Are aspirational voters rethinking their aspirations?
Perhaps it’s not just Xi Jinping who believes there’s been a little too much lionising of wealth creators and an insufficient focus on common prosperity
I once heard an American immigrant to Australia – or perhaps it was an Australian immigrant to America – sum up the differences between the two cultures with reference to the slicing of cakes at children’s birthday parties.
I’ve never attended one, but apparently children are asked if they want a big or small slice of cake at American birthday parties. At Australian birthday parties – and this conforms with my lived experience – there is an egalitarian distribution of the cake. If there are 20 kids at the birthday party, the cake is divided into 20 equally sized pieces.
While they may still divvy up birthday cakes along Communist lines, Australians – along with their counterparts elsewhere in the Anglosphere – long ago decided that they were happy for the national income pie to be divvied up much less equitably than had been the case circa 1930-1980.
This inevitably brings me to the latest industrial relations brouhaha.
Do you really want the poorly paid to be better paid?
I have no penetrating insights to offer about the pros and cons of multi-employer bargaining. For all I know, there may be superior ways to ‘get wages moving again’ without endangering the profitability/continued existence of Australian businesses.
But Australians – particularly working-class and middle-class Australians – must now decide whether they want real wages – which are currently heading south due to high inflation – to increase.
It’s a rookie mistake, one frequently made by Leftists, to assume those who aren’t either business owners or highly paid employees invariably believe Labour should get more than just the leftovers of the national income pie.
This probably was the case for the 50 years or so following the Great Depression. But sometime between the late 1970s and the early 1980s, significant sections of the working and lower-middle class decided that (a) It was possible for them to better their station in life and (b) once they had bettered their station in life they didn’t want any of their newfound wealth redistributed downwards through either the imposition of high taxes on high-income earners and/or business owners and shareholders being expected to hand over a goodly chunk of their profits to the workers who played a role in the generation of said profits.
The well-heeled, who have always been keen on low taxes and low wages, continued to back political parties – both right-of-centre ones and reinvented ‘third way’ left-of-centre ones headed up the likes of Hawke, Keating, Clinton and Blair – that would promote the redistribution of national wealth from Labour to Capital. But much to the dismay of the type of well-educated, politically engaged, middle class and upper-middle class progressives who sent books such as Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, lots of people who weren’t well-heeled started voting against what appeared to be their economic interests circa 1979 and continued doing so for decades. As Frank observed in 2004:
The gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: to the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land, and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO, and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed (unions, antitrust, public ownership), and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower.
This isn’t the place to debate whether aspirational voters were, to borrow a phrase, behaving like roaches voting for Raid in backing neoliberal politicians so enthusiastically throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The relevant point is simply that many voters in Anglosphere countries were happy to have a handful of kids monopolise most of the birthday cake while the rest of the children were reduced to fighting for crumbs. That’s presumably because they figured they might get to gorge on the cake themselves one day and weren’t overly concerned about the prospect of others going hungry.
Are we all in this together?
I’m not sure when a majority, or at least a plurality, of Anglosphere voters began to twig that they were unlikely to end up being one of the gorgers and should therefore start supporting a fairer slicing up of the cake.
I’ve always suspected Obama won more votes than he lost telling a disbelieving ‘Joe the Plumber’ that “spreading the wealth around… [was] good for everybody” during his 2008 election campaign. Many Americans and Brits, especially younger ones, had their aspirations very much curtailed during the post-GFC period of austerity. More recently, the coronavirus led growing numbers of people to declare ‘we are all in this together’ and to consider whether those toiling away in unglamorous but socially necessary jobs deserved a bit more pay and status.
Earlier this year, the Australian voters elected a one-time Socialist firebrand raised by a single mother in public housing as Prime Minister. Albanese might have been a small target, don’t-frighten-the-horses Opposition Leader, but he is morphing into a conviction politician now he's ensconced in the Lodge. It seems that, along with his ambitious Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, he really does want to get wages moving.
As would be expected, this has prompted the usual hysterical conniptions among the wage-paying class. The pertinent political question now is whether or not a critical mass of Australians want to divide the national income pie more equitably.
