21st century imperialism and the export of labour power
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Forum Wissenschaft 3/2021; Foto: Ale Grutta Foto / shutterstock.com |
Die in den letzten Jahrzehnten zu beobachtende Neuausrichtung der internationalen Arbeitsteilung vertieft die globalen Nord-Süd-Abhängigkeitsverhältnisse. Die damit verbundene wachsende Migration von Hochqualifizierten trägt zur Verschärfung der altbekannten Brain-Drain-Problematik bei und führt zugleich zu einem Paradox: Innovation als Motor für die Entwicklung der Produktivkräfte hängt zunehmend von der Beteiligung von Wissenschaftler*innen und Technolog*innen aus dem Süden ab, die im Dienste des Nordens stehen. Die Folgen dieser Entwicklung analysiert Raúl Delgado Wise.
A central element of contemporary capitalism and imperialism is the emergence of a new international division of labour that reconfigures relations of power and dependence on the North-South or centre-periphery axis of the world system. The exportation of labour power - the most valuable commodity for capital accumulation - stands as one of the most distressing and less perceptible features of the global landscape. It refers to a process under the command of monopoly capital that fundamentally has to do with the south-north exportation, both direct and indirect or disembodied, of low- and highly-skilled labour power. The purpose of this essay is to delve into the analysis of this phenomenon, taking into consideration the geographical redistribution of manufacturing activities and the profound restructuring of innovation systems, with Silicon Valley at the forefront, that are currently underway.
Genesis of a new international division of labour
Since the end of the 1970s, large multinational corporations have initiated a deep restructuring process in which their labour-intensive operations are transferred to peripheral areas in the search for cheap and flexible labour. This strategic shift entails what could be described as the new "nomadism" of the global production system - including commercial and services operations - based on the enormous wage differentials between operations in the centre and the periphery of the world system; i.e. so-called global labour arbitrage. This in turn has led to a configuration of global value chains, or more precisely what I refer to as global networks of monopoly capital through the establishment of export platforms that operate as enclave economies in countries in peripheral macro-regions.1
The resulting strategic shift in the organization of worldwide production has been spectacular: "The top one hundred global corporations ha[ve] shifted their production more decisively to their foreign affiliates [mainly in the South], which now account for close to 60 per cent of their total assets and employment and more than 60 per cent of their global sales"2. In a similar vein, it is estimated that around 100 million workers on the periphery are directly employed in the assembly plants that have been established in more than 5,400 processing zones operating in at least 147 countries3. This significantly transformed the global geography of production to such an extent that most of the world’s industrial employment (more than 70%) is now located in peripheral regions and countries.4
It is important to note that this phenomenon does not imply an industrialization of the periphery, but rather a doubly regressive process that could be conceptualized as economic sub-primarisation. This means that, far from moving towards a manufacturing export-led platform, what is actually being exported under the guise of manufactured goods is labour power, without it actually leaving the country. It should not be forgotten that the assembly plants installed in peripheral countries operate with imported inputs and tax exemption regimes, meaning that the substance of the manufacturing goods exported is the labour power incorporated into the productive process. Hence, what we have here is the indirect or disembodied export of labour power in the guise of exporting manufactured products.5
Three considerations in relation to the genesis and implications of this peculiar export modality are relevant:
1.<|>The implementation of a neoliberal program of ›structural reforms‹ (the World Bank and IMF’s vaunted Structural Adjustment Program) that feature globalization (integration into the capaitalist system of global governance, privatisation (of the means of production and economic enterprise), liberalisation (of the flow of goods and capital), and deregulation of capitalist markets. The purpose of these programs, imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, is to dismantle and disarticulate the productive apparatus so as to activate the dynamics of capital accumulation in the centre of the world system under the dominion of corporate monopoly capital.
2.<|>As a corollary or consequence of this momentous shift is destruction of the labour markets in the formal economy, with the result of creating what analysts have described as a peri-urban semiproletariat or ›precariat‹, generating in the process a surplus population thrown into the ranks of informality and/or forced to emigrate in a South-North direction. The direct exportation of labour power in the form of international labour migration is subjected to high vulnerability and severe limitations in regard to the labour and human rights of migrant workers. Here we need to take into consideration the fact that under the aegis of neoliberalism trade in all commodities is liberalized, except for labour, and workers are forced to emigrate from their countries of origin, subjecting them to restrictive migratory regimes that generate as a matter of State policy a growing mass of ›illegal‹ workers subjected to conditions of super-exploitation, discrimination and xenophobia.
