This paper develops a Marxian critique of the "global commodity chain" (GCC) paradigm. It is argued that this approach fails to provide an actual explanation of the phenomenon it sets about to investigate. Instead, it offers a typological description of the immediate manifestations of the determinations at stake. As a consequence, the GCC approach onesidedly conceptualises the relations among individual capitals within a commodity chain as the simple result of relations of power (or co-operation), that is, of direct social relations. By contrast, this paper argues that the latter are concrete mediations of the inner laws regulating the indirect social relations among individual capitals: the process of global competition through which the formation of the general rate of profit asserts itself. On this basis, it develops an alternative account of the social determinations underlying the genesis, structure and evolving configuration of GCCs as an expression of the unfolding of the Marxian "law of value".
This article aims to show that the Marxian 'law of value' can provide solid foundations for the comprehension of the constitution and dynamics of Global Value Chains (GVC). It offers an explanation of the social processes of 'value creation and capture' within a chain based on the system-wide motion of global capital accumulation. A firm connection is thus established between the particular dynamics internal to each industry and the general dynamics of the 'system as a whole', which is, precisely, where the greatest weakness of the GVC approach lies. Furthermore, the usefulness of those general theoretical insights is then shown through a more empirical discussion of recent transformations in the composition and governance structure of GVC resulting from two interrelated processes: the tendency for a growing de-linking between innovation and manufacturing and the rise of highly concentrated global contractors. These phenomena have paradigmatically developed in the electronics industry, giving rise to the formation of the so-called modular or turnkey production networks. The discussion therefore focuses on that particular industrial sector.
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This paper develops a critique of the 'class struggle' theory of value that emerged out of the autonomist Marxist tradition, arguing that although this theory has the merit of putting forward a production-centred, value-form approach, it eventually fails to grasp the deter minations of value-producing labour. In particular, the notion of value as a mode of existence of the class struggle inverts the real relation between them and, more importantly, deprives the latter of both its historical specificity and the social and material basis of its transformative powers. This paper examines the political implications of these theoretical issues in value theory.
A recent Special Issue in this journal devoted its pages to discuss the varied forms of capitalist development in different countries and regions across the globe. Specifically, the contributions offered a critical assessment of the hegemonic ‘neo-institutionalist’ approach to the study of national diversity of capitalism, with particular focus on the ‘varieties of capitalism’ approach. This article critically engages with the different alternatives to the varieties of capitalism approach that were put forward and shows that these other perspectives also fall short of providing a convincing framework to address the problematique of national or regional particularities as posed in the debate. In order to offer a more solid explanation of the phenomenon of ‘capitalist variety’, the article draws upon Marx’s fundamental insight into the determination of capital as a materialised social relation which becomes the immediate alienated subject of the organisation of the process of social life and also moves some way beyond it so as to cast fresh light on global transformation and uneven development in recent decades. More concretely, the article further submits that the specificity of the Latin American ‘variety of capitalism’ must be grounded in the constitution and dynamics of the international division of labour which results from the underlying essential unity of the production of relative surplus value on a world scale by the global total social capital. In other words, we grasp the emergence of national specificities as the immanent result of the global unfolding of the ‘law of value’.
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