Zero-Hour Contracts Keep Us Precarious

Zero-hour contracts are often toted as a win-win, one where the worker and employer can both benefit and “decide” how much they work. In reality, Niamh Illiff writes in this guest post, this flexibility is a myth – one that benefits employers, not workers. These contracts gift employers with all the power, deciding how many hours to offer while workers are left in a constant state of uncertainty, never knowing how much they’ll earn from week to week. The employer - worker power dynamic is not ‘equalised’ under zero-hour contracts, but exacerbated, representing a heightened form of exploitation leaving workers vulnerable, with little control over their employment practise or financial stability.

 

Is capitalism structurally indifferent to gender?

A sweep through key arguments about the abstracting logic of capital will yield a common emphasis, which is a stress on the “indifference” of capital to those it exploits. For sure this is evident in some of Marx’s own writings. Witness points in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts on how capital stands in an indifferent relationship to labour, with the latter existing as ‘liberated capital’. Or, equally, Marx’s more sophisticated point in Grundrisse that ‘since capital as such is indifferent to every particularity of its substance’ then ‘the labour which confronts it likewise subjectively has the same totality and abstraction in itself’.

 

More widely, though, this emphasis crops up in the writings of others, such as Moishe Postone, William Clare Roberts, or Martha Giménez. At first blush it may seem reasonable to contend at an abstract level that capitalism is “indifferent” to the social identities of the people it exploits. But does adhering to this form of abstraction result in a flawed theory of labour and social mediation under capitalism? As Doreen Massey reminds us, is there an abstracting logic here that fails to recognise that the world is not simply the product of the requirements of capital? Adam D. Morton and I pursue these questions (and more) in our latest article in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space through an engagement with debates in Marxist Feminist social reproduction theory.

Less is More? A review of Jason Hickel’s argument for degrowth.

In his book Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (Penguin Random House, 2020), Jason Hickel provides a fascinating account of what is wrong with capitalism and how a shift to degrowth will allow us to move towards a post-capitalist world. There are a number of critical assessments of climate change and environmental destruction. Hickel stands out, however, by the way he clearly locates the roots of our problems in capitalism and acknowledges that overcoming these problems requires nothing else than transforming capitalism. In this blog post, I will draw out Hickel’s major contributions as well as provide a couple of critical reflections.

The day the EU lost its moral authority

The pictures could have been hardly more dramatic on 2 March 2020. Syrian refugees in a fragile boat in open sea are desperate for help and yet they are greeted with canon fire by a hostile Greek coastguard. The day fire was opened on vulnerable people on the EU’s border is the day, the European project lost its moral authority. How did it happen that a project established to overcome war between European countries had lost its moral compass to such an extent?

Witch-Hunt and the Birth of Capitalism: reflections on Federici’s re-interpretation of primitive accumulation.

In her powerful book Caliban and the Witch (Autonomedia 1998/2014), Silvia Federici makes the important claim that the medieval witch-hunt across Europe constituted part of the processes of primitive accumulation, preparing the ground for the emergence of capitalism. While the enclosures put an end to people’s access to the commons, the witch-hunt resulted in the loss of women’s control over their bodies. In this blog post, I will reflect critically on Federici’s assessment of the role of the witch-hunt in the emergence of capitalism.  

Is Capitalism Associated with Different Forms of Exploitation?

In his book Theory As History (Brill Academic Publishers, 2010), Jairus Banaji makes the claim that we should not reduce a particular mode of production to one specific form of exploitation, such as the capitalist mode to wage labour. ‘Relations of production are simply not reducible to forms of exploitation, both because modes of production embrace a wider range of relationships than those in their immediate process of production and because the deployment of labour, the organisation and control of the labour-process, “correlates” with historical relations of production in complex ways’ (Banaji 2010, 41). Instead, Banaji introduces the notion of commercial or merchant capitalism from at least the 13^th century onwards, based on the availability of finance and functioning institutions of long-distance trade, i.e. a ‘capitalism that invested widely in a range of economic sectors beyond commerce in its narrower definition’ (Banaji 2018). What this, however, overlooks is the centrality of wage labour in the capitalist mode of production and Marx’s insistence on exploitation taking place in the ‘hidden abode of production’ (see Modes of Production and Forms of Exploitation).

