Shamubeel Eaqub was a fan of the 1980s but wants to move on.

OPINION: Every so often pop culture shifts. History suggests politics does the same.

The time has arrived for our political thinking to evolve from the 1980's neoliberalism.

Keep the good stuff that has unlocked entrepreneurship - like those annoyingly catchy 80's songs - but leave behind the stuff that has increased and entrenched inequality - with the bad hair and stone-washed jeans.

Personally I believe the reforms of the 1980s were necessary. But I also believe there were mistakes.

The liberalisation of the economy has clearly had benefits.

One example has been in our economic resilience during the latest recession.

It was the deepest downturn and the shallowest recovery since the Great Depression, but we did not experience the same kind of wrenching economic and social dislocation.

The same liberalisation also introduced a big increase in inequality. Rapid liberalisation meant significant job losses from previously protected industries, often well paid relative to qualifications.

A big increase in income inequality in the mid-80s has remained stubbornly entrenched. The rising tide hasn't lifted all and we can safely put to bed the 'trickle down' theory.

Increasingly those at the bottom are finding things harder, with ongoing offshoring of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs, and incomes barely keeping up with, or falling behind the cost of living.

Or those dependent on welfare face hardened attitudes from the rest.

Neoliberalism places competition at its core. It asks us to treat life like an enterprise. Those who are not entrepreneurial are easy to exclude as lazy and undeserving. Programmes that supported them, like state houses, are neutered.

Such attitudes are now common-place and perpetuated by a view that a small government is inherently better, that fiscal austerity trumps expansion, and that increasing equality in society would inevitably be a trade off against efficient small government and an increased burden on the rest.

This kind of thinking has shaped the approach to education, health, and welfare.

As an example, the state housing stock hasn't increased since 1991. Relative to the population, we have the fewest state houses since 1949. Increasing homelessness and desperate housing circumstances for the poor and vulnerable is not an accident.

But such thinking is being challenged by evolving economic thinking that is seeping out of turgid academia, infecting even the bastions of neoliberal thought and practice, like the IMF.

The IMF's research team suggests that neoliberalism hasn't delivered on its promise.

They also found that fiscal austerity following GFC – like some kind of bizarre self-flagellation – hasn't worked, as economic theory would suggest.

Other work shows that reducing inequality and increasing economic growth is entirely possible for countries like New Zealand, where inequality is high and productivity is low.

There is sufficient evidence in our daily experience and in academia to warrant an upgrade in our economic thinking. The adoption of the neoliberal reforms was a necessary part of our political and economic evolution.

That was in the 80s.

It is time for pragmatism. We have many eminently solvable problems facing our society, like a shortage of state houses.

We need to add a little bit of empathy, love and civic duty, to competition in our politics. We will be a better and fairer economy and society for it.