Unfree Labour and Moral Economy Explorations

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Unfree Labour and Moral Economy - Explorations

• The effort of understanding the system of unfree
  labouring is made more worthwhile by enriching
  the moral economy strategy of interpretation
  moving toward a transformative orientation

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Unfree Labour

• Marxism used to approach unfreedom as the innate
  character of the workers relationship with
  capital, property and pauperism (Bhaduri). But
  modern marxists have a more agency-oriented view
  (Olsen and Morgan), as do feminist structuralists
  (e.g. Kabeer).
• See Olsen paper in CJE 2009 for details of the
  transformative approach to complex moral
  reasoning.
• On-line version is Working Paper 31 in Global
  Poverty Research Group Working Papers Series
  www.gprg.org
• Unfreedom is here defined in more proximate,
  realist terms rather than in purely systemic
  terms.
• It is crucial to distinguish coercion, degraded
  work, dyadic exploitation, and systemic
  exploitation (Custers). Each has causal
  mechanisms, sometimes including the others.
• Unfreedom is very widespread in India and its
  relationships span the world.

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Examples of Useful Sources

• Beneria, L. (1979). "Reproduction, production and
  the sexual division of labour." Cambridge Journal
  of Economics 3 203-225.
• Beneria, L. (2003). Gender, development, and
  globalization economics as if all people
  mattered. New York London, Routledge.
• Custers, P. (1997). Capital accumulation and
  women's labour in Asian economies. London, Zed.
• Mies, M. (1998). Patriarchy and accumulation on a
  world scale women in the international division
  of labour. London, Zed.

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Appreciating Five Schools of Thought

• 1 Neoclassical Economics
• 2 New Institutional Economics
• 3. Marxist Structuralism
• 4. Formalist Economics (Basu)
• 5. Feminist Gender and Development
• (see also Olsen paper in JDS 2006)

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3 Marxist Political Economy

• Structuralists look at the class basis of
  landlord-tenant relationships
• The typical work relationships of each pair of
  classes are important (Patnaik 1975 Poulantzas
  1978 Brass, various)
• Land ownership and pauperisation are also
  central. These are seen dynamically.
• They focus on exploitation if it exists
• This is an empirical question. See Figure 1
• Ramachandran case study showed variations of
  degradation and bondage
• Poverty and inequality are central right from the
  start.

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References

• Ramachandran, V. K. (1990). Wage Labour and
  Unfreedom in Agriculture An Indian Case Study.
  Oxford, Clarendon Press.
• Singh, M. (2003). Bonded Migrant Labour in
  Punjab. York, British Sociological Association.
• Singh, M. (1995). Uneven Development in
  Agriculture and Labour Migration A Case of Bihar
  and Punjab. Shimla, Indian Institute of Advanced
  Study.
• Venkateswarlu, D. (2003). "Female Child Bonded
  Labour in Hybrid Cottonseed Production in Andhra
  Pradesh." Retrieved January, 2008, from
  http//www.indianet.nl/sob.htmlcontents.

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Figure 1 Dimensions of Flourishing the
Transformational View
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Feminists

• Most feminists writing in the Indian political
  economy genre have a structuralist realist
  ontology and have a clear and explicit
  orientation toward structure-agency dialectics
  with strong attention to agency.
• GAD has superseded WID
• E.g. Naila Kabeer, Linda Mayoux, P. Swaminathan
• Beneria, Jackson

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The Application to Unfree Labour

• 1. unfreedom in a specific, concrete
  relationship occurs if someone is unable to
  maneouvre and is being coerced by someone else.
• 2. they may have agreed to a contract earlier
  on, without much alternative option.
• in this case there is a voluntary element which
  is important subjectively and for policy makers
• 3. poverty is a deep cause of coercion
• 4. the urge to make profits and the gangmasters
  strategies of changing labour-contracting are the
  proximate causes.
• 5. institutionalised norms of contracting

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Difficult to flourish if/when you are being
exploited or degraded. Unless you are using a
situation instrumentally.
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Bondage through credit can be seen as the
converse of freedom.
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A Closer Empirical Analysis is Possible.
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Examples of Unfreedom

• Migrants mainly in construction work
• The couple who owe much money to the master
  maistrie, and cannot evade the continual long
  hours and poor safety conditions
• The woman who is told she must migrate too cook
  and keep house for the man, but is also made to
  work long hours. . . .
• Awful housing for most migrants upon arrival and
  year 1, rats, rat-bites, sewers near sleeping
  area, etc.
• Charges on the weekly wage for food, tent-place,
  long-distance transport, and daily transport to
  the place of work
• Women being charged for safe transport which
  they cannot evade, to their daily casual work
  arrangements.

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Stories of These Workers

• The stories illustrate degradation both within
  paid work and in the housing/food/transport
  arrangements. There is also coercion in the
  arrangements for many migrants.
• Difficult to measure or demonstrate
  exploitation i) dyadic, or ii) systemic
• e.g. the rural people being paid less than
  comparable urban workers.
• It is easy to find out about debt bondage but
  this is not the same as coercion or exploitation.
• Debt bondage is sometimes used instrumentally.

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In Villages

• Non-Migrant Rural Workers
• The permanent labourer who served a landlord and
  was paid annually, but had unlimited potential
  working hours
• The first-call system during peak season such as
  the sowing season
• The women working as casual agric. labour but
  also at the beck and call of the landlord
  household
• Many non-migrants have migrants in their
  household the system is known as circular
  migration.

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Complex Moral Reasoning

• Takes into account the direct effect of any
  change
• actions of agents
• AND changes in structures or institutions.
• Takes into account resistance to structural
  change caste, class, gender, patriarchy, and
  even legal change
• Takes into account several meta-criteria

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Further Steps

• Looking at unfree labour using case-study
  methods. mixed methods
• Counting unfree labourers, incidence of
  degradation, propensity to be exploited
  systemically, incidence of dyadic cheating,
  occurrence of coercion all this is possible.
• Future joint research projects.