Margo, I particularly noted the comments from Gary Johns on pages 261-2 and your remarks on the neo-liberal ideology they express. I clearly recognised them from the study I made for my recent book 'What's Right?'

Here's an outline of some of the features and philosophy of neo-liberalism which your readers might find of interest. They are epitomised in Johns' statements and in an assertion made at the same time by the egregious Tony Abbott - that 'capitalism is just another name for freedom'.

The main exponent and theorist of neo-liberalism is Friedrich Hayek. Even neo-liberals themselves may not understand the values that lie beneath their social philosophy, so transforming it into an ideology, a pervasive cast of mind that dominates social policies and actions, one backed by the political, economic and media power it benefits.

Gary Johns laments that NGOs threaten 'to mediate the effects of individualism and self interest in the cause of the greater good'. Is the 'greater good' such a dangerous thing? Is self-interest all there is? Hayek certainly thought so:

'[Those living in the present system] gain from not treating one another as neighbours, and applying, in their interactions [its] rules: private property, honesty, contract, exchange, trade, competition, gain and privacy.'

Hayek nevertheless realises that people want more than that in their relationships, and admits that 'if we were always to apply [the above rules] in our intimate groupings we would crush them'. He then contradictorily asserts that sentiments of solidarity, altruism and community are merely the 'instincts' of primitive human beings.

Taking to an extreme the obvious generality that people are concerned about their material living standard, Hayek declares that most people don't want to accept that 'it should be the disdained 'cash nexus' which holds [the present system] together, [and] that the great ideal of mankind should in the last resort depend on the relations between the parts being governed by the striving for the better satisfaction of their material needs'.

Further, he fears that: '[people's] intuitive craving for a more human and personal morals [other than the above, and the rules of the market] corresponding to their inherited instincts is quite likely to destroy the Open Society'.

The purport of Gary Johns' lament this becomes clearer, and even more so when we supplement it with the Hayekian dictum that the values people hold are inherently incommensurable, that there can be no common human goals (except to make more money, or wage war) and that any attempt to pursue the goals of social justice in education, health and housing, or in any other form of the public good is a violation of 'liberty' as he defines it.

Hayek is vociferous against the environmental concerns which, for many of us, are emerging as the ultimately overriding 'common good': 'Step by step, momentary impediments to further population increase are penetrated. Increases in population provide a foundation for further ones, and so on, leading to a progressive and cumulative process that does not end before all the fertile or richly endowed parts of the earth are similarly densely occupied.'

'That the human race eventually was able to occupy most of the earth as densely as it has done, enabling us to maintain large numbers even in regions where hardly any necessities of life can be produced locally, is the result of mankind's having learnt, like a single colossal body stretching itself, to extend to the remotest corners and from each area, different ingredients needed to nourish the whole. Indeed, it will not be long before even Antarctica will enable thousands of miners to earn and ample livelihood.'

And then? He does not say. His attitude to natural resources and extinction of species is equally cavalier.

I applaud your focus on defeating Howard and his government in the next election. Any prolonging of neo-liberal rule, along with a further concentration of media power, could push the domination of its ideology to a point where more favourable forms of social interaction may be cut off altogether. What remains of the best of the Westminster system - a socially oriented and courageous public service, ministerial responsibility and limitations on the power of the Prime Minister - could be trashed beyond repair.

But even the best presently possible outcome of a Latham government would not end the necessity for understanding the dangers of the underlying values of neo-liberalism, and of developing an alternative social philosophy.