The US military views this continent as little more than an “unsinkable US aircraft carrier”. You get the sense that this is well understood among those running the country, but that the ruling class here has made its bed with the US empire, for better or worse.
Despite the broad-brush painting of increasing prosperity, the Australian working class has been ripped off, while a greater share of the tremendous wealth generated in the domestic economy has been distributed to those at the top.
Australia occupies a peculiar place in the world system. On the one hand, it has always been a component of a larger empire. On the other hand, it is an imperialist state in its own right.
We have become accustomed to referring to postwar periods: the post-Second World War era, the post-Vietnam era, the post-Cold War era. But we have potentially entered a new and dangerous prewar era of intense superpower jockeying in which bloc politics returns to the fore.
A tiny coterie of ultra-wealthy sociopaths rules our world. But trying to understand them primarily through their psychology or morality leads nowhere. We need to understand how capitalism creates and sustains them.
