Month: June 2003

What I'm reading, and more

John Quiggin15 Comments

The Pope’s Battalion’s: Santamaria, Catholicism and the Labor Split by Ross Fitzgerald. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I’m more sympathetic to Santamaria now than I was twenty-five years ago, which was about the end of his period as a politically influential figure. Still, reading this book reminds me how much there was to disagree with as well as to agree with in his thought and actions.

On the movie front, I’ve on a thematic kick and am looking at movies set in Brisbane or, more generally, in Queensland. So far in the last month or so, I’ve seen Swimming Upstream an autobiopic by Tony Fingleton, He Died with a Falafel in his Hand (claimed as) autobiopic by John Birmingham and Praise, a quirky but enjoyable film about an odd couple. When I lived in NQ I watched and enjoyed All Men are Liars, filmed in South Johnstone. Any further recommendations much appreciated.

I’m also thinking about trying to watch all the Oz movies with one-word titles, Praise, Proof, Innocence and Lantana come to mind from recent years, but there must be many more.

New on the website 3

John Quiggin7 Comments

Another Fin article is up on the site Voters favour better services from 22 May. Here’san excerpt.

If tax scales were indexed, the community would face a clear choice between private consumption and public services financed by taxation. As the opinion polls following the budget show, responses to such choices depend on the way in which they are framed, as well as the way in which they are reported
Newspoll found that 15 per cent of voters thought the budget would make them better off 38 per cent thought it would make no difference, and 32 per cent though it would make them worse off. This mildly negative result (fairly typical of responses over the 15 years Newspoll has asked this question) was spun by The Australian into a ringing endorsement ’53 per cent of voters thought the Budget would make them better off or no worse off (emphasis added)’.

The AC Nielsen Poll asked a clearer question and got a clearer answer. Asked whether they would prefer the tax cuts announced in the budget or improvements in health and education, 20 per cent opted for the tax cuts and 77 per cent for improvements in services.

Welcome !

John Quiggin1 Comment

My old mate Chris Sheil has joined the blogging team at Troppo Armadillo. His first post is a contribution to the debate on economic rationalism.

Someone else I’ve been meaning to mention for a while is Paul Watson, whose blog is devoted to “Comedy, media commentary and general bitterness”. Paul’s general bitterness is particularly savage when it comes to reform (scare quotes intentionally omitted) of the higher education sector. Despite having managed to secure my own escape from the general shipwreck (thanks Brendan!), I share Paul’s bitterness on this topic, and his posts are well worth reading.

Real jobs in remote Aboriginal communities (repost)

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Ken Parish has an excellent post responding to the recent speech by Pat Dodson on the violence endemic in Aboriginal communities, and linking to a piece by Rob Corr. Although he raises a number of points, Ken’s focus (correctly I think) is on the corrosive consequences of the absence of productive work. I don’t have any new thoughts on this, but I thought it might be worth reposting some old ones (first posted 17 Jan 2003).

Following my posts the Windschuttle controversy, I promised to put forward some ideas on the current policy problems facing Aboriginal Australians, and particularly the problem of economic development. It’s always problematic for white ‘experts’ to tell black communities what to do and I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to do this. Although I have given economic advice to Aboriginal organisations on a range of issues, I don’t regard myself as an expert on the problems facing Aboriginal communities. My perspective on the issue comes more from a consideration of the general economic problems of rural Australia and particularly the general decline in population and employment.
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New on the website 2

John Quiggin1 Comment

I’ve also posted my article Why war is bad for health from the Fin of 8 May. Here’s the conclusion.

In the absence of large-scale discoveries of weapons, attention has focused on the undoubted benefits of overthrowing an evil and oppressive dictator. This is a form of foreign aid and can usefully be compared to other aid programs. The total budget of the USAID, the main US agency for development and humanitarian assistance is $8.7 billion for the coming year. That is, the money already spent on the Iraq war could have doubled USAID’s budget for the next five years.

