In a recent post (the blame game) I pointed out that Australia’s crybaby conservatives were making fools of themselves by scapegoating the wrong demographic.
Wrapped in the national flag, marching down some random street in Sydney protesting against immigration won’t revive the glory years of the White Australia Policy… err.. I mean, the Howard Era.
That’s because it’s not new brown people stealing all the common wealth from Howard’s “battlers” but rather your parents. Yep, the same fat, rich, wealthy, white Australians that have snouted the trough and suckled the teat for decades.
Metaphors mixed, but you get it.
But you know me, I love being right. So it was with a big, happy sigh that I read an article by cult economist Gary Stevenson calling for Robin Hood-esque tax reform in Australia.
That’s right kids, it’s time to eat the rich.
Inequality of wealth drives inequality of everything. Only Australia’s richest percentile can afford to dream. No longer does perspiration predict performance: The nation can’t just “pull its socks up” and succeed.
In other words: Shut up Boomer, the world has changed.
Gary Stevenson points out the fundamental principle of inequality: that it’s only the rich who get richer, and they are very happy with the status-quo thank you. They leave us unwanted scraps to fight over, content for us to gnaw on the leftovers from their golden plate.
But nobody outside the first-percentile is happy living like an abandoned dog in the street, and what is a REALLY BIG PROBLEM for the rich is the number of dogs in the street — huge, hungry packs of them.
So what’s the answer?
We can “eat the rich” by redistributing their wealth [sharp intake of breath, clutches Rosary beads, mutters “Socialist!” under breath] or we create more wealth.
One way to redistribute wealth without bloodshed is to tax the rich. A wholesale rewrite of the tax laws that currently let them avoid their share of the burden. But guess who writes the tax laws?
That’s right. The rich.
Example: When the government announced a minor tax adjustment on superannuation balances over $3M there was a viral, well-funded and highly-coordinated public outcry. Why such vitriol over something that will only ever potentially affect 0.5% of the population?
The magnitude was surprising: It was as if they’d outlawed Vegemite or something.
Is it perhaps because superannuation has become a taxpayer-subsidised inheritance scheme where the top 0.5% of Australia’s wealthiest are parking their loot?
Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean its right.
But it does illustrate how the ultra-rich fight back: Pay noisy stooges and simps to flood social media with disinformation and lies.
Which probably also explains why the government is always prepared to “look at negative gearing” but never do anything about it. Imagine the tsunami lies and bile if #PMAlbo went after that!
So if wealth redistribution is a mountain too high, we could try to generate more of it. This might happen organically, with people leveraging AI as a wealth-multiplier to increase their output and thus their value in the marketplace as employees.
But this is unlikely.
Except for a few outliers, the demands of AI are such that they are already overwhelmingly monopolised by the ultra-rich. The tech bros, America’s oligarchy, own the AI you pay to use to make yourself slightly more employable.
And those who can’t (or won’t) become cyborgs get left further behind.
Something’s got to give.
The disposable income of the average Australian has fallen more than any developed nation on Earth since COVID. While wealthy investors are enjoying record returns, wages are stagnant.
While many are forced to decide between paying the bills or putting food on the table, a few are renting Venice for their celebrity wedding.
The wealth-divide has yawned wider:
In the past twenty years, the top 10 per cent have increased from $2.8 million to $5.2 million on average, while the bottom 60 per cent saw a modest $222,000 to $343,000 increase. For ‘young’ Aussies (under 35) this was $68,000 to $80,000.
In ‘The Lucky Country’ nearly half of all wealth accumulated since 2003 has landed in the pockets of the top 10 per cent.
I mean, what the fuck. Maybe we SHOULD east the rich!