Re: Aussies the world's hardest workers?

[Grant Lee <grantlee@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I said:

> As Marx, among others, alluded, a
> distinctive thing about the later settler colonial societies was that they
> imported not only the workers from Europe, but also fully-devloped
> capitalist relations of production ("unhappy Mr Peel").

Correction: Marx was alluding to the _incomplete_ transportation of British
relations of production to the settler colonies, i.e. free labourers quickly
realised their (temporarily) great bargaining power (in circumstances in
which convict labour was not available), and took full advantage of the
situation, by becoming self-employed and/or demanding higher wages and
better conditions.

I love this quote, in part because it's probably the only place that Marx
refers to my own neighbourhood:

âA Mr Peel, [Edward] Wakefield complains, took with him from England to the
Swan River â means of subsistence and of production to the amount of
Â50,000. This Mr Peel even had the foresight to bring besides, 3,000 persons
of the working class, men, women and children. Once he arrived at his
destination, âMr Peel was left without a servant to make his bed or fetch
him water from the river.â Unhappy Mr Peel who provided for everything
except the export of English relations of production to Swan River!â (Karl
Marx, 1976, _Capital_, Vol. 1, Penguin, London: 932-933.)