Government for the Public Good

Book Author Max Rashbrooke
Rights Available World Excl NZ

In a time of global political ferment, established ideas are coming under renewed scrutiny. Chief among them is one of the dominant notions of our era: that we should entrust markets with many of the tasks previously carried out by government.

In this wide-ranging book, Max Rashbrooke goes beyond anecdote and partisanship, delving deep into the latest research about the sweeping changes made to the public services that shape our collective lives. What he unearths is startling: it challenges established thinking on the effectiveness of market-based reforms and charts a new form of ‘deep’ democracy for the twenty-first century.

Refreshing and far-sighted, this stimulating book offers New Zealanders a new way of thinking about government and how it can navigate the turbulent world ahead.

About the Author
Max Rashbrooke is a journalist, author and academic based in Wellington. His books, led by the best-selling Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis (new edition 2018), have helped transform national understanding of income and wealth inequality. Max’s journalism has appeared in publications worldwide, including The Guardian, The Economist Group and the New Zealand Herald, and he has twice received the Bruce Jesson Senior Journalism Award. He is also a research associate of the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington and was a 2015 Winston Churchill Fellow and the 2020 J.D. Stout Fellow. His TED.com talk on renewing democracy has had over 1 million views.