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Global economy is facing a ‘perfect storm’ BIS fears that increasing protectionism could reverse decades of progress. http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/global-economy-is-facing-a-perfect-storm-warns-bis-chief-20180827-p4zzzq.html?btis
You don’t have to agree with or understand all of the stuff in this summary of what one of the major architects of “our” twenty first century capitalism is saying, except that another economic crisis is just around the corner. It will dovetail with the destruction of more climate change.
Among the experts I understand the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is the international bank of banks.
The crisis they expect will have very serious consequences for any Australian government, the Change the Rules campaign, and all Australians. It will reach into every nook and cranny of all communities of the world.
Every single democratic and social justice campaign will also be affected. All will have to work out on whose side they will stand.
Will corporations and governments be permitted so much control over the handling of the crisis that the recovery that might follow is for them only?
Will campaigns like “Change the Rules” concede major demands that give more control to workers to win the even tougher struggles that the crisis will bring? Or, will it allow new control in the hands of institutions like the Fair Work Commission to resolve conflict through “consensus” and “even handedness” and “fairness”?
This is union activist business and part of their business is to make sure, even when union and political leaders are sluggish about it, that the problem is discussed among members and potential members.
Of course this should include discussions with a prospective Labor government and the Greens – including at the local level – that drive towards a government that enables much more power in the hands of workers to deal with the destructive effects of the crisis on their lives.
Understanding the reality of another crisis enables the possibilities of a different resolution to last time, a resolution that enabled continued destruction of the environment and more inequality … and an even more destructive next crisis.
The challenge for all genuinely democratic forces is how to transfer power into the hands of the majority and to therefore break the cycle.
This means the development and popular spread of an alternative programme of change for the majority – economic, political and environmental. Much of the content of this programme already exists in the mainly separated demands of the thousands of organisations that are struggling in so many different, and mainly separate ways, against the pressures on their lives, including our precious environment.
Australians could well look towards the largely coherent programme of the Corbyn forces in the British Labour Party for an example of what is meant. And examples exist in our own history. Both the ALP and the Greens have some good material in parts of their programmes. But both end up wanting to maintain the system that causes the big problems for the majority.
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