Labor, Class, and the International System explores the interface between the labor process, class structure, and the global requirements of accumulation as a necessary complement to the analysis of capital and dominant institutions and focus on this interaction to clarify some of the apparent contradictions and bring the general models in line with empirical reality. The book provides analysis of concepts and hypotheses derived from general theory with available empirical knowledge on each particular topic. Each chapter addresses problem areas namely, international migration; pre-capitalist modes of production and the reproduction of the urban labor force; and dominant ideologies of inequality and class structure. Sociologists, political scientists, economists, researchers, and students of international studies will find the book very interesting and insightful.

Contents
Preface

1 Introduction

The World-System Perspective

Subprocesses in the World-System

A Research Agenda

2 International Migration: Conditions for the Mobilization and Use of Migrant Labor under World Capitalism

Introduction

Early Labor Migrations

Theoretical Perspectives: A Critique

Inducement to Migration

The Release and Transportation of Migrant Labor

Conditions for the Use of Migrant Labor

Network Building: The Microstructures of Migration

Summary

3 Unequal Exchange and the Urban Informal Sector

Introduction

Theoretical Review

Critique

Hyper-urbanization and the Informal Sector

The Informal Sector and Peripheral Accumulation

Reproduction of the Working Class

Constraints on the Expansion of the Working Class

Conclusion

4 Ideologies of Inequality and Their Transformation in the Periphery: The Case of Latin America

Introduction

Patrimonialism

Positivism

Marginality

Developmentalism

Conclusion

5 The Internationalization of Capital and Class Structures in the Advanced Countries: The United States Case

Introduction

Aspects of the Internationalization of Capital

Consequences of the Internationalization of Capital for Domestic Labor, Capital, and National Income

Institutional Consequences of the Internationalization of Capital

The Changing Structure of Social Class

Conclusion

6 Conclusion

References

Index