1st Edition
Social Transformation and the Global Economy Labour, Latin America, and the Lefts
The overall context of this book is set by the decline of the globalization paradigm’s ability to grasp the complexity and uncertainty of the current era. It takes a new approach based on the frame of ‘transformation’ viewed as a catalyst to understand the complex interconnected nature of the world around us from a concrete, grounded perspective. Labour or work is still what makes the world go round and Latin America offers a unique laboratory of social transformation, since the ‘pink tide’ of the 2000s. The left it refers to, is a new non-dogmatic version that does not just recycle old debates but, rather, opens up new perspectives. The book is at once global in its ambition while grounded in labour and Latin American realities. Theoretically based and empirically robust, it will enthuse the reader to pursue their own research on matters covered here.
Part I deals with several key debates around labour including the emergence of a precariat, from a standpoint that foregrounds labour agency but also the view from the South, that is the majority world. Part II takes up various debates around contemporary Latin America from a cultural political economy perspective with an emphasis on the dynamics of social transformation. Part III explores the contributions from the broadly defined left towards an understanding of the current challenges faced by those seeking an alternative to the status quo in Latin America and beyond.
Providing a theoretically sophisticated yet readable text on key contemporary issues, this fully interdisciplinary book will find a broad audience among researchers, scholars and advanced students of labour, Latin American and development studies, economics, sociology and politics.
Part I: Labour 1. From the New International Labour Studies to the New Global Labour Studies 2. Work and Capitalist Globalization: Beyond Dualist Reason 3. Globalization and the Labour Movement: Challenges and Responses 4. The Precariat: A View from the South Part II: Latin America 5. Challenges and Prospects for Change in Latin America: A Foresight Approach 6. Latin America: Between the Promises of Globalization and the Chimera of Nationalism 7. Labour and Dependent Development: The Case of Latin America 8. Social Movements in Latin America Paradigms, People, and Politics Part III: The Lefts 9. Development and Marxism: A Brief Genealogy 10. Karl Polanyi for Latin America: Markets, Society, and Development 11. José Carlos Mariátegui and Twenty-first-Century Socialism: Recovery and Renewal 12. Global Sociology: Towards an Alternative Southern Paradigm
Biography
Ronaldo Munck is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Engaged Research at Dublin City University, Ireland.
In this exceptional new book, Ronaldo Munck powerfully reconstructs the complex connections between histories of labour studies, the political progressive turn in Latin America and the ways in which different ‘lefts’ articulated distinct theories of change for the world economy. Accessible, compelling, engaging and straightforward, Munck’s analysis makes a powerful and convincing call for a global sociology of labour centred on Southern experiences, with Latin America leading the way. A key call for our times – the articulation of a global labour studies agenda finally crafted from the bottom-up. — Alessandra Mezzadri, SOAS, London
I have been a great fan of Ronaldo Munck’s work over the past three decades. There are few scholars who have engaged in such breadth and depth on the urgent matters of contemporary global society. He is one of our leading thinkers on globalization, labor, the world capitalist system, Marxism, social theory, the left, and Latin American politics and society. Now we have in one single volume a set of essays that spans the remarkable corps of his scholarship. It is a volume that we will all want on the center rows of our bookshelves. — William I. Robinson, University of California at Los Angeles
Ronaldo Munck offers an unconventional analysis of ‘globalization’ from the perspective of recompositions of world labour relations, and related social futures. Such methodological inversion is critical to subverting capitalism’s hold on emergent possibilities, serving to problematize ‘developmentalism’ and embrace extant alternative socio-ecological ontologies. — Philip McMichael, Cornell University
Building on his ground-breaking work on globalisation and labour, Ronaldo Munck traces a way to move towards a new global sociology that breaks with Eurocentric notions of modernity and recognises the different temporalities of human activity. As a laboratory of progressive social transformation, Latin America is a key vantage point for his reflections. This book is essential reading for those who are trying to orient themselves throughout the complexities of the present world and to find new ways to connect the multiplicity of labour and social forces in the struggle for social transformation. — Lucia Pradella, King's College London
Ronaldo Munck has written a tour de force. For over four decades he has been at the cutting edge of labor scholarship. In his latest book, Social Transformation and the Global Economy; Labour , Latin America , and the Lefts, he revisits past debates and sets an agenda for rebuilding labour. It provides a compass in these uncertain times for labour scholars and labour activists alike. — Edward Webster, Distinguished Research Professor, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies
“Social Transformation and the Global Economy" contextualizes the challenges faced by labor, social movements and the left in power in twenty-first century Latin America. The book's broad view of political economic and social developments in the context of globalization represents a much- needed corrective to the narrow disciplinary approach that characterizes much writing on the period. — Steve Ellner, Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives.
This is a wide-ranging collection of thought-provoking, reflective, as well as informative, essays on the contemporary world economy from a rare perspective - that of Southern labour. — Göran Therborn, Emeritus of the University of Cambridge
Ronaldo Munck’s new book ‘Social Transformation and the Global Economy: Labour, Latin America and the Lefts’ is essential reading for labour scholars and activists around the world. As the leading scholar in global labour studies, Munck produces a theoretically rich history of the evolving global economy grounded in the concrete struggles of labour and progressive social movements. He challenges us to widen our perspective on the popular forces driving social transformation while maintaining a focus on the strategic importance of labour in the struggle against capital. His commitment to studying globalization from below and to charting the potential futures already evident in the practices of movements today offers insight, hope and a call to action in a time of growing conflict and despair. — Stephanie Ross, McMaster University
