In the past few decades, the study of population has shifted to a much more compositional level – focused more on the age profile – or ageing – than on the Malthusian theory that, if we don’t stop procreating, we’ll run out of food. In ‘Economics’, Stretton unsurprisingly canvases the question of population as economists have for centuries.īut his framework is a traditional one – focusing on raw numbers and births. I have two Stretton books at home – ‘The political sciences’ written in 1969 and ‘Economics – A New Introduction’ written 30 years later. In a university whose research is doing so much to advance our understanding of ageing and care for the aged. But how much better that his life has inspired a university institute instead.
Today we’d call him a one-person think tank. The sort of public intellectual any age might welcome.
A theorist of the city and of how we live in it. Someone who could make connections between problems across geographical space and historical time. In this age, dominated by sometimes overly narrow technocratic thinking, he was neither narrow nor a technocrat, but a social democrat. Someone who traded history for economics and sociology so he could influence public policy. His service to the university and to the nation is well known. MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: As a proud South Australian involved in public life, it’s a great honour to be invited to deliver an oration named for the late Hugh Stretton.
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