The Road to Serfdom & Capital in the 21st Century

Hugh Mackay, in a recent article about the 2014 federal budget,  asks Australians to consider: is this the Australia we really want to be? To answer this question we all need to reflect on the important role of ideology in the formulation of policy and what we personally believe, as citizens, is important. Joe Hockey, when […]

“An upper-class school”

A comment – as I negotiated customs at Sydney Airport with a large party of students on their way to visit our sister school in Korea – keeps swirling round in my mind. The official scanning bags engaged me in small-talk asking where we were headed. When I explained our excursion was to Korea to […]

What can we learn from Francis Fukuyama?

The purpose of this book is to fill in some of the gaps of this historical amnesia, by giving an account of where basic political institutions came from in societies that now take them for granted. The three categories of institutions in question are the ones just described: 1. the state 2. the rule of […]

Australia and Denmark

Carsten’s blog post led me to write today.   cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by attila acs In the last few months, on returning from Denmark, I have often tried to articulate what are the similarities and differences between our nations. The events and coverage of Australia Day 2012 encapsulate […]