I’ve been thinking recently about what makes a good political party (it may or may not have something to do with a recent federal election) and I’ve come up with a tripartite model.
The first is the part of values. It can be thought of as the character or ethos of the party. First among these, whatever other values the party might hold, must be an honest and full commitment to the public good, without placing the interests of any individual or group above those of the commonwealth. Read More...
While cleaning up my hard drive I stumbled upon on old PDF of a paper, ‘The Foundations of Welfare Economics’, written by John Hicks in 1939.
‘Welfare economics’, the way Hicks uses the term, is economics directed towards questions of public policy, not just satisfying individual desires or maximising the profits of a particular firm. He contrasts it with ‘positive’ economists who want to see economics as an objective and rigorous science and who say welfare economics is about questions of subjective values, rather than facts. Read More...
In preparation for an upcoming trip to Japan we’ve been watching the Japanese reality show Terrace House. We’re part way through the first Netflix series: Boys × Girls in the City.
It is the most ‘real’ reality television that I’ve seen. The show puts three young men and three young women together in a house and films what happens. The cameras don’t follow them everywhere; there’s no framework of competition. Each housemate can pursue whatever goals suit them and leave whenever they choose. Read More...
