Friday 29th of March 2024

Exciting, new and patchy, capturing the zeitgiest for the elites, at least (David Eastwood)

On balance I liked the book. Strong compelling arguments, well evidenced, got me in. But, a couple of flaws in the logic I reckon:

There seemed a bit of a tendency to play the man and not the ball. JWH certainly makes a convincing chief villain, but Australian politics has long been too cosy a duopoly and I'm sure it's fair to say that Labour are more than slightly complicit in trashing our democracy. I thought the stream of 'neo-liberal' bashing through the book was a bit mindless, and detracted from the main argument. It confused so-called economic agendas with social and political agendas to my mind, and ignored that the most public failings of the capitalist system in recent years have been human failures - venality of the pocket-lining variety exactly as was rife in socialist regimes of prior decades.

I put the book down after finishing it and thought to myself, 'will this change the world', or is it another introspective effort by the elites, for the elites? I suspect the latter unfortunately.