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Global capitalism in turmoil

By Malcolm King - posted Wednesday, 18 March 2020


Working and middle-class families don't have the savings to pay for serious adverse events such as a major operation, high-end dental surgery or car repairs over $1000.

City folk are about to get a taste of what their country cousins have endured for seven years, due to the drought. People who have lived on credit for the last 20 years, should prepare for a very hard landing.

While the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse may ride hard over an indeterminate future, we can take some assurance that the world won't end. But some Australian cities, such as Adelaide, will become retail husks.

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What will end is neoliberalism and the further pauperisation of working and middle classes.

Since the early 1980s, neoliberalism has been the default economic paradigm of developed nations. Neoliberals believe in free and unfettered trade, deregulation, privatisation, slashing government expenditure and restraining workers' pay.

They believe competition is the defining characteristic of human nature. Citizens are consumers, not members of a society. The market rules all.

Hard line right wingers in both the ALP and Liberal parties, used to say that people who got angry at CEOs and bankers "earning" multimillion-dollar salaries suffered from the politics of envy.

It's not envy – it's incredulity, and it shows how deep and wide the chasm is between the rich and poor in Australia.

Remember the great run on toilet paper stocks? That's not only evidence of stupidity but of the atomisation of civil ties. We are not 'all in this together'. We are islands of self-interest, who until recently, floated in a sea of indifference. Now the sea is pouring over the decks.

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I've seen market crashes come and go. I've lived through three recessions and my Father taught me enough resilience to probably handle a depression.

My pessimism lies in the fact that the liberal democratic experiment born from the American and French Revolutions, is dying. Reason has been in retreat for 40 years, as political chaos marches on Britain, Western Europe, America and Australia.

Trust in politicians, financial institutions, the media and the church, has crumbled. It's an odd sociological phenomena, that the more we distrust those in power, the more we want them to restrict our civil liberties.

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About the Author

Malcolm King is a journalist and professional writer. He was an associate director at DEEWR Labour Market Strategy in Canberra and the senior communications strategist at Carnegie Mellon University in Adelaide. He runs a writing business called Republic.

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