By Douglas Kruger
‘I’M different to the rest.’
That’s the message aspiring politicians hope to convey in the run-up to our elections. But genuine distinction is more than just cosmetic. It entails championing policies substantially distinct from the uniformity of thinking that has guided us toward our current economic malaise.
Here’s one suggestion, for a braver soul. It would require great fortitude, and the courage to wrestle against an 800-year-old bureaucracy, but it would certainly stand out.
To set the scene: I recently overheard this conversation between two mums.
“What is there for kids to do here in winter?”
“You could put your child in a pram and walk them up the high street.”
Honestly, that’s just heart-breaking. Is that the best we can do?
To reinvigorate the Island, and ensure Jersey does not descend to the level of an old-age home, I propose that the brave aspirant introduce the Island Entrepreneurship War Powers Initiative.
Basically, it’s a way of blasting a hole in everything that prevents growth. Like this:
Step One: Declare an island-wide crisis.
Step Two: Grant government something akin to war powers, so that it can override its own deeply entrenched business prohibitions, wholesale.
Step Three: Invite entrepreneurs to build new things for Jersey. Charge the entrepreneurs nothing. Put zero hurdles in their way. Remove all red tape.
So long as they do not engage in crime during the commission of their enterprise, simply leave them to it. Justify this radical departure from the suffocating norm by means of the Island Entrepreneurship War Powers Initiative.
We are living with a problem decades in the making, and it’s rendering Jersey smaller. Not geographically, but in grandeur, in imagination, in opportunity. I shake my head in wonder at tales of things we’ve lost: cable cars, amusement parks, trains – and that’s before we get to the construction companies that have gone belly up in the past two years.
None of it is inevitable. So long as we have a little life in us, a little drive, a little imagination, it absolutely can be done.
What prevents it? Two things: the first is high costs, imposed by the government, and the second is insurmountable levels of regulation, imposed by the government. One might add:
“Insufficient labour”, but that’s also a regulatory issue, imposed by the government.
It goes like this:
A wealthy entrepreneur with vision proposes a new project: “I’ll renovate the Fort, build a mall, create a theme park, set up a dinosaur show. I will introduce wonderful new things.”
The government goes into overdrive smacking every conceivable tax, regulation, surcharge, permission or petty bureaucratic Gordian knot they can upon it. And kill it stone-dead. Then congratulate themselves for running Jersey, and withdraw their salaries. It’s like Keir Starmer, but in miniature, and it’s strangling the Island.
So scrap it. Be the politician who finally breaks the curse. To win election, do not position yourself as yet one more prevention officer, blankly mouthing, “Computer says no”. The opposite would be a breath of fresh air. Be the one who gets things moving again. You’ll make the history books and be remembered as a hero.
Consider: The government can’t figure out what to do with the La Folie Inn, after 20 years? Then they are unfit custodians. The joke’s over. Give it away, to the entrepreneur with the best idea for renovating it. Hold a public contest, winner takes all. Completely free, under the Island Entrepreneurship War Powers Act.
Fort Regent. Permit a visionary business leader, whose future interest would be vested and financial, to transform it. They will have that place humming in no time. Also, they have an instant feedback loop, built into their books. If it doesn’t bring in money, they have to adjust, and keep adjusting, until it functions so well that it’s profitable.
That continual incentive is a big part of what’s missing at government level. No government minister holds meetings late into the night, saying, “We aren’t getting enough visitors, and so we must make it more attractive.” Entrepreneurs do, because they must.
Governments just aren’t good at entertainment. They aren’t supposed to be. They are supposed to maintain law and order, keep their citizens safe, and get the heck out of the way. Jersey’s government does a great job of that. But then it overextends itself, to the detriment of entrepreneurs, into whose space they are encroaching, on the taxpayer’s dime.
But what about things that governments make for free, you ask? Like the skatepark.
Well, there’s no such thing as free. Governments do not have any money. It all comes from your taxes. You paid for it. Every time you notice that the cost of living is high, and getting higher, that’s the explanation.
Now, skateparks are a wonderful idea. But the most expensive way to build such things is government. Free markets do these things better, faster and cheaper.
The biggest contributor to our astronomical cost of living is the simple fact that our markets are not free. In highly regulated economies, some 30-40% of the final cost for a big construction project goes to government, either through direct taxes, or via the costs of compliance.
Oh, and government-imposed delays dramatically inflate this number. Hence, in Jersey, construction companies simply go out of business. The cost is double what it should be.
And local mums have conversations like, “Well, the only thing to do is to put your kid in a pram and push them down the street…if it’s dry.”
Make Jersey profitable again. Get government out of the way of the dreamers, the builders, the makers and the growers. Give it four good years of entrepreneurial freedom, and this place would be unrecognisable, in the best possible sense. We’d begin to compete as a tourist destination again. We’d raise mentally stimulated kids, with a grandeur of spirit and a yen for adventure that you simply cannot instil in a push-chair on a medieval-style high-street, where everything is closed anyway.
Do you, O aspiring politician, have the constitution for such a battle? The low-hanging fruit necessary to stand up to a deeply entrenched “can’t-do” culture?
You’ll have my vote. And to the extent that I can, in forums like this one, I’ll boost your message. Jersey needs you. It’s time to breathe life back into this Island. And get the can’t-doers out of office, and out of the way. They’ve had their chance.
Douglas Kruger is the author of several bestselling books, including “Is Your Thinking Keeping You Poor?” His works are all available via Amazon and Audible.
