6,000 words but silent on falling real wages: what Chalmers got wrong on ‘values-based capitalism’ and fixing our economic woes

Wed, 1 Mar 2023 15:03:38 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://theconversation.com/6-000-words-but-silent-on-falling-real-wages-what-chalmers-got-wrong-on-values-based-capitalism-and-fixing-our-economic-woes-199270>

"Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ recent essay in The Monthly, “Capitalism
after the crises”, tells us a lot about economic predicament faced by the
Albanese government and governments around the world.

Arguably, the reaction to the essay tells us even more.

The essay reflects two unpalatable facts. The first is that the model of
capitalism that became dominant in the late 20th century – variously referred
to as “neoliberalism”, “the Washington Consensus”, or in Australia as “economic
rationalism” – has failed to meet the challenges of the 21st century, beginning
with the global financial crisis of 2008.

The second is that no one, including our federal government, has a clear idea
of what to do about it.

Rather than spelling out the economic failures in detail, Chalmers spends a
fair bit of his essay talking about the “polycrisis”: the overlapping onset of
climate disaster, symbolised by the bushfires of 2019 and early 2020, with the
COVID pandemic, energy shocks and the assault on global democracy.

However we decide to deal with these problems, Chalmers correctly observes that
most of us don’t want to go back to pre-crisis “normal”."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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