous, he suggested that with a little time she would become comfortable with the different name. Trying to express empathy and relatability he also relayed how he had difficulty on his arrival with names that were unfamiliar to him, at which point another colleague abruptly and indignantly asked “oh yeah, which ones were those?”.
For a long time we have talked about a ‘Global Village’, and, although many of us know its existence to be not only true but vital to humanity’s existence, linked financial interests from global commerce and international travel by the relatively wealthy has not served to embed this reality in humanity’s broad consciousness. Barriers from the diversity of cultures and languages remain even though the technology now exists in much of the world to break these down. What is required is collective determination to do so.
I believe that the series “The Me You Can’t See” by Prince Harry and Oprah, available to stream on Apple TV, is a brilliant example of a ‘Global Village’ approach to addressing an issue of universal importance. Even the format of the final episode, group discussion over Zoom, now ubiquitous as a consequence of the pandemic, emphasises the shared global experience. Moreover, mental health is both an issue for the global community to address as well as an issue that will be improved by growing connectedness within that ‘Global Village’. This series should be a model for future programs.
If humanity came together in a project to embed the concept of the ‘Global Village’ in the consciousness of people across the globe with all of the passion and creativity that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic entailed, even with a small fraction of the money spent on addressing that crisis, the impact would be enormous and enduring. The result would be a genuine ‘Quality Globalisation’ where a cohesive humanity stood in solidarity ready to address the climate crisis that we already know will challenge us for the remainder of this century along with the other crises we are certain to confront.
We need to harness the benefits of our modern technology and communications to create that ‘Global Village’ mindset starting in schools and spreading everywhere throughout societies. Universities, which have long been at the vanguard of this mindset, will continue to be critical in this development but will need to step up their pace of adaptation to maintain their significance.
In “The Tyranny of Merit: What’s become of the common good” Prof. Michael Sandel, with his experience over four decades as a Harvard University lecturer, provides significant detail on his observation of the growth in competition for positions at universities perceived as being for the elite. He also discusses the consequences of those changes on students and families, including the costs to their mental health as the pressure to succeed has increased, first in being accepted into the university, then in attaining good marks in a highly competitive environment, and finally in their career. Prof. Sandel highlights that increasingly over his tenure acceptance to an elite ‘school’ has been viewed as a pathway to an ‘elite’ career, and all of the trappings that go with it in a culture which places a high value on credentialism (i.e. the lifestyle of the ‘elite’), but that it comes at a significant cost even to those who ‘succeed’ through that system.
Moreover, because there is a perception that so much is to be gained from that career pathway, most young people (and their families) vying for placement attempt to use whatever advantage they have to put themselves at an advantage in the selection process to those elite schools. Most of these advantages involve generational advantage, including wealth, and some even use those resources to cheat the tough selection process.
There is also the impact of luck, starting with the fortune or misfortune to be born into a privileged or underprivileged home. Prof. Sandel suggests many ‘products’ (graduates) of the system do not nearly appreciate the role luck has played in their privileged position, thus leading them to insist that their success was a result entirely of their own doing in a true meritocratic system. As a consequence these people tend to believe that they earned, and thus deserved, their ‘elite’ lifestyle whilst others who did not succeed deserved their less favourable lifestyles.
Prof. Sandel proposes that a lottery should be held amongst those vying for placement at these elite schools as an acknowledgment that most applicants are capable of succeeding once they are accepted, negating the role that privilege has in giving varying levels of advantage to some over others, and perhaps most critically, to make it explicit that fortune was the greatest factor in acceptance to elite schools.
The greatest impact of such a lottery placement system over the medium to long term was considered to be the lessening in the role of credentialism in status which leads to polarisation within society because the role of ‘dumb luck’ has been made explicit.
I do consider that Prof. Sandel’s suggestion is both worthwhile and brave of him to raise, though the cynic in me leads me to wonder whether he would have done so if he was much closer to the start of his career than the end of it as many, having gained significant advantage from the contemporary situation, no doubt would like to see it perpetuated. Here I also need to admit that my perception is affected by living most of my life in a nation where the stratification of the status of the various universities is not nearly as embedded in the culture as it is in America. In Australia the ‘sandstone universities’ are the most prestigious, certainly, but the university attended is not (yet) nearly as determinant of career ‘success’ as in America, and is almost insignificant after having entered the workforce.
Still it is the nature of a wealthy society to highly prize the very best and scarcest of all things that are valued, whether it be jewels, well-positioned real estate, or fine wine. Within a society with great wealth, competition for highly prized and scarce resources can catapult market prices to rather disproportionate and, perhaps, irrational heights. Having developed a passion for wine after living in France I will use the wine market as a useful and instructive comparison.
Rare old bottles of great wines do reach the highest prices at auction, but there is a great diversity of prices paid for wines at their release. That, too, is driven by scarcity, of what is known as terroir (the best sites to grow wine grapes) in the few regions that have a long history of producing exceptional wines, and of great years when weather conditions for growing and harvesting grapes were ideal. The wines from the most prestigious wineries, such as Château Cheval Blanc or Château Petrus, in the best years are very difficult to access and sell for as much as $3,000 a bottle even before they are actually bottled (most quality Bordeaux is sold ‘en primeur’ while still aging in barrels). In other words, elites pay a price equivalent to around $600 per glass for a wine that will not be at its best drinking for another 10 to 20 years.
Now I know that I will never have that experience of tasting one of these great wines – leaving aside the reality of the truism that ‘there are no great wines, just great bottles’ reflecting that after the passage of many years there can be great variability in the quality of the wine for very many reasons not least of them the randomness inherent with the cork closure – but that does not concern me greatly because I know that with widespread education in wine making, and readily-available wine critic reviews, I can purchase wines that are perhaps 98-99% as good as these prestigious wines for less than 1% of their price. It is only for image and perception that someone would consider purchasing a bottle from a prestigious winery from a less favourable vintage (year), for say $2,000, when plenty of other better wine from less prestigious wineries is available for much, much less. The only people for whom purchasing these wines makes any sense, in my view, are the elites who do so to stay in good standing with the winery or merchants to maintain their status as preferred customers in great vintages.
For me, however, with my modest means (compared to elites, not the poorest 4 billion human beings), and with a mind for value, i.e. quality relative to price, I will always be happy knowing that I drink very well for the dollars I choose to divert from the resources of our family.
What does that have to do with higher education?
Groupthink in subgroupings and broader society is not always, or perhaps even often, rational and proportionate and people associate many values with brands and symbols which may or may not even be relevant. Billions of dollars are spent annually on advertising in an attempt to influence and speed up that process. A perception of scarcity can transform a prized commodity into a prestigious one.
The American culture has ascribed a great many attributes to an education from an elite school. The scarcity of places relative to applicants has transformed acceptance to one of them into the equivalent of winning the lottery such has been the prestige associated with these institutions.
I am unsure, however, how much of that prestige actually relates to the quality of education provided there. While I am certain that, just as in Prof. Sandel, there are very many fine professors, I truly doubt that, as in the wine market, the quality of the education received there is that much better than what is available elsewhere from other good but less prestigious institutions.
I believe that, like many things in the Great Reset era, and as a consequence of measures to combat, and as a response to, the COVID-19 pandemic, changes that were already in train within the higher education sector have accelerated and will profoundly change the higher education sector throughout the world. Many of those changes will act to reverse the growing trend of elitism in higher education.
Social distancing and general biosecurity (infection) protocols and measures necessitated the acceleration of technological developments in teaching and learning, and especially proved that it can be done effectively remotely through electronic platforms. Of course this opens up the issues of the economy of scale, and allows the reaching of many more students even across intra- and international borders.
Electronic delivery of education allows elite professors to be more accessible to a more diverse range of students for lectures and special events, even if direct personal contact might be provided by early career academics and postgraduate students as has always been the case. This would effectively increase the supply of positions available in desirable institutions or courses. The main reason why this would not be adopted is essentially because those who are advantaged by the contemporary situation would protest against the perceived ‘devaluing’ of their credentials by the reduction in the scarcity value. I suspect that the leaders of these institutions have always understood the value of scarcity to maintaining the perception of prestige for these institutions.
(Of course, this is the same factor – the potential ‘devaluing’ or reduction in prestige of credentials – that lessens the likelihood of Prof. Sandel’s lottery idea being adopted.)
Thus, I imagine that this is one technological development that might not be harnessed as well as it could be to reverse the elitist trend in higher education as a stepping stone into elite lifestyles. There is another technological development, however, that when taken together with social developments that are accelerating in the Great Reset era, will have a profound impact. These social developments revolve around social justice, equality, diversity and inclusion.
As I discussed in “Quotas Are Necessary To Address Workplace Diversity“, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) holds much promise to address the role of unconscious bias in workplace diversity during recruiting. AI could be used to ‘scrub’ identity from job applications to reduce the incidence of bias in early selection processes, and may even be useful right through to the latter stages (through voice altering software and AI technology when interviewing and answering questions). In that essay I highlighted that one of the barriers to using this technology would be the ego of managers preventing them from letting go of some control, of the need to ‘see and hear’ applicants to gauge their suitability. What people are really doing is observing whether they can find commonalities in how the applicant appears, or in how they speak, or in what they say, which makes the powerful selector feel ‘comfortable’ with that other person. The potential for introduction of bias is clearly enormous.
One particularly strong area for potential connection, and thus bias, is around education and specifically institutions attended by interviewers and interviewees. The truth about the competition to enter elite schools, and the value in attending them even with their enormous course fees, is that it is about the potential for establishing vast networks amongst the elite of society more so than obtaining an elite education.
If workplaces really want to remove biases, while a lottery system for entry to elite schools would work to expose the underlying truth of selection and thus lead to a realistic weighting of such credentials relative to others, in my view preventing the identification of institutions attended from the selection process would go much further towards eliminating biases in selection processes. While I accept that there is bound to be a difference in the standard of education obtained from one of these elite institutions compared with a lowly ranking one in a very large market, primarily by virtue of the privilege bestowed on the elite institutions with multi-generational donations and endowments, this can be adequately allowed for in the selection process by a categorical ranking system between universities (of no more than 3 levels, and in Australia no more than 2 and even that should be debated as to its necessity).
In truth there is absolutely no need to name a specific institution at any time in one’s career, and whenever it is done it is for ego or for the purpose of establishing cultural connection between some, which by definition, excludes and disadvantages others.
Of course, like Prof. Sandel’s lottery idea, widespread adoption of de-identification of educational institutions would be resisted very strongly by the elite, but I expect that this practice will increase as society becomes more committed to removing all forms of bias.
It is simply incongruous with a bias-less society to have elite higher education institutions, and in this day and age of instantaneous electronic communication and rapid global travel intellects can share the same space and collaborate without being in the same physical space.
Most significantly, employers suggesting that they are in a never-ending competition for the best available ‘talent’, yet doing little about constructing the best teams – which have been shown to be the most diverse and inclusive – exposes the truth behind these ‘elite’ workplace cultures.
The flattening of the ‘prestige hierarchy’ amongst educational institutions and competition via online delivery platforms, however, is not the greatest challenge that all higher education institutions confront at present. The changing nature of work is an even greater challenge to the sector and one which to this point the more established institutions seem less willing or able to address.
I suspect that we are on the verge of the most significant shake-up to education globally in over a century which I call the ‘Education Revolution’.
Funding education in the extreme capitalist system that has been adopted by much of the world has been a significant issue for most nations over recent decades. In developing nations the lack of resources and the need to be good debtors has stifled the delivery of education to their younger generations. Developed and more wealthy nations have progressively moved to a ‘user pays’ system which in reality has been students borrowing increasing sums to ‘invest’ in their education hoping that their choices pay off financially lest they remain economically vulnerable. Consequently, the increasing pool of student debt is a significant issue in very many developed nations.
In recent times, however, as technological innovation has progressed rapidly, possibly even accelerating, workforces are being transformed, and, I suggest, quicker than educational institutions have or want to evolve.
Teenagers and even pre-teens are now frequently told that they need to prepare for having many different jobs in their lifetime, as has been the trend for the past several decades, but they are also being told that they will need to be more flexible than earlier generations because of the rate of technological change. They are told that many of their future jobs currently do not exist and that they will even change career paths several times in their lives – some even suggest that many will have 4 or 5 different careers. To move into each new career will necessitate some degree of upskilling, and so it is generally agreed the young and future generations will be continually accessing educational resources throughout most of their lives, unlike previous generations who typically studied a single professional post-graduate course if anything.
It appears, however, that the educational system has not even begun to adapt to this future to meet the ongoing needs of their clients.
Our tertiary education system, for instance, is little different to what has been in place for the best part of a century, about the only differences being that in Australia it was made free for a while and now it is not, again. Three and four year undergraduate degrees and multi-year postgraduate qualifications has remained the standard format for tertiary educators. In recent times the universities have become very dependent on high fees being charged to large numbers of students coming from overseas, mainly developing countries, which has afforded the sector some degree of protection from needing to adapt to provide the education that clients from the developed world will require into the future.
Increasingly over the last half century young people have finished secondary school and then gone on to some form of tertiary learning in either a university or the vocational training system. I was recently surprised to learn from a Grattan Institute report that whereas in 1986 – my final year of secondary education – only 14% of males and 11% of females aged 25-34 had university qualifications, while now around 50% of high school graduates enroll in university courses. I remember being shown in Year 12 a graph of the sharp rise in the proportion of school leavers going on to university to that point in time and being made to feel concerned whether I would obtain a sufficiently high tertiary entrance score to gain entry to my chosen Government-funded course. The Grattan institute report suggested that with the advent of full fees, entry requirements are essentially trivial for most courses as virtually all applicants will be offered a place. While course fees will differ depending on the field and institution, a Commonwealth-sponsored place will cost around $9,000 per year to the student which is often deferred as a debt using the Higher Education Loan Plan.
The trend and numbers are similar throughout most developed nations, though the costs may vary significantly between countries.
What is clear already is that if school-leavers are going to have 4 or 5 careers in their lifetime, perhaps the first one lasting 7 years or less, it seems highly inefficient for society, and imprudent for the individual, to have spent half of that time gaining their first post-school qualification, all of that time accruing debt which may, or probably not, even be paid off by the time that career comes to an end.
This is all the more relevant when one considers how rapidly the structures of professions are changing. In saying that I have in mind an Insight program (on SBS) from several years ago where the skills of 4th year law students close to graduating were pitted against AI software to carry out a task usually assigned to recent graduates. The software completed the task in 20 seconds while the law student was still working on it at the half hour mark!
If the upskilling required to move to a new career is anything like the course undertaken for their first career – preferably taken on in a part-time capacity whilst working on the original career, because studying full-time again would be entirely prohibitive – well it is not difficult to see the next generation still on the hamster wheel having to sprint to stay still all the while taking on debt which for many will never be repaid.
It is obvious that tertiary education is going to need to undertake a major overhaul to provide the next generations with the skills that are needed in a shorter, more condensed time frame and at less cost relative to incomes. Universities may well struggle to adapt and the internationalisation of education online will open up enormous opportunities. I already know of English people living in Italy teaching English over the internet mostly to young Chinese who pay instantly by the minute so that the tutors are also paid into their accounts immediately once the session ends.
Tertiary education is an area that has remained little changed for a long time but I believe it will be unrecognisable in a few decades. And the current prestigious universities will need to adapt to find their niche in order to survive. Nonetheless, I suspect that even greater proportions of young people will access post-school, tertiary education into the future with a combination of broad social studies and highly focused, concise and intense technical programs.
