Australia and the West have experienced, hand over fist, improvements in GDP and living standards since we moved our manufacturing and resource extraction overseas*.

Even as the working class got sold out**, living standards improved across the board. The rich got richer and so did the middle class - with most Australians joining the middle class, during and, since the post-war era.

We were getting a good deal on our imports, taking more from poorer countries (Global South) than we gave in return, but that has been coming to an end.

The Global North (the First World) has monopolised trade with the Global South, by Capital and demand but also coercion and regime change, which ensured a good deal. But with the rise of the BRIX and China’s Belt and Road initiative, the Global South has more opportunity for equal exchange of goods and services.

While the IMF used third world debt to influence policy change, allowing Western Capital to buy up and exploit industry, Chinese banks are forgiving debts and negotiating mutually beneficial agreements (to the benefit of China).

While Western Capital built limited infrastructure to extract a specific resource, China is investing in not just general infrastructure but education and the creation of a local workforce.

The Global South are trading with each other. They have more options, trade is more competitive - we get less of a deal.

Where previously Australia could afford to give Corporations absurd profits and still have money for the people, this will be less and less possible. Australia needs to re-embrace the policies of the post-war era, which ensured a dignified life, and roll back the last 50 years of neoliberal policy built for an age which no longer exists.

* Not just in the neoliberal era, but all the way back to the start of colonial expansion.

** With manufacturing moving overseas and the denationalisation by various Liberal -and some Labor- governments.

*** consent manufacturing became harder to enforce

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49687-y

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/trade-and-globalization

[3] https://www.bu.edu/gdp/2021/03/08/bailouts-from-beijing-how-china-functions-as-an-alternative-to-the-imf/

[4] https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S2377740023500173

CC SA NC

    • ikt@aussie.zoneEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      The USSR took a backwards country of starving peasants and turned it into the worlds greatest superpower while defeating the Nazi’s

      Worlds greatest superpower? This one?

      American “Lend-Lease” support sent to the USSR not only tipped the scales in Eastern Europe but enabled the victory on the Russian Front.

      Assisting the Soviet war effort American Lend-Lease eventually transferred over $11 billion dollars of goods to Soviet Russia—roughly the equivalent of $250 billion today. Those shipments included 400,000 vehicles, 14,000 aircraft, 13,000 tanks, 8,000 tractors, 4.5 million tons of food, and 2.7 million tons of petroleum products, as well as millions of blankets, uniforms, and boots, and 107,000 tons of cotton

      https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/lend-lease-eastern-front

      I assume you’ll be the first in line to thank America :D

      You also forgot to mention this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930–1933

      Major factors included the forced collectivization of agriculture as a part of the First Five-Year Plan and forced grain procurement from farmers. These factors in conjunction with a massive investment in heavy industry decreased the agricultural workforce.[11] It is estimated that 5.7[9] to 8.7[10][11] million people died from starvation across the Soviet Union.

      Oopsie woopsie 😂 bloody hell that’s so bad though, so glad communism died out

      I also have no idea why you’d use a failed state as an example of just how great marxism is, I guess it’s slim pickings when economic reality hits economic idealism, also funny how literally all the break away soviet states had popular revolutions away from communism and none of them have any intention of going back

      It’s for the return to Australian values, the socialist ones of the post war era. An era which the baby boomers grew up in and then preceded to gut for their profit

      Most Australians are doing pretty alright, in the context of the world we have a super high quality of living, we live like kings, unlimited food, entertainment, access to the worlds knowledge, we live a life unrivalled, the biggest protest we had recently was for… Palestine lol? a place a million miles away which has nothing to do with us

      The biggest problem is housing which is largely because again, we live like kings, more single people living in 2 and 3 bedroom houses/apartments than ever before, many elderly and simply holed up in massive 4-5+ bedroom houses by themselves due to stamp duty making it uneconomical to downsize

      You seem to be solving a problem that largely isn’t there

        • ikt@aussie.zoneEnglish
          3·
          4 days ago

          not saying we should elect a dictator

          You’ve just found the problem with communism ;) when you centralise all resources under one man, it turns out people can be real power hungry dicks

          So your argument is we let things get worse, and be thankful of what we have.

          I don’t really see things getting worse, with immigration rates going down and labor spending a ton of money on building houses and streamlining approvals I expect over the next 5 years house prices to cool, inflation has been going down as well, by all measures our economy is in pretty good shape

          Cool, chill, you do that buddy.

          tbh i can’t ask for much more? I have pretty much everything anyone could want and I’m just a regular joe :S

          Is there something I should want? 2 overseas holidays a year?

          Australians travelling overseas again in record numbers despite the cost-of-living crisis

          https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-16/travel-tourism-australia-holiday-cost-of-living/104337072

          • Kayel@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
            11·
            4 days ago

            Agreed, still off topic. This really was meant to be a global economics piece, not a politics piece.

            Obviously I think more needs to be done on housing - end capt. gains discount for property, neg. gearing. But agreed.

            What do you is going to happen when the Americans wake up? I think both of us are going to get some replies.

            I might delete my comments. This was off topic

            Edit: My off topic comments have been removed.

            They were off topic and not conducive to the conversation. I regret getting off topic.

            Notifying you they have changed since your response.

            • ikt@aussie.zoneEnglish
              2·
              4 days ago

              Obviously I think more needs to be done on housing - end capt. gains discount for property, neg. gearing. But agreed.

              yes please!