Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism

by Intan Suwandi

Award-winning book showcases case studies uncovering the exploitation of labor and class in the Global South

Winner of the 2018 Paul M. Sweezy--Paul A. Baran Memorial Award for original work regarding the political economy of imperialism, Value Chains examines the exploitation of labor in the Global South. Focusing on the issue of labor within global value chains, this book offers a deft empirical analysis of unit labor costs that is closely related to Marx's own theory of exploitation.

Value Chains uncovers the concrete processes through which multinational corporations, located primarily in the Global North, capture value from the Global South. We are brought face to face with various state-of-the-art corporate strategies that enforce "economical" and "flexible" production, including labor management methods, aimed to reassert the imperial dominance of the North, while continuing the dependency of the Global South and polarizing the global economy. Case studies of Indonesian suppliers exemplify the growing burden borne by the workers of the Global South, whose labor creates the surplus value that enriches the capitalists of the North, as well as the secondary capitals of the South. Today, those who control the value chains and siphon off the profits are primarily financial interests with vast economic and political power--the power that must be broken if the global working class is to liberate itself. Suwandi's book depicts in concrete detail the relations of unequal exchange that structure today's world economy. This study, up-to-date and richly documented, puts labor and class back at the center of our understanding of the world capitalist system.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Sociology, Academic, Theory

224 pages, Paperback

Published August 22, 2019

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative yet accessible book from Intan Suwandi that combines insights from Marxism, World-Systems Theory, and industrial sociology to provide a concrete picture of new modes of imperialist control in today’s world of globalized monopoly capitalism. Suwandi is continuing the project of articulating a theory of imperialism appropriate for contemporary material conditions. Lenin kicked it off when he wrote about capital’s concentration in the hands of a few monopolies competing over scarce economic territory at the turn of the century; Harry Magdoff and others in the Monthly Review School emphasized newly emerging monopoly-finance capital, multinational corporations, and increased prevalence of foreign direct investment in the latter-half of the 20th century; and now Suwandi develops the theory of modern imperialism according to new developments of surplus extraction by incorporating insights into systemic rationalization, flexible production, and arms-length contracting within the complex web of global commodity chains.

CH1

Suwandi surveys the state of discourse on the left as it relates to imperialism. While many Marxists (Magdoff, Smith, Foster) see imperialism as an important aspect of modern monopoly-finance capital, others like David Harvey view it as anachronistic in the context of today's globalized and dispersed market relations. Suwandi defends the former camp, recognizing the contemporary situation of geopolitical struggle over territory in which petty producers are routinely dispossessed to expand capitalist relations of exploitation on a global scale as essentially imperialistic. The focus of her book narrows in on the processes of surplus extraction from poor to rich countries mediated by a network of Global Labor Value Chains ("GLCVs" going forward).

To explore this dimension of imperialism, Suwandi synthesizes insights from (1) the Global Value (or Commodity) Chain, GCC, framework and (2) critical political economy--especially Marxism. Individually, the GCC framework suffers from an overly narrow focus on firm-level "organizational analysis" while the critical political economists (particularly the world-systems theorists) are overly abstract in their macro-level analysis. Together, however, they complement each other such that the concrete micro and the abstract macro yield a concretely holistic picture of imperialist exploitation. By integrating a value theoretic approach to the GCC framework through the key concept of "unit-labor costs", Suwandi makes a methodological advance that provides "a grounded way to study and operationalize the global-local nexus."

The final part of the chapter gives a breakdown of the remaining plan of the book: a chapter on the macro-dynamics of labor value chains and global labor arbitrage, a chapter on flexible production techniques and the various forms of subcontracting used by multinationals to exert control over their upstream and downstream suppliers, and a look at two Indonesian case studies.

CH2.

This chapter starts by describing the broad landscape of commodity chains: their prevalence in various industries like technology and auto and aircraft manufacturing where final goods are assembled at the end of a long line of intermediate inputs; the importance of foreign direct investment in organizing these chains; and the important elements of a commodity chain (production element, value element, and monopoly element). Suwandi then applies a labor-value framework based on unit-labor costs to make a cross-national comparison of exploitation where the Global North receives more labor time from the South than it reciprocates in a process of unequal exchange. Throughout, Suwandi respects the Marxist distinction between the "natural" and the "value" dimensions of commodity production. This activity is at once a creation of use-values and exchange-values. It is a material and social process.

