Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Connell and Irving’s Class Structure in Australian History

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Reimagining Class in Australia

Abstract

This chapter develops a critique of the key text, Class Structure in Australian History (Connell and Irving 1980). This has been held up as a novel text on class structure, which was not indebted to the reductionist and logical determination of class that was popular at the time. This chapter argues that it, in fact, reproduced a relatively crude binary Marxist reading of Australian history, limiting its utility for future studies of class.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Althusser, L. 1969. For Marx. London: Allen Lane.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrew, E. 1990. Marx’s Theory of Classes: Science and Ideology. In Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought: Critical Assessments vol. 2: Social Class and Class Conflict, ed. B. Jessop, and C. Malcolm-Brown. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beilharz, P. 1994. Transforming Labor: Labour Tradition and the Labor Decade in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, T., J. Frow, and G. Noble. 2013. Antipodean Fields: Working with Bourdieu. Journal of Sociology 49: 2–3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bongiorno, F. 1996. The People’s Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition 1875–1914. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burgmann, V. 1982. Symposium on Class Structure in Australian History. Intervention 16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chamberlain, C. 1983. Class Consciousness in Australia. Sydney: George Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charlesworth, S.J. 2000. A Phenomenology of Working Class Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W. 1974a. ‘Images of Australia’, Paper delivered to Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom seminar, printed in Quadrant (March–April 1968), no. 12. (Reprinted in D.E. Edgar ed.) Social Change in Australia: Readings in Sociology. Melbourne: Cheshire.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W. 1974b. Structure and Structural Change in the Ruling Class. In Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, vol. 1, ed. E.W. Wheelwright and K. Buckley. Sydney: Australia and New Zealand Book Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W. 1977. Ruling Class, Ruling Culture: Studies of Conflict, Power and Hegemony in Australian Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W. 1983. Which Way is Up? Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curthoys, Ann. 1980. Class Structure in Australian History (review). The Journal of Australian Political Economy 9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W., and T.H. Irving. 1974. Yes, Virginia, There is a Ruling Class. In Australian Politics: A Third Reader, ed. H. Mayer, and H. Nelson. Melbourne: Cheshire.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W., and T.H. Irving. 1980. Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narrative and Argument. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W. and T.H. Irving. 1982. Symposium on Class Structure in Australian History. Intervention 16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R.W., and T.H. Irving. 1992. Class Structure in Australian History: Poverty and Progress. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daniels, K. 1982. Symposium on Class Structure in Australian History. Intervention 16.

    Google Scholar 

  • David Clark. 1975. Australia: Victim or Partner of British Imperialism? In Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, (eds.). T. Wheelwright, and K. Buckley, Vol.1. Sydney: Australia and New Zealand Book Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, A.F. 1967. Images of Class: An Australian Study. Sydney: Sydney University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donaldson, M., and S. Poynting. 2007. Ruling Class Men: Money, Sex, Power. Bern: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Draper, H. 1978. Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, vol 2: the Politics of Social Classes. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finch, L. 1993. The Classing Gaze: Sexuality, Class and Surveillance. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fredman, N. J. 2009. Nation, Class and the Australian Left, 2003–2007. PhD thesis, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garton, S. 1981. Class Structure in Australian History (review). Arena 57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gollan, R. 1960. Radical and Working Class Politics: A Study of Eastern Australia, 1850–1910. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gollan, R. 1981. The Bones Stripped Bare. Historical Studies 19: 76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorz, A. 1982. Farewell to The Working Class: An Essay on Post-Industrial Socialism, trans. M. Sonenscher. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greig, A., F. Lewins, and K. White. 2003. Inequality in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hollier, N. (ed.). 2004. Ruling Australia: The Power, Privilege & Politics of the Ruling Class. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irving, T. 1994. Labourism: A Political Genealogy. Labour History 66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irving, T. 2016. The Lower Depths: Paternoster on Class Structure in Australian History. Labour History 111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irving, T. and B. Berzins. 1970. History and the New Left. In The Australian New Left: Critical Essays and Strategy, ed. R. Gordon, Melbourne: William Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irving, T., and R.W. Connell. 2016. Scholars and Radicals: Writing and Re-thinking Class Structure in Australian History. Journal of Australian Studies 40: 1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Judith Allen, and Paul Patton (eds.). 1983. Beyond Marxism? Interventions After Marx. Leichhardt, NSW: Intervention Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelvin Rowley. 1972. Pastoral Capitalism: Australia’s Pre-industrial Development. Intervention 1: 9–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leach, M. 2001. Discourses of Identity in Australian Socialism and Labourism 1887–1901. Ph.D. Melbourne: La Trobe University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lukács, G. 1971. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics, trans. R. Livingstone. London: Merlin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macintyre, S. 1981. Connell and Irving I. Labour History 40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marks, R. 2011. Rejection, Redemption, Ambivalence: The New Left and Australian Nationalism. Ph.D. Melbourne: La Trobe University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mary Ancich, Raewyn Connell, John Fisher, and Maureen Kolff. 1969. A Descriptive Bibliography of Published Research and Writing on Social Stratification in Australia, 1946–1967. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology 5(1), 5(2).

