United States in A World in Crisis

United States in a World in Crisis
Studies in
Critical Social Sciences
Series Editor
David Fasenfest
(soas University of London)
volume 160
Critical Global Studies

Series Editor
Ricardo A. Dello Buono
(Manhattan College, New York)
Editorial Board
José Bell Lara (University of Havana, Cuba)
Walden Bello (State University of New York at Binghamton, usa and
University of the Philippines, Philippines)
Samuel Cohn (Texas A & M University, usa)
Ximena de la Barra (South American Dialogue, Chile/Spain)
Víctor M. Figueroa (Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico)
Marco A. Gandásegui, Jr. (Universidad de Panamá, Panama)
Ligaya Lindio-McGovern (Indiana University-Kokomo, usa)
Daphne Phillips (University of West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago)
Jon Shefner (University of Tennessee-Knoxville, usa)
Teivo Teivainen (University of Helsinki, Finland and Universidad Nacional Mayor de
San Marcos, Peru)
Henry Veltmeyer (Saint Mary’s University, Nova Scotia, Canada and Universidad
Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico)
Peter Waterman (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands) † (1936–2017)
volume 11
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/cgs

United States in a
World in Crisis
The Geopolitics of Precarious Work and
Super-Exploitation
By
Adrián Sotelo Valencia
leiden | boston
Cover illustration: Created by María del Carmen Elena Solanes Carraro.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sotelo Valencia, Adrián, author.

Title: United States in a world in crisis : the geopolitics of precarious
work and super-exploitation / by Adrián Sotelo Valencia.
Other titles: Estados Unidos en un mundo en crisis. English
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020] | Series: Studies in critical
social sciences, 1877-2110 ; volume160 | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Summary: “This work by the distinguished Mexican
theorist Adrián Sotelo Valencia explores new dimensions of
super-exploitation in a context of the structural crisis of capitalism
and imperialism. Steeped in a new generation of radical dependency
theory and informed by the legacy of his own mentor, the famous
Brazilian Marxist Ruy Mauro Marini, Sotelo rigorously examines
prevailing theoretical debates regarding the expansion of
super-exploitation in advanced capitalism. Building upon a Marinist
framework, he goes beyond Marini to identify new forms of
super-exploitation that shape the growing precarity of work. Sotelo
demonstrates the inextricable link between reliance upon fictitious
capital and the intensification of super-exploitation. Poignant
contrasts are drawn between US capitalism and Mexico that reveal the
nefarious new forms of imperialist dependency”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019042157 (print) | LCCN 2019042158 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004415645 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004415652 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Precarious employment--United States--History--21st
century. | Labor--Social aspects. | Globalization. | United
States--Politics and government--21st century.
Classification: LCC HD5858.U6 S6713 2020 (print) | LCC HD5858.U6 (ebook)
| DDC 331.25/7290973--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042157
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042158
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 1877-2110
ISBN 978-90-04-41564-5 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-41565-2 (e-book)
Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided
that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite
910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

To Mary,
for walking with me on the same path, as always.
∵
Contents
Foreword xi
John Saxe-Fernández
List of Figures and Tables xx
Introduction 1
Part 1
Geopolitics, Imperialism and Neo-Protectionism in the United
States
1 Geopolitics and Super-Exploitation 7

1 Geopolitics and the Extension of the Super-Exploitation of the Labor
Force 7
2 Conclusion 11
2 Donald Trump and Imperialist Praxis 12

1 The Vicissitudes of Neo-imperialism 13
2 Executive Orders and the North American Crisis 29
3 The Wall of Ignominy 30
4 Sanctuary Cities: the Dreamers or the Fallacy of the ‘American
Dream’ 31
5 Regional Blocks and the Automotive Industry in Mexico: the Rules of
Origin in NAFTA 34
6 N AFTA, the Tripartite Negotiations and Donald Trump’s
Position 36
7 Conclusion 38
Part 2
Debates on the Extension of Super-Exploitation in Advanced
Capitalism
3 Dependence and Super-Exploitation 43

1 Theory and Method of Exploitation in Marx 43
2 The Marxist Theory of Dependency and Marini’s Ideas 45
viii Contents
3 Importance and Validity of Dependency Theory 52

