The Development of Labor under Contemporary Capitalism
RINA AGARWALA
Johns Hopkins University
ABSTRACT
This paper offers a revised theoretical model to understand the historical development of
labor under capitalism. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci, Karl Polanyi, and Nancy Fraser, the revised model
highlights how state politics and ideologies have reshaped formal and informal labor to fuel evolving
accumulation models since the 1950s. It also deepens our analysis of the potential and limits of labor’s
contemporary counter movements. Potential advances must be read in terms of increased protection and
increased recognition relative to earlier eras. Limits must be read relative to the hegemonic forces splintering workers’ counter movements. Applying the revised model to the empirical case of Indian informal
workers in various sectors, I illustrate how the Indian state used informal workers as a political actor (not
just an economic actor) to organize consent for a powerful new hegemonic project of market reforms (of
the Gramscian variety) that undid labor’s twentieth-century gains and empowered large businesses, but
retained democratic legitimacy with the mass labor force. I also expose and evaluate two kinds of counter movements emerging from below by Indian workers: self-protection movements (of the Polanyian
variety) and emancipatory/recognition movements (of the Fraserian variety). India’s recent hegemonic
project enabled informal workers to counteract the dehumanizing effects of labor commodification by
offering an alternative labor protection model. This model has the potential to redefine the working class
(and its protection) to include multiple employment relationships for the first time. It also promises
to recognize the social relations between multiple categories of vulnerable populations, reminding us
that caste, gender, and class are mutually constitutive (rather than mutually exclusive). But this model
is highly constrained by contemporary hegemonic forces, highlighting the complex relationship of
society to state—one of contestation and, for the sake of survival, collaboration.
KEYWORDS labor,
development, hegemony, countermovements, recognition, informal labor
Monday, March 30, 2020
RODNEY HILTON, MARXISM AND THE TRANSITION FROM FEUDALISM TO CAPITALISM*
S. R. EPSTEIN in C. Dyer, P. Coss, C. Wickham eds.
Rodney Hilton’s Middle Ages 400-1600,
Cambridge UP 2006
A founding member of the Historians’ Group of the Communist Party, of the journal Past and
Present, and of a distinctive and distinguished School of History at the University of
Birmingham, Rodney Hilton was among the most notable medieval historians of the latter
half of the twentieth century. He was also the most influential of a small number of Marxist
medievalists in Britain and Continental Europe who practised their craft before the
renaissance of Marxist and left-wing history after 1968. Surprisingly, therefore, his work’s
historiographical and theoretical significance has not attracted much attention.1
Although Hilton was, first and foremost, a ‘historian’s historian’, and made his most
lasting contributions to the fields of English social, agrarian, and urban history, his
engagement with Marxist historical debates cannot be lightly dismissed.2
Hilton’s Marxism, a central feature of his self-understanding as a historian, reflects both strengths and weaknesses of British Marxist historiography in its heyday, and his interpretation of a locus classicus of Marxist debate, the transition from feudal to capitalist modes of production, still carries
considerable weight among like-minded historians.
S. R. EPSTEIN in C. Dyer, P. Coss, C. Wickham eds.
Rodney Hilton’s Middle Ages 400-1600,
Cambridge UP 2006
A founding member of the Historians’ Group of the Communist Party, of the journal Past and
Present, and of a distinctive and distinguished School of History at the University of
Birmingham, Rodney Hilton was among the most notable medieval historians of the latter
half of the twentieth century. He was also the most influential of a small number of Marxist
medievalists in Britain and Continental Europe who practised their craft before the
renaissance of Marxist and left-wing history after 1968. Surprisingly, therefore, his work’s
historiographical and theoretical significance has not attracted much attention.1
Although Hilton was, first and foremost, a ‘historian’s historian’, and made his most
lasting contributions to the fields of English social, agrarian, and urban history, his
engagement with Marxist historical debates cannot be lightly dismissed.2
Hilton’s Marxism, a central feature of his self-understanding as a historian, reflects both strengths and weaknesses of British Marxist historiography in its heyday, and his interpretation of a locus classicus of Marxist debate, the transition from feudal to capitalist modes of production, still carries
considerable weight among like-minded historians.