Suwandi then develops the theory of Global Labor Value Chains by introducing the more elementary concept of supply chains--a simple series of intermediary goods assembled along the way into a final good. She traces the advances in the study of supply/commodity/value chains through Marx, Hilferding, Wallerstein, and the contemporary GCC figures like Gerrefi. She then connects the idea of labor arbitrage with Marxian concepts like unequal exchange, the reserve army of labor, surplus extraction, and primitive accumulation/proletarianization.

The final section of the chapter grounds the Labor Value Commodity Chain approach empirically via unit-labor costs (which I'm going to call ULC going forward cause I'm lazy). ULC is just the ratio of total hourly labor compensation to gross hourly output. It thereby includes a measure of wages and productivity in a way similar to Marx's rate of exploitation (s/v). Using WIOD data, Suwandi shows what ULC reveals about monopoly-capital's investment decisions: production is moved to the Global South because the reserve army of labor is larger, the ULC is lower, the rate of exploitation is higher, and gross profit margins are maximized.

CH3.

This chapter, overall, focuses on the conditions of the labor process in industries integrated into the Global Commodity Chains with a particular focus on systems of controlling and disciplining labor-power. Suwandi draws on research by German Industrial Sociologists who study "systemic rationalization" in the firm--the sort of scientific management based on "the systematic use of science for the more rapid transformation of labor-power into capital". Central to her critique of Harvey and others is the claim that while systemic rationalization results in greater flexibility and dispersion of production, it does not lead to a dispersion of power due to the methods of control multinationals continue to exert on their suppliers along the commodity chain. Examples include delivery on demand systems (just in time; JIT), ranking of suppliers by ABC-evaluation, orders to disclose costs, target prices, orient to benchmarks, etc.

Much of the chapter explores the ways principles of Taylorism continue to define production, not just to increase technical efficiency (as Adam Smith argued was the sole purpose of a sophisticated division of labor), but also to depress wages, maximize profit margins, and micro-manage the labor process in the service of accumulation. Suwandi presents a sort of "typology of control" where corporate management deskills jobs, separates the conception/planning of work from its execution, extends the division of labor, standardizes work flow, and fragments labor markets to reveal that the labor process remains the arena of class conflict (conflict over the working day, its length, its intensity, and its character).

Finally, Suwandi recontextualizes the insights of systemic rationalization and flexible production into the macro picture by showing how revolutions in scientific management are a response to stagnation under conditions of monopoly capitalism. It's the basic underconsumptionist story à la Baran and Sweezy and the rest of the Monthly Review School: as concentration and centralization grows, firms capture monopoly rents and the rising surplus cannot be absorbed by investment or capitalist consumption. Instead they are funneled into unproductive activities like financial speculation resulting in a situation of stagnation in production and inflation in finance. The response is for firms in the real economy to engage in aggressive cost trimming to depress the wage bill and increase their unit labor costs as described in chapter 2.

CH4.

Because this chapter is empirical/anecdotal and not very theoretical, I won't write much about it. It's a straight forward case study of two Indonesian firms relegated to the dependent role in the nexus of Global Commodity Chains. The chapter describes how the dominant multinational customers of these firms exercise three types of control over them: technological control (eg. over R&D), control over flexible production (eg. requiring delivery-on-demand), and indirect control over the labor process on the shop floor itself.

CH5.

The final chapter summarizes the key points of Suwandi's thesis that "imperialism continues, but it has taken on new characteristics in the context of today's globalized production." Reiterating Harvey's claim that we can discard "imperialism" as a relevant category because globalized production has reversed the flow of value, Suwandi draws on John Smith, Norfield, and Utsa and Prabhat Patnaik to argue the "drain" of value from South to North continues. Deploying a Marxist analysis which differentiates between value and price, it becomes clear that the national income accounting used to obtain GDP and value-added figures merely masks the surplus extraction going on in the "hidden abode of production." The value is produced by labor expended by laborers but it is captured by multinational companies which earn monopoly/imperial rents. This results in a systematic overcounting of the North's contribution to wealth while understating the South's.

