Imagine if no one had to pay for anything. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Imagine if everything were free. Free food, housing, health care, education, transport, television, broad band, you name it.

Imagine if government gave everyone enough money to live on, and then topped it up a bit so we could have some fun. No strings attached.

OK, OK, John Lennon’s haunting and utopian song went over the top. It imagined a world with no possessions, just one big commune of sharing. Imagine not having anything you or your monastery could call your own.

Yet that song commonly haunts me during general election campaigns. We are assailed by political parties assuring us that we can have free this or that or, if not free, a greater subsidy.

To illustrate, National is now offering to extend free or heavily subsidised GP visits to another 600,000 New Zealanders. That would take the total thus supported to 2.5 million. It will also give 350,000 New Zealanders cheap prescriptions, free emergency dental care and free glasses for children. Feeling lonely? Go and have a free chat with your local GP – and remember to vote National.

The other main political parties plan to pick our pockets to get the votes of tertiary students. Labour is offering three years of free tertiary education. Good stuff. Who cares about the cost or the quality? The more expensive the course the better the deal. Vote Labour.

The Green Party is pledging a Student Green Card that will provide students with free public transport. Shades of the Gold Card, but why not free bikes and shoe leather too?

These pledges are fiscal trifles compared to what the Maori Party and New Zealand First are offering. The Maori Party would write off ‘the living cost component’ of all student loan debt. But what part don’t students live off? New Zealand First eschews such wimpish qualifications. It is pledging to write off all student debt for those who subsequently work in New Zealand. No ifs, no buts, no maybes, vote Winston for the real deal.

Of course, these matters of a few hundred million dollars here and a few billion there are merely one wave of the lolly scramble arm. There is more, much more. There are spending pledges for housing, transport, energy, you name it.

If free this and that is a good thing, why not free income? That would give you, the voter, more flexibility. After all, that is what National Superannuants enjoy. Why not everyone?  Why not make paid work optional?

The Opportunities Party pledges to give taxpayers’ money to all people with children under three and to all 18-23-year olds, as an unconditional basic income. But would more 18-23-year olds with babies be an unintended consequence? And surely vocational workers, at least, should be encouraged to get a job before age 24.

The Green Party’s manifesto document envisages an unconditional basic income for all New Zealanders. It seems to espouse an entitlement philosophy. Ideally, no one should have to work. Yet, if New Zealand became a bludgers’ paradise, a cleaner environment would be less affordable. What a sorry debacle for the green brand.

Amidst this lolly scramble, ACT stands aside outside the playground. It is pledging to cut corporate welfare and some other spending. But who is going to vote for that?

Overall, The Taxpayers’ Union’s Bribe-O-Meter at 28 August (and counting) has New Zealand First leading the charge with $26 billion of spending for the next parliamentary term. Labour is next at $20 billion. The Maori Party hits $12 billion and The Opportunities Party $11 billion. The Greens weigh in at $9 billion. National’s first shot was Budget 2017. By 28 August it had added $7 billion of spending. ACT would save taxpayers $5.4 billion.

Clearly most political parties have decided voters are suckers to be bribed with their own money. What some of us gain as students and retirees we pay for in taxes when we work, and then some.

Economists know that such money-go-arounds are very costly. People change their affairs at some cost to avoid taxes and to make themselves eligible for benefits. Also, governments aren’t good at spending other people’s money.

About the only thing that can make us all enduringly better off is productivity growth. If we, the electorate, cared more about that we might get less of this unseemly lolly scramble.

New Zealand’s productivity growth is very low. More disciplined government spending, taxation and regulation could make a large difference to productivity growth if sustained. But that’s not going to happen much if the electorate is fixated on the lolly scramble.

Legend has it that John Lennon tersely responded “it’s only a bloody song” when a colleague pointed out the remedy for his hassles with his extensive possessions. Unfortunately, a general election is not a bloody song.