Politics Young people won't embrace progressive politics when they see its failures

[mcnulty]

Oddly enough, whilst this is true, things like increasing wages is likely to have a flow-on benefit for many small businesses.

Giving corporate tax breaks, or tax breaks for high income earners doesn't really result in an increase in discretionary spending.

What we saw during Covid with the increased welfare payment was that low income earners basically spent whatever they got because it meant they could service needs. Instead of little Fred wearing an old beaten up pair of school shoes again this year, he could get a new pair, that type of stuff. If you give more money to already wealthy people they're unlikely to actually do anything with it.

My guess is that a lot of 'progressive' economic policy would likely benefit small business more than the conservative pet options of lowering corporate taxes and high tax brackets that really only impact those who are already very wealthy.

Ah, so we can throw small business owners into the category of people who don’t know what’s good for them.

 

[owen87]

Ah, so we can throw small business owners into the category of people who don’t know what’s good for them.

I don't think it's necessarily that, just that conservative political parties have done an amazing job of convincing the world that they're better economic managers, that they're better for business, and most people simply don't have the time, qualifications or experience to dig all that deeply in to it.

A surface level solution like lowering corporate tax is way easier to justify as being good for business than an approach that puts more money in the hands of consumers which in turn creates more demand for products etc.. etc..

Small business is also very distinctly different from your big corporates, but often get lumped in together when any 'business' analysis is done.

Covid was a clear demonstration of why putting money in the hands of people with less money provides much better value for business than giving more money to the already wealthy. Trickle down economics is a sham.

 

[mcnulty]

I don't think it's necessarily that, just that conservative political parties have done an amazing job of convincing the world that they're better economic managers, that they're better for business, and most people simply don't have the time, qualifications or experience to dig all that deeply in to it.

A surface level solution like lowering corporate tax is way easier to justify as being good for business than an approach that puts more money in the hands of consumers which in turn creates more demand for products etc.. etc..

Small business is also very distinctly different from your big corporates, but often get lumped in together when any 'business' analysis is done.

Covid was a clear demonstration of why putting money in the hands of people with less money provides much better value for business than giving more money to the already wealthy. Trickle down economics is a sham.

You realise emergency cash stimulus is just that, right? If it were at all sustainable everyone would do it. And sail to re-election.

 

[owen87]

You realise emergency cash stimulus is just that, right? If it were at all sustainable everyone would do it. And sail to re-election.

Yes, I do realise that a temporary programme was temporary. It did however (further) illustrate the fallacy that is trickle down economics and demonstrate that we'd be far better off focusing on getting more money in to the pockets of people that will spend that money instead of the already wealthy.

For example, the Stage 3 tax cuts mostly put more money in to the pockets of higher income earners, in some case drastically more.

Instead (IMO) we should have increased the tax-free threshold to put more money in the pockets of lower income earners (and yes, the higher income earners would benefit too).

How the stage 3 tax cuts save an average earner $1,250 but someone on $200,000 more than $9,000

The stage 3 tax cuts will make the income tax scales less progressive, and they won't fix bracket creep.

www.abc.net.au

 

[evolved2]

I hate images like this lol

And the reason why is because 5-10 years ago, I'd have been posting the same thing.

"White privilege" isn't getting a brown envelope with a wad of cash, it's far more subtle than that. Growing up, every person I saw on TV and every person in a position of power looked like me - it was in my mind from an early age that I could grow up and make a life for myself like these people. That's an example of white privilege.

For some reason, many white people (not you, I'm generalising here) throw tantrums when this is brought up. It's not saying they're bad, or white people are bad - rather it's pointing out that white people in this country get representation in all the ways that actually matter.

I think the concept of white privilege is outdated and obsolete in many circumstances.

While it's difficult to generalise, how is the average brown person living in a densely populated multicultural city like Melbourne or Sydney missing out compared to the average white person living in the same city?

The majority of people I work with are educated Asians, predominantly Chinese and Indian. They're not lacking financially or socially compared to their white colleagues, and their children comfortably outperform those with white parents in general; it's not a close contest. They don't complain about being victimised in any way, at least to me.

If you moved to a south Asian country, would you feel that white people living there were victims because the politicians and tv characters have a different skin color to them?

 

[Blue1980]

Not every conservative is a profiteering ahole though, those who are, are greedy none the less.

