This month I guest edited, with Jonathon Collerson, an issue of the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE) on new research in Marxist political economy. It arose, in part, from a conference Jonathon and I organised in 2011 titles ‘Capital Against Capitalism’. The full journal issue is available online (open access) here, and my article on the social relations of the early years of the Australian colonies is available in the publications section of this site as well.
The paper is based on the first grab of research I did for my PhD – it was prior to my decision to focus on the ALP and ACTU Accord, when I was still contemplating using the formation of the Australian state (up to federation in 1901) as my case study. While the paper is far more polished than what I will likely put on this blog, it does point to some of my main interests:
– capitalist social relations and what these entail, in particular the state as an ensamble of social relations.
– how to understand the state as a nation state but importantly as a part of a competitive system of states.
– the work of Antonio Gramsci, Colin Barker and Simon Clarke on the state, and of Jairus Banaji on capitalist social relations.
While this first post is a cheat of sorts, using something I’ve already written, there will be more to come…
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