Class and National Formation among the Aborigines

by Dr. Hannah Middleton

The ancestors of the Aborigines came to Australia at least 40,000 years 
ago. They developed a semi-nomadic, hunting and gathering economy based on 
communal ownership of the main means of production, the land. They lived as 
an integral and integrated part of the natural environment, rather than 
alienated from it, not dominating or exploiting nature. They developed 
relations of production, distribution and exchange, expressed through their 
kinship system, of co-operation and reciprocity.

In everyday life there was a sexual division of labour in which the hunting 
work of the men and the collecting work done by the women were 
complementary (although women provided the bulk of the food) and the 
products of their labour were shared. In times of localised hardship, 
extended families could move and exercise secondary rights to live on and 
use the food and water resources on land belonging to a different local 
group.

Because of their economic dependence upon and religious ties with the land, 
the Aboriginal people had (and still have) intensely emotional feelings for 
it. To be alienated from their land meant loss of a sense of physical and 
spiritual continuity and psycho-social security. It also led to death, 
great material poverty and massive socio-cultural destruction.

The effects of British invasion and colonisation

From 1788 onwards, British imperialism colonised the Australian continent, 
seizing vast areas for farming, for sheep after the 1820s, and then later 
for more agriculture and in the north for cattle. Land was the key to the 
struggle that developed as settlement was expanded despite the bitter and 
prolonged guerrilla war fought by the Aborigines.

There was a sharp distinction between settlement of the south, dominated by 
sheep between the 1820s and 1860s, and the occupation of the north after 
the 1880s for the pastoral (beef cattle) industry. The former was 
accomplished by murder, deaths from disease and starvation and relocation 
of the indigenous population with enforced segregation on reserves.

In the north, however, different geographical and climatic conditions 
strictly limited the number of cattle that could be maintained. This, 
combined with slowly changing attitudes towards Aborigines (much assisted 
by consolidation of the process of land theft) and a developing 
appreciation of their labour potential for the pastoral industry, meant 
that extermination was not carried out to the same extent as in the south 
and Aboriginal traditional society remained relatively unchanged for a 
longer period.

The results of the two different forms of colonialism, however, were the 
same in content. The people were changed from self-determining, semi-
nomadic hunters and gatherers into dependent, settled, unskilled labourers 
held in subjection by monopoly capitalism under conditions more often like 
slavery than wage labour.

Aborigines were subjected to a process of socio-economic integration into 
monopoly capitalism together with a secondary process of national 
consolidation.

Both workers and Aborigines

In the 210 years since the invasion began, Aborigines have been forcibly 
integrated into the capitalist system and the great majority have been 
transformed into members of the Australian working class.

At the same time, Aboriginal communities have been subjected to 
discrimination and oppression, segregation and isolation. This situation 
combined with their resistance to exploitation and discrimination has meant 
that the Aborigines have not been assimilated into the Australian nation.

Instead, they have kept aspects of their traditional ways of life and 
thought, including languages, culture and customs, and have developed a 
consciousness of themselves as a separate people, a pride in their 
identity, their Aboriginality.

They are both Aborigines and workers.

Class formation

With the impact of British colonialism in Australia the socio-economic 
basis of traditional Aboriginal society was destroyed. The basic means of 
production, the land, was taken. Farming, sheep and cattle modified the 
environment in which the Aborigines had previously lived and worked, and 
social relationships were disrupted by deaths and relocation.

Aborigines were gradually drawn into and exploited by the money-commodity 
economy of monopoly capitalism in Australia. In the workforce they were 
used predominantly as cheap labour or as a reserve army of unemployed 
workers. With the impact of racial discrimination and oppression, 
segregation and isolation they came to comprise the lowest stratum of 
Australian capitalist society under imposed conditions of backwardness, 
extreme poverty and deprivation.

This process of socio-economic integration ("proletarianisation") has 
resulted in the great majority of Aborigines being transformed into members 
of the working class.1

However, this has not been and is not a simple process. In a context of 
rapid and disruptive social change such as the Aborigines have undergone, 
the process of class formation is uneven and highly complex and various 
groups pass through a number of stages before their transition into a 
particular class is complete.

The process of class formation among the Aborigines has taken two forms, 
both so far at a low level. Pastoral and other workers, mainly in the 
north, tend to be in a transitional stage living in traditionally oriented 
groups or as rural wage workers. In the south they tend to be wage workers 
but are scattered, often not union organised, lack training and suffer from 
high levels of under-employment and unemployment.

Thus there is an Aboriginal component of the Australian working class which 
is at a number of stages of development towards fully-fledged wage 
labourers: from groups with much of their social organisation and ideology 
still largely traditional through rural workers to urban workers and some 
members of the industrial working class.

This process of proletarianisation is not contradicted by the very high 
levels of unemployment among Aborigines. Objectively employment as a wage 
labourer is not what defines a member of the working class; such a position 
is determined primarily by relationship to the means of production and 
place in the social system of production. A worker does not stop being a 
member of the working class because the capitalist system forces him or her 
into unemployment.

In addition, Aboriginal communities in fringe settlements, on stations and 
reserves, particularly in the north, were used as pools of cheap labour. 
Among them a high rate of unemployment was maintained in order to ensure a 
regular supply of replacement labourers (a cheaper way of getting workers 
than giving wages and conditions adequate for natural replacement). These 
labour pools also helped to maintain the very low wages and conditions 
common to the Aboriginal workforce.

