‘Social investment’ as political economy of education: Recent changes in early childhood education in New Zealand

Abstract

The newly coined policy of social investment is an economic argument for targeting state investment to the most needy. I use Foucault’s notion of biopolitics in a discursive analysis of recent New Zealand policy documents pertaining to a discrete group of ‘vulnerable children’. I further argue that the Foucauldian metaphor of state institutions as war-like gives knowledge/power to investment as efficient government.

After an overview of the New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) sector, over the past three decades, I move to analyse a new positioning of early childhood as a social service, one among other social welfare interests. This article will explore the political economy of education as a private actuarial investment as constructed in New Zealand under the National Coalition Government 2008–2017 (hereafter referred to as National Government). ¹ It draws on examples of discursive power/knowledge and seeks to look below the apparent unities for the less stable mechanisms evident in the ‘savoir’ of economic management (Foucault, 1998: 387).

By examining a range of government policy documents, pronouncements, and releases across a number of social services, I will analyse the ‘relations of forces’ (Foucault, 1994c/2000: 256) underpinning the construction of a ‘High Trust model’ of social services (Bennett, 2009). Michel Foucault’s theory of governmentality is useful here – govern-mentality, schematically places ‘state: individual’ as two poles on a continuum with continual negotiations between the two. Across the poles at the nodes – the intersections – there are places for struggle against dominant systems. Dominant discourse will masquerade as a ‘truth’; thus, researchers should be cautious of any claims of ‘veracity’. ‘Each society has its regime of truth … the types of discourse it accepts and makes function’ (Foucault, 1994b/2000: 131). This discourse can be researched through looking across and between policy documents.

Recent New Zealand governments’ policy approaches construct education as a private, individual investment. These policies emphasize decreasing welfare dependence; the state expects beneficiaries to gain a qualification. Parents should become ready as ‘job seekers’ able to navigate the employment marketplace, leaving their young children in care. Individuals are constructed as prudent subjects who will manage the education journey over their life trajectory, to get the best outcomes for themselves and their family.

A long-term view, which became evident through the analysis of policy documents, is that the state constructs young children as members of a future workforce. The policy approach aimed to prevent the children of beneficiaries from later becoming welfare-dependent themselves. A possibly naive faith in data allowed the New Zealand government to measure and monitor its successes in decreasing beneficiaries’ dependence, as well as the participation of their children in ECE.

The problematic: education as political economy – New Zealand

In 1989 New Zealand, under the leadership of Prime Minister and Minister of Education, David Lange, and Finance Minister, Roger Douglas, the Fourth Labour government brought in the Education Act 1989 (see Olssen et al., 2004: 132, 175–176). This effected changes to public education for both ECE centres and schools. There was a devolution of responsibility to each school or early education centre, which was responsible for their self-governance and daily management, including implementation of curricula. A new era of self-government in education emerged, whereby the government withdrew from direct responsibility but retained control through legislation and regulation of the funding and curriculum outcomes (see Carr and May, 1999; Olssen et al., 2004: 188, 245–246). This was, for ECE at least, a time when, for business enterprise, the prospect of privately owned and privately operated centres became possible. Over time, the former state-subsidized kindergartens and playcentres were joined by a multiplicity of ECE options, including Pacific Islands Language Nests and Ngā Kōhanga Reo. All were initially bulk-funded for the same state subsidy, but the Labour Government (1999–2008) introduced differentially funded teacher-led and parent-led centres (see, for example, Cullen, 2008; Te One, 2003). A supply-side subsidy, Working for Families, was payable to families with a working parent. Quality teaching in teacher-led centres attracted greater funding, as a credentialed workforce would ensure families could leave their child with confidence while they participated in job training or the paid labour force.

The late 20th century was the time when society’s view of education as a public, civil good descended, giving way to the perspective that individuals were entrepreneurs of their own destiny in the education and employment markets. As students left the publicly financed schools to begin a tertiary education, they became subject to student loans to finance their education and accumulated an individual student debt which accrued interest and needed to be repaid. Public Choice Theory entered the New Zealand education field, where parents were reconfigured as clients, able to choose the ‘best’ educational option for their child. Students sought the most marketable diploma or degree that would support their future employment (Olssen et al., 2004: 198). New Zealand had become, in educational terms, a disciplinary society, education a competitive marketplace.