I suspect that a growing element of education, from early childhood through into tertiary education, will be broad knowledge and skills that revolve around social intelligence and civic society – essentially the characters that humans will always value and which we will ‘always’ have an ‘edge’ over machines at. I noted that Prof. Sandel highlights the historic value of developing this knowledge in workplaces, with substantial reading facilities in most workplaces of the past and group breaks for mentorship and discussion. I suspect, however, with the reduction in hours spent in paid employment that role will never fully return to that environment. The education environment is an ideal place for this type of civic learning within a global village context which will be even more critical to leading quality lives in our future.
In a more equitable world, with a UBI in at least the developed nations, with people spending less of their time engaged in paid employment, with more engagement with society through self improvement via education and/or volunteering, there will also be a significant room for the expansion in the role of families and broader ‘village’ connections in our lives.
Prof. Sandel makes almost no mention of the importance of family, which is an enormous pity as this is an obviously critical issue in social cohesion and feelings of attachment within society. I must declare upfront that I have strong views on this which may challenge the views of some readers as it is unlike much of what has been written in recent years on the subject.
If a personal lens of perspective that has been built up over the last half century is applied then readers may reject my views immediately. However, that would be an error because, if the above is correct, and our sense of contribution and belonging within society deprioritises paid employment as I believe it will, then there is plenty of opportunity for the role of family to grow into that space. Nonetheless, some may allow deep guilt for the present or recent past to overshadow the discussion.
We cannot change the past, but if we are honest about it, we are privileged to have an opportunity to impact the future for the better.
So I would ask the reader to pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and then as you begin to read look to the deeper meaning in my views rather than reacting without reflection.
Australia’s recent Federal budget focused heavily on female issues as a political response to the pressure the Caucasian middle-aged male dominant conservative Government was under for failing to respond to the outpouring of emotion, especially from women, at high profile gendered violence and sexual harassment stories that were in the media over the preceding 6 months.
One of the main budgetary measures was a $1.7 Billion boost to childcare as well as very significant funding to build skills in industries dominated by women including aged care. A separate budget women’s statement said “Increasing women’s workforce participation is an economic and social imperative”.
Now I am well aware that this is getting into an area that has strong ties to the feminist movement, with very good reasons related to the history of misogyny and prejudice in the workplace, but I really believe we need to pause to ask whether this really is what is best for society or indeed what society wants.
Here I need to separate first the gender element. As a former world-renowned scientist and heterosexual male who retired at 34 years of age to devote myself to my family when our first child was born, I wholeheartedly support programs to achieve equality of opportunity, pay and rights for working women. Anyone even remotely familiar with my writing will know that is not in question. What I am really talking about here is whether it is best for society for parents of pre- and school-aged children to be encouraged to do more paid employment hours and thus spend more hours with the family apart including by outsourcing the raising of their children to childcare organisations.
Leaving aside whether the evidence really exists that parents want to work more hours in paid employment, research needs to be conducted into why it is that some (or many, as the case may be) wish to work more hours and whether they would, in an ideal world, spend fewer hours in paid employment if they felt they had a free or equal choice.
In other words, is there a real desire to work more hours by parents of children, and if there is, is that really what they want for themselves and their families?
If it is not really what they would prefer but it is a response to other issues, such as the long-running housing affordability crisis or growth in precarious employment conditions, then the real underlying issues that are affecting women and families are not being addressed by facilitating their working of more hours in paid employment.
I do not doubt that the issues here are deeply ingrained in our societies. I have developed an impression over the years through my reading and discussions with other parents that many women carry guilt that being part of a parenting couple they feel unable to devote more time and energy to children. The women carry the guilt because they apply the gender stereotype that it is mainly their fault as that is primarily their role.
I obviously do not agree with that, at all, not least because I consider myself as good a parent as any other father or mother. I do not believe that females are better equipped to be primary caregivers, and I take offence to any suggestion of that when I see it.
I wonder, however, whether many ‘traditional nuclear family’ mothers of young children work because they feel that there is no chance that the decisions over the division of labour with their husband will be based on pragmatism and fairness but instead will be done automatically along gender stereotypical lines.
Thus I wonder whether, if those decisions in all families were based on genuine pragmatism and fairness, because society had progressed to that point, whether families would really seek to increase the cumulative number of hours worked by parents.
The Australian Federal Government along with other Governments around the world say that a major reason for these reforms is to improve productivity in the economy. Many of these programs aim to ensure that more of the income from those extra hours of paid work are retained by the family instead of being lost through regressive taxation or reduced Government assistance, or in additional costs such as childcare.
Critically, these barely scratch the surface on what are the full costs of those extra working hours. They are simply dollar values on a financial balance sheet as if it is purely transactional. But the consideration includes intangibles which are likely more significant.
Decisions to outsource child raising tasks are not just about the affordability of childcare. The first decision is how much, if at all, we wish to outsource the raising of our children to others. Now some families are fortunate to be close with extended family who are pleased to take on that childminding role, and often those arrangements will provide a richer environment for the children because of the obviously deeper and ongoing emotional connection with their family carers. However, it can come at a cost especially to elderly grandparents who can feel used and experience a reduction in their perceptions of personal freedom in their latter years.
In my experience most parents who decide to place a higher priority on family than on career and earning income have stories of extremes in the other direction, and often share observations of large numbers of parents dropping children at opening hours and collecting them at closing from childcare.
At a party just a few years ago I met a couple who had a three year old girl who had been in daycare from the minimum age of 6 weeks. They were a typical ‘high-flying’, upwardly mobile couple who were a lot of fun in a social setting. The mother was animated in her discussions about childcare where she dropped her daughter at opening and collected her at closing time every weekday. The problem she was having was that her daughter was surprisingly energetic when collecting her which was a disappointment to the couple because they wanted to simply feed the little darling and put her to bed. The mother had an argument with the daycare staff saying that her daughter should not be allowed to sleep after lunch along with the other children. The staff said that their little girl was so tired after lunch and they felt bad for keeping her from sleeping while all of the other children did. The mother angrily told them it was only due to ‘peer pressure’ that she wanted to sleep and that she should not be allowed to sleep under any circumstances!
That is a true story from the mother directly. However, discussions with childcare workers over the years have confirmed for me that this situation is not uncommon, that working parents are so fatigued on coming home from work that, after collecting children from childcare, they simply wish to feed and bathe their little ones and put them straight to bed. If that is what occurs for 5 out of 7 days of the week then surely it is not a controversial statement but reality that for these children this is not what would be generally considered a rich or nourishing home life.
Now I am pleased that we live in a country where it is a personal choice on how we deal with very many issues. I would not like to live in a society where people were not free to make the choices that this couple was making, but that does not mean that I want to see Government policy encourage more of these behaviours from people. Moreover, I think that any empathetic human being would immediately realise that there are hidden costs in that situation which will emerge in the years ahead.
Our own family view is that there has never been a period of more rapid change for humanity, so active and thoughtful parenting has never been of greater value to the psychological, emotional and learning development of our children. The more quality time we parents give our children, the better equipped they will be to deal with challenges of their time and thus the more likely they are to lead impactful and satisfying lives.
In this day and age where most things are analysed on a spreadsheet, where a CEO of a supermarket chain explains discounting as “investing in price”, I will explain our own views as such:
Any time spent giving energy directly to family rather than earning income is an investment in families and especially the next generation, and we prefer to invest in our sons above anything else.
Many contemporary parents have responded to this trend by encouraging the participation of their children in many extracurricular activities, possibly as a subconscious need to prove that their children are not missing out on opportunities as a result of their own hectic lifestyles, but also as a benefit of the extra income as many of these activities are very expensive. It also serves as an introduction to the competitive, ‘winner takes all’ society which their parents are striving to succeed in.
Even here, though, I have come to question the benefits to the children of being so active in post-curricular activities and whether benefits are outweighed by costs. When I was a child in the 70s and early 80s I was a good sportsman, but like most Australian kids I played one sport per season – football (in my case rugby league) in Winter and cricket in Summer. Even though each year I played in the representative teams, at most I trained 3 times a week, but most often twice weekly. Critically, however, training times were always centred around family life and children’s schedules; in primary school that meant that our coach (Mr. Fry) would finish work early to train our team at 3pm immediately after school, and even in high school I never finished training later than 6 pm. It was understood that children needed to get home by dark, eat, enjoy a little family time and relaxation together, and then get to bed early for a good night’s sleep.
I suggest, also, that many employers also recognised the contribution their employees were making in their communities by coaching children, and so leaving early for such reasons was respected not frowned upon.
In my experience with my own sons, even from the age of 9, team or group training times are decided around adult (work) schedules and rarely finished before 7 pm. That is the preference of most parents, not just the coaches. It was not before late primary school (at around 11 years of age) that our sons’ routine weeknight bedtime was pushed back from 7.30 to 8pm, so group sports have always presented a challenge to our children-centric family lifestyle.
My observation of recent decades is that in most nations technology and culture has resulted in a continual encroachment of employee’s work life into their broader lives – or a ‘crowding out’ of their personal lives. It is not difficult to understand the benefits of this to employers who are benefitting from even more committed employees who define themselves more and more by that role, along with more and more work hours which are not paid for. In some ways I have a unique view of that in that I was a young professional at the edge of technological innovation as the internet first became ubiquitous in universities (I had a professional website on FW Crayfish Diseases in 1995, and later a blog on the RE house price bubble), then in workplaces, and then in homes.
I recall in those latter years of the previous century employees feeling the significant pressure that continual electronic communication brought with it. But then I retired from the workforce as a young man, and I have observed how these issues have progressed amongst friends and across broader society with some objectivity. Those pressures have continued to grow, but most now do not know or remember how it was before email and smartphones. The consequent culture change shows up in many forms in many workplaces.
Several personal experiences are relevant here. Some years back I attended several Christmas parties where the Country lead for this multinational took considerable time to acknowledge partners present in the knowledge that time their employees spent away from their homes represented a sacrifice for families and personal relationships. She gave heartfelt thanks to the partners as representatives of the broader family. However, in recent years cost cutting and creeping culture change led to the Christmas party being only open to employees, in effect dropping the aspect of the party which acknowledged the broader, richer lives of employees and thanking employees with partners for those personal sacrifices. Instead the evening Christmas party became yet more time that employees spent away from families or partners to be seen to be ‘team players’ for their employer. I found this to be a significantly retrograde development. Of course if cost-cutting really is critical there are many inclusive ways of thanking staff and their partners or families.
When actions or behaviours that have been associated with a certain aspect of workplace culture are changed, then the culture has changed.
The second experience relates to how increasing stress from modern workplaces had been continually consuming more of the energy of adults thereby encroaching on home life by leaving them, the leaders of their families, with less energy to devote to family. My wife’s workplace and/or work area has been through almost continual review for the past 5 years which has involved three major and prolonged structural reviews, two of which required her to reapply for her job. The most recent review, during a once in 100 year pandemic, was perhaps understandable. But what seems little appreciated is that the continual change in these organisations leaves their employees stressed and drained so that when genuine crises occur, as they will from time to time, they are already low on drawable reserves of resilience.
There has been little respite, also, because even annual leave on the first two occasions was impacted when my wife had to ring in from family holidays in Italy to find out whether she still had a job (the second of those occasions was during the filming of our House Hunters International episode). Because of the inherent anxiety involved in these processes, it effectively took much of the benefit of the family holiday away from her and it impacted the whole family. My dear wife, at the same time, has also had to battle the issues that I raised in “Racial Prejudice And Bias: A matter of degrees“. These issues have impacted my wife and our family deeply and in ways that I will never be able to discuss openly.%
All of these issues are inline with the continual ‘crowding out’ of employee’s personal lives by employers. However, now in the Great Reset era, portended by the COVID-19 pandemic, introspection by many has seen these dynamics questioned and challenged.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the start of the Great Reset era has brought about a reframing of work-life balance especially for families. During lockdowns, with professional parents mostly working from home, there was a noticeable increase in family togetherness while exercising or picnicking in parks and in general strolls around the neighbourhood as in the Italian passion, the passeggiata.
At the time I commented to my wife that, as long as our measures manage to protect most Australian families from experiencing personal loss, then I would not be surprised if this period were very fondly remembered by very many children as a period of genuine connection within their families; a time when they received the most attention ever from their parents.
In the fullness of time I believe it will be recognised as the catalyst for a ‘reset’ in family connection, a major aspect of the Great Reset.
The changes brought on by measures to combat COVID-19 were profound for the work-home life balance. The working from home phenomenon out of the COVID-19 pandemic reversed the work encroachment on personal and family life in a rather counter-intuitive manner, all the more remarkable when consideration is given to the recent trend of increasingly fluid and de-personalised workspaces through, for example, ‘hot desking’ (and even ‘hot officing’ pioneered by WeWork). On the one hand working from home might be seen as the ultimate in encroachment of work life into home life, but it has almost certainly worked in the opposite direction. Through working from home, and especially video conferencing, everybody has seen a glimpse into the lives of everybody else. At first, I suspect, many felt a little more vulnerable for this alone, but the collective experience has allowed everybody to experience that vulnerability together. The experience is best summed up by the glimpses into personal lives in zoom meetings by just seeing personal spaces in the background, and in having children or pets come into the background or into the foreground.
Overall it has been an overwhelmingly positive development as it has served as a continual reminder to everybody that all work colleagues – whether peers, subordinates or superiors – are people with lives that extend well beyond their roles as employees, which in many ways has been critical in feeling connected with others and with humanity through this very challenging period.
Observing commentary through Bloomberg’s various channels already suggests to me that employees are expressing changed values and goals which will become typical in the Great Reset era. Employees are pushing back on what has been this continual encroachment into their lives by employers and this will demand a significant culture change.
This culture change must be driven from top-level leadership, certainly, but mid to high level managers, responsible for perhaps 30 to 100 employees via direct reports, must be the focus for implementation. What will be required is a mindset that says that the employer understands that while an important source of belonging and contribution in society is gained from being actively engaged in worthwhile paid employment, it is only one facet of an individual’s identity and contribution to society. This will require acknowledgment by middle management that most workplaces are not actually involved in saving the world from catastrophe – after all we have already learned through the pandemic that those people are the nurses, supermarket staff and vaccine developers – even if that middle management may be trying to create some sort of sense of that to have a committed workforce that is ultimately being used to elevate their own careers.
There is no doubt, also, that business interests adversely affected by these disruptive changes from the COVID-19 pandemic are arguing that professional workers must be made to return to cities. It is curious that these city-based businesses somehow consider themselves more worthy of saving from disruption than the blacksmith, corner shop, or indeed the video cassette rental store. Whether they can convince their ‘corporate friends’ to force workers to once again sacrifice family time and relationships in the name of creating a vibrant city centre for commercial activity will be interesting to observe over the next while.
Personally I find it a difficult argument to make, and I suspect that through these experiences many parents have realised the benefits to them and their children, and thus the family unit, of far more engagement in the raising of their children with less outsourcing to child-minders. In fact, many may have begun to realise what our family has learned through our experiences that there are very many underappreciated benefits to having one full-time parent in the family, and to sacrificing income from working more hours in paid employment to ‘invest in family’.
Increasingly psychologists are referring to the concept of ‘psychological bandwidth’ meaning the capacity of individuals to deal with complex and/or multiple issues. It has obvious application in workplaces in assessing individual performance, but the reality is that nobody can know exactly how much ‘data’ is being processed by any individual because nobody can ever fully understand all of the issues that individuals are confronting in their work and personal lives. There are many issues that even that person is unaware of that is consuming their ‘bandwidth’, especially if they are someone with low self-awareness or emotional intelligence, or when there are issues that are not widely acknowledged in the workplace (such as issues around prejudice and bias).
