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Keywords: Economics

  • EDUCATION

    Academics tangle with managerial oppressors

    • David James
    • 14 June 2018
    15 Comments

    The imposition of 'managerialism' or 'marketisation' on universities is disastrous. So why are academics so passive when their working lives are being immiserated by the imposition of ideas, mostly derived from business or economics, that are either patently false or poor?

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  • RELIGION

    A stringent critique of financial abuse

    • Bruce Duncan
    • 30 May 2018
    5 Comments

    The Vatican has launched a stringent critique of abuses in global economies, abuses that are driving astonishing inequality and threatening ecological sustainability. 'Oeconomicae et pecuniariae questiones' reiterates the call for an urgent dialogue between politics and economics to advance human life and wellbeing.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Dispelling lazy thinking on trade deals

    • David James
    • 20 March 2018
    6 Comments

    The recent furore about Donald Trump's imposing of tariffs on steel, from which Australian companies have been exempted, raises an interesting question about the economics discipline. Which is better, an oxymoron or a tautology?

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  • RELIGION

    Bringing humanity back to the cult of numbers

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 March 2018
    16 Comments

    At the heart of Pythagoras' contribution was wonder at a world in which human intelligence could understand and handle such different phenomena as music, architecture and the stars through mathematics. The cult of numbers in a cruder form remains characteristic of public life today. The most revered numbers are economic.

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  • ECONOMICS

    No more free pass for legislators on inequality

    • Joe Zabar
    • 27 February 2018
    4 Comments

    How is it we allow investors to leave units vacant in the Docklands while young people struggle to access housing in Melbourne? We have given legislators a free pass when it comes to economic policies that discriminate against those without means. This creates systemic inequality, and it needs to be addressed urgently.

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  • ECONOMICS

    No economy of exclusion and inequality

    • Joe Zabar
    • 27 February 2018

    'Francis' statement is not one merely for theological or academic contemplation. It is in effect Francis' call to establish a new benchmark for our economy, one where exclusion and inequality are no longer a natural and accepted consequence of its operation.' Director of Economic Policy for Catholic Social Services Australia addresses the CSSA annual conference in Melbourne, February 2018.

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  • RELIGION

    Matching action to social justice rhetoric

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 February 2018
    9 Comments

    The World Day of Social Justice greets a year when social justice is returning to favour. Bank executives begin to own their social responsibilities. Liberal economics begin to be seen, not as the condition for a productive economy but as a barrier to it. That is the rhetoric. For governments, though, it is business as usual.

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  • PODCAST

    Eva Cox on macho economics and the feminist lens

    • Podcast
    • 07 February 2018
    1 Comment

    In many ways, feminism has pushed the boundaries of where and how women participate in the economy. But there is a deepening sense that this has not been enough. So what got missed? Prominent academic and feminist Eva Cox discusses the impact of neoliberalism on women, and why the social lens is more critical than ever. 

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  • MEDIA

    There is no such thing as capitalism

    • David James
    • 27 October 2017
    14 Comments

    In literary studies, one of the most important requirements is the need to define one's terms accurately. It has always come as a shock to me that economics is almost completely devoid of such precision. Much of the terminology of the 'discipline' of economics is either nonsense, or thinly disguised tautologies.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Market economics not the solution for human services

    • Roland Manderson
    • 12 August 2016
    14 Comments

    There is a joke about a man looking for a coin under a streetlight: he had dropped it elsewhere, in the dark, but was looking under the streetlight because he could see more clearly there. In the same way, the thinking behind the Productivity Commission inquiry into increasing competition, contestability and informed user choice in human services is fundamentally flawed. The complexity and interconnectedness of human services is too challenging for market economics to properly address.

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  • RELIGION

    Catholic bishops deliver election year ethical wedge

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 May 2016
    13 Comments

    The bishops speak less trenchantly than Pope Francis, who criticises sharply the assumptions and practices of neoliberal economics. But in the context of this election, they add their voice to that of those who are concerned about economic assumptions that enrich the few and exempt corporations and business from social responsibility. Their statement will encourage those who see the now notorious behaviour of banks, finance business and corporations as symptomatic of a vicious economic ideology.

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  • MEDIA

    2015 in review: The roots of troll culture

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 12 January 2016

    The common perception of internet trolls is that they are outsiders descending on a particular platform in order to wreck it. But there is a close relationship between trolls and the culture in which they operate. If you're a publisher seeking virality, you need to foster the strong emotions in which social media trades. Getting people to love your content is great, but outrage, incredulity and even hatred also work.

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