We should also take into consideration that the emigrating labourforce did not grow by spontaneous combustion, nor was it educated for free regardless of their level of studies. The costs of social reproduction (education and training) are assumed by the families of the migrant and the social capital fund administered by the State of the country of origin. These costs, when compared with the accumulation of remittances that are sent to their countries of origin, tend to be much more onerous. This implies that contrary to the hegemonic discourse in the field, remittances do not represent a North-South subsidy, but rather exactly the opposite: A South-North subsidy.6
3.<|>In addition to the direct exportation of labour power, its indirect or disembodied form deepens the relation of unequal exchange that exist between peripheral countries and those located in the centre, given the fact that by means of the mechanism of the assembly plants, most of them subjected to intra-firm trade, what is actually being transferred abroad are total profits; i.e. the entire stock of surplus value incorporated into the exported good. It represents a modality of unequal exchange that on an international scale resembles the exchange between labour and capital at the heart of the production process. It is difficult to imagine a more exacting modality of unequal exchange between countries, with the added aggravation that what remains in the country of origin are wages and benefits that are much lower than those that would be granted in the country of destination. Thus, we have the foundation of a new international division of labour based on the direct and indirect or disembodied exportation of labour power.
Restructuring of innovation systems and the export of labour power
The export of labour power acquires its broader meaning by incorporating a qualified and highly qualified labour force. This development is a relatively recent phenomenon associated with the profound restructuring process undergone by the most advanced innovation systems worldwide. The most salient features of this restructuring process, taking as a reference what we conceive of as Silicon Valley’s Imperial Innovation System7, are:
1.<|>The internationalization and fragmentation of Research and Development (R&D) activities under collective modalities of organizing and promoting innovation processes: peer-to-peer, share economy, commons economy and crowdsourcing economy, through what is known as open innovation. In contrast to the traditional innovation processes that normally take place "behind closed doors" in R&D departments, internal to large multinational corporations, this trend includes the opening and spatial redistribution of knowledge-intensive activities with the participation of external partners. This complex innovation ›system‹ is composed of start-ups that operate as privileged cells of the innovation architecture, together with risk capital suppliers, headhunters, firms of lawyers, subcontractors, universities and research institutions. This new way of organizing the general intellect - a concept coined by Marx to emphasize the social character of accumulated knowledge - gives way to a permanent configuration and reconfiguration of innovation networks that interact under a complex inter-institutional fabric commanded by corporate capital in tandem with the Imperial State.
2.<|>The creation of scientific cities such as Silicon Valley in the US and the new "Silicon Valleys" established in recent years in peripheral areas or emerging regions, mainly in Asia - as is the case of Bangalore, India -, where collective synergies are engendered to accelerate innovation processes. In essence, it configurates a new georeferenced paradigm, which diverges from the old R&D models, and which opens a pathway for a new culture of innovation based on flexibility, decentralization and the incorporation, under different modalities, of new and increasingly numerous players who interact simultaneously in local and transnational spaces. Silicon Valley appears as the pivot of a new architecture of world innovation, around which multiple peripheral links are woven that operate as sort of scientific-technological maquiladoras located in regions, cities and universities around the world. This gives rise to a new and perverse modality of unequal exchange, through which peripheral and emerging countries transfer to central countries and to monopoly capital the costs of reproduction of the highly qualified labour force involved in the dynamics of innovation, as well as the potential for generating extraordinary profits or monopoly rents from innovations.
3.<|>The implementation of new forms of control and appropriation of the products of scientific-technological labour by the large multinational corporations, through various forms of subcontracting and association, as well as management and diversification of risk capital. This control is established through specialized teams of lawyers who are at the service of large corporations and are thoroughly familiar with the institutional framework and the operating rules of patenting systems. Under the complex and intricate legal-institutional framework imposed by the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), it is practically impossible for independent inventors to register and patent their products alone. In addition, law firms also operate as talent hunters, contractors, subcontractors and managers of various kinds for the large companies. This new form of interference and corporate control of innovation dynamics is known as strategic investment.
