Stuff: A classless society? Don't make me laugh

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“You get rich people that just look down on you like you’re a nobody. They look at your appearance and the way you dress … They can’t wait to get away from you, because you’re not on their level.”

That’s what Pete, a 57-year-old Levin handyman, told me recently. And it’s a challenging statement for a supposedly egalitarian nation.

I know some New Zealanders love to believe that theirs is a society without class distinctions: anyone can talk to anyone else, without sensing a gulf in manners or tastes; we’re all mates; no-one gives themselves airs; and everyone has the same opportunities, regardless of upbringing.

It’s more myth than truth, though. While researching my new book, Too Much Money: How Wealth Disparities are Unbalancing Aotearoa New Zealand, I was struck by the intensity of our social divisions. Pete’s views are one testament.

Another interviewee, Alexa, talked about “invisible classes that people feel … they are treated differently if they are on a benefit or not, or based on what kind of job they have, like a cleaner versus a CEO. People are spoken to differently and treated differently”.

These disparities start with wealth. Just 1 per cent of New Zealanders – roughly 40,000 people – control a quarter of all assets. The business world is especially lopsided: that 1 per cent owns seven out of every 10 shares.

This wealth buys advantages and opportunities not available to others. Richer parents can – and do – spend five times more than poorer families on their children’s education. They buy houses in the grammar zones, starting their children on what I call the conveyor belt of advantage.

The most prestigious university courses then recruit heavily from those elite schools.

Over a period of several years, when the University of Canterbury took 2000 students into its first-year engineering course, just one was from a decile-one college.

Today’s university students are, the evidence suggests, very likely to have university-educated parents; the Bank of Mum and Dad creates a similar effect in housing. Some of the key opportunities have become generationally self-replicating. If you’re a young New Zealander, nearly one-third of your income can be predicted from what your parents earned.

That’s much less than in deeply unequal America, but still twice the rate of egalitarian Denmark. Advantages are passed down the generations; the wealthy have become ‘‘opportunity hoarders’’. Is there a fair go? Hardly.

Class can seem an old-fashioned word, but it’s really just a way to talk about these enduring differences in opportunities. Class divisions can be seen when inequality of assets turns into inequality of opportunity, when wealth buys better housing, healthcare, university admission, career progression, political influence. Those advantages are handed on to the next generation, limiting social mobility and entrenching disparity. That’s a class system.

This doesn’t imply there’s no hope at all for those from less fortunate backgrounds. But their lives are certainly a lot harder. And New Zealanders know that: even if we try to avoid the wider truths, some two-thirds of us – when pressed by pollsters – admit there are far fewer chances for poor children to succeed.

New Zealand lacks Britain’s aristocracy, but we do have several varieties of upper middle class. Another of the interviewees for my book, Louisa, described the South Island class system as “very unforgiving”, entrance to the upper echelons being determined by “where you went to school, who your social circle is, who your friends are, who you marry”.

Farmers are one kind of elite. In my book, I suggest we also have twin upper middle classes that I playfully label the Kelburn Left and the Remuera Right, one highly educated and discreet, the other more openly commercial. These are the people who “frown upon” Pete because he doesn’t have “a couple of hundred dollars to rub together”.

In contrast to the idea that everyone mixes easily here, upper middle class New Zealanders can manifest certain tastes and dispositions – especially around food – that make others feel inferior.

Inequalities aren’t inevitable, of course: in the early 1980s, the wealthiest 1 per cent had (a still disproportionate) 16-18 per cent of assets, rather than a quarter – because the politics were different. We taxed inheritances, and income at much higher rates than now. The state spent more on housing and other services that helped poorer families back on their feet.

We have it in our hands to reduce wealth inequalities, restore wage-earners’ bargaining power, and limit undue political influence. We can restart what I call the engines of opportunity, investing more in health and education to push back against the unfair inequalities of birth, upbringing and luck.

But we have to begin with some honesty, and acknowledge that, in fact, we don’t live in a classless world.