AUSTRALIAN POPULISM AND THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS: FINDING A PLACE FOR LABOUR

Abstract

This paper looks at the way in which the framing of a populist ‘left’ response to the financial crisis has served to occlude a focus on the role of labour; other than as victim. The concern is that prevalent critiques of finance are based in populism and the consequence is that analysis has gravitated to both rhetoric and ‘safe’ moral judgments, rather than to a critical evaluation of particular historical developments. The effect, the paper contends, is to shut down a politics of inquiry about changes in the position of labour. Indeed, some populist demands for reform in the name of ‘the people’ manifests as often dogmatic and even authoritarian proclamations of what is morally right.