As a lifeform we're tibal and essentially interdependent!? And it takes a little social adjusting to welcome strangers into that circle?

As always control freaks will use any perceived difference to grasp power or build empires, or swell bank balances etc. We've had our finest hours and examples as inclusive societies or good Samaritans that went to bat for the underdog or the common herd.

Every evil extant on the planet today has its start and acceptance in exclusive individualism that then sets up the other to be used or exploited and as par for the course, unfairly so?

Some of us sit still for slave wages and conditions we wouldn't accept for a dog? or set up exclusive enclaves that are in essence, no go ghettos?

Others go ballistic when an ape is shot to save a child being ripped around like a rag doll?

Or value trees above starving millions. And accept entrenched and generational poverty, when relieving it would makes us all inherently richer!

There was a time when business proprietors just focused on providing the best possible service and just let the profits take care of themselves!

Now it's the endlessly rising profit curve and profits before people. And a headlong rush to create a world bereft of even a drop of human kindness, as welcoming and inclusive as the dark side of the moon.

Yes, it is time to re envision society again and just to make it work for all of us instead of a clearly insane few, (warm and comfortable, self made individuals born in log cabins hewed from the wilderness by their own hands) whose only ambition is to become the richest corpses in the graveyard.

Extreme capitalism is just a destroyer as is communism. What we haven't tried and continue to resist is cooperative capitalism comrade.
Alan B.

Is this bloke just a ratbag greenie?

Is he a full communist?

Is there any difference between the two today?

Why is it that academia is the breeding place of those who want to take the fruits of one person's effort, & give it to those who have put in no effort?

When will we have a chairman Mao's style cultural revolution, & put these people to useful work?

God let it be soon.

Multiculturalism, incompatible immigrants, constant confrontation between political ideologies (climate change being just one of them); and the latest lurk, faith-based housing estates, are breaking down society. When people were the same or similar, there was a society, now there isn't. People with totally different values and beliefs were never meant to live together. Politicians ignored the warnings, as they always have and still do, and the result is now obvious. There is no society. We live as individuals and isolated tribes.

The elephant in the room is the left's obsession with identity politics. The left have created a weird conglomerate of groups - homosexuals, lesbians, transsexuals, Muslims, asylum seekers, ethnic minorities, feminists, druggies, Aborigines, academics - that all seem to be opposed to any kind of middle of the road policies. They're definitely against any policies that would include being proud of European/white history and culture.

Scott, you say “Politicians increasingly define themselves and their agenda in terms of what they stand against – anti immigration, anti marriage equality, anti climate change action, and so on”

Can you point to any recent statement by any senior politician or in the manifestos of either major party that is anti-immigration? Or anti-climate change action?

You say “specifically 'taxing and spending' government – was depicted by neoliberal politicians and economists as the problem to be resolved through 'reform'.”

This is in quotation marks. Can you please supply the source of the quotation?

You say “Parties compete with each other around how much 'reform' they can achieve, and promise greater commitments to cut taxes, reduce spending, eliminate 'red tape' and free up enterprising individuals to 'have a go' in the world of small business.”

Can you please explain therefore why government expenses are at near record highs as a percentage of GDP, while revenue is projected to climb sharply in the next four years?

http://www.budget.gov.au/2016-17/content/bp1/download/bp1.pdf

I agree we need mature discussion, but surely the starting point for such discussion is to engage with facts, and with the ideas people actually have, not some straw man concocted of half truths and ideological preconceptions.

"OUR society"?

There is no such thing!

There is YOUR society, Scott, which you want to shove down everyone else's throat.

Yes, society can be a good thing, provided that its members want to associate with each other voluntarily. This usually happens when they share common values.

As the author believes in coercion, I find no common values and I have no desire to associate with him.