I count it a great privilege to contribute the opening essay to this issue of The Economic and Labour Relations Review, which is celebrating its first 20 years. Over that time, the journal has been an outlet for independent and outspoken, often unfashionable views, upholding traditions steeped in the thoughts of Michal Kalecki and Maynard Keynes, and some of Australia’s wisest economists. (Even Karl Marx gets a mention.) I am most grateful to the editors for asking me to be their opening bat.

The emergence of an understanding of labour as the basis of value is traced from ancient Greek authors to classical political economy and Karl Marx, and the subsequent eclipse of the theory in neoclassical economics is then charted. While the ancient Greeks did not have a concept of labour as a measure of value, in Scholastic authors the notion was fixed that labour and cost of production determine value. Labour assumed a central role in Adam Smith, but it was with David Ricardo that a fully blown labour theory of value was achieved. Marx gave the concept its philosophical dimension, tying it to a critique of classical political economy. The labour theory of value came under attack in neoclassical formulations which in the end effected the analytical disappearance of labour in several ways. Labour became just another factor of production, with marginal productivity regulating its price. Then factors of production and final goods became analytically equivalent as sources of subjective utility, especially in the context of general equilibrium theory. In disutility models of labour supply, labour was substituted by its absence, ‘leisure’. Finally, attempts were made to explain the employment relationship as an application of agency theory, moving away from the pure commodity model of labour. Nevertheless, all these theories failed to account for what became the Achilles' heel of neoclassicism — namely the indeterminacy of the labour contract.

In his seminal and canonical text for the new science of political economy, the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith seems to proceed as if there are markets for labour, akin to markets for ‘commodities' in the ordinary sense of that term. It might therefore seem as if for Smith, the production, distribution and exchange (or pricing) of commodities finds a more or less strict analogy in the production, distribution and exchange (or pricing) of labour or labour services, in ‘commercial society’ (his term), or in a liberal capitalist social economy. But how close, really, is the analogy between commodities in the ordinary sense and labour, in Smith's understanding?

The current financial crisis has meant a sudden drying-up of the widely-assumed basis of profitability and capital accumulation — reward for entrepreneurship or risk. In this context, it is timely to revisit the Marxian concept that profits derive from the dual role of labour, as both a commodity and a non-commodity. Surplus is created by the difference between the commodity dimension of labour, the value of labour power, and its non-commodity dimension — the value added by labour, over and above the value of inputs, or the cost of reproducing the workforce. Since the 1980s and 1990s, however, labour has become a commodity in a new sense. Risks to working class self-reproduction in the form of wage decline and withdrawal of state welfare, have pushed workers into becoming entrepreneurs of their own lives, calculating the risks of debt servicing and involuntarily buying services from privatised and financialised utilities and health care providers. In this sense, newly commodified labour is required to treat itself as a commercial entity, and it is thereby a player in the market for risk. The reproduction of labour power has itself become a source of surplus value, in the form of interest payments. But, as indicated by the US sub-prime housing market and its fall-out, capital now shares in the risk, through a fall in the value of labour power (lower consumption), and through incalculable financial instability.

Conventional poverty and inequality measures, based only on comparisons of financial resources, may underestimate gender differences in living standards. The value of time spent in household work by oneself and partner, and the value of leisure are key elements that need to be considered in measures of living standards. This article develops a method for measuring wellbeing at the level of the individual, rather than the household. Following the tradition of Australian models of ‘full income’, the final measure of wellbeing includes the value of time in leisure and unpaid work along with individual income, the benefits accruing from the social wage and the welfare gains from the ownership and use of assets. The article then compares the conventional income distribution and the ‘full income’ distribution to identify population subgroups disadvantaged on each of these measures. The results show that gender inequalities in living standards may be underestimated by conventional income measures, and that inequalities in personal income and time use contribute most substantially to gender inequality in the full income distribution.

Economists have rightly observed that labour commodification is one of the defining characteristics of the market capitalist mode. In this contribution, however, we contend that while a traditional macroeconomic perspective goes some way towards explaining the nature of the employment relationship, it fails to acknowledge that commodification is a necessary but not sufficient condition for labour utilisation. Viewed through the lens of organisation theory, the main employer agenda regarding labour utilisation is that of ‘human resource’ objectification, rather than market commodification. We seek to demonstrate this by examining how, under contemporary ‘human resource management’ (HRM), labour management theory and practice have developed into a sophisticated project designed to psychologise the employee subject into a resource object. In line with objectification, it is a project through which management seek to render human capabilities, attitudes and emotions — the basis of the worker's status as a social and organisational subject — classifiable, measurable and, hence, more manipulable.

Is Australia fulfilling its obligations towards its children, in particular fostering their development to their fullest potential, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child? This article addresses this complex question by elaborating three alternative conceptualisations of the right to development to one's fullest potential, based on the literature on human rights principles, and on the writings of the philosophers John Rawls, Michael Walzer, and Amartya Sen. The analysis suggests that while Australia performs well in comparison with other rich countries according to indicators of educational achievement, disparities in educational outcomes are large, implying that many children fail to realise their right to education to their fullest potential. This is not surprising. More surprising is the contrast between the diligence with which educational outcomes in Australia are measured, and the lack of accurate information on public resource inputs (except at the most highly aggregated levels) to achieve those outcomes. The paper concludes that while the measurement of student outcomes is an important step in the realisation of all Australian children's right to education to their fullest potential, the failure to accurately monitor resource inputs represents an equal failure by Australian governments to protect and promote children's rights.