The book ends on a discussion of the forms of control which maintains this system of surplus extraction. They may be direct state or military interventions to ensure an environment conducive to private investment. It could be financial control exerted by international institutions like the IMF and World Bank or through multilateral trade agreements which protect monopoly capital's interests

[Eren Buğlalılar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid attempt at highlighting some aspects of the contemporary economic dependency. The opening sections provide a good general summary of recent debates on the ongoing existence of imperialism and also present a nicely updated theory of dependency.

Her main argument is that multinational companies located in the core states are still able to exert control on the economies of the periphery through the use of international standards, monitoring technologies, contracts, just-in-time and flexible production & delivery techniques. This imperialist control pushes the companies of the periphery to increase the exploitation rate of the labour at home by lowering the wages, deunionizing the workers and disciplining them. Suwandi proceeds to substantiate those claims through two case studies conducted on two Indonesian companies and she concludes that value extraction as the primary feature of imperialism is still alive and well.

Although I totally agree with the author in terms of the main arguments of the book, I still think her writing could have been better. The book is endlessly repetitive, depends too much on quotes and feels like it lacks some depth. The book reads like a story rather than a novel.

For obvious reasons, I feel much more in tune with the non-western theorists of 21st century imperialism such as Vijay Prashad and now Intan Suwandi. Western scholars usually blunt their radicalism with a fake complexity in their writings and tend to hide their first-world conformism under a sterile scientific discourse. Suwandi has none of these pretensions and she can write clearly and forcefully. Promising.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important contribution to the debate among Marxists of various hues as to whether the concept of imperialism remains critical to understanding the world today. Suwandi makes particular reference to the arguments of David Harvey, who sees usefulness being curtailed by the fact that capital flows have reversed the direction taken in the classical imperialist model – from the underdeveloped to the developed nations. The ‘rise of the East’ has levelled the playing field, making capitalism an increasingly homogeneous space where capital flows without discrimination to wherever it gets the highest returns.

Suwandi asks us to go back to a definition of imperialism which sees it as “an unequal, hierarchical world economy, dominated by a giant monopolistic corporations and a handful of states in the imperial core […]” p. 152. This system might not be sustained any longer by colonialism and the military power of the dominant states, but its ordering to the benefit of the imperial core can be recognised in the way the outsourcing of manufacturing and service industries to low income countries has taken place, with surplus value draining from the Global South into the coffers of the Global North.

Her investigation into the way global supply chains operate is critical to the workings of this system. She notes the extraordinary growth of employment in supply chain businesses over recent decades, from 296 million in 1995 to 453 million in 2013. This is concentrated in the group of emerging economies, referred to as the BRIICs (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa) which accounted for 116 million of the newly created jobs. Overall, wage labour was becoming a developing world phenomenon, with 79 percent of the world’s industrial workers residing in the Global South compared to 34 percent in 1950 and 53 percent in 1980.

The obvious attraction of a Global South location for capital is low wages but until the shift in the world economy in the direction of neoliberalism the disadvantages came in several forms, the bulk of the drawbacks were associated with the difficulties of managing productivity and quality control across extended supply chains. Part of the solution has been provided by technology, which has made use of computer-based data processing and surveillance as a routine management tool. But Suwandi looks also at the impact of global trade agreements which have given Global North companies greater access to Global South workers through direct investment and also through so-called ‘arm’s length’ arrangement with nominally independent local companies which are tied to multinational corporations through strictly enforced contacts. It is in the latter area that most innovation in the assertion of control over businesses in the emerging economies have been concentrated and the most important sections of the book explain how this happens.

Basically, arm’s length arrangements can be understood as a way of managing risk in business activities that stretch across the planet. The range of potential risk is vast, from dealing with wastage, disruption of the supply of vital inputs, short-term unpredicted fluctuations in demand for the goods, right the way through the constant need to assert downward pressure on costs and innovations in product design and quality. The advantages of low wage labour, highly desirable in all circumstances from the point of view of capital, were not always clear when the law wage production unit was also an area of huge risk which had to be borne by the end user. But advances in technology, easily shippable across frontiers under the terms of liberalised trade agreements, meant that the low wage worker was now working on production lines equivalent to those being operated in the imperial core. This allowed a huge increase in the productivity in Global South workforces.

