Keywords

Globalization and Neoliberalism

It is well known that globalization is not a new phenomenon unique to the present time and researchers trace it having occurred even in the ancient times. The first phase of globalization in the modern times is said to have occurred during the mid-nineteenth century till the period of commencement of World War I. Since post-World War II, it has occurred in phases, the current one having begun since the early 1980s or thereabouts (see, e.g., Verde 2017; WTO 2008). The current phase of globalization engineered by significant and even fantastic changes in the world of transport, communications and technology has redefined the dynamics in various segments of economy, society and polity, among others (UNCTAD 2017). Globalization involves integration of markets such as product, capital, and financial and ensures free movement of capital and goods, services, and technology. Profound and even historic and seismic changes like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, radical economic reforms in the erstwhile Communistic China, etc., have also significantly impacted the character of the globalization processes.

It is well documented that at the global level since the early 1980s to 2010s global trade grew faster than global income but thanks to crises world trade has been showing signs of slowing down in recent years (see various reports of UNCTAD; Stephan 2016; The Economist 2016). At the same time, growth of foreign investment was much faster than global trade (UNCTAD 2000), but global investment has met the same fate as did trade as FDI (foreign direct investment) declined during 2016 and 2017 (see UNCTAD 2017). The emergence and growth of the transnational corporations (TNCs) are seen to be a unique feature of the current phase of globalization (see Sklair 2002; Yeung 2009) as they drive primarily foreign investment exports (Buckley 2010) and have hugely contributed to the emergence and growth of GPNs (global production networks). The TNCs through GPNs seek to become more global in their scale and scope of operations (Yeung 2009). They are driving globalization as never before (see Janardhan, Jha in this book).

Globalization has led to rearrangement of institutions, processes and policies in a country on the basis of neoliberal ideas. Neoliberal ideas are based on ‘market fundamentalism’. Market fundamentalism (also known as neoliberalism) argues that market is the only solution to economic problems about demand, employment, consumption, price and efficiency (Turner 2017; see also Harriss in this book). In other words, the common and fundamental characteristic of these ideas is that market forces are efficient mechanisms for organizing economic activities in both domestic and external fronts as opposed to the state or any other agency. Free market economy is based on two constructs, viz. competition and freedom. Competition of course is the essence of capitalism as it is founded on market economic system (Kotz 2000). Neoliberalism seeks to liberate ‘individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills’ within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade (see Harvey 2007; Altvater 2008). Free trade and free movement of capital (FDI and foreign portfolio investment) are two pillars of the external economy that drives globalization. They assure benevolent outcomes to the sending and receiving economies, and in the case of receiving countries, the benefits include increased choices to customers, enhanced productivity, critical additions to total investment in an economy among others, access to technology, new managerial perspectives, etc. (see Suresh and Nagi Reddy 2018; WTO 2008 for a good summary of the debate on free trade and FDI).

The role of the government according to this perspective is to aid efficient functioning of market and deliver goods and services (public goods) that cannot be provided by market (market failures). It cannot do more than as greater state intervention is antithetical to market fundamentalism. As Harriss writes in this book ‘…the idea of the State as defending the needs of society against the dictates of the market is fundamentally opposed to the principles and the values of neoliberalism’. State especially in democratic societies will be influenced even adversely by the pressure groups, and it may act in a manner that may lead to inefficient functioning of the market (Harvey 2007). Globalization embodies the principles of neoliberalism which exert considerable pressures on the state to introduce market-oriented policies and extend incentives to business to increase competitiveness (Watanabe 2015). It is important to note that the sweep of neoliberalism is wide enough to affect economic and labour policies even in emerging (e.g. Latin American countries and India in Asia) and transition countries (see Roman and Arregui 2001; Cope 2014).

Globalization, Neoliberalism and Labour: Power of Ideas and Institutions

In the list of the prime movers of globalization, we contend that ‘ideas’ or ‘perspectives’ have wielded tremendous influence over the ‘actors’ or the ‘institutions’ in the industrial relations system (IRS). Neoliberalism has been the dominant perspective or a discourse that has guided and even influenced the policy making (Munck 2005) and in turn the role and place of labour institutions in the IRS. We need to understand the ideas that are packaged under neoliberalism, especially towards labour market and the principal mechanisms through which neoliberal ideas have influenced policy making.

Development thinking has been changed by the Washington Consensus (WC), and it has reset the role of labour in economic development in the context of globalization. The WC and its refined Post-Washington version (PWC) provide functional frameworks of neoliberalism which have been used by global financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (shortly global financial institutions, GFIs) to usher in changes in the economy in many countries. It is instructive to take note of its basic aspects. WC propagates a set of economic policy actions such as macroeconomic stability via fiscal conservatism, reduction in government spending, trade liberalization in terms of removal of quantitative restrictions with controlled tariffs, foreign investment liberalization, privatization and deregulation of labour market, among others. These have become the guide-tools of policy actions by GFIs like the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) (see Ramirez 2003, for an elaborate discussion of both the propositions; see also Van Waeyenberge et al. 2011). Joseph Stiglitz criticized WC as ‘at best incomplete and at worst misguided’ and called for a more holistic and broad-based approach to development (quoted in Van Waeyenberge et al. 2011). The PWC sought to correct the excessive reliance by WC on the market forces and its stand of seeing market and state as incompatible agents. However, PWC also stands for strengthening of market as it argued for state intervention to correct market failures and also enable the possible partnership between state and market (hence the emergence of public–private partnership model). So post-PWC also, markets remain the core of the advocacies of GFIs and hence some see PWC as a refined if not rhetoric continuation of WC and a new phase in neoliberalism (Van Waeyenberge et al. 2011).

One of the major tools of GFIs to implement the charter of neoliberalism has been the SAP (Emeagwali 2011; Mezzadri 2010). Based on WC, the GFIs imposed SAP with conditionalities on the recipient countries and the conditionalities are based on the aforementioned basic premises of WC. With regard to labour market, they include, among others, downsizing of government employment, privatization of government-owned enterprises, active promotion of flexible labour markets with attendant features like hire and fire, wage flexibility, wage dispersion, pension reforms, etc. (see Lloyd and Weissman 2002; Easterly 2003; Mezzadri 2010). These agencies claimed that the SAPs would generate economic growth, promote investment, create jobs and alleviate poverty in loan-recipient countries which are mostly poor and developing countries.

At the same time, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been arguing that labour regulatory institutions such as labour laws (principally the employment protection laws, EPL), trade unions and collective bargaining introduce ‘rigidities’ in the working of free labour market as these critically affect the freedom of the employers to respond to the market forces to change the number and composition of employment or skills arrangement in firms or the labour compensation packages, among others (see OECD 1994). It is immediately obvious that the OECD’s advocacy is not different from those of the GFIs. Hence, all these organizations have called for a complete deregulation of labour market which will allow or bring back the play of market forces in the determination of employment and wages among other aspects concerning labour. The neoliberal perspective has strongly advocated and even pushed for a flexible labour market, a comprehensive term encompassing numerical, wage, functional, job and other forms of flexibilities and weakening of collective labour institutions (see Coates 1999; Standing 2011). The threat behind this advocacy is far more alarming: if governments did not flexibilize labour market, business will shift to regions/countries which offer cheap and flexible labour, and this will affect not only employment but also growth and poverty reduction adversely in the poor and developing countries (ibid.).

