What if the economic pain you are feeling right now is not a mistake, but was designed to keep you indebted, exhausted and miserable?
The mainstream media and corporate economists tell us that increasing interest rates and inflation are caused by trade imbalances or the greed of workers asking for pay rises.
In 2023, ultra-rich property developer Tim Gurner publicly declared that workers “need to see pain” through having unemployment jump up to 50 percent. His implication is that engaging in the mass sacking of 100s of thousand of people would remind those uppity workers that they work in the service of the employer, not the other way around.
He ultimately apologised after the backlash, but what it shows is that central banks and governments Treasury departments worldwide are trying to increase unemployment to hurt the economy.
Unemployment is a decision. A decision made by central bankers to protect the value of the assets owned by the ultra-rich billionaire class, and to instil fear into workers that they will lose their jobs.
A “tight labour market” is where there is low unemployment — this terrifies the economic and corporate elites because it gives workers more power to negotiate and demand higher wages and better rights. Central banks raise interest rates specifically to slow down the economy, increase unemployment, and strip workers of their power to demand better pay: “Low interest rates tend to favour borrowers, asset owners, and financial markets. High interest rates protect savers but can raise unemployment and slow growth.”
Read more: Why the market wants you unemployed
When workers fear losing their jobs and their ability to pay for basic needs, they become far more willing to accept worse conditions and stagnant wages. They are so focused on surviving that they let the economic elites, bankers and corporations get on with running society.
We are constantly fed corporate propaganda that there is no money for public housing, schools, the NDIS or healthcare. This is not true of course — Australia is twelfth richest country on earth. We can absolutely afford to have well funded education and Medicare.
This myth is created to convince us that we need to “balance the budget” by dismantling the social safety net. When there is no public health care, it means we are forced to rely on the private market to survive, where corporations can siphon our wealth upwards to private equity companies, billionaires and hedge funds.
When inflation hits the supermarket, economists immediately blame working people for demanding fair pay rises or consuming too much. This blame is intended to hide the reality of corporate profiteering and massive dividends.
The true division in Australia is between the vast majority of everyday people who must work to survive, and the tiny economic elite — just around 4000 ultra-rich who own more than $50 million — who live primarily off the income generated by their assets.
The economic decisions that dictate our lives are presented as highly technical science best left to independent experts and economists.
Perhaps most pervasively, mainstream economics treats markets more or less as naturally occurring phenomena — as if they simply emerge when people are left to their own devices. They don’t. Markets are constructed by laws, maintained by institutions, and enforced by states.
Economics is fundamentally political, Jostein Hauge
This deliberate de-politicisation prevents everyday people from democratically challenging policies that enrich the few ultra-wealthy elites at the expense of the many. The truth is that the economic is political, not some technical science that everyday people should be kept away from.
Decades of economic vulnerability and hardship pave the way for political extremism. When people are isolated and trapped in material struggle, the far-right can offer false answers to real pain, for example scapegoating immigrants rather than addressing the economic structure to rips off both domestic and overseas workers.
The current economic system is not a law of nature. It is an invention by the billionaires and corporate executives.
We must reclaim our economic freedom by demanding systems that prioritise human needs over corporate profits. This is more than just reforming the system — although we need to do that. Australia needs to make real, genuine democracy a central feature of our economic system, our workplaces, central banks. We need to remove the structural reliance on private markets to provide the essentials of life.
Read more: Fighting the cost-of-living crisis