From its foundation in 1919, the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) guiding principle has been that labour is not a commodity. Following an examination of the origins and impact of this principle on ILO and United Nations (UN) conventions relating to migrant workers, the paper examines how Australia has responded to such conventions. In this regard, the paper highlights the counterveiling influence of the neoclassical economic perspective on the way migrant workers in Australia have been treated and represented from the post-war period until recent times as either ‘factory fodder’ and/or ‘business assets'. Both representations, we argue, treat migrants as commodities. To challenge this approach the paper identifies how migrant workers have distinguished themselves from commodities through resistance to poor working conditions and also management strategies that treat them as if they were commodities.

In the context of a 2009 review of Australia's legislation governing framework government equal opportunity for women in the workplace, this article traces the history of Australia's Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity regulatory frameworks, arguing that there has been a consistent devolution in accountability and responsibility over the years. Whilst there is considerable existing research on EEO outcomes drawing on publicly available reports, the weakness of the reporting mechanism means that evidence of workplace policy and practice has not only diminished but should also be questioned for its accuracy. Drawing from workplace case studies in three sectors, the article draws contrasts between espoused organisational policy and some experiences of women in these workplaces. It is suggested that this and similar evidence of limitations in our current regulatory framework need to be considered by those crafting new legislation.

There has been a qualitative shift in the character of international labour migration with increased temporary labour migration. With circumscribed employment rights, the increased significance of temporary migrant workers underscores arguments that globalisation has engendered a more profound commodification of labour. The instrumentalist approach, especially of international financial institutions in promoting temporary labour migration as a panacea for development, reinforces this impression. Encapsulated in migration-development discourse, labour migration, like other commodities, is presented as a means of generating export revenue for the South. Karl Polanyi's critique of this market-defined construct of labour as a commodity, when labour can only ever be a fictitious commodity, provides a basis for contesting the representation of labour in the migration-development discourse. However, recourse to a Marxist method is held to be essential if we are to move beyond an appreciation of the process in order to interrogate the rationale that is driving the transformation of labour.

This article assesses the ‘Managing Diversity’ (MD) approach in Australia, examining its drivers, discussing its relationship to legislation designed to promote equity, and examining it as a set of management practices. It has been plausibly argued, on efficiency grounds, that responsibility for achieving equality objectives must be shifted to organisations as this links contextual conditions to organisational processes. However, even where there is some prescription and guidance such as that provided by Australian Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) legislation targeted specifically to women employees, both practice and outcomes are variable. This is even more the case with MD where there are no guiding principles or legislative support. The article examines the best practice EEO and MD programs of Australian organisations to demonstrate the approaches and programs that are being developed at the workplace and to highlight the limitations of the ‘business case’ approach underlying such programs.

This article explores employee attitudes towards trade union membership in the post-communist Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It reports on a comparative empirical social survey of attitudes towards representation. We suggest that in addition to those employees who are union members and those who fall within an identifiable ‘representation gap’, there is a sizeable group of ‘undecided’ employees who could be persuaded to join trade unions, if they could see the relevance of collective representation. We argue that this relatively large group could be specific to the Central and East European countries, and employees who fall within the commonly understood representation gap in other countries can be found within this undecided group in Baltic countries. Trade unions therefore face a considerable challenge in proving their relevance to such employees, a problem that has wider resonances in a European context but may be more difficult to resolve in the Central and East European countries.

Labour migration from the Pacific to Australasia has experienced two distinct phases with acute structural similarities. Late nineteenth century migration brought Melanesian migrants to Queensland cane plantations, notably from the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). A century later, early twenty-first century agricultural shortages took migrants from several island states to New Zealand and Australia. Migrants moved from semi-subsistence agricultural systems — where income generation was trivial — in search of incomes, goods and experience(s). Forced migration gave way to conscious choice. Similarities in the organisation of recruitment, acquisition of income and skills and improved material well-being attend both phases. Women have been more likely to participate in the second phase. Overall outcomes have been unequal with the principal gains accrued in destinations rather than by the migrants or their home islands.

It would be difficult to maintain that prevailing theories of industrial relations have been able to comprehend the tendencies that emerged in the recent world economic crisis (Sapelli 2008). State of the art discussions and scientific predictions circulating in Europe shortly before the crisis were dominated by functionalist theories. According to these approaches, the European monetary union and the liberalisation process should have brought about, through a mechanical institutional and social adjustment, a convergence in the behaviour of individual actors and especially the behaviour of the collective bodies through which interest groups are organised. These views, which failed entirely to perceive the approaching crisis, affirmed the universal validity of so-called neocorporatist concentration.

On-going class action against America Online's use of ‘free labour’ has divided opinion about the management of ‘digital’ labour in the ‘new’ economy. Web-based systems of collaboration between and within firms and their customers, as well as customer engagement in product innovation, have underscored claims about the evaporation of traditional labour markets and labour processes as well as about (weakening) divisions between production and consumption. This has led to (exaggerated) debates about the contribution of ‘free’ or ‘immaterial’ labour to contemporary economies. This paper argues that while significant restructuring has changed traditional organisational forms, capital markets remain centralised and digital labour remains as regulated as other labour. As such, while labour cannot be fully commodified, digital labour is neither free or immaterial, because it is not the content of labour itself, but rather its relationship with capital that gives it ‘weight’ and value.