Several commentators have criticized the role of GFIs in alleviating poverty in the developing countries arguing that their SAPs have in fact worsened the plight of poor people for two reasons, viz. economic growth did not trickle down to reduce poverty as envisaged (poor sensitivity of poverty to growth) and worse still the economic policies benefitted the corporates immensely (see Easterly 2003, 362; Comelo 1996). The critical fault of SAPs is the existence of inherent conflict between the institutions acting as both lenders and analysers (Van Waeyenberge and Fine 2011: 35). Even if the outcomes of SAP were to be different (i.e. adverse for the people and economy) from those expected or advanced by these agencies (i.e. benevolent outcomes like growth, employment and reduction in poverty), they would rather attribute the failures to other sources and one of them being labour market inefficiencies caused by labour institutions.

Since 2003, the World Bank has been conducting the ease of doing business (EODB) exercise which measures various aspects of business regulation and their implications for establishment and operations of firms in a country and ranks the countries (190 or so) on their ease of doing business. Higher ranks indicate conducive regulatory environment for EODB (World Bank 2017). The countries are ranked on each of the indicators like starting the business, enforcement of a contract, etc., while the overall ranking of the economy is determined with appropriate weights for each of the indicators (see World Bank 2017, for further details). Earlier, the World Bank’s ranking exercise included ease of employing workers indicator (EWI) among the indicators of ease of doing business. However, International Labour Organization (ILO) and global trade unions like the International Trade Unions Council argued that EWI suffered from several conceptual shortcomings and further the ranking of EWI pressurizes the countries to flexibilize labour markets in a bid to achieve better ranking which leads to ‘race to bottom’; so they exerted pressure on the World Bank to stop ranking the countries on EWI (see Lee et al. 2009). Accordingly, the World Bank stopped ranking the countries on EWI though it continues to provide qualitative information on the labour law reform measures taken by the countries. The World Bank admits that its EODB exercise has made a significant impact on the government and we quote it: ‘Governments worldwide recognize the economic and political benefits of improved business regulation. In fact, 119 of the 190 economies measured by Doing Business 2018 enacted at least one business regulation reform in 2016/17’ (World Bank 2012; 2017, 1). For example, the NDA government in India celebrated as India climbed up from 113th to 100th rank in EODB in 2017 (see Narayan 2017).

Policy makers and lobbyists have been greatly swayed by this relative ranking exercise of countries, and it has led to even undesirable policy outcomes with respect to labour market (see ILO 2007). In India, as elsewhere employers have been exerting tremendous pressure on the government to deregulate labour market and bring about extensive neoliberal reforms by amending many of the labour-protective laws and liberalizing labour inspection and labour administrative systems (see Shyam Sundar 2018, for a comprehensive coverage and discussion of the reforms). In fact, to achieve better ranking in the EODB, the Department of Industrial Promotion and Policy, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India have introduced EODB ranking of States and the Union Territories (UTs) in India (see http://dipp.nic.in/ease-doing-business-reforms, accessed on September 23, 2018, for details regarding its EODB exercise; see also Shyam Sundar and Sapkal 2017 for a critique of these exercises). The States and the UTs compete vigorously to get better ranking and in fact controversies surround such ranking exercise (see, e.g., Sushil Rao 2018). Such is the power of Ideas.

These exercises are based on neoliberal perspective. The neoliberal perspective argues that a free market economy (i.e. without regulations) will enhance competitiveness of firms and economies and this will create a conducive business climate and macroeconomic stability and this in turn will attract foreign investment into the country. Foreign investment is a panacea for capital-starved developing countries and as investment boosts will produce jobs, income and hence reduction in poverty. Hence, countries with less burdensome regulations or employer-friendly regulations are more likely to grow faster (see, e.g., Natarajan and Raza 2017). Rigid labour markets will produce adverse labour market outcomes like low productivity, high unemployment, informality, youth unemployment, etc., whereas flexible labour markets will lead to faster economic growth and employment which will lead to faster reduction in poverty incidence (Botero et al. 2004; Blanton and Peksen 2016; Lee et al. 2009; Besley and Burgess 2004).

Lee et al. (2009, 416) have argued that the EODB exercise offers empirical basis for the ‘augmented Washington Consensus’ (see Rodrik 2007, see Table 1, 678) and the latter attributes much of the failure of WC in developing countries to the rigidity of their labour markets. Simply put, this perspective calls for deregulation of labour market based on the assumption of perfectly competitive theory (Lee et al. 2009, 426–27). The World Bank’s research is said to be based on ‘prior based scholarship and policy’ (Van Waeyenberge et al. 2011). Bayliss et al. (2011) show in their book how the World Bank has stitched its research even on questionable data and methods using sophisticated econometric techniques in various fields like health to reach precisely the same theoretical position (neoliberalism) and make corresponding policy advocacy. In fact, the World Bank’s Development Reports and the Policy Research Reports carry research evidence which are either predetermined or negotiated in advance (see Van Waeyenberge and Fine 2011: 38).

Freeman (2005) has detected existence of ‘priors’ in the research by the adherents to a certain ideology or theoretical perspective which dictates their modelling, their choice of variables and interpretation of empirical results. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand how one group should stridently and consistently prove the inefficiencies of labour market institutions and others to contest these conclusions based on the same data sets. The sidekick to the debate is that despite the acknowledged weakness of the data sets across the countries, stronger conclusions are reached by the warring groups! Hence, he calls for a dispossession of ‘lawyering’ mindset which caters to its client and argues for conduct of dispassionate research. Further, research has shown a lot of holes both in the reasoning and in the empirical literature of the ‘flexibility school’ concerning the adverse impacts of EPL; even on a cautious note, all that could be said is that the research evidence on the adverse impact of EPL is at best ‘inconclusive’ (see Jha and Golder 2008; Garibaldi et al. 2008, for a good summary and review of the literature on EPL; see also Papola 2013, for a discussion of impact of labour regulation in India).

Breman has shown in his body of evidence based on painstaking field studies in India that the neoliberal policies create and reinforce labour informality and underdevelopment and even reproduce social inequalities in the labour market. It is quite ironical to note that neoliberal researchers use informality to attack labour market regulation as producing informality but rely on the very informal sector to absorb the shocks in the formal system as a social safety net and as a destination of choice! To him, informal workers typify extreme forms of vulnerabilities and they land up in informal jobs not by choice but coerced. Informality is reinforced because being vulnerable and migrant they are unable to collectivize and hence they remain vulnerable, a kind of vicious cycle. His thesis of circulating labour migration captures the dislocation aspect of informal workers. He also sees dangerous tendencies of ‘neo-bondage’ as intermediaries bond the workers in modern ways (cash advance as a form of modern bondage) to trap them in low-paid works like brick-kilns (see, e.g., Breman 2001; New Left Review 2015). The macroeconomic and the anthropological research have clearly put neoliberalism in an unremitting guilty stance.

We need to be interested in neoliberalism for two powerful reasons. One, the ideas that underpin neoliberalism have impacted widely the policy making and the managerial strategies of the firms in most countries, especially India. More importantly, neoliberalism’s working is ironical in the sense that it creates crises and post-every crisis it comes back even more stronger as ‘solutions’, i.e. neoliberalism is at once the problem and the solution—for example, to tackle the problem of rising employment of contract workers (a neoliberal problem), employers in India have been demanding ‘numerical flexibility’ as a solution as then employers will employ workers mostly directly in temporary contracts not through third party (neoliberal solution). Again, when financial crisis took place, the state had to bail out the financial corporations (see Aalbers 2013). As Janardhan argues in this book crises in capitalism are occasions which are capitalized by Capital to restructure business which means changes in work organization and all leading greater control of Capital over Labour. Further, the ‘convergence’ literature in industrial relations (IR) speaks of possible convergence to a dominant policy-set or institutional configuration in various IRS and neoliberalism is seen to be in significant ways promoting liberal market economies around the world (see, e.g., the varieties of capitalism, VoC literature in this volume).