The concept also is embedded in the way Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger explain their business and investing success, recognisable to those who intuitively understand the concept, when they say that they have maintained very relaxed work habits throughout their careers with plenty of time for reading and contemplation. They often joke that most would be surprised by how they work and many might even consider them ‘lazy’. Obviously this is an acknowledgment that it is human to have a limited ‘psychological bandwidth’. Successful and effective people know it is critical to not overload their ‘bandwidth’, either consciously or unconsciously. This is essentially the truth* underlying my post “Workplace Flexibility Success” that the smart aspect is the most important of the hard and smart work ethos, and that managers that rely on ‘presenteeism’ (or ‘bums on seats’) to judge their workers are admitting that they are poor managers. As Buffett and Munger continually stress, surprisingly few excellent ideas are necessary to make significant impacts. However, most people lack the self-confidence that they will come up with quality ideas, and, I suspect, fear that managers will be unreceptive and unable to recognise their merit when they are presented with them, so the majority engage themselves in the game of ‘presenteeism’ and attempting to appear busy churning out lots of data rather than searching for those ‘golden ideas’.
To understand that this concept relates to all of us, even the rare geniuses amongst humanity, look no further than this brilliant piece to learn of the mundane issues which occupied Machiavelli and about the court case that so occupied Michelangelo that he never held a chisel for four years!
Understanding this concept early in my life has been one of my great advantages, through my scientific career and in the ways that I run our family household as I describe below.
The use of the concept that I identify most with is in discussions of inequality where analysts highlight that underprivileged people are consuming so much of their ‘bandwidth’ for day to day survival that it is extremely challenging to make logical decisions that have the potential to improve their circumstances over the medium to long term. These researchers point out that this often results in privileged people looking down upon under-privileged people for making poor choices, adding to the concepts around credentialism that Prof. Sandel discussed and which I dealt with above.
I identify with this concept of ‘psychological bandwidth’ because of my upbringing. Instead of referring to it as ‘bandwidth’, however, I have always referred to the concept as one of ’emotional energy’.
I discussed this even in the earliest pages published here at MacroEdgo including my discussion on my ‘Investment History‘ page when discussing the decision to delay buying a home, and under several themes on my ‘Investment Themes‘ page where I made mention of the challenges my family and I confronted in my childhood (which I have now expanded upon most completely in “How Farmers Lose Their Perspective“).
In my concept I see that we all have a ‘bank’ of emotional energy that we draw on to carry out our day to day lives and to respond to the issues that we confront. Obviously in modern parlance it is directly related to our resilience in that this ‘bank’ of energy is what we draw on to be resilient and recover from adversity. If we are unfortunate to face prolonged stress in our lives and/or extreme trauma or a series of traumatic events then our ‘bank’ of emotional energy becomes depleted and we struggle to recover. In my case I had a breakdown when my ‘bank’ had been totally depleted and when I became overwhelmed by anxiety.
Families with close connections obviously have a collective ‘bank’ of emotional energy from all of the individuals in their family – that is where we draw from to support each other when things become difficult for one, some, or all of those in the group – essentially the strength of our ‘support network’. I learned all of this when I was a teenager, when my family’s collective ‘bank’ of emotional energy had been depleted by our fight to keep the farm, and I knew that I could not dip into that as I struggled with normal teenager development. I had to suppress my emotions and I sort to generate some of my own emotional energy for the family by becoming especially close to my father working with him to help make his dream come true. It came at great cost to me, emotionally, and ultimately the family fractured primarily as a matter of individual survival as the pressure was very prolonged and traumatic events occurred.
This is the main reason why I understood the importance of families not living under acute or chronic stress, and that was my primary objective in my earlier blogging activities on the Australian housing bubble – getting Australian families to stop and think before committing to prolonged economic vulnerability to own a home through extreme debt loads just because others are doing it.
My wife and I always, from our earliest family planning, intended that one of us would allow our careers to take a backseat in order to devote most of our energy to our family. As circumstances turned out, the only logical choice was for that to be me, and nobody is more pleased with the situation than me. Psychologically I started out in a challenging position, seeing as I had first to recover from a breakdown from being burned out trying to continue my career as a research scientist, but through a long process of introspection and healing, with and without professionals, I was able to fully recover.
I now see my most important function within our family, in the primary caregiver role, to be the backup energy source for everybody, the big ‘bank’ of emotional energy that is not burdened with many day to day stresses (from work, or school, or social issues) that can be tapped into to provide the support to whoever is struggling at the time, or even the whole family if there is a major issue we must confront together. I do not say that I never get down myself, because I do sometimes – e.g. I have found it an isolating experience to be a male full-time parent – but those moments where my emotional energy is run-down are rare these days. Most of my emotional energy goes to supporting my children, and especially my wife over recent years with those issues that I mentioned above. In truth, the stress that she has had to endure in recent years has been so great that I have feared that I would not be able to provide enough support for her, and there were times when I really feared for the consequences to her and our family. When I think of that I am afraid to even consider what would have been the implications if I was not able to support her to the degree I have over that time, especially if I was still stressed trying to maintain my career.
Having a full-time parent nowadays is considered by some to be an unaffordable ‘luxury’ for a family, but in reality very many Australian families could make the same decision if they were prepared to sacrifice income, and more specifically, the things that their income is spent on buying (e.g. by delaying buying a home and living more modestly). I cannot help but think it is an enormous advantage to emotionally supporting and raising well-grounded children, and to providing a happy and healthy family home life.
Much is made of the contemporary opportunities for two-income families in comparison to 50 years ago, but I actually see the situation as the opposite. Management of family and home in our time is so much more complicated than it was back then, and I have no doubt that the stress from that combined with the stress from two careers in a family home are a large part of the growing levels of anxiety within society and in our children. As just one example, staying on top of all school communication – the many letters from schools and forms to be completed in this increasingly litigious society, emails from teachers, yearly introductions and parent-teacher meetings, involvement in other school activities including volunteering in numerous ways – surely consumes multiples of the time and energy that they did decades earlier. The same goes for sporting activities and the myriad other extra-curricular activities.
It goes much further, however, in a world where increasingly Governments have shifted important functions onto individuals and families. The amount of time and energy taken to sort out insurances for health, house and contents, cars, lives, incomes, against trauma or other mishaps, and to review them periodically to ensure that insurers are not taking advantage of apathy, are enormous nowadays.
Then there is the largest administrative task of all – money management so that the resources of the family can provide for the hopes and aspirations of all in the family, including for a comfortable and secure retirement. This has been the trend with the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution retirement savings programs, and the consequent shifting of risk, thus responsibility, onto individual workers.
In addition to all of that for parents is the standard day to day roles of keeping everybody well fed with healthy food living in a healthy environment that is clean and stimulating. Here I must admit that my wife does need to do some housework as I am more interested in outdoor activities to maintain and improve the amenity of our home, but that is essentially the mirror opposite of the distribution of tasks in the ‘traditional’ nuclear family of the 1960s with the mum at home.
Unlike the 1960’s, however, there are probably around 500% more gadgets and devices around our (significantly larger) houses and (smaller) yards that must be maintained by someone.
The truth for most modern two-income families is that childcare is only the beginning of the outsourcing of vital tasks that many or even most families engage in. Increasingly in the Great Reset I believe that families will question whether they are actually better off for the two incomes and will better analyse the pros and cons of each outsourced task.
Families that are capable of making pragmatic decisions based on the broad range of relevant issues, not on outdated stereotypes of gender roles, are likely to reduce their combined hours worked in paid employment. I also believe that even primary or sole income earners will also decrease the amount of time spent in income producing work, if not necessarily by choice then by societal acceptance of reduced working hours with a UBI or other additional Government payments.
These changes will be enormously beneficial to creating healthy connections within families and throughout communities which will lead to more cohesive societies.
My wife and I will forever be proud that the decisions that we made allowed me to contribute to our community deeply. Through volunteering at our children’s primary school I can say in total honesty that I played a role in teaching every child in both of our sons’ year levels to read and to swim because nowadays no child is allowed in a school pool without adult volunteers, and those volunteers have been in increasingly short supply. Moreover I was able to help on excursions and in other fundraising activities.
Irrespective of whether a parent or not, all of these volunteering activities contribute to cohesive societies by creating deep connection and belonging.
As a child in the 1970’s I was transfixed by “The Jetsons”, a cartoon television show of a futuristic nuclear family with two school-age children living in a raised city in the 2060’s. I think every child of my era could see the enormous benefits of robotic assistants to do all of the chores around the house and even dressing the family. No more cleaning our rooms! Just drop cloths wherever and the robots immediately dispatched them to washing! What’s not to love!
In his flying car the father, George, jetted off to work for 1 hour, twice a week. Originally made in the 1960’s, for relatability in that era, the mother, Jane, was a housewife who was actively engaged by her full-time parenting role and by consumerism along with several community-related volunteer roles. Even with this high degree of automation within their lives, the parents, and especially the ‘highly-strung’ George, is stressed by the demands of keeping all of the gadgetry working effectively. Sadly there seemed to be few robotic services to fix the domestic robots!
The writers of the show are often praised for their futuristic foresight. Reflecting back on the concept of the show, even now I can marvel at its interesting and continually relevant premise. I cannot deny that I still get excited at the idea of automation making redundant our involvement in all of those mundane but vital chores. I believe it is that same thrill that many who have bought any number of automated smart machines, like robotic vacuums and mops, or pool cleaners, have experienced.
Yet, when we transfer that to industrial or commercial environments, the degree to which many in society has tied their identity to what they do for paid employment creates a reluctance to have an open mind to the benefits of automation. Moreover, the idea that many, or even most, of us do not have a choice in this progress likely creates anxiety in many. I imagine that the idea of a two hour work week would scare many adults who watched the “The Jetsons” as a child, and while I agree that would be extreme even in the future I can foresee, it is a very great pity that our contemporary societies struggle to imagine a time when we spend much less of our time engaged by paid employment.
In “The Jetsons” the underlying premise is that humans are driven to automate as much as possible to maximise the amount of leisure time available to us, or at least maximise the amount of time that is entirely at the individual’s discretion as to what they do. Now that we are getting a glimpse of how that might look for us, given that the recent experience has been to increasingly move in the opposite direction, within cultures where it has become typical and even applauded to develop a ‘side hustle’, or even a few of them, the idea of having extra ‘down-time’ is to many ‘lazy’, and to some almost ‘amoral’. (Again, Prof. Sandel draws some linkages on the history of this attitude in “The Tyranny of Merit” as does Rutger Bregman in “Utopia For Realists”.)
(Note that in no way do trivialise the existence of poverty and the ‘working poor’ in developed nations, and it is one of the major reasons why I believe a UBI is necessary, in fact overdue.)
I believe that we all need to find that open-minded child in all of us that watched “The Jetsons” in wonder and remember how then we had little problem in keeping ourselves actively engaged in pass-times connecting with ourselves, through reading and multitudes of other activities, or connecting with our family, friends, neighbours and broader community through gameplay, sports or by helping with something important to others.
For me I think it is entirely a reasonable premise that society should seek to develop automation# to such a level that more of our time is at our discretion knowing that the goodness at the core of humanity will result in it leading to greater connection within societies and broader humanity, and thus creating that much needed social cohesion.
Much of the discourse on meritocracy, by myself, by Prof. Sandel, and by others, also revolves around identity and connection, from hiring managers seeking to identify with and connect with applicants they employ, at the same time introducing a myriad of biases, right through to identity and connections within families and community.
Importantly, a reduction in working hours for employees will never negate the need to eliminate biases as the foundation of capitalism will always be the market efficiently awarding the benefits for hard and smart work relatively. The active guidance and oversight of markets by democratic institutions is vital to ensure proportionality of those benefits, this being the aspect of the system which has faltered in recent decades in our extreme form of capitalism. The conditions of that work, however, will continue to evolve, as it always has, as technology and societal views evolve and adapt.
I accept that for humans ‘what we do’ has always been important in our identities, so much so that many family names are derived from societal roles of some distant relative. Over the last 50 years, however, as the contemporary extreme form of capitalism emerged, our identities became more and more bound up in what we do for paid employment. Perhaps that is in part a consequence of living in larger communities where smaller proportions of people in our communities interact with us in those roles, so people seek to indicate their status and means, thus identifying themselves superficially as ‘successful’, with clothing, vehicles and houses which often leads acquaintances to enquire as to what it is that they do ‘for a living’.
With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, however, that increasing role in identity played by ‘what we do’ (for paid employment) is being confronted as roles are increasingly challenged by technological progress and/or entirely displaced or lost.
An abrupt change in ‘what we do’ in our society, through retrenchment or forced retirement, often leads to serious impact to individual identity. I understand this as well as anybody because it was an important factor in my breakdown. I also learned about the significant impacts on retired men in their 60’s and 70’s through my involvement with a men’s club where many described feelings of ‘loss’ and ‘irrelevance’ after retirement.
The typical full-time worker in a developed nation, under present conditions, is compelled to work for around 8hrs, 5 days a week. Even when those conditions are met, i.e. without any additional encroachment on home-life, and allowing for 8hrs of sleep each night, paid employment consumes half of the time spent awake for 5/7 of every week (excepting time on personal or other leave). Moreover, a significant amount of the remaining 8hrs of time spent awake, perhaps a quarter of it or more, is consumed in preparing for and travelling to and from work. In most developed nations workers expect to work in paid employment for around 50 years with the retirement age at 65+ years, and the retirement age has been retreating of late.
Given that full-time workers, even without additional encroachment of work-life into personal-life, devote so much of their ‘quality energy’ of their entire lives to the roles they play in paid employment, it is hardly surprising that they desire to be highly engaged in that work, and to be fairly rewarded for it (monetarily and in other forms of recognition), and to feel a sense of inclusion and ‘belonging’ from it in the workplace, such that the degree to which that occurs affects how they perceive themselves and how they perceive others perceive them, thus impacting on their ‘identity’.
Over recent decades, as paid employment has occupied increasingly more time and energy, workers’ identities became even more conflated with their roles as employees, and increasingly managers and organisations came to see their employees more narrowly as just workers rather than people with broader and richer lives within their communities. That trend was hastened and exacerbated by the encroachment of modern communication which made workers contactable 24/7.
Measures to contain the pandemic have reversed that trend, and in the Great Reset era people are reflecting on how things had been before COVID-19 and are now pondering whether they wish to permanently change their work-life balance or even turn it on its head be making a more significant change such as changing careers or quitting all together.
In many ways, Governments introducing structural reforms to facilitate people to work more hours in paid employment are addressing the issues of the previous era.
The issues in the new era are about how we introduce better balance into lives so that people can lead richer and more satisfying lifestyles which will ultimately achieve greater cohesion and more compassionate societies with greater connection.
This is playing out in all sorts of ways which will require adaptation by businesses. For instance surveys show that while international travel is one of the most missed activities through the pandemic, it is all about personal travel and surveys suggest business travel will not come back the way it was before. This is yet another case of personal fulfillment and family activity and togetherness being prioritised above professional/work activity on several levels.
In Part 1 of this essay I highlighted that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic societies in developed nations were in a ‘funk’ with many feeling ‘rudderless’, meandering without direction.
