Gold’s influence on Australian economic development in the nineteenth century

Abstract

This article seeks to set out the significant ways in which the gold industry, particularly during the booms of the nineteenth century, affected Australia’s development. I argue that the most substantial effects of the gold rush affected two broad aspects of Australian society. First, the gold rush impacted the Australian economy by bringing substantial wealth to Australian shores as an export, stimulating secondary industries, driving population growth and restructuring the manufacturing sector. Second, the gold rush helped shape Australia’s socio-political climate. Compared with the previously hegemonic wool industry, gold provided better economic wages for the working class. These wage increases spread to other industries and, with increased population in Australia, a new era began wherein the working class expected high wages. I posit that this was due to the labour movement dominating Australia’s political left. I suggest that the labour movement’s influence on the political left has fostered more stable social outcomes in comparison with Argentina, an economy that developed a more radical political left.