COMMENT: The recent debate over a demand, by the Greens, to have a portrait of Winston Churchill removed from the level two public area of Parliament Buildings has caused a war of words. The Greens claim that they simply want to make room for a portrait painted by a local artist, while National and Act claim that the move speaks to the way the Greens view Churchill.
Whatever the truth – removal of the picture is a sad chapter in the legacy of a great man. As a republican and no fan of Brit history as a substitute for our own, I’m generally in favour of the rejection of the vestiges of monarchy and hereditary privilege where they simply serve as reminders of an imagined past – but Churchill is a huge exception to this.
Space doesn’t permit even a basic summary of the extraordinary role Churchill played, as Prime Minister of Britain, during World War Two – but it’s not an exaggeration to say that he “saved the world” and that almost none of the people reading this article would exist had he not played his role in history. Further, if US President Roosevelt had listened to Churchill at the Yalta Conference in 1945, rather than putting his electoral needs first, Eastern Europe might have been saved from the tyranny of almost 50 years of communist servitude under the yoke of the Soviet Union. Instead, Roosevelt simply handed Eastern Europe over to Stalin, against the strong and repeated protests of Churchill.
Perhaps if the Greens, and others, learned from Roosevelt’s folly and made more of a point of understanding history they might take a different view of some of those who they have instead chosen to demonise and even attempted to cancel.
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In 1985, Barbara Tuchman published ‘The March of Folly’, in which she addressed questions around why Governments throughout history have pursued policies contrary to their own interests despite the availability of feasible solutions. Tuchman didn’t go the next step, in her book, and note that most of those mistakes could have been avoided by simply learning from previous history but it’s an obvious extension of her argument. Indeed, there are few things which happen for which there is not an historic parallel along with a useful learning, if we’re prepared to heed it.
Auckland’s skyline from Mt Eden. The city’s housing market is usually ahead of the rest of the country. Photo / Getty Images
In reality, almost everything in life is cyclic. In the late 50s, The Byrds even recorded the song ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ to remind us of this – the song itself, being a paraphrasing of the third chapter of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon. It’s a concept that we understand instinctively when it comes to the rotation of seasons, weather events, celestial phenomena and even the activity of our own bodies – but we have an enormous blind spot when it comes to observing such cycles in other areas of our life. Indeed, if we were prepared to take the blinkers off we would see that, in additional to annual cycles there are decadal, centennial, and millennial cycles (and probably even longer) which dictate the behaviour of societies, economies, climate, governments and yes, even property ownership, which make our 21st century observations based, often, on just a couple of hundred years of history (literally) short sighted and pathetic.
Ashley Church: “Government attempts to disrupt the property cycle have been universally unsuccessful when viewed within an historical perspective.” Photo / Ted Baghurst
But even short-term cycles can be instructive if we’re prepared to learn from them, rather than overlay them with our own ideology and preconceptions. The New Zealand property market is an excellent case in point. We now have around 50 years of accumulated data which tells us a lot about how that market works and how it is likely to behave at any given time. We know, for example, that the property market adheres to a cycle which is roughly ten years in length; that during that decade property prices will generally be flat for 3 to 4 years and rising for the other 6 to 7 years – but that overall they will broadly double (or more) over that time; that Auckland is about three years ahead of the rest of the country at any given time; that this cyclic pattern is not particularly affected by things like immigration, incomes, tax policy, housing supply or inflation – and that government attempts to disrupt this cycle have been universally unsuccessful when viewed within an historical perspective.
It’s my view that, while our property market may itself, be a trend within an even broader cycle – five recurring cycles over 50 years is a pattern which we should take seriously, and that policy should seek to work within this reality rather than try to defy it.
Otherwise, we’re simply reinforcing the 19th century observation, by German Philosopher, Georg Hegel, who said that “the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history”.
- Ashley Church is a property commentator for OneRoof.co.nz. Email him at [email protected]
