Articles by: Guy Rundle

Author Biography:

Guy Rundle was founding co-editor of Arena Magazine and is Associate Editor of Arena (third series). He is a well-known essayist and is writer-at-large for Crikey. His most recent book Practice: Journalism, Essays and Criticism was published by Black Inc. in 2019.

World Heat

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

28 Jul 2022

The problems they face from this extended economy are so far beyond the state mechanisms still at their command, their business as usual, that their fate may well be to utterly discredit ‘reasonable politics’

The election and the teals: the new social liberalism in a knowledge society

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

2 Jun 2022

This is not only a new development in Australia, but in the anglosphere Westminster system, and it should not be underestimated or misunderstood.

A Light Shining in the Shire

Arena Quarterly no. 9

Guy Rundle

Mar 2022

The last decade has seen the failure of the centrist form of neoliberal progressivism that occupied the left parties in the face of an onslaught by right-wing populism, which mobilised forces old and new to present themselves…as a response on behalf of the people against the entire ‘political/media’ class, as represented by those in power.

Looming Catastrophe: Nuclear Threats in the Ukraine-Russian War

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

10 Mar 2022

Just as atomic and sub-atomic technologies reach into every corner of reality to transform it unceasingly, so too the US post-Second World War empire, powered by notions of a universal idea of right, bound up in individualism, capital and technophilia, seeks to transform and occupy any alternative source of power, locality and difference.

The ‘Quad’, Unlikley Allies and a World Undone

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

9 Feb 2022

Globalisation has created a world that is safe, until it very much isn't. The specific form of globalisation we have…compels the West to seek to maintain a dominance it can no longer enforce. 

Green Prometheans and the Fossil Brown Right

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

19 Nov 2021

Now begins a new process, and for many from a ‘red–green’ nexus informed by past struggles and ides, it is a bittersweet moment.

The politics of vaccine passports

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

30 Sep 2021

…it is tempting to argue that any society should resist both state compulsion and certification, and encourage the social recognition that global diseases and rapid vaccine development predispose us not to the primacy of individual bodily rights but to the recognition of our obligation to the other.

Sub-Imperial Australia

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

16 Sep 2021

Our focus on subs has long been an expression of our idea that any defence would involve us contributing a subordinated part of a giant US-led naval force in the region.

“Freedom Day”: Thatcherism’s Last Gasp?

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

22 Jul 2021

UK news reports say that many, perhaps a majority, will continue to avoid crowded venues even after ‘Freedom Day’. But of course that is of little use; a minority of 5 to 10 per cent letting rip is sufficient to turn these places into spreader hubs.

Missile Rain

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

8 Jul 2021

The United States’ enemies can no longer assume they are dealing with an erratic amateur who can be taken advantage of. Normal maintenance of a substantially extended empire has been resumed.

The Archibald, the Packing Room Prize and the eternal return of the avant-garde

Arena Online

Guy Rundle

10 Jun 2021

The Packing Room Prize never veers at all. The winning portrait usually depicts a person famous in the media, and it is always either the most strictly realist portrait in that range, or very occasionally a comic, but highly worked, caricature. Nothing varying from the job of accurate representation has ever made the cut.

Editorial, Arena no. 6: Borders and Grounded Community

Arena Quarterly no. 6

Guy Rundle

Jun 2021

…there is the absolute obligation to our citizens that there is somewhere on earth whose care for them is absolute.