Paradise on the Instalment Plan

A fresh perspective on how the labor movement has understood three fundamental aspects of Australian capitalism: the country’s place in the world, its class structure, and its experience of severe economic fluctuations.

Contemporary labor 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. This study narrows in on the economic conditions, the level of the class struggle and the political proclivities of different classes, particularly as expressed in the working class’s main organizations – the Australian Labor Party (ALP), Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and trade unions.

Dr Rick Kuhn is a member of Socialist Alternative in Australia. In addition to numerous other publications, he wrote the Deutscher Prize winning biography Henryk Grossman and the Recovery of Marxism, co-authored Labor's Conflict: Big Business, Workers and the Politics of Class and edited Class and Struggle in Australia.

ISBN: 9798903931842

Publication date: May 7, 2027

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Tables and Figures
Abbreviations

Introduction
1 Where Do Incorrect Ideas Come from?

1 The Depression and Before
1 Laborite Economic Thought before 1934
2 Communist Economic Thought to 1934

2 Australia and the ‘General Crisis of Capitalism’
1 ‘Recovery’ from the Depression
2 Working Class Politics
3 Appendix to Chapter 2: Keynesian Economics

3 Preparing for Office
1 Stifling Freetrade Aspirations in the Interests of Solidarity
2 From Money Power to Monopoly
3 Underconsumptionism: A Hundred and One Varieties

4 Australian Nationalism in Russia’s Interests
1 Between Motherland and Fatherland
2 The Financial Oligarchy, Rich Families, Monopolies and Friends
3 An Equivocal Catastrophism
4 Appendix to Chapter 4: Lenin on Bank Nationalisation

5 Making Australia Safe for the Long Boom, 1941–50
1 World War II
2 From Yalta to Korea

6 Labor at War
1 Keynesian Hegemony

7 Keynes v. Class Struggle
1 Defenders of the Faith
2 Socialism (for the Good of Capitalism)
3 The Frowning Face of J.M. Keynes
4 Appendix to Chapter 8: The Ideas of the ‘Movement’

8 Left Nationalism, Conservative and Radical
1 1941–5: ‘A National Front for Victory’
2 1945–7: ‘The Leaders of the ALP are Today Vacillating’
3 1947–51: ‘The Need To Take The Offensive’

Conclusion: The Economic Ideas of the Australian Labour Movement
1 Laborite Economics
2 Left Nationalist Economics
3 Working Class Economic Ideas versus Working Class Economic Practice

References
Index