Future governments both Labour and National continued the construction of education as an individual private rather than public good (see Olssen et al., 2004; Olssen and Peters, 2005). There were changes over the 27 years, between 1989 and 2016. Curriculum outcomes were prescribed in a charter, a contract signed between each educational entity and the Ministry of Education. National curriculum documents Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa Early childhood curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1996) and the National Curriculum for schools were mandated (see Carr and May, 1999). The funding of ECE became a financial partnership between parent and government. Ministry of Education would pay a bulk amount, with the expectation that any shortfall would be covered by fees paid by families for their child’s education. There were some attempts to create equitable effects: a decile rating ranging from decile 1 (lowest) to decile 10 (highest) on aggregating parents’ socio-economic means. The government would pay on a sliding scale for decile schools and early education centres. In ECE, the ministry responsible for welfare subsidized some low-income families so that their children could attend ECE centres (see Bushouse, 2008).

Private enterprise saw ECE as sites for investment and profit – where for-profit entities could buy and sell centres. Many, such as the Evolve group, listed publicly on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (see MacBeth, 2017). Beginning teachers were encouraged to seek out training institutions to gain a benchmark qualification Diploma or Bachelor of Teaching in ECE. In the tertiary field, the traditional training establishments, Schools of Education or Universities, soon faced competition for the delivery of education credentials by Polytechnics or Private Training Establishments. The positivity of the discourse of ‘choice’ grew. The responsibility for quality control was mandated by the Education Act 1989 and subsequent amendments. State agencies Teachers Council and Education Review Office, under various iterations, reviewed each entity and made recommendations to Ministry of Education and Tertiary Education Commission about issues of provision (see Bushouse, 2008).

The problematic: National Government ‘invests’ in social issues

[Govern-mentality is] the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow this very specific, albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security. (Foucault, 1994a/2000: 219–220)

Under National, the state would withdraw from delivering core social services. Finance Minister Bill English (2015) (later Prime Minister) told the New Zealand Institute of Public Administration that the ‘ Government … will invest in individuals and families today for measurably better long-term results’. It would, he continued, purchase outcomes that in the long term demonstrated improved results for the Government’s books. ‘Cabinet has directed the Treasury and social sector agencies to develop a new Budget process, which we call social investment’, he said. The National Government was primarily a government that practised New Public Management (NPM) economics. NPM includes ideas of less government and a tightly defined public service with an ability to contract for specific outcomes while devolving day-to-day management to non-governmental organizations. Over its three terms, the government had worked steadily to trial and then implement a new regime of devolved social services: ‘a High Trust Model’ (Bennett, 2009). Its concept of social services included housing, child and social welfare. Contractors would be paid on results: be a ‘bit more evidence based about where to target investment [for]short & longer-term outcomes. It’s about adding value through social spending’ (Paredes, 2015b). The government aimed for political economy: to manage more economically. In constructing a ‘job-seeking’, ‘tax-paying’ individual, the policy goal was to entice the individual beneficiary to govern herself – to seek gainful employment in the competitive marketplace (Tolley, 2015, 2016). Job-seeking individuals often have young dependent children, so the policy aimed at the parental subject will also affect their child.

