Alex’s blog about strategy, campaigning, growth, politics and climate (among other things).
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Has global poverty reduced?
We are frequently told that global poverty is reducing and developing nations are catching up to the West. However, new research by Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan analysing economic data from 1960 to 2023 shows the mainstream narrative is utterly false. In fact, the world has not become more equal. The absolute income gap between… Read more
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What if the economy is political?
What if the economic pain you are feeling right now is not a mistake, but was designed to keep you indebted, exhausted and miserable? More: https://alexwhite.org/2026/07/what-if-the-economy-is-political/ Read more
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What is really behind the cost-of-living crisis?
Privatisation is one of the primary drivers of the cost-of-living crisis, impacting housing, water and electricity, roads, telecommunications, and even going to hospital. While the mainstream media and economists want you to think public services and wage increases for everyday workers is driving up inflation, it is really corporate greed from companies that own natural… Read more
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Is the Reserve Bank to blame for the cost-of-living crisis?
Earlier this week, I responded to an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review by John Kehoe about the Reserve Bank. In the piece Kehoe says that the RBA shares some of the blame for One Nation’s rise because they didn’t increase interests rates enough to get inflation down. John Kehoe is correct to say… Read more
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Fighting the cost-of-living crisis
Australians are facing a brutal cost-of-living crisis. Rent, groceries, insurance, and energy is skyrocketing, while real wages are stagnant or have gone backward. Yet, when we turn on the news, mainstream economists and politicians are still telling us we need to “tighten our belts” and cut public services like the NDIS. The Reserve Bank and… Read more
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What I’m reading (June 2026)
Stories and links that are of interest or relevance to leaders, strategists, campaigners and organisers. Inequality and the economy Global affairs Unions Workers’ rights Data, tech and privacy AI and the future of work Campaigning, communications and social media Society, media, news and culture Climate Change Read more
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Fifty years of the Wilderness Society
Tonight I went to an event to celebrate The Wilderness Society’s 50th birthday. I heard about how the Wilderness Society was founded from grief and defiance after the failed campaign to defend Lake Pedder in Tasmania. Environmentalists came together after they’d lost the fight to prevent the glacial lake from being flooded. Instead of walking… Read more
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Feeling disillusioned?
In March 2026, the ABC had a writeup of the McKinnon Foundation’s poll that found that most Australians are thoroughly disillusioned with politics. Apathy toward elected officials was high, with three in four people saying they thought politicians focused on short-term gains and re-election rather than long-term challenges, and felt MPs “mostly” served themselves or… Read more
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How economic inequality helps the far-right
If you want to understand why the far-right is surging, look at your payslip and the Reserve Bank of Australia. We are living through a deep systemic contradiction where the majority of Australia’s economy relies on consumer spending, while Australian businesses actively try to suppress wages and the RBA believes that to reduce inflation it… Read more
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Why won’t Australia ever tax mining, gas and fossil fuels?
Think Australia controls its own fossil fuel wealth? Think again. The gas extraction and mining industries that dominate our politics and digging up our continent act as local managers for the American-led global order, ensuring our natural resources serve US investors rather than domestic needs. You just need to see who actually owns the largest… Read more
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Winning working class voters (in the US)
How can the US Democrats win working class voters? Political scientist Nicholas Jacobs tackles this question in a detailed and thought-provoking article on The Conversation. Here’s a big clue: In 1958, working-class voters and Democrats were within 5 points of each other on whether government wastes a lot of tax money. By 2024 that gap… Read more
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The answer to the rise of the far-right and One Nation in Australia?
The rise of far-right parties like One Nation in Australia is the direct result of decades of soaring inequality and neoliberal capitalism. Unfortunately, the way progressives typically respond has failed time and time again. For decades, the working class and petit bourgeoise have been immiserated by neoliberal policies. Secure jobs have been replaced by precarious… Read more
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What I’m reading (May 2026)
Stories and links that are of interest or relevance to leaders, strategists, campaigners and organisers. Inequality and the economy Global affairs Unions Workers’ rights Data, tech and privacy AI and the future of work Campaigning, communications and social media Society, media, news and culture Climate Change Read more
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What if “building more” won’t solve the housing crisis?
Why is buying a home or renting in Australia so difficult? If you read the mainstream news and commentators, the answer to the housing crisis is that we need to build more houses and we need to remove regulations stopping developers from building more. The truth however is that over decades the banks, developers and… Read more
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Smugness, clicktivism and campaigning for hearts and minds
For the past twenty years of my professional life as a campaigner, progressive campaigning has suffered from a serious, self-inflicted delusion. The misguided, condescending Enlightenment belief that if we simply present voters with enough facts, logic, and policy data, they will rationally reject the far-right. This deluded, “rational” obsession has utterly failed to stem the… Read more
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Why does Australia give away its gas for free?
Everyday Australians currently pay more tax on their beer and student loans than multinational gas cartels pay on the gas they extract from our shores. Australia is the world’s quarry. Our historic role in geopolitics and the global economy is to dig up our finite natural wealth to provide cheap fossil fuels to power cheap… Read more
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Democracy beyond the market
Australian democracy is almost entirely trapped by the corporate power of foreign mining companies, supermarket duopoly, the big banks, US defence interests and global financial elites. Voting every three years does little to challenge the corporate power of this billionaire class. To genuinely break free, we need a radical democracy — more direct democracy by… Read more
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How finance hurts workers and strangles the economy
If you read the AFR, FT or Wall Street Journal, you would easily believe that a massive, highly profitable financial sector is essential to a nation’s economy and prosperity. We are told that the finance sector creates economic growth and enables innovation. But what if the opposite is true? What if having a massive banking… Read more
