Ross Gittins is a great writer who I relied on extensively in high school to explain complex economics. His latest article in the SMH is on a fascinating book by Gregory Clark, a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis. The book, A Farewell To Alms: A Brief Economic History Of The World challenges the entire basis of neo-con theory — the one that argues that because England in the 1800s had free markets and experienced economic growth and innovation, those are the conditions for growth and innovation and therefore all developing nations must have free markets.
His thesis is that it was generations of rich people having more children than poor people leading to a trickle-down effect of education and attitude instead. It’s a pretty controversial thesis, especially since it heads towards notions of genetic bases for technological dominance but it’s certainly an interesting read.
I’d be really interested to have a discussion about this… so if you’re interested in this sort of thing, please go read and tell me what you think.