News Item

Jane Kelsey’s latest Law Foundation funded book The FIRE Economy will be launched on 14 July in Wellington. This will be followed by public talk events in Auckland and Christchurch. Here are the details:

Wellington: Tues 14 July, 5.30pm – National Library of NZ

Cnr Molesworth and Aitken Streets

Jane Kelsey in conversation with Carol Hirschfeld

Auckland: Wed 15 July, 6pm – Old Government House Lecture Theatre

City Campus of University of Auckland

Public Talk

Christchurch: Thurs 16 July, 6pm – Transitional Cathedral

Latimer Square

Public Talk

About the book – The FIRE Economy*

In 1995 Jane Kelsey set out a groundbreaking account of the neoliberal revolution in The New Zealand Experiment. Now she marshals an exceptional range of evidence to show how this transfer of wealth and power has been systematically embedded over three decades.

Today organisations and commentators once at the vanguard of neoliberal reform, including the IMF andFinancial Times journalist Martin Wolf, are warning the current model is unsustainable. A post-neoliberal era beckons. In The FIRE Economy Kelsey identifies the risks posed by FIRE and the barriers embedded neoliberalism presents to a progressive, post-neoliberal transformation – and urges us to act. This is a book New Zealand cannot afford to ignore.

More information about the book

Radio NZ National interview with Jane about her book – 19 July 2015

NZ Law Foundation has awarded $7,000 towards the publication of this book.

*The FIRE economy – built on finance, insurance and real estate – is now the world’s principal source of wealth creation. Its rise has transformed our political, economic and social landscapes, supported by a neoliberal regime that celebrates markets, profit and risk. From rising inequality and ballooning household debt to a global financial crisis and fiscal austerity, the neoliberal ‘orthodoxy’ has brought instability and empowered the few. Yet it remains remarkably resilient, even resurgent, in New Zealand and abroad.