Strip away the fog of economic ideas, and go back to basic social ideas. Australia, for example. We’re still…

Strip away the fog of economic ideas, and go back to basic social ideas. Australia, for example. We’re still a frontier culture in too many ways. That’s why we turned housing into a casino. WW1 and WW2 made modern Australia, short thread. /1 https://t.co/LYFmiGzS5Y

The worst part of European Australia wasn’t the invasion and colonising chutzpah of declaring the country ours. It came after, the settlement phase, now being increasingly documented through studies of the frontier wars. The wording is exact - *frontier* wars. /2

That period throughout the 19th century in particular when it was on for young and old, the great grab for land and riches. The get rich quick time seen in all frontier cultures, plundering the new land. The frontier war history interestingly shows the Brits lost control. /3

Right to the highest levels of British government, there was horror at the great murderous surges into the inland driven by settlers. Our own Wild West. The Brits quickly capitulated to this mob rush though, as they couldn’t manage it. /4

Culturally and socially through, much of the frontier culture still survives. You can see it right now in our housing culture. The decades-long orgy of profit-seeking, through new development and capital gains on traditional development. It’s a literal gold rush. /5

There was a long period in the 20th century though where this frontier culture was interrupted. Only one thing interrupts mass social behaviour. Catastrophe, in this case, two world wars. They made modern Australia, they interrupted the frontier. /6

Take the CSIRO as an example, a classic Australian institution focused on the public good. It had its origins in these wars, when government needed coordinated action on key fronts. Many of our ‘public service’ institutions emerged at this time. /7 https://t.co/dJtmhfDY6s

For the same reason. To coordinate and manage public life. Between the end of WW2 and about the late-1970s, mirroring the same process seen overseas in the UK and US, we had a largely public service-driven culture. The antithesis of frontier culture. A considered culture. /8

But from the late-1970s on, the same shift to destroy these institutions began, that I’ve Tweeted about a lot elsewhere. The ‘small government’, ‘free market’ era. Socially really just the return of the frontier culture. Like the 20th century never happened. /9

That’s why housing is the Wild West. Governments no longer plan or build housing. It’s a frontier, each to their own. Grab what you can. In the absence of another total catastrophe, that’s the default for most Western cultures. What we stupidly call ‘the economy’. /end