Politicians from the major parties and capitalist economists tell us that the only way out of the cost-of-living crisis is to work harder, increase productivity and grow the “economic pie”. They claim a bigger economic pie means a bigger share for everybody and a better future.
But this is a bald-faced lie to make us work harder to make the billionaire class richer and to justify even more subsidies and tax cuts for the corporate rich.
Research by The Australia Institute (TAI) shows that between 2009 and 2019 the richest 10% of the population received 93% of the benefit of economic growth while the rest of us got to share the remaining 7%.
The rich have been getting an ever bigger slice of the economic growth since the 1960s, but figures show this has accelerated sharply over the past three decades. As a result, wealth inequality has increased.
So it turns out the bigger pie myth is as rubbish as the related trickle-down economic theory.
Helping the rich get richer has not lifted the rest of society.
Housing becomes ever more unaffordable every year while a record number of people are now having to work two or more jobs to get by.
So it should not be a surprise that a survey by the Australian National University (ANU) found that people are becoming more pessimistic about the future.
The ANU survey found that:
- Only 21.7% believe their life has improved in the past year; 30% believe it has worsened.
- 50.3% believe life will be worse in the next 50 years; only 16.3% believe it will improve.
- 51.8% also believed that life was better 50 years ago.
The last statistic was described by the study’s author, Nicholas Biddle, head of the ANU School of Politics and International Relations, as a dangerous “nostalgia for the past” because there have been improvements in life expectancy, income and education levels.
However, in some critical respects life is worse for working people today. Fifty years ago working class people could reasonably aspire to get a mortgage and pay off their own home within their working lives. Now their children don’t have the same chance and most are forced to keep renting while facing rising rents.
This sense of being cheated by the system is real, and this is why the same study found a sharply falling trust in government.
With an election looming, right-wing populist politicians will attempt to weaponise this for their own benefit.
This is United States President Donald Trump’s political game, to use this discontent to give the greedy billionaire class even more power, tax cuts and subsidies while fanning hate against immigrants, women and trans people.
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, who is supposedly leading a war on waste by slashing public sector jobs, cutting aid and welfare, has benefited from at least US$38 billion in public subsidies.
However, this manipulation by Trump and other right-wing populist demagogues has been enabled by years and years of lying to the public by the traditional parties of government.
In this regard, it is the same in Australia as in the US. Labor and Liberal politicians have pushed the “grow-the-pie” and trickle-down lies for decades and now the chickens come home to roost.
This system is not only manifestly unfair, but the very nature of the economic growth they have foisted on society is dangerous.
The billionaire class is pumping money into the expansion of fossil fuel extraction when climate scientists warn this will make a safe climate impossible.
Our governments are pushing hundreds of billions of public funds into making Australia one of the world’s top-ten arms exporters, and in process further enmeshing us in the US war machine.
Green Left has been working to expose these bi-partisan lies that have served the billionaire class for far too long. We will continue to expose them and champion a drive to reverse the massive shift in power and wealth to the super rich.
Help us by becoming a Green Left supporter and making a donation to our Fighting Fund.