Imperial Theory And Colonial Pragmatism: Charles Harper, Economic Development And Agricultural Co-operation In Australia (palgrave Studies In The History Of Economic Thought Series)
by David J. Gilchrist /
2017 / English / PDF
2.5 MB Download
This book considers the role played by co-operative agriculture
as a critical economic model which, in Australia, helped build
public capital, drive economic development and impact political
arrangements. In the case of colonial Western Australia, the
story of agricultural co-operation is inseparable from that of
the story of Charles Harper. Harper was a self-starting,
pioneering frontiersman who became a political, commercial and
agricultural leader in the British Empire’s most isolated colony
during the second half of the Victorian era. He was convinced of
the successful economic future of Western Australia but also
pragmatic enough to appreciate that the unique challenges facing
the colony were only going to be resolved by the application of
unorthodox thinking.
This book considers the role played by co-operative agriculture
as a critical economic model which, in Australia, helped build
public capital, drive economic development and impact political
arrangements. In the case of colonial Western Australia, the
story of agricultural co-operation is inseparable from that of
the story of Charles Harper. Harper was a self-starting,
pioneering frontiersman who became a political, commercial and
agricultural leader in the British Empire’s most isolated colony
during the second half of the Victorian era. He was convinced of
the successful economic future of Western Australia but also
pragmatic enough to appreciate that the unique challenges facing
the colony were only going to be resolved by the application of
unorthodox thinking.Using Harper’s life as a foil, this book examines Imperial
economic thinking in relation to the co-operative form of economic
organisation, the development of public capital, and socialism. It
uses this discussion to demonstrate the transfer of socialistic
ideas from the centre of the Empire to the farthest reaches of the
Antipodes where they were used to provide a rhetorical crutch in
support of purely pragmatic co-operative establishments.
Using Harper’s life as a foil, this book examines Imperial
economic thinking in relation to the co-operative form of economic
organisation, the development of public capital, and socialism. It
uses this discussion to demonstrate the transfer of socialistic
ideas from the centre of the Empire to the farthest reaches of the
Antipodes where they were used to provide a rhetorical crutch in
support of purely pragmatic co-operative establishments.