For those who are among the terminally online, always hooked into what’s going on on Twitter and elsewhere, there’s probably no need to explain the vibes, or the shift in vibes.
But it’s not that different from what Dennis Denuto talked about in The Castle. It’s the whole all-encompassing feel of the thing.
I think that’s the main takeaway from the Prime Minister’s ‘state of the nation’ speech last week. It was about the vibes, at least as much as the content.
Those who are terminally online will have encountered the ‘effective accelerationists’. You’ll often see e/acc in their Twitter handles. The accelerationists see the near-infinite potential of technological progress leading to rapid advancement in economic growth and sentient flourishing. It’s a vibe.
They typically see themselves as pushing back against the forces of stasis: decelerationists, or decels. Bureaucracies that look for every reason to say no rather than trying to find a path to yes. ‘Degrowthers’ who see the living standards of the 19th century as a kind of paradise rather than horrible penury. Fans of the precautionary principle who, if they took things seriously, might never get out of bed in the morning lest anything go wrong – and might want you to fill in three pages of forms before you do. Just to be sure. The risks of stasis, for whatever reason, never get considered under the precautionary approach.
The vibes, across the Anglosphere, for rather a while now, have been very decel. Governments focused on process and paperwork, regardless of whether it blocks anything from ever being done.
The British spending a hundred million pounds to put a bat shed across a high-speed train line, with that shed being more likely to kill bats than protect them, is representative.
So is the regulatory thicket that contributed to California’s wildfires and exacerbates the consequences: city and state government would not clear underbrush that would certainly turn into a terrible wildfire, banned private property owners from clearing the bush themselves, couldn’t keep water reservoirs filled, set rules killing the insurance market, and have since blocked rebuilding.
New Zealand is hardly immune. Just talk to anyone who has tried doing anything.
The vibes have been shifting.
The Prime Minister’s speech last week shifted them a bit further.
The speech itself did not signal many new initiatives. It re-hashed a lot of things that had previously been announced. Like resource management reform. And like legalising new-to-NZ technology in agriculture that has otherwise been close to impossible to use because of our regulations.
It also, unfortunately, lauded roading programmes that cannot possibly make economic sense. And it said nothing about Treasury forecasts that have the government spending more than it collects in taxes for the rest of the decade and probably beyond. The fiscal responsibility provisions of the Public Finance Act, which do not allow this kind of deficit spending, do not enforce themselves. Perhaps the government will remember those provisions come Budget 2025.
The vibes shift was the speech’s main feature.
Growth is good, development is good, being richer is better than stasis and slow decline, and it’s time to tear down some of the barriers that successive governments have built.
New Zealand’s foreign investment rules are among the world’s most restrictive. But foreign investors shouldn’t be required to prove that they’re good enough to be allowed to do things here – they should be welcomed to a country that needs more investment.
The announced Invest New Zealand agency will help foreign investors figure out how to navigate local rules and customs to get permission to build things. And maybe, just maybe, officials will learn a bit more about the real barriers that those investors face in dealing with our regulatory systems. It could help encourage reform to those rules, so that someday nobody will need an investment agency’s help.
Small things in the speech matter for the vibes shift.
Nobody could possibly believe that allowing more concerts at Eden Park will contribute materially to overall economic growth. It won’t move the dial by that much, regardless of concert promoters’ assurances.
But think about what it means.
For ages, people who decided to move next door to a concert venue have not wanted the concert venue to have concerts. It’s fundamentally decel. And because many of those neighbours are politically powerful, they’ve been able to block concerts. If the government is willing to withstand the ire of that constituency, what other kinds of growth will it also enable?
A shift in vibes has to be backed by more than speeches. The culture in our bureaus and agencies needs to change, along with the regulatory regimes. That will take real work.
But the shift in vibes is welcome. It’s time to build.
Dr Eric Crampton is Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
I think that’s the main takeaway from the Prime Minister’s ‘state of the nation’ speech last week. It was about the vibes, at least as much as the content.
Those who are terminally online will have encountered the ‘effective accelerationists’. You’ll often see e/acc in their Twitter handles. The accelerationists see the near-infinite potential of technological progress leading to rapid advancement in economic growth and sentient flourishing. It’s a vibe.
They typically see themselves as pushing back against the forces of stasis: decelerationists, or decels. Bureaucracies that look for every reason to say no rather than trying to find a path to yes. ‘Degrowthers’ who see the living standards of the 19th century as a kind of paradise rather than horrible penury. Fans of the precautionary principle who, if they took things seriously, might never get out of bed in the morning lest anything go wrong – and might want you to fill in three pages of forms before you do. Just to be sure. The risks of stasis, for whatever reason, never get considered under the precautionary approach.
The vibes, across the Anglosphere, for rather a while now, have been very decel. Governments focused on process and paperwork, regardless of whether it blocks anything from ever being done.
The British spending a hundred million pounds to put a bat shed across a high-speed train line, with that shed being more likely to kill bats than protect them, is representative.
So is the regulatory thicket that contributed to California’s wildfires and exacerbates the consequences: city and state government would not clear underbrush that would certainly turn into a terrible wildfire, banned private property owners from clearing the bush themselves, couldn’t keep water reservoirs filled, set rules killing the insurance market, and have since blocked rebuilding.
New Zealand is hardly immune. Just talk to anyone who has tried doing anything.
The vibes have been shifting.
The Prime Minister’s speech last week shifted them a bit further.
The speech itself did not signal many new initiatives. It re-hashed a lot of things that had previously been announced. Like resource management reform. And like legalising new-to-NZ technology in agriculture that has otherwise been close to impossible to use because of our regulations.
It also, unfortunately, lauded roading programmes that cannot possibly make economic sense. And it said nothing about Treasury forecasts that have the government spending more than it collects in taxes for the rest of the decade and probably beyond. The fiscal responsibility provisions of the Public Finance Act, which do not allow this kind of deficit spending, do not enforce themselves. Perhaps the government will remember those provisions come Budget 2025.
The vibes shift was the speech’s main feature.
Growth is good, development is good, being richer is better than stasis and slow decline, and it’s time to tear down some of the barriers that successive governments have built.
New Zealand’s foreign investment rules are among the world’s most restrictive. But foreign investors shouldn’t be required to prove that they’re good enough to be allowed to do things here – they should be welcomed to a country that needs more investment.
The announced Invest New Zealand agency will help foreign investors figure out how to navigate local rules and customs to get permission to build things. And maybe, just maybe, officials will learn a bit more about the real barriers that those investors face in dealing with our regulatory systems. It could help encourage reform to those rules, so that someday nobody will need an investment agency’s help.
Small things in the speech matter for the vibes shift.
Nobody could possibly believe that allowing more concerts at Eden Park will contribute materially to overall economic growth. It won’t move the dial by that much, regardless of concert promoters’ assurances.
But think about what it means.
For ages, people who decided to move next door to a concert venue have not wanted the concert venue to have concerts. It’s fundamentally decel. And because many of those neighbours are politically powerful, they’ve been able to block concerts. If the government is willing to withstand the ire of that constituency, what other kinds of growth will it also enable?
A shift in vibes has to be backed by more than speeches. The culture in our bureaus and agencies needs to change, along with the regulatory regimes. That will take real work.
But the shift in vibes is welcome. It’s time to build.
Dr Eric Crampton is Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
1 comment:
Sorry .It would be preferable to remove barriers for New Zealanders to 'get things done' before giving special treatment to overseas interests.
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