4 Formulation Level of the Marxist Theory of Dependency 58
5 Point of Departure for a Reevaluation of Marini’s Thought 61
6 Globalization and the Law of Value 64
7 Dissociation of the Economic Cycle from the Employment
Rate 65
8 Generalization of the Super-Exploitation of Labor in the Capitalist
System 65
9 The New International Division of Labor 67
10 Redefinition of the State within the Framework of the
Democratization Process in Latin America 69
11 Democracy and the Fourth Estate 69
12 The Sub-imperialism Subject 73
13 The Problem of Integration and Overcoming Dependence 75
14 Conclusion 78
4 Approaches and Theoretical Controversies 80

1 Generalization of the Super-Exploitation of Labor in Advanced
Capitalism 80
2 Marini’s Approach 83
3 Criticism of the Concept of Super-Exploitation 87
4 Super-Exploitation of the Labor Force, or Labor? 88
5 Super-Exploitation of the Labor Force: Category or Concept? 88
6 Can the Super-Exploitation of the Labor Force Be Extended to
Advanced Countries? 92
7 Super-Exploitation of the Labor Force or Violation of Labor Force
Value? 94
8 Super-Exploitation: a Political Category? 97
9 A Dependency Theory without Super-Exploitation? 104
10 Unequal Exchange and Super-Exploitation 107
11 Marini’s Renovated Vision 114
12 Conclusion 116
Part 3
Crisis, Super-Exploitation and the Precarization of the World of
Labor in the United States
5 Hypothesis on the Capitalist Crisis and Super-Exploitation of the Labor

Force 121
Contents ix
1 Dismeasure of Value and Surplus Value 121

2 Hegemony of Relative Surplus Value and Super-Exploitation 126
3 Does the Generalization of Super-Exploitation Blur Dependence
Relations? 135
4 Conclusion 138
6 Fictitious Capital and Super-Exploitation of Labor in Contemporary

Societies 140
1 The Globalization of Imperialism and the Crisis of
Capitalism 140
2 Fictitious Capital, Precarization and Universalization of Super-
Exploitation of the Labor Force 143
3 Winners and Losers in the Fictitious Regime of Neoliberal
Quasi-Stagnation 147
4 What Comes after the Terminal Crisis of Neoliberalism? 149
5 Conclusion 150
7 The North American Capitalist Crisis 151

1 Crisis of the Pattern of Accumulation and of the Mechanisms of
Production of Value and Surplus Value 152
2 Crisis and the Relative Decline of North American
Supremacy 157
3 Conclusion 166
8 United States: Precariousness of Work and Super-Exploitation of the