Distinguishing between a capitalist social formation and a capitalist mode of production, in this guest post Tony Burns provides a way of how we can retain the focus on the centrality of wage labour for capitalism, without overlooking the possibility of several forms of exploitation co-existing at the same time.

Serving the interests of capital: the role of economics as an academic discipline.

Photo by 401 (K) 2012

Two months ago, I sat in the coffee bar of the Quinn Business School, University College Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. While responding to some emails, I happened to overhear the conversation of some excited students at the neighbouring table. They had just learned about how private equity (PE) firms can come in, buy up ailing companies and still make high profits when they get rid of these companies again, even if these companies should ultimately fail. There was no concern about the implications for the workers of these companies, who would be made unemployed in the process. There was no concern for the wider community around this company, suffering from high unemployment in the area as a result of the PE firm’s involvement. In this blog post, I am reflecting on the role of economics as an academic discipline resulting in an education of this type. In particular, I will argue that instead of being an academic discipline focusing on the critical enquiry of societal developments, economics has deteriorated into an ideology in the service of capital.

Modes of Production and Forms of Exploitation: Understanding Capitalism.

In his remarkable collection of essays Theory As History (Brill Academic Publishers, 2010), Jairus Banaji makes two significant claims about how to conceptualise capitalism and our historical understanding of it. First, capitalism as a mode of production cannot be reduced to the specific form of exploitation around wage labour; and second, understood more broadly, capitalism also needs to include the period of ‘commercial capitalism’, pioneered by Islam in the Mediterranean area as early as the eighth century AD. In this blogpost, I will critically engage with these claims.

The Class Sentiment of the Precariat: Reflections on social movements in Portugal 2011-2013.

In 2011, analysing new and ever more widely spread practices of informal work Guy Standing made his important intervention announcing the emergence of the precariat as a new class-in-the-making (see The Precariat – a new class agent for transformation?). In this guest post, Florian Butollo critically engages with Standing’s claim through an examination of social movements in Portugal between 2011 and 2013. He demonstrates that provided we have a broader and more political understanding of class, these movements can still be understood in class terms, providing us with a better way of thinking about the possibilities of collective resistance against exploitation.  

How the West came to Rule? Challenging Eurocentrism.

The notion of uneven and combined development (U&CD), introduced by Leon Trotsky in his assessment of the Russian political economy and the possibilities of transformation toward communism in the early 20^th century, has gained increasing attention within International Relations. In this blog post, I want to engage critically with the recent book How The West Came To Rule (Pluto Press, 2015) by Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancioğlu, which draws extensively on U&CD in its analysis of the emergence and spread of capitalism.

The importance of Piketty: What perspective from the Left?

Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Harvard University Press, 2014) has received widespread attention within academia, the media, amongst the Left and across the general public. His criticism of increasing inequality has made him an attractive read for everyone concerned about the devastating results of global capitalism. In this blog post, I will critically reflect on the implications of this attention for the Left.

Globalisation and Resistance: critical engagements with neo-liberalism.

The global economic crisis continues almost unabated and yet neo-liberalism still reigns supreme. In this blog post, I bring together a range of book reviews, which all challenge neo-liberal economics, point to its devastating effects on people’s lives as well as reflect on alternatives. Together, this set of reviews intends to provide a useful critical resource for discussions against the currently dominant economic thinking.

NUMSA asserting its independence: showing the way for unions in Europe?

