Informalizing the Economy: The Return of the Social Question at a Global Level

Abstract

The classical conceptualization of the working class, of workers' collective action and, especially, of trade unionism, was implicitly or explicitly based on the Standard Employment Relationship that, for a few decades, has been dominant in North America, Europe, Japan and Australasia. The 'classical' model of collective bargaining, which has shaped the world's traditional labour movements, was based on this conceptualization. However, it is now increasingly undermined by the rapid spread of 'informal' or 'precarious' labour in the global North. It is our contention that the 'classical' view of the working class and workers' collective action is fundamentally biased and takes as a norm or standard what was in fact an historical exception. The real norm or standard in global capitalism is insecurity, informality or precariousness, and the Standard Employment Relationship is an historical phenomenon which had a deep impact in a limited part of the world for a relatively short period of time. If, as we argue, the 'Rest' is not now becoming like the 'West', but the other way round, then the 'traditional' forms of collective action that have developed in the North Atlantic region during the last two centuries are gradually losing much of their impact. New forms of collective action are emerging, though these are often still at an embryonic stage. It is, therefore, high time to rethink the concept of the working class and the ways in which it can further its interests. THE RISE AND FALL OF LABOUR RIGHTS AND SOCIAL SECURITY IN THE GLOBAL NORTHFrom the start of the twentieth century, the plight of the working class in western Europe and other advanced capitalist countries began to improve, offering a solution to the poverty and bad living and working conditions brought about by the industrial revolution. As Karl Polanyi has shown in his seminal book The Great Transformation (1944), this change was unavoidable, since the dynamic of an unfettered commoditized economy is self-destructive. A prominent feature of the emerging system was regular Development and Change 45(5): 920-940.

Rethinking the concept of labour

“…Working lives are pushed outside of the relatively secure income‐generating environments of stable wage employment, which appear as a short‐lived historical exception. They now resemble the fragmented experiences that have been ubiquitous in the so‐called ‘third world/global South’ for a long time and recall the thwarted ‘expectations of modernity’ of development ideologies (Breman & van der Linden ; Ferguson ). On the one hand, supply‐side models of the economy have guided policy towards the degradation of waged labour protection, resulting in an expansion in temporary and part‐time jobs and in flexible work.…”

The Absence of Decent Work: The Continued Development of Forced and Unfree Labour in India

“…Steinfeld (2001) explores how the notional free contract in capitalism has historically often involved coercion. Marcel van der Linden (2008) has developed a range of ways to categorise labour within capitalism, and with Bremen (2014) has then made the case that the majority of the world's population have never actually experienced the kind of formal employment relations that are taken by economic theory to be standard (and thus one might say equivalent to free labour). Their experience has been one of informality of employment relations (see later, and also Agarwala, 2013).…”

Rural Wage Employment in Developing Countries

“…As Bharadwaj (1989, 1) puts it, employment is seen 'as an integral aspect of the process of accumulation; i.e. from the late antiquity onwards, at the same time as capitalism may operate with a range of labour relations that may not be the standard wage contract but rather take forms that disguise the true nature of the relation (Breman and van der Linden 2014;Banaji 2010). In short, understanding wage labour relations requires a careful analysis of the processes of and constraints on accumulation and labour productivity growth.…”