Economics

Just over twenty years ago, an academic tome captured the West’s imagination. The End of History and the Last Man (1992) by Francis Fukuyama followed fast on the heels of the collapse of communism. Giving voice to the triumphalism and hope of the times, it became an immediate bestseller. History, Fukuyama argued, was over. This was because the West had won the long ideological battle over which configuration of political economy could best manage the twenty-first century, and beyond. Western-style free markets and liberal democracy would now spread across the world, creating stability and opportunity for all in their wake.

Usually, significant books are revisited on significant anniversaries. By these lights, Mike Berry’s critical re-evaluation of John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society should have appeared in 2008, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of its original publication. In this instance, we can be grateful that normal publishing practice has not been followed, for it enables Berry to incorporate the momentous events of the past five years into his analysis and to interrogate the insights that Galbraith’s scholarship might bring to bear on the causes and repercussions of the Global Financial Crisis that hit shortly after the great economist’s death in 2006.

Should state spending on government be more restricted, or is it private financial institutions that should pay? Adrian Walsh writes about fresh controversies over international austerity programs.

According to one study cited in Stuart Cunningham’s book, there are two opposing groups of people: ‘Political Junkies (PJs)’ and ‘Big Brother fans (BBs)’. PJs think that it beggars belief that anyone could think Big Brother was useful. BBs say that politicians are unapproachable and out of touch. As an MP who used to quite enjoy watching Big Brother, I found myself torn. Am I a BB or a PJ? A PJ in BBs? Or a BB in PJs?

Weary of the standard Hollywood pap, Samuel Goldwyn reportedly told his writers, ‘Let’s have some new clichés.’ In Reframe: How to Solve the World’s Trickiest Problems, his first book, Eric Knight sets about recasting corporate culture’s platitude to ‘think outside the box’.

It may be far too early to begin writing obituaries for neo-liberalism; as with Mark Twain, reports of its demise constitute an exaggeration. With the growing critique of neo-liberalism, in which our own prime minister has joined, there is a pervasive assumption that it is something of an aberration, an errant change of course in the development of capitalism. That assumption is, I suggest, erroneous; the thirty-year phenomenon to which we give the name neo-liberalism is in reality capitalism qua capitalism; neo-liberalism is really capitalism unleashed with minimal regard for its social consequences. There is also a second myth that needs to be challenged in the emerging critique of neo-liberalism: the Keynesian consensus did not merely outlive its usefulness; it was undermined and sabotaged by a combination of US policy failures and opportunistic vested interests.

For Labor ‘true believers’, the night of 24 November 2007 was one to cherish. In the north, Brough the Rough was despatched and a host of lesser figures swept away, pork barrels and all; in the very heartland of the Howard battlers, the Wicked Witch of Penrith and her minions perished in a jihad of their own devising; above all, in his fortress of Bennelong, the Vampire King was slain by the Good Witch of the ABC. What a night! At the beginning of Peter Costello’s memoir is the challenge: ‘How did it come to this? How did a government that had created such an Age of Prosperity, such a proud and prosperous country, now find itself in the wilderness?’

Who was hanged, disembowelled and quartered after printing ‘nawghtye papystycall Bookes’? William Carter. Where did English booksellers store and sell their books? For several centuries, mostly from tiny shops near St Paul’s. How tiny is tiny? Zachary and William Stewart had ten feet from their shopfront to the back of the yard. Who was the builder and owner of the Temple of the Muses, the biggest bookshop of its time? James Lackington. How did eighteenth-century booksellers use newspapers to promote their wares? Through the ‘puff’, a sensationalist pushing of a single book, and the ‘cloud’, a lengthy listing of many books. Who remaindered Jane Austen’s Emma? John Murray II. The questions, big and small, are endless, and this book provides the answers.

In all intellectual disciplines there is a tendency to run in herds. It is the line of least resistance; it offers personal and professional rewards; and sometimes the herd, if capably led, is impressive in the way it rushes so quickly in the appropriate direction. The herd is often correct; but when it is on a stampede, is does not easily change course. This is a biographical dictionary of those Australian and New Zealand economists who often led – or opposed – the herd.

Diane Coyle has a passion for economics and believes that the object of her passion should possess a soul. She fails to convince on this point, but that is of little account. She has written an absorbing book that sets out what economists do and that provides a commentary on current thinking.