“The history of India is no history,” says Marx, “It is the history of invaders.” Akin to this, it can be conveniently suggested that the history of Australia is a history of immigrants. For the wretched of the earth, the ones despised and discarded by their countries, writhed and wiggled by expropriation, the journey to these “unpathed waters and undreamed shores” once promised a safe haven. A few hundred years prior to these oppressed people who are trying to sneak past snares and impediments, the likes of Cook and Columbus had already seized these lands of opportunity. Their voyage paved the way and laid the tradition for the rest to sail in boats to a ‘promised land’ beckoning with hope. The 10-pound poms (predominantly Irish) – many of whom represent the present day Australian ruling elite – had caressed these shores under the populate or perish policy. Lady Luck smiled on them and emerging capitalism embraced this cheap labour. The fate of the natives is altogether a different story. The same sad saga that in history has invariably been the destiny of the weak afflicted them with the same ferocity.History soaked in blood repeats itself everywhere with the same nonchalant ease. For Hegel, history is “reason”, the realisation of freedom, but for Marx it is nothing more than a mere prerequisite of freedom, hence an unreason, a pre-history, tainted with blood. The actual history of humankind will commence with the emergence of a classless society. Blood splattered on hands, whether they belong to vanquishers or expropriators, always gets forgotten even before it dries. The hiding of skeletons in one’s cupboard, the eclipsing of hideous tragedies into oblivion, was once considered an art, a characteristic feature of modern history. With latest technology through the “cunning of reason”, monopoly capitalism has successfully crafted a man without memory. This “individual no longer has a personal history” (Horkheimer). Under its commandments, everything seems to change but nothing moves. With all the running one ends up staying in the same place. In the most lucid minds, media – its most persuasive and effective tool – helps to garner this “ambivalent rationality, which is satisfying in its repression and repressive in its satisfaction” (Herbert Marcuse).The process of primitive accumulation has always been integral to industrialisation and progress. Wherever imperial powers paved their way, “ruin followed them like an echo of a bitter cry”. The extermination of the native population became the irrevocable dispensation for capital since the natives were found incompatible with the capitalist mode of production. Taming them required stupendous efforts and an interminable period of time. Such an option was considered a waste of energy. For productive process once decreed as superfluous, both guillotine and gallows instantly came into play. The highly reflective mind of Horkheimer expresses this state most succinctly. He says, “(when) efficiency, productivity and intelligent planning are proclaimed, the gods of modern man; so-called ‘unproductive’ groups and ‘predatory’ capital are branded as the enemies of society.” The natives’ inconsistency of productivity became the stumbling block, their erstwhile enemy leading the foundation of their extermination. Their characteristic features compounded their misery making them conveniently recognisable entities. The vulnerable victims were hunted at will. In capitalistic syntax, the logic was simple. Their unfamiliarity with the gospel of usefulness, commodity production and their alienation to competition and not nativeness per se were the reasons for their decimation. Annihilation was thus the consequence of economic constraint. Engels’ sagacity speaks volumes about it. He states: “Private property has made man a merchandise whose production and destruction depend only on demand, and that competition has slaughtered, and every day slaughters in this way, millions of men.” Marx does not stop here. His perspicacity gives another dimension. He states: “To be led with success, the industrial struggle demands large armies they can concentrate at one point and decimate copiously. These men had to meet their living costs as long as they were alive, and then those of their death. And they had to produce surplus value as long as they are capable of it. For capitalism does not execute the men it has condemned unless it profits by that very putting to death.” For capital, the premise was simple. Personal vendetta has never been its concern. These ‘originals’ were neither capable of producing surplus nor their own living cost, hence except for extinction through hunting or otherwise they were destined to no other fate. The tryst with destiny, the pledge to carry out the white man’s burden, was finally relieved by the logic of capitalism, which dislodged this burden into the dustbin of history.Ever since Captain Cook decided to anchor his ship in Australia, this process has seen no let up. In the last 20 years, the tempest of human beings approaching this land has significantly altered the demographic pattern. The concept of white Australia has considerably changed its hue, if not its character. To live amicably, only a couple of years ago, a multicultural, extremely tolerant, refined and cultivated Australia was close to an ideal society. During the last couple of years, the tide has turned turtle. One of the salient causes of this reversal has been the slowing down of economic growth. Capital needs cheap labour and the Asian continent, where two-thirds of the total population of the world is wallowing in the squalor of abject poverty and where workers without rights and whimper provide the cheapest labour market. They die in multitudes but massive death, disease or deformity do not dent or decrease their volume in the least. After any mayhem or carnage, the very next day a huge number, bigger than before, is queued up to replace the dead ones. Certainly the excess of productive forces heralds overpopulation.Akin to the western industrialised states, expensive native Australian labour is gradually becoming superfluous for capital, leading to stagnation in the manufacturing industry. The Ford Motor Company has decided to call it a day citing loss of profit – an inherent trait of capitalism – as the cause. Its overall profit margin has only slightly decreased but with its gaze fixed on the cheap labour of Asia, paying a ‘living’ wage to the local worker seems to it an ‘extravagance’ if not outright profligacy. Holden, ‘the pride of Australia’, too is following suit. (To be continued) The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com