By David
Last week’s Swimwatch post discussed the failure of the Cameron experiment into centralised swimming socialism. If centralised control by the Cameron family is not the way elite swimming in New Zealand should be managed, what management philosophy will work? There is an alternative. It’s called “Rugged Individualism”. This report will discuss what we mean by “Rugged Individualism” and how it is different from the failed Cameron socialist regime.
The difference is not unlike the separation that exists between a capitalist mixed economy and the collective philosophy of communism. In a capitalist mixed economy the means of production are privately owned and operated for a private profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are made by private actors in the free market; profit is distributed to owners who invest in businesses, and wages are paid to workers employed by businesses and companies. Most capitalist economies are defined as mixed economies consisting of both private and public ownership; usually characterized by the dominance of private ownership. Communism or state socialism on the other hand refers to a system of government in which a one party system of government operates a centrally planned economy with the state owning the means of production, distribution and exchange. Communism holds that a process of conflict and struggle will result in the establishment of a communist society in which private ownership will be abolished and the means of production and subsistence will belong to the state.
Swimming New Zealand and Jan Cameron use a communist, state controlled system of government to direct the affairs of New Zealand’s high performance program. The state, that’s Swimming New Zealand, represented by Jan Cameron control the Millennium Institute. Of the 14 swimmers listed on SNZ’s website as international Aquablacks team members, 12 (86%) trained at the Millennium Institute; near enough perfectly meeting the specification of a state monopoly.
In addition, of course, SNZ, Cameron and her Institute are pretty much the sole recipient of state finance. SPARC will only deal through them. They hire and pay national coaches. They impose one standard form of training. They make it extremely difficult for elite swimmers to operate outside the Millennium Institute. They hire and pay the county’s elite swimmers. They decide who will be carded, who will be selected and who will be sponsored. They change the selection criteria after trials if the right people – that’s their people – have not made the team. They did that when the New Delhi trials didn’t go the way they wanted. They hire and fire the support staff. Their Project Vanguard is an attempt to weaken opposition; a move Stalin would certainly have approved. They set and change the rules that govern elite swimming. They even have a rule that forbids any criticism of what they are doing. Only they know what is good.
Like all good communists, and until recently, SNZ employees have successfully sold the idea that all this state control is in our best interests. We should be grateful. They know best. The state monopoly they exercise is good for us. It is the only way New Zealand swimmers can win in a bad world stacked against the small guy. The SNZ website is full of good communist rhetoric; helping “every New Zealander swim to their potential”, “the organisation making the opportunity real”. They say we all have a stake in Swimming New Zealand. Everything they do is done on our behalf.
Of course, criticism of the state is portrayed as a criticism of everyone. That’s why disapproval of the swimming state is specifically banned in their rules; a rule that would have received the positive approval of the Soviet Politburo. The SNZ website says they need our feedback. But they don’t mean that. No one has commented on the behavior of SNZ more than Swimwatch. We’ve yet to see any of the two-way communication their website so triumphantly heralds.
Soviet style government has had its day in world politics. Cameron, Byrne and possibly SPARC haven’t realised yet that as a method of producing world class athletes, unitary administration and centralized coaching have also passed their use-by date. They have been replaced by the philosophy of “rugged individualism”.
This is sporting private enterprise. The world’s best swimming nation, the United States, demonstrates the purest form of “rugged individualism”; a structure where privately owned and operated clubs make decisions regarding training, membership and finance in a free and open market. The world’s best swimmers live and are coached in diverse environments that suit them best. Phelps finds that Bob Bowman’s pool and training in Baltimore are most to his liking. Lochte prefers his father’s regime of 100 kilometers a week in Daytona Beach, Florida. Rebecca Soni swims fast in the sprint program coached by Dave Salo at USC in Los Angeles, California. There are 95 swimmers in the current US National Team. They swim for and are coached by 47 different coaches and clubs. Just compare that wonderful diversity and the strength it offers to the “all-your-eggs-in-one-basket” weakness of the Cameron regime.
The role of the state in the US private enterprise system is to maintain the best possible environment for diversity to prosper; to encourage and foster competition between successful clubs. When I coached in Florida I was formally visited once a year by a US Swimming representative for the sole purpose of finding out whether there was any way they could help me do my job better. At the National Summer and Winter Championships I met National Coach, Mark Schubert, to discuss the training of Rhi Jeffrey, the national team member, who swam in my program. US Swimming provided the environment. It was our job to provide the “rugged individualism”.
I’ve been coaching for a year in New Zealand now and have yet to meet a Swimming New Zealand employee.
New Zealand used to operate a program of “rugged individualism”. Jelley and Lydiard didn’t have Millennium Institutes. Duncan Laing did his own thing down in Dunedin. And they all coached Olympic champions. New Zealand swimming could easily do the same thing again. There are top line New Zealand coaches in a dozen towns and cities. SNZ may have tried to impose a state monopoly on all elite swimming. In spite of their efforts, the home grown swimmers produced in Invercargill, Christchurch, Wellington, New Plymouth and Auckland confirm that the potential to base the sport of swimming on a philosophy of “rugged individualism” is alive and well.
Like politics however reform needs to take place from within. I doubt that Cameron and Byrne are up to the task. That job requires a Gorbachev and, with the best will in the world, neither Cameron nor Byrne is close to that man’s stature. Like Gorbachev the new leader of SNZ needs to relax central control in accordance with reform policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). Like the Soviet Union the Millennium Institute needs to be dissolved. Symbolically, at least, swimming in New Zealand will be liberated the minute someone has the courage and wisdom to tear down the Millennium wall. (“Ich bin ein schwimmer”) A world of “rugged individualism” is where we should be headed.
