Making Socialism in Your Own Country

Geoffrey Harcourt

Chapter 15 in Selected Essays on Economic Policy, 2001, pp 211-231 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract I am delighted to accept the invitation to give the John Curtin Memorial Lecture. When I was a youth in Melbourne I grew up in the heart of Barry Humphries’ Land, 24 Faircroft Avenue, Glen Iris, SE6 (as it then was) and my parents, who were loving and kind people, nevertheless were very right-wing, and so people like John Curtin and Ben Chifley, and particularly Dr Evatt, were used as bogeymen to send me to sleep. When I first went to the University of Melbourne I still reflected the views of my parents — but only for the first six months. For during those first six months I found out that not all the world was like 24 Faircroft Avenue. This converted me to socialism. This was in the early 1950s (in fact, it was 1950). In those days we used to worry about two things, well at least two things (it is customary in economics these days to use inequalities): what political stance we should take and whether God existed. Having made up my mind on political matters in those first six months principally as a result of the Economic Geography lectures of Molly Bain and Bob Wilson, I settled down for the next three and a half years to decide whether God existed.

Keywords: Monetary Policy; Nuclear Weapon; Capitalist Economy; Full Employment; Labor Party (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-51056-2_15

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230510562_15

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