In my “The Great Reset” essay published 30 March 2020 I said:
If this battle against COVID-19 proves nothings else it shows that all our fates on this beautiful planet are inextricably linked. The only sustainable way forward for humanity is united and time and effort spent moving in the other direction is an utter waste and dangerous to us all
In another post shortly afterwards I expanded on my views around the new era:
“The Great Reset” provides us all with an opportunity to dream of a world that we want for ourselves and the people we love most, and ponder how we can realistically bring that to fruition, not instantaneously but with enduring commitment and innovation. Goodness knows humanity has proven to itself, once again, even still in the early stages of this pandemic, that human ingenuity and endeavour is without limits.
Then in July 2020 in “How Society Will Change If A COVID-19 Vaccine Is Elusive” I stated that the Great Reset era had commenced and it was irreversible, concluding that:
High quality, effective leadership will nurture it so that the best outcomes are realised to the benefit of humanity. Scoundrels will try to harness it to bend society to a more warped and less inclusive version. We all must show leadership and engage with the process to achieve the best outcome for ourselves and those we love, and those who succeed us. And we should all prepare to be flexible and supple in thought to make the best decisions that we can with the information that we have as we emerge from the shock of our altered existence and as our future comes into clearer focus.
The evidence is increasingly emerging that a new era did indeed dawn, and it will be marked by individuals asserting their preferences and acting upon them. While in nations ravaged by COVID-19 the significance of certain social distancing and infection control measures will stay forever etched in the neural synapses of many for the remainder of their lives, such as the 6 feet/1.5 metre gap to others, and general hygiene including the wearing of masks especially when even slightly unwell, the forced disconnection with extended family and society, and the extraordinary opportunity for reconnection within same-household family groups, has reminded all of the importance of that connection in feelings of belonging and satisfaction with life.
This, in and of itself, will create more cohesive societies that naturally seek to work towards the ‘common good’ with the potential to create a virtuous cycle of increasing solidarity and connection.
I believe that this virtuous cycle will expand and revolve around the following three critical, intertwined pillars: the importance of the ‘global village’ and humanitarianism, the changing roles of employment and education, and connection with community and family.
I have always had a deep and optimistic love for humanity, and that has never been stronger than it is today. I do believe that the ‘common good’ is making a revival, and I am certain that will please Prof. Sandel as much as it does me. It will still take, however, good people to stand up and be counted and lead, but from where I am sitting right now, here in the Great Reset era, there appear to be many prepared to do just that!
^I also wish to be clear that this does not necessarily relate to every sector as redundancy or over-capacity is necessarily built into some critical services in society to handle surge demand, which when it comes to nurses were stretched beyond limits during the pandemic, and other sectors have a long history of under-employment and exploitation, for instance academic teaching, unrelated to ’empire-building’ by middle managers.
%Giving credit where it is due, however, her employer has been very conscious of employee welfare and preferences through the pandemic, and for my wife, this extended period of working from home has been especially welcome and timely given the underlying issues remain largely unaddressed.
*I realise that I may be criticised for under referencing in my essays, but they are meant to be just that – essays – and not research pieces. In my background as a research scientist I tended to be extremely thorough with sourcing, often overly so (admittedly I was a collector of resources and back in those days nothing was more thrilling than receiving in the post a big hoard of reprints), so this is a liberating benefit of no longer being a professional. I do try to limit my assumptive statements to those which are reasonably self evident, but I recognise that those who wish to disagree will always maintain their blinkered- (blindered-) view and find fault no matter how well sourced my writing. Pragmatically, though, everybody now knows that just about anybody can track down at least one source these days maintaining virtually any position, for instance as whacky as 5G networks spreading coronavirus. I have also noted that the sources in my essays – through hyperlinks – are only very rarely accessed. While I recognise that experts in the various fields that I cover would source their research pieces and articles more thoroughly, and should, I consider that the level of sourcing I carry out for my mostly big-picture essays is entirely acceptable.
#This should not be interpreted that I have a laissez faire attitude to AI development and adoption as I agree that we must have very stringent oversight to ensure safety for humanity.
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
Firstly an admission – I am bogged down in writing part 2 of my response to Sandel’s ‘meritocracy’ discourse because it encompasses three large areas which I had intended to write individual posts on and for which I had developed extensive notes. That highlights how important that response is to me, but it also means that I need to take my time to formulate my ideas and explain them with some degree of coherence.
So I am taking time out when ideas or events arise to write briefer posts. This is one that I have had in mind for a while. In reality I have been formulating my ideas on this for at least 20 years, but it is foremost in my mind when I write many articles on MacroEdgo or elsewhere where I mention ‘elites’.
I cannot deny that most of the times when I use the term ‘elites’ it is not in a positive way. It typically denotes a mindset of elitism, of being atop the ‘meritocracy pile’, irrespective of how much genuine merit went into that, enjoying that privilege and using it to broaden and embed that privilege for themselves and their heirs.
Yet I have been clear, also, in my writing that there are many ‘elites’ whom I respect and know I would like if circumstances arose. These people are ‘elites’ by virtue of the privilege that they enjoy within society because of their status and/or wealth, but their actions do not accord with the above. They are the people with humanility, understanding and respectful of the various pieces of fortune and the people that have acted in their lives and were pivotal in them reaching their privileged position. As a consequence, usually these ‘elites’ are relatively busy ‘giving back’ to humanity in various forms which do not involve personal gain or vanity (as opposed to the ‘elites’ who just seek to take more from humanity).
Perhaps there is a third group that enjoys their privilege, and while they do not negatively impact others with that privilege by seeking to broaden that advantage, neither do they seek to ‘give back’ to humanity and society in any form or when they do they are mostly vanity projects that cause no harm. I am inclined to agree that, too, is not good enough – but in “How Might Milton Friedman Respond To The COVID-19 Pandemic?” I explained it is my belief that it is incumbent on all to give to others as in my travels I have seen even the poorest give, even their energy and goodwill to smile and be friendly when their existence was so much more challenged than mine.
I spell this out because I do wish to draw a distinction between myself and those on the extreme left that consider wealth obscene or abhorrent. I could go on here with further qualifications and a discussion on monetary and other rewards being commensurate with the roles we play in society, and that being truly representative of broad societies’ views rather than being increasingly skewed by the political advantage that the privileged ‘elites’ enjoy to produce our contemporary extreme inequality and which has resulted in executive salaries increasing at rates a factor higher than for the majority of workers. But that is not the point of this post.
What I really want to discuss is people, as individuals and not as tribes, nor with tags attached such as ‘elites’.
Earlier I said that I had developed thoughts on this 20 years ago. When I worked for Biosecurity Australia I developed a strong view, from my personal experience, that much political influence occurs in decisions on what biosecurity risks are acceptable when importing animal and plant products into Australia. A lot of that political interference acts to prevent trade in products from low-income nations because they are disadvantaged in their ability to fight cases in the WTO arbitration processes. Moreover, they are also dependent on developed nations in a number of critical areas and so are vulnerable to accepting unfair decision and ‘trading away’ issues for others which are even more critical to them.
I have been clear in my earlier writing at MacroEdgo about this period and specifically the pressure that was placed on me to alter my scientific advice to a position that was satisfactory to the Minister who was under pressure from Australian groups that wanted to stop trade in certain products. I was under so much pressure that likely I would have either been sacked or removed from certain projects if I was not fortunate to receive a timely research fellowship to move on to (in France).
For a while I was quite annoyed with all of my colleagues for being more accommodating to those political masters. Then the penny dropped. I knew these people and I knew they are good people doing their best in a difficult position. Many, especially in the plant biosecurity area, were from minority backgrounds and were sensitive to the broader issues of fairness and equality.
I also wrote specifically about my former boss, whom I thought very highly of, and I often wondered why he agreed to play that role when it was fairly clear to me that he, himself, most of the time appeared uncomfortable with the political element of the job.
What I realised is that these are the exact people that we want in these positions. It is true that these positions will be held by someone if not them, as I discussed in “The Authenticity Piece For Leadership Is Right In My Wheelhouse“, and that person may well be one of those sociopathic/psychopathic types that will do anything asked of them by the politicians without any pushback, and without even a fleeting moment of reflection of the consequences or impacts on others, in order to get themselves ahead.
I am certain that if we look across the roles in society, those tough jobs that you or I would not like to do, or are not capable of doing, there will be a lot of good people doing their best to balance the pressures that they face.
That also includes a good slice of the people whom some of us might collectively tag as ‘elites’, like a central banker, or a hedge fund manager, or even many contemporary titans of commerce and industry including the head of an airline or of an integrated energy giant.
That is something that we all need to keep in mind at all times, and that is the basis of one of my most important essays, “The Great Reset: Building the bridge“.
The other element of this, of course, is that it is up to all of us – the broader community – to collectively act to provide the background support for these good people in tough positions to do right by humanity. That is what I am especially optimistic about now that we have entered the Great Reset era.
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
I am well aware that the ‘Macro(economics)’ element of this blog has taken a backseat in my writing since COVID-19 broke and I have not updated my views on investment markets for almost a year.
There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, these times are unprecedented – in fact I believe we have entered a new era which I refer to as the Great Reset – and I consider that it is far more important to write about the social and socioeconomic issues of the time.
Secondly, my views on the market have not really altered over this time. I consider that we have been in a highly irregular and unsustainable period of extraordinary support for asset market prices, and that commenced well before most of humanity came to understand that coronaviruses contain RNA and are covered in spikes.
The exuberance has been around a long time, this time around, and irrational exuberance is evident in many places, even beyond the erratic trade in cryptocurrency. I would suggest that handing over money for, or erratic trading in, blank cheque companies – or special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) – often marketed by celebrities will become emblematic of the late stages of this period.
I believe that anybody active in this market is gambling and is over confident that they will foresee the change of tide before others. That does not mean that everybody holding assets is a gambler, but there is an argument for locking in returns for those strong characters who will resist the desire to plunge back in if the madness continues a while yet.
Like ‘my mate’ Tom Keene on Bloomberg, I am looking for an entry point in keeping with my long-term investment strategy. That entry point is well south of here.
Absolutely the market is frothy – very frothy – but the reason why some continue to disagree with this view is that spotting this froth is like trying to spot shaving cream froth atop of fluffy snow piled high in a long-running blizzard from 50 feet!
(Note, having lived only a brief period of my life in a region with Winter snow – indeed, outside of the tropics or subtropics – my snow analogy might be a little non-sensical but it seemed to make more sense than my first, cappuccino froth…)
And of course, by this stage of any such period, so many have been making so much money out of clipping the ticket of fund flows from the increasing activity that there will be no shortage of superficially reasonable arguments for why the party will surely continue.
The problem is that after a decade and half of expansionary monetary policy – ranging between extremely loose to ridiculously loose – it is really, really difficult to find any assets that are not overvalued on a reasonable assessment of long-term value. Thus, if over a long-term basis purchasing at these prices is not likely to be profitable, and here I have to point to GMO’s (the home of Jeremy Grantham) prospective returns analysis released monthly as one example of similar thinking to mine, the only reason to buy these assets is ‘tactical’, i.e. short-term, which is a strategy dependent on greater fools sending prices higher allowing an exit from the ‘trade’.
There is one asset which I would buy, if my circumstances were different, because it is one of the long-term premier assets (valued for centuries) which has not increased sharply in price over the last decade. In fact, this asset class has actually fallen over that period because of local economic circumstances, and now those circumstances have deteriorated sharply in the pandemic. Curiously, prices have not fallen sharply, as I had expected, which perhaps suggests that prices are about as low as they ‘can’ go.
I believe that well-located, quality property in a premier tourist city in Italy, I looked especially at Florence, represents a very good prospect for long term investment in the current climate. Unfortunately my means precludes me from buying quality in this market, and I am not certain that scraping together funds for a subterranean well-located apartment, that may or may not meet cadastral requirements for habitation, would meet the brief.
If I could buy a quality apartment in such a premier city that will always be of interest to humanity I would do so confident that I would receive a positive yield for the entire duration of my holding, and I would be extremely confident that over the long run I would make an excellent capital return. In my view, such assets are rare at present while trillions are invested in negative-yielding bonds and long-duration bonds at very low yields.
I do intend to give a full update on my investment views and my (admittedly muted, given I am allocated mostly to cash and gold) investment performance when I finish some important writing assignments including the second part of my response to Prof. Michael Sandel’s ‘meritocracy’ discourse.
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
What was running through my father’s enraged mind that night I will never know — he is too emotionally repressed to ever be able to even acknowledge it happened let alone give me closure on what he was thinking as he was fully loading his revolver — but I have had to live my life remembering my worst night…
I was in year 11. I had celebrated my 15th birthday a few months earlier, and was in my penultimate year at home before going to university.
Mum and Dad had been fighting a lot over recent years, ever since the global prices of agricultural commodities including sugar dropped at the end of the 70s.
The emotional capacity of my family to absorb stress had been totally used by the dream of my father to develop the farm that had been in his family almost the entire time since the imposition of British law removed Indigenous rights over the land that they had occupied for over 40,000 years.
I had come to understand my parents’ inability to deal with additional stress over the previous years as I entered my own difficult development period in life. After my mother told me that I was “becoming a real bastard” — which was uncharacteristic for my typically nurturing mother — I realised that I would not have the opportunity to even begin to rebel like most other kids of my age were doing.
If I did rebel, I stood to lose my family.
Being in a triumvirate of siblings, where my elder siblings were closer to each other than me, and with both of them more social and significantly older than me, I was much more dependent on my parents for my emotional security. Suppressing my own ill-feelings, exacerbated by the stress of living in an emotionally-taught environment, I began to take a great interest in my father’s work and became his ‘offsider’ on the farm.
Mum and Dad had been at each others’ throats for months. It was clear that we were going backwards financially — it’s difficult to explain the feeling of a family working towards a goal with great dedication and diligence, yet being further behind financially even after producing a good crop. They would often go over the books at night, mostly in silence interrupted with periods of abrupt and emotional discourse indicative of bewilderment at how they had arrived at their (our) predicament.
When Dad originally approached banks in the mid 70s to organise financing to purchase the farm from his Uncle, the pre-deregulated capital gatekeepers were ultra conservative and suggested that the manner in which Dad described how we would live to make things work was unrealistic. They told him “This is the 70’s and nobody lives like that anymore”. However, Dad managed to cobble together the finances by borrowing from his parents, a brother and from the bank, and with vendor finance also.
We reclaimed an old cane cutter’s barracks from regrowth and grass — it stood like a time capsule of how the workers left it over a decade earlier — and Dad made some minor repairs and additions to make it livable. My brother and I shared a room which had no door and was open to the elements via an open veranda. My sister’s room, between ours and my parents, only had a door fitted as she approached her teens.
We lived very frugally, to say the least, and of course the entire family worked together on the farm. Being the youngest and well under 10 years of age, when removing remnant wood from cleared paddocks I drove the tractor or truck. But I quickly progressed to driving a tractor and working in the field on my own as a pre-teen.
Life was full of hard work, but we were all happy being together.
In the midst of a commodities boom, prices for sugar were so good that with the early improvements Dad made to the farm they had earned enough money to be debt free. However, the Industry and Government representatives were positive about prices being maintained at those high levels and were actively encouraging farmers with capacity to further develop their land to do so.
Fatefully, Dad listened to that advice and borrowed more to clear and develop more land. He had a dream to quadruple production over what his Uncle had achieved by clearing all of our land and by improving drainage and the layout of paddocks.
The newly deregulated banks were much freer with their lending which Dad was pleased about at the time.
If global prices had remained at those lofty levels for even another 5 years Dad probably would have achieved his dream, but it was not to be the case.
