What Would Adam Smith Make of Modern Australia?
by Joseph Healy

What Would Adam Smith Make of Modern Australia? <br><i><small> by Joseph Healy </i> </small>A tour de force that blends heart and head to offer logical solutions which are achievable but will require a paradigm shift and inspired leadership. PROFESSOR PATRICK McGORRY AO enormously relevant to the challenges facing contemporary Australia. Healy draws on Smiths insights to offer sound suggestions for a stronger Australian economy and a better, fairer Australian society. SAUL ESLAKE You would think that Scottish 18th Century writer,

A tour de force that blends heart and head to offer logical solutions which are achievable but will require a paradigm shift and inspired leadership.
PROFESSOR PATRICK McGORRY AO

…enormously relevant to the challenges facing contemporary Australia. Healy draws on Smith’s insights to offer sound suggestions for a stronger Australian economy and a better, fairer Australian society.
SAUL ESLAKE

You would think that Scottish 18th-Century writer, intellectual, ‘Father of Economics’, Adam Smith would have lost relevance in our modern society. Quite the opposite, according to Joseph Healy, who believes there is much to learn from Adam Smith, if we are to strive for a more equitable, productive and happier society.

Australia today is prosperous by many traditional economic measures yet getting progressively poorer by other measures of what constitutes a vibrant, healthy and good society. And the direction of travel is concerning. Australia’s economic pie (GDP) might be growing, but too many people are getting smaller and smaller pieces of it, and a handful are getting far more than they can possibly eat.

This thought-provoking book explores how our economic progress seems inversely correlated to a decline in important measures of societal wellbeing, such as the alarming increase in family dysfunctionality, domestic violence, the scale and scope of mental health-associated problems and a persistently deteriorating trend in baseline education. In many ways, Australia is becoming a divided society, and this is a serious trajectory if not addressed and corrected.

With historical and recent references, Healy has written an important and engaging discourse for readers keen to understand where our society can improve and how we can assist.