Labor's Conflict: Big Business, Workers and the Politics of Class

by Tom Bramble , Rick Kuhn

• ISBN13: 9780521138048
• ISBN10: 0521138043
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Once widely regarded as the workers greatest hope for a better world, the ALP today would rather project itself as a responsible manager of Australian capitalism. Labor's Conflict provides an insightful account of the transformations in the Party's policies, performance and structures since its formation. Seasoned political analysts, Tom Bramble and Rick Kuhn offer an incisive appraisal of the Party's successes and failures, betrayals and electoral triumphs in terms of its competing ties with bosses and workers. The early chapters outline diverse approaches to understanding the nature of the Party and then assess the ALP's evolution in response to major social upheavals and events, from the strikes of the 1890s, through two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the post-war boom. The records of the Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments are then dissected in detail. The compelling conclusion offers alternatives to the Australian Labor Party, for those interested in progressive change.

Author Biography

Tom Bramble is Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations in the School of Business at the University of Queensland. Rick Kuhn is Reader in Political Science in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
Labor's love's lost?	p. 6
In the beginning: Labor's first quarter century	p. 25
Between the wars	p. 43
Hot war, cold war, split	p. 55
Labor after 70 years	p. 69
The Whitlam era	p. 83
Economic rationalism under Hawke and Keating	p. 104
Labor in the wilderness	p. 126
The Rudd-Gillard government	p. 143
The Labor Party today: what's left	p. 168
Notes	p. 194
Index	p. 221
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