The story of what journalist George Megalogenis has called 'Australia's longest decade' (the era of Keating and Howard) is in many ways a story about personal satisfaction. Whatever one may make of the social and cultural effects of free market policies, there is little doubt that from the mid-1990s through to today Australians have acted as consumers par excellence. As Megalogervis suggests in his book The Longest Decade, Australians, particularly during the Howard era, went…
Neo-liberalism emphasises the moral as well as economic benefits of expanding the scope of markets free from regulation. Its adherents have emphasised that the exercise of choice by individuals as consumers, free from government interference, maximises human welfare. More even, the freedom to consume has been remarked upon as one of the cornerstones of democracy. As Wolfgang Kasper of the Centre for Independent Studies once put it, 'the market is a daily exercise in democracy,…
