Constructing Capitalism
An economic history of eastern Australia, 1788-1901
Published on 1. January 1989
216 pages
978-1-74269-659-1 (ISBN)
Description
In 1788, Australia was a gaol. In 1901 it was a liberal capitalist economy.How were the convict settlements, scattered on the edge of a vast unexplored continent, transformed within little more than a century into a 'free enterprise' economy?In tracing the forces engaged in that transformation, Constructing Capitalism places the creation of a new society within its economic and political context. It demonstrates the crucial role of land policy and the labour market in the early years. It describes the rise of merchant capital and the vicissitudes of finance capital. It analyses the central role of the State in economic development.By 1901 most of the legal, political and economic structures familiar to us today had been created. Constructing Capitalism reveals the foundations of contemporary Australia.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
NSW
Australia
File size
0,56 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-74269-659-1 (9781742696591)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Book
01/1989
Allen & Unwin
€50.89
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Content
- Intro
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Glossary
- 1 Key issues in colonial political economy, 1788-1901
- Colonial democracy
- The colonial state and British imperialism
- Economic expansion and the Empire
- 2 The origins of Australian capitalism, 1788-1830
- The imperial state in colonial New South Wales
- Crown patronage and land alienation
- The convict labour system and the beginnings of wage labour
- Production, accumulation and development
- 3 Making capitalist property relations: politics and land policy, 1830-1860
- Shaping a civil society and a colonial state
- The market in colonial land, 1830-1860
- Pastoralist reaction to imperial land policy, 1842-1846
- The 1846-1847 Regulations
- Land reforms: the assertion of a populist solution, 1855-1862
- Conclusion
- 4 The rise of merchant capital
- The commodification of labour: the production of labour power
- Systematic colonisation and assisted immigration, 1830-1846
- The development of a colonial labour market, 1847-1860
- The populist resistance to commodification in the 1850s
- Merchant capital and constraints on accumulation
- The economics of imperialism
- Conclusion
- 5 Landed property
- The limits of colonial political democracy
- Land reform and finance in landed property
- The land market and mortgages
- Finance in landed property, 1860-1890
- 6 The colonial state and economic development
- Victoria 1856-1890: sources of public income
- taxes, charges, land sales and borrowing
- State expenditure in Victoria, 1856-1890: social reproduction, public assets and interest payments
- New South Wales 1856-1890: sources of income
- taxes, charges, land sales and borrowing
- State expenditure in New South Wales, 1856-1890: social reproduction, public assets and public debt servicing
- The colonial state in capitalist relations of production
- Conclusion
- 7 Finance capital in the Australian colonies
- Mining and pastoral developments, 1850-1872
- Financing pastoral expansion, 1872-1890
- The financial institutions
- Anglo-colonial finance capital in pastoralism
- Conclusion
- 8 Classes in colonial Australia: a Marxist viewpoint
- Class in Marxist historiography
- Value and surplus value in the private economy
- Value and surplus value in the public sector
- Colonial landed property and capitalist ground rent
- Forms of capital accumulation and production relations
- International class relations
- The state, politics and class relations
- 9 Crisis and reconstruction in colonial political economy, 1890-1901
- A new form of state
- Diversification in colonial capitalism
- Restructuring the public and private economies
- A new class hegemony
- Notes
- Index
