Category Archives: Ethics

Playacting government: Victoria’s COVID response

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Life in the West is increasingly reminding me of the old Soviet joke. “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”.   Herewith an email I received this morning. Nick I am going troppo about the Vic policy … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Ethics, Health, Innovation, Politics - national | 5 Comments

Orwell that ends well: Can evaluation save us from ourselves?

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

When I first saw the Productivity Commission’s Draft Indigenous Evaluation Strategy, my heart sank. I’d had had several quite extensive meetings with Romlie Mokak, the Indigenous Commissioner at the PC who struck me as a person of great intelligence, straightforwardness … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Economics and public policy, Ethics, History, Innovation, Political theory, Politics - national, Politics - Northern Territory, regulation | 12 Comments

Professor Foster’s cost-benefit analysis for the Victorian parliament.

Posted on August 20, 2020 by Paul Frijters

[below the exact text (with different font/highlight) as Gigi Foster’s submission to the Victorian parliamentary library in mid-August here. To see her health-related notes, including on topics like non-linearities and Sweden, see here, and to see all documents of that … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Democracy, Economics and public policy, Education, Employment, Ethics, Health, Medical, Politics - national, Science, Social Policy | 159 Comments

The competition delusion: the presentation

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Early this year I published an essay in the Griffith Review critiquing what I called the competition delusion. I was passing by more common critiques of competition, which for instance argue that competition isn’t necessarily a great idea in numerous … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, Economics and public policy, Education, Ethics, History, Philosophy, Political theory, Sortition and citizens’ juries | 8 Comments

The Evaluator General

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

I recently sent a couple of emails explaining the Evaluator General and also did an extended interview explaining the ideas in the context of Matt Jones’ Public Policy class at Melbourne Uni. The first email below is the one I … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Ethics, Isegoria | 13 Comments

Altruism comes from a model – the virtues from life

Posted on May 2, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Models, windows, reductionism and pluralism We’re familiar with the idea that thought creates ‘models’ of reality. So it’s easy to slip into thinking that our task is then to just make our models better and better, i.e. more accurate representations … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Ethics, Philosophy, Political theory | 22 Comments

Keeping a cool head – thinking about the covid-19 crisis: a guest post from Toby Phillips

Posted on March 21, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

This post is a direct response and rebuttal to the recent ‘Has the coronavirus panic cost us at least 10 million lives already?’ by Paul Fritjers. Paul’s post takes the current covid-19 crisis, and uses some haphazard multiplication to create … Continue reading →

Posted in Best From Elsewhere, Death and taxes, Democracy, Economics and public policy, Employment, Ethics, Politics - international, Politics - national | 5 Comments