Paradise on the Instalment Plan - (Historical Materialism Book) by Rick Kuhn (Hardcover)

About the Book

A systematic study of how the Australian Labor Party, Communist Party and union movement understood key aspects of Australian capitalism and its place in the world from the 1920s to the 1950s, and the social context of their development.

Book Synopsis

Contemporary labour movement thinking about the Australian economy took shape between the depression of the 1930s and the long post-war boom, in the form of moderate and, today much diminished, left nationalist currents. Economic conditions, the level of the class struggle and the political proclivities of different classes, particularly as expressed in the working class's main organisations - the Australian Labor Party (ALP), Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and trade unions. This study focuses on labour movement understandings of three fundamental aspects of Australian capitalism: the country's place in the world; its class structure; and its experience of severe economic fluctuations.

About the Author

Rick Kuhn, a member of Socialist Alternative in Australia, is a historian and political scientist. He wrote the Deutscher Prizing winning biography Henryk Grossman and the Recovery of Marxism (University of Illinois Press, 2006) and edited Class and Struggle in Australia (Pearson, 2005).