ARE SOCIO-HISTORICAL STUDIES OF THE LABOUR PROCESS CENTRAL TO THIRD WORLD STUDIES?

University of Warwick, Coventry, U.K.

Journal of Asian and African Studies Vol.23 (1988) pp. 5-20

The confrontation between labour and capital is the central issue in the contemporary Third World. The labour process, in rural and urban areas, is dominated by modes of production which reveal the intrusion of peripheral, incipient and mature capitalism. The decay of older structures, the transition from rurality to urbanism, and the struggle to achieve a new socio-economic and political order, are progressively determined by an evolving two-class system particularly evident in Third World towns and cities. The conceptualisation and methodology of a Marxian-oriented social history can usefully be applied to reveal the confrontation between labour and capital and the rural-urban relationship.