Pick Me..

It is election time here in three months and the billboards and campaigning have already started. I spotted a Labour Party billboard at the weekend which beside the shining face of the candidate had “Vote Labour” (naturally) “Minimum Wage $15” (For anyone who is interested this is an increase from $13) So I have rubbished the idea of a legislated minimum wage before and if this was the answer to a low wage economy why don’t they suggest $25 or $45 an hour? Any way the over arching thought I had was that this sort of blatant electioneering nonsense is what needs legislative change. Therefore here is my answer to a change of governance structure.


Firstly as a society we have limited difficulty coming up with collective desired outcomes or “policy” if you will where the debate starts is the best way about achieving the required outcome. The increase in the minimum wage is an example the policy requirement is a liveable wage for all employed persons. Just about everyone will agree that sounds ok (I am going to walk past the definitional issues for the moment) It is the how we get there where it all goes wrong. In this instance the best people to answer this question are probably economic researchers and potential social analysts. Not well meaning, slogan wielding, power hungry, ego driven, vested interest politicians. (some or all of the list normally applies to all of them)

So first it is clear that we need to arms of governance, we need the policy arm and the implementation arm. The Policy arm, let’s call that the Peoples Parliament (PP) would have the same elections, party politics etc that we know and love now but no power to pass any legislation, only the power to pass Policy in the form of Legislative Requirements. These Requirements would be passed to the Governing Parliament (GP) for implementation.

The GP would propose the method for enacting the Policy and design the legislation to give effect to the Policy, this would be referred back to the PP Passing into Law or Veto. If they Vetoed they could offer comment of course but there would be no requirement on the GP to do anything further. The PP would have no right to alter the legislation.

Contained within the GP would be the Prime Minister character and Ministers as we know them now and the various Department Heads would answer to this group.

So the obvious question how do you get into the GP? Answer the PM would be appointed by an Electoral College and they (the PM) in turn would appoint Ministers. The PP would have the power of Veto over any given Ministerial Appointment but not the PM.

Who is this mysterious Electoral College? These would be people elected by the citizens to appoint the PM and after they had completed this task they would go into recess only to reappear between elections if the PM needed removed for some reason (governed by a constitution). To be able to stand for the Electoral College you would have to have no political affiliations, have a suitable level of education and passed a simple test on the constitution. Anyone could stand for Electoral College if they qualified.

What’s the point? Well that way hopefully we get a legislative and implementation arm of government less effected by political influence (no one is totally unaffected but hopefully better than now). You get people in the GP who are suitably qualified for the roles they hold without having to pander to vested interest groups etc.

This is unashamedly designed to put a buffer between the masses and the leadership of the country, hopefully allowing a rational consideration of the facts to dictate government decisions in pursuit of an agreed vision provided by the people.

The opportunity for such a radical experiment seems remote but that’s my idea for what its worth.

My child your taxes

There is a cut to government spending on early childhood education and quite a few people are upset about it, specifically and predictably the workers in the sector who stand to lose their jobs and the parents of the users who stand to either pay more or cease having or using the service.

So no one likes having thier free stuff taken away from them so ignoring that, the question is, is this a good idea? How does subsidising child care or early childhood education, as the sector participants prefer, help society.

First up lets tackle that one about child care versus early education. Do kids under five need "educated" there doesn't seem to be much evidence that they do. Clearly there is a lot of evidence that they need interaction with adults, a secure enviroment and so forth but formal education?
Worldwide the age at which people commence formal education varies a lot, however the outcomes appear to me to be very similar in terms of education. In Northern Ireland they start at 4 years old  and in Sweden they wait till they are 7 but I don't think that people from Ireland / Sweden are considered that differently in terms of education at the end.

This paper http://www.eale.nl/Conference2010/Programme/PaperscontributedsessionsF/add129051_MLbgtSeX9b.pdf
specifically looks at the question from an economic view and concludes that as an "investment in human capital" the early the better.
So to be clear early childhood education is about ensuring that your child is an effective unit of production for our industrialised society.

