Episode 71: The Public Interest Economy by Bronwyn Kelly (Chapter 5 - Parts 1 to 3)

Episode 71: Bronwyn Kelly reads Parts 1 to 3 of Chapter 5 of her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.Chapter 5 is about how to rearrange Australia’s welfare system to transform welfare from being the privilege of a few to the permanent entitlement of all. It is about shifting from a targeted welfare system to a system of universal income security. It is also about how this shift is essential to a flourishing and sustainable economy where no-one need live in poverty as millions of Australians do now.In these first parts of the chapter, Bronwyn describes the history of our attitudes to welfare in Australia and how that has caused a growth in poverty. She also begins setting out how welfare can be rearranged to play a much more productive role in the economy, stimulating sustainable growth. In Australia, we have not structured our welfare system so that it can function as well as we need it to for the purpose of sustaining our wellbeing. We have relied instead on markets, which have totally failed us. So in Part 3, Bronwyn begins to describe the structural changes we need in the Australian economy to overcome the degradation of wellbeing and the growth in inequality caused by market dysfunction and the inherent and incessant tendencies of markets to fail. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com