Welcome to Issue 3 of the New Economy Journal, our biggest yet!
Within it, you will find election post-mortems, poetry, impassioned calls for climate activism and thoughtful discourse on population growth, employee ownership and the possibility of a zero marginal cost economy.
As always, we hope you disagree with some, take hope from others, and learn from all about how we can build a new, just and sustainable economy.
The editors
Table of Contents
Extinction Rebellion: ready, willing and (potentially) able to save the world
The Saturday after the 2019 federal election, I attended a meeting of the Melbourne chapter of Extinction Rebellion. I had seen the group’s curiously striking hourglass symbol pasted on street-lights and stencilled on bike paths, and I – like many others at the meeting – was searching for a way...
Labor’s Problem: Too Far Right of Public Opinion
We live in a world where public opinion has “only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy”, or at least that was what was found by a Princeton University study of American democracy. Based on the statistical evidence, they conclude that the US has a form of “Economic-Elite...
Making sense of the election & what next?
It was the #climateelection. People clearly do care about climate action, Indigenous justice, bringing refugees here, raising Newstart. So what went wrong? As usual, it was a mix of things. And not all the fault of Queenslanders. Here I’m giving my early reflections, with input from my Common Cause colleagues...
What Could Have Been
The Labor Party has lost the unlosable election, and with it, the chance to change Australia’s course towards something approaching social democracy. The result defies every poll, pundit and focus group. The Coalition’s policy offering was astonishing in its vacuousness and cruelty, led by a man who engineered his predecessor’s...
An Environmental Science Perspective on Population
The article by Kurt Johnson opened up the population debate in NENA Journal. I endorse his statement that “a conversation on population growth must occur on the back of an unequivocal condemnation of racism. But it still must occur.” The present contribution offers an environmental science perspective. Environmental impact (I)...
A Reply to Andrew Leigh: Employee Ownership Enriches and Empowers
The April issue of NENA Journal included an interview with Andrew Leigh, Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Alan Greig, a Board member of Employee Ownership Australia, and Duncan Wallace, NENA Journal Editor, respond below to comments Leigh made on the risks he perceives in expanding employee ownership. To quote: Andrew Leigh: “[B]eing...
Noah’s Ark: Can a story from our past be a message for our future?
I stand on the banks of the Logan River, the flood markers towering over me. The bottom of the river is more than 10m lower than where I stand. As I gaze up at these historic flood markers I am in awe of the power of Mother Earth, especially over...
Crowdfunding: Lessons From Shebah and Food Connect
I've interviewed both the Founders of Food Connect (Robert Pekin) and Shebah (Georgina McEncroe) in the last week and talked with them about their crowdfunding successes. They both shared that 90+% of funding had come from women. Women voting with their money on the type of businesses they want to...
Pay the Rent Part 3: What is Pay the Rent? And how do we do it?
This is the third (read part 1 and part 2) in a series of articles exploring the history and context of the Pay the Rent idea. What is pay the rent? In essence, it is a private reparations system. The idea is that, without a treaty, non-Indigenous people continue to...
Post Truth Doublethink
In his classic novel of a dystopian future ‘1984’, George Orwell defines the idea of ‘doublethink’, which I believe perfectly describes the character of our political conversations today: Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. …To tell deliberate lies...
Extinction Rebellion – An Introduction
Extinction Rebellion is a decentralised, global movement which calls for non-violent, disruptive civil disobedience – a rebellion - to save our land, and ultimately ourselves, from the collapse of our biosphere. You may have seen XR activists feigning symbolic death in a shopping centre, or marching in the streets, under...
Economic Disruptions Will Reshape Our Cities
We have become accustomed in recent years to talk about economic disruptions. Disruption of the taxi industry by Uber and of the hotel industry by Airbnb. Before that we had the disappearance of film processing stores and music record stores with the arrival of digital photography and music. With digital...
Permaculture Pedals, Part 3: How is Contentment Gained and Loneliness Cured?
This is the third in a 4-part series (read part 1 and part 2) telling the story of Mick Crear’s decision to leave his job, and all the baggage that came with it, to pursue a simpler, richer life as a permaculturist cycling around Australia. The feeling of loneliness ended...
A Poem: Deepening, by Tessa Wallace
What if When there was more demand On your business You didn’t feel compelled To meet it? What if there was less growth But More deepening Tree rings settling in What if you could close early New attitude For that empty space Calling out to you...