Welfare Recipients – Do Your Job!

Yes, you do have a job! And the Workforce of Australia needs your help urgently to keep them in employment.

WTF (what’s the facts) ?? I hear you say. Now please, take a deep breath and hop aboard for a quick lesson in Neoliberal economics; specifically, our current brand of Fiscal Policy called Keynesian economics.

This popular post World War Two economic innovation has been the driver responsible for wealth accumulated by the Baby Boomers (until recently). Yes, those Yuppies currently with luxury cars, investment rental properties and houses too big for the working women to keep clean without paid help.

Ok, enough of the sarcastic innuendo of our materialistic values that dictate our subconscious judgements as to who is worth keeping alive in our society – and who is not!

I’m hearing you! You have worked hard for that Jag, that Range Rover, that Landcruiser SUV, the kids little Suzuki runabouts, that Harley ‘memorial’ bike. There’s more that comes to mind, isn’t there? A lot more down in the garage or stored in the fifth bedroom. Probably a few secreted away from the prying eyes of the taxman. Are we blushing yet?

Suppose you are a regular ‘Sunday churchgoer’, a reasonable model of citizenship or, hold belief yourself as a ‘thinking-person’. In that case, you will be aligned with the values of our systems; those values of justice, law and order. You will embrace the notion quality of society lays in the importance for humanitarian support… the support for those who have become excluded from the fruits of prosperity that many of us are enjoying each day of our privileged lives.

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organised conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”                  Frederick Douglass         

In other words, the quality of a society is apparent by the support it gives those excluded. So, it follows that food, clothing, and shelter should be offered up as a bare minimum. Therefore, access to health care and education is an extension offered by modern civilisation is certainly within those value parameters. We have gone to significant efforts (two World Wars) to justify as much.

Enter Neoliberalism and the Law of Consumerism of post-World War Two era.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/why-unemployment-came-town-john-b-lonergan/

So, you are thinking, “what has this to do with welfare recipients assisting the Workforce in keeping their jobs?”

In short, Neoliberalism (adopted in full by both political polls within Australia from 1975) places priority toward the protection of Capital rather than previously focused upon the importance and right to be employed. The initiating theory was that wage rises (driven by Unionism) were driving Inflation up. Wage freeze since has seen a 600% increase in GDP versus a meagre 60% increase in wages over the same period—this a flaw in Neoliberal ideology (or is it?). However, no harm has come of it concerning those in possession of the ‘Capital’.

Entre Covid19 – Double Welfare payments!   

There you go again; WTF? Take another deep breath, and I will explain the genius behind the madness. Approximately 66 cents in every dollar spent will return the government coffers via direct or indirect taxes. So, before you convince yourself that welfare payments are a give-away, consider that 66% is coming straight back to where it came from – our ‘Public Purse’.  

But first, that dollar travels through the coffers of private enterprise causing production, employment, taxable profit, development, growth, GDP and much, much more. It matters little whether the contributor of that expended dollar is employed, unemployed, male, female, white, black, conservative or vegetarian.

Neoliberalism (the promotion and protection of Capital) benefits just the same.

Doubling Welfare, merely activates an army of production generating consumers that lay dormant (or in most cases, in a state of poverty and social isolation; shame on us all). A readily available army/lever MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) and call into action. The question beggars asking - “why not keep this class continually energised and contributing to the economy? Instead, our governments maintain the poor as relatively dormant; contributing only to crime and social disgruntlement; shame on us all again.

Is Covid19 the Revolution of Massive Social Change?

It is a delicate veil that Law and Order offer the community. Social well-being is paramount to both the quality and standard of living. Since the rise of Neoliberalism of the 1970s, the gap of ‘Inequality’ (the Haves vs. the Have-nots) has widened significantly. Consider the reality; currently, over 50% of the world’s assets (Capital) are possessed by far less than 1% of the world’s population, we have been set for this to increase further. How so?

With the Third World community clearly in the sites of world authorities such as the WTO (World Trade Organisation), IMF (International Monetary Fund), UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) for development into Consumerists, Neoliberals have set themselves up for the most significant expansion in consumerism ever dreamed. The undeniable ‘Upside’ of this pending and further growth in Neoliberalism is, this the accompanying improvement in living standards

, the virtual extinguishment of third-world poverty and increases in the human longevity of inhabitants.

Neoliberalism is not all bad; it is just that the monster has an insatiable appetite that eventually and happily consumes the universe. 

What Socioeconomic changes are we likely to see?  

And when will we see it? Will Neoliberalism survive? Will banks be the ‘blue-chip’ investment they have always been? Will Google and Facebook ever pay their fair share in tax? “We are in unprecedented times” our politicians repetitiously state when uncertain of what to say next.

My guess is this; China will never become the largest economy in the world. Some electric cars and solar generators along with Don Quixote’s windmills may become obsolete sooner than later. Quite possibly, solar farms may be considered a ridiculous waste of space. Global warming / ‘planetary well-being’ from a human perspective, will be attributed to the Sun and Mars will look increasingly appealing as a holiday destination.

Ok, I am stirring the pot somewhat; however, the ideology that everyone gets paid to work is incongruous with the Rules of Consumerism. There are not enough jobs now or on the horizon for everybody. Spending is the fuel; no matter how you achieve possession of that fuel. The Neoliberals care little. World economic priority is consumption brought about by spending.

Denying the consequences of  Unemployment, Underemployment, and Unutilisation of labour upon consumerism will only promote poverty, crime, ill-health. Less consumption, less GDP and of course, less Neoliberal wealth; feeling mixed emotions with that last one?

Get a good night sleep because we have some big days ahead of us.