Saturday 11 to Wed 15, 10 am to 5 in the Great Hall.
My treasures: all in practically “as new” condition.
Peter Medawar, Pluto’s Republic (not a missprint). $3. Review. The editor of the Age Monthly Review would not let me write that the cover photo depicted Medwar demonstrating how he held the ball for his off-break.
John J Ray, Conservatism as Heresy (1974). $2. An absolute classic! Many years ahead of its time. You can read it all on line at John Ray’s website.
The chapter on the 1974 election is a surprise.
“On the other hand, the Whitlam government has done a great deal to promote the efficient functioning of the market economy… The reduction of tariffs, the reliance on monetary policy, the revaluation and semi-floating of the Australian dollar, the elimination of rural subsidies and the attempt to strengthen legislation aimed against collusive trade practices must have the approval of conservative economists everywhere. In all these respects the Whitlam government took measures that our supposedly conservative previous government could have taken but in fact failed to take.”
“In fact, the L-CP coalition in the 1974 election campaign advocated the reversal of most of these measures. It advocated restoration of the old tariffs, subsidies and exchange rates. It was even so monumentally irresponsible as to advocate a deficit budget in a time of high inflation. By contrast, Whitlam advocated a balanced budget. Although a surplus budget was probably what was really called for. The ALP did at least come closest to it.”
That indicates the mountain that the Liberal “dries” had to climb to get the party on track in economic policy, a struggle that ran through the whole of the 1980s while the ALP put in place some of the dry agenda.
Terence Kealey, The Economic Laws of Scientific Research. $4. Review.
Alvin W Gouldner, For Sociology, 1973. $2. Not really worth it, just to dip into and relive the rich nutty flavour of sociology in the seventies.
Australia: The Daedalus Symposium, 1985. $5. A bit pricey but someone in this lot must have something interesting to say, Geoffrey Blainey, Judith Wright, Manning Clark, K Inglis, Zelman Cowan, Hugh Collins, Donald Horne, Hugh Stretton, Gordon Jackson, T. B. Millar on defense, Bruce Williams on wealth, invention and education, Leonie Kramer, Jill Conway, Richard Walsh.
Judith Brett, Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People, $3.