The way in which the large multinational corporations are inserted into this dynamic reveal that more than an agent driving the development of social productive forces, monopoly capital operates as a rentier agent, i.e., as an agent that appropriates the products of the general intellect without participating in its gestation and development. In other words, the extraordinary profits that constitute the leitmotif of monopoly capital acquire the character of technological rents according to the meaning that Marx attributes to ground rent. Hence, in contemporary capitalism, monopoly capital has ceased to function as a progressive agent, as a promoter of the development of the productive forces, and has become a parasitic entity, that even decides which potentially transcendent products enter or not to the market.
4.<|>The expansion in the North-South horizon of the labour force in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM areas) and the increasing recruitment of highly qualified labour force from the peripheries through outsourcing and offshoring mechanisms. It is important to note that highly skilled migration from peripheral countries plays an increasingly relevant role in innovation processes, generating a paradoxical and contradictory dependence of the South on the North: more often, inventors are from peripheral and emerging countries.
5. The creation of an ad hoc institutional framework aimed at the concentration and appropriation of the products of the general intellect through patents, under the tutelage and supervision of the WIPO in agreement with the World Trade Organization (WTO). Since the late 1980s, there has been a trend to generate ad hoc legislation in the US, in tune with the strategic interests of large multinational corporations in terms of intellectual property rights. Through rules and regulations promoted by the WTO, the scope of this legislation has been significantly expanded. In this perspective, the office of the US Trade Representative has been promoting the signing and implementation of Free Trade Agreements (FTA). Because intellectual property disputes within the WTO tend to become increasingly complex by their multilateral nature, the US strategy also includes bilateral FTA negotiations as a complementary measure to control markets and increase corporate profits. The regulations established by the PCT, modified in 1984 and 2001 in the framework of the WIPO-WTO, have contributed significantly to the strengthening of this trend.
It should be noted that according to the nature and characteristics of the innovation system described, the US appears as the leading capitalist power in innovation worldwide, accounting - between 1996 and 2019 - for 23.7% of the total amount of patents granted by the WIPO; However, in the same period, China surpasses the US in patent applications, 24.4% vs. 21.5%.
It is worth adding that the strategic dominance of innovation exercised by the US is manifested not only by the volume and pace of patents generated, but also by the fact that:
1. 7 of the first 10 and 36 of the 100 main innovative companies in the world are based in the US8;
2. 46 of the 100 most innovative universities in the world are located in the US9, and
3. 7 of the 10 most successful startups on the planet are located in the US.10
Furthermore, according to the extractive/rentier logic that governs the new dynamics of innovation, the rate of foreign patenting in the US rose from 18% in 1963 to 53.1% in 201811. This increase can be attributed to the role that, in the field of public policy, the US government has played to maintain, strengthen and deepen its scientific and technological leadership on a planetary scale. This, in turn, is related to the growing demand for a skilled labour force of foreign origin in the US and other capitalist powers in knowledge-intensive activities. These activities transcend the sphere of innovation and have become the most dynamic and strategic segment of the main capitalist powers.
From this perspective, in addition to the impressive support in terms of public investment in basic and applied science (equivalent to 2.74 percent of GDP in 2016), the US government distinguishes itself - especially since the 1990s - by deploying an aggressive policy of attracting external talent promoted by the National Science Foundation accompanied by a vigorous encouragement of a highly selective immigration policy. This policy explains the high rate of skilled and highly skilled migration to the US, which nearly doubles that of low skilled migration, as shown in Graph.
Furthermore, the participation of qualified and highly qualified labour force from abroad tends to supplement and complement the relatively slower pace with which the critical mass of scientists and technologists born in the US grows. It is not just a relationship of complementarity, but a relationship of increasing dependence on the innovative capacity of the labour force coming from abroad.
Framed in this way, a revealing feature of the new profile of highly skilled immigration directed to the US is that the bulk of it comes from peripheral or emerging countries. In fact, eight of the ten main countries that graduate immigrants come from these countries. And even more: this increase occurs, as might be expected, mainly with immigrants trained in STEM areas.12
Conclusion
With the advances in scientific knowledge related to economic production systems, and particularly because of the advent of ICTs and the so-called revolution of the techno-sciences, knowledge has become a critical driving force behind the dynamics of capital accumulation and the growing production of knowledge-intensive goods. However, this does not mean that the aim of the system is to promote knowledge, but rather that it becomes a powerful means to increase profits and more specifically the extraordinary profits of monopoly capital. Thus, the category of intellectual property, existing for centuries, re-emerges more strongly than ever, as it allows for the objectification of knowledge, enclosing it as if it were a private right.