Modern Capitalism It's Origin and Evolution
Henri Sée
Honorary Professor, University of Rennes
Translated by Homer B. Vanderblue
Professor of Business Economics and Georges F. Doriot Associate Professor of Manufacturing Graduate School of Business Administration Harvard University
George F. Baker Foundation
1928
BATOCHE BOOKS 2004 PDF
Contents
Foreword .......................................................................................................................5
Preface ...........................................................................................................................7
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................ 10
Chapter 2: The First Manifestations of Capitalism....................................................... 12
Chapter 3: The Beginning of Modern Times ................................................................ 26
Chapter 4: Capitalism in the Sixteenth Century: Maritime Commerce and Colonial
Expansion ................................................................................................................ 35
Chapterr 5: Commercial and Financial Capitalism in the Seventeenth Century ............ 45
Chapter 6: The Expansion of Commercial and Financial Capitalism in the Eighteenth
Century..................................................................................................................... 62
Chapter 7: The Progress of Capitalism and the Breakdown of the Colonial System... 72
Chapter 8: The Beginnings of Industrial Capitalism: The Factory System .................. 83
Chapter 9: The Progress of Capitalism in the Nineteenth Century ............................... 95
Chapter 10: Social Repercussions ............................................................................. 106
Chapter 11: Conclusion.............................................................................................. 119
Notes.......................................................................................................................... 125
Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 139
Henri Sée
Honorary Professor, University of Rennes
Translated by Homer B. Vanderblue
Professor of Business Economics and Georges F. Doriot Associate Professor of Manufacturing Graduate School of Business Administration Harvard University
George F. Baker Foundation
1928
BATOCHE BOOKS 2004 PDF
Contents
Foreword .......................................................................................................................5
Preface ...........................................................................................................................7
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................ 10
Chapter 2: The First Manifestations of Capitalism....................................................... 12
Chapter 3: The Beginning of Modern Times ................................................................ 26
Chapter 4: Capitalism in the Sixteenth Century: Maritime Commerce and Colonial
Expansion ................................................................................................................ 35
Chapterr 5: Commercial and Financial Capitalism in the Seventeenth Century ............ 45
Chapter 6: The Expansion of Commercial and Financial Capitalism in the Eighteenth
Century..................................................................................................................... 62
Chapter 7: The Progress of Capitalism and the Breakdown of the Colonial System... 72
Chapter 8: The Beginnings of Industrial Capitalism: The Factory System .................. 83
Chapter 9: The Progress of Capitalism in the Nineteenth Century ............................... 95
Chapter 10: Social Repercussions ............................................................................. 106
Chapter 11: Conclusion.............................................................................................. 119
Notes.......................................................................................................................... 125
Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 139
Chapter 2 – Contradictions of Capitalism
Chapter (PDF Available) · September 2018
DOI: 10.3362/9781780447117.002
In book: Critical Development Studies: An Introduction, pp.26-53
Chapter (PDF Available) · September 2018
DOI: 10.3362/9781780447117.002
In book: Critical Development Studies: An Introduction, pp.26-53
CAPITALISM AND DEVELOPMENT
LESLIE SKLAIR
The book seeks to clarify the histories and theories of capitalist development. It provides an introduction to the main theories of capitalist development and critiques of the main problems that capitalist development still has to solve around the world. These critiques are grounded in studies of key sectors of capitalist development—electronics, automobiles, agribusiness, apparel, tourism and the cross-cutting areas of commodity chains and women’s work. These chapters ask if capitalism cannot ‘develop the Third World’ through these industries, then how can it do so at all? The contributors argue that not even the most enthusiastic proponents of the capitalist road to development would argue that capitalism has solved all its problems in the Third World. The book will interest students in Social Science, development and international business studies courses; the public interested in ‘Third World’ issues; and people working in development agencies of various types.
