Of all the fall-out from the Coalition’s budget, it’s the culture it’s exposed that’s most interested me.
We’ve not seen it for a while, mostly because Labour didn’t cut anything anyone noticed which is how we ended up with the public financies in such a state in the first place. It’s where people seem to have an expectation that any cash or employment they get from the Government is somehow – or should be – guaranteed for life, forever, no matter what.
This belief seems to colour their reaction to everything. There’s no “well, it was good while it lasted, but time to move on.” The relationship is far more like that between a child and a parent: “You don’t love me anymore! You’re supposed to take care of me! Waaa!”
It’s a bit unsettling really. I just can’t relate to it at all. It’s like these people are from another planet. Compare and contrast that with what life is like for the private sector: Jobs exist so long as the company is solvent and has work for the employees to do. Orders and sales happen only if their customers need those products and services – nothing is ever certain, nothing is ever absolute. For me, that’s what makes life bearable – that the future is entirely unpredictable and full of surprises.
I like surprises.
Sadly for many people this doesn’t inspire the same “let’s ‘ave it!” attitude towards life that it does with me.
They don’t seem to get the same buzz of adrenaline from uncertainty and change – instead it makes them miserable and depressed, pessimistic and concerned more about what they’re going to lose than what they might gain in the long run.
They don’t relish the opportunity to try new things or explore different avenues – perhaps a lack of confidence in their ability to adapt and learn new skills, or worst of all the mindset where people refuse to accept that their skills are “superflous to requirements”, that giving up and trying something else even if it makes things worse before it makes things better, is the only hope they have. Instead they wait for the world to change back to how it was… and it never does.
As an example from my own life, I invested a lot of time and effort in becoming a bit of a Javascript Ninja. I could (and still can) make extremely advanced and graphically awesome User Interface widgets for websites. What I discovered is that however worthy this skill might be, there’s no bloody market for it. No-one needs it, it adds nothing but ‘bling’ to a website, no-one’s willing to pay for it, so basically I’ve given up even trying to sell it. It turns out what is in demand are people with WordPress expertise, who can write plugins and customise themes to a professional standard. So, hey, I moved into that instead.
And, in a nutshell, that’s all markets really are. What’s to be afraid of? What’s wrong with it? Should I be entitled to claim unemployment benefit simply because no-one wants a Javascript ninja? Of course not! I do the work that needs doing, and if I don’t know how I learn.
Thinking about it I suspect that it is this illusion of security and insulation from what people in the private sector go through that attracts people to Government solutions to problems in the first place. To me it feels like they want the world to stop altogether, to crush the variables out of existence so that all that’s left is drudgery and waiting to die.
But, as this last budget has demonstrated, the truth is that people cannot and should not rely on the Government. Governments change. Attitudes change. The public financies change, too. You’ve got to keep the Golden Goose alive if you want to keep stealing the eggs, and right now that Goose is on its last legs.
To quote my all time favourite song lyric ever: “Life is unfair. Kill yourself or get over it.”
