Accumulation via exploitation
The writer is an academic and researcher. He is also the author of Development, Poverty, and Power in Pakistan, available from Routledge
The Communist Manifesto famously ended with the lines “Working Men of All Countries, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” This inspiring slogan was unfortunately appropriated by despots to create regressive regimes in the name of serving the proletariat. On the other hand, the unbridled reliance on capitalism to ensure ‘prosperity for all’ continued gaining greater adherence, despite its failure to prevent low-waged workers around the world from being ruthlessly exploited.
Despite the staggering abundance created by globalisation, a vast proportion of workers who toil to keep the global economy surging ahead are not being provided decent wages and safe work conditions. Women are readily exploited to maximise profits, and child labour remains a major problem. Millions of exploited workers face conditions so dire that their situation is rightly described as modern-day slavery.
Despite rhetorical statements about competition fueled efficiencies, the global economy does not really function as a meritocracy. A quick glance at the history of these past two centuries would remind us how industrial growth in rich countries was largely made possible due to coerced labour (i.e. slavery) and ruthless natural resource extraction from countries across the Asian, African and South America continents. After the collapse of colonialism, rich countries with imperialist ambitions were able to assert their dominance over the newly independent ‘developing’ countries by offering them ‘assistance’ in lieu of exchange of resources and labour via lopsided terms. It is thus a misnomer to claim that global economic integration provides a ‘level playing field’ where competition and efficiency is rewarded, and that increased trade is creating win-win situations for workers and consumers in poor and rich countries alike.
While there is a glaring divide between rich and poor countries of the world, inequalities between the haves and have-nots are not confined to poorer countries but also plague the rich world. The gap between the haves and have-nots is widening around the world. Corporations like Amazon don’t allow their workers to unionise even in America, and they pay them measly wages. Yet, people like Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, have amassed wealth worth billions of dollars.
There is immense anger amongst the blue-collar workers in rich countries, and the desperation of workers in poor countries is even worse. Yet, populists readily pit blue-collar workers in their own country against migrants, minorities and exploited workers in other parts of the world. Consider, for instance, how President Trump repeatedly tapped into the frustration of American workers by deflecting their anger from billionaires like himself to Chinese workers or Mexican migrants who were repeatedly blamed for ‘stealing’ American jobs.
The lopsided process of globalisation needs to be corrected to address inequalities. Offshoring has enabled large corporations to shift their factories abroad to take advantage of lax regulations and a cheaper labour-force to increase profits for their shareholders. Outsourcing has further enabled large corporations to increasingly farm out production processes to suppliers in poorer countries. Instead of helping bring prosperity to everyone, offshoring and outsourcing often lead to ‘a race to the bottom of the barrel’ where poorer countries desperate for foreign direct investment outbid each other to entice large corporations. A factory owner in a poor country can still make a decent profit by getting orders from large corporations based in western countries. Yet, the workers employed by export-oriented factories, or those toiling away in the informal sector to supply a range of intermediary services and products to such factories, struggle to make ends meet. Yet, it is easy for big brand-names to feign ignorance and shift the blame to intermediaries whenever disturbing instances of labour exploitation come to light.
Global economic integration may have enabled rich people in poor countries to become richer, and the rich in richer countries to become even more rich. Nonetheless, this much-touted phenomenon of economic integration has done little for poorer people in rich countries, and even less for poorer people in poor countries.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 29th, 2022.
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