Monthly Archives: 2022-06

6 published posts from 2022-06.

An Alt-left?

https://youtu.be/gYKPWkvTRIg I What is it with James Burnham? I associate him — via Curtis Yarvin — with the alt-right. And Burnham is the founding text of what I call the Alt-centre (of which I am the founder and which I'm hoping to parlay into world domination if only I can...

Continue reading

Posted in History, Political theory, Democracy, Sortition and citizens’ juries

Universal basic income: notes of an agnostic

[caption id="attachment_36299" align="aligncenter" width="1912"] I got this list from Google Images. It's a good checklist though some may quibble with some of it.[/caption] Michael Haines, who has previously posted on Troppo , is campaigning for universal income funded from t...

Continue reading

Posted in Economics and public policy, Democracy

Gruen: detox democracy through representation by random selection

I use Troppo to make various notes for file as it were for reference in future. And on wanting to record something I found that I hadn't reproduced this post — which was originally at The Mandarin — here. So here it is, with some notes to file below. Part one. Part two is here...

Continue reading

Posted in Politics - national, Politics - international, Political theory, Cultural Critique, Democracy, Sortition and citizens’ juries

Some thoughts on fixing the Australian health system

This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in Crikey on 3 June 2022. As I see it, the four most pressing challenges for the new Minister for health and ageing concern: 1. promoting health (not just treating disease); 2. addressing the disconnect between care s...

Continue reading

Posted in Politics - national, Health

The case for greater use of secret ballots in parliament

If we want politicians to actually represent their constituents, we need to free them from the pressure of toeing the party line. A week or so ago someone tweeted this to me. It was a response to my Crikey! article of February last year. I had forgotten I'd written such a conc...

Continue reading

Posted in Cultural Critique, Democracy, Sortition and citizens’ juries

The case for more secret ballots within our legislatures

This is a piece I did for Crikey I'd forgotten I'd written and hadn't put it up here. So now I have. The article was spotted by someone who has been exposing just how much damage opening up Congressional committee deliberations to the public has done. It's a very interesting t...

Continue reading

Posted in Cultural Critique, Democracy, Sortition and citizens’ juries