Labor Force 168
1 Crisis, Tension and Social Fragmentation in Neoliberal
Capitalism 168
2 Work and Social Tension 169
3 Precarious Work and Structural Reforms 171
4 (Temporary) Employment and Job Insecurity 179
5 Unemployment as a Condition of the Super-Exploitation of
Labor 181
6 The Deterioration of Wages 186
7 Salaries versus Productivity in the United States 190
8 Two Stages of US Salary History 191
9 Living and Working Conditions 198
10 The Housing Problem and the Purchasing Power of the Minimum
and Average Salary 200
11 Purchasing Power of the Salary and Basic Basket of Consumer
Goods 202
12 Violation and Expropriation of Salary 204
13 Conclusion 207
Epilogue 210
Bibliography 213
Index 231
Foreword
Extending the validity of Ruy Mauro Marini’s work to the elucidation of the
exploitation of the working class in what is to this moment the epicenter of the
exercise of power—the United States of America (US)—is not common in
Latin American Social Sciences. But that is what Adrián Sotelo offers in this
book, supported by the growing inequality and oligarchization observed in the
US, as well as the powerful precarization of the workforce in the northern
country. With analytic diligence and clarity in his explanations, the author ad-
dresses the central role of the super-exploitation of the workforce, not only in
the imperialist dynamics deployed by Washington and its lumpenbourgeoisies
in the capitalist periphery but recovering this dimension as a critical part in
the current labor dynamics of the US, specifically since the implementation of
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA or TLCAN).1 The signing of
this agreement formalized a downward standardization of salaries, embedded
in a context of generalized precarization (gig economy2) in the US, with the
consent of big capital based both in the US and Mexico. As pointed out by re-
searchers from the Economic Policy Institute—Jeff Faux in particular (Faux
2017)—not only did NAFTA make 700,000 jobs disappear, but it empowered
businesspeople in the negotiation of salaries. It also plummeted—virtually
froze—the capacity of negotiation and caused the subsequent collapse of
membership in US unions. More than just a ‘trade agreement’, NAFTA contains
hundreds of pages of a vast framework of rules and procedures designed to of-
fer investors in large corporations, and bankers—on both sides of the border
and beyond—rules of the game loaded to their advantage, “giving privileged
access to the US market of goods produced in Mexico, where salaries are mea-
ger and regulations weak. This FTA also contains subtle protection mecha-
nisms for managers, investors, and corporations, including secret courts for
labor and environmental disputes. Employers on both sides of the border have
1 This “Agreement” on the part of the US signifies a treaty level accord of the sort first estab-
lished by Franklin D. Roosevelt that can be placed into effect with a simple legislative major-
ity in both houses instead of requiring a two-thirds majority in the Senate as in the case of
treaties.
2 Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘gig economy’ as: “a way of working that is based on people
having temporary jobs or doing separate pieces of work, each paid separately, rather than
working for an employer. Workers eke out a living in the gig economy, doing odd jobs when-
ever they can.” https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/gig-economy.
xii Foreword
always been favored and protected, and on the other side of the Atlantic they
thought of NAFTA as a ‘pilot plan’ for big capital.”3
The present book provokes great interest thanks to a themed and careful
exploration of the period in which Donald Trump’s presidency come into force
in the US, a power that since the end of World War II—and more intensely
after the attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11)—shows signs of becoming a do-
mestic and international regime of exception via a growing and cruel military
and commercial unilateralism. Of ocurse, the attack against the US labor force
did not start with Trump. As US Senator Elizabeth Warren points out, it has
been for decades that “armies of lawyers and lobbyists who represent a handful
of giant corporations have pressed […] to pursue policies that maximize cor-
porate profits” (Warren 2017: 2). But she cannot help but to warn that:
…[i]nstead of strengthening the rights of working people, the Trump ad-

ministration has pushed in the opposite direction. Since taking office,
President Trump has signed several laws that directly undermine the
wages, benefits, health and safety of American workers. The President
and the Republican Congress have rolled back rules designed to make
sure federal contractors don’t cheat their workers out of hard-earned
wages. They’ve delayed safety standards that keep workers from being ex-
posed to lethal carcinogenic materials. They’ve given shady financial ad-
visers a few extra months to cheat hardworking Americans out of billions
in retirement savings. The list goes on.
WARREN 2017: 3
Although continuity and structural characteristics amongst this administra-

tion and its predecessors exist, we can now observe asinine gestures and man-
nerisms, similar to Mussolini’s, that reflect at every turn a liking for inflicting
damage and pain upon the weakest inside and outside of the capitalist system
that has been sinking into a crisis of accumulation since the 1960s/1970s.
Just as Senator Warren suggests, the super-exploitation of the workforce un-
der what can be characterized as National Trumpism is not to be under-
estimated. Like National Socialism, it holds great political-electoral and
psychopathological power that can be seen in Trump’s actions and words with
a racist, classist, hateful tone and a unified dehumanization of ‘the others.’ In
3 North American Free Trade Agreement. https://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Home/Texts-of-

the-Agreement/North-American-Free-Trade-Agreement. More detail on the impact of NAF-
TA over the American working class can be found in Jeff Faux (2013). Also, see Faux (2006) or
in Spanish, Faux (2008).
Foreword xiii
the past, this has amounted to a fatal prelude to exterminations. There is no

