Simultaneously deepening corporatism and advancing neoliberalism: Australia under the Accord

Humphrys, Elizabeth

doi:10.1177/1440783318760680

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Cahill and Humphrys (2019: 962) take it for granted that the during the Hawke and Keating governments ‘the state and economy underwent a process of radical neoliberalisation’. Humphrys (2018) argues that the Accord as a social contract enwrapped the labour movement into a new hegemonic neoliberal project, countering the view that the compact stood apart from the neoliberal project. Corporatist and neoliberal goals to lower wages and curb union militancy were, Humphrys (2018: 54) argues, ‘the central motivation and key achievement of the Accord’.…”

Section: The Button Plan and Consolidationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The decline and fall of the Australian automotive industry

Conley

2022

Econ. labour relat. rev.

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This article assesses the historical political economy of the Australian automotive industry alongside the paradigmatic policy shift in economic policy away from protection towards neoliberalism and globalisation. It focuses on the politics of policy change and government assistance, providing a detailed historical narrative of the development and decline of the Australian automotive industry. From the mid-1980s to the mid-2010s, policy-makers oversaw the decline and fall of the Australian automotive industry. The process of decline occurred within a long-term cycle of new assistance, declining protection, new investment, inadequate restructuring, weak profitability, declining market share, and new assistance. Each cycle, however, was unable to stave off renewed crisis and eventual demise. Over the same period, Australian policy-makers transformed the economy from one of the most protectionist in the developed world to one of the most open. The article outlines the impact of neoliberalism on the automotive industry and analyses what the decline of the industry tells us about how the neoliberal policy structure operates in the ‘actually existing’ political economy. It argues that while the burgeoning neoliberal policy structure in the 1980s and 1990s acted to restrict the range of policy choices available for restructuring the industry, the domestic politics of industry assistance acted to restrict the neoliberal colonisation of the policy agenda. Neoliberal governance has had to contend with political imperatives for continuing assistance, while, at the same time, those political imperatives have been increasingly shaped by neoliberalism.

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Section: The Button Plan and Consolidationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The decline and fall of the Australian automotive industry

Conley

2022

Econ. labour relat. rev.

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“…Key examples include the education system, religious institutions and the mass media. Gramsci here developed a concept of the state as ‘integral’, in which its institutions attempted to engender influence through a process of envelopment or enwrapping ( involucro ) civil society (Humphrys, 2018). This means that the state does not simply sit ‘above’ civil society as a source of regulation and coercion, interspersed with periodic acts of electoral legitimation, but aims to win the ‘active consent of those over whom it rules’ (Gramsci, 1971: 244).…”

Section: A Fiscal State Of Exception? Revisiting Criticism Of Detroit’s Bankruptcymentioning

confidence: 99%

Detroit five years after bankruptcy: From coercion to consent

2020

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Critical scholarship has characterised the 2013–2014 bankruptcy of Detroit – the largest municipal bankruptcy in history – as a fiscal ‘state of exception’ which undermined the democratic foundations of urban citizenship. From this perspective, the imposition of emergency management and declaration of bankruptcy were acts of raw coercion. Drawing upon Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and empirical evidence, including interviews with civic leaders shortly after the bankruptcy, a survey of public attitudes towards the bankruptcy and public records from the bankruptcy court, this article charts a different interpretation of evolving public opinion in the five years post bankruptcy. We present evidence of a popular narrative among Detroiters which retroactively depicts the bankruptcy as a necessary evil, akin to a market clearing signal at the bottom of a business cycle. Far from bankruptcy being viewed as purely coercive, we suggest that this narrative has operated as an important mechanism of civic and political consent.

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“…As a consequence of the Australian Labor Government's Accord with Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) between 1983 and 1997, Australia retained a centralised wage fixing system, but floated the Australian dollar and gradually dismantled the tariff protection system in favour of 'free trade', among other policy shifts. 32 As a result, Australian manufacturing firms -many of which were typically small to medium size businesses -were thrust into global competition. Their overseas competitors often had access to looser regulatory structures, lower wage requirements, larger markets, geographical advantages, and cheaper supplies.…”

Section: Background: Engineering Patternmakers In Australia 27mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hidden Between Craft and Industry: Engineering Patternmakers’ Design Knowledge

Stein

2019

Journal of Design History

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Craft is currently experiencing an academic and popular revival, as evidenced by increasing interest in ‘makers’ and artisanal practices, both within and beyond design history. Yet, in this moment of craft’s resurgence, some aspects are regularly overlooked. Industrial craft in manufacturing, for instance, is a field ripe for closer analysis. Engineering patternmaking is an industrial craft that remains almost invisible in design history, despite the design-related nature of patternmaking, and its centrality to many industrial manufacturing processes. Drawing on oral histories with Australian patternmakers, this article emphasizes that patternmaking is both a manual and intellectual practice that requires thorough knowledge of drawing, materials, geometry, three-dimensional visuality and manufacturing processes planning. Accordingly, I argue that patternmakers possess and enact a specific type of design knowledge, a form of expertise that has thus far been undervalued in both design and craft histories. Making use of Nigel Cross’ influential theorization of ‘designerly ways of knowing’, this article explores the connections and divergences between design and patternmaking knowledge sets, reminding us that the making of manufactured objects is deeply collaborative across professional and class formations. In doing so, I highlight the significance of industrial craft knowledge in the actualization of design. This example has broader historical implications for how design history frames and values the knowledge, skills and influence of those engaged in industrial production.

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Simultaneously deepening corporatism and advancing neoliberalism: Australia under the Accord

Cited by 11 publications

References 31 publications

The decline and fall of the Australian automotive industry

The decline and fall of the Australian automotive industry

Detroit five years after bankruptcy: From coercion to consent

Hidden Between Craft and Industry: Engineering Patternmakers’ Design Knowledge

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