What do Australian Historians and Intellectuals Have to Say About Globalisation?

posted by Geoff Robinson who is a PhD Candidate at Monash University

"From a historical perspective we might note the parallels between contemporary concerns about globalisation and those of previous periods. The World Economic Forum assumes the same demonic status as the 'money power' did in the 1930s. Apart from one federal MP I haven't seen anybody comment on the recent actions of the federal government in naming a scholarship after Otto Nieymeyer whose advocacy of deflation as the only solution to trade balance problems has been the mantra of the IMF. We might consider to what extent historical approaches can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of contemporary economic debates. Much of the economic liberal case for trade liberalization is based on a misreading of the economic history of the 1930s. The growth in economic nationalism between the wars was mostly an effect rather than a cause of the depression. The recent work of Beth Simmons shows that the tariff increases of the 1930s were not a product of tit-for-tat rivalries ( a specter evoked by contemporary free traders) but rather a response to domestic political factors with left-wing governments favouring protection and the gold standard and left-wing governments favouring devaluation and free trade (to reduce workers' living costs). A question worth asking is why Australian Labor was so different, perhaps because the federal government had so few policy instruments".

Comment posted by Jim McAloon, NZ

"In reply to Kevin Blackburn's post, I note that I have in a forthcoming publication described the first European sealers landed at Dusky Sound in 1792 as marking the beginning of the globalisation of the New Zealand economy. But this is not, I must stress, simply 'parroting' eminent authorities: it is because it seems to me from a long engagement with Marxism, that it is a valid point. Rather than necessarily minimising the impact upon indigenous populations such a view stresses the point that globalisation is simply part of the long history of capitalism. Read the early pages of the Communist manifesto, even though we might word some things a little differently now: Modern Industry has established the world market this market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. New industries have been established that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. Capitalism by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication,draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. And one welcome emphasis in the work of Cain and Hopkins is to refocus attention on the economic, rather than the cultural, dimensions of imperialism."

"Kevin Blackburn's observations about the dangers of a focus on the global economy diminishing the impact on indigenous peoples are well made. However, the reverse is also a danger. Comparing Donald Denoon's Settler Capitalism (1983) with his article `Settler Capitalism Unsettled' (NZJH vol 29, no 2, 1996 suggests that if the earlier versions of settler capitalist analysis, not only Denoon's, underemphasised the impact on indigenous people, then Denoon's 1996 article may be thought to have focussed on the impact on indigenous people and underemphasised the international economic context to a considerable degree. Somehow we need to integrate the themes".

Comment posted by Gil Hardwick Anthropologist & Ethnohistoriographer Ethnographer of Australian Landscapes MARGARET RIVER WA 6285

"When I was a boy, not so long ago, imperialism was privateering. Others were of the opinion then that it was piracy. Now it is being called globalisation. People lacking scruples out wanting to make a quid, yes? Let me say this. Privateering was and is piracy. The difference lay on who was adding to what treasury, while of course the primitives got their just deserts. I recall that the matter of Roger Casement was as recent as 1915 or 1916, somewhere around that time, may I stand corrected? If we are going to be scholars, let's just not be party to this sort of thing".

"What we can do is control the effects, at least so that while Russia, the US, and other such nations survive others are not brought to extinction. Am I missing something? Is there some dreadful threat to all these powerful, globalising economies that they cannot exhibit a modicum of human compassion, to negotiate access to resources and pay the people whose land they depend on for their own livelihood some sort of compensation, so they too can get on with their lives? I am not saying anyone has to go home, only that wherever people go they show respect for their host nations, and seek to fit in rather than disrupt their cultures and their economies. To me, that is good business. Sound enterprise. Citizenship. What have you. The traditional Aboriginal economies required traders and scholars to speak as many as 7-8 languages as they negotiated one boundary after another in their travels. Some of the distances covered are extraordinary, and still today I know a lot of seasoned Aboriginal globetrotters who simply adapted themselves to new transport opportunities. Now there is a good example. It is not about changing the past, but learning from it and understanding it so we can better understand the continuing dynamic as it manifests today. I have been accused of carrying out "salvage anthropology" for pursuing that argument, but I leave it myself to any half-intelligent mind to make its own assessment of its value as a scholarly endeavour. How did those people deal with pirates visiting their shores? How did they deal with the guns and illness, and destruction of their landscapes? Were their alternatives available to them, in particular alliances and/or refuge with, say, the servants of said pirates? This World System globalisation, on the other hand, demands that everyone speak English, that everyone recognise boundaries it lays down itself for its own purposes, and that everyone comply with its own laws and trade agreements. The issue about globalisation is not the survival of Russia or the US. It is about dull, materialist, monoculture displacing the diversity we need to sustain ourselves on this planet. It is about the poverty consciousness of the affluent imposing itself on people happily living out their lives with what they can do for themselves locally. It is about global culture of victimisation which refuses to acknowledge the active agency of the marginalised, and demands welfare in place of positive life endeavour in all its manifest variety. Let me see a reasonable shift toward reasonableness and balance in this sorry business".

Comment Posted by Ian Welch Pacific and Asian History Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Australian National University

"I am uneasy about using 'Empire' in the 'globaisation' context. Modern corporations are perhaps closer to the mercantilist organisations such as the East India Companies or the Hudson's Bay Co. This trend seems obvious in the decline of public security agencies such as the police and military in the democratic nation-states and the rise of private forces to protect the interests of paying clients. "Empire' seems to me to imply the involvement of the nation state and 'globalisation' seems trans or supra-national. One of my concerns about the 'globalisation' discussion is that it smacks of unreconstructed Marxism trying to find a new enemy now that Marx's original schema has proved ineffective in relieving human suffering. I hope it is not just another attempt to provide 'meaning' in a world in which 'chaos theory' seems to be more relevant. The continuing attempts by sections of the academy to provide explanations smacks of a continuing Enlightenment fixation with 'the truth'. You don't have to be a postmodernist to question many of our historical, economic and cultural assumptions. Ian Welch".

"Caution in making sweeping allegations of criminal behaviour or we are all in big trouble.Could Russia survive? Could the US survive? What would France be without Napoleon? Where would China be without the southward march of Han? Do all the Pacific Islanders have to go back 'home'? What about the Aryan push or the Malay wanderers? The reality is that, like it or not, we cannot undo the past nor, let it be said, control entrepreneurs, especially when the latter are aided and abetted in their global activities by people from our educational (dare I say scholarly) background".

Comment Posted by Dr Deborah Oxley Senior Research Fellow School of History Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences University of New South Wales Sydney NSW 2052

"People engaged in this debate might be interested in the following two books: Meredith & Dyster, Australia in the Global Economy: Continuity and Change (CUP 1999) Havinden & Meredith, Colonialism and Development: Britain and its Tropical Colonies, 1850-1960 (Routledge1993)"

Comment Posted by Associate Professor David Meredith, School of Economics, University of New South Wales

"In response to Kevin Blackburn's point, certainly one of the effects of imperialism in the late 19th century was to integrate the areas being colonised into the world's first global economy, but it was not the only impact imperialism had and neither was imperialism the only way in which economic integration occurred. And it does not necessarily follow that economic integration was the major motive of European imperial expansion. A historical perspective on Australia's place in the globalisation process might suggest that the connecting of Australia to the evolving global telegraph network in 1871 was just as significant as the connection to the internet in the 1980s!"

This comment/s were also posted on the discussion list H-ANZAU (History List of Australian and New Zealand History) which is the Australian branch of the International list H-Net. H-Net retains copyright.