The multinational corporations were increasingly finding themselves in a situation where scores of Global South based businesses were competing for their contracts, with the inevitable effect that these would be jostling against one another to offer the lowest costs and the best quality outputs. In the most informative chapter in the book Suwandi provides case studies involving two companies in her home country of Indonesia which show the ways in which arm’s length contracts work. The lead company will typically require subcontractors to open the books of their business to allow all aspects of the cost structure of the firm to be examined. From this they will be able to identify not just the cheapest/most productive from within the range of bidders, but also the scope for further innovation within the favoured company for more change that will benefit the end user.
Suwandi explains in detail that this will certainly include the demand for flexibility across the production line, meaning that the subcontractor be prepared to change its established procedures at short notice to accommodate the demands of the client.
This will often produce contradictory pressures into the arrangement. For example, the demand for efficient ‘lean’ production will mean ‘just-in-time’ supply of inputs which is supposed to eliminate the need for stockpiling. But the equal insistence on flexibility will mean that the end user can reduce its monthly order by large factors, producing either waste or the need to store unwanted goods to meet future periods of increase demand. All of this is a cost that is expected to be met by the subcontracting firm.

The oversight which multinationals have over groups of industries in Global South countries means that they will be able to spot improvements in production processes which are taking place in businesses other than those they are working with as subcontractors. With this knowledge they will be able to go to their suppliers with the demand they match their competitors, possibly requiring investment in new machines and skills for the workforce which they had not anticipated in that part of their business plan. A failure to comply will mean the loss of the contract as the client moves to the more productive alternative.

Suwandi goes on to argue that, though the burden of these pressures fall heavily on the management of the subcontracting company, part of their strategy for dealing with them will be to export elements of the risk of doing business down through their own supply chains, until a point is reached where the totality of risk falls on the shoulders of a group which is unable to shift it any further. This, inevitably, means the elements of the workforce which is in a weak bargaining position and can only acquiesce, or face exclusion from wage labour altogether. Given the grimness of the life of the un- and under-employed in developing countries, the prospect of being thrown into the ranks of the ‘reserve army’ of unemployed labour will mean that the multinational clients will get their way by one means or another.

So, Suwandi makes a power case that the unequal relations of power within global supple chains have created the means by which surplus value is drained out of the Global South and placed in the profit columns of the Global North multinationals. It no longer has resort to gunboats and red-coated soldiers to force its will on uncompliant subordinate nations, but the exploitation of Global South labour by monopolistic multinational corporations based in the metropolitan heartlands looks just as much like imperialism as it ever did.

[Harrison Pincombe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely loved the discussion of contemporary imperialism as constitutive of a power relationship between the Global South bourgeoisie and MNCs. Particularly the empirical stuff with all the interview data, which is absolutely invaluable primary research that I genuinely have no idea how it was obtained. We tend to think of global labour arbitrage in functionalist terms, where the scene is basically "MNCs and their obedient, paid-off lackeys against the working-class remainder of the global South", and this book really complexifies that simplistic picture without loosing sight of the essential thing: the way these logics impact (negatively) on workers. It also takes pains to connect all this to the laws of motion of capital as described by Marx as well, which means it really effectively goes beyond moralistic "bad companies are doing this because they are bad" views of imperialism to become a truly radical critique. It's too focused in on one aspect of neo-imperialism to offer a full picture, which is a shame, but in conjunction with other works like Zak Cope's "The Wealth of (Some) Nations", and John Smith's "Imperialism in the 21st Century", this book has a lot to add to the conversation. Especially at a time when thinkers as major as David Harvey increasingly declare the very concept of imperialism to be an anachronism.

[Jason Friedlander · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short and concise investigation into the specific ways in which multinational corporations in a few powerful countries continue the legacy of traditional imperialism by extracting enormously disproportionate amounts of value from countries of the Global South. It builds on the most recent books from academics like John Smith and the Patnaiks, who attempt to lay out theories for how these mechanisms function today. This book focuses specifically on what is called “value chain analysis,” which looks into how value is extracted at each node of the “chain” of production, from the sourcing of raw materials to their assembly and so on until their eventual sale as products in a market.