The government had two specific foci it regarded as problems: the long tail of disadvantage evident in Māori and Pasifka students, and the burden of welfare benefits paid to non-working populations. Both problems affect long term the state’s ability to compete internationally, it believed. In its first term, National established an Inter-Party Working Group for School Choice (Report of the Inter-Party Working Group for School Choice, 2009) ² and a Taskforce on Early Childhood Education (Mintrom, 2013) to address these problems. In New Zealand education, a ‘truth’ was being reaffirmed, as the National Government (2008–2017) undertook a re-ordering of early childhood and compulsory education in its The Education (Update) Amendment Bill (NZ Crown, 2016b). These changes, the Minister of Education Hekia Parata (2016) noted, are the ‘biggest in twenty-seven years’. In a close parallel, the Minister of Social Development revamped the act in the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill (NZ Crown, 2016a). Both sets of legislative and regulatory matters utilized the new concept of ‘social investment’, with its connotations of the state investing now to alter future outcomes. A Welfare Working Group report recommended measures to support beneficiaries into work or training (Rebstock, 2011). Actuarial measures, managed by an independent Board, would, it suggested, ensure that over time government would recoup investments of welfare monies. ‘At a high level, the WWG recommend[ed] a work-focused welfare system, with a cross-government emphasis on preventing the need for welfare use, with targets and accountability mechanisms to reduce future liability’ (Taylor and Fry, 2011: 1). A firm with experience in actuarial insurance, Taylor and Fry (2011) advised the Ministry of Social Development on changes to its welfare functions to improve beneficiary outcomes and ‘reduce future liability’ (p. 1) to the state’s finances. It suggested a ‘statistical modelling of client behaviour using client level data’ (p. 18). This data would then support where to target for greatest benefits and best outcomes. It would lead to ‘[s]trategic decision-making in relation to groups of beneficiaries, particularly in relation to allocation of resources’ (p. 16).

Targeting monies at areas of greatest risk means that long-term state investments will be smaller. Early investment, the National Government believed, is good economic management. It is, the Prime Minister (2017) asserted in his state of the nation address, about doing things ‘smarter’ and ‘being more accountable for results’. By adding value to the social spend, the Ministers seek to ‘improv[e] investment decisions using social investment analysis’. For example, the Minister of Education noted, ‘taking into account success measures beyond achievement only, such as ‘curriculum key competencies, wellness and wellbeing and improved employment outcomes’ (Parata, 2014). Governments wish to govern economically to ensure the nation’s wealth is both husbanded and used prudentially. National hopes to ‘connect … the dots behind the scenes, with a mix of public and private sector providers’ (Paredes, 2015a).

Managing security versus risk: reducing dependency

‘Biopolitics’ is the name Foucault (1997/2003: 243) gave to the state’s interest in the governmentality of its populations, to the management of births, deaths, morbidity, health, hygiene and illness. The prime interest of governmentality is management of perceived risks within the state’s population. Its interests included anything that sapped the collective population’s strength and vigour. His concept of genealogy, using two differing but related concepts of knowledge, has been influential in examining policy documents – connaissance and savoir (Foucault, 1998: 382). Connaissance includes only formal bodies of knowledge, while savoir includes texts but moves beyond these to look at the situational context that produces such texts. Researchers should be critical of any concept operating as a ‘truth’ or a ‘science’ but examine instead its ‘effects of power’ (Foucault, 1994: 132).

In 1983, Michel Foucault was interviewed by Robert Bono (Foucault, 1994b/2000: 365–381) on his views on the tensions between security and risk. The interview focused on the problem of marginalized populations and society’s responsibility towards these. The system of social guarantees established in 1946 ‘has now reached its economic limits’ (p. 365) ‘as it stumbles against the political, economic and social rationality of modern society’ (p. 366). Moreover, ‘social security whatever its positive effects … also has some “perverse effects”: the growing rigidity of certain mechanisms and the creation of situations of dependency’ which are inherent in the system. From the 1960s, the concept of security began to be associated with the question of independence. Not in some simplistic way where everything ‘that might be dangerous [is seen in a] “security and liberty law.”’ Security and dependency are coupled as a ‘diabolical pair’. When ‘we give people greater security, we increase their dependency’ (p. 366), Foucault argued. As children are given greater freedom, we ensure they are supervised by siblings, parents and agents of the state such as psychologists, teachers and police (OECD, 1977; 2001). Freedom comes with bounds that confine us to normative expectations. Young children can no longer be left unsupervised unless under the gaze of a qualified adult. Security of the population begins with the oversight of possible dangers to their children.

All human relationships exist in relationships of power and always entail risk. The relationships between individuals, civil society and the state are always at risk of being nostalgic or pejorative. The question would be, Foucault concluded, about how to maintain a ‘decisional distance’ so that the individual has some say in the matters: ‘to know how to limit the effects of this relationship, this relationship being in itself neither good nor bad but dangerous’ (p. 373). Such is the tension within welfare.

