John Quiggin

Full employment plus the pandemic led to employee realisation things can be done differently, and thus a four-day working week is possible.

We should resist any attempt to return to the market liberal economy of the past few decades. Not only has it proven to be of no use in dealing with crises like the pandemic, it has regularly generated crises of its own, such as the global financial crisis, forcing governments to come to the rescue.

Within the space of weeks, Australia has been transformed into a command economy. For the next couple of weeks at least, as the lockdown of the economy is completed, policy will be made up as we go along. But then it will be time to think about the future, and how we will deal with the consequence of the command economy we have created.

John Quiggin’s new book, ‘Economics in Two Lessons’, is a general introduction to economics for the interested public. Here is the speech Nicholas Gruen delivered at the 19 July launch of the new book by ‘Australia’s most overachieving economist’.

Abolishing the states is a popular pipe dream with high-profile backers. But it would be an unworkable step backwards, argues economist John Quiggin.