Against the Pursuit of Happiness
Against the Pursuit of Happiness A talk to the Sydney Writers’ Festival, 27th May 2006 Clive Hamilton1 Escalating desire Prader-Willi syndrome is a genetic disorder of children characterised by, among other things, an insatiable appetite, leading its sufferers to seek out food by almost any means. Because the mechanism in the brain that signals satiation […]
The Pressures of City Living
THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE The Pressures of City Living After-dinner speech to the Fenner Conference Old Parliament House, 25th May 2006 Clive Hamilton1 Tonight I would like to talk about some of the psychological costs of urban living. For it seems to me that the epidemic of mental disorders and widespread anomie that characterise modern affluent […]
The Intensification of Consumerism and Reactions Against It
THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE The Intensification of Consumerism and Reactions Against It A Public Lecture Demography and Sociology Program, ANU National Museum of Australia, 2 May 2006 Clive Hamilton In a previous era, there was a clear distinction between ordinary goods consumed by the masses and luxury goods consumed by the wealthy minority, the richest 5 […]
The Worldview Informing the Work of the ProductivityCommission: A Critique
A talk to a Productivity Commission Retreat Lindenderry, Victoria, 11 May 2006 Clive Hamilton Executive Director The Australia Institute Looking through the list of Commission publications over the last two to three years indicates that the Commission’s remit has broadened a great deal from the days of deregulation, privatization and trade liberalization. This broadening has […]
Money, Careers and Contentment
Address to the Commencement Dinner of Bruce Hall, ANU, 21 March 2003 Dr Clive Hamilton Executive Director, The Australia Institute I would like to start on a sombre note. You may have read in the last two days about a young American woman, Rachel Corrie, who left her university studies to go to the Middle […]
Marketing and Modern Consumerism
THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE Marketing and Modern Consumerism A speech to the Third National Consumer Congress Melbourne 16 March 2006 Clive Hamilton In a previous era, there was a clear distinction between ordinary goods consumed by the masses and luxury goods consumed by the wealthy minority, the richest 5 per cent or so of the population. […]
The Death of Social Democracy
A talk to the Fabian Society, Melbourne, 8th March 2006 on the occasion of the publication of What’s Left? The death of social democracy Quarterly Essay 21 (Black Inc. 2006) Clive Hamilton1 The Individualised World Not long ago, while walking through Sydney’s CBD at lunchtime, I overheard a snippet of conversation between two young women […]
The Dirty Politics of Climate Change
THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE The Dirty Politics of Climate Change Speech to the Climate Change and Business Conference Hilton Hotel, Adelaide, 20 February 2006 Clive Hamilton1 Behind the daily news reports there is a secret world of politics in Canberra, the world in which the real business is transacted. It’s a world of powerful lobbyists who […]
Growth Fetishism and the New Politics of Wellbeing
A Speech to Cogito, Parliament House, Stockholm 24th November 2005 Clive Hamilton1 I am very pleased to be addressing you today, especially in this august place. Let me thank Claudio Aguirre-Bianchi especially for inviting me to travel to Sweden to talk to you about the ideas I have set out in my book Growth Fetish,2 […]
Poverty in Australia
A talk to the Canberra Writers’ Festival, 8 October 2005 Clive Hamilton The poverty debate In May this year the St Vincent de Paul Society published a paper arguing that income inequality has been increasing in Australia. It was a well-researched paper drawing on ABS statistics showing that by most measures income inequality has worsened […]