Abstract

In addition to environmental degradation and financial speculation, neoliberal globalization has created a complex strategy of capital internationalization led by large multinational corporations that is driving labor costs down to extreme levels. This strategy is based, on the one hand, on the establishment of global commodity chains based on outsourcing schemes and intra-firm trade, which operate in peripheral nations and in the form of enclaves; on the other, it employs international labor migration as a means to lower labor costs in central countries. Both mechanisms comprise a new rung in the international division of labor: the export of labor. This process has led to new forms of unequal exchange that are much more predatory than those involved in the exchange of raw materials for industrial products. This has led to a reintegration of a subordinate periphery to the center, increasing asymmetries between countries and pushing social inequality to unprecedented levels. The purpose of this paper is to empirically and conceptually analyze these fundamental aspects of contemporary global architecture.

Highlights

  • In the early 1970s, labor constraints were listed as one of the main obstacles to global capital accumulation (Harvey, 2003)

  • The concomitant strategies employed by large multinational corporations (MNCs) under the governmental support of the world’s most powerful countries, led by the United States and international agencies headed by the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), have triggered a profound process of capitalist restructuring

  • Starting from these fundamental issues, the purpose of this study is to examine two essential features of neoliberal globalization: the export of labor and unequal exchange

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Summary

Introduction

In the early 1970s, labor constraints were listed as one of the main obstacles to global capital accumulation (Harvey, 2003). The restructuring process that characterizes capitalist neoliberal globalization has nothing to do with a “free market” ideology but a growing monopolization of production, services and global trade, accompanied by progressive labor exploitation and environmental degradation; taken together, these comprise an exploitative, parasitic, rentier-based and predatory phase of global capitalism (Petras & Veltmeyer, 2000; Stiglitz, 2002). Starting from these fundamental issues, the purpose of this study is to examine two essential features of neoliberal globalization: the export of labor and unequal exchange. As we shall see they are both linked to the dynamics of uneven development that characterize contemporary capitalism and are the basis for its poor, inconsistent and unsustainable performance

Notes on the Performance of Contemporary Capitalism
The Growing Precarization of Labor
Growing Social Inequalities
Southern Asia
The Low Rates of Economic Growth
It is clear that the nature of contemporary capitalism has been
Emergence of New Forms of Unequal Exchange
Findings
Concluding Remarks
Full Text
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