IPA Review- September 2015

 For decades, left-wing historians have persistently maintained that the Great War was a series of mistakes and was ultimately meaningless. Author Mervyn F. Bendle’s latest book explores the origins of such thinking, writes Aline Le Guen   There has been much debate about the essence of Australian culture. And no part of Australian history has come under more attack from

When governments lavishly print money, citizens are helplessly left watching their savings erode. This is the cost of centralised government monopoly over currency. But cryptocurrencies, such as the burgeoning bitcoin, have set out to solve this problem. These new forms of ‘digital cash’ hope to revolutionise our financial system by returning the control of money to individuals. The cryptocurrency revolution

Victoria was once ‘the jewel in the crown’ of the Liberal Party. As well as providing six of the first seven Federal leaders of the party, the Victorian Liberal Party held power in its own right at state level for 27 years, from 1955 to 1982. Just as federally Robert Menzies’ successors are often treated as footnotes to the era

Why the Magna Carta? The question of what is special about the Magna Carta goes to the heart of any discussion about the enduring significance of what happened at Runnymede in June 1215. The Magna Carta was not unique in European history. In the Middle Ages it was quite common for monarchs to issue charters not very different from the

Australia’s mining industry could lift millions out of poverty, writes Brett Hogan. Coal is the world’s cheapest and most reliable source of electricity. It powered the Industrial Revolution and, together with other fossil fuels, has created an economic environment that over the last 200 years has enabled billions of people across the world to achieve a better quality of life.

Should we draw lines around free speech and the truth? asks Eli Bernstein The recent shooting at the ‘Draw Mohammad’ event in Texas, like the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris a few months back, raises important questions about where the limits of free speech should be drawn, or whether they should be drawn at all. It was George Orwell who

For forty years, libertarianism has been an important voice in public debate, explains Richard Allsop A lot happened in Australia in the summer of 1974- 75. Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Hobart’s Tasman Bridge collapsed, Lillee and Thommo terrorised English batsmen, homegrown pop star William Shakespeare went to number one with ‘My Little Angel’, and Australia’s first-ever avowedly libertarian political party

Political entrepreneurs are finding ways to break the strong relationship between regulators and the industries controlling them, writes Darcy Allen, and in doing so are paving the way to a freer market   The sharing economy is a suite of emerging software platforms acting as an intermediary between private buyers and private sellers, allowing them to share their existing resources—hence,

Australia’s National Curriculum is a political exercise, write Hannah Pandel and Stephanie Forrest In his book People Puzzle, sociologist Morris Massey outlined a values development spectrum in which a person’s core beliefs and values are developed during three distinct periods of their life. The first stage is between the age of zero and seven, and is known as the ‘Imprint