When I heard the Landcruiser pull into our long driveway I had a feeling of dread. An eerie quietness had fallen over the kitchen where Mum had set the table over an hour earlier when she had finished cooking dinner. My sister was fortunately away at university but my brother was still living at home.
It seemed that the only time my father appeared happy was when sharing a few beers with friends, and one particularly persistent couple had become his favourite drinking partners. I could just imagine them cajoling him to stay for just one more — as his presence there provided a buffer to soften their own marital tensions and prolong their enjoyment — while he mildly stated that he should leave. For some reason he stayed later than usual this night.
As the Landcruiser pulled up to the house my brother was about to descend the few steps out of our old workers’ quarters-converted home to shower in the makeshift bathroom area attached to the side of the building at ground level. Our home was rudimentary to say the least — a few years later when friends from university dropped in they drove right past our home heading towards the back of the farm because they were in disbelief that people would be living there.
Mum asked my brother to remove the keys from the Landcruiser before going for a shower.
My brother passed by Dad while fulfilling Mum’s request.
The fighting erupted immediately on Dad ascending those few steps straight into the kitchen-dining room which was contiguous with our living room where I sat apprehensively.
The encounter was brief and it ended as abruptly as it began with Dad storming out yelling “I don’t even know why I bothered coming home!”.
I heard the door to the Landcruiser open, and then a moment later shut as my father would have noticed that the keys had been removed. Then a few seconds later I heard through a window opposite me the brush of grass, and then I heard the rock from the old one-piece concrete set of stairs which always gave a dull thud as it’s centre of balance shifted about the fulcrum with an ascension.
I knew where he was headed and I knew what he was doing. But I was paralysed with fear and sat there motionless, feeling like I was quaking.
After what seemed like a long time but must have only been perhaps a minute, my mother asked where did my father go. She knew all that I knew.
As she approached me still sitting on the couch (sofa), she gestured for me to stand. And then we crept along the dark open veranda towards the still darkened room of my parents. All along Mum cowered behind me as if I was her shield. I cannot blame her for also being scared.
When we reached their room she hung back. I was alone as I peered my head into the even darker room which was oriented at right-angles to the direction of the veranda. I needed to step a metre or two into the dark room beyond the line of large closets to be able to see to the right and to the foot of the bed where the cupboard was which housed Dad’s guns.
He was not there. But as I slowly panned my vision further to the right through the darkness I caught sight of my father, standing flat and motionless against the closets aiming to avoid detection.
When I said “Dad, what are you doing in here?” he knew his efforts were in vain and he stepped forward. I did not get a glimpse of the gun in his hand until he was half way towards me.
I cannot say with certainty when it was that I first gripped the revolver, the next few moments have always been a blur. I do remember that by the time we were back on the veranda with my mother I had the gun in my hand and I had collapsed on the floor sobbing uncontrollably, repeatedly saying “why, why, why would you do that”.
Before long we had moved back into the main living space of our home, and Mum and Dad began yelling at each other again. The fighting escalated and at one stage Dad tried to push past Mum to take the gun out of my hand but Mum just kept punching him in the arms and shoulders.
It was at this stage that my older brother came up from his shower to see his 15 year old brother holding his father’s gun — without knowing how it got there — and with Dad attempting to surge past Mum to get it from me.
I am certain to this day that he has never been told how the gun got to be in my hand, but I doubt that he needed any explanation — everybody at home that night sensed the build up and knew that things were going to explode that night!
We were still standing in the middle of the living room, with my mother between me and Dad, with the gun sitting limply in my hand as I sobbed and turned to protect myself whenever Dad surged at me.
My brother took the gun from my hand and disappeared briefly. At that point things began to settle down. Dad placed all of the 6 bullets which would have fully loaded his revolver onto the fridge which overlooked our kitchen table, sat down and began eating.
We all quietly joined him, each in our own lost bewilderment, and began to slowly eat. Mum occasionally repeated “I now know what I have to do”. I think I knew then, but it certainly explains a lot about their relationship since then, that what she meant is that she knew that she could not challenge him and she needed to be subservient to Dad.
A few months later while rummaging through the large closet in our bedroom which held nearly every football jersey I ever owned I came across the gun. I quietly showed Mum and asked her what to do with it. She said to put it back in Dad’s cupboard.
Those 6 bullets, 3 standing and three lying on their sides, remained as Dad placed them on the fridge that night looking down over our kitchen table as a reminder for many months.
I never spoke of that night for nearly 10 years. One day I asked Mum for confirmation that it all happened. Her eyes glossed over like she entered a hypnotic zombified state and she at first denied it, followed by “never mention this to your father — he would be so embarrassed”.
Later in life when I was challenged emotionally by a number of significant stressors, I knew that I could no longer run from my fears and anxieties that grew from that night. In the lead up to that period of my adult life on a visit to my parents (new) home I did not sleep at all one night — I placed a mattress on the floor while placing pillows under the sheet on the bed to make it appear that I was lying there, all the while listening and watching anxiously for my door to open.
As I began the process of sorting out all of my deepest fears and anxieties in many sessions with a therapist I soon realised that I had many questions stemming from the main one – why was my father fully loading his gun that night? – had haunted me all of my adult life. What could have happened if the gun was loaded when I entered the room in the dark as he hid flat against the closet? What could have happened if he refused to let go of the gun? What could have happened if he decided to surge past mum to take the gun back from me, because I do not think that I was in a state, emotionally or physically, to be able to keep him from taking back the gun?
Even though he never explicitly expressed it, I knew he had a pious belief that it was his right to take from the world what he brought into it.
Ultimately I had to accept that I was never going to know the answer to these questions, and that it did not matter because it is irrelevant to my life now.
What DID happen is that I found the courage to step up and protect my father and my entire family from a build up of suppressed emotion which could have destroyed us all on so many fronts.
This is why it hurt so much that, as I began the process of recovering from this difficult period and trying to deal with the psychological baggage that I had repressed, my siblings turned their back on me and we became estranged.
I had saved my family, yet in turn I became the lightning rod for all of the ills of my family. I was the convenient excuse for all that went wrong for each of them.
In my brother’s case, having gone onto the farm when I decided not to return after University, I was the cause of all of his lost opportunities and his needing to knuckle down to a disciplined and (in his perception) impoverished life on the land. Moreover, he felt that I was disloyal to the family because I did not stay committed to keeping the farm in family hands.
Of course, my family has needed to make sacrifices to keep the farm, but the reality is that with such a significant asset as backing my parents and my brother’s family have never been as impoverished as they perceived. The rhetoric of the rural “battler” has been absorbed into them, together with those early struggles, such that they have developed a victimised and besieged culture.
Such a culture is not unique to my family. It is a culture that is widespread in rural Australia.
It does, however, reach it’s greatest penetration in farming families, I believe.
I recall watching a program some years back about a young lad from a farming family who committed suicide as he was overcome with emotion during a battle to keep the farm in family hands when battling a mining claim on the land.
I suspect the reader would not be surprised that I became quite emotional watching the show. I felt hurt and empathy for the young lad, but I also felt angry — angry towards his parents and even the television producer for presenting the story in the way they chose.
I understood that they were being respectful and sensitive to grieving parents. But the one big question that was never asked is inferred in the title of this post.
How can a grieving father sit there and express all of his anger and disappointment at the mining company and Government for putting his family in that position, but not look at why this young lad, with his entire optimistic and wonderful life ahead of him, became so despondent and withdrawn that he saw no other way but to end it?
My family has now sold our property. For the first time in over 100 years it is owned by other people without our surname. After the earlier very difficult period, where Mum and Dad were convinced that the bank might foreclose at any time, they experienced a better period where they and my brother’s family enjoyed a more prosperous period. However, a series of cyclones, forecast to increase in prevalence and intensity due to climate change, and the debt taken on to recover from them, made it impossible for them to earn a living from the land.
Whereas 20 years ago he explained to me that it is appropriate that the son that stays on the farm rightly is entitled to all of the assets of the family on his and Mum’s passing, Dad is now so angry with my brother, who he blames for their financial predicament, that he plans to give him nothing from whatever proceeds were left from the sale of the farm.
My father is so angry with the world that, to his own family, he is constantly irritable and impossible to be around for any length of time. I love my father, but as my previous posts show, the differences between us are becoming expressed so strongly that there is a real cost to my life and wellness, and to that of my family’s, from spending time with him.
My mother has battled mental health issues for many decades and before an family intervention a few years back, which I instigated, gave all of the appearances of having given up on living life.
My family fractured under the weight of the stress from the battle to keep the farm. When I look back now there was a progression. First, as the stress from not being able to meet debt obligations due to low global sugar prices increased, Dad became totally consumed by work and pressure increased on myself and my older brother to join with him in his toil. The only time that he appeared to enjoy spending time with either of us was when working.
As the battle intensified, when prices remained low, at some point the concept of family became entwined with the farm such that they were synonymous. The two were inseparable and alone were irrelevant.
Then the farm became more important than the family, and certainly more important than any one family member. It seemed that everything, including us, were just resources to be used up in the battle to keep the farm. At this point it honestly felt that the death of any one of us would just be considered collateral damage to the end goal of keeping the farm.
I think the entire family felt that, and it created a bitterness within and amongst my siblings and I, and I think it created a deep repressed guilt in my parents that they will never acknowledge. Instead of recognising this it is easier for them to develop narratives about each of us to explain why our family is so fractured.
“Oh Brett moved away and married an Asian woman — that is why he does not get along with his siblings. His brother, who stayed on the farm, married a woman who was spoiled and pampered, wanted nothing but the best, and managed money poorly.”
Years back Mum relayed to me a story. When rummaging through old documents, she and my brother found Dad’s uncle’s dairy where he entered the date at which he sold the farm to Mum and Dad. Mum noted that it was approaching the 30th anniversary and suggested they organise a celebration. My brother responded that there was nothing to celebrate.
My brother was always very bitter at me for not returning to the farm as I had intended to do as a 16 year old. My return would have been his opportunity to escape.
Problems between my sister and I arose while I was still at university and she was in the first years of her career having just finished a degree. I pressured her to do more to help Mum and Dad financially to aid in the battle to keep the farm, and I considered her selfish for not doing so.
I now realise how deluded I was and I find it surreal to think about just how warped our perspectives had become. Sadly Mum and Dad remain right there and, I am certain, will until their end.
The anger that has been most difficult for me to deal with has centred around why my parents chose for our family to remain in that situation even though the damage it was doing to us as individuals and as a family was clear. It is pretty hard to deny that to yourself after you have taken the step of loading a revolver to end your life and potentially those in your family who were at home that night.
There is no point, either, in suggesting that they felt trapped because selling was always an option.
Worse still, I recall my father getting off the telephone one night no more than a year after that terrible night, potentially just a few months after it (that period of my life is hazy because of the shock in which I lived), telling my mother that the caller had just offered to buy the farm and for a price greater than what they eventually sold for 35 years later. He said that he rejected the offer outright.
All I can remember is sitting there on that couch wanting to cry because it was our chance out of the hell in which we had been living and my father, on behalf of our family, just refused to even consider an alternative life for us. His ego could not bear that.
Dad always felt a strong sense of duty to keep the farm in family hands. Nobody bestowed that duty upon him other than himself. The power was always in his hands to abdicate from that duty and choose to prioritise the wellbeing of the family that he made over honouring the family he inherited.
My relationship with my father is now almost totally gone. During his last visit he made a number of racist comments, which I have mentioned in other articles, and which he is well aware would hurt me deeply. I think his bitterness and repressed guilt has caused deep self-loathing which has taken its toll and he has set about proving he is a bad father and pushing away his family, or at least me.
During that visit he also told my Mother, his wife of almost 60 years, and I that at the time of their courtship he was contemplating moving to New Zealand. It was news to my Mother. We were both taken aback to think that these things are in his mind after all of these years. No wonder my Mother and Brother have lived with their insecurities which my Father has done little to assuage.
I have no doubt that if he had become successful on the farm these things would have been long forgotten. Even if sometimes he acknowledges achievements in his life, mostly he stews on his regrets, feeling sorry for himself and about the loss of the farm.
One night during that last visit I woke in the morning crying from a dream that culminated with my father lying cradled in my arms dying. In the dream we had been running across grassy hilled fields carrying heavy rucksacks in a frantic rush from one station to another in some sort of orienteering-like race. I kept looking back and pushing Dad to hurry up, and at some point I pushed him too hard and he collapsed.
I do not know whether it was a message from a greater power or my subconscious, but I understood its meaning. I am pushing my father in a way he cannot deal with, and if I continue then I am going to have to let go of him.
When I woke and dried my tears and emerged from the bedroom he was already up moping around. After a brief discussion where he was short and sarcastic to me, as usual letting out his hurt on those closest to him, I told him that he needs to stop feeling sorry for himself and start to move on.
He retorted sharply, totally ‘dropping his bundle’, and unwilling to receive compassion and understanding. Later that day he celebrated my 50th birthday by lying for hours on a couch at the beach-side unit we rented barely talking to me. My parents did not even hand their gift to me, they just left it on the counter for me to collect at some stage. I threw it away because I did not want anything physical to remind me of the day. My wife, who had put so much effort into planning, along with my family were so upset for me.
On the farm when we were young we were told all of the work that we were doing was for all of us. Then when I did not go back to the farm after university I was gradually being told that it is their preference that my brother receive all the benefits of that hard work in passing down everything to him in return for his loyalty. And then, finally, when he learned of the financial predicament that necessitated the selling of the farm, and with my brother looking to move off the farm searching for some financial security for his family, Dad was so embittered that he then felt that my brother deserved nothing of the proceeds from selling the farm after all debts were paid.
That final point was the final straw for me because it showed that nothing any of us did was good enough if he did not get what was most important to him, to keep his farm. What’s more, it made a lie of all of their talk about money not being important.
Ultimately I cannot escape the view that he meant what he was saying at the time, but by now his perspective has become so warped and deluded that he has totally forgotten all that was important and those who helped him along the way. None of us mattered to him without his farm.
I do not hate or dislike my father. I’m not even angry at him any longer. In fact I love him very much. But I have had to accept that I cannot give him that love, that I had to give up on that. While many will have difficulty in understanding that, others, perhaps more, will understand this situation for what it is and will relate to it.
You cannot give love to somebody who does not wish to receive it because they do not love themselves.
I have also had to accept that there will never be a ‘breakthrough’ moment like in the feel good movies, and there will not be a last minute reconciliation. Whoever leaves this world first, my father or I, will do so without him saying that he is proud of me and who I have become, and I will always know that in his mind he did not (even if, at some earlier times in our lives, he was – like when I was a promising rugby league player or when I received my PhD). And I have had to accept that it is an entirely rational and prudent response on my part to avoid spending time with him when all he wants to do is project all of his hurt and disappointments in life onto those closest to him. Doing so without guilt has been one of the greatest of hurdles.
My favourite song of all time is “The River” by Bruce Springsteen. In recent years I attended a Springsteen concert with my eldest son and during a lull in the crowd I yelled my request. To our delight The Boss heard me and played “The River” immediately! I was a bit of a hero to my son for a moment, but he did not understand the dark and very sad undertone to the lyrics which meant so much to me.
It tells the story of a very young couple raised in a small town who marry when she falls pregnant. Their hopes and dreams are curtailed but they enjoy their early years together. Then they fall on hard economic times and “all of the things that seemed so important… vanished right into the air… now I just act like I don’t remember, Mary acts like she don’t care”.