I guess I'm replying from the op pov that progressives are irrational in intent / method to favour the minorities at the expense of the majority.

Of course IMO it is more nuanced than that, not every progressive is irrational in intent / method, only the irrational progressives.

Thanks for clarifying, and yes you will get people who want to take it too far on a progressive angle, however those who want to take it too far on the greedy/conservative side have far closer proximity to actual power.

 

[Blue1980]

I think the concept of white privilege is outdated and obsolete in many circumstances.

While it's difficult to generalise, how is the average brown person living in a densely populated multicultural city like Melbourne or Sydney missing out compared to the average white person living in the same city?

The majority of people I work with are educated Asians, predominantly Chinese and Indian. They're not lacking financially or socially compared to their white colleagues, and their children comfortably outperform those with white parents in general; it's not a close contest. They don't complain about being victimised in any way, at least to me.

If you moved to a south Asian country, would you feel that white people living there were victims because the politicians and tv characters have a different skin color to them?

Its more generational wealth, so Aboriginals still have that as a problem.

I agree in the major cities its probably not a major issue, but you often get the issue with first generation influx, then by the 2nd generation they have largely assimilated and not many people care

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Nobody resembling a fair and progressive autocrat has stepped forward. Yet.

Thomas Sankara?

 

[peetoo]

Social Progressiveness has practically always been successful. Human Rights, racial equality, workers' rights, womens' suffrage, ending of slavery.....the history of social progressiveness is practically what human progress has been measured by. Most of the attacks we have on the developing world is about how they lack social progress (i.e. womens' rights, voting rights, etc).

Economic "progressiveness" or what might be referred to as socialism has mixed results, by comparison. There's been good and bad socialist Governments, there's been good and bad conservative economic governments. Austraila is VERY conservative economically. The level of taxation on mineral extraction (oil, gas, minerals all included) is one of the smallest in the world. Our social safety net for the elderly and unemployed is set very low. I don't think it's been a raging success, but also not an obvious failure (depending where you sit on the spectrum and who you choose to compare us to).

Perhaps someone can point out these economically progressive governments let alone the so called failed ones?

Then refer to the title where young people will reject them. Seems to me there aren’t many to reject


The title can only mean socially progressive, to have any real world meaning

 

[MC Bad Genius]

I think the concept of white privilege is outdated and obsolete in many circumstances.

While it's difficult to generalise, how is the average brown person living in a densely populated multicultural city like Melbourne or Sydney missing out compared to the average white person living in the same city?

The majority of people I work with are educated Asians, predominantly Chinese and Indian. They're not lacking financially or socially compared to their white colleagues, and their children comfortably outperform those with white parents in general; it's not a close contest. They don't complain about being victimised in any way, at least to me.

If you moved to a south Asian country, would you feel that white people living there were victims because the politicians and tv characters have a different skin color to them?

I think you're vastly over simplifying that viewpoint. There are a lot of issues that non-white Australians (and even moreso for migrants) face:

• implicit bias when applying for jobs (there is a lot of research out there that supports the use of anglicised pseudonyms)
• lack of recognition of overseas study or not having "relevant local experience"
• racism in the workplace (that I've also heard anecdotally) that is often unseen/unrecognised by people who don't experience it because of their own racial background,
• the "bamboo ceiling" where people of Asian backgrounds are under-represented at the top levels of businesses in Australia (despite as you mentioned being high achieving students)

And we're only looking at employment issues right now. If you haven't already done it, I'd really recommend you complete the Australia Talks survey - Australia Talks - Find out where you fit, and how you compare to other Australians in 2021 - and you can see how your own thoughts/attitudes/beliefs/ideas etc compare to different sub-sections of the community. It's really interesting and quite eye-opening too.

 

[Saint]

Perhaps someone can point out these economically progressive governments let alone the so called failed ones?

Then refer to the title where young people will reject them. Seems to me there aren’t many to reject


The title can only mean socially progressive, to have any real world meaning

Economically progressive would include many parts of Europe and Scandanavia, where they have more progressive tax rates and greater levels of nationalisation of resources.

Some of the historic failed economic progressive states include places like Venezuela or China pre-2000's, or Russia pre 1990's both of which were economic basket-cases.

Many of the "failed" economic conservative ones would include places like Haiti, Argentina, Chile, post-colonial Africa.