International power-ful influences: education as political economy

Internationally, New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum was lauded (see, for example, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), 2004). Te Whāriki was nationally mandated for all publicly funded early childhood centres. Supra-national agencies such as the OECD (2012) and international academics noted its effects with approval. For example, Quality Matters said, ‘New Zealand’s Te Whāriki is a progressive and cogent document regarding the orientation and aims of ECE. The document clearly lays out what is expected from staff and child development with useful examples’ (OECD, 2012: 7). Among the OECD’s overview was the Centre for Educational Research. Education was becoming an essential element in global trade and competition. A well-trained, skilled workforce would ensure future competitiveness in national trade. The OECD supported its members (including New Zealand) with international comparisons and synopses of current education and economic theory using tools such as OECD’s Thematic Review of Early Childhood Education and Care – published for each of its member countries. OECD reviews of national early childhood policies and organizations between 1996 and 2004 assisted the growing discourse of the early years as places for prudent investment. Early Childhood Education and Care emerged as a policy priority in many countries. Websites offering ‘education at a glance’ statistics of member countries were offered to lead policy decision-making. Skill sites offered headings such as ‘Economic and social outcomes (incentives to invest in education)’ and ‘Labour market perspective (employment/unemployment, earnings, qualified labour force)’. Human Capital Theory (HCT) arguments are evident in media releases and policy briefs: Education, it is argued by HCT theorists, leads to improved economic outcomes, can solve inequalities and grow national wealth (e.g. Carneiro and Heckman, 2003; Heckman, 2000, 2011; Keeley, 2007; for critique, see Stuart, 2009, 2016). Both axes of the ‘individual : state’ prosperity can be addressed:

Economically, the returns to human capital can be understood in terms of the prosperity, both the individual’s and that of the national economy … The question of care and education for very young children is attracting increasing interest. In part, this is fuelled by the practical consideration of how to care for children at a time when more women are going out to work … some countries are actively encouraging parents to continue working, especially in the English-speaking world. In part this is because children in families where neither parent or only one parent works are more likely to live in poverty … High quality child care and education benefits all children, but it may be especially important for children from poorer or migrant backgrounds. (OECD, 2007)

At the cusp of the 20th century, the supra-national organizations, the OECD (e.g. Keeley, 2007), the World Bank (e.g. Denboba et al., 2014; World Bank, 2016) and the International Monetary Fund (e.g. Hanushank, 2005), adopted HCT ideas. A well-educated aggregate of individuals gives a competitive edge to nations trading internationally, it was believed. The OECD had an interest in anything economic which could advance its members co-operation in the competitive international market. How to maintain a stable birth rate yet encourage women to return to work while their children were small?

A genealogy of managing security versus risk: New Zealand

Any genealogy is by definition anti-history, anti-science, in that in draws on the local, ‘discontinuous, disqualified, or non-legitimized knowledges’ (Foucault, 1997/2003) to fight the apparently unity of any ‘truth’ (p. 9). The concept of ECE as an economic investment is relatively new. All ECE teachers learn of the pedagogical roots but few of the economic influences on their discipline. Teachers may understand the concepts of education as a ‘good’, but miss the references to it being ‘for the economic good of the country’. Genealogy allows the researcher to ‘fight the power-effects characteristic of any discourse that is regarded as scientific’ (Foucault, 1997/2003: 9), such as the discourse of Public Choice Theory or HCT. New Zealand’s ECE pedagogy has been largely influenced by liberal concepts of the child, emanating from Britain and Europe. Froebelian pedagogy influenced the early kindergartens. Post–World War II, many of the ideas noted in the Bailey Report (Bailey, 1947) arose from nursery school ideas, of the McMillan sisters and later, Jean Piaget. This discourse constructed the child as centred on her own learning, guided by the teacher to discover new concepts.

