ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges the triumphalist claims made by the proponents of globalization by considering its effect on Australia while Labor governments held office from 1983 to 1996, using a discursive approach. As a discourse, globalization is related to neoliberal and technocratic discourses. Labor's abandonment of labourist discourse and its replacement by neo-liberalism can be understood largely through its response to the external sector of the economy: globalization and international competitiveness. At a national level, globalization can impact adversely on workers in three ways, according to an Organization for European Cooperation and Development (OECD) report on global employment: by substituting capital for labour in industrialized countries; by outsourcing to cheap labour countries; and by relocating firms from high to low wage countries. Combined with economic rationalist doctrine, globalization has forced governments to adopt market-friendly policies that disadvantage the most marginalized and low-paid in our society, says Hamilton.
