Shutdown: The Failure of Economic Rationalism and How to Rescue Australia

by John Carroll (Editor), Robert Manne (Editor)

Economic rationalism has a stranglehold on national policy. Its slogans are delivered by both our major political parties and by the top ranks of the bureaucracy as though they are holy writ: deregulation, free trade, and the level playing field.

Is economic rationalism a success? Businesses are closing down. Levels of foreign debt are soaring. More and more Australian comparies are moving their operations off-shore. Unemployment is in double digits. Stories of social misery abound - of families without breadwinners and farmers who have lost their land.

Shutdown brings together many of the major opponents of economic rationalism, from both sides of the political spectrum. It outlines the rise to power of the Australian rationalists and the damage their theories have done to our economy and society.

More importantly, it looks at the policy changes that are needed now to help rescue an economy of the edge of the precipice.

195 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

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John Carroll is a professor of sociology at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and a fellow of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University.