The final verse poses the same question that I wrestled with all of my adult life:
At night on them banks I’d lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true
Or is it something worse
That sends me down to the river
Though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight, yeah
Down to the river
My baby and I
The day after the concert I was driving in my car alone and I played this song at full volume while crying my eyes out. I had not finished when the song finished so I played it again.
I remember a wedding when I was perhaps 10 years of age when my father gave the speech for the bride’s family. He was big and strong, still only 38, and full of confidence and optimism for life. He had the room in stitches recounting stories of shared experiences he and Mum had with the bride’s parents. I felt so proud of him. He felt so proud of himself.
I occasionally wonder what life would have been like if that man survived a little longer, for me and for my family.
In honour of my sons. While I remain unsure whether you will ever read these words, I hope that you realise that I have devoted my life to unlearning the negative aspects of my early mentor’s behaviours, and that is why I talk to you a great deal about a great range of topics, and it is why I endeavour to always share and express my feelings. Already I am certain you have learned these positive behaviours and I am confident that you will retain them.
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
In 1996 I sat in the restaurant of Stockland Stadium amongst a group of Cowboys foundation members listening to then coach Graham Lowe talk about the season ahead.
I remember it for what Lowe said, which was, to paraphrase: “There have been a lot of rule changes made to speed up the game. I don’t like them. I don’t agree with them. I believe it will change the game and not for the better. But I have to coach for those changes and that is what I will do.”
Lowe did do just that, and even though the Cowboys took time to find their feet, they soon unearthed a superstar excitement machine in the name of Matty Bowen who together with Aaron Pane in dummy half revolutionised the speeding up of the game, or the ‘touch footballification’ of rugby league.
Before the 2021 season started I told my family how I struggled at times to maintain my interest in rugby league, that the DNA of the game had been lost in the speeding up of the game. That ‘athletes’ now play, not necessarily ‘footballers’, and that many forwards can play any position in the forward ‘pack’ (barely worth that description any more) or indeed any position on the field outside of the specialist roles that make up the ‘spine’.
It was nothing new for my family to hear my protestations, and my wife has heard me saying it even before Graham Lowe admitted aloud his own fears.
I have said all along that the commercialisation of the game, which players and ex-players still closely involved in the game have been complicit in because it has afforded them higher and higher incomes from the gravy train, has been to attract those with a marginal interest in the game to expand viewership at the expense of those who grew up loving the game. The way that has been achieved has been to make it faster with more flashy tries, enabling more advertising opportunities, so that it now more closely resembles touch football than the rugby league game of the late 80s/early 90s which I personally consider the pinnacle of the game of rugby league.
So at the start of this season, knowing that the rule changes again were going to speed up the game even more, e.g. the continuous tackle count reset, whilst grumbling more to the family about it all I thought to myself that I would like to see an experiment done at the end of the year.
It would be really interesting to see a game refereed under the conditions that prevailed in the late 80s/early 90s with 4 reserves and thus only 4 replacements allowed in the whole match (though thought would be need to be given to how HIA would be dealt with), 5m rule instead of 10m (that was in reality set at around 7-8m), and more latitude to defenders to stay on the tackled player especially when they were dominant.
I will say it loudly – actually I am going to say it how I really feel – I HATE THAT IN RUGBY LEAGUE NOW A GAME GOES FROM END TO END IN THE FIRST 10 MINUTES WITH UNCREATIVE, ONE-OUT RUNNING! I dislike that in rugby league an attacking player with the ball will jump on the ground to get a quick play the ball, resembling in touch football how an attacker will touch the defender to enable a play the ball – this is anathema to our game!
When is the last time you heard about the ‘softening up’ period of a game when the big, strong, powerful forwards went at each other to wear each other down so that the game would open up in the latter stages of each half? And note, the softening up period did not relate to cheap shot thuggery.
When is the last time you witnessed a genuine ‘arm wrestle’? Instead we have games where you know that a side will need to score at least 5 tries to win because the opposition is almost certain to score at least 4 tries.
Real rugby league fans of yesteryear enjoyed games where no tries were scored as much as games where each side scored plenty, but we are denied of those genuine arm wrestles because it is not the ‘commercial product’ that is sort.
For years I have thought about writing something like this but never did – who do you send it to – the media that has been central to the bastardry?
But something has really gotten my goat this past fortnight. Listening to the ex-players in the media go on NOW about the loss of ‘their game’ – how they’re ‘fans’ of the game, too.
What I want to know is where have they been for the past 20 years?
The only thing that has changed in the last few weeks has been the cracking down on contact with the head, and now they want to say that accepting that head contact happens in the game is the critical element that separates league from touch football.
Give me a break!
These guys are proving the need for the changes with every word they say – they’ve all had too many head knocks to be able to see the logic before them. Then again, there are none so blind as those who do not wish to see, and dollars have always provided a lot of incentive to not see.
The problem is not clamping down on contact with the head. Any and all efforts to reduce the risk of long term damage to the health of players which can seriously impair their ability to lead full and healthy lives once they have retired from playing the game should be supported without question.
The real problem is in the speeding up of the game so that collisions are faster and more powerful for most of the game (even as those who have not been interchanged for a while fatigue), and coaches are continually striving to counteract the speed of play so players are taught to tackle high around the ball leaving an impossibly small margin of error which goes awry for any number of reasons (especially change in position of attacking player so their head position/centre of gravity changes abruptly).
So I say this to all ex-players with a voice. If you really love the game as you say you do, then you will start to speak up to ensure that the real issue is addressed. Everybody who loves a sport should want the players of that sport protected – no State of Origin or Premiership win is worth long term damage to the health of any of the players, even if we must accept (as we all do through our lives) that accidents will happen from time to time.
Matty Bowen would always have been an excitement machine in rugby league no matter what era he played in because of his elusive footwork and blistering acceleration. But I wonder whether Wally Lewis, my all-time football hero, would have had anywhere near the impact he did if he played over the last 20 years. Think about that for a moment…
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
I have now finished reading “The Tyranny of Merit: What’s become of the common good?” by Prof. Michael Sandel which I purchased after watching his panel at the WEF Davos Agenda.
It is brilliant and one of the best-written books that I have had the pleasure of reading.
Firstly let me say that from my perspective Prof. Sandel is accurate on the major points in his book. I believe that I have stated many of the same or very similar views in my own writing, and his conclusions are not only consistent with mine, they are also in tune with my values. However, he brings these points together to form his narrative far better than I have and ever could, and he backs up his views with sound reasoning drawing on his extensive academic experience as an economic philosopher.
To be clear and forthright, I agree that a society centred on authentic merit, if it were ever truly possible, in the absence of a deeper commitment to social cohesion, is unsustainable on several levels (as discussed previously in much of my writing e.g. “Social Cohesion: The best vaccine against crises” and “The Great Reset“). Thus I agree that the ideal situation for humanity is for social cohesion to be the overriding factor in how we organise our societies. To do that we must continue to work towards eliminating all forms of bias and prejudice, along with all forms of corruption that exist to acquire advantage over others. That is the only way that our various and infinite lots in life are due to unadulterated luck rather than unfairness, and so that the consequences of experiencing less favourable outcomes (fortune) than others are not nearly as significant as they are now.
It is my firm belief that we are in the midst of taking a significant step towards that future in this the Great Reset era, and I believe that the timing of Prof. Sandel’s publishing of “The Tyranny of Merit” was particularly propitious and will prove to be a key event and resource.
Before I go on to discuss some critical issues raised by Prof. Sandel, however, I need to make an important admission.
Like many, I am certain, his compelling reasoning has made it intellectually and emotionally impossible to deny something to myself. Prof. Sandel has shown me that I have become a biased elitist even though I congratulate myself on being less elitist, by virtue of my humble upbringing and my conscious effort, than many who have developed the same level of credentials, and the associated skills, as me.
Understanding how unconscious bias slips into our rationalising I must accept that my writing to this point invariably contains an elitist subconscious bias.
I realised emotion around credentialism from early in my postgraduate studies in the early 90s. On one occasion I realised that I had been describing myself as “only” a student. I noticed how as I continued in my PhD program I began using more complex language with less slang from my regional upbringing and it was beginning to irritate one sibling in particular. Perhaps instead of balancing my academic life with my broader life I allowed the former to dominate in my behaviours which some found confronting.
I also began to notice how a simple statement about my own educational credentials, a minor detail in a story I was recounting, usually was what people took from the recount and mirrored back at me: “Oh you are studying for / have a PhD – I never went to uni”, said with emotion indicating regret, or with defiance often with a hint of righteousness.
For a while, noting that this truth – if not highly significant for me – invoked negative emotions for the person to whom I was speaking, I began to withhold such information. If I did mention it, in a longer conversation where it appeared ‘safe’ to mention my credentials if relevant to an anecdote or story, I would immediately seek to minimise or even downplay my achievements.
Being a strong empath, I have often observed myself doing such things to minimise emotional impacts for others. But then I have realised that downplaying all of my achievements, for the benefit of others, ultimately impacts me by negatively impacting my own self esteem.
At some point I decided I cannot be responsible for others’ life disappointments or feelings of regret while I am authentic and humble in my dealings with others.
Nonetheless I must admit that my own views of lesser credentialled groups had drifted less favourably and unhelpfully, especially as the cultural gap widened and as a growing proportion of the lesser credentialled became more angry and aggressive. At the same time I recognised the growing lack of humility and compassion amongst many elites.
The genius of Prof. Sandel’s writing is in showing the link between these developments, and in doing so allows greater empathy and understanding by those who seek to remain open to other points of view.
I am extremely pleased that I read this book because it expands on arguments that were mentioned only briefly or not at all in Prof. Sandel’s videos I had watched and discussed in “Merit and Morals: WEF Davos Agenda panel with Prof. Michael Sandel“.
Nonetheless I consider that my commentary in that piece remains highly relevant to the discussion of Prof. Sandel’s views on meritocracy as presented in all of these media.
The fuller picture gained from my reading of his book, moreover, provided the impetus to pick up on some additional points where either I slightly disagree with his view (e.g. the most important factor in the appeal of populists and also views surrounding the future importance of work in society) or where my preference would been for him to have expanded on his views in other critical contexts at the micro (e.g. surrounding the importance of families in society) and macro levels (e.g. surrounding the importance of a global framing of society).
Particularly pertinent to the latter point is that it is not until page 213 (of 227 pages of text) that discussion turns to suggested remedies and alternative ways of organising within society to achieve cohesion. Perhaps it is understandable that much effort must be expended to counter the deeply entrenched ‘winner takes all’ philosophy to contemporary societies. And as a writer, myself, I often state that I do not have all of the answers – in part to show humility and lessen perceptions of righteousness, and in part because these issues are so complex that no one person can possibly know all answers. As I often say of myself, while he may not be able to provide specifics, his writing provides a robust context to the way we must move forward.
Nonetheless it is a little disappointing that Prof. Sandel did not devote more pages to society moving forward with greater cohesion. Perhaps a sequel is already in the planning.
My first point is minor but still worthy of mention. On credentials, Prof. Sandel highlights how the ‘elected class’ are even more removed from the majority in society on an educational basis now than when higher education was limited to ‘old money’ aristocracy, and draws a direct link to the disaffection with societal progress from many of lesser educated. Substantial examples of highly effective politicians from the past century, without tertiary education, are used to support his contention that people from all walks of life can and should feel able to engage in decision-making, and that when this occurs it is better for social cohesion.
Ultimately I agree with this viewpoint but I believe it relevant to highlight that, while still in most societies more people do not have tertiary degrees than do, a far greater proportion of people now do study for tertiary degrees. In 1982 as I entered high school only 8% of females aged 25-34 had university degrees, while it was 13% for males. I recall by the time I was applying for university how much it was being stressed that we needed to attain high tertiary entrance marks to be selected for our preferred university course such was the competition relative to the number of available places. By 2018 45% of females and 34% of males in this age group had university degrees.
So the relative proportions have changed substantially over that time, and it is little wonder that shows up in the backgrounds of elected decision-makers.
Still, that around half of society (more in some countries, slightly less in others) on an educational basis is entirely unrepresented in the ‘elected class’ is a poor reflection on society, and it definitely does suggest to non-university educated members that their value to society is lesser than the tertiary-educated. This is clearly something that must be addressed since it is self-evident that representative Government should genuinely represent and mirror the society it governs. Moreover, I agree that more diverse decision-making groups will make better decisions for society.
On my first major point, I found especially interesting the discussion at the conclusion of the ‘Credentialism’ chapter on the challenges to achieving consensus on the most significant issues facing societies when some, perhaps a large, proportion of society “do not trust government to act in their interest, especially in a large-scale reconfiguration of the economy, and do not trust the technocratic elites who would design and implement this configuration”.
This is something that I have pondered and written on, most recently in “The Great Reset: Building the bridge” where I essentially stated that we need to regain our respect in and our trust of each other to perform the roles that we have taken up in society. I have also pondered on this in relation to the centrality of the rejection of ‘Obamacare’ to Trumpism, especially in the 2016 election, and I think that most of us fortunate to experience high quality, relatively cheap universal health care in other countries find this difficult to reconcile. I often think to myself, “Why would those who stand to gain the most by the measures most vehemently oppose reform and become the ‘foot soldiers’ to undermine it so that the benefit is lost to them?”
I agree with Prof. Sandel that a backlash against credentialism and the inclination towards technocracy are partly at fault. However, I cannot escape a conclusion that more relevant is the more direct relationship between increased inequality and the extreme form of capitalism that has developed in the US over the last half century (as I discussed in “The Magic Sauce Of American Economic Dynamism Is Not Based On Personal Greed“, “Your Life: Something the elites have always been prepared to sacrifice for their ends” and “How Might Milton Friedman Respond To The COVID-19 Pandemic“). That extreme form of capitalism is more a result of the corruptibility of power and the influence of wealth and greed than of credentialism.
While I agree that trust in Government is the key issue, I consider that the erosion of trust is more directly related to the increasing precariousness of the lives of many. The ‘have nots’ have witnessed the increase in wealth amongst the elites, and have perceived that it relates to increasing greed by them to skew even further the distribution of wealth and power within society in their favour, so much so that they have become fearful that they might lose what little safety net or societal benefits from being a US citizen remain. In fact, they have become so fearful of a further progression in this direction that they can not even countenance that reforms would improve their lot in life because it is the opposite of their lived experience. That suspicion makes the disaffected highly vulnerable to influence by populists.
Certainly the ‘unrelatability’ of the disaffected to the technocrats, i.e. the senior bureaucrats and their subordinates who are charged with implementation of policies and regulating their use, is an important aspect of perception of a high degree of ‘regulatory capture’ due to power and influence, and ultimately greed, by the wealthy elites meaning that all reform proposals ultimately are viewed as being aimed at increasing their advantage. However, credentialism is likely a minor factor. What really embeds the perception is that all in these groups (politicians, bureaucrats, wealthy elite businesspeople) have undergone the same communication skills training, including for video-rich media, and thus speak the same vernacular, in the same manner, and even use the same or similar (usually forced) mannerisms especially hand gestures. All this does is emphasise to all the heightened state of ‘political spin’ deployed now to benefit the ‘political class’ and the wealthy elites which the middle class and the less wealthy perceive to be at their cost.
In other words, the ‘show’ has trumped substance and authenticity, and those less practised in these skills consider those who are a part of the ‘show’ are fake and insincere. That is why the populists are listened to – they are perceived to be authentic and thus honest about the views they express. It is true that Trump is perhaps one of the greatest ‘showmen’ politicians of recent times, but he has developed his own unique style of show and vernacular, including his own style of hand gestures, which separates him from the others, and his followers believe he is authentic and honest about his views.
