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Precarization, Informalization, and Marx

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  • Tamar Diana Wilson

Abstract

It is argued that informalization (used primarily to understand economic dynamics in the Global South) and precarization (used primarily in the analysis of the labor market in the Global North) are in the process of becoming identical phenomena and are both related to the expansion of the reserve army of labor. Insights from Marx are useful in understand both processes, especially his concepts of the value of labor, of formal subsumption vs. real subsumption, and of absolute vs. relative surplus value. The vast expansion and globalization of the labor force has fostered the trend toward a reversion to formal subsumption and facilitated the recommodification of labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Tamar Diana Wilson, 2020. "Precarization, Informalization, and Marx," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 470-486, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:52:y:2020:i:3:p:470-486
    DOI: 10.1177/0486613419843199
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Capital accumulation; globalization; labor and workers; precarious work; reserve army of labor;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B24 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist; Scraffian
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

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