It seems certain, however, that the war will herald a sustained increase in military expenditure of at least $US100 billion per year. A more reasonable comparison, therefore, is the ambitious proposal of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, led by Harvard Economist Jeffrey Sachs. The Commission aimed to achieve, for all a poor countries, a two-thirds reduction of 1990 child mortality levels, a three-fourths reduction of 1990 maternal mortality ratios and an end to the rising prevalence of major diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.

As the Commission pointed out, in addition to the humanitarian benefits of saving as many as 8 million lives per year, reductions in mortality are directly correlated with a reduced frequency of military coups and state collapse. These provide the breeding ground for terrorism and dictatorship and ultimately lead, in many cases, lead to US military intervention. The estimated cost for the Commission’s seemingly-utopian program over the next decade is estimated at between $US 50 billion and $US 100 billion per year.

War is sometimes necessary in self-defence. But when war is adopted as an instrument of policy, it is often counterproductive and almost never cost-effective.

Economic rationalism

John Quiggin8 Comments

My Wednesday post on the term ‘rational’ has brought forward some discussion of the term ‘economic rationalism’, which is now most commonly used in a pejorative . One commentator voiced the widely held assumption that the term was coined by Michael Pusey. In reality, the term was used, mostly positively for about 20 years before Pusey wrote Economic Rationalism. And although the term evolved gradually, the person who did most to popularise it was Gough Whitlam. The history of this phrase tells us a lot about the evolution of the economic policy debate in Australia. Read on for a piece I wrote in 1997, describing this history.
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New on the website

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I’ve put up my article, ‘Fairy gold’ turns to debt from the Fin of 10 April. Here’s the conclusion.

as long as financial innovation is seen to be good in itself, politicians will continue to pursue these [Public Private Partnership] schemes, not as a method of optimally allocating a complex set of risk, but as a source of fairy gold, from which valuable public assets can seemingly be spun out of thin air. Of course, just like fairy gold, this illusion will disappear in the light of day, leaving a mountain of debt and poorly-structured projects.

Economic policy under Howard

John Quiggin21 Comments

Jack Strocchi attacks what he takes to be the standard leftwing view of Howard as a free-market radical, quoting among others, Alan Kohler, Stephen Kirchner and Max Walsh to support his view of Howard as a crypto-socialist. This gives me the chance to have a test run for my own, more nuanced, assessment of Howard, which will be a book chapter in due course. Comments much appreciated. Here goes

Economic policy under Howard presents a contradictory picture. Sometimes the Howard government appears as a continuation of those of Hawke and Keating, implementing the reforms those governments were unwilling or unable to introduce. At other times, as in its ‘nation-building’ infrastructure exercises, it seems like a throwback to the developmentalist ideas of the 1950s and 1960s. Still more of the time, it appears content to drift, happily taking the credit for a long period of relative economic prosperity and putting forward economic reforms on a purely opportunistic basis, as and when the political climate demands an appearance of action rather than stability.
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Word for Wednesday: Rational (no definition offered)

John Quiggin22 Comments

The term ‘rational’ and its variants (rationality, rationalism) are used in a lot of contexts in economic debate, both positively and negatively, but nearly always sloppily or dishonestly. A specimen I’ve seen on more occasions than I can count is the line (usually presented with a sense of witty originality) ‘if you are opposed to economic rationalism, you must be in favor of economic irrationalism’.

In keeping with the idea of this regular feature, I thought about providing a definition that would clarify the issues surrounding this word and the reasons it causes so much confusion. In reflecting on the problem, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that the word ‘rational’ has no meaning that cannot better be conveyed by some alternative term and that the best advice is probably to avoid it altogether.
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Heroes and heretics

John Quiggin12 Comments

Keneth Miles (permalinks bloggered) reports that Lyndall Ryan has finally made a detailed reply to Keith Windschuttle’s attacks on her, conceding sloppy footnoting, but showing that she did indeed have evidence to back up the crucial claims on which Windschuttle based his claims of fabrication.

Also, at Surfdom, Chris Sheil reports on the Windschuttle vs Reynolds travelling circus. I gave my own take on the debate here. You can read ‘Gummo Trotksy’s take on Windschuttle’s ideas about the philosophy of science here.
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