Leslie Sklair is Reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics. He has been a consultant for the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, the UN Commission on Latin America, the ILO and the Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress.
Contributors: Henry Bernstein; Richard Child Hill; Mahmoud Dhaouadi; Diane Elson; Gary Gereffi; David Harrison; Jeffrey Henderson; Rhys Jenkins; Yong Joo Lee; Kyong-Dong Kim; Philip McMichael; Maria Mies; Ronaldo Munck; Ruth Pearson; Laura Raynolds; Michael Redclift; Leslie Sklair; Immanuel Wallerstein.
PUBLISHED 1994
LESLIE SKLAIR
The book seeks to clarify the histories and theories of capitalist development. It provides an introduction to the main theories of capitalist development and critiques of the main problems that capitalist development still has to solve around the world. These critiques are grounded in studies of key sectors of capitalist development—electronics, automobiles, agribusiness, apparel, tourism and the cross-cutting areas of commodity chains and women’s work. These chapters ask if capitalism cannot ‘develop the Third World’ through these industries, then how can it do so at all? The contributors argue that not even the most enthusiastic proponents of the capitalist road to development would argue that capitalism has solved all its problems in the Third World. The book will interest students in Social Science, development and international business studies courses; the public interested in ‘Third World’ issues; and people working in development agencies of various types.
Leslie Sklair is Reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics. He has been a consultant for the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, the UN Commission on Latin America, the ILO and the Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress.
Contributors: Henry Bernstein; Richard Child Hill; Mahmoud Dhaouadi; Diane Elson; Gary Gereffi; David Harrison; Jeffrey Henderson; Rhys Jenkins; Yong Joo Lee; Kyong-Dong Kim; Philip McMichael; Maria Mies; Ronaldo Munck; Ruth Pearson; Laura Raynolds; Michael Redclift; Leslie Sklair; Immanuel Wallerstein.
PUBLISHED 1994
THE CAPITALIST STATE
The Political Economy of Capitalism - Harvard Business School
Bruce R. Scott
#07-037
Abstract
Capitalism is often defined as an economic system where private actors are
allowed to own and control the use of property in accord with their own interests, and
where the invisible hand of the pricing mechanism coordinates supply and demand in
markets in a way that is automatically in the best interests of society. Government, in this
perspective, is often described as responsible for peace, justice, and tolerable taxes.
This paper defines capitalism as a system of indirect governance for economic
relationships, where all markets exist within institutional frameworks that are provided by
political authorities, i.e. governments. In this second perspective capitalism is a three
level system much like any organized sports. Markets occupy the first level, where the
competition takes place; the institutional foundations that underpin those markets are the
second; and the political authority that administers the system is the third. While markets
do indeed coordinate supply and demand with the help of the invisible hand in a short
term, quasi-static perspective, government coordinates the modernization of market
frameworks in accord with changing circumstances, including changing perceptions of
societal costs and benefits. In this broader perspective government has two distinct roles,
one to administer the existing institutional frameworks, including the provision of
infrastructure and the administration of laws and regulations, and the second to mobilize
political power to bring about modernization of those frameworks as circumstances
and/or societal priorities change. Thus, for a capitalist system to evolve in an effective
developmental sense through time, it must have two hands and not one: an invisible hand
that is implicit in the pricing mechanism and a visible hand that is explicitly managed by
government through a legislature and a bureaucracy. Inevitably the visible hand has a
strategy, no matter how implicit, short sighted or incoherent that strategy may be.