It’s not a huge leap to accept that exploitation occurs at every node in this chain, but what is less commonly understood is how these extractions of value occur in practice. If you’ve ever wanted to know the specifics of how multinational companies are able to continuously and expertly wring local suppliers and businesses in foreign countries off every last ounce of value they can get from them, this will be a perfect read for you. It’s very straightforwardly written and easy to understand. And unfortunately, affects way too many countries around the world today, including my own here in the Philippines. It’s probably essential to understand, but quite a depressing read. All of the book’s explanations for how these systems work effectively come together in a case study of two companies in Indonesia and how they manage the pressures of working in industries dominated by MNCs, and of course how this ends up affecting their workers.

For example, one essential lesson here is that the extent to which MNCs put pressure on local suppliers and other middlemen to lower their labor unit costs knows no bounds. They have all the power in the situation, not just economically, but in terms of holding knowledge as well. The ability for MNCs to tap into international marketplaces allows them to always have the upper hand in knowing the most cost efficient countries to work in and companies there to work with. They always know how much everything costs. This puts all the pressure on local suppliers to maximize their “efficiencies” by increasing their exploitation of their own workers. MNCs effectively externalize the costs of “productivity” and “efficiency” on the local companies who work with them to create their products, while at the same time externalizing possible accusations of worker exploitation. Prices for them are pushed down as the value they therefore extract from this process only increases over time. And they don’t even make or assemble the products anymore. They just control where their value is valorized.

Overall it’s a great book if you want a better understanding of how the globalization or production has further impoverished the Global South in favor of multinationals headquartered in the Global North. It doesn’t necessarily break any new ground, but it does help clarify how these theorized modern day equivalents of imperialism function in practice. If you want to understand more of the theories behind this, the Patnaiks’ “A Theory of Imperialism” is essential reading, but if you prefer more of a concrete approach, John Smith’s “Imperialism in the 21st Century” is where you should start. Suwandi’s work feels more like an appendix to theirs but is still nevertheless necessary to bring these theories into more direct examination.

[Ann T · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is an important empirical study showing how the imperialism, in the form of economic imperialism, continues rampantly through the global value chains framework that continues to exploit powerless workers in the global south in a much more sophisticated way than the old imperialism. While in the past, most countries occupied by the imperialist powers would fight with their lives for liberation and freedom; the new form of economic imperialism managed to exploit the same countries without receiving much resistance. Despite the feeling of helplessness in facing the exploits of the multinational corporations, most companies in the exploited global south countries welcome these multinational corporations as the necessity for their survival, often at the cost of their lowest level workers. The governments in the global south are competing to attract these corporations through loosening their protection towards the workers’ rights and benefits. A scary world with the workers continue being exploited in the name of development.

[Bablu · Rating 4 out of 5]

thumbs up. somewhat eye opening. does a good job flogging unit labour cost as the marker to watch when you're marxistly interested in exploitation in the periphery. also pretty helpful laying out how theory (world systems, global commodity chains stuff by hopkins, wallerstein, and arrighi) got subsumed into regular b-school and industrial sociology dogma over two decades of academic work.

suwandi elucidates nicely which way the cause and effect runs in how a pair of indonesian production firms interact with their multinational customers (unilever, u$ cigarette brands etc), key drivers being demands from mncs for systemic rationalization and flexibility (aka you-do-as-i-please). thought it was funny how the local managers' greatest fear besides worker risings was being turned into metaphorical "seamstresses" for first world capital. the book could be much less repetitive and could have included more shop floor perspectives but you can definitely guess at why that wasn't done. deepened my distrust of regulators in this domain as mere enforcers of coercive and pay to play regimes.

overall reminded me of a discussion i heard between some commies and a top flite immuno researcher on how cuba and other "small" nations' safe, efficacious, and cheap vaccine products would not see the light of day in the world market unless they were mind blowingly novel thanks to like the gates foundation, fda, and ema's leadership and control of the space for good or ill. like how ppl vaccinated with the serum institute of india's astra zeneca covid vaccine proved to be unable to get travel passes in the uk and eu. in a more mundane and correct way it confirmed what i remembered from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkQIs...

