Globalisation before the crash: the City of London and UK economic strategy

The global financial crisis provides an opportune moment to analyse the rise of the City of London financial markets, their role in the globalisation process and an attempt by the Labour Party Left in the 1970s to challenge emerging transnational forces. The USA became the world's ‘hegemon’ after the Second World War, but London retained its power in finance; well placed to challenge the post-war Keynesian regulatory consensus in favour of globalising interests, theoretically and politically served by the rise of neo-liberal ideology. In response the Labour Party Left devised its radical ‘Programme 1973’ and subsequently the Alternative Economic Strategy, which in seeking to defend social democracy, understood the necessity to prevent the erosion of national financial controls. The 1976 International Monetary Fund crisis was a defining moment in this battle. This article includes interviews with key contemporary actors and is based in the discipline of International Political Economy.     

Where the Low Road and the High Road Meet: Flexible Employment in Global Value Chains

This article examines production organisation and employment patterns in the export-orientated centres of Denizli (Turkey) and Tiruppur (India). It argues that Denizli and Tiruppur's involvement in global value chains has resulted in segmented production patterns and insecure employment arrangements. Larger producers use sub-contractors as a strategy to mediate the instability of international contracts and pass the uncertainty in their global linkages on to smaller firms and their workforces. Such flux, then, has become a regularised feature of manufacturing work within the ranks of sub-contractors. Employers have solidified these production arrangements by recruiting rural and female workers. The article sheds light on the relationship between new production forms and rising employment insecurity.     

Eastern Figures: Orient and Empire in British Writing

This article outlines the labour impacts and social consequences of the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis and 2008–09 global financial crisis on Southeast Asia. Both had adverse consequences on output, employment, income and poverty in the region, although the impact of the global financial crisis was much less severe compared to the Asian financial crisis. Economies recovered quickly from both crises. However, labour markets continue to be characterised by informal, vulnerable and precarious employment. The crises and the ensuing efforts of employers to resort to increased flexibility in labour hiring in both crisis and recovery periods fanned labour protests despite the diminutive size of the trade union movement and the underdeveloped system of industrial relations in most countries. In turn, these protests have triggered national and regional debates on rules for labour contracting, minimum wage adjustments and social protection. These debates have remained unresolved even as the region is gearing up for fuller economic integration in 2015 labelled as the ASEAN Economic Community.     

Reviews

The expansion of the global economy and the governance deficit it has generated raise questions about the possibilities for regulating the practices of participants in global production networks. This paper focuses on the regulation of industrial relations in Cambodia's textile and garment industry – a unique ensemble of state, trade union, private sector and international institutions that is promoted as a “fair model of globalisation.” We track the trajectory of Cambodia's industrialisation and insertion into the global economy over three interrelated phases: first, the beginnings of export-orientated garment production in the mid- to late 1990s; secondly, the promotion of Cambodia as an “ethical producer” from 1999; and, thirdly, privileging “competitiveness” in global production networks over labour compliance for its advantage. In doing so we centre our analysis on the complex intertwining of global production, the genesis of the unique ensemble of actors in Cambodia and the anomaly of Cambodia's labour movement.     

Gender,Work and Resistance: South Korean Textile Industry in the 1970s

This paper examines the forces behind South Korean women workers' labour activism in the 1970s, an era of rapid export-orientated industrialisation. Most of the labour strikes initiated by women occurred in the labour-intensive manufacturing sector, and they were in sharp contrast to the overall labour quiescence of male workers during the same period. The actions of South Korean women refute widely held assumptions about the docility of Asian women workers. This case study suggests that women rebel when their lives undergo drastic changes under a set of macro and micro circumstances. Women dialectically interact with the capitalist-patriarchal structure as conscious human agents, and the result of such interaction is their gender- and class-based collective resistance.     

The Politics of the Minimum Wage in Hong Kong

This article provides an account of the recent introduction of a minimum wage in Hong Kong in 2011. Traditional welfare state theories had their origins in rich democracies. We refine the theoretical arguments in accordance with the semi-democratic nature of Hong Kong. We argue that the legislation was initiated reluctantly by the business-friendly government under unfavourable economic conditions. Any subsequent concessions to labour were not attributable to labour strength or political oppositions, which were very weak. Instead, multiple miscalculations by the politically dominant business side allowed the labour movement to gain limited grounds throughout the struggle. We also apply our arguments to the case of Singapore, illustrating how welfare state theories can be adapted to less democratic systems.     

The social relations of money as universal equivalent: a response to Ingham

In a recent debate in Economy and Society, Ingham criticized Marxist theory of money on the grounds that it relates money to commodities through the labour theory of value, while ignoring credit money. Ingham suggested instead that money is constituted by social relations characteristic of credit, namely relations of ‘promise to pay’. Drawing on Marx, this article shows that, pace Ingham, it is necessary theoretically to relate money to commodities. Money is indeed constituted by social relations, but these are commercial relations among ‘foreign’ commodity owners, not credit relations. The social relations of money are successfully captured by Marx's concept of the universal equivalent, when that is interpreted as monopoly over the ability to buy. In this light, both commodity and credit money are forms of the universal equivalent, but qualitatively different from each other.     

劳动合同履行中存在的法律问题及实例分析

劳动合同制度是维系《劳动法》实施的前提和基础。当前我国劳动法律实施中还存在许多不容忽视的问题,部分问题还呈现出新的特点,数量与影响都尤为突出。分析劳动法实施中存在的新问题并建立起相应的预防机制是解决劳动合同履行的关键。     

“和谐”与“稳定”之辨——劳动者辞职权制度的反思与重构

《劳动合同法》针对“劳动合同短期化”问题扩大无固定期限劳动合同和经济补偿金的适用范围，以此强化劳动关系的稳定性，但同时却没有对劳动者的辞职权进行合理的限制。这种制度设计没有充分照顾到企业和劳动者的利益平衡，忽视了“和谐”的内涵。为此，应当修正目前劳动者辞职权制度对劳动关系矫枉过正的规定，减弱法律的刚性，实现劳动关系的动态平衡，使“和谐”与“稳定”的价值追求相统一。     

价值论的历史与现实意义透析

劳动、资本和土地 ,谁创造了价值 ?这个古老而久远的话题今天又成为人们争论的焦点。价值论是经济学的核心 ,而劳动价值论则是马克思主义政治经济学和科学社会主义的理论基础。通过对价值学说史的回顾和分析 ,再次说明只有劳动才是创造价值的惟一源泉。我国当前分配领域非劳动要素之所以能够参与分配 ,并不是由于它们参与了价值创造 ,而是一种财产所有权对价值的索取 ,非劳动要素分配只能是对按劳分配的一种补充形式。