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. 1990 [1867]. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol.1 (intro. E. Mandel and trans. B. Fowkes). London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCalman, J. 1988. Struggletown: Portrait of a Working Class Community 1900–1965, rev ed. Ringwood: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, T. 1978. Marx and the Proletariat. Westport: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McMichael, P. 1982. Symposium on Class Structure in Australian History. Intervention 16.

    Google Scholar 

  • McQueen, H. 1970. A New Britannia. Ringwood: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Metcalfe, A. 1987. The Ghosts That Walk: A Critique of Objectivism in Marxism. Mankind 17(2).

    Google Scholar 

  • Metcalfe, A. 1988. For Freedom and Dignity: Historical Agency and Class Structures in the Coalfields of NSW. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K., and F. Engels. 1952. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paternoster, H. 2016. Questioning the Legacy of Class Structure in Australian History: An Australian ‘Historical’ Class Analysis? Labour History 111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peel, M. 1995. Good Times, Hard Times: The Past and the Future in Elizabeth. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pakulski, J. and M. Waters. 1996. The Death of Class. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pini, B., and J. Previte. 2013. Bourdieu, the Boom and Cashed-up Bogans. Journal of Sociology 49: 2–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, J. 1989. The Nights of Labor: The Workers’ Dream in Nineteenth-Century France. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rickard, J. 1981. The Middle Class: What Is To Be Done. Historical Studies 19(76): 446–453.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ronald J. Horvath, and Peter Rogers. 1981. Class Structure in Australian History: A Review Article. Antipode 13(1).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosewarne, S. 1982. Symposium on Class Structure in Australian History. Intervention 16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skeggs, B. 2004. Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stapleton, C. 2004. The Amazing Adventures of the Ordinary Australian: Narratives of Class in Contemporary Australian Culture. Ph.D. Melbourne: La Trobe University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stedman Jones, G. 1983. Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheppard, J. and N. Biddle. 2015. ‘Social Class in Australia: Beyond the ‘Working’ and ‘Middle’ Classes’, ANU Poll Sep 2015, report no. 19 (Canberra: Australian Data Archive, Australian National University, 2015). http://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/research/projects/electoral-surveys/anupoll/social-class. Accessed Sept 2 2016.

  • Savage, M., F. Devine, N. Cunningham, M. Taylor, Y. Li, J. Hjellbrekke, B. Le Roux, S. Friedman and A. Miles. 2013. A New Model of Social Class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey Experiment. Sociology 47: 2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, E.P. 1974. The Making of the English Working Class, New ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vladimir, Lenin. 1965.Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism in Collected Works 22: 193–194. Moscow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wells, A. 1989. Constructing Capitalism: An Economic History of Eastern Australia, 1788–1901. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Western, J. 1983. Social Inequality in Australian Society. Melbourne: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, C. 1981. Open Cut: The Working Class in an Australian Mining Town. Sydney: George Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Henry Paternoster

Authors
  1. Henry Paternoster
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Henry Paternoster .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Paternoster, H. (2017). Connell and Irving’s Class Structure in Australian History . In: Reimagining Class in Australia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55450-1_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55450-1_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55449-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55450-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation