By Bert Hetebry

We are the mongrels

Underneath the table,

Fighting for the leavings

Tearing us to shreds.

We are the mongrels

Underneath the table

Tearing up the floorboards

Unaware of the banquet

Up above our heads.

The chorus to a 2014 song by Joan Osborne, it is an ear worm, rattling through my brain as I consider the inequalities which appear to increase day by day.

It also reminds me of how lucky we as baby boomers and our children were to be born when we were.

Post war reconstruction and the economic boom which followed was, at least for the west, the most prosperous time, with the prosperity spread through the class system, such as it was.

Here in Australia, we had immigrants arriving from war torn Europe, as was the case in South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, the explosion of urban and suburban development, jobs galore in construction and manufacturing, all well paid and housing was affordable, cheap, as a proportion to income.

In Europe and Japan too, the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure and the rebuilding of industrial bases saw the economies rebuilt, high wages and low unemployment. A literal explosion of consumer goods, motor vehicles. white goods, the invention of ‘teenagers’ to open up new markets for fast foods, fashion and entertainment.

Ordinary working-class people had never had it so good. Demand for skills both in restructured industries as well as management were in demand, so trade and tertiary education was freed up, made available so for the first time many were able to afford the education needed for well paid jobs and careers.

Just for a while, the doctrine of the owners of capital was laid aside, for a short while the ‘All for ourselves and nothing for the people’ doctrine as defined by Adam Smith was seemingly forgotten.

But then, the opening verse to the song:

Whatever happened to this

it was an island of bliss

in this ridiculous place.

But now the river runs black

and I don’t know the way back

I feel it going to waste.

We can trace the growing inequality back to the time Adam Smith’s words became doctrine again, the time of Thatcher and Reagan, trickle down economy became the order of the day, if the rich could be rewarded for being rich by becoming richer, a few pennies may just trickle down the growing mountain of wealth, lodge underneath the table for the mongrels to fight over.

We have seen small and medium sized family-owned businesses which grew during that post war period become larger and often sold to investors, fund managers or large conglomerates. Food production, there were bakeries making home deliveries daily, the smell of fresh bread being baked wafting through the morning air, but no more, now the bread is baked in massive factories ownership in the hands multinational corporations. Even the fancy breads from the shopping mall bakers are franchised, the principles being major corporations. Agricultural and grazing lands are being bought up by investment groups and billionaire investors as family ownership diminishes so much so that food production and processing are confined to fewer and fewer corporations. The multi billionaires never have enough, there is always another something they need, the power to own the means of production, to restrict competition, to maximise profits.

A good Australian example is Bunnings, now the largest hardware and nursery retailer in Australia. Gone are the mum and dad owned local hardware and garden centres, closing because they cannot compete. In the last twelve years, two such hardware stores and several small garden centres near where I live have closed. And that is repeated all around Australia.

Or the supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths pretty much own the market, smaller, independent stores are closing because they cannot compete.

The result of that power imbalance ripples through the economy as the purchasing power of the largest stores squeeze manufacturers and suppliers to the edge of profitability, again, often family-owned companies, market gardeners, dairy farmers are forced out of their industries because they cannot afford to keep going.

The impact on local manufacturing is such that companies making hand and power tools have closed their factories, becoming importers of foreign made, usually Chinese products. So the post war jobs market has changed, manufacturing is reduced to a few specialist brands but mainly those jobs have gone. Skills are lost. Trades people are encouraged to work FIFO, fly in fly out to earn a decent income, trades people in the building industry are encouraged (forced) to be self-employed sub-contractors to large building companies, without the safety net of wages, but carrying the risk of the building company going broke, leaving the sub-contractor out of the income expected for doing the work they were contracted to do. (How many building companies have gone since Covid? It seems for a while it was a weekly event for one or two to go ‘belly up’.)

In the 1890s the American philanthropist, John D Rockefeller asked that educators provide him with ‘workers, not thinkers’, people skilled up just enough to fill repetitive, production work. Leave the thinking to those who were the owners of the business, or the chosen few educated for more senior and developmental roles. To that end, Rockefeller built research universities, special research facilities to support his own interests, both business and personal interests, but exclusive institutions for an elite body of academics.

We see much the same today where the philanthropic endeavours of the wealthiest are to support their own interests, using their largess to support and build to satisfy their needs, such as sporting teams, development of public spaces that are dear to their hearts, but avoiding the pay otherwise tax liability of those earnings, so that the money can be used to satisfy the needs of the larger population.

The former American Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan spoke of a greater employment market insecurity, in railing against a unionised workforce so that employees do not ask for higher wages but accept lower living standards in exchange for keeping their jobs. We witnessed much the same during the nine years of wage stagnation while we had the LNP governments of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison.

With the fear that people may actually be able to afford to buy stuff, the last Reserve Bank Chairman recently suggested that there needs to be an increase of GST. The GST affects lower income earners to a greater extent since they spend most of their income on living expenses, buying stuff just to survive. So those with the least power are asked to contribute more to the tax take than those who can skirt around their tax liabilities.

So how is this inequality playing out?

The baby boomers and their children are the main owners of the housing stock. Both for personal living and rental stock. They are, mostly, doing OK. New 4wd truck to tow the caravan in the drive (too big to fit into the garage) and money in the bank for the next overseas adventure.

The price of home building has exploded, material costs have grown and builders who wrote fixed price contracts, as they had done for years are suddenly collapsing, unable to pay bills, unable to complete the homes they have contracted, leaving many of their trades people, sub-contractors out of pocket. Rents have gone up so that those who traditionally would be entering the housing market are unable to save for the required deposit to qualify for a home loan, rising interest rates have made getting a mortgage even more difficult as the cost of repaying becomes impossible on an average household income. Those with mortgages, especially relatively new mortgages have been hit with repayments that are hard to make, squeezing family budgets so that even the morning coffee from the local cafe is an unaffordable luxury.

Homelessness is on the rise as rent increases stretch budgets beyond breaking point and evictions are forced. Frustrations lead to family violence, drug and alcohol addictions.

Entrenched and inherited wealth and privilege ensure that the inquiry divide grows. Education leading to university and careers in finance, law and other top end of town positions are expensive and those from the right families with the right connections get to have first choice of the available seats at the table. Aspirants who have to pay their way through the years of study are burdened with HECS debts which are indexed and never seem to go away, but seem to grow year on year, causing a disincentive for would be students to follow their dreams.

Let’s finish with Joan Osborne:

This is a chance for the prize

it’s waiting here in my eyes

you hardly look at me now.

With every beat of my heart

I want to make a new start but I don’t seem to know how.

 

We are the mongrels

underneath the table

fighting for the leavings

tearing us to shreds

We are the mongrels

rolling on the floorboards

unaware of the banquet

up above our heads.