Theory and practice of labour-centred development

Abstract

This article outlines the theory and practice of labour-centred development (LCD). Much development thinking is elitist, positing states and corporations as primary agents in the development process. This article argues, by contrast, that collective actions by labouring classes can generate tangible developmental gains and therefore that, under certain circumstances, they can be considered primary development actors. Examples of LCD discussed here include shack-dwellers’ movements in South Africa, the landless labourers’ movement in Brazil, unemployed workers’ movements in Argentina and large-scale collective actions by formal sector workers across East Asia. The article also considers future prospects for LCD.

Keywords:

• Labour-centred development
• labouring classes
• Brazil
• Argentina
• East Asia
• South Africa

Notes

1. Selwyn, “Elite Development Theory.”

2. Complementary approaches include Pradella and Marois, Polarising Development; Silver and Arrighi, “Workers North and South”; Amoore, The Global Resistance Reader; and Chang, Capitalist Development in Korea.

3. Panitch and Leys, “Preface,” 1x.

4. See Marx’s identification of the reserve army of labour in Capital: ‘The industrial reserve army, during the periods of stagnation and average prosperity, weighs down the active labour-army; during the periods of over-production and paroxysm, it holds its pretensions in check…The overwork of the employed part of the working class swells the ranks of the reserve, whilst conversely the greater pressure that the latter by its competition exerts on the former, forces these to submit to overwork and to subjugation under the dictates of capital.’ Marx, Capital, 792, 789. For a useful discussion of the relations between employed and unemployed workers, see Foster et al., “The Internationalization of Monopoly Capital”; and Pradella, “Imperialism.”

5. Bernstein, Class Dynamics; and Selwyn, The Global Development Crisis.

6. Further research will need to investigate a range of questions, including: processes (and analytical definitions) of class formation and how these impact upon and are affected by labouring class collective actions; the fragmentation of labour and impacts on objectives sought and forms of collective action undertaken; comparative analysis of why some movements are more successful than others in self-mobilising, formulating demands, achieving their objects and retaining developmental gains acquired; the extent to which labouring class movements collaborate with, are dependent upon or subordinate to middle class and more elite actors; and ways in which labouring class movements intersect with other movements such as those dealing with gender and ethnic rights and environmental conservation. More ambitious work could explore: world historical processes of LCD over time and space in order to ascertain whether contemporary globalisation has generated a more or less conducive political economic environment for such movements to act and achieve their goals; and ways in which LCD movements have altered the constitution of states and ways in which these alterations have impacted back upon the movements. Methodological issues that arise from this concept include: how to identify LCD processes and movements; how to delimit LCD (what is and what is not LCD?); and how to conduct rigorous, inter-spatial and temporal research into these processes of change.

7. As will become clear, this section is indebted to the work of Michael Lebowitz See Lebowitz, Beyond Capital.

8. For example, this is Piketty’s conception of capital in Capital in the 21st Century.

9. Marx, Capital.

10. Marx, “Inaugural Address.”

11. Barker, “Capital and Revolutionary Practice,” 68.

12. Expanded leisure time should be a core goal of advocates of alternative and progressive development. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) provides the following definition of leisure: ‘Opportunity afforded by free time to do something’. The etymological roots of the word leisure, extending back to Latin and old French, emphasise how the concept referred to opportunities to do things, freedom, ease and peace. OED, accessed January 14, 2016, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/leisure.

13. Sen, Development as Freedom.

14. For a critique of Sen’s Development as Freedom, see Selwyn, “Liberty Limited?”

15. Lebowitz, Beyond Capital, 127 (emphasis added).

16. Lebowitz, Beyond Capital, 85.

17. Such policies are outlined in Selwyn, “Elite Development Theory.”

18. Lebowitz, Beyond Capital, 67, citing Marx.

19. Jessop, State Power, 1230 (emphasis added).

20. Jessop, “Institutional Re(turns),” 1228, 1230.

21. See Bergquist, Labour in Latin America, for an outstanding illustration of this interrelationship.

22. Bhorat, “Economic Inequality is a Major Obstacle.”

23. Klein, The Shock Doctrine, chap. 10.

24. Birkinshaw, “A Big Devil.”

25. Buccus, “Durban breaks New Ground.”

26. Selmeczi, “Abahlali’s Vocal Politics”; and Gibson, Fanonian Practices.

27. Pithouse, “Struggle is a School,” 10.

28. Zikode, “Despite the State’s Violence.”

29. Zobel, “We are Millions.”

30. Wolford, This Land is ours Now; and Vergara-Camus, Land and Freedom.

31. Brandford and Rocha, Cutting the Wire.

32. Wolford, “Agrarian Moral Economies.”

33. Vergara-Camus, Land and Freedom.

34. Lucas, “Here we are all Leaders.”

35. Stedile, “El MST,” 39.

36. Quoted in Vergara-Camus, Land and Freedom, 183.

37. Stedile, “El MST,” 39.

38. Levy, “Occupando o Centro,” 74; and Souza, “Social Movements,” 323.

39. Dinerstein, “Autonomy in Latin America,” 358.

40. Harman, “Argentina,” 17.

41. Dinerstein, “Autonomy in Latin America,” 358.

42. Petras, “The Unemployed Workers Movement,” 2.

43. Dinerstein, The Politics of Autonomy.

44. Petras, “The Unemployed Workers Movement.”

45. Petras, ibid, estimates the number of community projects to be as high as 300.

46. Ibid., 4,5.

47. Atzeni and Ghigliani, “Labour Process.”

48. Meyer and Chaves, “Winds of Freedom,” 167.

49. Elliot, “Zanon Workers.”

50. Meyer and Chaves, “Winds of Freedom,” 171.

51. Atzeni and Ghigliani, “Labour Process,” 659.

52. Meyer and Chaves, “Winds of Freedom,” 174.

53. See Selwn, “Elite Development Theory” for an overview of SPE.

54. Selwyn, “An Historical Materialist Appraisal”; and Selwyn, “Trotsky, Gerschenkron and the Political Economy.”

55. Chang, “Korean Labour Relations,” 18.

56. Chang, “Korean Labour Relations,” 36.

57. Gray, Labour and Development.

58. Foster and McChesney, “The Global Stagnation and China.”

59. Silver and Zhang, “China as an Emerging Epicentre,” 176.

60. “A Decade of Change.”

61. Chan and Kwan, “Union’s New Approach.”

62. Dinerstein, The Politics of Autonomy.

63. Atzeni and Ghigliani, “Labour Process.”

64. Vergara-Camus, Land and Freedom, 305, n. 7.

65. Brown, “Abahlali’s Choice.”

66. Selwyn, “Elite Development Theory.”

67. Quoted in Aiziczon, Zanón, 12.