Review of Carboni's "Eureka Stockade."
Its been a while since I reviewed a book, as I'm taking my time reading new ones. There is another book in the works on the history of sugar cane cutters. This however, is a classic I read a while ago.
Carboni was a participant in the Eureka Stockade. He was elected to the leading committee of the movement in the lead up to the massacre. His account is considered the original great work on the topic. Carboni found himself in the middle of revolutionary movements across the world during his life, notably fighting in the bourgeois movement to unify and modernise Italy.
The account starts with a description of colonial life and troubles. The violence that permeated everyday life was unbelievable. There were a number of instances where such monopolies made claim to an individual miner's territory. As the government was ineffective at managing these disputes, they were often solved "in the ring." The government was much more efficient at cracking down on individual licence holders, sending the police on regular "digger hunts," to arrest and fine miners for petty things such as leaving their licence at home.
These grievances, along with a scandal over how the courts handled a murder case (and subsequent burning of the local pub by a riotous mob) eventually boiled over into armed uprising, infamously repressed when the government troops, who already outnumbered and outmatched the rebels, stormed the Stockade on a Sunday.
There has been an enduring debate about the significance of the Eureka Stockade, with conservatives claiming it was a bourgeois uprising against an aristocratic government, and the Labour Movement claiming it was Australia's first strike. The question is made more complicated by a historical analysis of the relations of production. Various sources show that mine workers (and Shearers, according to both Spence and Merritt) had to purchase their own tools (meaning they owned some means of production), yet both famously organised into the AWU. At the same time, today we have witnessed the development of "sham contracting," where a company will engage people as contractors to avoid paying Award conditions, thereby hyperexploiting their workforce
Carboni was a participant in the Eureka Stockade. He was elected to the leading committee of the movement in the lead up to the massacre. His account is considered the original great work on the topic. Carboni found himself in the middle of revolutionary movements across the world during his life, notably fighting in the bourgeois movement to unify and modernise Italy.
The account starts with a description of colonial life and troubles. The violence that permeated everyday life was unbelievable. There were a number of instances where such monopolies made claim to an individual miner's territory. As the government was ineffective at managing these disputes, they were often solved "in the ring." The government was much more efficient at cracking down on individual licence holders, sending the police on regular "digger hunts," to arrest and fine miners for petty things such as leaving their licence at home.
These grievances, along with a scandal over how the courts handled a murder case (and subsequent burning of the local pub by a riotous mob) eventually boiled over into armed uprising, infamously repressed when the government troops, who already outnumbered and outmatched the rebels, stormed the Stockade on a Sunday.
There has been an enduring debate about the significance of the Eureka Stockade, with conservatives claiming it was a bourgeois uprising against an aristocratic government, and the Labour Movement claiming it was Australia's first strike. The question is made more complicated by a historical analysis of the relations of production. Various sources show that mine workers (and Shearers, according to both Spence and Merritt) had to purchase their own tools (meaning they owned some means of production), yet both famously organised into the AWU. At the same time, today we have witnessed the development of "sham contracting," where a company will engage people as contractors to avoid paying Award conditions, thereby hyperexploiting their workforce
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