Secondly, in an empirical sense, neoliberalist policies and strategies have dismantled what was historically known as a ‘standard employment’ even in the Global North—standard employment is characterized by open-ended contracts, an assured career development in an organization, assured wage revisions through collective bargaining, regulation by a set of protective labour laws and trade unions, access to a range of social security benefits, etc.—and intensified adverse labour market outcomes such as unemployment (even if in the short run as conceded by neoclassical economists), uncertainty, inequalities within the labour market manifesting across identities of workers like gender, caste, etc. (see, e.g., Bacchetta and Jansen 2011; Standing 1999a, b, 2013; Shah et al. 2018; ILO 2016a, b; 2018; Breman and Linden 2014; see also Sapkal and Parmar in this volume). The obverse of ‘standard employment’ is non-standard employment (NSE). The ILO gives a derivatory definition of NSE: it is ‘an umbrella term which groups together distinct forms of work contracts that deviate from the standard employment relationship’ (ILO 2016b, 9). The growth of NSE is attributed to three factors, viz. SAPs that stress shift from import substitution to export promotion, globalization of production via TNCs-led GPNs and the failure of the state (Mezzadri 2010). Guy Standing in his various works illumines the emergence and growth of precarious employment which he in his inimitable style terms as ‘precariat’ (precarious proletariat). Precariat comprises those not only inside the labour market but also on and outside the margin. The free market economic policies which underpin globalization have ‘commodified’ labour by proscribing any agency intervention (state or trade unions) (see Standing 2013; see for a list of his articles at https://www.guystanding.com/journal-articles, accessed on 2 September 2018).

India thanks to the perceived crisis in its balance of payment during 1990–1991 took conditionalities-driven structural adjustment loan from the IMF. By all accounts, India has been globalizing energetically since 1991 and neoliberalism is the perspective that has majorly shaped the policy actions around the world and especially in India (see Shah et al. 2018; Patnaik 2014; Guha 2009; Bagchi and Das 2014). The foregoing has outlined the power of Ideas in their impact on labour institutions in the IRS. Neoliberalism has been the dominant set of ideas that have influenced policy making and shaping up the role and place of labour institutions in the IRS.

About the Contributions

Then, it becomes necessary to interrogate and understand neoliberalism and WC-driven globalization model in connection with Labour, which we do in this book. Labour and labour market and IR will be our central concerns in the book. Since ideas have relevance with reference to a spatial context, often the critical discourses in this book will refer to the experience of several countries and most notably India. The neoliberalism discourse has been countered not only in the realm of ideas but also in terms of movements by people, who may be non-agricultural workers, or peasants or local communities, etc.

In Chapter 2, Selwyn presents a grand global discourse locating labour in the development thinking. The Global Development Industry (GDI) comprising of global organizations like the World Bank, the IMF and ILO (inclusion of ILO may be surprising for the readers, but he includes it) and some intellectuals has articulated the neoliberal ideology as a panacea for all economic problems including poverty. To be sure, ILO differs from others in the sense that it unlike the other two advocates greater role for state and labour institutions but accepts the neoliberal premise that integration of countries is central to poverty reduction. Selwyn makes a powerful interrogation of the capital-centric propositions that underlie the developmental perspective propounded by the GDI and argues that because these capital-centric developmental models are exploitative, they cannot lead to poverty reduction (mild manifestation) and thereby will not promote labour welfare. He questions the very methodology used by World Bank for measuring poverty and criticizes the ‘quantification’ of the international poverty line to be ‘inhumanly low’.

Neoliberal theories, market-led or state-led frameworks, use different mechanisms to promote development (hence poverty reduction) but all fail to promote labour welfare. Market-led theories use trade competitiveness and labour flexibility while the state-led models repudiate trade competitiveness theory but use repression of workers. Both exploit workers to accumulate surpluses in the name of helping workers and hence their poverty reduction agenda is at best facile and at worst inadequate. Even when there have been widespread protests all over the world especially in India and China (which Kuruvilla details later in the book), social transformation is blocked by powerful elitists as they are interested in capital accumulation and not social transformation. He argues for an alternative developmental model which is labour centric. This model looks at labour power not as a means for capital accumulation but for self-development. His thesis is that collective actions and institutions (like land rights and redistribution movement, factory occupations, mass labour militancy, etc., in various countries like Indonesia, India, Argentina, etc.) will resist exploitation which is endemic in capital-centric developmental model and hence they will help achieve ‘developmental ameliorations’ and create a potential for generating ‘new, non-exploitative, social relations of social reproduction’. Selwyn sets the stage for not only critiquing mainstream developmental models but also daring to provide ‘alternative’ perspectives and Marx in some sense will be present in these.

Roy (Chapter 3) continues the employment of Marx and Marxian theory to emphasize two aspects of social relations in a capitalistic production system, viz. in the labour market workers as sellers of labour power are disjointed from the means of production and skills; capitalists employ an army of managers, supervisors and others in the shop floor to deny any bit of autonomy that workers may retain as individuals and to maximize the extraction of labour power. The process of extraction of surplus value inevitably creates a command structure utterly in favour of capital, and this in turn produces unfree labour. To Roy, capital–labour relations are not merely reflected in strikes in some firms but embody in a fundamental sense a political terrain of contestation characterized by dialectics thereby creating its own dynamics. The organization of work in a capitalistic production process alienates and degrades labour. He highlights the contradictions of organization of work in a globalized setting—capital on the one hand requires unintelligent and degraded labour to do routinized tasks and educated and adaptable employees on the other hand to do skilled jobs! He argues that neoliberalism is a response of capital to labour ascendancy and to destroy the collective subjectivities. Neoliberalism has advanced capitalistic globalization and organized production using technological advances to create an army of precarious labour. To him, Marx has foreseen a century ago all of what is happening right now in the society which is driven by the ‘imperatives of capital’.

In a sense, capital–labour relations constitute the central focus of IR, though not explicitly framed as a theory in the discipline of IR. IR Marxists use class conflict theoretical structure to explain the adverse outcomes in the IRS and the labour market. Marxist narrative of IRS and labour market has gained prominence as inequities have abounded in the labour market thanks to globalization dynamics. Conventional Marxian theory predicts that transcendence from capitalism to socialism will happen due to the material, moral and political conditions created by capitalism itself and class struggle. Can IR be the site of class revolution? Post-Leninism, it cannot take place in the realm of IR as trade union consciousness which is dependent on union–management relations and fighting for ‘economism’ (protests for basic economic issues like wage revision) will not be adequate. Political consciousness which is structured and mobilized by a Party will be necessary for class revolution. These are beyond the conventional framework of IR. It is in this context, Janardhan (Chapter 4) seeks to reinvent a Marxist theory of IR. According to him though both in practice and in scholarship, capital–labour relations in Marxian sense are ‘a structural reality’ in a capitalist economy but it got ‘institutionally’ transformed into IR which merely even inadequately talks of union–management relations. So Janardhan argues that unless the IR theory is re-equipped with Marxian lenses, it cannot comprehend capital–labour relations adequately. Is he romanticizing Marxian reinvention?

