Ben Hillier is the author of Losing Santhia: life and loss in Tamil Eelam and The art of rebellion: dispatches from Hong Kong.
Central banks around the world have made it clear that they are prepared to drive economies into recession by pushing up interest rates to protect the enormous wealth of international finance. The US Federal Reserve has led the charge with a 3 percentage point increase so far this year. And there’s more to come.
Revolutions happen only in places with repressive regimes and extreme poverty. They don’t happen in economically advanced, democratic countries like Australia. Most people think this. But is it right? Recent history might seem to suggest so—social revolutions are practically unheard of in the West. There are, however, a number of reasons why revolution in Australia is possible.
The New York Stock Exchange is perhaps the premier institutional expression of the capitalist economy. It’s hard to conjure an image of American capitalism without including the Wall Street sign at the corner of Broad, or the stone streetscape of the exchange with its US flags, or the bronze “charging bull” statue at Bowling Green.
As one of its first acts, the new federal Labor government could have granted permanent protection to Priya, Nades, Kopica and Tharunicca, the Biloela family snatched from their home four years ago by Border Force and placed in the prison-like conditions of immigration detention by the Liberal government.
This article is part of a series on social classes in Australia, which also includes pieces on the working class and the middle class.
Australian workers’ living standards declined by about $800 last year and will go backwards by another $2,000 in the first half of this year, according to the Australian Council of Trade Unions. If current trends continue, workers will be $4,000 worse off by Christmas.