The birth of capitalism - by H Heller - 2011 -
BOOK PDF
Heller, Henry
Book — Published Version The birth of capitalism: A twenty-first-century perspective The Future of World Capitalism Provided in Cooperation with: Pluto Press Suggested Citation: Heller, Henry (2011) : The birth of capitalism: A twenty-first-century perspective, The Future of World Capitalism, ISBN 978-1-84964-613-0, Pluto Press, London
The Future of World Capitalism Series editors: Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman The world is undergoing a major realignment. The 2008 financial crash and ensuing recession, China’s unremitting economic advance, and the uprisings in the Middle East, are laying to rest all dreams of an ‘American Century’. This key moment in history makes weighty intellectual demands on all who wish to understand and shape the future. Theoretical debate has been derailed, and critical thinking stifled, by apologetic and superficial ideas with almost no explanatory value, ‘globalization’ being only the best known. Academic political economy has failed to anticipate the key events now shaping the world, and offers few useful insights on how to react to them. The Future of World Capitalism series will foster intellectual renewal, restoring the radical heritage that gave us the international labour movement, the women’s movement, classical Marxism, and the great revolutions of the twentieth century. It will unite them with new thinking inspired by modern struggles for civil rights, social justice, sustainability, and peace, giving theoretical expression to the voices of change of the twenty-first century. Drawing on an international set of authors, and a world-wide readership, combining rigour with accessibility and relevance, this series will set a reference standard for critical publishing. Also available: Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy Costas Panayotakis
Heller, Henry
Book — Published Version The birth of capitalism: A twenty-first-century perspective The Future of World Capitalism Provided in Cooperation with: Pluto Press Suggested Citation: Heller, Henry (2011) : The birth of capitalism: A twenty-first-century perspective, The Future of World Capitalism, ISBN 978-1-84964-613-0, Pluto Press, London
The Future of World Capitalism Series editors: Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman The world is undergoing a major realignment. The 2008 financial crash and ensuing recession, China’s unremitting economic advance, and the uprisings in the Middle East, are laying to rest all dreams of an ‘American Century’. This key moment in history makes weighty intellectual demands on all who wish to understand and shape the future. Theoretical debate has been derailed, and critical thinking stifled, by apologetic and superficial ideas with almost no explanatory value, ‘globalization’ being only the best known. Academic political economy has failed to anticipate the key events now shaping the world, and offers few useful insights on how to react to them. The Future of World Capitalism series will foster intellectual renewal, restoring the radical heritage that gave us the international labour movement, the women’s movement, classical Marxism, and the great revolutions of the twentieth century. It will unite them with new thinking inspired by modern struggles for civil rights, social justice, sustainability, and peace, giving theoretical expression to the voices of change of the twenty-first century. Drawing on an international set of authors, and a world-wide readership, combining rigour with accessibility and relevance, this series will set a reference standard for critical publishing. Also available: Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy Costas Panayotakis
Studies In The Development Of Capitalism (1946) PDF
by MAURICE DOBB Publication date 1946
Books Received
Published: 05 April 1947
Studies in the Development of Capitalism
Revolution of Environment
MAURICE BRUCE
Nature volume 159, pages 452–453(1947)Cite this article
Abstract
THOUGH widely different in subject-matter and approach, both these books are attempts to illuminate tendencies of the present by the analysis and synthesis of historical material, and both are concerned with the new opportunities for the development of civilization that now present themselves. In his introduction Dr. Gutkind directs attention to “the discrepancy between social conditions and the economic and technological possibilities” of the modern world, and calls for “an adjustment to new ways of life” by a “revolution of environment” that will produce a more balanced life within and between the nations. Mr. Dobb is concerned primarily with historical analysis, but he, too, has something to say of present trends, and his conclusions are of particular interest at a moment when the problems arising from a policy of 'full employment' and from the economic difficulties of Great Britain are so much in the air.
Studies in the Development of Capitalism
By Maurice Dobb. Pp. ix + 396. (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1946.) 18s. net.
Revolution of Environment
By E. A. Gutkind. (International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction.) Pp. x + 454 + 74 plates. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1946.) 30s. net.