Equally, while it is true that class consciousness is not developed among 
many Aborigines, class position and class interest are not determined by 
the consciousness of the class but by its position and role in the system 
of social production. Ideology is a significant but secondary factor.

Some traditional Aboriginal groups at the earliest stage of the 
proletarianisation process have used a typically working class method of 
struggle, strikes, giving an indication of the proletarian content of their 
movements.

The long-running Pindan struggle in Western Australia, which began with a 
strike on May 1, 1945, is one example. Another is the strike for equal pay 
by Gurindji cattle workers at Wave Hill in the Northern Territory which 
involved a walk off and occupation of their traditional land at Dagu Ragu 
(Wattie Creek).

In addition, a traditional religious expression or form of struggle may 
tend to obscure the real content of that campaign or movement.

"Even the so-called religious wars of the sixteenth century involved 
positive material class interests; those wars were class wars, too, just as 
the later internal collisions in England and France. Although the class 
struggles of that day were clothed in religious shibboleths, and though the 
interests, requirements, and demands of the various classes were concealed 
behind a religious screen, this changed nothing in the matter, and is 
easily explained by the conditions of the time."2

The picture of class formation and differentiation among the Aborigines is 
incomplete without recognition that the development of middle class 
elements and ideology are also part of this process. Although clearly 
quantitatively small at present, there are sufficient examples of small 
businesses, entrepreneurial activity, employment by government departments 
and agencies, and other activities to show that an Aboriginal middle class 
is growing.

National formation

The Aborigines today form a national minority within the Australian 
capitalist state. This has come about as a result of the following 
processes.

Ethnic groups (*) are small communities, ranging from several 
hundreds up to several thousand people, often dispersed and without 
centralised organisation. They are identifiable by language, territory, a 
sense of common origin and a common culture, lifestyle and traditions.

In traditional communal societies, like Aboriginal society before 
colonisation, the dominant tendency was towards the growth and then fission 
of the basic social units, a process of ethnic division.

In subsequent socio-economic formations, the characteristic tendency has 
been towards ethnic amalgamation. Amalgamation has taken two forms: 
consolidation and assimilation.

Ethnic assimilation is most characteristic of countries with a high level 
of social and economic development. The progress of assimilation is 
influenced by a number of factors including the size and geographical 
distribution of the group(s) being assimilated, their social and legal 
status, the type of employment of the members of the group(s) and their 
economic ties with the dominant (assimilating) group, and the attitudes of 
the dominant group.

In Aboriginal society under the impact of a history of colonisation and 
integration into monopoly capitalism, the processes of ethnic assimilation 
and ethnic consolidation have been and are developing in contradiction to 
each other.

Under conditions of racial discrimination, exploitation, isolation, extreme 
poverty and backwardness, the process of assimilation to the (white) 
Australian nation (a process inevitably produced by integration of the 
Aborigines into the capitalist system) has been significantly retarded.

As a result, Aborigines have retained to a greater or lesser degree many 
traits of their traditional way of life and thought, culture, languages, 
customs and institutions although often with new meanings and functions.

While factors such as the small numbers of Aborigines, their scattered 
distribution and the trend to urbanisation have accelerated the 
assimilation process, the imposed low economic standards Aborigines suffer, 
the degree of their cultural, linguistic and religious differences from 
white society, and particularly the prejudiced and discriminatory attitudes 
and practices of the dominant society have all held back ethnic 
assimilation.

Involvement in a money-commodity economy has promoted ethnic consolidation 
among Aborigines. The material basis for contradictions and hostilities 
between different local groups no longer exists and the resultant 
consciousness of strangeness and suspicion is fast fading. Individuals and 
groups have been brought increasingly in contact with each other through 
forced removals to reserves and other areas and even more through their 
involvement in the same economic activities.

The new material conditions provide a basis for unity and a consciousness 
of shared experiences and suffering. Ethnic consolidation reflected in this 
growing consciousness of common identity and interests also retards (but 
does not negate) the processes of ethnic assimilation affecting the 
Aborigines.

The development of a national liberation movement among the Aborigines is 
both a product of and contributes to ethnic consolidation as well as 
holding back ethnic assimilation.

In their resistance to and struggle against racial discrimination and 
deprivation the Aborigines developed an Australia-wide common consciousness 
of themselves as a people of their own and distinguished from the (white) 
Australian nation and have organised themselves and campaigned on a 
continent-wide level.

All this amounts to ethnic consolidation developing to the stage of 
national formation among the Aborigines. Since they are scattered over the 
continent either as single local communities or small groups in towns and 
cities, they do not constitute a nation.3 As an integrated part of 
Australian capitalist society, they have assumed national traits in the 
form of an oppressed national minority.
* * *
(*) The term "ethnic" is given its scientific meaning here and is not to be
confused with common Australian usuage where "ethnic" is generally
used to mean "migrant".

1. Classes are "large groups of people differing from each other by the 
place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, 
by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means 
of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and 
consequently, by the dimensions of the share of the social wealth of which 
they dispose and the mode of acquiring it." Lenin, Collected Works, 
Vol. 29, Progress Publishers, 1964, p421.

2.  Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, Progress, 1956, p54.

3. A nation is a historically formed and stable community of people 
characterised by a common language, common territory, community of economic 
life and certain traits of culture and psychology, ways of life and 
traditions.