Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age (Development Trajectories in Global Value Chains)
Cambridge University Press, 10/29/2020
EAN 9781108731973, ISBN10: 110873197X
Paperback, 290 pages, 22.1 x 19.6 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
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.
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.