Mark Diesendorf recently did us the favour of recounting eight economic myths that are helping to destroy our future. It is no criticism of Diesendorf that he did not exhaust the list of myths in a short article. Here are some more. [Published at Pearls & Irritations, 15 July 26.] Diesendorf noted that we treat… Read More Some more destructive economic myths, and some better options
Neoliberalism is based on a patently incorrect theory of markets, so it was never going to fulfil the claims of its promoters. It has become acceptable in the political mainstream to allow that neoliberalism has run its course and no longer serves people well. Even Paul Keating has said it was at a dead end.… Read More Neoliberalism failed from the beginning
The great crises confronting us threaten both society and the planetary environment. If the Greens want to remain relevant to those causes they need to lift their sights and lift their game.… Read More If not now, when for the Greens?
Currently we are charging blindly into calamity. We need to look fearlessly and forensically into our socio-economic system so we can regain control and save our civilisation.… Read More Why have we not heeded Attenborough’s warnings?
Submitted to Pearls & Irritations 26 Aug 2025. Without civilisation, claimed Thomas Hobbes in 1651, life was, and would be, ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. Given how nasty and brutish much of our world is at present, and how many people’s lives are shortened by our brutishness, and how many people are extremely poor,… Read More Origins of our collective brutishness
This was provoked by a well-meaning but needlessly inflammatory Facebook post on a local page. I thought a more considered comment would be better. To those who find the flying of three flags divisive – they are not, they merely reflect our history of division. If we want to be united, we need to acknowledge… Read More Three flags?
What does the Labor government think its purpose is? Since 1996 the question keeps recurring. Apparently it is not to address global warming with the urgency required, nor to demand the US stop enabling genocide in Palestine, nor to reduce disastrous inequality and house prices, nor to restore some security to employment, nor to stop… Read More Labor’s purpose: corruption and subversion?
The failures of privatised child care and aged care have starkly illustrated the inability of markets to deliver quality service. The failure applies to all human services. The grand neoliberal experiment of the past four decades has also failed to deliver the thriving economy that was its central claim. The failures are not just a… Read More Failures in privatised care starkly illustrate the inevitable failure of Neoliberalism
Are we just selfish brutes who need to be civilised into social, moral behaviour? If not, where do our decency and altruism come from? Can we resist the tides of fear and control rolling over us and cultivate more compassionate and peaceable societies? [Published by Pearls & Irritations 10 July 2025] Elon Musk reckons ‘the… Read More Empathy, morality, civilisation, and resisting tyrants
Climate, AI, plastics: we are either tipping or are blundering blindly towards tipping into irreversible damage from our own activities. As well, nuclear weapons lurk, ready to kill off most of who or what might be left. Either we pay attention to why we are engaging in this collective insanity, and act on it, or we… Read More Tipping into the approaching dark age
Thrival Economics 