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book highlighting current imperialist relations between multinational corporations and petty producers/manufacturers. Makes a great point throughout the book that any sort of development of industry within the global south is done at the behest of multinationals. Also makes important notes about unit prices and how those dictate capital flows into and out of countries. Country’s economies (especially global south) are at the whim of financial capital and any increase in wages that doesn’t lead to an increase in productivity is threatened with capital flight. The author gives an in depth analysis of some of the specific ways that these multinational clients take advantage of manufacturers, most of the time through arms length dealing.

[m t · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suwandi executes a brilliant and concise take down of analysts who claim the winds of economic imperialism have shifted against Western fortunes. She introduces a refreshing marxist analysis of global supply chains, demonstrating how Western imperialism, and the social relations it reproduces, has merely modernized its methods for the same purpose: continued value extraction from the Global South to the Global North.

A must read for those interested in the dynamics of the world economy and its implications for working people worldwide.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a sharp, easy-to-read Marxist analysis and exposition of economic imperialism in its current form using both theory and case studies of two Indonesian companies. Really enjoyed the almost tireless take-down of Western Marxists' positions of "imperialism being a thing of the past".

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this excellent and all too brief work Suwandi seeks to answer whether imperialism is alive and well in the 21st century, and makes a detailed and convincing case that it is. In her own words:

Imperialism has several interrelated aspects: (1) geopolitical (including military) struggle by nation-states for position within the international hierarchy of the system, including the control of colonies or neocolonies; (2) dispossession of petty producers outside of capitalist production; and (3) global exploitation, along with expropriation—or appropriation without an equivalent—of labor in capitalist production, particularly under the domination of multinational firms emanating primarily from the core of the system. This book focuses almost entirely on the third aspect, without in any way denying the significance of the other two. At issue is the extraction (or drain) of surplus from poor countries by the rich countries and/or their corporations. I argue that one way to understand the persistent imperialist characteristics of the world economy is through examining the exploitation that occurs in what Karl Marx calls "the hidden abode of production," which, in the era of global commodity chains, is located in the Global South. Although production has shifted to the South, imperialist relations of exchange continue to prevail, precisely due to the fact that the difference in wages between the North and South is greater than the difference in productivity. As Tony Norfield argues in The City, imperialism as it exists today in "the present stage of capitalist development" has its primary basis in the inescapable reality that "a few major corporations from a small number of countries dominate the world market," world finance, and the global structure of production.

This work includes quite a bit of original research. One example is a dataset Suwandi constructed (in conjunction with others) from the International Labor Organization's World Import Output Database, which contains measurements of "the extent of global commodity chains" from world economies "covering 85 percent of world GDP" from the years 1995 through 2016.

The conclusion that much higher profit margins can be obtained through outsourcing production to poorer, emerging economies—when compared to profit margins to be obtained through labor in the wealthy economies at the center—is inescapable. All four of the Global South countries depicted in this study (China, India, Indonesia, and Mexico) have seen generally flat or declining unit labor costs relative to the United States.

Altogether, the WIOD-SEA data shows clearly why it has been so beneficial—indeed, necessary from the standpoint of profitability—for economies of the Global North to maintain substantial parts of their labor-value commodity chains in poor emerging economies. By means of these commodity chains, with their critical nodal points (in terms of labor costs) in low-wage countries, corporations in the North are able to secure low-cost positions essential to their global competitiveness, based on much higher rates of labor exploitation.

And therefore:

The conditions of political-economic power in relation to the periphery of the world economy feed widening gross profit margins, leading to today's global overaccumulation. So extreme is this overaccumulation that the twenty-six wealthiest individuals in the world, most of whom are Americans, now own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world's population, 3.8 billion people. Structurally, this level of inequality has become possible as a result of a globalized commodity-chain system of exploitation, a new imperialist division of labor associated with global monopoly-finance capital.

The view, even among some leftist thinkers, that the historic character of economic imperialism is now inverted—with the imperialist relations in the world economy "largely reversed" to the benefit of the South (East) and at the expense of the North (West)—is based on a very superficial analysis of the growth of emerging economies, particularly China and India. The truth is the world capitalist economy, judged in terms of the amassing financial wealth and asset concentration, is becoming in many ways more centralized and hierarchical than ever. What we are seeing is the emergence of a global wealth pyramid in which the fabled wealth hierarchy of the pharaohs pales into insignificance in comparison. Inequality is increasing in almost all nations as well as between the richest and poorest countries. As Oxfam indicates, the issue before us is the question of "an economy for the 99%." In the meantime, imperialism continues to cast its long shadow over the global economy.

