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''One of the great weaknesses of Australian political life is the miserable failure of marxist analysis to make a positive impact on most of our secular intellectuals. By intellectuals I mean that more or less coherent and continuous group of people who write for our quarterlies, churn out weekly columns in our newspapers, present Australian society to us in books and essays, and occasionally comment on the affairs of the nation and/or the ‘human condition’, for television or radio. Sometimes their books are set for schools (such as Donald Horne’s Lucky Country). They are not always household names but they are immensely influential since their function is to produce the ideas with which most Australians know their society and its place in the world. Naturally I’m using ‘know’ with my fingers crossed: the knowledge presented in these different media is ideological, with its characteristic presumptions of pluralism, consensus, affluence and its comfortable and indulgent fatalism about human nature.' (Introduction)
