expired ideas

australia seems to be forever about ten or so years behind the rest of the world in a whole host of areas.

im overseas atm and can almost always recognize follow australians by their terrible, and often comically dated, taste in fashion. and this is by no means to suggest that im any different (i often catch people staring at my blue heavy-duty socks for instance)

up until ford closes its doors australia will still be producing big, thirsty sedans, something it seems that almost all (most) of the rest of the world had the sense to stop doing a long, long time back

many australians like to imagine ours as a forward-thinking country that is forever somewhat ahead of the global ball; i disagree (although there are of course some notable exceptions) 

i think the usual pattern is for our country to import foreign ideas and trends (especially american and british ones) after enough time has passed since their initial popularization overseas that average australians can be fooled (either explicitly, through implication or through omission) in to thinking that the idea/fashion trend/meme is to some extent or other a genuinely local creation, or else after becoming ever-so-slowly familiarized to the idea/trend/meme through repeated exposure via the various media.

this, i think, stems in large part from the superior-to-all-others attitude inherent in the australian psyche. but i digress

whatever the root causes, this habit of importing foreign creations decades late brings me to this:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4737468.html
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4743366.html

if you cant be bothered reading those allow me to summarize: basically they are dumbass opinion pieces premised on the cherished belief that private profits are the raison d'etre for human society and competition (along with free market principals) at all levels of life necessarily lead to the best outcome. there are more and more of them every week it seems

this stupid form of cut-throat capitalism, call it neoliberalism if you will (i do), essentially began to dominate the rest of the world from the thatcher/regan period, got out of hand following the conclusion of the cold war and absolutely exploded during the bush years, more-or-less until the present.

that it is a terrible idea and precisely the worst way to organize a society is at this point demonstrably true. i dont even feel like im exaggerating when i write that; just look at how fucked up the usa is in almost every way. or britain, or any country that trusted business to act in the public interest and privatized every damn thing. bam

which is why it really sucks to see these cancerous beliefs appearing more and more regularly over here (and on a government funded site to boot wtf)
all these articles (and there are LOTS more on a whole host of forums, those are just two of the latest which i could therefore find the fastest) pretty much promote a few key themes:

intervention by government in business is always bad; for instance if there was no minimum wage employment and profits could both be much higher.

taxes and welfare for the unfortunate are especially bad; they reduce "competitiveness" and "incentive" and therefore business (i.e. money making by the rich) is reduced 

it is distressing and sad to see these ideas becoming increasingly common, especially in a country that has traditionally rejected them to such a large degree (for instance australia has had a minimum wage since 1907 when these gay neoliberal arguments were expressly refuted)

i can see in the comments that the vast majority of respondents dont buy this crap, and that's certainly good, but so long as these arguments are being made then ppl ( and especially idiots) will slowly buy in to them over time.

and once an idiot attaches their personal identity to a political ideology... well hoo boy.. you just try and reason them out of it.

all i can say is that i hope a fervent belief in totally unregulated markets and an active hostility to government do not become another trend imported by australia decades past its use-by date.

now if you'll excuse me i need to find my legionnaire's cap, my giant face-obscuring sunglasses and my oversized skater shoes so i can go for a walk around town