Poverty through ‘Insufficient Exploitation and/or Globalization’? Globalized Production and New Dualist Fallacies

Abstract

This article draws a parallel between two different but related debates in international political economy: first, the (Marxist) argument that if there is one thing worse than being exploited in capitalist society, it is not being exploited; second, the argument that developing countries are poor because they are insufficiently globalized. The paper challenges the second argument outright and suggests that the first is too simplistic, and does so by focusing on the question of dualism. In discussing the globalization of manufacturing production, the article demonstrates the reality of continued hierarchies in the world economy, and how these undermine dualist accounts of insufficient exploitation and/or globalization. Finally, I draw some conclusions based on an alternative understanding of globalization and labour. A Chinese version of this article's abstract is available online at: www.informaworld.com/rglo