The Handbook of the International Political Economy of Production offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of the changing world of global production. The book explores the topic in a range of directions, including the human material 'used' in production across the globe and alternatives proposed from different quarters. Chapters cover the geography of why and where jobs are moving in both manufacturing and services. The doubling of the world's available labour supply after the opening up of the planned economies in Europe and Asia has sharply tilted the balance of power towards giant corporations. Labour and the politics of work is analysed in a number of key countries. The early signs of a recovery of organized labour's negotiating power on this vastly expanded playing field are covered in separate chapters, giving a complete overview of labour research networks currently active. This important volume covers topics relating to the human and natural basis on which production rests, from the consequences of the exploitation and marginalization of the body and mind to sex work, biotechnology, and the prospects for ecological re-balancing. Written by a well-balanced team of authors comprising some of the biggest names in contemporary social science to topical specialists, this Handbook will prove a critical resource to political economists at all levels, trade unionists and NGO activists in the labour and human rights sphere, politicians and journalists.
Contents: Introduction: The World of Production and Political Economy. Kees van der Pijl Acknowledgements Table of Contents PART I RESTRUCTURING THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY Introduction to Part I 1. Labour, War and World Politics. Beverly J. Silver 2. Rethinking Production, Finance and Hegemonic Decline. Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin 3. Innovation Policies and the Competition State - The Case of Nanotechnology. Joscha Wullweber 4. The Political Economy of Global Labour Arbitrage. Raul Delgado Wise and David T. Martin 5. Apple's iPad City: Subcontracting Exploitation to China. Jenny Chan, Pun Ngai and Mark Selden 6. The Grapes of Wrath. Social Upgrading and Class Struggles in Global Value Chains. Ben Selwyn 7. Global Outsourcing and Socialisation of Labour - the Case of Nike. Jeroen Merk 8. Standardizing Services: Transnational Authority and Market Power. Jean-Christophe Graz 9. Encumbered Behemoth: Wal-Mart, Differential Accumulation and International Retail Restructuring. Joseph Baines 10. Beyond the BRICS - New Patterns of Development Cooperation in the Transeurasian Corridor. Yury Gromyko PART II. LABOUR AND THE POLITICS OF WORK Introduction to Part II 11. Look Back in Hope? Reassessing Fordism Today. Radhika Desai 12. Paternalism, Taylorism, Socialism. The Battle for Production in the Chilean Textile Industry 1930-1973. Adam Fishwick 13. Trasformismo and the Defeat of the Left in Italy. Davide Bradanini 14. Flexibilisation of Labour in the European Union. Otto Holman 15. Globalization and Japanese-style Management: Image and Changing Reality. Ryoji Ihara 16. Work, Power and the Urban Poor. Jeffrey Harrod 17. Unfreedom and Workers' Power: Ever-present Possibilities. Siobhan McGrath and Kendra Strauss 18. The Race to the Bottom Halted? Passive Revolution and Workers' Resistance in China. Youngseok Jang and Kevin Gray 19. Bargaining in the Global Commodity Chain - The Asian Floor Wage Campaign. Anannya Bhattacharjee and Ashim Roy 20. Twilight of the Machinocrats: Creative Industries, Design, and the Future of Human Labour. Alan Freeman Appendix to Part II: Current Networks of Labour Research. Orsan Senalp and Gursan Mehmet Senalp PART III. PRODUCTION, REPRODUCTION, NATURE Introduction to Part III 21. Tracking Bodies, the 'Quantified Self' and the Corporeal Turn. Phoebe Moore 22. Production in Everyday Life: Poetics and Prosaics. Matt Davies 23. Automobility: Culture, (Re-)Production, and Sustainability. Matthew Paterson 24. Risk Capitalism, Crisis of Socialisation, and Loss of Civilisation. Werner Seppmann 25. Servicing the World: Women, Migration and Sex Work in a Neoliberal Era. Christine B. N. Chin 26. Molecular Biotechnologies: Insights on Production through the Lens of Reproduction. Miriam Boyer 27. Alternatives to Agribusiness: Agro-ecology and the 'Peasant Principle'. Sylvia Kay 28. Strategies of a Green Economy, Contours of a Green Capitalism. Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen Conclusion: Emergent Predatory Logics. Saskia Sassen Index