Blogotariat

Originally posted at Australian Real Progressives

By now you have probably noticed Australian Real Progressives has a rather heavy focus on jobs.  This is because 2 million Australians are looking for work or more hours.

“So far as it can humanly contrive, never again will the dole queues be seen in this country. Never again will competent workmen stand idle for months and years while limitless work remains to be done. Never again will young men drift hopelessly from town to town and from State to State, searching for the jobs which, in all this wide land, did not exist for them.”

Ben Chifley, 1949.

It is a stark and painful reminder of the follies of the last century that what was a powerful statement of factual accomplishment in 1949 is today seen as the dreams of the delusional.

In my previous post I outlined why jobs don’t come from rich people: capitalism runs on spending (sales), not savings. Job opportunities appear naturally when businesses forecast sales growth and expand output accordingly (and similarly disappear under reverse conditions). When viewing the economy as a whole, we can observe that private sector investment responds to rising incomes and spending as entrepreneurs expand output to match market demand and banks have confidence lending. In the absence of spending growth, accumulated savings do nothing.

The thing is, Democracy will end.

At some point the current dominant expression of Democracy – Universal Franchise with mass political parties and redistributive taxation – will fail to deliver solutions to urgent problems: Climate; Migration;War; National Sovereignty – and it will be discarded for something else.

Talking Politics

I have just discovered the excellent Podcast Talking Politics which discusses UK, US and European and International Politics.

You must subscribe to Talking Politics. It is put together by David Runciman of Cambridge University and provides commentary and analysis in the best British academic tradition – informed, fair, objective, funny. It is absolutely brilliant.