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

  • Kayel@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
    41·
    2 months ago

    I am referring to unequal trade, - us getting more in return from the Global South (Asia, south america, Africa, etc.) for what we’re giving them.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59881-1

    https://globalinequality.org/unequal-exchange/

    This is true for our trade with China, but I am specifically speaking generally.

    “China’s exchange ratio with the Global North has improved over time. During the 1990s, the exchange ratio was on average 34 to 1. In other words, for every unit of embodied labour, materials, land and energy that China imported from the Global North, they had to export 34 units to pay for it. As of 2015, the ratio had declined to 4 to 1.” https://progressive.international/wire/2025-04-18-china-unequal-exchange-and-the-present-world-historic-juncture/en

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X

    Does that answer your question?

                • ikt@aussie.zoneEnglish
                  3·
                  2 months 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·
                    2 months 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.

    • Kayel@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Trade with China is essential to Australia, don’t get me wrong, the profit of the trade has, and will, change.