The world of "Perilous Republic"

"Perilous Republic" my novel available in all ebook stores.

It is set in Melbourne Australia in the late 2020s.

Some time ago I was in hospital for a few days, and I had a copy of Piketty 'Capital in the 21st century'. It is comprehensive both across cultures and through time. The book has some simple but frightening conclusions. That inequality is the result of the naked exercise of power, that throughout history it has followed a pattern of increasing to the point where it is totally irrational. Then at some point it all breaks down, either through war or revolution.


My protagonists are proponents of "normal capitalism" or the perhaps unlikely "capitalism with a human face". How might they fix the housing problems? How might they fix very low wages and poor working conditions? You might think of simply seizing all the property and redistributing it, or something like that. But they don't want to do that. They want to somehow get from predatory capitalism back to ordinary capitalism.

After the fall of the old regime. Ruby, Jack and Noah go suddenly from fringe dwellers to absolute rulers. I wanted to explore that. One minute you're a nobody with a chip on your shoulder. Next thing you are running the place. Rooms full of people looking to you for guidance, hanging on your every word.

Some interview type questions.

1. Democracy dies. Do you see this as a good thing? Do you really think it will go?

I think democracy is wonderful. I would be very upset to see it go. On this topic I learned a lot from people who have lived outside democracies, who lived in communist Eastern Europe and in China. About how fragile democracy is, and how easily it topples. A lot of the book is concerned with the "social contract". That is the idea that we all sign up for the idea of give and take. Lately this is abused, on a grand scale. Excluding whole generations from buying housing, for example. You can't do things like this and expect democracy to survive. Democracy absolutely rests on the sense of giving up something so that the whole can survive. If a group that happens to have the numerical majority just milks the system without mercy, then it all falls apart.

2. Australia breaks into pieces. Why? 

It is a far flung country. There is much harmless banter between Melbourne and Sydney, but it also reflects some real differences. Especially in history. Not in relationship to the indigenous population, but especially in the prevalence of convicts and convict settlement. It's not a simple divide, but there are very real tensions. It is not hard to imagine the two cities taking opposite sides. I find it hard to imagine an active conflict, but here it is more in the nature of a standoff.

3. Your rebels align themselves internationally, accept the backing and the military support. Why? 

The lessons of the Arab spring, and further back Tienanmen Square. All conflict is global now. Without an international sponsor you are dead. I'm not sure I approve entirely of their choices, but in the situation it is a natural choice to make.

4. Do you really think it is possible to simply reform extreme capitalism?

Unfortunately history tells you that it is extremely unlikely. That most commonly there is a descent into complete barbarism before you see any improvement. To my way of thinking the libertarian fundamentalists that you see supporting Trump and Brexit are every bit as dangerous as the fundamentalists of the 20th century. If you look at what they do in social policy it is profoundly and deeply damaging. But I wanted to not give in to pessimism. It's too easy to do that.

5. What do you make of dystopian fiction? 

I like William Gibson, and Cory Doctorow. My favourite though is "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro - he doesn't use the usual tricks of destruction and wastelands and makes some really profound points about the value of life and art.

I didn't want to write another dystopia mainly because there are so many of them already. There are so few utopian books. We need hope. Some of the problems we face such as extreme inequality are I think quite solvable.