Neo-liberal Theory and Practice: Understanding Australia’s ‘Longest Decade’

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 on a debt-driven spending splurge as tax incentives fuelled the property bubble. The lifestyle boom began. Indeed, as Megalogenis argued in 2006, during the Howard years, with a little help from its citizens’ credit cards, ‘Australia got over its distaste of deregulation’.

A review of some of the literature on both contemporary neoliberalism and capitalism more broadly highlights the historical reliance of markets upon the state. The fact that the state remains highly visible in contemporary life (even if its role has been significantly narrowed to marketizing the commons) reminds us that politically it may be possible to ‘turn the Titanic’ and develop alternatives to neo-liberalism.