Books Received
Published: 05 April 1947
Studies in the Development of Capitalism
Revolution of Environment
MAURICE BRUCE
Nature volume 159, pages 452–453(1947)Cite this article
Abstract
THOUGH widely different in subject-matter and approach, both these books are attempts to illuminate tendencies of the present by the analysis and synthesis of historical material, and both are concerned with the new opportunities for the development of civilization that now present themselves. In his introduction Dr. Gutkind directs attention to “the discrepancy between social conditions and the economic and technological possibilities” of the modern world, and calls for “an adjustment to new ways of life” by a “revolution of environment” that will produce a more balanced life within and between the nations. Mr. Dobb is concerned primarily with historical analysis, but he, too, has something to say of present trends, and his conclusions are of particular interest at a moment when the problems arising from a policy of 'full employment' and from the economic difficulties of Great Britain are so much in the air.
Studies in the Development of Capitalism
By Maurice Dobb. Pp. ix + 396. (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1946.) 18s. net.
Revolution of Environment
By E. A. Gutkind. (International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction.) Pp. x + 454 + 74 plates. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1946.) 30s. net.
Dobb on the transition from feudalism to capitalism
Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 2, Issue 2, June 1978, Pages 121–140, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.cje.a035381
THE BRENNER DEBATE. REDUX
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=THE+BRENNER+DEBATE.
Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe*
ROBERT BRENNER
This is the accepted version of Anievas, Alexander and Nisancioglu, Kerem (2013)
What’s at Stake in the Transition Debate? Rethinking the Origins of Capitalism and the ‘Rise of the West’ Millennium: Journal of International Studies Vol. 42 (1), 78-102. Published version available from Sage at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305829813497823 Accepted version downloaded from SOAS Research Online: http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/20673/
The Transition Debate Today:
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=THE+BRENNER+DEBATE.
The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Edited by T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin (Cambridge, London, New York: Cambridge University Press, ‘Past and Present Publications’, 1985, viii + 341 pp.) PDF
ROBERT BRENNER
This is the accepted version of Anievas, Alexander and Nisancioglu, Kerem (2013)
What’s at Stake in the Transition Debate? Rethinking the Origins of Capitalism and the ‘Rise of the West’ Millennium: Journal of International Studies Vol. 42 (1), 78-102. Published version available from Sage at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305829813497823 Accepted version downloaded from SOAS Research Online: http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/20673/
The Transition Debate Today:
A Review of The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400–1600
by Spencer Dimmock
Article (PDF Available) in Historical Materialism 26(2) · September 2018 with 543 Reads
DOI: 10.1163/1569206X-00001701 Cite this publication
Article (PDF Available) in Historical Materialism 26(2) · September 2018 with 543 Reads
DOI: 10.1163/1569206X-00001701 Cite this publication
Abstract
Spencer Dimmock has produced a convincing restatement, defence and update of Robert Brenner's influential work on the origin of capitalism in England. The book productively engages with many Marxist and non-Marxist critics of the so-called 'Brenner Thesis', and presents fresh secondary and primary evidence in favour of it. This review sketches the theoretical background of Brenner's intervention, summarises Dimmock's take on Brenner, and comments on a few notable contemporary critiques of Brenner's general framework which are not explicitly engaged with by Dimmock.
Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 2001, pp. 169–241.
The Low Countries in the Transition to Capitalism
ROBERT P. BRENNER
In the most recent phase of the discussion on the historical conditions for
economic development, or the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the
town-dominated Low Countries have been neglected, because the focus has
been to such a large extent on agrarian conditions and agrarian transformations. This article seeks to make use of the cases of the medieval and early
modern Northern and Southern Netherlands, the most highly urbanized
and commercialized regions in Europe, to show that the rise of towns and the
expansion of exchange cannot in themselves bring about economic development, because they cannot bring about the requisite transformation of agrarian
social-property relations. In the non-maritime Southern Netherlands, a
peasant-based economy led to economic involution. In the maritime Northern
Netherlands, the transformation of peasants into market-dependent farmers
created the basis for economic development.
Keywords: Brenner debate, economic devel
Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 2 No. 1, January 2002, pp. 88–95.
Charles Post © Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Henry Bernstein and Terence J. Byres 2002.
