Randy is a professor at New York University and one of his popular books is called The Financialization of Daily Life. In the book Randy argues that we now live in the world as if it were a landscape of investments bidding for our choosing: Success comes to those with good selection skills and a capacity to handle risk; Failure, on the other hand, is the failure by an individual to manage risk. No one else can be blamed.

Randy’s talk opens up a lens on how much we have changed the way we run our lives in Australia.

In the decades after World War II Australia had a straight forward ethos: An individual’s duty was to work hard to guarantee a better future. At the same time, though, society accepted responsibility to ensure a basic standard of living and an equal chance of betterment for all.

So governments took on the tasks of providing universal access to the basics: a public health system, comprehensive local public schooling, affordable housing, a job with award conditions and a pension for the aged. In other words, a lot of the risk of daily living was eliminated by a national ethic of shared responsibility.

Reflecting on Randy’s talk and his book, it is amazing how much we have eroded the Australia ethic of shared responsibility and how much we have accepted managing risk as normal daily life.

It is normal, now, for each household make key education and health decisions: Will we go public or private? Which scheme or school? How much should we spend to ensure our children get the best chance in life?

Similarly, we now see housing expenditure as an investment decision. Successful households make wise decisions, buying, renovating and selling at the right times in the price cycle, moving on up through clever risk management strategies.

So, too, a job and a career are risks to be managed. Gone is the aspiration for a steady job for life. Success comes to those who work the job market, their CVs polished, always shifting jobs, cutting better contracts.

We’re all risk managers now, says Randy Martin, where winners are grinners – and losers can blame themselves. But what have we sacrificed?

*Phillip O'Neill is Professor and Director of the Urban

Research Centre for the University of Western Sydney. He regularly comments on matters affecting Sydney.