The era of small government is ending. And Australians want to regain power ceded to the amoral forces of global capital | Peter Lewis

After four decades of calculated abandonment, citizens are turning to government to intervene more forcefully in their market economies and take back some of the power that has been wilfully ceded to the amoral forces of global capital.

Whether they bang the drum like Donald Trump and his tinpot impersonators or embrace the more nuanced euro-beats of the Scandinavians, there is recognition that the era of small government is coming to an end.

The latest Guardian Essential report reinforces this simmering desire for active leadership, with half of all respondents wanting more active government intervention and just a handful saying they want less.

The only thing keeping the thirst for greater intervention below 50% is ALP voters who are more likely to say they are happy with the current levels of government action. But among all other voters the desire for more muscular leadership is stark.

These numbers are particularly striking given the low levels of trust in government that we repeatedly pick up in our polling. On reflection, I think the cause of a lot of this distrust is that the learned helplessness of the last 40 years has invited public disdain.

Since the end of the cold war, government has departed the field, privatising essential services, removing support for local workers and industries, wilfully ceding control of national wellbeing to large global corporations and ignoring stagnant living standards while celebrating aggregate growth.

Today, people rate corporate greed ahead of government spending or global instability as the main driver of the current cost-of-living pressures that are plaguing the nation. They welcome the budget measures announced last week but are sceptical they will have any real impact on their own financial situation in the face of corporate excess.