Reflections on the Long Australian Boom (Essay‪)‬

We begin by identifying three distinctively Australian characteristics of the long boom that began in 1992 and may (or may not) now be coming to an end. These are the minerals boom, the surprising robustness of the financial system, and the collapse of trade union power. However, since Australia is a small open economy, its performance must be assessed in the context of the global economy, so we next consider explanations of the rapid growth in world capitalism. In the third part of the paper we outline five ways in which the world boom might end, three of them drawing on aspects of Marx's writings on economic crises (the falling rate of profit, over-accumulation and underconsumption) and two coming from Post Keynesian theory (Hyman Minsky's financial instability hypothesis and Nicholas Kaldor's North-South model of global accumulation). We conclude by speculating on the implications for Australia, returning to the three distinctive features of the Australian boom with which we began. What is Distinctively Australian about the Long Australian Boom?