The politics of desperation
The latest unemployment figures show a small drop, but the Australian economy, like capitalist economies around the world, remains stuck firmly in recession. The drop in the figures is little more than a statistical quirk, probably due to large numbers of people dropping out of the work force altogether. Other figures indicate that the work force is growing faster than the number of new jobs.
Anyone holding out hopes for an early recovery need only look at the latest developments internationally. Unable to do anything to lift a record 35 million US citizens out of poverty, George Bush is thrashing around wildly in an attempt to win a majority of the mainly better off 50% who will cast a vote in the next elections.
The US decision to dump subsidised agricultural produce on international markets is part of this thrashing about. It clearly reflects an understanding that nothing much is going to improve in the near future, and as a result international competition will become increasingly brutal.
In this gloomy economic situation, George Bush is by no means the only politician becoming desperate. His desperation is merely more obvious because he's facing an election, and because the consequences of his actions are potentially more disastrous — up to and including a new war in the Gulf.
The growing desperation of Australian politicians is also rather obvious, with Hewson and Keating locked in a bitter struggle to smear each other's personality in the absence of real policies on either side capable of improving the economic situation.
As the developed countries remain mired in recession, the rest of the world sinks steadily deeper into an even worse plight, with war and famine haunting large areas and the former Communist countries bogged down hopelessly in their attempts to reimpose capitalism.
No-one can credibly claim that this situation is anything other than a result of the workings of the less regulated capitalism championed by establishment politicians around the world for the past decade. The economic "rationalist" politicians and economists have had their way with hardly any restriction. Any political opposition was ruthlessly crushed and is still treated as hopelessly unrealistic. Meanwhile, we are living with the results of the new "realism" and seem destined to go on doing so indefinitely.
Small wonder the politicians are becoming increasingly desperate as they cast about for ways to "sell" this situation to the rest of us.