So as I have asperations for my child that mostly revolve around her having a happy and fulfilling life and nothing about her being a unit of production I vote for child care and lets ditch the idea of formal education for 2 year olds. A sand pit and a bucket is going to teach them a heap all by itself.
This education argument may seem irrelevant but it goes somewhat to the heart of the debate as the previous government was pushing for an increase in the number of formally trained teachers employed in this area and the current government does not see this as so important. Further this goes to the level of funding that you think is required as trained teachers cost more than lesser trained staff.

But why is the government involved at all in this area ? A couple of  comments stuck with me, one was "we are reluctant to ask our parents for more money" this from one of the teachers at a child care facility and variations were echoed by other teachers. Why they were reluctant was not canvased but we are led to presume that they would be unable or unwilling to pay.
The solution though was that "the tax payer" i.e. people without kids presumably should pay so that the people with kids, the users of the service didn't have to. I really don't understand the logic for this, unless there is a social good at work, i.e. society is better off by having children in child care than having them at home with their parents.... hmm can't imediately see how that could be unless we are saying that the state (via childcare facilities) is a better parent than actual parents.

The othe comment that struck me was "one of our parents has had to give up work to look after her children as the child care fees made working uneconomic" This was a truely strange comment from where I sat as this was presented as a bad thing. I suspect the economic argument was that the work undertaken was clearly of lower economic benefit than child minding and so by giving up this job society is in fact better off economically.
However never mind that, was the suggestion that we should all pay higher taxes (government money doesn't come from no where) so that this person could continue to work and therefore have a higher standard of living (us lower, her higher) because she chose to have a child? Can't make that work in my mind either.
This view also undervalues the role of stay at home parents as some how this was a "bad" choice.

So the more I think about it the less convinced I am that government has any role at all in early childhood "education" Do people need an organisation and government to help them organise some play friends for thier kids? Is staying at home and raising your kids a bad thing to do? (by all accounts it is a very rewarding activity, I unfortunately have not had the privilage) And do you want your child to be an efficient "unit of production" or are you aiming at happy like most parents. Just some things to think about.

You can't always get what you want

Recently I have been told that "In a democracy people get the government they deserve" which is a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville and is an often used quote to explain why democratic governments are as bad as they are. Clearly the quote could be used to explain good government but firstly people seldom think that their government is any good and secondly if they do they will tend to point to the leader or the party philosophy as the reason for the "good governance" rather than the system that created the government.

I first must admit to not being an expert on de Tocqueville and nor have I read any of his books, however a quick internet search reveals that he lived in France from 1805 to 1859 and the quote above comes from his books on America where he was observing the birth of a new form of government practiced in a way that was completely different from the land of his birth.
As he seemed to admire the way America was unfolding I suspect the quote was phrased in the positive i.e. that finally the people will get a government that they deserve rather than the tyrany of Europe where politics and government were dominated by an aristocratic elite.

It is ironic that the period in which this man lived and the emerging democracy of America were really a period of power dominated by the elite (including America) and his comments now being used to justify a system of mediocre government dominated by the masses.

Democracy as currently practised seems to me to be mostly about the tyranny of the majority with some checks and balances to make sure this doesn't go to far. It is odd that for government we believe that "might is right" i.e. no matter how stupid your ideas or policies are if you can persuade enough people to your point of view then you are justified in implimenting this policy. This would be the only area of society where we think this is a good rule. In the playground we call it bullying, in the workplace we have laws to regulate the might of employers etc.

A small example would be the dog chipping law which requires all dogs to be microchipped. This was in response as we remember to a young girl being savagely mauled by a dog (or possibly two I can't recall). It was universally approved of by "the majority" however any short period of reflection will demonstrate that this measure will do absolutely nothing to prevent dogs bitting people and as there has been other incidents since this is clear. Yet "the majority" agreed this was a sensible idea. "The minority" eg dog owners lost out and had a silly law inflicted on them.

As we all end up in various minorities depending on the issue I am not sure we "get the government we deserve" but rather the government other people thrust upon us. Do I deserve to be ruled by a generally uneducated boorish majority or... well the or that is another question entirely.