Comments on the Brenner–Wood Exchange on the Low Countries
CHARLES POST The exchange between Brenner and Wood on the Low Countries in the early modern period raises a number of theoretical and historical issues relating to the conditions for the emergence of capitalist social-property relations and their unique historical laws of motion. This contribution focuses on three issues raised in the Brenner–Wood exchange: the conditions under which rural household producers become subject to ‘market coercion’, the potential for ecological crisis to restructure agricultural production, and the relative role of foreign trade and the transformation of domestic, rural class relations to capitalist industrialization.
Spencer Dimmock has produced a convincing restatement, defence and update of Robert Brenner's influential work on the origin of capitalism in England. The book productively engages with many Marxist and non-Marxist critics of the so-called 'Brenner Thesis', and presents fresh secondary and primary evidence in favour of it. This review sketches the theoretical background of Brenner's intervention, summarises Dimmock's take on Brenner, and comments on a few notable contemporary critiques of Brenner's general framework which are not explicitly engaged with by Dimmock.
Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 2001, pp. 169–241.
The Low Countries in the Transition to Capitalism
ROBERT P. BRENNER
In the most recent phase of the discussion on the historical conditions for
economic development, or the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the
town-dominated Low Countries have been neglected, because the focus has
been to such a large extent on agrarian conditions and agrarian transformations. This article seeks to make use of the cases of the medieval and early
modern Northern and Southern Netherlands, the most highly urbanized
and commercialized regions in Europe, to show that the rise of towns and the
expansion of exchange cannot in themselves bring about economic development, because they cannot bring about the requisite transformation of agrarian
social-property relations. In the non-maritime Southern Netherlands, a
peasant-based economy led to economic involution. In the maritime Northern
Netherlands, the transformation of peasants into market-dependent farmers
created the basis for economic development.
Keywords: Brenner debate, economic devel
Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 2 No. 1, January 2002, pp. 88–95.
Charles Post © Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Henry Bernstein and Terence J. Byres 2002.
Comments on the Brenner–Wood Exchange on the Low Countries
CHARLES POST The exchange between Brenner and Wood on the Low Countries in the early modern period raises a number of theoretical and historical issues relating to the conditions for the emergence of capitalist social-property relations and their unique historical laws of motion. This contribution focuses on three issues raised in the Brenner–Wood exchange: the conditions under which rural household producers become subject to ‘market coercion’, the potential for ecological crisis to restructure agricultural production, and the relative role of foreign trade and the transformation of domestic, rural class relations to capitalist industrialization.
* Judith R. Gelman
July 1979 (revised November 1982) 52pp. PDF
* Bureau of Economics, Federal Trade Commission.
The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent those of the
Commission, individual Commissioners, or other staff members.
Research for this paper was done while the author was studying at
MIT.
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper examines evidence from late-Medieval/early Renaissance England
in order to determine whether the English economy suffered a secular decline after the first outbreak of plague, in 134 8-51. The major conclusion of this analysis is that the plague did not cause an economic depression in England .
Instead, economic data--such as food prices, wages, and trade figures-- indicate that the economic welfare of the surviving English population improved in the post-plague era. The severe and repeated population declines during the post-plague period appear to have been generated wholly exogenously . The economic improvement was not universal. While the peasants and artisans were better off in the post-plague era, the upper class suffered from the rise in wage rates and the fa ll in land rents .
The conclusions reached here contradict those of many other economic historians . The disagreement has two basic sources .
First, when the population level falls drastically, total and percapita economic activity may move in opposite directions . Many economic historians, most notably Miskimin and Lopez , have looked
at trade figures for this period in aggregates, ignoring changes in population (see 19, 20 , 21, 22). Such practices implicitly rely on Malthusian theories of endogenously generated changes in population . The problems with applying the Malthusian population theory to this time period are dis cussed below in greater detail.
For now , suffice it to say that population decline may be exogenous or may be affected by economic activity in other than the usually expected ways. Because the issue of aggregate versus per capita data has been mishandled by many writers, it is necessary to define economic depression precisely.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)