Janardhan calls for a new comprehensive IR theory (which could combine pluralistic and Marxian perspectives fruitfully) which should look beyond old and new IR. He bases his hopes for a Marxian IR on several structural realities even in the current globalized economic environment. Conflict is permanent and immanent in any shop floor relations. In the era of intense competition between firms on a wider competitive space thanks to globalization, human resource management (HRM) which discredits trade unions and abhors ‘talks of class struggle’ needs labour’s cooperation to meet market demands and achieve corporate goals. So labour becomes central to corporate strategy, and in this sense, pluralistic notion of antagonistic cooperation is sculpted into his new theory. He even nostalgically reminds us that in the globalized economic context today the ‘old IR’ (envisaging adversarial, trench warfare bitter relations) is not considered relevant by both academics and practitioners. The ‘new IR’ which is coincidental to the current phase of global capitalism and the rise of HRM, however, has created in its trail whole lot of workers who work under precarious conditions (precariat). Technological ascendency has increased reliance on workers more and more in an ironical sense as workers ‘know’ the machines better than the line or staff managers on the shop floor and this is evident in the high-tech industries. So a ‘new working class’ is created which can exercise considerable control over ‘labour processes’ (Marxian-Bravermanian notion). Finally, as capital globalizes via GPNs, labour can match it by building transnational alliances on the external front and domestically a social movement unionism. These are possible thanks to the very dynamics of globalization as these movements can use both shop floor (say wage) and social issues (say green environment or equality). A General Union with transnational alliances will emerge which will create a mixture of shop floor and social issues for waging economic, social and political struggles. So, Marxian theories need to capitalize on these contradictions to build a new Marxian scheme of IR. So he is not romanticizing but is optimistic about building a new retooled Marxist IR theory.

It is often contended that the two most unique aspects of the current phase of globalization are power of financial capital and construction of GPNs (Patnaik 2016). Jha in Chapter 5 takes forward Patnaik’s ideas. He notes two dominant tendencies in neoliberal capitalism. One, it has engineered international finance capital which is disjointed with the real economy. Two, it has created TNCs which have spread their production across the globe by fissuring production (which he calls as decentring of production) through GPN to take advantage of cheaper labour in the South (labour arbitrage). Both impact workers’ well-being in several ways. The speculative and mobile finance capital detached from the real economy constricts government expenditure in pursuit of the so-called fiscal discipline, and this has enormous implications for labour in terms of drastic reduction in employment generation and welfare aspects. The decentring of production contingent on cheap labour and aimed at accumulating surpluses under-capacitate workers’ purchasing power, hence weaken labour’s consumption power. All these point to the development of potential crises in the capitalistic system, but the pertinent point is that labour class is facing multiple attacks on their labour rights, from production wages to social wages. These come out powerfully in his analyses.

To provide an empirical basis for his analysis of neoliberalism, he takes India as an example. His comprehensive coverage of major ‘happenings’ during the neoliberal phase of Indian economy including the proposed labour law reforms, etc., and the quantitative outcomes of growth and employment support his thesis of adverse effects on workers’ well-being of neoliberal globalization in India. The neoliberal policies pursued by the state are flawed in the sense they not only fail to deliver the promised growth but do not serve the interests of workers. The state has dealt multiple blows to the interests of workers by willingly following neoliberal policies like fiscal conservatism and labour market reforms. Worse, the workers’ welfare serving policies like the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (employment) or the National Rural Livelihood Mission, Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency loans (self-employment) eventually serve the interests of the private sector capital who benefit from allocation of projects/capital and pursuit of public–private partnership models (advocated energetically by global financial institutions). He notes through now well-known data resources (e.g. the National Sample Survey data) to show the poor side of employment profiling in the post-reform period and notes the dominance of informality in the labour market which to him constitutes a ‘systemic requirement of the contemporary capitalist system’. Then, as Jha concludes, the state in India has aided the intensification of systemic exploitation of labour under the hegemony of finance capital.

Neoliberalism is all about market fundamentalism which is not unique to modern phase of globalization as Karl Polanyi (1944) was seized of this as he analysed the rise of fascism during the 1940s. But the more interesting aspect of Harriss’ invocation of Karl Polyani’s perspective is to understand through his lens the current phase of crises (economic and political) (Chapter 6). It may be instructive to summarize in brief Polyani’s perspective on market and society. Historically, economy was driven by social and ethical norms and was embedded in social institutions. But with the establishment of the self-regulating market economic system, market stood disembedded from society and exchange relationships with self-gain became dominant. This set off the crisis in society (in the UK which was his realm of study). The self-regulating market (SRM) economic perspective got extended to factor markets and money markets which commodified factors like labour as they are subject to market forces. The commodification resulted in ‘counter movement’ like trade unions in the labour market and government intervention. Market failures can often lead to political tyrannies but can also produce benevolent outcomes like the New Deal in the USA. The crisis of the 1970s and the early 1980s led to re-emergence of market fundamentalism, which again led to disembedding of market from society. The current wave neoliberalism has renewed commodification of labour, land, etc., which produces adverse outcomes in the labour market and ecology.

Harriss carefully traces the emergence of modern neoliberalism and its unique potentially disruptive features though it has done its essential task of restoring the ‘class power of holders of wealth’ and hence causing tremendous inequalities in the economic system. He, like Jha and others, notes the dominance of financial capital which runs riot as per its own market dictates and as a result unlike in the past frequent economic crises mark the modern phase of neoliberalism. What is more damning is the commodification of not only labour, but also money and land, which have led to volatility in the financial and real estate markets, disruptions in the land market and informalization in the labour market. As per Polyani’s scheme, the state is naturally posited against market but neoliberalism has under the influence of WC redefined the role of state in terms of dispossession of its traditional functions which means privatization, withdrawal from provision of social goods, etc. Even ecology has been subject to market forces, and Harriss’ narration depicts vividly a widespread collapse of the system not even envisaged by Polyani. But according to Polyani’s theory, the movement of SRM (in the form of neoliberalism) should produce ‘counter movement’. Will it happen?

Harriss argues that Scandinavian repeat in the developing and the emerging economies is not possible primarily due to differing sizes of economy, but some semblances of social democratic politics can emerge and sustain a broader civil society movement demanding a bunch of ‘social rights’ which is a broader set of human, ecological and labour rights. He notes with endorsement that protest movements have been occurring everywhere due to moral indignation, reaction to economic crises, demand for better public services, enactment of justiciable rights to food, livelihood and education, creation of interface between society and state, etc. Though he recognizes that countermovement in India has a long road ahead, he is optimistic about a progressive response. While`social churning is definitely happening seeking re-embedding of market in society, the outcomes are remain to be seen. In the meanwhile, let us tip our hat to Harriss for his optimism and invoking Polyani to make us think of possible non-market and benevolent destinations.

Taking forward the presence of moral indignation argument noted in Harriss’ article, we have the theological perspective drawn from Catholic Church’s documents and the Bible presented by Jesuit Fathers, Mascarenhas, D’Silva and Sister D’Souza (shortly, Mascarenhas et al.) in Chapter 7. It is of immense significance to note that ILO and the Catholic Church have been in engagement especially in the last few years on vital issues concerning labour rights, etc., and both share the view that labour is a not a commodity and labour has its own dignity and exhibit concern over the emergence and growth of precarious and vulnerable labour like child labour, migrant and domestic workers (ILO 2013; see also Pope Francis 2014).

