My guest today is Dr Gordon Menzies. Gordon is an Associate Professor in Economics at the UTS Business School in Sydney.

He has had an illustrious academic career. Amongst other things he received his PhD from Oxford University and is a former economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia.

In 2021 he published a book “Western Fundamentalism – Democracy, Sex and the Liberation of Man”.

We discuss:

• Whether “liberalism” should be compared to a fundamentalist ideology
• How he now feels about the economic liberalisation of the 1980s in Australia in which he was deeply involved at a policy making level
• How economic liberal thinking has influenced modern relationship and has changed their nature
• What is wrong with the view that ever-increasing social, economic and sexual freedom will lead to greater happiness
• The problem of viewing traditional social institutions and customary restraints as simply individual choice within an overall liberal framework
• Whether there is cure for liberal fundamentalism

And much more.