At their party conference yesterday, Labour announced a plan, labelled Ready to Work, to give long-term unemployed young people the chance of six months’ work on environmental and community projects. It’s a good idea, in essence. This kind of work offer helps keep people out of the despondency that unemployment can engender, and helps them…

The Saudi sheep scandal, as laid bare yesterday by the auditor general’s report, shows up two major flaws in New Zealand politics: a growing disregard of ethics, and the privileging of private over public interests. On ethics, much turns on the question of what is a bribe, and what isn’t. By definition, a bribe is…

Hi, and welcome to The Good Society. I’m Max Rashbrooke, and this is the new home for my writing and blogging. Some of it will be based around my long-standing interest in income and wealth inequality, and much of it will derive from my new research project, a book about the role of government in…