Overall Suwandi arguments have raised a high bar to clear for anyone claiming imperialism as an analytical framework should be consigned to history, such as Marxist geographer David Harvey, as discussed in this book.

[Axel Sánchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal y espectacular libro. Un análisis marxista de primer nivel llevado a cabo por la autora que nos muestra tanto con datos cuantitativos y cualitativos, como el imperialismo no se ha ido, sino que sigue más vivo que nunca, aprovechando todos los abusos que entrega ser el norte global con todos los recursos.

Es interesante ver como la industrialización de los países periféricos no logra hacerlos independientes ni más fuertes, incluso uno podría argumentar que por el contrario, te ponen dentro de una doble periferización al ser no solo exportador de materias primas sino ahora un peón de incluso nivel más bajo al ser proveedor de tecnologías de bajo nivel.

El libro muestra como los procesos de racionalización del trabajo y su división constante, debilita a los trabajadores creando personas altamente reemplazables, y modificando sus capacidades de trabajo en los países productores de artilugios para el capital. Incluso empresas medianas que trabajan para multinacionales, se refieren a sí mismas como "remendadoras" dentro del proceso productivo. La eterna necesidad del capital de crear valor siempre termina en bajar los niveles de ganancia de los trabajadores.

Este es uno de los puntos fuertes del libro, como el capital mediante la racionalización del proceso productivo, y con las constantes necesidades de flexibilidad, logra generar más plusvalía no por mayor producción, sino por reducción de costos. De allí que ocupen las fábricas de países con leyes laborales cada vez más débiles para hacer sus artilugios.

Queda claro que a pesar de lo que digan algunos pensadores incluso de la izquierda, el imperialismo sigue existiendo, los Estados siguen importando y el capital seguirá creciendo.

[Abe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little jargon-y to be honest also mildly repetitive probably could have been left as an article. Got padded out into a full out book by including some preliminary political economy/sociological theory but such segments are much too brief to be clarifying. Further application of the theory to other cases (as well as data) from/in Asia, Latin America, and Africa would’ve have been useful I think (as an aside I will say it is a bit irksome when people complain about certain Eurocentric/Western centric analyses and then proceed to recapitulate most of the substance of the theories with the same level of narrowness and solipsism but just shifted their particular country of interest - a truly global study would’ve been more interesting). All that said I did learn a fair bit about the operation of local third world suppliers and the ways in which various cost cutting burdens and rationalization measures are placed on them as well as the reality of exploitation this enables in Indonesia and how this is made possible by unequal exchange and 20th century developments in capitalist production.

[Amanda Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book with my book club, White Collar Anti-Imperialists (name taken from Blue Collar Empire by Jeff Schuhrke). It was a bit dense and hard to get through for a group of mostly labor lawyers and non-academics, and we found ourselves overwhelmed at times. I think a background in political economy and economics would increase a reader's appreciation of this book. We also wished we could have had more of labor's perspective, or at least that it had been incorporated into the case studies even if the primary focus was management of the Indonesian companies. We also wanted to know how unions in Indonesia work, though that is probably because we are entrenched in the US labor regime and have that as our base of understanding. In spite of what the book lacked, I'm glad we took it on and we were able to get some good discussion out of it! The final chapter summed everything up nicely.

[Harry Liuson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suwandi writes clearly and powerfully. Value Chains demonstrates how imperialism has not changed form but is still alive and well today in the form of global arbitrage.

Without getting too much into the weeds, Suwandi:
- Discusses different theories of imperialism and commodity chains
- Explains how multinationals increase profits by outsourcing
- Discusses the qualitative means by which multinationals exert control over their suppliers, and by proxy, Global South labor
- Goes into some case studies.

Most important statistic: Unit labor costs (productivity / wages) in the Global South (Mexico, Indonesia, China, Indonesia) are stably HALF that of those in Global North countries.

My one gripe was that the book could be sometimes repetitive, and some parts were a little overly academic.

