Inclusive dualism : labour-intensive development, decent work, and surplus labour in Southern Africa / Nicoli Nattrass and Jeremy Seekings.

First edition.

9780191876967 (electronic book)

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2019.

English

1 online resource : illustrations.

HD8800

331.0968

W. Arthur Lewis, the founding father of development economics, proposed a dualist model of economic development in which 'surplus' (predominantly under-employed) labour shifted from lower to higher productivity work. In practice, historically, this meant that labour was initially drawn out of subsistence agriculture into low-wage, labour-intensive manufacturing, including in clothing production, before shifting into higher-wage work. This development strategy has become unfashionable. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) worries that low-wage, labour-intensive industry promises little more than an impoverishing 'race to the bottom'. This text argues that decent work fundamentalism, that is the promotion of higher wages and labour productivity at the cost of lower-wage job destruction, is a utopian vision with potentially dystopic consequences for countries with high open unemployment, many of which are in Southern Africa.

This edition also issued in print: 2019.
W. Arthur Lewis, the founding father of development economics, proposed a dualist model of economic development in which 'surplus' (predominantly under-employed) labour shifted from lower to higher productivity work. In practice, historically, this meant that labour was initially drawn out of subsistence agriculture into low-wage, labour-intensive manufacturing, including in clothing production, before shifting into higher-wage work. This development strategy has become unfashionable. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) worries that low-wage, labour-intensive industry promises little more than an impoverishing 'race to the bottom'. This text argues that decent work fundamentalism, that is the promotion of higher wages and labour productivity at the cost of lower-wage job destruction, is a utopian vision with potentially dystopic consequences for countries with high open unemployment, many of which are in Southern Africa.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on June 13, 2019).

Critical frontiers of theory, research, and policy in international development studies.
Oxford scholarship online.

Print version: 9780198841463

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