In modern Australia, productivity is all that matters, or so our leaders tell us. However the way we have pursued economic growth in the last 30 years has prevented many people from sharing the rewards. We now create wealth via exclusion.

Writer Denis Glover argues that an economy is not a society. We desperately need to confront the working conditions, jobs and lives we want for ourselves and our families – and to choose a future that is designed to benefit all Australians, not just some.

Dennis Glover is an Australian writer and novelist. The son of factory workers, Dennis grew up in the working class Melbourne suburb of Doveton before studying at Monash University and King's College Cambridge where he was awarded a PhD in history. He has worked for two decades as an academic, newspaper columnist, policy adviser and speechwriter to Australia's most senior political, business and community leaders.