Adrian Walsh

Albert O. Hirschman (1915–2012) was a development economist and political theorist whose work is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how economic life figures in the political worlds we inhabit and the ways in which we give meaning to our lives in market-based societies. Perhaps best known for the distinction between ‘exit’ and ‘voice’, Hirschman was a prolific theor ... (read more)

Mark Blyth’s Austerity:The History of a Dangerous Idea is at heart a morality tale, or, more accurately, an account of two competing and diametrically opposed morality tales jostling to explain both the recent Global Financial Crisis (GFC) that engulfed much of Europe in 2008 and the austerity policies that were implemented by most governments in that region in its aftermath. According to propon ... (read more)

Early in Murray Bail’s novel The Pages (2008), we find the following commentary on the very idea of philosophical research being undertaken in Australia: How anyone can believe that Sydney could produce in its own backyard a philosopher of world significance or even minor significance shows how little understanding there is of the conditions required for philosophical thought. ... (read more)