No Paradise for Workers. Capitalism and the Common People in Australia 1788-1914

Abstract

Written for a popular audience, this is the first radical history of capitalism in Australia. It analyses the social and political relations of that economic system imposed on the original Australians by British imperialism 200 years ago. It traces its evolution from colonial prison to a neo-colony of international finance capital, caught in the vortex between the two contemporary empires of the Pacific, the USA and Japan. The first of two volumes deals with the formation of the system from its beginnings as a prison farm to the consolidation of pastoral capitalism, and the emergence of an organized working class and incipient manufacturing industry to 1914. Hence it covers such topics as the expropriation of the original Australians; the genesis of capitalism as a police state based on forced labour; the origins of the colonial ruling class of pastoralists and merchant capitalists; the rise of the bourgeoisie, the making of the working class; struggles between and within social classes; nationalism and federation by the men of property; populism, racism, monopolies, imperialism, and war. Economic historians; students of Australian history.