Can billionaires ever be good? Can capitalism ever be ‘woke’? Without a superyacht or spaceship, what options remain for those wishing to escape the end times?
In Stinking Rich: The Myth of the Good Billionaire, Carl Rhodes posits that billionaires represent a scourge of economic inequality, allowed to get away with moral turpitude due to persistent societal myths of heroism and generosity. Meanwhile, ten years have passed since journalist Antony Loewenstein travelled through Afghanistan, Pakistan, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, the United States, Britain, Greece and Australia to write Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe. Disaster was big business then, and little has been done to stem the tide of companies profiting from organised misery.
Just how bad have things become and, most importantly, what can we do about it? Antony and Carl are joined in conversation by Walter Marsh, the author of Young Rupert: the Making of the Murdoch Empire.
Carl Rhodes is Professor of Organisation Studies and Dean of Business at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is author of the bestselling Woke Capitalism: How Corporate Morality is Sabotaging Democracy. His fourteenth book, Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire was published in 2025. Carl's writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Times, Fast Company, Business Insider and The Conversation.
Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist, bestselling author, filmmaker and co-founder of Declassified Australia. His books include the global bestseller, The Palestine Laboratory, which is also a podcast series. His documentary films include: Pills, Powder and Smoke; Disaster Capitalism; My Israel Question; After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine; and the Al Jazeera English films West Africa’s Opioid Crisis and Under the Cover of Covid.
Walter Marsh is the author of Young Rupert: the making of the Murdoch empire and The Butterfly Thief: adventure, empire, and Australia's greatest museum heist. A former staff writer and editor at The Adelaide Review and Rip It Up, his writing has also appeared in The Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Crikey, The Age and Australian Book Review.
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This event is part of the Main Program and included as part of Platinum, Gold, Silver and Saturday Bronze Passes.
Subject to availability, a limited number of single tickets may become available 9 September.
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This venue is wheelchair accessible. Please visit our Accessibility page or email hello@bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au if you have any other accessibility requirements.