The biblical view is that humans are created in the ‘image and likeness’ of God (imago Dei) and hence assumes sacredness and humans deserve justice. In this sense, no human beings have any right or business (to wit) to ‘outrage’ humans. When ‘God says: Do not withhold wages from your workers, for their livelihood depends on them’, the Justice Doctrine clothes itself with the Sanction of the Divinity. Work and its organization are based on cardinal principles of the virtue of justice (in remuneration), participation and the virtue of industriousness and diligence (in the production process), common good and the virtue of munificence (in distribution), and human dignity and the virtue of solidarity (in social relations). It is in this biblical context that we have to view globalization and the role of trade unions in society. The Church’s perspective of labour–capital relations resonates with Gandhian (non-violence methods of protests and Truth), pluralistic IR (freedom of association, right to strike for just causes, separation of political from economic/industrial interests, labour–capital complementarity), human rights (labour and social rights) and the ILO perspectives (dignity and decommodification of Labour). The Church believes in and even calls for inclusive development—e.g. ‘The truth of development consists in its completeness: if it does not involve the whole man and every man, it is not true development’.

The Church like most sees the possibility of benevolent human outcomes of globalization but has shown significant concern over the negative fallouts of globalization such as dehumanization of work, unemployment, the reduction in and deterioration of public services, the destruction of the environment and natural resources, the growing distance between rich and poor, and unfair competition. Globalization has entrenched a ‘mentality of egoism and exclusion’, and hence, the Church correctly calls for a ‘value system’ (avoiding greed and pursuit of personal power) and issues advisory that ‘economics should be intimately connected to human realities for an authentic development to happen’. The encyclicals have hit at the very concept of ‘free trade’ as it characterized by ‘inequality’ at both individual and the inter-country levels and the TNCs for promoting ‘sweat shops’. According to the Church, liberalism has ‘insinuated into the fabric of the society’ and needs to be challenged because it presents ‘profit as the chief spur to economic progress, free competition as the guiding norm of economics, and private ownership of means of production as an absolute right, having no limits or concomitant social obligations’. Globalization has at best produced ‘globalisation of indifference’ which is blind to injustice and created imbalances. It is in this context Pope Francis sees trade unions as modern ‘prophets’ who can work by forming morally correct alliances even at the global level for altering the imbalances created by globalization by resorting to peaceful and non-violent strikes. At the same time, they should guard against improper (read political) influences. The Church asks for global solidarity helping the developing countries, social justice and universal charity. These surely constitute moral and even economic principles for global action to promote a just and equitable world order.

It is important to note here that ILO’s Global Labour Code (as embodied in its standards and recommendations) and its mandate provide a very powerful counter to neoliberalism (some call it as ‘Geneva Consensus’ [Langille 2010]). Its fundamental principles such as decommodification of labour, greater state intervention, importance of the role of labour institutions like trade unions, and social dialogue militate against neoliberalism. However, it does not like the Marxian perspectives contest capitalism. In the context of the challenges posed by the complex forces of globalization and by the global financial institutions, some commentators have argued that ILO though with a glorious past did not adequately handle the ‘market outcomes’ of globalization like labour flexibility, and it lacks teeth and is conservative in its reform packages (e.g. World Employment Policy Programme) and depends on moral suasion for compliance with its labour standards as opposed to the coercive powers of global financial institutions (see Breman and Linden 2014; Standing 2008; Langille 2010; Servais 2013).

However, in some senses, ILO has risen to the occasion to adequately respond to the challenges of globalization while retaining its normative principles. For example, ILO has adequately responded to the challenge of globalization by adopting in 2008 the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization and other instruments which seek to correct economistic globalization by calling for promotion of social justice and decent work. It has been closely working with the United Nations and even the global financial institutions to ‘achieve social justice by promoting opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity’ (ILO 2018). For example, ILO’s formidable theme of ‘decent work’ forms the basis of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in many ways but specifically SDG No. #8, Decent Work and Economic Growth as this seeks to ‘promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all’. World Bank’s aims of ‘ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity’ are argued to be largely converging with and in fact contingent on universal social protection which brings in ILO into the picture, and hence, there is an active interface for joint action between the World Bank and ILO (ILO and World Bank [Undated], see also World Bank 2016)—we have already seen Selwyn’s critique of poverty reduction if not elimination plank of global institutions. In the context of conversations between ILO and the Church, it will be instructive to note that social justice and global peace constitute original objectives of ILO. If social justice is a moral concern for the Church, it is an institutional goal for ILO. There has been a global concern over poor labour in the developing countries, and this has caused the moves to link labour standards with trade. However, the developing countries opposed the linkage between trade and labour standards (popularly known as ‘social clause’) by mainly two grounds, viz. such a linkage will adversely impact on their trade advantage and its advocacy by the developed countries constitutes protectionism. Rodrik argues that trade negotiations are not best mechanisms to enable realization of labour standards and it should be best left to the ‘experts on human rights, labour markets, and development’, and we should raise the profile and prestige of ILO (Rodrik 2018). It is in these contexts we need to examine the future mandate of ILO.

One of the big determinants of social justice in capitalism is living wage for workers. In the context of the recognition by ILO and the instrumentalities of the United Nations recognizing the need for a [minimum] living wage, Marshall and Weil-Accardo (Chapter 8) make a case for fulfilment of this mandate in their article. It is a fact that the minimum wages set in various countries including India do not level up to the living wage and even the sparsely set minimum wages are not realized by the workers thanks to poor enforcement of minimum wage laws. But implementation of living wage ideal is fraught with not only state failures but institutional (read trade union) failures as globalization is all about competition, and if all countries simultaneously do not raise wages to living wage, then the adventurous or aspirational firms/countries which pay/mandate living wage will lose out to those who pay less wages. So we need an international treaty (a ILO Convention) which will be binding on all countries and an international enforcement mechanism to oversee the implementation of such a Convention to address the collective action risks inherent in such an ambitious monetization of a global labour standard.

They propose a three-staged implementation. In the first stage, the member countries should enact minimum wages that reflect the real costs of a living wage. In the next stage, member countries should progress towards a global average minimum wage, based on purchasing power parity (to equalize the purchasing power of two currencies by taking into account the cost of living and inflation differences). In the third stage, countries need to increase the wages so as to reach a certain decent level compatible with internal and external benchmarks. The authors are aware of the potential or already existing objections to this scheme by developing countries which thrive in international trade and production networks on cheap labour advantage. But their answer is that this is a global proposal and hence will hit at all countries which underpay. ILO should not only adopt a standard but go further in determining globally comparative living wages and globally comparative minimum wages on the basis of data collected from its members. However, the proposal is more likely to be bypassed by not only social partners and the state may collude with them. So in order to tackle this potential risk, they propose that ILO should set up a Global Living Wage Dispute Mechanism, and to complement this global body, there would be National Supply Chain Tribunals at the country levels. Let me not give away their very imaginative and innovative scheme of things beyond these basic details and their compelling logic for its practicability. Suffice it to say that what they propose which if implemented will bring a significant sense of relief to workers all over not just in pockets. This proposal assumes greater significance in the wake of terrific and even terrible role of global value/production networks.

