Articles – Page 6 – John Humphreys

Improving Gillard’s carbon tax

_{Published in The Drum ABC Online on 25 March 2011 under the title “How Julia Gillard could improve the carbon tax”.}

The debate about the carbon tax is so passionate and divisive that a compromise is almost certainly out of the question.

That doesn’t mean we can’t consider the thought experiment. I am on the public record as being against Gillard’s carbon tax, but after Ross Garnaut came out recently talking about linking the carbon tax with other tax cuts I started thinking about what else could be done to make the carbon tax “less bad”. The following are the demands I would put to the government if they wanted me to consider supporting their new tax…

The creeping growth of government in the US

_{Published in Menzies House blog on 23 November 2010 under the title “Growth in Government“}

The twentieth century has been the century of the state. Not only did the world have to deal with two militant statist philosophies (fascism & socialism) but the “free” world also slowly drifted further and further towards a statist outcome. Our methods have been fairer and our behaviour more humane, but ultimately the western world seems to be tip-toeing towards a situation where the state has significant control over our lives. Jonah Goldberg has described this shift to benevolent big-government as “liberal fascism” which might be a bit harsh… but also might be a bit fair.

Strangely though, as the government grows, so do the calls on the left that we are becoming more “right wing” and/or too “free-market”. Somehow, this is taken seriously. The source of all this evil free-market right-wing ideology is the super-capitalist super-power — the USA. So I thought it might be worth having a look at the size of the American government over the last 80 years.

The rise & fall of community welfare societies

_{This article is a summary of a talk I gave at Consilium (July 2010), which itself was a partial summary of my presentation at the inaugural Festival of Dangerous Ideas (4 October 2009).}

In the long and complicated debate about welfare systems, there is one element that I think is of particular interest and yet is under-appreciated and unknown to many people: community welfare societies.

By “community welfare” I do not mean private charity, or help from friends, or even social business. All of those are important and positive elements of civil society, but when talking of “community welfare” I mean the coming together of people into mutual societies where everybody contributes and everybody benefits. In effect, I mean a collection of non-government societies that work very much like a mini welfare state.

The first thing that needs to be remembered is that the government did not invent the welfare system. In the early 20^th century it is true that there was no government welfare system. But there was a large and growing community welfare system that was relatively effective and efficient, and offered health care, sickness and disability benefits, an aged pension, a widow’s pension, and other forms of help. The government didn’t invent welfare, they nationalised it.

Critique of Rudd’s Mining Tax

_{Published in Menzies House blog on 31 May 2010 under the title “Mining Super-Tax“}

There has been a lot of ink spilt about Labor’s proposed mining super-tax. Much of the debate has been the typical name calling, emotional appeals to the vibe, or citing of authority… which means many people are none the wiser. I suggest there are four issues at play here, and it is necessary to consider them independently.

Rudd’s new resource tax

_{Published in Menzies House on 31 May 2010 under the title “Mining super-tax“.}