About

Marvin Gardens is my pen name and I’m a 50-year-old Scot whose brain tells him he’s 30 but his body tells him he’s 70.

I’m tangata tiriti in Aotearoa New Zealand and, more than anything else, I’m pissed off at the state of the world we are living in.

I’m a former scientist and journalist and I wake up most mornings feeling hopeless at how billionaires, technology companies, food companies, politicians, governments and more have grabbed all the power and are abusing it.

And worse, we (as in society, not just you and me) let them get away with it.

Instead of getting angry at billionaires using vast tax avoidance schemes to pay less tax as a percentage of income than those on benefits, we laud them for their entrepreneurship, hail their vision, and actively excuse their anti-worker behaviour.

We offer tax breaks and subsidies for companies that are making millions or billions of dollars a year and allow them to send the profits made in Aotearoa offshore to avoid more tax.

We also tend to punch down while letting these behemoths getting away with causing suffering. We blame beneficiaries for not trying harder, we blame hard-working and underpaid teachers for our children’s failures and we sneer at those who are brave enough to ask if it’s okay kids go to school hungry because the small amount of money available had to pay bills instead.

And don’t get me started on the disgrace of housing here in Aotearoa. Without family support for a deposit or other financial backing, it becomes harder every single day for newer generations to be able to buy a house.

Those in charge don’t give a shit because many of them have multiple houses and will benefit from the capital gains in the future. They set up trusts to ensure their assets are protected, they shout from their pedestal that the only thing stopping anyone from being like them is a desire to do better.

It’s bullshit. All of it. Complete and utter bullshit. And we are limited in what we can do about it. I will support charities and organisations monetarily that try to bring about change or deal with the issues caused by this broken system.

And I can write. And I will write, because it’s about the only thing I’m good at. Let’s be real, here – this website won’t change a thing. But it will make me hold myself accountable for how I live my life, decisions I make, political parties I support, apps I’m willing to install on my phone etc.

What does success look like? Complete societal change, with the power in the hands of the many. Where people can afford the basics to live a decent life. Where the entire raison d’être for companies isn’t to simply make more money at the expense of society.

Or, in this case, maybe just one person deciding that supporting the world’s richest man isn’t acceptable given his support of fascism. Or that buying cheap books from Amazon isn’t worth the local bookstore shutting down. Or asking their local MP what they’re doing about homelessness instead of blaming the person without a house.

What have we got to lose?

Marvin Gardens @marvingardens