My definition of economic progressivism is the level of involvement of the Government. Less Govt economic involvement = more conservative.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

I’ve been hearing that for as long as I can remember and I’m 43 now. Heard about those good for nothing youth back in the late 80s.

Young people are always said to be entitled, there is nothing more tedious than generation wars.

"Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We their sons are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt."

- Horace, 20 BCE

 

[MC Bad Genius]

"Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We their sons are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt."

- Horace, 20 BCE

I wouldn't have thought Grand Uncle Horace was so erudite.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

I wouldn't have thought Grand Uncle Horace was so erudite.

Good grief. I was simply down in the dumps at the time.

Where am I? Oh!

 

[Johnny Bananas]

This is pretty simplistic. I haven’t seen a breakdown but I’d imagine the small/family business vote would break Coalition. These people generally favour lower taxes, less regulation and more flexible industrial relations policies. And probably see the LNP more likely to deliver on these.

It may well be in these people's interests to vote for the Coalition. I just hope they're aware that the Coalition don't just favour business as a whole, they favour big business specifically, because that's the group with the most money for lobbying and political donations. While some of those policies can be useful for small business, it's big business, especially multinational corporations, that will exploit them the most efficiently. That may not be a problem for the small businesses that don't have to compete with multinationals, but it might be for the ones that do.

One could also argue that the Coalition are opposed to some policies that might help Australian small businesses, like protection against cheap imports, or reserving some of our gas for domestic consumption instead of letting it all be flogged off to the highest bidder, domestic or international.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Thomas Sankara?

Great example! Sankara's leadership of Burkina Faso was one of the brightest spots of post-colonial Africa.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Great example! Sankara's leadership of Burkina Faso was one of the brightest spots of post-colonial Africa.

In addition, I'd say Tito is the archetypal example of a successful leftist dictator. There were also a couple of progressive autocrats in Afghanistan, such as Mohammed Daoud Khan and Babrak Karmal. Unfortunately neither stuck around too long because Afghanistan became the plaything of the Cold War powers.

 

[peetoo]

I thin there’s a huge swathe of people business who don’t realise the coalition parties are full of drones they wouldn’t employ themselves in a heartbeat. Inept operators who just play the triggering culture wars

The media people who realise this just keep quiet for some reason

 

[Carringbush2010]

Thanks for clarifying, and yes you will get people who want to take it too far on a progressive angle, however those who want to take it too far on the greedy/conservative side have far closer proximity to actual power.

Absolutely agree.

 

[Blue1980]

I thin there’s a huge swathe of people business who don’t realise the coalition parties are full of drones they wouldn’t employ themselves in a heartbeat. Inept operators who just play the triggering culture wars

The media people who realise this just keep quiet for some reason

Keep quiet about it as the culture wars generate clicks/views?

 

[evolved2]

I think you're vastly over simplifying that viewpoint. There are a lot of issues that non-white Australians (and even moreso for migrants) face:

Many large corporations have chosen to share diversity metrics over recent years. They're publicly ranked and reported too.

I wonder how much of the research can be logically explained and/or ignored as being outdated, or faulted for being more applicable to less culturally heterogeneous parts of Australia than Melbourne and Sydney.

• implicit bias when applying for jobs (there is a lot of research out there that supports the use of anglicised pseudonyms)

"When researchers from Sydney University sent resumes to over 1000 job advertisements, 13% of those with Anglo-Saxon sounding names were invited back to an interview, while only 4.8% of those with Chinese names were given the same chance"

Do you think that can be explained by differences in linguistic skills between those born in nations with English as the primary language vs those where it's not?

• lack of recognition of overseas study or not having "relevant local experience"

Ok, that's interesting. What do you propose as a solution?

• racism in the workplace (that I've also heard anecdotally) that is often unseen/unrecognised by people who don't experience it because of their own racial background,

The only racism I've seen in my workplace in multiple ways over a period of time is by a non-white people group. If it counts, several non-white people were the first to bring it to my attention.

I expect it's a facet of one nationality being the majority and others being the minority, so it's not unique to 'white' people or Western nations.

• the "bamboo ceiling" where people of Asian backgrounds are under-represented at the top levels of businesses in Australia (despite as you mentioned being high achieving students)

There are cultural differences between Asians and Westerners, including how each group responds to authority. Historically I think the Asian approach has been seen as a weakness, and may still be in some ways.