Will you put your hand in your pocket for higher wages?
Let’s take the childcare industry as a case study. You can make a lot of money if you own a childcare centre and a shit tonne of money if you own a string of them. (A decade or so ago, much of Australia was transfixed by the spectacular flameout of the Ferrari/yacht/helicopter/sports team-owning Eddy Groves, who went from owning one Brisbane childcare centre to heading up ABC Learning, a company worth $2.5 billion at its peak.)
But you can’t make much money working at a childcare centre. The starting salary for an early childhood educator is around $900 a week. That salary can and typically does increase over time, but not by much, with most full-time childcare workers pulling in $1000-$1425 a week, pre-tax. That makes them among the lowest-paid workers in the nation.
Most childcare workers do vocational training. But, back when my children were in childcare, I was surprised by how many of them, especially the younger ones, were university qualified. Around 10 per cent of early childhood educators are now university graduates. After getting a degree and racking up a substantial HECS debt, these graduates, like their TAFE-trained brethren, can look forward to earning a maximum award rate of $37.50 an hour.
It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t agree that childcare workers do an important job and deserve to be paid more for it. But that will inevitably involve higher labour costs in what is an extremely labour-intensive industry. Childcare isn’t cheap – when my two children were in childcare half a decade ago, the weekly bill was $1000 – but if childcare workers are going to be paid more, those who use childcare will have to pay more. Childcare has long been heavily subsidised and the newish Labor Government wants to subsidise it even more heavily. That means all Australian taxpayers – including the growing number of childless ones – will also have to fork out if the wages of early childhood educators are to rise significantly.
Much the same dynamics apply to other lowly paid workers.
Want to give aged care workers a pay bump? Be prepared to pay eye-wateringly high fees to get into an aged care facility if you’re elderly and to pay higher taxes if you’re still in the workforce.
Want to improve the working conditions of those ‘healthcare hero’ nurses everyone was banging saucepans for not so long ago? Then you better forget about those Stage Three income tax cuts you were looking forward to.
Want the kid who is risking life and limb to deliver Thai food to your door to pocket more than $15 an hour? Expect to pay significantly more next time you log on to Menulog or Uber Eats.
And so on.
It’s decision time
A few days ago, the Guardian was trumpeting a poll that, according to the headline, showed “almost two-thirds of voters back Labor’s plan for multi-employer deals”.
In fact, the poll results were a little less clear cut. Exactly half of those surveyed said Labor’s industrial relations bill was “key to getting wages moving and [giving] power back to employees”. That presumably means half of those surveyed either didn’t believe the IR bill would achieve its objectives or, more likely, were frightened that it would.
(The Guardian begrudgingly conceded that 27 per cent of those surveyed agreed that the IR bill “gives too much influence to unions and will be bad for the economy and businesses”.) The ”two-thirds” support touted in the headline appears to relate to strong support among those surveyed for remote working arrangements, measures to close the gender pay gap and “strengthening the power of low paid workers to negotiate wage rises”.)
The first point to be made is that people talk a lot of shit to pollsters. Ask voters in pretty much any country if they want more money spent on health and education and they will say they do then go and vote for the political party that promises to lower their taxes.
Ask Brits if they want to stay in the EU and they will tell you they do then vote for Brexit.
Ask Americans if they are excited to cast their vote for the first woman president and they will assure they are before backing Donald Trump in the privacy of the ballot box.
Quiz women about what they are looking for in a partner and they’ll insist they want a supportive, emotionally intelligent gentleman despite the fact they’ve only ever been attracted to taciturn bad boys with pronounced Dark Triad personality traits.
Quiz middle-aged men about their mate preferences and they’ll say they want someone around their own age without any major psychological issues before proceeding to swipe right on every hot mess 22-year-old that appears on their Tinder feed.
The second point to be made is that people are frequently deceiving themselves more than the pollster when expressing their opinions. Voters would like more money spent on government services, but they don’t want to pay higher taxes. Women do want a good-hearted partner, but they also want one who is exciting. Men do want a partner who isn’t going to be a lot of work, but they also want a partner who is hot enough to get away with being a lot of work.