better indicator of the cruelty contained in a government than the direction
taken by its budget and the fact that in the first year of the Trump administra-
tion, civilian deaths in US wars in the Middle East and northern Africa had al-
ready exceeded the elevated records of Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
This also had a domestic correlate in matters of public spending. Robert Reich,
a university professor and former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton admin-
istration, analyzed Trump’s first budget “in terms of values and priorities” in
which a massive $3.6 trillion cut over a ten year period was proposed based on
reductions in assistance for the poor, the homeless, Medicaid, access to food,
Social Security Disability insurance, health insurance and care for children
from low income families. Trump move to redirect these “freed up” resources
into a vastly increased level of military spending while seeking “fiscal equilib-
rium” through massive tax cuts carried out in favor of corporations and the
very rich. For Reich, the president’s budget “celebrates a cruel and virulent
form of individualism—much like Trump himself.” 4
In the present book’s crucial fourth chapter, Sotelo formulates a novel hy-
pothesis that has not been previously included in the academic literature and,
as he claims, “was not contemplated even by Marini,” namely, a fourth modal-
ity in the super-exploitation of the workforce that would be being built through
the imposition of labor precarity and its updating through the precarization
process of all of the elements that constitute the world of labor, such as sala-
ries, functions, categories, subcategories, employee benefits, labor costs,
unionization, collective labor agreements, flexibility and deregulation.5
Sotelo’s approach coincides with Marini in that “the super-exploitation of
the workforce is settling itself inside the systems of production and labor
(organization) of imperialist countries structurally and systematically,

although subordinated to the logic and laws that rule the production of rela-
tive surplus value and its institutional correlates like the State, scientific-tech-
nical development, imperialism and autonomy of their capital cycles that they
maintain as a hegemonic category. Thus, under this understanding and meth-
od, and in line with Marini, we consider that the dilemma of the universaliza-
tion of super-exploitation of the workforce in contemporary capitalism is
solved regarding both its reach and limitations”.6
To the vast anti-worker offensive described by US Senator Warren, one must
add the use of “Right to Work” type laws, frequently used in the United States
4 See robertreich.org.
5 From this book: Sotelo, Chapter 4.
6 Also from this book: Sotelo, Chapter 3.
xiv Foreword
to overwhelm unions by cutting off their sources of income. It was noteworthy

that the Canadian representatives demanded the annulment of these “laws”
during the negotiations of NAFTA. The initiative is part of Ottawa’s effort to get
the US and Mexico to adopt upward standards for the workforce and not a
“Right to Work” mechanism that accentuates worker precarization and union
fragility.
Jerry Dias, leader of Canada’s largest private sector labor union, said he was
“very pleased with the position the Canadian government is taking on labor
standards,” and added “Canada’s got two problems: The low wage rates in Mex-
ico and the right-to-work [laws in] several states of the United States” (Slate,
2017).
Thanks to the warning by Mayra Rodríguez Valladares (2018) of MRV Associ-
ates about the data offered by the US Federal Reserve the Report on the Eco-
nomic Well-Being of US Households in 2017 (Board of Governors 2018), we have
a more direct approach to the realities that support Sotelo’s novel proposal.
The data are significant. In a synthesis of the general and crucial features of the
economic structuring of US society in which the expansion of a precariat is
experienced, the report prepared for the Board of Governors of the US Federal
Reserve shows that the impact of super-exploitation of the workforce on the
families of the bottom half of the US, i.e., the ‘precariat society’ (gig society), is
a sociological as well as economic reality. In the words of Rodríguez Valladares7
published in The Hill:
Data are powerful storytellers. The data tell a story of two Americas bare-
ly cohabiting within the same borders. One America is comprised of the
people who are benefiting from a growing US gross domestic product
and having the lowest unemployment rate in 14 years … 74 percent of
adults responded that they were ‘ok financially’ and living comfortably.
This is 10 percentage points higher than five years ago. The majority of
survey respondents stated that they are ‘satisfied with the wages and ben-
efits from their current job and are optimistic about their future job op-
portunities.’ Additionally, 95 percent of Americans have a bank account
and hence are in a position to try to obtain credit if they needed it.
7 Mayra Rodríguez Valladares is Managing Principal of MRV Associates, which provides finan-
cial consulting, research and training on financial regulation issues. She has 25 years of
financial regulatory experience from her time at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, JP
Morgan and BT Alex. Brown.
Foreword xv
Yet, the data also tell a worrisome story about a vast swath of Americans being
left behind in this country’s second-largest economic expansion in its history.
The plight of those Americans left behind should worry not only those affect-
ed, but all of us whether we are legislators, central bankers, regulators or ordi-
nary residents. Their plight, especially if it worsens, will affect what legislative
actions and policies will be needed to improve living standards for all. Rodrí-
guez Valladares adds, “…leaving these people behind will impact our competi-
tiveness in decades to come” (Rodríguez Valladares 2018).
Indeed, the report allows us to see how the outlook of the world of labor has
changed just in the last five years where 30 percent of American adults are now
in the gig economy (precariat). This may seem great in terms of allowing Amer-
icans more control of their leisure time. The reality is that most people in the
gig economy have to work much harder to have enough money to live, and they
have to be able to cope with the risk and emotional strain of not having a sta-
ble, earnings stream. Forty percent of adult Americans, or 100 million people,
cannot cobble together $400 in cash for a medical emergency without selling a
possession or going into debt. While the figure may appear better than five
years ago, when it was 50 percent, the US population has also grown since 2013
(Board of Directors 2018: 64). Worse yet, 20 percent of adults cannot pay all of
their current month’s bills in full, which means that they also get hit with pen-
alty fees and risk being cut off from any credit. Sadly, 25 percent of American
adults skipped necessary medical care because they could not afford it.
A large number of Hispanic- and African-Americans fall into this popula-
tion in the process of precarization. In the words of Rodríguez Valladares,
“[w]hen you break out African- and Hispanic-American responses, only 66
percent state that they were doing ‘ok financially’ as opposed to 75 percent for
respondents as a whole (Valladares 2018).”
Those percentages demonstrate that there is a rise in poverty for the most
held back sectors of the former society of opulence and we see how in all cat-
egories considered needed to achieve a dignified life, Hispanic- and African-
Americans require much more effort than those of a Caucasian origin,
although, as the report adds, “…40 percent of Americans who are struggling
are about to face even more hardships this year and in the foreseeable future
since we are in a rising-interest-rate environment. Any variable-rate loan or
credit card debt that they have already, or will take on, will be more expensive”
(Valladares 2018).
The data from this report that deals with the configuration process of two
US societies are very relevant because they come from the center of big capital
itself. However, the levels of precarization and inequality are far deeper.
xvi Foreword
On a macroeconomic level, the Federal Reserve numbers are outstanding,

