Industrialisation and South Australia

Abstract

SUMMARY Like Australia as a whole, South Australia experienced rapid industrialisation from the 1930s, but employment growth rates in the state were generally well above national levels. Conversely, restructuring of Australian manufacturing since the mid 1970s has had especially severe consequences in the state. This paper documents and seeks to explain the distinctive pattern of industrial change in South Australia. Drawing on the contemporary literature on geographically uneven development, it argues that the state's experience must be explored in the wider context of the dynamics of capitalist development. International, national and local forces have combined in a complex fashion to produce the specific pattern of manufacturing growth and restructuring evident in South Australia. Analysis focuses on the activities of capital, labour and the institutions of the state, key agents of economic change.