The Australian

Markets have shown remarkable resilience and keep bouncing back. Despite their flaws, they have consistently turned out to be the best way to co-ordinate economic activity. They aren’t perfect, but what is? It was Belinda Carlisle who promised that Heaven is a Place on Earth, not free-market economists.

THE great sociologist Max Weber once defined the art of politics as “a strong and slow boring of hard boards” that required “both passion and perspective”. What, one wonders, would Weber have made of Kevin Rudd, who early this month ventured into the sphere of political philosophy with a renewed attack on liberal thinker Friedrich Hayek? While it is hard to deny the passion behind the Prime Minister’s views, the perspective of his critique of the Nobel prize-winning economist is far from clear.