Regulation Theory and Australian Capitalism: Rethinking Social Justice and Labour Law [Hardcover]

The end of the post-World War II long boom in the mid-1970s proved the beginning of a process of political-economic change that has fundamentally transformed labour law, both in Australia and across the developed world more generally. This is a phenomenon with deep ramifications for social justice.

The dissolution of productive industry, the fragmentation of employment categories, the rise of profound employment precarity and an increasingly hostile legal environment for trade unionism have been of immense significance for key social justice issues, including income inequality, the rise of a new working-underclass, and the marginalization of organised labour.

By combining the concepts of the Parisian Regulation Approach with an explicitly Marxist jurisprudence, this study offers a theoretically rigorous yet empirically sensitive account of legal transition, with key case studies in the metal, food processing and retail sectors. Given the similar development logic of post-World War II capitalism in Western societies, this theory, although operationalised in the Australian context, can be used in the effort to explain labour law change more broadly.

This book shows the crucial roles that the state and labour law play in reshaping contemporary capitalism. It casts light on the reasons for stagnant wages, the increasing precariousness of work, growing debt and vulnerability to financial crises. The author makes a strong case for looking at the causal processes through the lens of regulation theory. The focus is Australian, but the implications are global. This is a significant contribution to modern political economy. Frank Stillwell, Professor Emeritus in Political Economy, University of Sydney

The Regulation Approach to political economy has enjoyed a topsy-turvy career but Heino shows its full value in this penetrating study of post-World War II Austral“…