Labour Regime Change in the Twenty-First Century. Unfreedom, Capitalism and Primitive Accumulation

324 Pages·2011·1.29 MB·English

by  Tom Brass

Labour Regime Change in the
Twenty-First Century
Studies in Critical
Social Sciences
Series Editor
David Fasenfest
Wayne State University
Editorial Board
Chris Chase-Dunn, University of California-Riverside
G. William Domhoff, University of California-Santa Cruz
Colette Fagan, Manchester University
Matha Gimenez, University of Colorado, Boulder
Heidi Gottfried, Wayne State University
Karin Gottschall, University of Bremen
Bob Jessop, Lancaster University
Rhonda Levine, Colgate University
Jacqueline O’Reilly, University of Brighton
Mary Romero, Arizona State University
Chizuko Ueno, University of Tokyo
VOLUME 35
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/scss.
Labour Regime Change in the
Twenty-First Century
Unfreedom, Capitalism and
Primitive Accumulation
By
Tom Brass
LEIDEN • BOSTON
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2011
Cover illustration: The cover illustration symbolizes the theme of the book: chained hands,
indicating a period when labour was unfree, give way to hands without chains, indicating the
rise of free workers. The final set of chained hands, in the bottom right corner, symbolize the
reintroduction of unfree labour. Designed and drawn by Anna Luisa Brass.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brass, Tom, 1946-
Labour regime change in the twenty-first century : unfreedom, capitalism, and primitive
accumulation / by Tom Brass.
p. cm. -- (Studies in critical social sciences, ISSN 1573-4234 ; v. 35)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-20247-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Labor--Philosophy. 2. Capitalism--
Philosophy. 3. Marxism. I. Title.
HD4904.B685 2011
331.01--dc23
2011026292
ISSN 1573-4234
ISBN 978 90 04 20247 4
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV
provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center,
222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
For Amanda,
Anna, Ned and Miles;
for my mother, Gloria Brass,
and in memory of my father
Denis Brass (1913–2006)

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................ix
Introduction .................................................................................................1
1. The Smithian Inheritance ...................................................................14
2. The Marxist Inheritance .....................................................................44
3. Semi-Feudalism and Modern Marxism ...........................................75
4. ‘Disguised’ Wage Labour and Modern Marxism ..........................104
5. Unfreedom as Primitive Accumulation? ........................................136
6. Germany and the United States: ‘Primitive’ or ‘Fully
Functioning’ Accumulation? ...........................................................167
7. ‘Medieval Working Practices’? British Agriculture and
the Return of the Gangmaster .........................................................199
8. Citizenship and Human Rights – or Socialism? ...........................234
Conclusion ..............................................................................................271
Bibliography ............................................................................................281
Author Index ...........................................................................................303
Subject Index ...........................................................................................309

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is an attempt to provide an answer to one of the central theo-
retical questions posed historically by the social sciences. That is, about
the way a capitalist labour regime develops and changes, why and with
what implications for the workers caught up in this process. In doing
so, it draws on articles by me published since the year 2000 in a num-
ber of different journals, including Critical Sociology, Capital and Class,
The Journal of Contemporary Asia, and The Journal of Peasant Studies.
The argument made here was formulated initially after fieldwork
conducted in Peru during the mid-1970s, which revealed the accepta-
bility to capitalist producers of bonded labour. Both the fact and the
significance of this link were confirmed subsequently in the course of
research undertaken in India during the 1980s. At the time, however,
the prevailing orthodoxy informing social science discourse in general
and the development studies agenda in particular was much rather the
opposite: that the spread of capitalism would lead to the eradication of
unfree labour. Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, this ortho-
dox view remains entrenched, even today.
For this reason, the main focus of the analysis which follows is theo-
retical: to trace – and to assess the validity in the light of current eco-
nomic development – the epistemology structuring different historical
interpretations of the link between capitalism, unfreedom and primi-
tive accumulation. Conventional wisdom is that – on the issue of the
incompatibility between a ‘fully functioning’ capitalism and unfree
labour – there is an unbroken continuity between Marxism, and the
ideas of Adam Smith, Malthus, Mill and Max Weber.
Such a view is challenged in this book, which argues that Marxism
does indeed accept that, where class struggle becomes acute and
spans the globe, capitalist producers can and will employ workers
who are unfree. The theoretical reasons for this are traced to the
conceptualization by Adam Smith of labour as value and by Hegel of
labour as property, and the subsequent interpretation by Marx of
labour-power as commodity that in a capitalist economy can be
bought/sold. From this stems the initial and continuing importance of
the distinction between workers who are free and those who are unfree,
a difference that informs the process of becoming, being, remaining,
and – crucially – acting as a proletariat.
x acknowledgements
Although the continued existence of unfree labour within capital-
ism is now being recognized, its relation to capital is still a source of
difficulty. Adherents of an ethical/moral discourse opposed to debt
bondage perceive the state as a disinterested enforcer of human rights.
By contrast, the semi-feudal thesis and disguised wage-labour frame-
work attempt to redefine such relations as free. Other analyses –
currently fashionable in the social sciences – redefine capitalism itself:
as a form of primitive accumulation (= ‘accumulation by disposses-
sion’) giving rise to an ‘empire’ composed not of classes but of ‘multi-
tudes’. In each of these interpretations, agency is no longer that of
class struggle designed to achieve a socialist transition, but rather to
achieve citizenship by means of redemocratization, or the realization
of a civil society within capitalism. All such approaches, it is argued
here, correspond in the end to a political avoidance/postponement of
socialism.
For nearly two decades I edited The Journal of Peasant Studies
(1990–2008) – making me its second longest serving editor – and
much of the research for this book was undertaken during the last
eight years of editing the journal on my own. In the course of the latter
period I received the unstinting support of the two reviews editors and
members of the editorial advisory board. They made a notable contri-
bution to the success of the journal under my editorship, and I extend
my thanks to them for resigning on a matter of principle in 2008.
Special thanks are also due to five other people. To Professor
David Fasenfest, the Series Editor, for encouragement; to Rosanna
Woensdregt, Mirjam Elbers and Debbie de Wit, of Brill publishers,
who guided the book through production; and to my daughter Anna
Luisa Brass, who designed and drew the cover illustration. Now study-
ing art at university, she drew the cover for the book New Farmers’
Movement in India.
This book is dedicated to two sets of kin. As always, to my family: to
Amanda, and to Anna, Ned and Miles. Also to my mother, Gloria
Brass; and to the memory of my father, Denis Brass, who – as Music
Officer of the British Council – gave the first concert performance in
Spain in June 1947 of Piano Concerto No. 1 by Alan Rawsthorne, and
translated into English the poetry and short stories of the Portuguese
writer Miguel Torga.
Richmond-upon-Thames
September 2010