Global Commodity Chains and the Marxian Law of Value

Abstract

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".

Making chains that (un)make things: waste–value relations and the bangladeshi rubbish electronics industry

“…While it is good at mapping the distribution of accumulated value along the chain, it is more muted on how value is originally generated. Similar criticisms can be made of the theory of value underpinning GPN analyses (Starosta 2010a(Starosta , 2010b). Yet, the GPN framework's underlying theory of value, which combines 'both Marxian notions of surplus value and more orthodox ones associated with economic rent' (Henderson et al 2002, p. 448), has remained largely uncontroversial.…”

Global inequality chains: integrating mechanisms of value distribution into analyses of global production

“…To elaborate on this point, normal capitalist firms (namely those that make an average rate of profit and show a tendency towards concentration and centralization) exercise market power-based control relations (including the threat and ability to exclude) to appropriate a portion of the surplus value that 'small' firms relinquish (Starosta 2010a; similar arguments from distinct theoretical perspectives are made by Cox et al 2001;and Milberg and Winkler 2013). The outcome of this dynamic is that they become enhanced through the accumulation of 'surplus profits' (those above the average).…”

Globalization and Capitalist Geopolitics

“…At the core of this structure is the disciplinary power of international financial institutions which facilitate differential accumulation by enabling dominant capital to extend its control over and capacity to extract value in global commodity chains which allow the formation of the general rate of profit to assert itself (Starosta 2010), and which effectively exclude non-corporate actors from competing in markets, and -if the proposed TTIP and Transpacific Partnership (TPP) are agreed -will penalize public authorities that attempt to impose legal obstacles on corporate trade and investment or access to public contracts. Before proceeding to this analysis, our first step is to analyse the structural and ideological links between the transnational capitalist class and the transnational capitalist state, examining the formal and informal networks of power that transgress and override the interests of workers in national economies.…”