Vere Gordon Childe Lecture. Hannah Forsyth - Virtue Capitalism: How the professional class shaped the global economy.

What Max Weber called the ‘Protestant Ethic’ was already an important value shaping work across the 19th century English speaking world, but the growing professional class took virtue even further, hoping to entangle social and economic profit. It did not always turn out as they expected, however, so that since the 1970s, major reforms disrupted the economy they built. Hannah Forsyth’s new history of how white-collar professions grew to prominence sheds new light on twentieth century economic organisation. It helps to explain several aspects of our present world, including conservative antagonism to experts, including Australia’s ‘teal’ independents. This Gordon Childe lecture follows in the footsteps of scholars like Childe, who have been interested in the material underpinnings of class and inequality.

Shortlisted for the 2024 NSW Premier's History Awards General History Prize. The Judges' comments - Hannah Forsyth’s fascinating study deploys a fresh analytical lens to chart the development of an important historical phenomenon across time. Focused on the broad historical development of the professional middle class and its social logic, Virtue Capitalists is theoretically sophisticated, empirically wide-ranging and strongly argued. It provides fresh and stimulating insights into the rise and fall of the professional expert as a figure of authority and power. In doing so, it greatly enriches our understanding of contemporary life.

Hannah Forsyth is a historian of work, education and capitalism based in the Blue Mountains. She was Associate Professor of History at the Australian Catholic University until late 2023 and is now working part-time for Jobs and Skills Australia, as well as pursuing freelance writing. Hannah is author of Virtue Capitalists (Cambridge 2023) and A History of the Modern Australian University (NewSouth 2014).

You can follow her writing at hannahforsyth