Most of what I have written since 2004 was meant for the week in which it appeared. These ten pieces have outlasted theirs. They are listed from newest to oldest. Under each, you will find two or three more that you might want to read if you like it.
Bildung and the Machine
Quadrant, June 2026. What is education for when a machine can write the essay? My answer rests on one German word.
More like this: Humboldt’s gift (Newsroom, 2024), Don’t know much about history? (The New Zealand Herald, 2021) and AI, the Mirror and the Tower (Quadrant, 2025)
I’m a liberal now but I still mourn the slow death of the Social Democrats in Germany
Newsroom, April 2026. A childhood calendar with three letters in red pen, and my sadness at the decline of a party I left long ago.
More like this: When the Party Was Home (Quadrant, 2026), The Long Estrangement (Quadrant, 2025) and Angela Merkel governed Germany for 16 years, but never led (The Australian Financial Review, 2021)
The Temptations of Unfreedom Revisited
Quadrant, February 2026. Ralf Dahrendorf answered a letter from a stranger and opened the door to Westminster for me. This essay is about the standard he set for anyone who thinks in public.
More like this: Audiences without a Public (Quadrant, 2026), Leonardo’s Legacy (PortfolioConstruction Forum, 2025) and Neue Versuchungen der Unfreiheit (Weiterdenken, 2026, in German)
A birthday toast to a long-dead philosopher
Insights, April 2024. Four hundred words for Immanuel Kant’s 300th birthday, on why reason still matters and why even the greatest thinkers have blind spots.
More like this: The problem with free speech (Insights, 2020) and The Warmth of the Herd (Quadrant, 2025)
An open letter to Mike Hosking on housing
The New Zealand Herald, November 2020. Rising house prices do not make a country richer. I tried to explain why in a letter to a broadcaster, with some help from Adam Smith.
More like this: Unaffordable Housing: Fables and Myths (Policy Exchange, 2005), Ditching the socialist housing dream (Quadrant, 2025) and Jacinda Ardern did one thing right – and Australia could learn from it (The Australian, 2024)
From localism towards localism: A personal journey of policy discovery
Policy Quarterly, May 2019. How growing up in the Ruhr led me to argue for stronger local government in New Zealand. It is the most personal of my policy essays.
More like this: The power of ideas (National Business Review, 2017), German solution for New Zealand’s local government woes (Insights, 2024) and Localism: The common thread in New Zealand’s emerging coalition (The New Zealand Herald, 2023)
Abolish the Nobel Prize for economics
National Business Review, October 2013. The case against a prize that Alfred Nobel never endowed, and a reminder of how little economists can prove.
More like this: A new modesty for economists (Policy, 2010), ‘H’ is for history of economic thought (Insights, 2014) and Stop predicting the future (and go back to work) (National Business Review, 2018)
A euro power play that backfired
Business Spectator, August 2011. The euro was meant to bind Germany into Europe. It made Germany the continent’s reluctant master instead.
More like this: Why Germany should leave the eurozone (Business Spectator, 2015), Germany’s understandable inflation paranoia (Business Spectator, 2012) and Why Europe Failed (Connor Court, 2015)
People with flat-screen TVs should stop whingeing about capitalism
Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House, October 2009. A defence of the market economy, given a year after Lehman Brothers collapsed, when it had few friends.
More like this: Capitalism: bruised but still champion (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2008), The purpose of business is profit (National Business Review, 2019) and A question of war and peace (The New Zealand Herald, 2020)
Neoliberalismus als Heimatkunde
Die Welt, June 2007, in German. Written while I lived in London. It reminds Germans that liberalism is one of their own traditions and not an import.
More like this: Neoliberalism: The Genesis of a Political Swearword (The Centre for Independent Studies, 2009), The liberal provocation (National Business Review, 2018) and Clueless road to serfdom (The Australian, 2008)
For everything else, browse the archive or start from my points of view.