It is all of these developments over recent decades that have emphasised that the groups within society that once balanced the ‘greater good’ with the influence of power and wealth in a more equitable manner have been corrupted to favour the elites. Importantly that perception pertained to both sides of the political aisle. Trump took this growing perception of the link between wealth and political power, which of course is real and many academics agree it has grown in most developed nations, and he turned it on its head. He told the disaffected that he was on their side. Moreover, he told them that by virtue of his wealth, only he was so powerful that he could stand up to the ‘political class’ and other wealthy elites, which he referred to as the ‘swamp’ and which he excluded himself from, to drain away from them their power and influence.
Trump told the disaffected that he would save them from the tyranny of greed by the elites as did Robin Hood, and they loved him for it.
The emergence of the populists was aided by both sides of the aisle in another very critical point which relates to the technocratic style of governing.
A technocratic style of governing is an obvious consequence of the narrowing of the ideological differences between political foes. If both the left and right agree that free market capitalism, with minimal government regulation, is the preferred manner for society to organise, then the political discourse is reduced to arguing about less and less significant issues of only tangential relevance.
Leaving aside for a moment whether the majority of society truly believes that the consensus actually delivers for them in the manner they expect, let’s examine in isolation how society perceives the actions of the political class and the consequences of that perception.
If all of the major debates have been had and are settled, then the only truly relevant work is that of the technocrat in making the minor adjustments at the periphery to ensure that the system stays fit for purpose, through technological changes for example.
So if the ‘machinery’ of society has reached its final ‘perfect’ design and only routine ‘maintenance and servicing’ is required, is there any longer a serious purpose for the designers – the decision-makers – and if not, what exactly are they doing with all of that power and influence that still resides in their hands?
It is my contention that these questions are behind the growing perception globally that there has been a dearth of political leadership in recent decades. I began writing about this in Australia over a decade ago and had a letter read out on our 60 Minutes television program in 2010.
Last year, much to my surprise – no, to my amazement – an Australian elite from the ‘political class’ confirmed all of this for us in a very public manner, but little has been made of it in the Australia press. Joe Hockey was a Minister in the Howard Government for 6 years, was Shadow Treasurer for 4.5 years, and was Treasurer of Australia for 2 years under Prime Ministers Abbott and Turnbull. Mr. Hockey was then the 28th Ambassador to the United States for a four year term until January 2020.
Speaking on 7.30 shortly after his return to Australia from his Ambassadorial duties he had the following exchange with Leigh Sales:
LEIGH SALES: Do you think that ministerial standards are at the same height that they were 20 years ago?
JOE HOCKEY: I mean, it’s all changed, Leigh. Social media has changed everything. Social media has made the voice of the critic much, much louder than the voice of the advocate.
And the second thing that’s changed is disruption.
Everyone keeps calling for government to initiate reform, but really, what’s happening is the private sector is initiating reform, on a scale that we’ve never seen before.
LEIGH SALES: Is there something fundamentally wrong with that though, if Government is not leading?
JOE HOCKEY: No. Because it empowers individuals and we all believe that individuals should be their best.
So one of the most important political decision-makers of the recent era in Australia admitted that the Government has essentially given up on leading and have left the future of the nation to the ‘market’ or the (social media) ‘mob’. Now most close observers had long suspected this; that readings from social media and focus groups in the mornings were setting the agenda for the day. But for it to be confirmed was rather astounding.
This opens up a number of important issues. Firstly, if the ‘political class’ no longer leads then they are not really making the critical decisions for society like they did in the past because they no longer see that as their role. If that is no longer their role than why as a society should we spend so much on the political administration of the nation – surely we could save significantly by reducing the number of MPs and associated staff, as well as by reducing their remuneration. After all, Mr. Hockey has admitted that they have left the leadership of the nation to the private sector. So all those who are occupying positions that formerly were ‘decision-makers’ are clearly enjoying the trappings of their status while not adding value for the nation. If they object and say that they are indeed working hard, then who are they working for since they are not working for the ‘common good’ – working at maintaining their status in Government is not the ‘common good’.
These are obvious and uncomfortable questions that should be put to the Government as a consequence of Mr. Hockey’s comments.
In recent weeks Peter Dutton has threatened that he will pursue users of social media for what he considers defamatory statements and has initiated one such action. Besides the obvious mismatch of power, I find this an especially troubling development given that these political ‘non-leaders’ have now admitted (with Hockey’s comments) that social media is the new form of governing. As such, when debating political issues, a certain level of parliamentary privilege should be afforded to bloggers trying to have their voices heard amongst the mob. Frankly a politician who can not stand up to that level of scrutiny only proves my point above – that they are not nearly worth the money we are paying them.
Journalists have not really taken on these issues as yet, notwithstanding the other serious issues going on in the world right now, but it would be letting Mr. Hockey and the remainder of the political class off lightly to just centre on those questions. Of course there have been serious issues that have required leadership all along over the last few decades, from all of the factors that affect a cohesive society right through to the greatest long term challenge humanity faces in climate change. Mr. Hockey’s final speech to parliament provided a perfect example of this where he admitted all of things that he and the Government that he was a part of should have done.
What sort of leadership is that, setting out a vision on the way forward as he heads out the exit, never to be in such a strong position again to argue for his vision and effect the necessary change?
The lack of willingness from the ‘political class’ to even set out a vision for the future has deep implications for societies, in my view.
I suggest that without a real contest of ideas by the political leaders of many nations the majority in society feel insecure. Everybody is well aware that technology has brought on significant and rapid change, and can easily predict that it will continue to do so. The lack of leadership creates a perception in society that we are on a rudderless ship where nobody has any real idea on where we are heading. Worse still, nobody is speaking up with conviction to outline a plan on where it might be good to head, let alone displaying any suggestion of possessing the wherewithal to lead us there. The majority agree on a direction to head in the morning, and that decision is open for revision at lunch and in the evening (for the 24 hour news cycle), and it is little wonder that many suspect that we are meandering directionless in the middle of the ocean.
Representative democracy is a wonderful gift to humanity, but it only works if leaders are courageous enough to spell out a vision for the future and argue for it, accepting that they may fall out of favour with the citizenry if they fail to convince enough of the virtues of their vision. Those elected to lead have largely set out to be small political targets – the least bad option – and have outsourced decision-making to the masses.
As I said in “How Might Milton Friedman Respond To The COVID-19 Pandemic“:
I see social media platforms as modern day arenas; Facebook the Colosseum… The truth is that individuals can not fill that void and that is creating widespread insecurity and thus anxiety (no matter how much I and others, like Brene Brown, might attempt to inspire and\or cajole all to have the courage to lead). That is why behaviour on social media often resembles that of a mob.
This lack of contest of ideas and leadership, and the anxiety that it caused within society, made many nations ripe for the emergence of populists. Populists like to be political targets as it plays to their strengths and allows rapid, widespread and cheap promotion of their platform. Trump stood up and proclaimed he had a vision and that he was not afraid of being a target – in fact he said that he was so powerful that he could withstand being a really big target, which only emphasised to his growing legion of supporters of how ‘right he must be’.
Ultimately I consider the lack of trust in technocratic government to be more a consequence of the withdrawal of leadership by the political class than suspicion of the highly educated.
As with any good book, I was left wanting more. I believe that Prof. Sandel’s discourse is an excellent portrayal of where societies could have been at this point in time, thus pinpointing where we departed from the better path. However, the ‘more’ that I wanted to read related to the future with an understanding that the conditions underlying society are changing rapidly and can reasonably be expected to do so for the foreseeable future.
I believe that all sobre-thinking people realise that solidarity and cohesion in society is absolutely vital for humanity to address the serious challenges that we must to ensure sustainability. However, it is important that it be understood that that cohesion must be at all levels from regional right through to the global society, and so I respectfully suggest that Prof. Sandel has chosen the wrong great US President to champion – instead of highlighting JFK’s more domestic focus (in his dignity of work theme), we need to focus on FDR’s more global focus (in highlighting that we are foremost ‘citizens of the world, members of the human community‘).
Then again, thinking globally we must act locally, not just in relation to the environment but in the values that we choose to live our lives by.
This is where I felt Prof. Sandel missed an opportunity to ensure that “The Tyranny of Merit” was even more impactful. Perhaps a sequel is already planned to give more specific indications of Prof. Sandel’s views on how society can achieve that solidarity.
In the second and final part of this essay I offer three specific areas important for consideration in achieving more cohesive societies, two discussed by Prof. Sandel in education and the workplace, and another area left untouched by Prof. Sandel, the family.
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
In February 2020 I was one of the first to speak publicly of the need for Australia to shut the borders and aim to eliminate what was then referred to as ‘the novel coronavirus’.
In my first post on the topic published 3 February “Social Cohesion: The best vaccine against crises” I highlighted the unique situation we faced and what were the likely consequences:
Writing in Australia, in the southern hemisphere, the outlook is somewhat more frightening if I am correct in my analysis that the virus will not be eradicated this northern hemisphere winter. I would be unsurprised if more draconian measures were introduced in Australia than elsewhere in an attempt to prevent its introduction as we will endure a full cold and flu season without any chance of administering a broad vaccination program. This will produce a great deal of anxiety amongst Australians.
As the Australian Government was slow to react, I drew on my experience in biosecurity policy and underlined how our approach to this very serious disease of humans was inconsistent with our approach to diseases affecting primary industries – i.e. for some animal and plant disease we follow what is essentially a zero risk policy, yet with this shaping up to be the most serious pandemic of our time we were even flirting with following a herd immunity strategy after Boris Johnson’s lead in the UK (which I mentioned in my FB post above from 16 March 2020).
Thank goodness for our federal system and for our independently-minded State leaders whose instincts were more compassionate and whose leadership is most responsible for our favourable position through the pandemic to this point.
I have sort to maintain pressure on all decision-makers to work towards minimising human impacts on a range of issues from arguing against a herd immunity strategy (highlighting that the full human impacts were not at all understood, including long term impacts), in favour of following an elimination strategy, to monitoring abattoir workers and managing risks with cold storage chains, to discussing the risks posed by the broad host range of the virus, to factors around vaccines and their rollout in Australia.
At the same time I tried to be a contributor to the discourse on the Australian economy, and more importantly, on seeing humanity progress through the Great Reset era in a more inclusive and fair manner to produce cohesive societies which are necessary to address the major issues we confront.
From my earliest posts on COVID-19 I stressed the importance of seasonality in the global and Australia’s experience of the pandemic.
Even though at that early stage seasonality was not understood with the newly emergent pandemic disease, the similarity of symptoms to other respiratory viral diseases suggested it likely would be an issue, and even if not, the co-occurrence with those seasonal respiratory viruses would create management issues and create a general level of anxiety in society.
I stated those concerns frequently in my daily “Coronavirus Updates” from early March, including on March 5:
It is clear that all European countries are desperately hoping that warmer summer will arrive and provide some respite, give health authorities time to regroup and get ready for the presumed re-intensification in autumn sic (fall), and hope (or pray as the case may be) for an effective vaccine to be administered in the northern hemisphere before the depths of the next winter.
As I have been saying from my very first report, this is something that we in the southern hemisphere cannot even dare to hope for – this will be a long, tense winter down under.
And on March 9:
I want to address something specifically in what I have been saying about the “special” circumstances that Australia faces being unique amongst the developed countries being situated in the southern hemisphere, and thus heading into the cold and flu season of winter instead of heading out of it. The WHO has been careful to ensure that it is understood that there is no evidence that the pandemic will let up in the northern hemisphere as the weather warms up. I have said frequently that if the northern hemisphere countries are fortunate then they will have a seasonal reprieve.
The reality is that they will receive a benefit regardless of whether spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 slows in warmer months in that we already know that cold and flu viruses certainly will. Thus, even if COVID-19 continues to spread in warmer conditions – and I won’t get into the probability of that because I cannot contribute anything of value other than to add that I do not know how valuable observations are that COVID-19 appear not be spreading in countries with more equatorial climates – the reduction in other respiratory infections will aid in detection and thus containment efforts.
Again, this is something that Australia will not experience as we are heading into the flu and cold season. That is why I have stated all along that Australia must be advanced ahead of all other nations in the fight against COVID-19, and I have been clear in my views that our federal Government has not made the most of our opportunities.
I draw particular attention to my post “Australian ‘Followship‘”, posted on 23 March 2020, to give full effect to the situation at the time and my efforts to see Australia’s response improved.
I humbly suggest that the reader consider these arguments now in the light of what has occurred in the northern hemisphere and especially in Europe since I wrote those passages.
Europe did experience a reprieve with much lower pandemic pressure during the warmer months of Summer 2020, but the pandemic exploded again as weather cooled in Autumn.
The re-emergent pandemic has been traumatic to a level that much of Europe has been almost continuously in some form of lockdown for the last 5 months.
The current situation in Europe is summed up well in this article and there are real concerns that Europe will not be ‘open’ this Summer as it was last.
Australia has experienced lesser impacts from the pandemic than very many other nations to this point. That is because the measures that I argued for from those first few weeks of the pandemic were ultimately adopted, primarily because the State political leaders and health officials supported them and/or enforced them in their own jurisdictions.
Having observed closely the spread and impacts of COVID-19 globally I have continually warned of the need for Australia to not become complacent to the very serious risks we continue to confront. Realising that even Europe had slipped into complacency in Summer 2020, partly out of the desire for economic reasons to have a more normal intra-European tourism season, I warned against complacency in Australia and proposed awareness programs for the public and businesses.
State Premiers together with their respective health officials have very effectively contained the outbreaks of COVID-19 that have occurred over this Summer (with all sources being returning Australian residents in quarantine or in hospitals), quickly moving to enact lockdowns and masking mandates, and using contact tracing to contain chains of transmission. Undoubtedly the warmer weather with more people spending more time outdoors has benefited our containment efforts.
One of the major benefits of success at containing COVID-19 in Australia, that I have continually highlighted from early in the pandemic (see the FB post on 25 April 2020 in the slideshow above), is that we have bought time and flexibility in terms of how we continue to respond to the pandemic, especially in relation to vaccines.
The timetable for the rollout of vaccinations in Australia has become a political issue, much to my disappointment, but what is emphasised mostly are comparisons to vaccine rollouts in other countries and the risks to the Australian economy from further shutdowns. Those country comparisons barely acknowledge that these other nations, especially the US and UK, have been severely impacted and needed to roll out vaccines quickly to protect lives due to inadequate response measures to the pandemic. Moreover, these countries have suffered more serious impacts to their economies, while still suffering much more loss of life.
The well-publicised complications with the AstraZeneca and now the Johnson & Johnson vaccines due to blood clots has meant that Australia has limited the use of the former vaccine to over 50s and will not seek to order the latter (even though the latter is a one-shot vaccine, and if the likelihood of clots forming after each injection was equivalent would mean a reduction of risk by 50% using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine). The bulk of the almost 54 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine Australia has ordered will be produced on-shore by CSL which is already producing doses.
When the blood clotting issue was first discussed by Dr Michael Kidd, Acting CMO, he sort to explain the situation using probabilities of adverse outcomes – he said that the probability of developing a blood clot after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine was 1-2 per million, but that the probability of death if infected with the virus causing COVID-19 is 1-2 per hundred. Thus in a nation where the probability of being infected with the virus is high the reward of significant protection from serious disease after vaccination is well worth the very low risk of developing blood clots from the vaccination.
