We need a politics where all of us are motivated by values, says @mdnharris
Share articleThe values of care, community, and creativity are particularly vital in politics
Share articleActivating genuine people power can generate fresh solutions, says @mdnharris
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In many countries, a rust has grown over the surface of our electoral politics: the rust of technocratic neoliberalism.
Technocratic neoliberalism - a world view that combines pro-market reforms and a view of politics as a technical activity - sees citizens as consumers or clients. Metrics such as Gross Domestic Product per capita are invoked as mantras, without deeper discussions about whether these measures are meaningful. Politics seems as though it's about managing a company, not leading a country, and public impact suffers as a result.
In my book, The New Zealand Project, I argue that we need to scratch away this rust by renewing a role for values in politics. I define politics broadly, as the process by which power is gained or lost - electoral politics is part of this, but not all of it.
I claim that what is needed is a “values-based politics”: a politics where all of us are motivated by values, where we seek to embody values in political practice, and where we follow through on values in actions that we take in seeking a positive impact. Values are ideas that contribute to a life well led.
People on the Right and the Left should be able to sign up to all of this so far. Almost everyone would agree that it's a good idea to talk more transparently about values, supplementing evidence-based policy (which is undoubtedly important in achieving impact) with an acknowledgment of value-laden assumptions and judgments. And most people would say we should ensure that politicians do not get away with just mentioning values in their maiden speeches. We should hold politicians to account, making sure they follow through on values and embody their values in how they conduct themselves.
At this point in the book, though, I want to admit that my own world view takes the argument in a particular direction. I argue that we need a particular set of values, given the conjuncture we find ourselves in: the values of care, community, and creativity.
These cornerstone values can help to address the corrosive effect of selfish individualism and the closure of the of what is politically possible, which have occurred in part because of the worldwide economic reforms of the 1970s and 1980s (led by Margaret Thatcher in the UK). I also talk about a politics of love, as an extension (and foundation) of these values. Love is simply a deep sense of warmth directed outside ourselves; a politics of love is a politics motivated by, embodying, and following through on that value.
These values could take us in the direction of transformative policy change. To take just one example, mass incarceration - the use of prison as the dominant response to offending, and its expanded use as part of immigration policy - undermines the values I've mentioned. Prison is a denial of care: it undermines humans' natural tendencies to be sociable.
Prison distorts community. It suggests that people who commit crime are a separate subspecies of humanity, when in reality the world is not so black-and-white - good, lovable people can and do make terrible mistakes. And prison is a failure of imagination or creativity, a lazy default response that doesn't work well in rehabilitating people or deterring people from committing crime.
A values-based politics - grounded in care, community, creativity, and love - involves a radical downsizing of prison populations, what Angela Davis calls “decarceration”. Short-term prison sentences can be largely eliminated through the decriminalisation of some offences and greater use of restorative justice and problem-solving courts. Further solutions can be generated through activating genuine people power, a key force that helps us get from high-level values to real-world action.
My argument is grounded in the conditions of New Zealand. I suggest, for example, that in New Zealand there is a need for a process of decolonisation - of acknowledging and undoing the negative effects of colonisation, and “recentring” the view of indigenous peoples - for a values-based politics to be properly achieved.
I also think a values-based politics is especially appropriate in New Zealand because it represents an intersection of indigenous and non-indigenous ways of thinking about politics. There is a long history of centring values in politics in indigenous communities, as well as in communitarian, pragmatist, and socialist traditions.
But I think the argument about a values-based politics might be relevant outside New Zealand, too (and it is worth noting that it is not just New Zealand that needs to go through a process of decolonisation).
Values are shared across borders. And at a time of justified disillusionment with cold liberalism, incremental tweaking, and broken Third Way politics in the United Kingdom and beyond, we need different ways of thinking. Reminding ourselves of the roots of our politics in values - and discovering (or rediscovering) fresh values, such as love - might just be the start of growing something better.