When I attended the Futures Commission of SIGTUR in Johannesburg/South Africa, Nelson Mandela was already seriously ill in hospital (see SIGTUR’s Futures Commission and the search for alternatives in and beyond capitalism!). Nonetheless, first voices of criticism were voiced by South African representatives at the Commission meeting, arguing that Mandela had given in too easily to demands by the white capitalist class. At the same time, his figure as the father of the new South Africa prevented a more in-depth discussion of his socio-economic legacy. As he has now passed away, could this be the moment for a more serious discussion about South Africa’s socio-economic future? The Declaration by the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) adopted at its special national congress, 17 to 20 December 2013, seems to suggest this. In this blog post, I will discuss NUMSA’s Declaration and reflect on its implications for European trade unions.

Confronting Neo-liberal Capitalism: SIGTUR’s tenth Congress in Perth/Australia, 2 to 6 December 2013.

Last week, I attended the tenth Congress of the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR) in Perth/Australia, 2 to 6 December 2013. SIGTUR is a network of more militant trade unions from the Global South with a focus on South-South co-operation. In this post, I will reflect on SIGTUR’s achievements, problems as well as possibilities for the future on the basis of the exchanges at this Congress. I will argue that it will only be through joint campaigns against capitalist exploitation that relationships of solidarity can be established through SIGTUR more widely.

The white terror – Déjà vu about fascism and the reactionary turn of our time.

In the summer of 1980, Italian fascists blew up the central station in “red” Bologna. 85 people were killed, more than 200 were wounded. The terrorists had close ties to the Italian military intelligence and NATOs secret stay-behind groups. In Norway in the summer of 2011, two fascist lone wolf terrorist attacks were carried out against the government square block and the Youths Labor party summer camp, claiming the lives of 77 people and wounding more than 300. August 2^nd in Italy and July 22^nd in Norway are both markers of the worst terrorist acts in post-war Western Europe. In this guest post, Idar Helle, a member of the Transnational Labour Project in Oslo, reviews the book by Eystein Kleven 22. juli-terroren: Angrepet på arbeiderbevegelsen [The terror of 22^nd of July: The attack on the labor movement] (Marxist publishing 2011, 42 pages).

Si, se puede - New forms of resistance in Spain: the case of the anti-eviction platform PAH!

During the last two days, I have attended the conference Keys to the Crisis in Europe, organized by ATTAC Norway in Oslo. In this blog post, I will report on the presentation by a representative of the Spanish social movement PAH (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca), organizing in support of those, who are threatened with eviction from their homes, because they can no longer service their mortgages.

The Poverty of Capitalism and the struggle for another world.

The current global economic crisis has been covered extensively within academic literature and the wider (social) media alike. Few, however, have tackled the topic with the ambition of questioning capitalism itself. John Hilary’s book The Poverty of Capitalism: Economic Meltdown and the Struggle for What Comes Next (Pluto Press, 2013) is a welcome exception here. In this blog post, I will provide a critical engagement with this excellent analysis of capitalist crisis and moves towards alternatives. 

Transnational actors – the case of trade unions!

During the academic year 2013/2014, Prof. Knut Kjeldstadli leads the research project Globalization and the Possibility of Transnational Actors - The Case of Trade Unions at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo/Norway. In this guest post, he outlines the purpose of this collective research project.

What future for Social Democracy?

On 9 September 2013, a red-green alliance led by the social democratic Labour Party lost the Norwegian general elections. Only two weeks later, the German Social Democrats (SPD) only came a poor second with just over 25 per cent of the votes in their country’s general elections. Even if it ends up as thefor junior partner in a grand coalition, the clear winner was the centre-right Christian Democratic Party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, which missed only narrowly an absolute majority in parliament. In this post, I will assess the general situation of social democratic parties in industrialised countries and speculate about their potential future role.  

Trade unions as transnational actors?

Globalisation has put national labour movements under severe pressure due to the increasing transnationalisation of production and informalisation of the economy. A new research project on Globalization and thePossibility of Transnational Actors: The Case of Trade Unions, led by Prof. Knut Kjeldstadli at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo, investigates to what extent trade unions may be able to develop into transnational actors in order to counter these pressures successfully.