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

An account of the transformations in the Party's policies, performances and structures since its formation.

Tom Bramble (Author), Rick Kuhn (Author)

9780521138048, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 3 November 2010

236 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.35 kg

'A controversial and combative critique of Labor that fills a gap in the existing literature on the ALP.' Carol Johnson, Professor of Politics, University of Adelaide

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.

Preface
Introduction
1. Labor's love lost
2. In the beginning
3. Between the wars
4. Hot war, cold war, split
5. Labor after seventy years
6. The Whitlam era
7. Economic rationalism under Hawke and Keating
8. Labor in the wilderness
9. The Rudd-Gillard Government
10. The Labor Party today: what's left
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP]