Working Class Movement in India in the Wake of Globalization

Working Class Movement in India in the Wake of Globalization
Author: Jose George
Publisher:
Total Pages: 470
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: Globalization
ISBN: 9788173049637

After the collapse of the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the East European communist bloc, capitalism abandoned its liberal programmes worldwide, and this brought about three-fourths of the worlds population at the mercy of the blind and ruthless forces of the market. In India too, the wave of liberalization under a new economic policy, which had been agreed upon and promoted by both the big political parties, i.e. Congress party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, put untold pressures, uncertainties and hardships on the toiling masses. Welfare schemes and subsidies to goods and services provided by the state were slowly withdrawn and the representative class of finance capital took a reactionary posture in political and social life. In India, the crisis at grass-roots' levels has led to a historical unity among trade unions affiliated with different political parties, and there is hope that they may join hands in the struggle for better living conditions. Against this backdrop, this book, which is an outcome of a national seminar, tries to understand and analyse the conditions of the working class people in India. Various dimensions of working class peoples life and politics have been deliberated here. Also, an attempt has been made to present a working class perspective on various economic and social issues of contemporary Indian society.

Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India

Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India
Author: Rina Agarwala
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-04-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1107311101

Since the 1980s, the world's governments have decreased state welfare and thus increased the number of unprotected 'informal' or 'precarious' workers. As a result, more and more workers do not receive secure wages or benefits from either employers or the state. This book offers a fresh and provocative look into the alternative social movements informal workers in India are launching. It also offers a unique analysis of the conditions under which these movements succeed or fail. Drawing from 300 interviews with informal workers, government officials and union leaders, Rina Agarwala argues that Indian informal workers are using their power as voters to demand welfare benefits from the state, rather than demanding traditional work benefits from employers. In addition, they are organizing at the neighborhood level, rather than the shop floor, and appealing to 'citizenship', rather than labor rights.

Disruptions in Economic and Social Polity

Disruptions in Economic and Social Polity
Author: Arup Baisya
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2019-11-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1527543919

Capitalism is in crisis today, while the neoliberal economic model that has been pursued in order to move out of the crisis has also not succeeded. There are also major disruptions in both economic and social polity, and uncertainties due to change and conflict within social relations. This book analyses these issues from a global perspective, with particular reference to India, in order to determine what can be done to provide this transitory situation with a direction of change. The essays gathered here counter the neo-liberal myth built on the premise that this is an era “free of ideology”, and reconstruct the concept of ideology and its various ramifications. The book also delves into how the dynamics of the overall economic situation today give rise to various possibilities for change, and details holistic plans of possible future actions.

Making Globalization Work

Making Globalization Work
Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2007-08-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0393330281

Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz focuses on policies that truly work and offers fresh, new thinking about the questions that shape the globalization debate.

India's Globalization

India's Globalization
Author: Baldev Raj Nayar
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1932728422

This study systematically evaluates the economic consequences of globalization for India in the light of the attack of the critics against globalization on grounds of economic stagnation, ?deindustrialization,? ?denationalization,? destabilization, and impoverishment. On the basis of abundant qualitative and quantitative data, it strongly repudiates the case of the critics, and demonstrates that India has been a significant beneficiary of the globalization process. Instead of economic stagnation, India has seen acceleration in its average annual rate of economic growth. Instead of deindustrialization, there has been substantial industrial growth and, indeed, acceleration in the industrial growth rate.Instead of denationalization, business in India is now more competitive and is venturingforth into the global market; increased imports and the entry of foreign multinationalshave not swamped it; essentially, India is master of its own destiny. Instead of economicdestabilization, there has been since the paradigm shift in economic policy in 1991 a marked absence of economic crisis in India. And, instead of impoverishment, India hasseen a long and unprecedented period of welfare enhancement since it began its reintegration into the world economy in 1975; there has been a secular decline in povertysince then, while inequality has not increased much. The policy conclusion that flows from this experience is that India ought to be, in general, more open to globalization in the interest of sustaining the acceleration in economic growth and enhancing the welfare of its people. To this end it should push forward with the reform agenda.This is the twenty-second publication in Policy Studies, a peer-reviewed East-West Center Washington series that presents scholarly analysis of key contemporary domestic and international political, economic, and strategic issues affecting Asia in a policy relevant manner.

Labor, Globalization and the State

Labor, Globalization and the State
Author: Debdas Banerjee
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2007-12-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134059744

This book explores the impact of neoliberal globalization on labour markets and the state in the developed and developing world. It focuses especially on the United States and the economies of Asia – in particular, India. Liberalized trade and investment are thought by neoliberals to be the best levers for raising labour standards, provided labour market flexibility and capital market restructuring accompany them. Labour market flexibility and capital market restructuring, at a first glance, appear to be complementary and symmetric policies. In practice, however, they might have very asymmetric consequences. This book addresses these issues, and it presents a comprehensive analysis of the key questions such as: How far is globalization a ‘real’ threat to the conventional systems of wage fixation, employment pattern, and basic rights at work in both developed, as well as underdeveloped countries? Are casualization and informalization of the workforce direct outcomes of deregulation? How do labour organizations cope with the volatility of the labour market? Are the existing labour market conditions and forms of labour organizations misfits in the globalized business world? Is it at all feasible to choose a high road that combines some degree of labour market flexibility with better labour standards? This book will be of interest to academics working on International Development, Development Economics, Political Economy, Comparative Labour Studies and Asian Studies.

Globalization and Its Discontents

Globalization and Its Discontents
Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2003-04-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0393071073

This powerful, unsettling book gives us a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of global financial institutions by the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. When it was first published, this national bestseller quickly became a touchstone in the globalization debate. Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. Particularly concerned with the plight of the developing nations, he became increasingly disillusioned as he saw the International Monetary Fund and other major institutions put the interests of Wall Street and the financial community ahead of the poorer nations. Those seeking to understand why globalization has engendered the hostility of protesters in Seattle and Genoa will find the reasons here. While this book includes no simple formula on how to make globalization work, Stiglitz provides a reform agenda that will provoke debate for years to come. Rarely do we get such an insider's analysis of the major institutions of globalization as in this penetrating book. With a new foreword for this paperback edition.

Let Their People Come

Let Their People Come
Author: Lant Pritchett
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2006-09-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1944691065

In Let Their People Come, Lant Pritchett discusses five "irresistible forces" of global labor migration, and the "immovable ideas" that form a political backlash against it. Increasing wage gaps, different demographic futures, "everything but labor" globalization, and the continued employment growth in low skilled, labor intensive industries all contribute to the forces compelling labor to migrate across national borders. Pritchett analyzes the fifth irresistible force of "ghosts and zombies," or the rapid and massive shifts in desired populations of countries, and says that this aspect has been neglected in the discussion of global labor mobility. Let Their People Come provides six policy recommendations for unskilled immigration policy that seek to reconcile the irresistible force of migration with the immovable ideas in rich countries that keep this force in check. In clear, accessible prose, this volume explores ways to regulate migration flows so that they are a benefit to both the global North and global South.