The UNCTAD talked of TNCs as ‘engines of growth’, and it is striking to note that one of the key drivers of engine of growth is ‘An increasing emphasis on market forces and a growing role for the private sector in nearly all developing countries’ (Buckley 2010). This in fact then talks of TNC-capitalism-driven globalization. Thus, we see that however we look at the current phase of globalization, it is evident that there are vital and inherent links in the ideas of neoliberalism, capitalism and globalization. Indeed, as neoliberalism spreads its tentacles across countries and as it has become a dominant discourse backed by powerful GFIs, there could be a logical possibility of ‘convergence’ of systems towards liberal market economy in terms of deregulation of labour market and weakening of collective institutions and de-capacitating of the state. Though some have argued neoliberalist convergence could not be completely denied, there are significant institutional variations in terms of response to pressures of globalization. For example, a process towards marketization could actually mean not deregulation but regulation, and states cannot be perceived to be completely passive actors to pressures exerted by say TNCs as state can resist or cleverly adapt and re-chart the neoliberal prescriptions in a manner that would serve the ruling party’s own political interests (see Bardhan 2002; Campell and Pedersen 2001; Kuznetsov and Jacob 2015; Standing 1999a; Shyam Sundar 2015).

Then, this also takes us to the debate on the varieties of capitalism debate (Hall and Soskice 2001). The VoC perspective rejects the convergence thesis and argues that there are varieties within capitalism which diverge in terms of their responses to globalization. National institutional arrangements are historically structured, and hence, their networks and complementarities built over time counteract the pressures towards convergence to a single model of governance and institutional arrangement. In a sense, this argument stresses ‘path dependencies’. The VoC perspective majorly focuses on the role of the institutions in the economies including the IRS and fishes for possible complementarities between various institutional arrangements. The VoC perspective is significant for both its commission and omission in the sense that the central institution it looks at is ‘firm’ (unlike in typical IR perspectives where trade union is the focus) as they are agents of change and adjustment and examines the ways and manners by which the firm coordinates with other ‘actors’ in the IRS. The LMEs are closer to neoliberalism while the CMEs give greater primacy to non-market institutions. But the critics of VoC argue that globalization of finance and production has led both LMEs and the CMEs to adopt pro-market and market-enhancing policies. Further, the rise of modern forms of market-based service sectors like the gig economy has reinforced the significance of market. Then, VoC literature is of importance to an analysis of neoliberal globalization. Also, it has provided valuable addition to ‘comparative industrial relations’ literature.

Wright et al. (Chapter 9) seek to provide a dynamic global framework for analysing and understanding the behaviour of ‘actors’ of the IRS and also to appreciate the differences between various systems. Drawing on studies covering a diverse basket of 12 countries, their VoC approach asks a simple question: How come national regulations elicit different responses across sectors or industries and perhaps even within them? For example, if the market conditions facing steel industry are the same in India or even in a region, how come employment relations are different across steel firms? The VoC literature argues that divergence is possible even though the macrotendencies may be towards a larger converging system. Even though national stories hold relevance, it is important to appreciate the fact that as countries transition from one system (say command economy) to another (say market economy) the response of the actors in the IRS and policy responses differ. For example, shareholder-driven financialization model is held to be a major reason for moving away from historic lifetime employment in Japan to non-standard employment. Are we then converging to a neoliberal system? No. However, interestingly they point out that if we get impressions of convergence, it is due to ‘dominance effects’ of experience in some sectors. While the manufacturing sector prefers CME arrangements, modern service sector prefers flexible labour regimes (LMEs), though Germany seems to be different to this thumb rule. They argue that sector-specific institutional arrangements may cut across countries and hence impart diversity to the national systems. Comparative employment relations (ER) exercise cannot ignore the global players like TNCs or global agencies like ILO which in many senses influence local institutional structures and mediation. So national, sectoral and transnational segments are important in understanding ER arrangements.

However, as they anticipate, the VoC approach tailored as it is for understanding ER and the role of institutions in the Western countries is ill-equipped to comprehend ER systems in the developing countries which have a very high share of informal workers including the gig economy. They suggest consideration of non-formal and non-market institutions and norms such as social capital, custom, trust, self-employment or disguised employment and non-governmental agencies could help in understanding the shaping of ER in these systems. Also, the development of GPN poses considerable challenge though it could be complementary to informality that we just talked about. In sum, this chapter enlivens the debate by asking us to look for intricacies inherent in a macrodebate and focus on institutional arrangements and interfaces.

Following the comparative IR methodology employed Wright et al., Kuruvilla addresses the debate on the convergence issue by taking up institutional changes in two of the major emerging economies, China and India. China’s transformation from pure command economy to the socialistic market economy signalled the dominance of the ideas underpinning the market economy. Here are two large and fast growing emerging economies, China and India (both breaching and sustaining 7% average growth rates in the recent decade or so while the advanced economies are stagnating around 2–3% growth rates) who have sought to introduce reforms of their product and labour markets in varying degrees, and this book will be incomplete if we did not seek answers as to how differently or similarly these two economies have responded to the pressures of globalization in terms of labour market and IR policies. Kuruvilla’s article in this book seeks to provide answers to these questions.

Globalization has thrown up challenges to both, and they have responded differently. How differently did they respond and why, these are the questions that he seeks to answer. Both China and India had command economies though with tremendous differences in the institutional set-ups due to the nature of polity—pluralistic democracy in India (though ‘raucous’ to Kuruvilla) and authoritarian polity in China (even now). Kuruvilla recounts the liberalization of labour market in India during 1991–till date in two phases, 1991–2014 and 2014 onwards, and sees a definite shift to neoliberal policies with regard to labour market. China began its economic reform much earlier than India did (in 1978). During 1978–1994, significant labour market reforms took place. With respect to labour market, China began to dismantle the ‘rice-bowl’ system of lifelong employment policy, danwei (work unit for life) system and hukou (residence regulation) system. Kuruvilla sees significant shifts in terms of qualitative decline in the employment conditions in China during 1995–2006 as flexible labour market regime led to lay-offs and greater informality. These adverse outcomes ignited labour protests and these led to reforms which in fact re-regulated labour market resulting in the development of a less flexible legal framework. However, the period 2006–2015 witnessed tremendous spike in labour unrest and unusual growth in real wages. The spike in labour unrest has been variously attributed to labour market conditions (supply deficits) or changed legal context (reforms of 2008 empowered workers) or institutional reasons (spontaneous outbursts or labour NGO (non-governmental organization) sponsored protests). The dominance of labour NGOs interrogates not only the role and place of official monopoly union (the All Chinese Federation of Trade Union, ACFTU) but also Chinese state’s social policy. Kuruvilla’s discussion on the role of labour NGOs in recent times poses serious questions of relevance or the role of ACFTU and more significantly generates wider workers’ movement as opposed to constricted trade union movement led by ACFTU in China. At any rate, these protests have led to state repression.

In a functional equivalence sense, both China and India converge in terms of having a command economy and later adopting the ‘logic of competition’ and resorting to neoliberal policies and both seek to constrain spaces for labour contestation and activism in 2000s and later. But the methods followed differ—India resorts to labour law and governance reforms (a kind of ‘soft’ route) while China uses repression (‘hard’ route). China has seen cycles of liberalization and regulation while India is yet to make such definitive changes at the national level that China did. Both seek to deregulate labour market, but the processes and the pace differed. In other words, the methods adopted, the labour policies, the institutional processes of reforms, etc., to marketize the economy including IRS differ between the two. So Kuruvilla argues that though they both are on a neoliberal course (convergence), their paths are significantly and even irreconcilably different (divergence). Hence following Katz and Darbishire (2000), he calls this process as ‘converging divergences’. His article is an important exercise in advancing the comparative IR methodology which enhances our understanding of the policy effects of ‘ideas’ in shaping institutions through reforms or restraint.

