Tristan's careful article is unlikely to get terribly many responses because it lacks rhetorical arrogance and doesn't make bold conjectures.

Most people will find the cautious, pragmatic, "a little from column 'A', a little from colum 'B'" approach quite agreeable.

If I may elaborate some further general principles which are not in contradiction with the intent or content of the original article:

a) Public income is best derived from natural resource rents (e.g., land tax, mineral royalties, spectrum fees etc) and taxes on labour and capital should be reduced to a minimum. Such an approach is beneficial for the environment as it discourages waste, takes off the onerous fetters on production and is just insofar that a person owns the result of their labour and investment and prevents rent-seeking monopolies.

2) The degree of efficious public ownership or regulation is dependent on a function of the relative necessity of the good or service (and as such the elasticity of demand) and the potential to develop positive (or negative) externalities. The more than a good is a genuine commodity with discrete benefits the less the government should be involved.

I support the "a little from column A, a little from column B" approach. It is indeed a case for just about all of the parameters that matter, that they be a balance of competing interests rather than polarised positions.

“Too much planning renders a city ‘sterile’, uniform and predictable.”

The wrong sort of planning can render a city (and a society) somewhat sterile and bland. But I don’t think we can have too much of the right sort of planning. The right planning regime could help ensure a high level of dynamism and ‘fertility’.

“Under capitalism, also, consumption and growth become ends in themselves.”

Too right! And this is where we most urgently need to counter the notion that without a considerable rate of growth, we’ll fall into stagnancy or recession. The truth is that if we keep expanding, we’ll eat ourselves out of house and home, so to speak.

It befuddles me entirely as to how anyone can talk of balance with respect to society or environment without prominently mentioning this point – our most glaring point of imbalance.

As we head into harder times, with ever-rising fuel prices and the consequent ever-rising prices of everything else, it is going to be of the utmost importance that the balance between market forces and government regulation move towards the latter.

Strong governance, that helps protect the vulnerable and distribute wealth a little more evenly, is going to be vital.

This will necessitate a strong rule of law, which will need effective enforcement. There are many laws now that are not effectively policed, allowing some to get away with brazen offences while others cop it sweet for lesser things. So, a considerable boost in police and other regulatory personnel will be needed.

As unpalatable as it may seem to some, I think that a more socialistic and at the surface, a more restrictive regime, is going to be highly advisable as the personal stresses exerted by changing grass-roots economics start to cause aggressive, unscrupulous or desperate people to exploit the battling average citizen.

If we want a "Good Society" we really have to stop knocking Gods Word and trying to squish it under foot.
It wont go under foot by the way.
God's behind it.
The Holy Bible is the only book that fully teaches loving God... and our neighbour as ourself (Mark 12:28-31).
Anything other preaching, or thesis, is towards the flesh (men doing it mens ways...i.e. leading to failure) and will end up in sexual immorality and social chaos.
All of the nations that have knocked The Word, and the missionaries who brought it, are third world nations with too many problems to mention.

There is plenty to think about here. IMO, the essential overall theme when talking about a mixed society is the yin-yang balance. Or every action causes a reaction. If we are to achieve the optimistic outcome that Tristan poses, then money is going to have to be made available for it. As money is a limited resource, that means taking it away from something else. If we are to police the law fully and properly, this is going to cost as well. The government has only so much money to allocate to all the activities it has to maintain.

One of the important elements in the solution is that we have to find ways of making things like houses etc cheaper to construct en masse. Another is that we need to be more original and make products that have value and that other countries are prepared to pay for. A further one is that we have to start making sure that our expenditures actually solve problems rather than create them. This is where the real hard work is as it often means attacking the status quo.

I think the first step towards establishing a "Good Society" is to take power out of the hands of the corrupt ruling political class whose only agenda appears to be to steal as much wealth as possible from the rest of us in order to line the pockets of merchant bankers, corporations, land speculators and property developers.

The latest and probably most blatant of many examples is the defiance, by the NSW government backed by the corporate newsmedia, the NSW Business Chamber, of the NSW Labor party, the unions and public opinion in order to sell off NSW's publicly owned electricity assets. I have put some of my thoughts in a short article "Iemma defies Labor conference, unions and public in push to privatise NSW electricity" at http://candobetter.org/node/470

If we don't stop this trend of handing all of our collective wealth across to our greedy selfish elite, then we stand no chance in an overpopoulaite world with diminishing resources, particularly energy of achieving a decent society.

Unless the likes of NSW Premier Iemma and NSW Treasurer Costa are stopped, we stand not chance whatsoever of establishing a decent society.

The writer cautiously supports the market economy, albeit with some concessions to appropriate intervention.

Not surprisingly, because in these days it is nearly impossible to argue against the sacred cow that has become 'The Market'. It is like arguing against a deeply rooted theology. The Market IS the Holy Bible of today. Both sides of politics revere the market.

Whether we like it or not, progressive privatisation of government assets and services has rendered 'the market' the dominant thing that governs the society we live in. It has become like a chronic life-long disease we just have to live with, so our language accommodates the disease.

Yet I remain defiant. The Market theology is poison to our future. That's not to ignore the reality of the market place, but when I see those on the left of politics arguing for a nicely moderated market, I see the free marketeers rubbing their hands. Their relentless pursuit of an unfettered market is almost complete. (They can deal with the unfettered bit, so long as the theology is accepted.)

First of all we saw basic government services converted into business enterprises. Then we saw those enterprises sold (privatised). Then we saw public funds used to prop up privatised enterprises that couldn't make it on the market.

Then we found that environmental and social considerations are not dealt kindly by the free market.

Too late! By then we had seen all the arguments that 'the market' could not work effectively or efficiently if hampered by government intervention. And we even saw a range of laws that forbade market intervention (purportedly in the interests of fair competition).

And after all of that..... now we are reduced to talking up the market economy, or at least locking it in our language as the mainstay of economic, social, environmental and spiritual health - with a few nips and tucks of course.