Two hundred and fifty years after the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, our leaders insist that the prosperity of citizens rests upon a trickling down of bounty from the export of raw materials. This simplistic narrative is told, and retold, by almost every newspaper editor in the country, over and over again, in the form of a Gregorian chant without end.
Australia has a reputation for egalitarianism. It is not deserved.
Extract: Address to the Royal Society of NSW, October 2024.
This is a nation based on mercantilist plunder.
By Ken Henry