Economic reform: the dark side

Date: 22 May 2003

The Experience of Middle Australia

Orthodox economists argue with mineral certainty that 20 years of economic engineering has improved Australia's living standards.

Instead of talking about the people who comprise middle Australia, Michael Pusey has been talking with them to find out what they think is happening to their world.

The results have now been published in Michael Pusey's new book, The Experience of Middle Australia: The Dark Side of Economic Reform.

The book has been hailed as one of the most important contributions to Australian self-understanding of recent years.

"Fascinating", says Robert Manne; "instructive" and "chilling" says Noam Chomsky; "moral sociology at its best" says Peter Beilharz; "provocative and important", says Will Hutton.

"We should applaud Michael Pusey for reminding us that our proper study is not the bottom line", says Elizabeth Evatt, "but the way we live and relate with each other, and that the quest for constant growth ignores the need for harmony and balance in the finite world that we inhabit."

Meticulously researched, The Experience of Middle Australia mounts a moral and intellectual counter-argument to so-called economic 'reform'. A sequel to the best-selling Economic Rationalism in Canberra, this new book promises to be equally important.

Michael Pusey will discuss his book on Monday 26 May at an Evatt Foundation Breakfast Seminar at Sydney's Quality Hotel (formerly known as the Southern Cross Hotel).

The seminar will be chaired by Bruce Childs, the President of the Evatt Foundation, and will take place in the Hotel's Macquarie Room, corner of Elizabeth and Goulburn Streets.

Breakfast will be served from 7.30 am, the seminar will commence at 8.00 am, and the discussion will conclude on the dot of 9.00 am.

For further information

Contact:	Jeannette McHugh
Union:	The Evatt Foundation
Phone:	9387 3199
Email:	evatt@unsw.edu.au
WWW:	http://evatt.labor.net.au/events/54_20030421.html

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