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

  • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.auEnglish
    14·
    5 days ago

    Me: Don’t just regurgitate the old debunked lies

    You: Regurgitates the old debunked lies

    Also how can you say this:

    We need services for the number of people entering. New schools, new roads, new hospitals, more public transport and more medium density housing.

    right after saying this?

    We don’t need lower immigration numbers.

    We only need new schools, new hospitals, new housing, etc because of our huge immigration numbers. If you pause immigration then we can let the countries infrastructure and housing catch up to a point where it’s actually enough for the population we already have. Do you not understand how bringing in 1500 new immigrants per day when we already don’t have enough houses etc only compounds the problem? We’ve brought in nearly 2 million immigrants in the last 2 years so by your logic all these issues should be fixed, shouldn’t they? They’re the ones we need to fix the problems aren’t they? So why are the problems getting worse?

        • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.auEnglish
          11·
          3 days ago

          Are you trying to make the word “racism” lose all meaning to the point where it’s not even a thing anyone remotely cares about anymore? Cause that’s what you’re doing.

          No one here is against immigration. If that’s what you’re getting from all of the recent talk and protests etc, you really misunderstood.

          • Hominine@lemmy.worldEnglish
            11·
            3 days ago

            Right… calling your foolishness out in a Lemmy thread alongside everyone else hereabouts is really doing a number on the English language. Will someone please think of the dictionaries in lieu of calling out this racist POS?

            • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.auEnglish
              11·
              2 days ago

              You might want to look up the definition of “racist” again, because you clearly didn’t understand it the first time.

              I don’t have a problem with immigrants, brown people, green people, yellow people, or any people. What we’re talking about is the number of immigrants being let in during a time of a cost of living and housing crisis - that’s it. Anything else is purely your imagination and trying to find racism where it doesn’t exist.

                • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.auEnglish
                  12·
                  2 days ago

                  What have I said that is racist or “propaganda”?

                  Do you think that pausing immigration would help with the housing availability crisis? Yes or no?

                  Do you think adding 1500 people a day to the country affects housing availability and affordability?

                  • Hominine@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    11·
                    2 days ago

                    Racist propaganda that is easily debunked.

                    One claim which spread online was that Australia was bringing in 1,500 new overseas arrivals each day. That claim was advanced by some conservative media outlets and picked up traction online among some supporters of the rally. But Rizvi and Gamlen said the number was inaccurate, and a misunderstanding of migration figures. That figure, they said, referred to overseas arrivals and departures (OAD) data – which is more about tourist arrivals than migrants. Media and online commentary about the issue led the Australian Bureau of Statistics to last week issue a stern rebuke and fact check, saying the use of OAD data “does not reflect the official ABS definition of migration and may lead to inaccurate conclusions on migration”. OAD data “is a count of border crossings rather than migration. It is best used to understand patterns in traveller movements, such as tourism trends and seasonal travel,” the ABS said. The bureau noted that someone on a temporary visa, who travelled in and out of Australia multiple times, would count as a visitor several times “even though they only migrated here once”. Rizvi said the use of that number by migration critics was “nonsense”.