Book Review

In the introduction to a informed, comprehensive and interesting volume which considers the effects of globalisation on Australia, Christopher Sheil courageously addresses a serious difficulty with the term, globalisation. What, precisely, is it? The issue is serious because of the history of its use and the way in which it has been and is currently employed to denominate a process that envelopes us all. Here one can only suggest that the origins of the term date to the early 1980s initially in the literature of marketing. The word, coined in the business schools of the United States, quickly became a ‘buzz word’ and, as Sheil notes, found common usage after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He points out that in official Australia the term is primarily ‘an expression of the classical economic theory of free markets and free trade’ (p.2) which Adam Smith articulated in 1788. After a provocative and thoughtful discussion of the various meanings and uses of the term, he concludes:	1
‘globalisation’ refers to the increasing consciousness of the organisation of finance, investment, production, distribution and marketing in ways that pertain to or embrace the world, a phenomenon that has both reinforced and been reinforced by the wider, more longstanding but continuing history of technological developments that have reduced the significance of geographic space (p.11).
And this is the point: ‘globalisation’ is a term invented by capitalists and used initially by capitalists to suggest that something new (and in their view, good) is happening. In fact, what is happening now is a continuation of what has been happening since the end of the eighteenth century if not before: the expansion of capital. ‘Globalisation’ thus is ahistorical and misleading as a term. Why do we use it? In fairness, Sheil is aware of the problem as his excellent introductory essay proves.
Consequently, the rest of the book deals with the way Australia is coping with this particular moment in the expansion of capital. It makes for sober thought. For example, the fascinating chapter by Peter Rimmer, ‘A Cul-de-sac off Main Street: Transport’ informs us that for air and sea transport Australia is at the end of the line. And now that the major shipping companies, based in the northern hemisphere, are developing strategies (the hub-and-spoke, for example) which respond to their priorities, Australia is quite vulnerable especially now that it has privatised its shipping companies. The current problems of Qantas which are embedded in its relationship with British Airways and Singapore Airlines are further evidence of the difficulties faced by Australian transport in a world where capital must either grow or face the possibility of its death.	2
Other chapters, all of them succinct, deal with finance, telecommunications, the media, corporations, unions, governance, industry, the environment, education, health, welfare, human rights, and democracy. Every concerned citizen can find something of interest in this challenging and informed book.	3
Some readers of this review will remember the wonderful television series presented many years ago by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) about the lives and times of an impoverished Tyneside family. The theme song, which preceded each episode, was entitled, ‘When the Boat Comes In’ the first line of which reads: ‘Who shalt have the fishies when the boat comes in?’ and the title of the song was also the title of the entire series. Thus Boris Frankel indicates the theme of this important book about how Australia is confronting the current phase of the expansion of capital and how it should do so in the future.	4
In the first part, we learn about how the politics of distribution and production in Australia have changed fundamentally. The practices and the arguments of the Left, the ALP, the Keynesians, the liberals, the Coalition – the groups which dominated politics until 1983 – are today no longer very relevant, if at all. According to Frankel, a major change occurred within capitalism itself beginning in the 1970s and which has gained strength since: ‘financialisation’. A terrible term for which Frankel is not responsible, ‘financialisation’ refers to the rapid growth in wealth, power and influence of the financial sector through the management of enormous sums of money provided by individuals, superannuation funds and other institutions. The consequences of this process have been profound and extend from the global to the family: The distribution of wealth has been skewed massively to the rich, national budgets reflect the demands of the financial markets, corporations bend to the expectations of shareholders, resources once available to the providers of public services are no longer available, and so on. The financial sector affects the large and the small, the manufacturers, the miners, the agriculturalists, the governments, the exporters, the importers, the middle sectors and the poor whose needs are too often ignored. Financialisation has rendered the old politics obsolete. Where does Australia fit in this new phase of the expansion of capital? What possibilities are there to create a decent, equitable, prosperous and healthy community within the constraints imposed by the system? At one moment, Frankel is very pessimistic when he notes correctly a number of features about Australia which, because of ‘financialisation’, give one reason to worry including the relative decline of manufacturing industry and the absence even of a debate about an industry policy, the acceptance of very high rates of unemployment and poverty, the serious degradation of the environment without confronting the major sources of pollution, and the ambivalence concerning Australia’s economic and political relations with Asia, the US and the EU.	5
To overcome some of these difficulties Frankel, much to his credit, proposes some solutions that take into account what is politically feasible at this moment. Most important is the formation of a social-industrial complex (the military-industrial complex is a model) wherein a combination of private and government initiative will create the ‘space’ to build the enterprises and provide the services and regulation to tackle some of the issues mentioned above. For example, he advocates the use of superannuation and mutual funds to create a National Investment Fund that would encourage and oversee the investment of capital in such enterprises. These and other proposals render this book more than an acute critique of Australian society; rather, they provide a way forward and merit serious discussion.	6
The discussion takes a very different turn in Maddison’s monumental study of the world economy. Mercifully, the word ‘globalisation’ does not appear in this compilation of data tracing the world’s economic development since 1000. With all the necessary caution concerning the collection, accuracy and uses of statistics, the author attempts to reveal the trajectory of growth in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Australasia from the time well before some of these regions were connected to each other by commerce, migration, conquest and investment, etc., to the present. The story is not unfamiliar to observers familiar with the changes in the mode of production in different societies inhabiting our planet. Until roughly 1000, Europe was backward compared to societies in Asia, particularly in parts of China and India. Thereafter, western Europe began to develop rapidly and by the 1600s enjoyed a level of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita considerably higher than the rest of the world. From 1820 to the present, the gap has widened except for North America, Australasia and Japan where similar levels of per capita GDP have been achieved. The period of most rapid growth in the world economy occurred between 1950 and 1973, but despite their improvement, Latin America and especially Africa lagged far behind. By 1998 the per capita income in Africa, according to Maddison, ‘was little better than that of Western Europe in 1820’ (p. 45).	7
Why the enormous divergence? In western Europe, war and conquest combined with trade, technological improvements to increase production, the development of relatively strong states and their legal institutions, and the invention of capital to give Europe the advantage. To encapsulate the argument, Maddison might have said that from roughly the 1100s western Europe was slowly, imperceptibly inventing capitalism, and by the mid-1800s it had fully blossomed. It continues to expand unevenly, unequally throughout the world.	8
The book is full of statistics, insights, arguments, and suggestions for further readings. All historians will enjoy opening it to any page to consider the issues it contains.	9
In conclusion, these three books offer different but in many ways complementary studies of that difficult beast Chris Shiel introduced so ably. It is a creature with which both present and future historians will have to reckon.	10
University of New South Wales JAMES R. LEVY

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