The New International Division of Labour: Global Transformation and Uneven Development (International Political Economy Series)

This book revisits the debate over the new international division of labour (NIDL) that dominated discussions in international political economy and development studies until the early 1990s. It submits that a revised NIDL thesis can shed light on the specificities of capitalist development in various parts of the world today. Taken together, the contributions amount to a novel value-theoretical approach to understanding the NIDL. This rests upon the distinction between the global economic content that determines the constitution and dynamics of the NIDL and the evolving national political forms that mediate its development. More specifically, the authors argue that uneven development is an expression of the underlying essential unity of the production of relative surplus-value on a world scale. They substantiate and illustrate this argument through several international case studies, including Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Ireland, South Korea, Spain and Venezuela. Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Introduction: The New International Division of Labour and the Critique of Political Economy Today....Pages 1-22 Front Matter....Pages 23-23 The General Rate of Profit and Its Realisation in the Differentiation of Industrial Capitals....Pages 25-53 The Global Accumulation of Capital and Ground-Rent in ‘Resource Rich’ Countries....Pages 55-77 Revisiting the New International Division of Labour Thesis....Pages 79-103 Front Matter....Pages 105-105 ‘Post-neoliberalism’ in the International Division of Labour: The Divergent Cases of Ecuador and Venezuela....Pages 107-126 The New International Division of Labour in ‘High-Tech Production’: The Genesis of Ireland’s Boom in the 1990s....Pages 127-156 New International Division of Labour and Differentiated Integration in Europe: The Case of Spain....Pages 157-180 Front Matter....Pages 181-181 Transnational Corporations and the ‘Restructuring’ of the Argentine Automotive Industry: Change or Continuity?....Pages 183-213 Patterns of ‘State-Led Development’ in Brazil and South Korea: The Steel Manufacturing Industries....Pages 215-244 Back Matter....Pages 245-252 Acknowledgement -- Contents -- Notes on the Contributors -- List of Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1: Introduction: The New International Division of Labour and the Critique of Political Economy Today -- From the Critique of Political Economy to a New New International Division of Labour Thesis -- Capital, the System of Machinery and the International Fragmentation of the Productive Subjectivity of the Global Working Class -- The Significance of This Approach for a Distinctive Understanding of Global Transformation and Uneven Development -- Outline of the Book The Appropriation of Ground-Rent by the Total Social Capital and the Limits to a National Process of Accumulation Specialised in the Production of Raw Materials -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 4: Revisiting the New International Division of Labour Thesis -- The New International Division of Labour Debate -- A Marxian Re-examination of the New International Division of Labour Thesis -- Conclusion -- References -- Part II: Country Case Studies -- Chapter 5: 'Post-neoliberalism' in the International Division of Labour: The Divergent Cases of Ecuador and Venezuela Ground-Rent and 'Resource Rich' Countries in the Global Unity of Capital Accumulation -- The Loss of Surplus-Value by the Total Social Capital in the Form of Ground-Rent -- The Potential for the Total Social Capital to Recover Part of the Surplus-Value Lost as Ground-Rent -- The Concrete Form Through Which Ground-Rent Accrues to the National Landlord Class and the Limits to a Process of Capital Accumulation Based on the Production of Raw Materials: The Case of Argentina -- The Forms Taken by the Recovery of Ground-Rent Different Forms of Ground-Rent and the Social Power of Landlords Within the International Division of Labour