The debate entry expresses the writer’s opinions.
(Fredriksstad Blad): The economy is going badly these days. Many people are stressed, and we are starting to feel it in our wallets. Then we start looking around for solutions. On social media, internet. What do we get in response? Yes, you have to fix this yourself.
You get page up and page down with savings tips. How you can solve your money problems, just by cutting out coffee from Espresso House and stop eating out.
Renegotiate your loan. Both the banks and others would like you to put what little you have into a fund.
What all these solutions have in common is that they shift the problem from being about the economy to being about yourself.
You should save in funds, so you can earn more yourself.
You should not join a trade union and negotiate the salary of everyone at work.
You will cut out the coffee you buy, so you save a few kroner. Society must not bring food prices down.
You are the one who will negotiate down your loan, so you get less expenses. It is not society that should lower the interest rate.
In a country where we used to fix things together, we will suddenly be the forgers of our own success.
This individualization is modern these days.
You are likely to come across some slimming tips, exercise regimes and nutritional supplements when you scroll through savings tips and cost-cutting. Not only do you have to solve financial difficulties on your own – you also have to become the best version of yourself.
We are simply becoming a society where we think mostly of ourselves, and least of all of each other.
For God’s sake, save if you can. It’s not stupid that more of us go through our monthly expenses and cut out things we don’t use. It’s just that we can’t fix this on our own.
The savings accounts people have had have been emptied. When everything costs more, we have nothing left to save.
People have already cut out visits to cafés with girlfriends and cozy dinners on the pier.
Having to solve everything alone means that those who previously did best will continue to do so. And it does little for those who fare the worst.
At the same time, we can get so much more done together. If we had looked up from ourselves, we could have seen how the neighbor was doing. We could have seen what the neighborhood was struggling with, and been part of the solution.
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Here in the city we have several of the most beautiful examples of that: without all the parents who got involved in lousy school buildings, these issues would never have been placed so high on the political agenda. The parents could have thought: “We’ll move our child to a private school, then we’ll solve it for our youngster”. They didn’t. Instead, they stood up for all their classmates.
If we are to look at it more broadly, Norway’s recent history is a class example of us solving things together. Coming out of a world war, the mantra was that we should rebuild the country together, not build it individually. Instead of everyone buying private health insurance, we created the welfare state.
Even during the corona pandemic, we stood up for each other by keeping our distance. At the same time, teachers, nurses, truck drivers and others stood up for the rest of us by keeping the wheels moving.
New times of crisis require us to learn from history. Of how we have solved them before. Before, the answer was the community, but it certainly isn’t anymore.
At a time when we should be standing up for each other, we are doing the opposite.
We are not supposed to help each other, we are supposed to help ourselves. But aren’t these examples proof that the best way to help yourself is to help others? That if I am to be the smith of my own success, then I must forge stronger communities?
We must have faith that we can fix the economy. Because we can. Then we have to stop insisting that we solve bad times by helping ourselves. We have to start standing up for each other.
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So to end it all, this must be the closing appeal:
Care about those around you. See what they struggle with. So start getting involved. Whether it is in the football club, politics or interest organisations.
If you don’t want to hear it from me, learn from how FFK have played this season.
They have no Messi or Ronaldo, individualists who do everything on their own. FFK has a hard-working collective, who stand up for each other. And yes, it seems to go far, too.