As I’ve canvassed in previous musings, there appears to be a seachange in political attitudes occurring during the dying days of the neoliberal era. The question that remains to be answered is how sincere people are when they say they are willing to cop higher prices and taxes to ensure those doing poorly paid but important work can earn a liveable wage.
We will soon find out.
There are other questions beyond simply asking, 'are you going to accept the government raising taxes to support lower wage earners receiving a pay rise?'
The simple answer will always be yes. Then - once details and the realities emerge - it becomes a different story.
Take your example of childcare. It is - as you note - highly subsidised by taxpayers. The question here is whether taxpayers can reasonably be expected to fund childcare in ever increasing amounts? It is a personal decision to have children, yet taxpayers are paying for people's choices so those same individuals can return to work.
A simple way of explaining childcare subsidies is I pay so you can return to work and earn money you get to keep because I'm paying a significant cost of your childcare. We have - for some time - been funding other people's lifestyle choices so they can have it all.
Arguments favouring childcare subsidies - such as the benefits of (mainly women) returning to the workforce bringing commensurate expertise with them - aside, childcare is still one couples lifestyle choice being subsidised by another - in this instance - the taxpayer.
Another question is what will be the impact of higher wages - which will be felt through increased prices as well as taxes - on purchases in Australia? A significant number of people are already purchasing from cheaper online stores as opposed to going to the local shopping centre.
The online stores offer wares made in cheap labour overseas countries without the huge overheads faced by retailers based in local shopping centres. As Australian labour costs increase with prices logically following to compensate, will Australians pay the higher prices in support of increased local wages?
I'm guessing the answer will be no.
On what do I base this view? Trends in online shopping we've already seen coupled with the extensive offshoring of industries - including those which initially resisted such moves - because companies manufacturing locally could no longer compete with those who moved offshore.
Why? Australian consumers - in ever increasing numbers - chose cheaper overseas made product over more expensive locally produced products. Somehow, the Australia consumer always escapes blame for their part in setting this trend.
Fact - Australians won't - and certainly don't want to - pay to support the wages and conditions they enjoy. The inevitable outcome will be an increase in offshoring with commensurate loss of local jobs.
As to polling - Its accuracy is in doubt for two reasons.
1. Pollsters poll people who give the 'required' or 'expected' answers. Others are weeded out. I know because I volunteered for polling and was quietly dropped - they stopped sending me polls - because I didn't give the sought after answers. This was despite me carefully considering all questions and providing the most accurate and honest answers - from my perspective of course - possible.
2. People are afraid to overtly state their opinions on many subjects and issues. Politics is a prime example. Only after people have enjoyed the privacy of a ballot box do you tend to learn what they really think. The ballot box is safe because it reveals a collective of anonymous votes.
Polling has been less accurate in recent times largely because of the factors mentioned above. For those taking the polls, the problem is further compounded by issues potentially arising from results which contradict - or oppose - something widely believed to be viewed differently.
Voting for Don or Brexit are prime examples. Imagine the difficulty for any pollster releasing results showing Trump or Brexit would prevail? For the answer, one need not look beyond Cambridge Analytica.
By any measure, Cambridge Analytica did its job extremely well. It worked for the Trump and Brexit campaigns, both of which succeeded.
Cambridge Analytica was hounded out of business for its success because it worked - in the eye of many - for the wrong sides. Had Cambridge Analytica successfully worked for Clinton and Remain, it would have been lauded for its achievement and held up an as example of modern business utilising technology to best effect.
The last bit is still true, but forgotten - and twisted - because the outcome was disapproved by many.
With that reality in mind, who is going to present contrary evidence if their business may be under threat simply by doing so?
I read recently that the majority of US younger voters (18-31) believed in "European Socialism" - despite that word made akin to "serial killers" in US media. Presumably they were polled with some factual basis.
I expect the next generation has worked out the fallacy of the multiple Ponzi schemes that make up our current culture.
If they then also support compulsory + "rank" voting - change will come!