Monopsony Capitalism
Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age
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Hardback
295 pages
978-1-108-48690-3 (ISBN)
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Description
This book explores the combination of capital's changing composition and labour's subjective agency to examine whether the waning days of the 'sweatshop' have indeed begun. Focused on the garment and footwear sectors, it introduces a universal logic that governs competition and reshapes the chain. By analysing workers' collective action at various sites of production, it observes how this internal logic plays out for labour who are testing the limits of the social order, stretching it until the seams show. By examining the most valorised parts of underdeveloped sectors, one can see where capital is going and how it is getting there. These findings contribute to ongoing efforts to establish workers' rights in sectors plagued by poverty and powerlessness, building fires and collapses. With this change and a capable labour movement, there's hope yet that workers may close the gap.
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10/2020
Cambridge University Press
€41.50
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Author
Birkbeck, University of London
Ashok Kumar teaches International Political Economy at Birkbeck, University of London. He has authored and edited a number of publications and is on the editorial collective of Historical Materialism. He completed his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2015.
Ashok Kumar teaches International Political Economy at Birkbeck, University of London. He has authored and edited a number of publications and is on the editorial collective of Historical Materialism. He completed his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2015.
Content
Acknowledgements; Introduction. The return of the sweatshop; Part I. Past: 1. The bottleneck; 2. The global sweatshop; Part II. Present: 3. China: a strike at a giant footwear producer; 4. India: a warehouse workers struggle at a 'full package' supplier; 5. Honduras: A transnational campaign at a cotton commodity producer; Part III. Future: 6. Cartels of capital; 7. Labour's power in the chain; 8. Conclusion. The end of the sweatshop? Bibliography; Index.