Which are the features of the Australian economy?
A guy I met at the White Party (here in Uruguay) told me our country should imitate the Australian economy. I have never heard before there was anything special with the way the Australian government manages the economy of the country.
Really, at first I thought he was just mocking on the Austrian School.
Any Australians here to enlighten me?
Beer drinking, guys running around in tight shorts and sleeveless shirts playing something they call “football,” speak what sounds like English accompanied by highly exaggerated facial expressions and sweeping movements of the arms…
Just kidding. Australia has what’s behind most successful (for now) social democratic economies: natural resources, low population density, common ethos and culture, British common law, lots of white people running things.
I have always wondered how Canada is so succesful being such a socialist heaven. Have you got more info on the subject?
Same thing: low population density, lots of natural resources, Anglo legal system, and (until recently) culturally and ethnically homogenous.
Guys, don’t you also think that China plays a big role here, subsiding our life style by keeping their currency cheap?
Australia and Canada enjoyed high living standards prior to China becoming a net exporter. Again, the common denominators are the British common law with its safeguards for property and capital and a demographic with a comparatively high average IQ running things.
I don’t quite agree with you.
Uruguay and Argentina were almost superpowers by the beginning of the 20th century. We have Civil Law systems and speak Spanish, but the rest is all the same as Australia and Canada. Since our countries implemented the Nanny State we have been falling to be Third World countries.
Do you really think the Common Law has such a big effect on a country?
Really, I was just referring to a legal code that does a good job of protecting rights in property. If a civil code does that, it would qualify as well.
There are marked differences between the two systems of jurisprudence that make the civil code more susceptible to confiscatory taxation and regulation, imo. The common law is looked at as a body of law that pre-exists the state. The civil code by contrast is purely a state creation, and thus can be a useful tool for fascist governments.
I dislike Civil Law. Its true that the people rarely win against the state, and the grievance compensation is ridicule (lawyers joke that judges are afraid that compensations will be cut from their paycheck ;)). Worse that that though is that (I guess to maintain the socialist aparatus), it takes an awful lot of years for civil and criminal cases to get a final decision, as they go to upper instances, and often times cases are archieved. I don’t know about Urugay, but I believe Brazil is similar in this regard, at least some years ago it was a problem.
Anyway, I think it has more to do with the socialist measures adopted. In some countries, government actually delivers the services, in others they just finance it and regulate price controls. The latter will work better, and might actually be sustainable (I’m not saying its efficient). These programs are also not ancient, so we may still have yet to see how it will work out in the long run, as they entropy free enterprise and cause corporatism. e.g. Canada universal health care was firstly introduced in 1984.
Again, I challange their sustainability. In my country, social security payments have been going for the general revenue for a few years now, so they have been cutting benefits (and even extended the retire age!) as it becomes obvious they will have to be paying more money than the one they are confiscating.
BlackSheep,
Civil law jurisprudence is a distinctly different way of thinking about law: the law is whatever the government says it is. Common law jurisprudence is based on the idea of inherent rights and a pre-State natural order: even the government is subject to the law. Unfortunately, the former is infecting the latter on multiple levels.
To add to that: A civil law system presumes that people can do only what the civil law permits; whereas a common law system presumes that people can do anything unless prohibited. The prohibitions of a common law systems are based on violations of rights (life, liberty, property). If you look at Great Britain, America, Canada and the whole English speaking world that have common law systems, they are progressively moving away from common law and toward civil law. Consequently, people in “common law” systems are becoming less free.
Although Argentina and Uruguay may have briefly teetered on the edge of “super power” status, their civil law systems guaranteed their quick demise. Civil law comes from the Napoleonic Code. Napoleon had a rapid rise and an even quicker fall. Civil law is the tool of despots.
Actually, Canada and Australia are pretty darn free economically, relative to the rest of the world. The Fraiser Institute ranks them 5th and 9th freest, respectively.
to the above, i’d add that australia has never suffered war on its own territory (i’m going to ignore darwin and other northern towns being bombed by the japanese and the 3 mini-subs in sydney harbour). so we dodged a few bullets, so to speak.
whilst common culture and ethos have been the case in the past, since the 70’s multiculturalism has been adopted and promulgated by both major political parties. as in america, increasingly people define themselves as italo-australians, chinese-australians, lebanese-australians etc.
unlike south america, where there is a cultural tendency to look for the caudillo to rescue the country and perform miracles, australian culture has a strong tradition of distrust of “superiors”. one suspects this comes from the history as a british penal colony. much of the population was irish. their dislike of, and diffidence towards the english, who occupied all positions of influence, has permeated the culture and made despotic power harder to win than in some other countries.
as for the proposition that australia is an oasis of economic freedom, we’ve got exactly the same “nanny-state” fundamentals that afflict many european nations, and canada.
hordes of australians in dubai, saudi arabia, hong kong etc. speak volumes about the punitive taxation regime here. (the tax act is over 13 000 pages).
the federation gets increasingly weakened as the years pass; both left and right governments intent on continuing this centralist bent. this augurs ill for the future.
one in six families depends on welfare entitlements to survive.
australia never had the free-enterprise spirit to the same extent as in the us, and egalitarianism is very deeply entrenched (“tall poppy syndrome”). this makes selling socialist programmes quite easy.
but the weather is great.