Comparing Critical Capitalist Commodity Chains in the Early Twenty-first Century: Opportunities For and Constraints on Labor and Political Movements

Abstract

There have been a number of critical historical opportunities for labor to exert power by interrupting long distance flows of commodities at the extraction, processing, and transport stages. This vulnerability has been used by workers in these industries to gain higher wages and better working conditions and to achieve political goals in national and international arenas. In this paper, we compare two commodity chains that are critical components of the global economy. The first, which we describe as transport, is a broad category involving a range of manufactured goods, whose delivery to customers around the world was fundamentally changed in the past fifty years via "containerization" and "the logistics revolution." The second is oil and gas, which also has experienced recently dramatic changes in both extraction (via "tar sands" and "[racking") and transportation. In each case, we discuss possibilities and challenges for labor and political organizing to disrupt capital in these key commodity chains. We identify the "stakes" in each commodity chain by demonstrating the vulnerabilities on which labor and political organizations/movements could capitalize, which usually stem from the capital intensity and global integration of each critical commodity chain. These vulnerabilities are the factors which form the most basic opportunities for organizing in these sectors. Our analysis further suggests that while transport and raw materials remain vulnerable nodes in capitalist commodity chains, there are also constraints and challenges to be faced by labor and social movement organizations (SMOs) that might attempt to leverage power over these circuits of the world-economy.

Fungible Space: Competition and Volatility in the Global Logistics Network

“…Elsewhere, the circulation of commodities has become a national-scale concern. Several fast-growing countries, including China, have placed logistics at the center of their economic development strategies (Sowers et al, 2014). National states' growing preoccupation with goods movement is evinced in--and has been fueled by--a recently devised World Bank ranking called the Logistics Performance Index, which compares countries in terms of infrastructure, customs processes, logistics services, tracking and tracing capabilities, timeliness and ease of arranging shipments.…”

R. Scott Frey and the Unfinished Agenda of Unifying Economy and Environment in the World-System from Extraction to Waste

“…There are hints, in fact, in his late works of beginning to try to put everything together, from extraction to production to transport to waste. In effect he was attempting to pursue the integrative aims that Ciccantell and Smith (2009) and Sowers et al (2014) also have addressed in 'lengthening' the analysis of global commodity chains but in Scott's case all the way through to waste. Recognizing that much literature has focused on the expansion of the world-system to and through new frontiers (Bunker 1985;Dunaway 1996;Longo et al 2018; Moore 2015), Scott asked us to pay closer attention to the "displacement of the core's anti-wealth to the 'waste disposal frontiers'" (Frey 2015: 41).…”

Are Transport and Raw Materials Nodes in Global Commodity Chains Potential Places for Worker/Movement Organization?

“…The lengthened global commodity chains model (Ciccantell and Smith ; Sowers, Ciccantell and Smith ) begins analysis by focusing on raw materials extraction and processing and on the transport and communications technologies that link the multiple nodes of the chain from its raw materials sources through industrial processing to consumption and eventually waste disposal. This approach contrasts sharply with most work in the GCCs’ tradition that focus on industrial production and consumption and pay little attention to the upstream parts of commodity chains (Ciccantell and Smith ).…”

“…It provides a lens to examine spatially‐based disarticulations (the marginalization or outright elimination of particular nodes from a GCC, such as via closure of a factory) (Bair and Werner ) and contestations over extraction, processing, transport, consumption, and waste disposal across these chains. This approach highlights the role of contestation and resistance to the construction and reproduction of a particular commodity chain in particular places, as, for example, labor movements and social movement organizations seek to achieve their goals despite resistance from firms and states that oppose these goals, such as port worker conflicts and the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline and oil sands (Ciccantell and Smith ; Sowers, Ciccantell, and Smith ).…”

“…Despite some evidence that longshoremen and their allies can utilize labor actions to exploit the crucial structural pivots of these global ports, the structure of the workforce in the broader port complexes presents challenges to labor organizers (Sowers ). It is important to note that the logistics workforce is highly variegated, includes a wide range of jobs in disparate locations, and is divided by race and nativity (Bonacich and Wilson ; Sowers, Ciccantell, and Smith ). Truck drivers, seafarers, longshoremen, and warehouse workers are just a few of the more prominent groups of logistics workers.…”