New Zealand (NZ) Treasury (14 July 1984) wrote a paper as a ‘Briefing to the Incoming Government’ called Economic Management (Olssen et al., 2004: 175–176). These economic ideas came from the Chicago School of Economics. Finance Minister Douglas (1984–1988) accepted its monetarists’ ideas uncritically. NPM economic framings were adopted by the Fourth Labour Government (1984–1990), which proceeded with the policy initiatives Tomorrow’s Schools (the compulsory education sector) and Education to be More (the ECE sector). NPM concepts underpin the Education Act 1989, which remains in effect today. Initially, much of the discourse came from Public Choice Theory: parents could choose their school, and schools compete for educational dollars.

The pedagogical theory of the competent child was overlaid with economic theory in the 1990s, centring the rational chooser operating in the educational marketplace. Children would gain skills that support them to be competent future workers. A national ECE curriculum Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa Early childhood curriculum was adopted in 1996. Ministry of Education staff (OECD, 2004) had rewritten much of the draft (1993), preferring ‘a more universalist approach’ than was in the first draft (p. 19). One criticism was that ‘[b]ecause of its emphasis on holistic goals rather than on “hard” knowledge-based areas and the acquisition of selected skills, the assessment of Te Whãriki is difficult’ (OECD, 2004: 20).

Each centre was to construct their own learning whāriki, for place-specific influences. It remained an innovative curriculum. The New Zealand ECE curriculum is unusual in that it is a non-prescriptive curriculum. Its strands and goals are aspirational, to be fostered by adults effecting the principles to support children’s learning. The four principles (Ministry of Education, 1996: 14) are as follows:

• Empowerment/Whakamana. The early childhood curriculum empowers the child to learn and grow;

• Holistic Development/Kotahitanga. The early childhood curriculum reflects the holistic way children learn and grow;

• Family and Community/Whānau Tangata. The wider world of family and community is an integral part of the early childhood curriculum;

• Relationships/Ngā Hononga. Children learn through responsive and reciprocal relationships with people, places and things.

The metaphor of a whāriki or ceremonial mat ensures that all are interwoven. No learning outcome can stand as a discrete skill. This means that the implementation of the curriculum depends on communication between family and ECE teachers on their aspirations for each child. It cannot be implemented as a checklist of acquisitions. Such aspirational elements came into collision with the child development skills adopted by the HCT discourses.

Recent influential economic discourses have come from America, allied to the Chicago School of Economics. Policy-makers need reassurance that they can measure the value of a social investment: the benefit of its education dollars to the state (Weber, Foster& Weikart, 1978). In the 1960s, research by Lawrence Schweinhart and David Weikart (1997) gained national and international fame, demonstrating child developmental gains for poor children attending their Ypsilanti preschool (e.g. 1979, 1997). ³ Others, too, noted the cost–benefit analysis revealed that the programme and others like it ‘pay for themselves’ as ‘targeted subsidisation of poor children into high quality early childhood education services represents a very good use of government funding’ (Mintrom, 2013: 6). Micro-econometrician James Heckman mined much of the Ypsilanti Michigan data in his work after 2000. HCT joined Public Choice Theory in the educational marketplace in the early 21st century, overlaying the pedagogical image of the child.

Development is central to HCT: human development married economic development. Education was increasingly seen as a prime state investment paying good dividends – that there were direct ‘links between ECEC and sustained growth and development’ (OECD, 2009). Moreover, investment in early education promoted equitable outcomes for marginalized children and their families. The OECD 2009 publication Doing Better for Children noted that perfect market conditions were rarely possible for educational outcomes, especially for poor families:

[The] family investment model … indicates that, where parents face borrowing constraints against the future earnings of their children, there will be a relationship between their income and their child’s adult income and other long-term well- being outcomes. Poor parents have more limited means than rich parents to finance the human capital accumulation of their children. (OECD, 2009: 167)

Many believed that ‘high-quality, effectively-targeted early childhood education programs was one of the best investments that governments could make’ (Mintrom, 2013: 3), especially for ‘children from poor families’ (p. 5). Targeted early intervention had become a ‘scientific truth’, which could lead policy.

A systemic approach would subject the child investment portfolio to a continuous iterative process of evaluation, reallocation and further evaluation to ensure that it actually generates returns and improves child well-being. Poor investments should be culled and successes reinforced based on information yielded by good evaluation. Information derived from marginal additional spending on children can be used in this phase to allow the better allocation of baseline spending into the future, as well as to make better-quality evidence-based claims on future incremental spending (OECD, 2009: 1840).

