Why Unfree Labour is Not ‘So-Called’: The Fictions of Jairus Banaji |
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Authors: | Tom Brass |
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Institution: | 1. University of Sussex ,;2. University of Warwick ,;3. School of Oriental and African Studies , University of London ,;4. University of East Anglia ,;5. University of Hull , |
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Abstract: | In a recent critique of the deproletarianization thesis, which links the reproduction of unfree labour mainly - but not only - in Third World agriculture to class struggle prosecuted by capitalist producers, Banaji maintains in effect that there is no such thing as unfree labour. Equating the latter with nineteenth-century liberal ideas about freedom as consent, he conceptualizes all historical working arrangements simply as ‘disguised’ wage-labour that is free, a theoretically problematic claim first made during the Indian mode of production debate. Such a view, it is argued here, ignores the fact that unfree workers get paid and also appear in the labour market, but not as sellers of their own commodity. Moreover, by abolishing the free/unfree labour distinction, and adopting instead the view that all rural workers are simply ‘disguised’ hired labourers who are contractually ‘free’, Banaji aligns himself with anti-Marxist theory in general, and neoclassical economic historiography in particular. |
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