‘The Australian people are again looking to Labor for the next generation of public policy ideas and reforms. This is why Mark Latham’s book is so valuable. It is a fresh and thoughtful assessment of the means by which Labor might renew its program for social democracy.’ - Gough Whitlam

Global capital treats us all with ruthless efficiency. We are either consumers, factors of production, or a deadweight loss. Our human aspirations - individual and social - are feeling the pressure of globalisation.

Globalisation has left parties and politicians struggling for solutions. The political Right has not been able to show, once the active role of government is withdrawn, how individual liberty alone can answer the insecurity and remorseless inequity of an open economy. The choice between market freedom, with its army of working poor, and the failings and unsustainable costs of the welfare state, is barely a choice at all. It simply points to the need for a third way.

Internationally, parties of the Left are responding by reasserting the public values and policies of a good and compassionate society. The choices made by the ALP and other social democratic causes will determine, perhaps permanently, whether these goals remain feasible.

In this book, Mark Latham declares as irrelevant the old politics of the Left/Right divide. He embraces a different set of values and policies - social responsibility, equality of opportunity and merited reward, public mutuality and the wholesale devolution of governance. Fresh solutions to the problems of unemployment, economic sovereignty, tax and welfare are available to us. Latham shows why they are needed, and how they might work.

Civilising Global Capitalism offers a rich and cohesive store of ideas to reconcile the global economy with the values of a decent society. To read it is to take part in the regeneration of Australia s social democracy.