En Passant

While we are focused on the non-threat from the ‘other’, in this case asylum seekers, the bosses can put their hands deeper into our pockets. The immediate task for the left and for others concerned about Labor’s attacks on the most vulnerable must be to relate to the anger many decent Australians feel and help build the demonstrations scheduled over the next week and make them as militant as possible. As Martin Luther King has said “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” To that I would add unjust actions of government. That can only come about through mobilising people now in the fight and making the arguments for seriously challenging the injustice that is this rotten Labor government policy of deporting asylum seekers.

Me just published in the Canberra Law Review (as a fairly basic prelude of sorts to talking about Marx on rent) ‘Taxing economic rent is one key element in tax reform in Australia and sets possible directions for the future. This paper introduces readers to the ideas of Adam Smith and David Ricardo and others on rent to aid understanding of the debates about economic rent today.