[Xin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid look at imperialism through an economic lens - how the Global North still controls and pressures and extracts value from the Global South. In the same way that trickle down economics doesn't really trickle down, globalization / multinational corporations don't really fulfill their promises of jumpstarting innovation and industry in the Global South. She argues that the MNCs still keep R&D to themselves (and share only when it can help them keep costs down) and also keep the local suppliers so fragmented that the MNCs mainly act as a facilitator / aggregator, and exploit low labor costs in the Global South.

Solid arguments and concrete case studies - I wish she spent some time sharing what alternatives might look like instead.

[Tynan Brooks]

When focused on the specifics of capital's shaping of labor in the global economy this book is good, but it could be more consistent. Often elides full argumentation and turns away from the most interesting material. A slight disappointment.

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just okay. Didn't gain much from the Indonesian focus. John Smith's "Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century" is still the GOAT on this topic as far as I'm concerned

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The value chain perspective we all need to understand as compared to the jargon filled conceptually vacuous pernicioso perspective we are all taught in b-schools & universities.

[KT · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great and very informative read on the exploitation of global south labour by global capital using a global commodity chain framework that takes into account power, class and control - in essence multinational corporations are able to carry out a process of unequal exchange in which they get more labour for less, as a result of global labour arbitrage, while the excess surplus obtained is often misleadingly attributed to "innovative", financial and value-extractive economic activities taking place in the global north,

The book is excellent in referencing relevant literature and research such as the economist Ernesto Screpanti in debunking the myth of the transnationalisation of big firms in the globalisation of production, reminding us that multinational corporations are still pretty much national in their governance structure, especially if we consider that management and advanced technological research of multinationals is still concentrated in the global north
Another example is referencing Harry Braverman's work in rejecting Adam Smith's assertion that the division of labour is merely a matter of technical efficiency and an enhancement of specific work skills, rather the division of labour is a mechanism that werves as a means to reduce labour costs "through the systematic degradation of human labour", thus the deskilling of work and division of labour are dictated by cost considerations - capitalist logic creates the necessity to cheapen labour whenever possible
This leads to the continuing conflict in the labour process that is driven by the class division between workers and capitalists, and expressed in the effort by the latter to extract the maximum effort from workers who necessarily resist

Excellent explanation of how the globalisation of production is built around a vast difference in unit labour costs between centre and periphery economies, reflecting much higher rates of exploitation in the periphery, reflecting that the difference in wages is greater than the difference in productivity between the global north and the global south
This large difference arises from a system that allows for the free international mobility of capital, albeit within the hierarchical regime of monopoly capital, enforcing uneven development, while tightly restricting the international mobility of labour, this results in holding wages down in the periphery and enables the enormous siphoning off of economic surplus from the periphery

The book includes fascinating and thorough case studies of two Indonesian companies that cater to multinational corporations in labour-value chains
A particularly interesting insight was the "unique" behaviour of Indonesian consumers as a result of their lower purchasing power, they cannot afford to buy bottled shampoo, so buy shampoo packaged in small sachet bags, but in the end this works out to be more expensive in the long run, but since they have limited amount of money to spend, they can only buy it in this manner

The book also includes a clear and well-explained criticism of GDP as a measure of a nation's production and how the global south's contribution of global wealth is ignored and how this ignorance further conceals the labour exploitation that occurs in the hidden abode of production in underdeveloped economics
The labour's share of GDP within a country is not directly and simply related to the prevailing rate of exploitation in that country, since a large component of GDP in the imperialist nations represents the proceeds of exploited labour captured from above
The example of an iPod that is made in China demonstrates this as more than half of the final sale price is counted as value added in the USA and is added to USA GDP
This is the GDP illusion - standard data on GDP and trade flows exaggerate the global north's contribution to global wealth and, at the same time, decrease the global south's

The book also unmasks the mainstream discourse from institutions such as the ADB that emphasise the importance of productivity growth, led by efficiency gains, so that countries can remain competitive in labour-value chains. The fact that these gains are then captured by oligopolistic capital through exploitative means is not their concern. The labour-value chains framework allows us to see the extraction of surplus, driven by capital accumulation and hidden behind the dominant rhetoric of competitiveness, productivity, efficiency, flexibility etc.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in global inequality, economics and imperialism