In Tempore Advisory is a boutique consulting business that specialises in strategy work, with a particular focus on the complexities of modern economics and the unique challenges of liberal democracy.

Our culture seems at a crossroads.

Elected representatives are told, in increasingly unsympathetic terms, to “do better”.  But do better at what exactly?  As the great political (anti) theorist Michael Oakeshott observed: “In political activity … men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination.  The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel.”

All the sound and fury, the mighty institutions toiling away at vast moral, social and economic issues, and yet still no knock-down, rational consensus on the purpose of human society, no sensible explanation for why the democratic state (or a business, large or small) deserves our respect or loyalty.  Despite stupendous material achievements, the citizens of late-capitalist Western nations remain put upon, stressed out, jaded, more disillusioned and restless than ever at being simultaneously encouraged and crushed by the apparent urgency and futility of existence. Polarized political partisanship, massive national debt and the dead hand of bureaucracy.  Personal unprocessed rage and the tyranny of work and daily routine.  Regardless of the organized effort, those at the helm seem incapable of affecting meaningful change, of articulating a larger story to justify the journey or accounting for “what comes next”.

Yet one suspects merely keeping afloat on an even keel is no longer a viable option.  Something has got to give.  And soon.

This site reflects some of my thinking on the extent and nature of this struggle. Philosophy.  Religion.  Economics.  Politics.  Published articles.  There is also some stuff on the book I am working on. Should you wish to contact in tempore, please send me an email: “mark” at “intempore” dot “com” dot “au”