In Bolívar Echeverría‘s opinion, "the first task that the capitalist economy fulfils is to reproduce the condition of existence in its own way: to incessantly build and rebuild an artificial scarcity, just starting from the renewed possibilities of abundance".13 The legal form of intellectual property, as the exclusive right over an invention through the figure of patents, allows the limitation, the segregation of knowledge, its commodification, and its artificial scarcity.
In this context, the increase in international migration and its growing selectivity cannot be understood - as we have been arguing - apart from the dynamics and contradictions embedded in contemporary capitalism. Hence, the new phenomenon of skilled and highly skilled migration cannot be understood apart from the profound metamorphosis experienced by monopoly capital, both in the geographical redistribution of manufacturing activities and in the restructuring of innovation systems. This metamorphosis is based on the possibilities opened by the third and fourth industrial revolutions, while it spawns the consolidation of a new international division of labor along the North-South horizon: the direct and indirect export of labor power, which acquires its broader connotation with the inclusion of the skilled and highly skilled labor segment. This, in turn, engenders new and extreme modalities of unequal exchange.
Given the importance that intellectual work (scientific, technological, immaterial) has in the development of the general intellect, the fact that a growing contingent of intellectual workers originates, precisely, from peripheral or emerging countries, confronts us with a paradox that was until recently unimaginable. Innovation, as an engine for the development of the productive forces, increasingly depends on the participation of scientists and technologists from the South who are at the service of the North… and against the South! When projected onto the North-South horizon, this paradox reflects a potentiality for a reversal of the traditional dependency relationships, at the level of scientific and technological work. This, in turn, leads us to a reframe the development question under a new plot between progress and rent-seeking circumscribed in the contradiction between progress and barbarism inherent in capitalist modernity.
Anmerkungen
1) R. Delgado Wise & D. Martin 2015: "The political economy of global labor arbitrage", in Kees van der Pijl (ed.): The International Political Economy of Production: 59-75), Cheltenham.
2) UNCTAD 2010: World Investment Report 2010, New York.
3) UNCTAD 2020: "Special Economic Zones and Urbanization". Retrieved from unhabitat.org/special-economic-zones-sezs-and-urbanization.
4) J. B. Foster, R. W. McChesney & J. Jonna 2011: "The Global Reserve Army of Labor and the New Imperialism", in: Monthly Review, 63 (6): 1-15.
5) J. Cypher & R. Delgado Wise 2011: Mexico’s economic dilemma. The developmental failure of neoliberalism, Maryland.
6) R. Delgado Wise & S. Gaspar 2018: "Confrontando el discurso dominante: las remesas bajo el prisma de la Experiencia Mexicana", in: REMHU Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana 26(52):243-263.
7) R. Delgado Wise, M. Chávez & S. Gaspar 2021: La migración mexicana altamente calificada de cara al siglo XXI. Problemática y desafíos, Mexico.
8) Thomson Reuters 2018: "The top 100 Global Technology Leaders". Retrieved from www.thomsonreuters.com/content/dam/ewp-m/documents/thomsonreuters/en/pdf/reports/thomson-reuters-top-100-global-tech-leaders-report.pdf.
9) D. M. Ewalt 2018: "Reuters Top 100: The World‘s Most Innovative Universities 2018". Retrieved from www.reuters.com/article/us-amers-reuters-ranking-innovative-univ/reuters-top-100-the-worlds-most-innovative-universities-2018-idUSKCN1ML0AZ.
10) V. Murgich 2015: "Las startup más exitosas (y famosas) del mundo", Merca2.0. Retrieved from www.merca20.com/las-startup-mas-exitosas-y-famosas-del-mundo.
11) U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 2019.
12) Delgado Wise, Chávez & Gaspar 2021 (s. Anm. 7).
13) Echeverria 2011: 85
Raúl Delgado Wise, Professor of the Doctoral Programme in Development Studies at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Mexico; UNESCO Chair on Migration, Development and Human Rights, and President of the International Network on Migration and Development. Guest lecturer in over 40 countries and author/editor of 31 books and more than 200 book chapters and refereed articles.