Since Dr Kidd delivered this explanation, however, European officials have suggested that the risk of blood clotting in young adults following AstraZeneca vaccination is 1 in 100,000. Moreover, in a nation where through adept biosecurity measures there is not a high likelihood of being infected, as in Australia, the risk-reward balance is starkly different to where the incidence of the virus is high.
Even in Europe, however, where official figures record one million lives have been lost in the COVID-19 pandemic, national health officials have sort to better balance the risks of taking the AstraZeneca vaccine with the benefits by introducing restrictions. Think about that for a moment – with a population around 750 million, more than 1 in 1,000 Europeans have died from COVID-19.
However, whereas Australia’s limit for recommending against using the AstraZeneca vaccine is 50 years, most of these European countries more impacted by COVID-19 have set more stringent recommendations either discontinuing its use or limiting its use to those older than 60.
The mRNA vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech will be recommended for under 50s resident in Australia and now 40 million doses have been ordered which is enough to vaccinate 20 million. This and the other mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna has proven to be highly effective, and have been used predominantly by wealthy countries (that can handle the cold-chain logistics required) and especially the US. Australia will receive the bulk of the 40 million doses late 2021.
The other highly prospective vaccine currently being rolled out is by NovaVax and Australia has orders for 51 million which will also be delivered late in 2021, and may be produced on shore by CSL.
So residents of Australia, while being mostly unvaccinated this southern hemisphere Winter, can have a reasonable expectation of being vaccinated prior to Winter 2022.
That is in strong contrast to low-income countries, most of which have been severely impacted by COVID-19, one exception being Rwanda which largely followed the MacroEdgo playbook of ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ at minimising spread, that have received just 0.2% of all COVID-19 shots given to this point. Even Europe has had an “unacceptably slow” vaccine rollout according to the WHO regional office.
I knew very early in the pandemic that our world had changed, and I spelled out that humanity had a difficult challenge ahead. I stressed that we needed to be on a war footing to respond to the pandemic.
I implored all to hope with their hearts, for an attenuation in the virulence of the virus or for speedy and effective vaccines, but to prepare for the worst. In my “Coronavirus Update” of 11 March 2020 I explained it this way:
In my SMSF positioning paper I said that I hoped, for the sake of humanity, that I was wrong but I had to invest with my head and hope with my heart. Unfortunately my head was right but my heart still hopes for the quickest vaccine or pharmaceutical remedy in the history of mankind.
In many different avenues I stressed that this is “the battle of our lives” and that we all would remain vulnerable while others remained vulnerable.
Our scientists – from Dr Shi Zhengli, whose group rapidly detected and isolated the virus, through to the vaccinologists, all standing on the shoulders of humanity’s curiosity and enduring thirst for knowledge – responded wonderfully and we are in about as favourable a position with vaccines as anybody would have dared dream.
When I look back at what I wrote in February 2020 about scientists rushing to have a vaccine by the next northern hemisphere Summer, some times I have questioned myself on how deluded I was to think that might even be possible (out of shock at the size of the challenge humanity faced). Yet our scientists did achieve just that!
Still, the simple reality is that vaccines are not likely to eradicate this virus because it is likely to continue mutating faster than vaccines can be produced and delivered across the globe. In fact, present indications are that it will take several years to deploy the first generation of vaccines to the original strain even though variants are already more common in most regions.
Humanity finding a better way to balance the loss of human life with the profit imperative of the pharmaceutical companies using their legal rights to prevent broader manufacture of vaccines with the capacity that already exists, and which could be used but for enforcement of intellectual property rights, would certainly speed up the process. Even so, while better for humanity in terms of reduced loss of life and economic impacts on poor nations, eradication would still seem unlikely.
Hopefully the vaccines will confer a reasonable level of protection as the virus mutates, but measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 are likely to be with us for many years and COVID-19 will be associated with deaths, concentrated in some regions, perhaps seasonally, and perhaps worse in some years if significant mutation occurs, for example, by passing through animal hosts.
The point is this, unlike in wars where there is a definite conclusion with the declaration of peace, there is unlikely to ever be a moment when we will all be able to claim victory against this foe.
There will be no joyous day where people dance in the streets with confetti drifting and floating through air laden with laughter and music, and young effervescent and ebullient people rush to embrace the heroes of this war with careless abandon.
The scars of this period will not be soothed in any way. We will just move forward in the knowledge that humanity is as vulnerable as any other organism on our beautiful planet.
With that in mind, we in Australia cannot live indefinitely as we have since March 2020; we will need to pivot to our ‘COVID normality’.
We are very fortunate to live in these times with the tools we have had at our disposal to fight this ultra-microscopic foe, as well as to have developed such highly effective vaccines so quickly.
There is the hope that broad-spectrum coronavirus vaccines or treatments may be developed in the future, but we cannot know when or even if these will be successfully developed.
At some point, however, we will need to go about our lives accepting a certain level of risk above what we did, or at least most were aware of, pre-COVID. The exact level of risk we each accept, as always, will be determined by individual decisions and behaviours, within a framework that society accepts as sufficiently protective of broad society while providing civil liberties and freedoms that are broadly accepted.
I would suggest that that point for Australia would be early to mid Autumn 2022 by which time most people resident in Australia should have had the chance to be vaccinated.
While the original vaccine rollout strategy envisioned an October 2021 completion date, the truth is – as has been our experience this past Australian Summer – pandemic pressure is lessened over the warmer period and our biosecurity know-how has proven adept at protecting our residents.
In other words, since few Australians will be protected this Winter, and because we have proven ourselves adept at protecting ourselves over Summer, we need to think altruistically and compassionately for other people suffering far greater impacts than us in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Australians have a rare opportunity to stand up and be a beacon for good for humanity. In a global community where co-operation has given way to vaccine nationalism, we can tell vaccine suppliers that we will wait. Furthermore we can divert vaccine supplies produced onshore to poor nations directly and/or via the COVAX program.
And we should speak loudly and proudly of our actions, and forthrightly let it be known that this is how things should be done, and that we are in this fortunate and privileged position to help humanity because we are a progressive and innovative nation that understood early the implications of the pandemic and we decided to put the protection of lives at the centre of our response.
If over the next 6 months these actions led to the vaccination of perhaps 20 million people, then we will have saved thousands of lives.
To make that decision we need to accept a little more risk, accept a higher likelihood of additional measures impacting economic activity, and exercise patience.
For a nation with a growing ‘image’ problem for being slow and even obstructionist on addressing climate change, thus being increasingly viewed as conservative and lacking an innovative and forward-thinking culture, such altruism and innovative-thinking will certainly help with our international relationships and attract significant goodwill.
While maintaining a positive attitude since the beginning of the pandemic towards the chances of humanity’s scientists achieving effective vaccines, in my seminal post “How Society Will Change If A COVID-19 Vaccine Is Elusive” I allowed myself to contemplate a future where humanity must continue under the shroud of a prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.
If we are very fortunate at least one of the 140 vaccine candidates currently being developed might be effective. Or perhaps a protocol with one or several might be effective. However, as we approach the end of this year, as the northern hemisphere enters autumn (fall), then I expect that we will begin to hear more honest assessments of the chances of success.
If success seems to be more elusive than humanity has dared to hope, then we will move into a new phase for society and individuals to deal with the challenge…
In the event that at the end of the year assessments of the likelihood of herd immunity being achieved by a mass vaccination program are not optimistic, then everyone will need to begin to consider exactly how we will go about our lives for an uncertain but prolonged period with COVID-19 severely impacting us increasingly as we age.
As hinted at in that final sentence, I went on to discuss how people would need to accept that life expectancy would fall for the first time in modern history in many nations, and as a consequence middle-aged people would confront their own mortality as the first generation in many that are unlikely to live longer than their parents.
Humanity’s scientists have excelled and we are in the fortunate position of highly effective vaccines being rolled out within a year of the pandemic commencing.
On the other hand, the virus is so widespread, and the variants that I feared have emerged, and it remains unclear how that will affect current vaccines and whether the virus has developed the “characteristic of mutating sufficiently within a year so that immunity from prior infection does not make the person refractory or immune to infection when exposed the following year”.
Even though we are going to live with this uncertainty for a number of years ahead, and while I realise many have considered me extremely risk averse, and so may be surprised by this view, I believe that once all Australians have been offered vaccination than we need to pivot to opening back up to the world.
When I argued passionately for a strong biosecurity response by Australia to COVID-19 in late February 2020 I was clear that measures must be temporary:
Australia’s isolation really is a huge advantage for us, and it is time that we made use of that very significant advantage. As COVID-19 begins to rage globally, we should strongly consider whether we should close our borders to people flows and tightly manage vessels carrying freight to and from Australia.
It really is as simple as that; we could close our borders and significantly cut down the opportunity to reintroduce the virus while we threw everything at containing the virus within the country. That would minimise the human cost while we wait for a vaccine to become available.
There is no doubt that we have the biosecurity know how to manage a very significant program.
The politicians just have to decide to enact that program…
Being very much a globalist and extremely pro multiculturalism, I do not say such things lightly. These measures need to be enacted in a way that makes it clear to the world that in this time of crisis we are doing our best to combat the disease not only for our people but for all of humanity. As comments from the World Health Organisation make clear, every country has a responsibility to all other countries to proactively manage this outbreak in their own country. Where we can, we should also assist other countries that could do with the help as the WHO has been pleading.
So in enacting any such program it must be made crystal clear that this is absolutely an extraordinary and temporary measure, and that when the pandemic is over we will proudly open up and take in even more people from the rest of the world, especially our brothers and sisters from our Asian neighbourhood, to continue proudly building one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world.
It was always my view that humanity deserved the chance to be protected from the pandemic in buying time for our scientists to apply all of the knowledge and tools we have at our disposal. However, once that is done we must again acknowledge that we cannot live risk-free lives, as we human beings have always needed to accept.
Once everyone in the nation has been offered vaccination, which should be possible ahead of the southern hemisphere Winter 2022 by an intensive vaccination program over Summer, by that time around 2 years after the pandemic began, would be an appropriate time for us to collectively accept that our scientific knowledge and skill has been applied to its fullest. At that point we should pivot to our form of ‘COVID normal’ which will be based on individual perceptions of risk and consequent behaviours, and how that feeds through to Government policy.
One of the most challenging risks to consider and manage will be international movements of people. In many ways the degree of risk that we will accept when travelling in our new ‘COVID normal’ world will be, I imagine, much as it was 40-50 years ago when mass international travel really ‘took off’ after the development of the jumbo jet. Less risk averse people, or those who perceive greater rewards from international travel, for personal or professional reasons, will be first to travel internationally. Extra biosecurity measures are a certainty and will likely include mandatory masking during travelling, attestation of vaccination, testing for COVID-19, possibly quarantine periods, and there might even be a seasonality applied to travelling to and from certain regions.
Exactly how many measures and for how long they are applied will depend on the success of the international vaccine campaign. How quickly poor nations can get access to vaccines and how humanity deals with the intellectual property challenges will be a key determinant.
In my personal view, humanity needs to question how much of that intellectual property belongs to all of humanity from the thousands of years of curious people and through the centuries of scientific endeavour which have culminated in our present understanding of DNA/RNA, virology and immunology. In other words, during times of crisis normal business protections need to be modified to acknowledge that all businesses have and must make sacrifices for the greater good, and that it is to the ultimate benefit of the business community.
In Australia, PM Morrison has shown interesting developments in recent weeks which at first glance might suggest a change of attitude towards greater risk aversion with respect to the pandemic, for example warning Australians that cases would reach the thousands per week if borders were opened. Certainly it is clear that his political challenges, dealing with outpourings of public concern for a broad range of issues from gendered violence and sexual harassment to indigenous deaths in custody, have resulted in him seeking out any and all opportunities to augment his public image with empathy and sincerity. Far be it from me to criticise anybody from seeking to undergo personal growth as a consequence of recent experiences exposing personal shortcomings, and he has certainly been humbled by the damage to his political reputation. Nonetheless, it is entirely possible that the apparent changed attitude is in fact a crafty attempt at using reverse psychology to encourage Australians to think forward to how they really want to live going forward in our COVID normality.
It is of little consequence, however, because the public has squarely laid the blame for the widely held perception of a stalled COVID-19 vaccination program at PM Morrison’s feet, a perception of his own making given earlier remarks about the vaccination timetable, so that politically his Government is certain to pay a very high price for any serious incursions.
Even though business stakeholders continue to seek certainty and rapid progress towards reducing measures which have protected Australians from experiencing the personal loss residents of other nations have experienced in the pandemic, it will be necessary that stringent measures are maintained until the critical Winter period has passed and until all resident in Australian have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. Then, and only then, must we pivot to our ‘COVID normal’ existence knowing that we are more vulnerable than we were, or at least realised we were, before the COVID-19 pandemic. That is the nature of our existence and always will be, and that is what we must accept in the knowledge that we have learned before, that we must be ‘citizens of the world, members of the human community‘.
The first World War lasted four and a half years and the second lasted six. We are just over one year into our generations’, and though it seems an eternity, as the actual wars must have, this will likely last longer even if the intense period may be over in much of the developed world in the next year.
We must maintain flexibility – of thought and in action – if we are to maintain our hard-won advantage over this foe. What we have achieved thus far, and what we must do in the future, has an underlying humanitarian truth – that human life is more cherished and valued by society than percentage points of national GDP (gross domestic product, a questionable measure of economic output in any case) or the financial earnings of our legacy ‘national carrier’ and dividends paid to shareholders. Even if the rate of growth of GDP of the US surpasses ours in the next few months, who honestly, in the absence of the largest of life’s enticements being love, family or career, would rather have been there over here in Australia in safety in a society that has shown that it values human life above wealth?
The long term benefits to our society and economy from our compassionate actions through the COVID-19 pandemic are incalculable.
Over the next few months and years there will be times when it feels like we are experiencing a genuine victory day, like the opening of a travel bubble, then there will be hiccups such as news of a new variant reducing vaccine effectiveness or the waning of vaccine immunity more rapidly than hoped. Nothing will be smooth or easy, and little will be predictable, so nothing can be certain or set in stone. Flexibility has been our great ally thus far, and for us to continue to be successful then it must remain our ally for the foreseeable future.
Out of the shock and hurt of the COVID-19 pandemic emerges a significant opportunity for Australia which is so rare that it would be squandered only by the most inauthentic of non-leaders.
For a nation of people, especially its men, lost amongst outdated, non-inclusive, patriarchal, white-washed imagery of a colonialist outback frontier, larrikin bravery of past war heroes from a century earlier, and a fictional crocodile-wrestling caricature, let this be the moment Australians stand in our modern truth and where we live up to the ideals of authentic bravery and generosity of spirit.
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
Australia is in the midst of “the biggest uprising of women’s power [the nation] has ever seen” following repeated revelations of sexual assault and harassment by male politicians and staffers.
Grace Tame, Australian of the year, an advocate for sexual assault survivors, said comparing responses to the pandemic and to women’s rights:
we can’t fix morals with money and masking [and] we can’t boost humanity with stunts and stimulus packages. Now that our collective focus has extended beyond economic disruption to issues of morality, we are seeing leaders for who they really are.
Grace Tame expresses incredulity at PM’s choice of Amanda Stoker as assistant minister for women, The Guardian, accessed 31 March 2021
This is a clear articulation of the Great Reset era-thinking in action.
Go Grace!
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
This is the heading of another COVID-related post that I am drafting, but in case readers are browsing over the Easter weekend, I thought this tells an interesting picture (especially when consideration is given to the dates at the head of most of the posts)
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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2021
MacroEdgo
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