Fissuring or decentring of production has been held to be a significant if not a dominant feature of globalization by academics and commentators including in this book and it becomes essential to understand the dynamics underlying GPN. Dev Nathan in Chapter 11 seeks to provide an analytical framework of GPN—note that he alternates between GPN and global value chains (GVC), while Jha distinguishes between the two and holds GPN to be of greater analytical value. Eventually, we have to understand the production, distribution and consumption of goods or services in the era of economic globalization in terms of networks of interconnected functions, operations or transactions and organization of production in a global structure of production, and Dev Nathan based on extensive spatial studies (covering industries across regions and countries) seeks to provide one. Dev Nathan starts of his analysis by posing GVC as a possible counter to Coase’s conception even legitimacy of a ‘firm’ as GVC is nothing but a network of external contracts seeking to coordinate the organization of production as opposed to intra-firm coordination stressed by Coase. If a profit-maximizing economic agent prefers inter-firm coordination to intra-firm organization, then the costs of the former must be lower than the latter, and to Dev Nathan, this is so because of information and communications technology (ICT). ICT enables spatial distribution of production in a manner to take advantage of cheap labour across spaces. So GVC works due to the presence of labour cost arbitrage.

GVC in an organizational perspective sense is a closed and integrated structure which is characterized by unequal possession of power in favour of the lead firm which has everything (capital, knowledge, brand power, etc.) to unleash the network, and they hail mostly from the high-income countries and operate in competitive industries. So they resort to labour arbitrage whose economic advantage Dev Nathan clearly tells declines as one travels down the value chain. The power imbalances reflect in the returns to the firms involved in the GVC as the monopsonistic lead firm gets rents (premium over competitive return) while the suppliers secure only competitive returns. This should endorse the Marxian notion of monopolizing the surplus (see Jha in this volume) which could undermine consumption and other economic aspects. This in turn determines the pie to be shared by capital and labour within each segment. This then takes us to the neoclassical mode of analysis which stresses the capacity of a firm to pay as wages are constrained by profits generated. Using three governance segments, viz. captive (low knowledge and low buyers segment, e.g. shoes/garment), modular (medium knowledge and a moderate ratio of buyers and suppliers, e.g. automobiles/electronics) and relational (high knowledge and complex buyer–supplier relationship), Dev Nathan demonstrates through a matrix that wage and employment outcomes will depend on the placement or location of firms in the governance segment which suggests structural determinism and trade unions can hardly make any difference to wages at least if not to employment quality also. For example, in industries in the captive segment like garments, due to generation of low margins, the ability of the supplier firms in the GVC will be hugely constrained and hence poor wages and bad working conditions including employment insecurity are quite possible and even evident. But workers need not lose hope as Dev Nathan shows that if firms could move up the value chain, they create scope for better distributional gains and then trade unions can play some role. However, this structural deterministic analytical framework on the basis of structure and agency which appears logical may not bring cheer to moves of governance reforms in the value chain by agencies like ILO or global union federations.

The most significant effect of GPN model of organization of production is informality. In a critical sense, labour market segmentation has been intensified with the tremendous rise of GPN models and aggressive pursuit of flexible labour market strategies. Prof. Lalit Deshpande has made significant contributions to both labour market segmentation (as indicative of market failure) and labour market flexibility. These labour market outcomes lead to undesirable labour market outcomes including discrimination along the lines of gender, caste, colour, etc. These require decomposition of macrodiscourses to address both informality and identity issues in the labour market processes in the context of globalization. Sociological and even developmental theories argued that industrialization and urbanization will promote modernity and formal labour markets, and hence, social identities will vanish. Not only the developmental economists even the trade unions assumed that informal sector will disappear. There are perspectives that argue that the sources of informality or even vulnerability are not randomly distributed across genders or castes in a society. There is a pattern in location of vulnerabilities. They are due to the structuring of social relations and identities. Hence, there could be inter-sectionalities of labour, viz. women informal workers and caste informal workers (Dalit) thanks to social segregations apart from labour market segmentation. Hence, we have contributions which seek to help us understand these complexities in the labour market.

It is well known that women’s role in the labour market much depends on their role in and commitment and loyalty to the domestic economy. But feminists have challenged these patriarchal constructions. George in this book builds on the argument that globalization and the consequent restructuring exercises have led to considerable informalization of labour market. She makes two distinct and powerful arguments in her paper. One, given the high rates of informalization of labour in the wake of globalization, flexibilization perspectives that still concentrate on ‘labour in the formal sector’ are inadequate to understand not only work but also the dynamics of organization of work. Two, looking at informal labour without looking at the gendered aspects of it will again not be helpful to understand the labour market processes. The implications are powerful in the sense that the dualization theories which divide labour market mechanically on some social security or employment security criteria into formal and informal sector are deeply insensitive to the gender aspect and it hides the huge presence of feminity in jobs. She refers to several ironies which are often ignored by most perspectives of economic processes in the economy. While men and women are involved in the same kind of trade, there are significant differences in what they trade. I quote George here: ‘men concentrate in large-scale business and non-food items, while women concentrate in small-scale trades and food items’. Further, it is not easy to formalize feminity jobs into good jobs. Her logical argument linking feminization with casualization is that jobs due to neoliberalism are becoming increasingly flexible and casual and in the arrangement of work by capital (both domestic and global) women labour fit these works due to pressures from the demand (flexible labour) and supply sides (family poverty, the need to participate in labour market). Her observation that ‘it is not easy to convert femininity into “good jobs”, when compared to masculinity’ gives a clear idea of logicality between informality/flexibility and feminization (see Standing 1999b, for a comprehensive conceptual and statistical analyses on feminization of labour).

In both work and domestic economy there exists patriarchal dominance reflecting concentration of power in the hands of men. In these contexts, wage differentials between men and women though important assume relatively less significance. It is about reimagining women in the lived experiences. In fact, the IMF’s [in]famous SAP’s success depended upon the successful management of the domestic economy by women as men folks were either rendered unemployed or brought home less pay. While the Marxist discourses talked about ‘general proletariatinization’ in capitalism, feminist scholars especially in the wake of globalization detect ‘gendered proletariatinization’ as women workers who are increasingly entering the labour market get allocated into vulnerable jobs, and they often get segregated into jobs characterized by high flexibility and informality thanks to hegemonic masculinity. She argues that ‘class analysis undermined women’s labour by ‘invisibilising’ it in the production system’. Simply put, Marxist theories value only commodities that produce money and have exchange value and so women’s work did not fit in this scheme of looking at exploitation in the capitalistic system. So we need to look at the huge unpaid work done by women and the fact that they constitute significant proportion of the reserve army of the unemployed. So these inadequacies mean that the analysis of work needs to move away from ‘materialist’ (structuralist) class perspective to that (say post-structuralism as she argues) which takes into account ‘plurality of work experiences’ of women. In a larger sense, she pleads for a broad perspective which can locate women labour in its total sense (domestic and commercial) by reimagining female labour in the context of larger social reality and evolving new methods of measurement of work.

Caste and class get separated even at the fundamental level of articulation of their suffering in the system—for caste it is exclusion and pollution in the social system which may have economic implications obviously; for class it is exploitation and its primary site is economic system. For the Indian Left to integrate caste into their industrial class struggles presented a problem of combining class with social consciousness. Which is larger and more macro, exclusion or exploitation? The Indian Left according to Guru (2016) has continued to privilege class over caste and reduce caste to class or diverge caste from class, and on the other hand, the capitalistic class and globalization together have wrought division between the two identities (see also New Left Review 2015; see also Shah et al. 2018). So we next turn to Dalit discourse on neoliberal globalization.

