Progressive economic thought in interwar Australia

Australian Progressive economic thought was made more durable after the economic depression and industrial turbulence of the 1890s with the addition of economic agencies that fortified the building of a decent and fair society. Two of those institutional features unique to Australia were a conciliation and arbitration system, and the setting of minimum wages that were designed to afford a breadwinner and his family a decent standard of living. The local economics profession accepted these conventions and supporting artifacts. Moreover they banded together in 1931 to save that structure when Australia faced the greatest economic threat to its survival as a nation. So attractive was Australian Progressive thought and practice that it attracted some of the world’s leading economists to comment upon the Australian plan for the Depression. One such personage, Colin Clark, given a chance to put practice into policy as a guest, took up Australian residency.