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is urging the federal government to provide wage subsidies to workers, equivalent in value to Newstart to all businesses experiencing a sharp downtur… - Tom Bramble
" "is urging the federal government to provide wage subsidies to workers, equivalent in value to Newstart to all businesses experiencing a sharp downturn. It is also asking the government to provide concessional loans of up to half a million dollars, with 80 percent of the debt guaranteed by government, as well as wage subsidies to cover sick leave entitlements. Nothing but corporate welfare of a kind that they have long decried when applied to workers themselves. In the short term, working class households will get some benefits from this cash splash. In Australia welfare beneficiaries will be getting $750 in their bank accounts. in In the United States it is likely that Americans will receiving close to $1,000. But this is just short term relief to get the economy moving. The long term benefits will go to the capitalist class in the form of and other financial concessions. The current crisis demonstrates not only that all the ideological nonsense about the virtues of the free market is quickly thrown overboard when capitalist interests are threatened, but also that the idea that governments are essentially powerless in the face of the markets is rubbish. Governments are not helpless victims who cannot do anything in the face of “economic reality”. In the normal course of events, when we demand things like better welfare, health care or education, governments tell us that it isn’t possible.
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About Tom Bramble
is a long-term socialist activist, author and retired academic based in , Australia. He taught at the for many years and has authored numerous books and articles on the . He is a member of Socialist Alternative.
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Additional quotes by Tom Bramble
Most of the time we’re told that “the economy” can’t afford a decent for workers – higher minimum wages, liveable Newstart allowances, a massively expanded program to get people out of the private rental market, free university education. Budgets have to balance. Businesses have to be competitive. Taxes have to be kept low. And now, all of a sudden, we’re finding that the economy can, apparently, afford things that we have long demanded. Governments around the world are now laying out money on things that just weeks ago they would have attacked as unaffordable.
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Workers every day face their own personal crises – lack of money to pay the rent or the possibility of defaulting on their mortgage because the boss didn’t call them in for work this week, overdue utility bills that must be paid or risk being cut off, expenses for children’s education that fall due, the fear of redundancy. These are crises that are experienced personally but are really a collective crisis of everyday life for working class people. But when we ask for governments to respond, we are told that addressing these things collectively is not possible, and that this is just the way things are. But when the capitalist system goes into crisis, governments act promptly. It turns out that political decisions about the economy are possible and it is wholly possible for governments to tell the markets to go jump.
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