So we're all millionaires now?

John Percy
For years they've been telling us we live in the Lucky Country. It's now official. Each Australian — man, woman, child — is now worth $1.1 million, according to the World Bank. Its recent study estimating the wealth of 192 countries put Australia at the top of the list.
Well, there are some millionaires and billionaires, but most of us seem to have missed out.
Does the World Bank's $1.1million figure apply to the original inhabitants of this country? Not likely.
Does it apply to the 1 million unemployed or underemployed? Hardly.
Does it apply to the majority of the population, ordinary workers, who produce the wealth, but end up with only a small share of the product? No.
It's the Lucky Country for some, but the tremendous wealth of this country is not spread very evenly, nor fairly. There's a huge imbalance between rich and poor, between the actual millionaires and the rest of us.
Previously, World Bank studies compared countries based on their gross domestic product. This already excluded the unpaid labour of domestic work — estimated in the case of Australia at more than 50% of the stated GDP. And it included as positive contributions all the waste of this society — pollution is counted first as an economic activity, and a second time as a clean-up.
The new study has included "natural capital", land, forests and minerals; "produced assets" such as buildings and roads and hospitals; and "human resources", the skills of the population, especially education and health, its future earning capacity.
But how are the actual millionaires who run this country — and their lackeys in government — managing all this potential wealth?
They're devastating the land and squandering our natural resources. Old growth forests are shipped off as woodchips; huge areas of the countryside are laid waste from salination.

The study counts the education infrastructure, but they're attacking education. Kennett has closed 300 schools, and thrown 11,750 education workers on the scrap heap.
It counts the health infrastructure, but they're closing hospitals. The ACT Liberal government is planning to sack 400 health workers.
They're squandering the potential of our work force, with 8-10% permanently unemployed. They're closing down factories and whole industries. In steel town Newcastle, BHP has slashed jobs down to a mere 2000.
And they're selling off our wealth for private gain — privatising our water, our electricity system, our phone system, our railways, the Commonwealth Bank, our airports and airline — and even trying the NRMA. These assets are being handed over to the already rich, the real millionaires.
These people are nothing but modern pirates, robbing our resources, our wealth, our social services.
It's not just a question of correcting the imbalance. Certainly we should do anything we can to limit the obscene wealth of the few, and provide help for those at the bottom end of the "social ladder".
But this country is so rich in resources, in skills, in potential. How can we use it for the benefit of all?
Ross Gittins, the Sydney Morning Herald's economics editor, confessed he can't tell us "how to get your hands on the loot" revealed by the World Bank report. Certainly not under this capitalist system. We're going to stay poor, and the millionaires will get richer.
It used to be the boast of champions of the "free enterprise" system that anyone could rise from the gutter to become a millionaire. It was a myth: those at the top of the heap are there on the backs of poverty-stricken and exploited workers at home and around the world.
But the study shows what would be possible under a different system. There are resources there to provide a life of wealth for all Australians, and others besides. There are factories idle and farms unproductive, because the "free market" dictates it's not profitable. There are skilled workers and teachers and nurses who want to work but can't because of austerity policies, dictated by that free market or directly by the World Bank.
Only when the collective wealth of this society, its enormous productive capacity, is managed collectively for the benefit of all, and for the benefit of future generations, will we all become millionaires in reality.
[John Percy is national secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party.]