Policy Spring 1991
Vol. 7 No. 3 (Spring, 1991) POLICY Magazine Spring 1991.-
FEATURE: Economic Rationalism and the Liberal Tradition
| 09 Sep 1991Although the present consensus favouring economic rationalism is surviving the recession, the seeds of a possible change of policy director, can be detected in Australian public life. Michael James argues that the policies of economic rationalism are best defended as representing progress towards limited government.
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FEATURE: New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act: An Incomplete Revolution
| 09 Sep 1991New Zealand's new Employment Contracts Act abolishes much of the apparatus of the old centralised wage-fixing system. Penelope Brook argues that although the Act represents substantial progress in labour market reform, it retains significant barriers to the realisation of the full benefits of a free contracting regime for employers and employees.
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FEATURE: How Not to Reduce New Zealand's Unemployment
| 09 Sep 1991More can be done to provide flexibility and opportunity in New Zealand.
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FEATURE: Superannuation: Panacea for an Ailing Australian Economy?
| 09 Sep 1991Superannuation has been identified by some commentators as the answer to Australia's alleged savings, current-account, foreign debt and industry development problems. An argument that superannuation does not address the fundamental causes of these problems, which in any case either are not real problems or are being incorrectly interpreted.
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FEATURE: Misleading Impressions: The Recession in the Farm Sector and its Impact on Rural Australia
| 09 Sep 1991
News from the bush tends to be all bad. Several primary industries and many individual farmers are coping well with the recession, and argues that governments can best help rural Australia by pressing on with microeconomic reform.
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FEATURE: New Zealand's Agriculture and Trade: Is There Life After the GATT Uruguay Round?
| 09 Sep 1991An assessment of the prospects for New Zealand's agricultural exports in the context of current attempts to liberalise world trade.
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FEATURE: Restructuring New Zealand's Defence Force
| 09 Sep 1991New Zealand's National government proposes to continue the reductions in the country's armed forces initiated by the previous Labour government. Wayne Mapp argues that New Zealand's defence force should be restructured in a way that maximises its potential for cooperation with Australia's armed forces.
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FEATURE: The Forgotten Consumer: The Distorted Delivery of Child-Care Services
| 09 Sep 1991The persistences of informal child care in the face of increasing governent subsidies for child-care services suggests that the policy of making child care universally accessible is failing. The argument that the present policy ignores the distinct needs of different consumer groups and disadvantages those with the most basic needs and the least ability to pay.
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FEATURE: Universal Reason Covers All: Hiram Caton's The Politics of Progress
| 09 Sep 1991
"The Libertarians' political beliefs are shaped by a legend of man's progress from the shackles of customary society to the liberations of free trade."
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FEATURE: The Ethics of Insider Trading
| 09 Sep 1991In the second of two articles on business ethics, Norman Barry questions the conventional view that insider trading is intrinsically unfair, and argues that it may promote efficiency by speeding the flow of information within markets.
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FEATURE: Chile's Transition to Democratic Capitalism
| 09 Sep 1991Chile's democratic credentials are somewhat tarnished by memories of the recent period of military rule and the continuing influence of the armed forces in Chilean affairs. Gabriel Steins argues that the country has successfully recovered its strong democratic traditions, largely because of its successful economic liberalisation.
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NOTES AND COMMENTS: Enterprise-Specific Productivity and National Policy
| 09 Sep 1991
Microeconomic reform is now recognised as a critical element of national economic policy.
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FEATURE: The Only Failure We Have to Fear Is the Fear of Failure
| 09 Sep 1991Socialism has been, by any measure of economic success, a total failure.
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NOTES AND COMMENTS: The Blessing of Market Capitalism
| 09 Sep 1991
In Centesimus annus, the Pope is unsparing in his criticism of communism, socialism and (less explicitly) the Catholic flirtation with Marxism under the guise of 'liberation theology.'
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BOOK REVIEW: The Case for Freedom of Labour Contract
| 09 Sep 1991Freedom at Work: The Case for Reforming Labour Law in New Zealand by Penelope J. Brook (Oxford University Press, 1990.)
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BOOK REVIEW: New Zealand's Industry: Sunset or Sunrise?
| 09 Sep 1991Turning it Around: Closure and Revitalization in New Zealand Industry edited by John Savage and Alan Bollard (Oxford University Press, 1990.)
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BOOK REVIEW: Economics for the Layman
| 09 Sep 1991Understanding the New Economy by Alfred Malabre (Dow Jones-Irwin, 1989)
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BOOK REVIEW: A Liberal Perspective of Australian Politics
| 09 Sep 1991
The Theory of Politics: An Australian Perspective by Chandran Kukathas, David Lovell and William Maley (Longman Cheshire, 1990).
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BOOK REVIEW: A Who's Who of Public Interest Activists
| 09 Sep 1991
The Network: A Guide to anti-Business Pressure groups by Bob Browning (Canonbury Press, Melbourne 1990.)
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BOOK REVIEW: No Other Way?
| 09 Sep 1991Power and Prejudice: The Making of the Fiji Crisis by Brij V. Lal (New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1988.)
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BOOK REVIEW: New Zealand's Pacific Role
| 09 Sep 1991Towards a Pacific Island Community: Report of the South Pacific Policy Review Group (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1990).
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BOOK REVIEW: From Liberalisation to Conservatism
| 09 Sep 1991
Liberalism: Essays in Political Philosophy by John Gray (Routledge, 1989)
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CIS: CIS Publications Update
| 09 Sep 1991An update on CIS publications for Spring 1991.
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RAFE'S ROUND UP: Spring 1991
| 09 Sep 1991Rafe's Round-Up for Spring 1991.
