Labour Responses to Globalization: The Australian Experience by Bernard McKenna

Bernard McKenna

Asia Pacific Business Review, 2000, vol. 7, issue 1, 71-104

Abstract: This contribution deconstructs globalization using a critical discourse method. Taking Australia as its case study, the essay argues that globalization must be seen within the context of hypercapitalism and the unchallenged hegemony of neo-classical economics and neo-liberal politics. The Australian experience, it is argued, shows that trade unions should refuse to be incorporated into this hegemony presented as technocratic alchemy. In fact, deconstruction reveals that globalist claims rest upon highly contestable tautological claims. This essay briefly describes Australian political economy 1983-96 when the Labor government, in an ‘accord’ with the trade union movement, embraced free-market globalism; critically deconstructs the ideological features that underlie the technocratic claims made about the benefits of globalization; and argues for a resurgent unionism and traditional labourism that dialectically challenges the inequitable and destructive features of contemporary hypercapitalism.

Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13602380000000004 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:apbizr:v:7:y:2000:i:1:p:71-104

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FAPB20

DOI: 10.1080/13602380000000004

Access Statistics for this article

Asia Pacific Business Review is currently edited by Professor Chris Rowley and Malcolm Warner

More articles in Asia Pacific Business Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().