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

    • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
      22·
      1 day ago

      I hope one day you’ll have a rare moment of self reflection where you’ll realise that you were part of the problem and reason why everyone turns against your ideologies because of your constant cries of “dats wacist!” at things that aren’t even remotely racist just because you want to virtue signal so hard.

      Immigration is great. Black people, white people, brown people, yellow people, green people - who cares. What isn’t great is when our country can’t properly accomodate the people already here, but instead of turning the immigration tap down in order to let everything catch up and improve for everyone already here - including immigrants - we increase the immigration which objectively and 100% factually without doubt compounds the problems. You don’t fix increasing homelessness by bringing in more people. You don’t fix housing affordability and availability by putting more potential buyers and renters in the market.

      You trying to paint people wanting homelessness, housing affordability, poverty, and cost of living, among other things, to get under control before we subject more people to it and make it even worse as “racism” just shows that you just want to virtue signal and be offended. It makes other people start to question your intelligence and opinion.