Neoliberalism has transformed work, welfare and democracy. However, its impacts, and its future, are more complex than we often imagine. Alongside growing inequality, social spending has been rising.
This seminar draws on Ben Spies-Butcher’s recent book Politics, Inequality and the Australian Welfare State After Liberalisation to ask how we understand this contradictory politics and what opportunities exist to create a more equal society. It argues an older welfare state politics, driven by the power of industrial labour, is giving way to political contests led by workers within the welfare state itself. Advancing more equal social policy, though, requires new forms of statecraft, or ways of doing policy, as well as new models of organising.
Speaker:
Ben Spies-Butcher teaches Economy and Society in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences. He is co-director of the Australian Basic Income Lab, and his current research focuses on the political economy of social policy and the welfare state, particularly how economic and political change shape social policy and housing finance.
