Capitalism has been the foundation on which powerhouses such as America have built their economy. However, the newly elected mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, built his campaign on advocating for change which fundamentally opposes this ideology. Is this change confined to a single state? Or is it a more telling sign of the world’s turn on capitalism?
Anyone who has studied first year economics will recall the basics of the production theory: when labour input rises, total output should follow. While this sounds simple in theory, Australia’s economic reality has thrown a real curveball into the equation. Despite the fact that we are working longer hours, aggregate output has barely seemed to budge. In the year to March 2025, labour productivity fell by 1%, while multifactor productivity crawled up just slightly by 0.1%.