There is a need for ‘accountability’, many believe – if states plan to invest early, they need evidence that targeted money is effective. Much of the impetus for assessment of outcomes came from pressure in the past two decades on state policy-makers to fund ECE services. Heckman and colleague Jack Shonkoff (e. g. Knudsen et al., 2006; Shonkoff and Bales, 2011) are among such lobbyists. The ‘science’ of child development gained ascendancy in both the United States and supra-national economic publications:

Four decades of early childhood policy and program development indicate that evidence-based interventions can improve life outcomes, and dramatic advances in the biological and behavioral sciences now provide an opportunity to augment those impacts. The challenge of reducing the gap between what we know and what we do to promote the healthy development of young children is to view current best practices as a starting point and to leverage scientific concepts to inspire fresh thinking. (Shonkoff, 2010: abstract)

In Foucauldian terms, the Child Development ‘science’ had hardened to both a biological and economic ‘truth’ in a new order of political economy (see Green, 2017). Both children and adults could ‘develop’ and learn new social skills to enhance their employment options. Educational normative skills became vocational measures to mitigate any social ‘dangers’. The OECD ‘is initiating the International Early Learning Study, a cross-national assessment of early learning outcomes involving the testing of five-year-old children in participating countries’ (Moss et al., 2016). While New Zealand chose not to participate in the International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study (IELS), stated a publication by a Crown entity, ‘it could join at a later stage, if the study becomes an established OECD tool’ (Green, 2017: 17). The Productivity Commission (Green, 2017) suggested that

[u]nderstanding the impact of ECE on children and parents is … important for fully assessing productivity changes in the [public service] sector. Assessments of child development or measures of parental employment are potential indicators that could be used to quality-adjust ECE outputs. (p. 1)

The OECD (2009) saw that it could play a role that gave country oversight ‘in documenting, and where possible coding, the detail of policy changes that may impact on child-well-being outcomes. This would encourage the use of country panel-data to examine the influence of policy changes on child outcomes’ (p. 185). Raising the status of ECE to a science, about which hard data can be collected, compared and used to justify investment, has hardened its discourse. The next section examines the ‘“tactics,” “strategy” and the “relations of force”’ (Foucault, 1997/2003: 18) of the New Zealand government.

A mathesis of the subject: seeking investment cost to benefit values

Governments are interested in mechanisms that can be utilized to give information. The numerical mechanisms include things such as forecasts, statistical estimates and a range of comparative and contrasting measures. The body of the population perceived as the ‘risk’ is normatively compared to the rest, who have skills, good health and motivation to gain employment. The former is regularized – the layout of towns and cities, rules on hygiene and other pressures from close living: ‘the pressures that the very organization of the town brings to bear on sexuality and therefore procreation, child care, education … so you have [certain] disciplinary measures and [certain] regulatory measures’ (Foucault, 1997/2003: 251). The ‘risky’ are expected to avoid accidents, inoculate themselves and their children against disease and build their own and their children’s skills against the risk of redundancies – in Foucauldian terms, to govern themselves:

Skills are key drivers of prosperity and well-being. But understanding where the best investments in skills should be made requires good labour market information covering a range of domains [so as] … to benchmark their performance against other countries across the development spectrum. (Keese and Tan, 2013: 21)

Databases of skills allow for measurement, comparison and benchmarking both against internal and external computations and evaluations (English, 2016). New Zealand Finance Minister, Bill English, saw such measures as means of assessing and targeting state investment monies. There is now, he argued, data from various ministries across the social well-being range, which enables the Crown to identify that section of population that presents a risk of benefit dependency. Early investment in both vulnerable children and adults receiving state benefits would be money well spent. Tight targeting early to ECE would reduce long-term outlays in adult beneficiaries (Productivity Commission, 2015; Rebstock, 2011). Cross-ministry data sets can be used for ‘systematic measurement, information sharing, contracting and evaluation of interventions’ across the public sector (English and Bennett, 2015).

