This book explores the role of capital and labor migration in the expansion of the capitalist world-system. It presents comprehensive case studies on various historical periods of hegemony recognized by world-system theory: the Dutch hegemony (1625-1675), British hegemony (1815-1873), and US hegemony (1945-1970). Moreover, the book identifies an earlier period of economic dominance in Western Europe when merchant-bankers from Florence dominated the regional wool trade in the early thirteenth century. In these four intervals of dominance, i.e., from the medieval period to the late twentieth century, capital and labor migration formed the basis of capitalist development in the hegemonic core states as well as in peripheral regions under their economic and political influence.
In turn, the book analyzes the migration patterns associated with the rise of hegemony from the perspectives of class relations between employers and workers, technological advances at the workplace, economic cycles, and state policies on labor migration. It concludes with a projection that heightened migration will continue to characterize the capitalist world system, especially as many poor and displaced populations in peripheral regions resort to migration for survival. Accordingly, it appeals to scholars in the fields of politics, sociology, history, anthropology, and economics who are interested in globalization and world-system analysis.
Author(s): Nestor Rodriguez
Series: World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 219
City: Cham
Preface
Contents
1 Migration and Hegemony in the World-System
1.1 Medieval Migrations
1.2 Development of the Capitalist World-Economy
1.3 Capital and Labor Migration and Capitalist Expansion
1.4 Hegemony and Migration
1.5 Analytical Perspectives
References
2 Capital Migration and Florentine Dominance in the European Medieval Wool Industry
2.1 Business Migration, Papal Revenue Collection, and Capital Accumulation
2.2 Three Major European Areas of Woolen Production
2.3 Capitalist Production and Class Structure in the Woolen Industry
2.3.1 Emergence of Merchant-Capitalists
2.3.2 Expropriation of Artisan Production
2.3.3 Development of Propertyless Wage Workforces
2.3.4 Women in Woolen Work
2.4 Fleeing Harsh Economic Conditions
2.5 Migration and the Development of Medieval Capitalist Production
2.6 Conclusion
References
3 Migration and Dutch Capitalist Development
3.1 Dutch Hegemony
3.1.1 Industrial Development
3.1.2 Commercial Expansion
3.2 Migration in the Northern Netherlands
3.2.1 Capital Migration in the Northern Netherlands
3.2.2 Labor Migration in the Northern Netherlands
3.3 Migration in the Periphery
3.3.1 East Indies
3.3.2 Atlantic Peripheral Zone
3.3.3 Colonizing Northeastern Brazil
3.3.4 Settlement in New Netherlands
3.3.5 Migration to the Caribbean
3.4 Indigenous Migration in the Periphery
3.5 Class Struggle
3.6 Technological Development
3.7 The Economic Cycle
3.8 The State
3.9 Conclusion—Interrelation of Migration
References
4 British Hegemony and Migration
4.1 British Hegemony, 1815–1873
4.1.1 “Workshop of the World”
4.2 Capital Migration
4.3 Labor Migration and Industrial Development
4.3.1 British Labor Migration
4.3.2 Irish Migration to Britain
4.3.3 Indentured-Labor Migration
4.4 Class Struggle and Migration
4.5 Technological Development
4.6 Economic Cycles
4.7 The State
4.8 Conclusion
References
5 Monopoly Capital, US Hegemony, and Migration
5.1 Nineteenth-Century Prelude
5.2 Monopoly Development and US Hegemony
5.2.1 Restructuring in the United States
5.3 Circulation of US Capital to the Periphery
5.4 US Capital Expansion into Mexican Agriculture
5.5 Labor Migration and US Hegemony
5.5.1 Internal Migration
5.5.2 Racial Minority Migration
5.5.3 Mexican Bracero and Immigrant Labor
5.5.4 Jamaican Temporary Workers
5.6 Analysis
5.7 Class Relations
5.8 Technological Development
5.9 The Economic Cycle
5.10 The State
5.11 Conclusion
References
6 Migration and Hegemonic Development
6.1 Discussion of Findings
6.1.1 Class Relations
6.1.2 Technological Development
6.1.3 The Economic Cycle
6.1.4 The State
6.2 Labor Migration and Work Segmentation
6.3 After US Hegemony
6.4 Future Migration in the World-System
References
