Juliet Moses writes at Quillette: The furore surrounding the storied Adelaide Writers Festival, the longest-running and largest literary festival in Australia and one that receives significant taxpayer funding, has made international headlines. Our drama ostensibly begins when the Festival’s board disinvites Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, an Australian writer with Palestinian heritage. Its climax sees a cultural…
The Adelaide Writers Festival
The Adelaide Writers Festival
07 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, discrimination, economics of crime, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: political correctness, free speech, Gaza Strip, war against terror, Middle-East politics, Age of Enlightenment, regressive left
Iwi ensure respect is shown to a crash site – but how are the beliefs of crash victims and their families respected?
04 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, liberalism, politics - New Zealand Tags: Freedom of religion
About this time a week ago, the New Zealand Police released a statement to report that two people had died in a helicopter crash north of Wellington earlier in the day. Work was under way to recover the deceased and to examine the crash scene, near the Battle Hill regional park. The statement included: Police […]
Iwi ensure respect is shown to a crash site – but how are the beliefs of crash victims and their families respected?
The radical right is not conservative
04 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: voter demographics
That the radical right calls itself “conservative” is one of the most successful acts of political re-branding in modern history. The label has stuck so firmly that many people now treat the two as interchangeable. Yet historically, philosophically, and temperamentally, they are opposites. This confusion is not confined to the uninformed. Journalists who ought to know better […]
The radical right is not conservative
Vance on the Greens
03 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: regressive left
This column by Andrea Vance was actually last March but I only just discovered it, and it is so good it needs repeating. She writes: In the Chlöe Swarbrick era, the Greens have been reduced to a caucus of anarkiddies posting out a flood of social-justice clickbait. They indulge in culturally progressive obsessions, moored in…
Vance on the Greens
Maarten Boudry on the policing of academia
31 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, economics of education, International law, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: free speech, Gaza Strip, Middle-East politics, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror
My friend Maarten Boudry, a Belgian philosopher, has been increasingly demonized for his heterodox views, especially on the Hamas/Israel war, since he is sympathetic to Israel (he isn’t Jewish). In the latest post on his Substack site, also published in condensed form in The Jewish Chronicle, Maarten recounts how there is a near-unanimity among European…
Maarten Boudry on the policing of academia
Violent Saviors: The West’s Conquest of the Rest
29 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: age of empires, economics of colonialism
Some Links
26 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice
TweetPhil Magness’s new essay on the origins of the vague and derogatory term “neoliberalism” is superb. A slice: While most versions of the neoliberal label still come from the academic left today, the term has come back into favor within a certain, curious strand of the right. Conservative writers such as Patrick Deneen, Adrian Vermeule,…
Some Links
The High Cost of Luxury Beliefs
26 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: political correctness, regressive left
Roger Partridge writes – Some ideas cost nothing to believe but a great deal to implement. Political commentator Rob Henderson calls them “luxury beliefs” – convictions that signal virtue among the comfortable while imposing very real costs on those with much less room to manoeuvre. New Zealand, for reasons cultural as much as political, has […]
The High Cost of Luxury Beliefs
When the Left and the Right start behaving in the same way, there’s nothing left of the Left
23 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, discrimination, economic history, economics of education, gender, International law, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: regressive left
I HAVE BEEN RESISTING the conclusion that New Zealand no longer possesses a “left-wing” movement. What the news media persists in referring to as “the Left” or “progressives” are no such thing. By any reasonable definition, the movements identified – or identifying themselves – as left-wing fail to measure up. What they truly are we […]
When the Left and the Right start behaving in the same way, there’s nothing left of the Left
Yes Islamist terrorism is religiously inspired
21 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, economics of religion, law and economics, liberalism, war and peace Tags: regressive left, war against terror
A crazy article by Halim Rane at the ABC: In the aftermath of violent attacks, public commentary quickly reaches for a familiar label like “religiously motivated terrorism”. The term sounds intuitive but it is analytically flawed, socially harmful and counter-productive to both national security and social cohesion. I would argue that a more accurate and useful…
Yes Islamist terrorism is religiously inspired
Part II: Oxfam Is a Leftist Joke, not a Real Charity
20 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth miracles, income redistribution, labour economics, liberalism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, technological progress Tags: regressive left, The Great Enrichment
As I wrote nine years ago, Oxfam is a pathetic organization. Originally created to help the poor, it has been captured by activists who peddle class warfare. But they play that role in an incredibly sloppy fashion. In all the debates I’ve been part of over the years, no left-leaning academic has been willing to […]
Part II: Oxfam Is a Leftist Joke, not a Real Charity
We’re still better off than ever before
18 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, liberalism Tags: The Great Enrichment
Steven Pinker wrote at the Free Press: Human progress continues, with some backsliding. Since publishing two books on human progress (The Better Angels of Our Nature, 2011, and Enlightenment Now, 2018), every year I update my graphs on the major dimensions of human well-being. Most people think everything’s gotten worse, but that can be a misleading…
We’re still better off than ever before
Spot on
15 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in liberalism, Marxist economics, Rawls and Nozick, Thomas Sowell
Western Leftists and Islamic States
14 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of media and culture, economics of religion, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: regressive left
Western leftists do criticise Islamic states at times—but they rarely prioritise opposing them, and often treat them with conspicuous restraint. That asymmetry is not accidental. It follows from the same ideological lenses that drive anti-Zionism. Here are the main reasons. 1. Anti-imperialism outweighs liberal values For much of the Western Left, opposition to Western power is the overriding moral […]
Western Leftists and Islamic States
Sam Harris and John McWhorter: Is wokeness dead?
12 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left, sex discrimination
In this shortish (23-minute) video, Sam Harris and John McWhorter discuss whether wokeness is finally dead. The short answer is “nope.” It may have lain down, but it refuses to die. The YouTube notes (there’s a transcript you can see as well): Sam Harris speaks with John McWhorter about language, ideology, and moral certainty. They […]
Sam Harris and John McWhorter: Is wokeness dead?
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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