The harsh reality of many New Zealand viewpoints must be included when we assess our readiness for a knowledge economy, writes ALAN WEBSTER*.
Whether it is hard work or mastery of computerised production, the word is that New Zealanders love it, should love it, or had better learn to love it if they want to survive in the electronic jungle.
It might, however, take some faster-than-usual changes of attitude to bring that about. And you cannot dismiss attitudes with a wave of a magic wand.
This week's knowledge economy conference, with its five themes of innovation, people and capability, sustainable economic strategies, entrepreneurship, and social cohesion, should not overlook the emotional half of the human enterprise. The future is created by ideas, and ideas are half attitude.
A large part of the reason the conference is necessary is that Kiwi attitudes have not been sufficiently productive for those who see economic growth as their holy grail.
It's not surprising to find in the latest Values Study that only 45 per cent of us believe that hard work is the way to a better life.
Not only is that figure fairly mediocre in world terms - compared with 48 per cent in Australia, 55 per cent in the United States and 71 per cent in South Africa - but it is uneven across our social classes.
The keenest believers that hard work will pay are members of the upper middle class, at just on 60 per cent, while only 44 per cent of the larger working class agree, despite all the persuasion of schools, polytechnics and social workers. And the lower class registers only a disastrous 32 per cent who believe they'll get there by slogging their guts out. So what price a motivated and compliant workforce?
Looking at attitudes to life, work and to the knowledge economy, I feel almost sorry for those intent upon generating a mighty explosion in this normally secure and complacent society. Do they really believe they have only to set up the investment and skill requirements and attitudes will fall into line? If only human change were so simple.
Look, for instance, at the sorts of things that impinge upon such a revolution. Care for the environment, regarded by everyone - except George W. Bush and some old Kremlin hands - as inseparable from economic health, is given priority over economic growth by 41 per cent of our countrymen and women, compared with 59 per cent of Australians, 51 per cent of Chinese, 50 per cent of Spaniards, and 59 per cent of Swedes.
To be fair, our figure is higher than the Japanese at 31 per cent (but we know their attitude to some living treasures), and South Africans, at 27 per cent. Wouldn't you think this clean, green country would be leading the way environmentally, even if only for economic reasons?
Other potent attitudes relating to economic revolutions are life satisfaction, desire for money, feelings about social change and even whether change in people's life chances is possible.
If being among the more satisfied countries is a sign that change is not urgently wanted, you have it in New Zealand. High life satisfaction is registered by 62 per cent of us, along with Australians and Americans. Sweden just pips us at 64 per cent. Life satisfaction is known to go with a stable, well-functioning economy, so that's a promising sign.
Similarly, we are near the top for wanting high-level economic growth (New Zealand 60 per cent, South Africa 64 per cent, Sweden 68 per cent). Our desire for money does not lag much compared with richer countries.
Oddly, Australia (44 per cent) trails a little by comparison. New Zealanders, of course, have had a decade of economic rationalism to pump this view into us.
But is it that we do not want money badly enough? Would people like to see less emphasis on money? That might be a clue. Yet fewer New Zealanders (54 per cent) than citizens of many comparable countries want less emphasis on money (Australia 69 per cent, Brazil 64 per cent, Spain 72 per cent, Sweden 74 per cent, US 68 per cent).
Again, our mates in the US, Sweden and Australia seem less hungry, perhaps because they are more secure in their relative affluence. On these terms, Kiwis seem comparatively hungry for money.
Attitude to work is obviously critical. Are work attitudes in line with the wishes of our masters or mistresses? How important is work in life, for example?
We lag here. The feeling that work is very important in life (New Zealand, 45 per cent) was stronger in all seven of the other countries looked at (Australia 50 per cent, the US 53 per cent, Japan 54 per cent, Spain 59 per cent, Sweden 65 per cent, South Africa 77 per cent, and Brazil 84 per cent).
If that difference were a predictor of economic performance - and who is to say it isn't? - the case for attitude as a factor in the economy would be strong.
Similarly, when asked whether work or leisure made life worth living, only 24 per cent of Kiwis opted for work, against 30 per cent of Australians, 33 per cent of Spaniards and Americans, 34 per cent of Japanese and 64 per cent of Brazilians.
In all eight countries except Brazil, a post-materialist value system operates. Brazil, as a developing economy, has not achieved this First-World value stance.
It might be suggested that rather than most strongly preferring leisure, Kiwis might come to realise that being modern in expectation has to be matched by competitiveness in trade. So it would seem, the conference would insist. But are Kiwis listening?
What we want in a job seems to reflect not so much a thirst for national economic salvation as a strong desire for personal fulfilment. For instance, we are relatively high on wanting a job to give a feeling of accomplishment, opportunity to use initiative (very high), a feeling that you can achieve something (very high) and a job that matches one's abilities.
But in the latter, the Japanese, at 92 per cent, outstripped all others. New Zealanders, at 61 per cent, ranked third after Spaniards, at 64 per cent. It could be that Kiwis want self-fulfilment more than the joy of slaving away for the good of the nation.
There must be an attitude angle on the knowledge economy. It's to do with attitude to technology, to the promise of science and the lure of ideas.
New Zealand has a comparable (33 per cent) belief in a greater technology emphasis, with Australia, Spain and the US, and not far behind Sweden's 41 per cent.
The specific question of more emphasis on technological development, however, placed New Zealand, with 35 per cent agreeing, well behind Australia (58 per cent), Brazil (70 per cent), Japan (64 per cent), South Africa (69 per cent), Spain (53 per cent), and the US (52 per cent).
The impression of a weaker conviction is further indicated by responses to the question of whether scientific advances will help or harm humanity. New Zealand and Japan were the most likely to express uncertainty - to answer both, rather than help or harm.
It might be that there is a greater criticism of science in New Zealand than in some more technology-oriented countries. And the data shows that the lure of new ideas is no greater than in Australia, Sweden or the US, and considerably less than the growing economies of Brazil, South Africa and Spain.
Perhaps the attitude change needed is to see ours as a developing economy, not one that can afford passivity.
* Dr Alan Webster is the founding director of the New Zealand Study of Values.
href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=57032">Catching the knowledge wave
Other Herald features
Emergency services fear people are inside a car submerged in Christchurch’s Avon River.