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Whether in terms of the quiet immiseration of millions of people who have been pushed to the economic margins or of the shocking scenes of open warfare that are tearing whole countries apart, the world is now paying a heavy price for putting social issues in abeyance.
Ratings agencies and fund managers attach much greater importance to goals such as low inflation, low taxation and small government than to low unemployment and social justice. This means governments are going to find it increasingly difficult to pay for welfare, health, education, labour market programs for disadvantaged workers and social and community infrastructure.
The outcome of the 1996 Federal election highlighted two alarming and significant developments in Australian social and cultural relationships. The shift by working- and lower-middle-class voters away from the Labor Party appears to have been driven by an understandable sense that wages and security had both suffered as a result of the restructuring of the Australian economy over the previous thirteen years. At the same time there were the first signs of a resurgence of racially based prejudice and anger directed at migrants and Aborigines. Social polarisation and cultural fragmentation are both dangerous companions of competition in the global marketplace.
This chapter explores the impact of globalisation on Australian social and cultural relationships. The central argument is that the globalisation trends of the last twenty years have contributed to an increasing polarisation of power and resources along with the fragmentation of cultural relationships.
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