And we're only looking at employment issues right now. If you haven't already done it, I'd really recommend you complete the Australia Talks survey - Australia Talks - Find out where you fit, and how you compare to other Australians in 2021 - and you can see how your own thoughts/attitudes/beliefs/ideas etc compare to different sub-sections of the community. It's really interesting and quite eye-opening too.

Interesting questions, though I was surprisingly average in most areas. I thought I'd bounce between extremities tbh.

I scored higher than most in valuing freedom and frequency of sex, and lower than most in a couple questions that require empathy.

How did you do?

Given it's an abc survey, do you think the conclusions are respresentative of wider demographics?

 

[1990crow]

There's another factor at play here.

Traditionally, property ownership and starting a family has placed men in stable, comfortable jobs that they mightn't have loved but they got enough to be content. This was a conservative-creation factory within the middle class; no matter how revolutionary you were in your teens, you cannot help but settle down once you a) have children and a partner and a bank loan for a house, as you now need stable income and interests rates to stay low, and b) you have immediately less freedom than you did before you got any of those things. You're more wedded to a capitalist framework; you've "opted in", and that's the seductive allure of capitalism. Share of our bounty, and become one of us; live in comfort and freedom and consummate materialism, get anything you want with a trip to the shops!

That's capitalism's strongest point: it's self-reinforcing. It's hard to criticize it from inside it, and it's next to impossible to have enough power to alter it from without.

But over the past 20 years, home ownership has become incredibly difficult for my generation. The internet has ensured that the ignorance conservatism thrives on doesn't eventuate in the same way, and wives frequently spend as much time in the office as their men do and between the two of them they still don't have enough money to purchase a house. While owning a home provides stability to a young family and allows that capitalism to bind you to it over time, an unstable living situation in which both parents have to work and to pay rent and to save up copious amounts of money in jobs they hate in order to even contend with investors does not bind you to conservatism but acts as a disincentive.

Then, you add the fact that the conservatives have genuinely gone bonkers. Worldwide. My generation (mid 30's) has both been alive long enough to remember better times economically, to have heard about and understood the effects of climate change when I was young and to have witnessed how things have changed in the span of my life, both from a statistics position - reflecting on the actual science - and an experiential one; we've seen the climate actively get hotter, the summers harsher. We've seen this, and we've watched decades of conservative parties dogwhistle directly at climate denial if not being outright advocates of it. We've seen religious parties rise and fall (Family First) and we've seen open racism on the right of the aisle (One Nation, the Nats, the Libs). We've seen more corruption from them and theirs than we have from labour forces (yes, Kwality, I know both sides of politics have their own corruption problems; just over the past 30 years, it's been Coalition feds and state governments that have been seen to be more corrupt than their counterparts) and we've seen things get worse under their stewardship, but - more to the point - we've seen it all without their rhetoric changing. They're saying the same thing they've said since Thatcher; 'end of history', 'greatest time to be alive', 'no governments or society, just people', despite none of it holding up to scrutiny if it ever did in the first place.

So on one hand, you've got the tradition forces which drive conservatism within the middle class being stymied due to housing uncertainty created by conservative government driven adverse property settings for non-investor class house buyers at one end, and you've the conservatives going nuts and pretending everything's fine on the other. They're coming and going and the funnel for the conservative talent is leaving the country because - in all honesty - why the * would they stay here when there's more money to be made in Hong Kong, America, Europe, China?

There's more than an aging population dying off driving the rise of progressive politics, evolved. I'm actually a little sad that you don't see it.

What an outstanding, completely logical post.

 

[peetoo]

Probably where this is playing out is the conservative right is strongly opposing the suburban rail loop in Melbourne which is proposed and supported by the progressive left.

Not on grounds that it’s not needed, but on the grounds that we can’t afford it, and presumably can never afford it.

It’s also rail not road, although there are also substantial road projects going on.


What I find ironic is clearly we have rail networks which grew in reach in the late 1800s, and those supporting such ‘progress’ would not have been on the left at all.

 

[Ghost Patrol]

Inept operators who just play the triggering culture wars

It’s a shame we haven’t evolved past this.

 

[burge13]

It’s a shame we haven’t evolved past this.

Ironic post coming from one of the biggest perpetrators of it on this website