Sapkal and Parmar bring out discrimination in the labour market along birth markers, i.e. caste. Caste has been a method of social stratification and social hierarchization based on a non-changeable birth status in the Hindu society in India. The stratification reflects power and other inequalities that are contingent on caste. So these have led to labour market discrimination in India. There are four groups among the Hindus, i.e. the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas, the Vaishyas and the Shudras. As per the Census of 1881, certain occupations such as agricultural field labourers, leather workers, scavengers, watchmen and village menials in a society were deemed to be performed by ‘untouchables’ who were later banded together along with others in a larger segment called ‘scheduled castes’. Thus, a hideous social division of labour based on caste developed and has been perpetuated through social processes. Not only were menial jobs have been allocated to the people ordained to be lowly born, even residential segregation took place on the principle of ‘pollution of purity’ vested in select higher castes.

Breman reports the cavalier and highly predetermined prejudicial view of the ruling classes that low caste people by definition are inferior; more importantly, class hatred turns into caste hatred. Also typically dirty jobs will be allocated to low caste workers even in organized manufactory sector (New Left Review 2015; see also Shah et al. 2018).

With political independence in 1947 and the adoption of a Constitution, strong corrective and affirmative action was mandated in the Constitution. It was believed that as India industrializes on the basis of commanding heights occupied by government sector urbanization and modernization would take place and these will lead to annihilation of castes and other primordial identities and class could replace caste since property rights and the right to inheritance in India reflect a capitalistic society despite heavy state intervention (see Shah and Lerche 2018). The authors argue that even though the Constitution mandated promises and even rights to DalitsFootnote 1 these did not result in significant social upliftment of them during the planned economic development period (1950–1990). However, due to the significant role of the government, they achieved some social (rise in literacy rates) and economic (job opportunities in the organized sector thanks to affirmative actions of the government) progress during the command economy period. However, the Dalits’ progress was much less than that as compared with other social segments.

Globalization and neoliberal policies followed in India according to the authors directly and indirectly adversely impact the Dalits in several ways. The neoliberal policies perched on the two-pronged policies of state retrenchment and marketization hurt the Dalits significantly. The post-reform period has been characterized by low and declining employment elasticity, reduction in public provisioning of social goods, marketization of social sectors like education and health, freezing of government employment and increasing resort to contract labour by the government, etc., and these have reduced Dalits’ access to social goods and employment. The poor performance of the agricultural sector and the declining investments by the government in it have hurt the Dalits badly who constitute a bulk of marginal farmers. Driven by agricultural distress, Dalits then migrate to the urban areas only to land up in the unorganized sector for several reasons. According to the authors, poor and declining employment elasticity of the organized sector, rise of precarious labour, absence of affirmative action by the private sector, declining jobs prospects and voluntary retirement schemes in the public enterprises put the Dalits at a disadvantage in the labour market. Their plight worsens as private sector employers practice discrimination in both employment (recruitment) and wages.

The competitive labour market theory assures that the discriminating firms who have to pay a premium for discrimination (assuming equal labour productivity of workers in the labour pool) will be at a competitive disadvantage as compared to the non-discriminating firms and hence discriminating firms eventually will have to shut down their business. Also, some scholars have argued that globalization (read markets) is caste-blind, and hence, industrious and efficient people irrespective of social markers will flourish. The authors briefly speak of Dalit capitalism idea which originated sometime in the early 2000s akin to success stories of Black capitalism. However, as we have noted, markets are not perfect and hence market failures in terms of labour market discrimination in terms of employment and wage outcomes take place to the prejudice of Dalits. It has been argued that though there are success stories of Dalit capitalism, they face substantial hurdles thanks to the persistence of discrimination. For example, success of a business enterprise is contingent on ‘business networks’ which in turn is dependent on the assumption of absence of social discrimination, which is not a correct assumption to make. So the authors are not optimistic about Dalit capitalism as a solution to Dalit empowerment. Guru (2016) has critically argued that Dalit capitalists have used caste as a ‘carapace’ (a kind of protective label) to secure their space in the capitalistic system which otherwise uses competitive screening to exclude Dalits mercilessly. In other words, Dalit capitalism is not a matter of celebration of either the market or the Dalit enterprise, as they cannot be seen as a liberating institution for Dalits.

The authors blame the government for the worsening of the working (precarity) and living conditions (poverty) of Dalits as it deliberately abandoned its Constitutional mandate. Worse, it has aided and abetted flexible labour practices of employers in which it hit Dalits more than it did others and has not legally mandated the private sector to follow affirmative action. So, naturally Dalits do not trust the competitive labour market as offering solutions to their sufferings and call for increased state intervention to aid their betterment especially in the era of globalization. State matters still, though in a polemical and affirmative sense to the marginalized in general and working class in particular.

Final Observations

The foregoing should have by now convinced the readers that work and employment in the twenty-first century have assumed greater and varieties of complexities thanks to ascendency of neoliberalism. The critical analyses in the book show how inadequate in both precept and practice neoliberalism is and will be. The discourses mostly seek to achieve changes within capitalism as perhaps the first step rather than revisioning another class revolution. Of course, some think ‘beyond’ capitalism. But that project needs to wait, perhaps. This is so because some contributions to the debate in this book have highlighted the complexities within the ‘alternative discourses’ and hence the achievement of goals set by each ideology is going to be rather difficult. The Dalit discourse and the feminist-informality discourses remind us of the dark patches in social transformation, and the projects of Great Transformation or Class Revolution surely need to retool their projects at least in a complex country like India. Informalization of the post-reform period has created complex inter-sectionalities (like Dalit feminists), and now, it is not only exploitation but other experiential factors like displacement, exclusion, etc., permeate the labour market (Guru 2016; Gopal 2013) and in the larger society pose problems for the Class Project or Social Democratic Politics. We have not got on board perspectives from other stakeholders like environmentalists or Dalit feminists who would in all probabilities join others in condemning neoliberalism for ecological disasters but would surely add to the complexities in the talk of alternatives.

The conversations in the book are clear on two issues, viz. one, at an ideational level, there is an emphatic disendorsement of neoliberalism and a broad agreement on some fundamental axioms; two, hence there is a need for the search for alternatives. All are clear that labour or a person cannot be commodified or socially marked in a manner to exclude him/her from the mainstream. The Catholic perspective in fact assures us that human beings are manifestations of Divinity, that they are equals and paid and unpaid work are dignified and of equal Divine worth if not material. All are clear that the current phase of globalization is not progressing in socially or spiritually desirable paths and needs course corrections. Naturally, it is neither logical nor feasible to think of a project based on one identity; if we did, we will commit the same mistake committed by neoliberalism which homogenizes everything, factors or policies. There will arise complexities in drafting solutions thanks to the internal contradictions but that is the unique feature of pluralism which is conducive to all kinds of progress. Finally, the role of institutions and especially the state comes out thumpingly clear as being very relevant in these discourses: the discourses at once contest the role of state and argue for more benevolent and greater intervention. The contributions do not merely critique neoliberalism but identify the potential for and call for remedial and even ‘refo-lution’ (movements appealing to larger audience) measures. The Project Action includes institutional configurations both in domestic and in global realms (social movement unionism, or a general union or global alliances), political actions (for merging of union and political consciousness, empowering), retooling of ILO, state intervention, etc., on the one hand, and a powerful call for creating and reviving the value systems to guide the social, political and other processes at all realms.