He expanded on how these data would be used to get better results for families and the government’s investment:

The Ministry of Social Development is using the investment view of welfare liability to create a much richer understanding of people on benefits and what actions we can take to reduce long-term dependency. The Children’s Action Plan aims to protect vulnerable children using tools that include predictive risk modelling and better information sharing. And we are developing contracting and evaluation tools through social sector trials, investing in services for outcomes … The idea is that the Government will invest in individuals and families today for measurably better long-term results. (English and Bennett, 2015)

Not all saw this Social Investment (SI) approach as an unmitigated good. Simon Chapple (2013) maintained that the policy is merely a way to measure getting people off a benefit over time. There are no judgements about whether jobs are part- or full time and whether skills are utilized appropriately or not. ‘In economic terms, the fiscal costs of welfare benefits are simply distributional transfers from taxpayers to benefit receivers’. The government confuses welfare reduction with economic efficiency. SI does not plot whether people have transferred or dropped off the welfare system.

Colin James (2015) asked, ‘is the tight focus on forward liability, to the exclusion of investing to build assets, just a way of cutting ‘welfare’ spending and services, as some suspect[?] Is it just a fiscal tool to ‘do more with less’. Another critic, Bill Rosenberg (2016), argued that ‘correlation is not causation …’ that the data sets were models, often based on imperfect assumptions. Successful investment should not solely rely on the acquisition of a job:

It is commonly accepted that sound early childhood education is likely to lead to later educational success (e.g. Early Childhood Education Taskforce, 2011: 21–28). Should we therefore take action at the early childhood level to reduce the likelihood of future success because it increases ‘future educational liability’? Of course not: we would never contemplate this action without considering the many benefits of the different levels of education. Some of those benefits may create income for the government (such as income tax on higher incomes, if that is the result of higher education), but crediting these against the future liability as has been suggested … is not part of the … investment approach. Even if it was, the many other benefits of education are still not taken into account. (Rosenberg, 2016)

Humans and their societies are complex. Those with, for example, dependent children can in fact suffer if a sole parent were to take up a job, especially if that job involves long hours and poor pay. Modelling relies on data from past experiences. Therefore, any future shifts in, for example, productivity, external trade factors, internal purchases or other changes are unlikely to be addressed by the model. Modelling can detail the past, but it is unlikely to forecast the future.

Zygmunt Bauman (2000: 101) suggested societies use binary ways of dealing with risks: they assimilate the inferior by engorging them into the social body, an anthropoemic strategy, and disgorging them in an excluding vomit, an anthropophagic tactic. Like all HCT economics, there is an attempt, by using algorithms, to reduce the human condition to those things that are merely calculable: to normative assumptions about gender, ethnicity, age and ability. Because quantitative measures are used, common assumptions are that figures do not reflect qualitative biases. The ‘state racism’, where ‘certain races are described as good and others, in contrast described as inferior’ (Foucault, 1997/2003) are ways of fragmenting the body politic in a method akin to ‘war’, becomes oblique (p. 255). The governance of the ‘other’ can, in biological terms, assure the safety of the healthier section of society. Such strategies and tactics allow for the regeneration of the ‘purer’ section of society. Foucault suggested that racism developed in modern bio-power societies as a form of hierarchical evolutionism. It remains bound up in the ‘mentalities, ideologies or the lies of power’ (Foucault, 1997/2003) which uses political and economic violence to govern and manage state’s populations (p. 258).

Social investment: Better Public Services

The government’s Better Public Services (BPS) initiative set out 10 governmental areas as goals to be measured and reported on. Ministers of Finance and of State Services discussed new ‘target[s] because [young sole parents] are most at risk of long-term dependence, with a resulting heavy cost to themselves and taxpayers’. Some, the joint statement noted (19 February 2015) will need ‘better solutions, more innovative ideas and intensification of activity to keep making progress. We will track results and spend our social investment funds where they make the most difference’.

The Ministers’ aims were couched in terms of ‘targets’, ‘searches’, ‘tracking results’, ‘solutions’ and ‘heavy costs’ in language redolent of the language of battle. Of the 10 BPS results, 1 relates to dependent parents of children and a further 4 to child health. The battle cry is targeted at young fecund dependent women, and by association, their children, who are at risk of following the parental example and creating intergenerational risks to the body politic. The target addresses both the individual pole and the collective social body as risks to be mitigated.

