Relative surplus populations and the crises of contemporary capitalism: Reviving, revisiting, recasting

Uneven and combined state capitalism

“…This manifests in advanced capitalist economies as deindustrialisation, with the pace of job creation lagging behind that of job destruction, jobless recoveries after recessions, high structural unemployment, persistent underemployment, and falling labour shares of income. In developing economies, 'premature' deindustrialisation, the worsening impacts of ecological degradation, expulsions from non-capitalist livelihoods, and other forms of dispossession have led to the increasing integration of impoverished populations into capitalist social relations not as wage labourers, but as consumers and debtors, swelling the ranks of surplus populations and amplifying forms of displacement and migratory flows (Bernards and Soederberg, 2021). Across the North/South divide, disciplining and governing these populations rendered surplus, particularly in contexts of enduring austerity, has involved transformations in state power, from aggressive border militarisation, the development of systems of mass surveillance, incarceration and social control, the criminalisation and brutal repression of social movements, to the suspension of the rule of law and civil liberties.…”

“…This leads us to the fourth tendency, or what we call the ‘disciplinary’ state capitalist impulse. The politics of governing alienation have become harder to reconcile due to the multiplication of the surplus population relative to the needs of capital for formal waged labour (Bernards and Soederberg, 2021; Charnock and Starosta, 2018). The growth of relative surplus populations is not simply due to the impacts of economic crises.…”

The ‘wicked trinity’ of late capitalism: Governing in an era of stagnation, surplus humanity, and environmental breakdown

“…Little attention is paid to deep-seated capitalist trends such as economic stagnation and the multiplication of surplus populations, which, while at the heart of burgeoning political economy debates on capitalism's future (cf. Schwartz, 2021;Bernards and Soederberg, 2021), have not been brought to bear on scholarly discussions of state-led environmental transitions.…”

“…In sum, while productivity growth is a structural necessity imposed by the valorization imperative, it simultaneously constitutes the source of capitalism's deteriorating conditions of reproduction. This tendency has been particularly pronounced in recent decades, manifested in the slowdown of GDP growth, weak investment, intensified competition, and industrial overcapacities across sectors (Schwartz, 2021;Benanav, 2020).…”

A Critical History of Poverty Finance

“…Finally, the upshot of the confluence of semi-permanent austerity and growing corporate power has been deepening precarity and exposure to climate breakdown for working classes globally, but especially in the Global South (see Bernards and Soederberg 2020). Cuts to social services, currency devaluations, privatisations and restructurings of public enterprises, and the retrenchment of public employees under the auspices of structural adjustment created social dislocations that have yet to be resolved in many places.…”