Some Observations on Unfree Labour, Capitalist Restructuring, and Deproletarianization

Abstract

Both historically and actually, there is a complex interrelationship between the existence of unfree labour and the process of class formation and struggle in the course of agrarian transformation. However, much current writing about rural labour in the Third World is based on three interrelated assumptions. First, that labour market imperfections are always the fault of peasants resisting the attempts of capital to proletarianize them; second, that capitalist penetration of agriculture always transforms peasants into proletarians, in the full meaning of the latter term; and third, that where these exist (non-urban contexts, backward agriculture, and/or underdeveloped countries), unfree relations are always unproblematically pre-capitalist forms of production destined to be eliminated in the course of this process. In the marxist approach which follows, it will be argued that each of these three assumptions is wrong.

Fuelling global production networks with slave labour?: Migrant sugar cane workers in the Brazilian ethanol GPN

“…This trend has continued as slave labour was reproduced during the investment boom in the ethanol sector. In the Brazilian CAC, unfree labour appears to be at least compatible with capitalism (Brass 1997). …”

From field to factory: tracing transformations in bonded labour in the Tiruppur region, Tamil Nadu

“…However, the strong forms of bondedness, and the effective de-proletarianisation of labour that it has brought about (Brass 1990;1994), has not entirely succeeded in curbing the rise of an overt awareness among workers of their bondedness. Across the powerloom belt of western Tamil Nadu, strong and persistent ties of unfree labour are accompanied by high levels of consciousness among powerloom workers and by explicit acts of opposition, be it in the form of avoidance or litigation.…”

“…Firstly, it illustrates how the reproduction of labour bondage -over time and across rural sectors -is central to the ways in which a dominant caste (of land-and powerloom-owning Gounders) seeks to retain and remould its control over a low caste labour force in a context of rapidly tightening labour markets. Secondly, it is argued, in line with other scholars, that there is a degree of compatibility between contemporary forms of debt bondage and capitalist production (Breman 1993, Lerche 2007, Brass 1994. In the context of neo-liberal economic reform, even advanced forms of capitalist production clearly seek to de-commodify or deproletarianise particular sections of the labour force.…”

“…Matharis tell about how they are shouted at and even beaten if they fail to appear at work or obey Gounders' orders. They realise that by taking on advances they have lost control over their own labour and lost the freedom to go and work elsewhere -they have effectively become de-proletarianised as described by Brass (1990;1994). Even if debt itself does not necessarily turn a worker into a bonded labourer, the ties and treatment that come with it certainly do (Roesch et al 2009).…”

Beyond Liberalism: Marxist Feminism, Migrant Sex Work, and Labour Unfreedom

“…The capitalist mode of production requires that our labour is commodified and sold on the market in return for a wage in what appears to be an equal exchange. However, wage labour is only ever formally free (workers are 'free' to sell their labour power to any buyer but are also compelled to do so in order to survive) and is always exploited (albeit to different degrees) because the production of surplus value, part of which equates to profit, is essential for the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production (Banaji 2003;Brass 1994;Holmstrom 1977;LeBaron 2015;Strauss and Fudge 2013;Strauss and McGrath 2016). Marxist feminists have, however, expanded our understanding of the capital-labour relationship beyond capital's need for labour that produces surplus value.…”