Michel Foucault (1997/2003) saw sex as a political issue, as a ‘standard for disciplines and a basis for regulation …The specificity and the importance of labour and sexuality are “cathected” or “hypercathected” by the discourse of political economy on one hand and by medical knowledge on the other’ (p. 279). The point of the intersecting nodes provides examples of the intensity of the power/knowledge schema. Such nodes offer points for resistance to the unity of the discourse, to the field of unstable power relations. The emergence of political economy in the 18th century, in spaces where it was not visible before, tied labour to it. The mitigating effects of labour to overcome any vital interests remain in the 21st century. Any employment will provide both the state and the taxpaying individual with a path to salvation, to a renewal of life itself. ‘The Government will continue to help people move off benefits and into work, and will this year progress initiatives to improve the way it works with higher risk groups [by] … further improv[ing] the way in which data is used’ (English, 2017a). Pastoral care of the less fortunate was the government’s moral and fiscal responsibility (e.g. Treasury, 2016).

The subject upon whom the BPS gaze is focused is one that can be brought back into the fold, no longer pathological but, should the acting subject choose, through the normative pathway of skill training and credentialism. Once a part of the body politic, these subjects can also lead others to a labour-force salvation (Rose, 2009; Rose and Abi-Rached, 2013).

Massing the troops against the subject as ‘dangerous’

Continuing Foucault’s metaphor of politics as war, this concluding section looks at the state’s ability to mass security against the biopolitical threat. Announcing a Social Investment in the poorer sector of Auckland (Māngere), Minister of State Services announced an initiative that her Ministry undertook, with similar initiatives in the poor regions of Northland and Gisborne. She set out the state services which will be collaborating on Social Investment initiatives:

The initial member agencies of the SIB are Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Health, Counties Manukau District Health Board, Ministry of Education, New Zealand Police, Te Puni Kōkiri, Ministry for Pacific Peoples, Department of Corrections, Ministry of Justice and Housing New Zealand Corporation. The Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki, will join the board when established. (Bennett, 2016)

Minister Bennett (2009) spoke of ‘ a new and simpler way of funding and contracting’ services’, granting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) the ‘freedom’ to do ‘what works’. Contracting and reporting will become ‘smarter’, she explained. Against the power-ful conglomerate of state services agencies will be ranged 1480 ‘at-risk children and their families’, the targets of early intervention for their own and the community’s good’. The mitigation of risk was covered in part by the government’s 2012 report on United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Professor James Anaya (United Nations (UN), 2010), the UN Special Rapporteur, noted that New Zealand had made

significant strides to advance the rights of Māori such as supporting the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, taking steps to repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004, and considering constitutional issues such as Māori representation and the role of the Treaty of Waitangi.

He, however, raised concerns about poorer health outcomes for Māori and ‘over representation of Māori in the criminal justice system’.

In his concluding chapter in Society Must be Defended (Foucault, 1997/2003), Foucault expounds on three thematics of the social body: thematics which put us on one side or the other. ‘Rights’ and ‘truths’ are those of the ‘victorious’: ‘truth that functions as a weapon’ (p. 269). The ‘growing rationality’ – ‘of calculations and strategies’ – is overlaid on top of a tangle of accidents. These are the opposites of the rationality which claims to be related to ‘the just and the good’ (p. 269).

Looking behind the political establishments, which are those military institutions of law and order, can be found the ‘forgotten past of real struggles … defeats and victories’ (p. 269) of biological confrontation. Foucault concludes that the ‘discourse that deciphers war’s permanent presence within society is essentially a historico-political discourse’ (p. 270).

In forward-looking policy, which seeks to ameliorate risk to the body politic, governments attempt to both govern the risky and empower the risky to govern themselves. The sense of governing economically, of reducing costs suggests that tactics of encouraging reduced welfare dependency, good parenting and quality ECE all attempt to manage the anti-social. Policy is an attempt to govern the future through strategies and tactics that anticipate reduced costs, mitigate risks and ensure the health of the body politic. This article has set out an example of one such policy, that of Social Investment.