Michael Pusey coined the term ‘economic rationalism’ in 1991 to refer to the narrow economic focus of many senior public servants in Canberra. These influential advisers were mostly classically trained economists who saw their task as being to assist in creating a more efficient and productive society by privatising publicly owned utilities and services, giving greater rein to market forces, increasing competition, deregulating the labour market, and so on. But like every major political programme, economic rationalism has had, and continues to have, great social costs. John Wright’s book is primarily a moral evaluation of this programme.

We have become so accustomed to hyperbole and polemics in political debate that it is refreshing to find a book on such an important social issue that avoids emotionally charged language and aims to be objective. Wright’s book examines the arguments for and against economic rationalism with detachment – as something about which decent and reasonable people might well disagree.