but the big problem is that this macro prominence does not reach average citi-
zens, as shown by Tyler Cowen, economist from George Mason University and
author of Average is Over (Cowen 2013). In this book he shows that even as the
US recovered from the Great Recession, precarization and underpaid labor in-
tensified. Cowen points out that of “the jobs lost during the recession, about 60
percent of them were in what are called ‘mid-wage’ occupations. What about
the jobs added since the end of the recession? Seventy-three percent of them
have been in lower-wage occupations, defined as $13.52 an hour or less.” Mil-
lions of people are looking for work and cannot find it.
When it became known in Mexico that Robert Lighthizer—Trump’s trade
representative, with an eye on the midterm legislative elections in the US and
his fundamental “reelection project”—accepted on a tactical level the propos-
al from Democratic legislators to include the topic of labor related to “stan-
dards that can be met” within NAFTA’s renegotiation, Mexican employers and
their neoliberal Mexican government were quick to reject this.8 This was be-
cause what would be at stake is the primary source of the vast wealth accumu-
lated by the 1% of the population here and there through the super-exploitation
of the workforce of Mexican workers, a condition of labor flexibilization,
agreed to and formalized by the transnational companies and both oligarchies.
NAFTA also facilitates the appropriation of natural resources and primary
enterprises and public services of the country, including energy, security and
‘national’ defense. Was is not John D. Negroponte who said, NAFTA is “the cor-
nerstone” that can align Mexican security and foreign policy with the princi-
ples of American foreign policy?
Democratic Representative Sander M. Levin was responsible for reminding
people about the central issue by observing that the compensation of Mexican
autoworkers is a meager 19 percent of that of their unionized US counterparts.
Even after more than two decades of NAFTA, this is one of the least asymmetric
items! In the mid-1970s, average wages in Mexico were 31 percent of those in
the US. This was just before the great offensive by financial capital (Wall Street,
the Fed and the Treasury Department through the IMF-WB-IDB) was faced
with the capitalist accumulation crisis that has been intensifying since then:
real class warfare under the signature of “globalization” and “neoliberalism,”
where the super-exploitation of labor is a fundamental part of the “imperial-
ization” of the periphery. And Mexico in the role of a tenacious ‘model’ has
been plundered relentlessly since 1982 when—according to a 2016 study by the
8 For more on this topic see Process Magazine #2125, July 22, 2017.
Foreword xvii
Multidisciplinary Analysis Center of the National Autonomous University of

Mexico—one could buy 50 kilos 910 grams (112.24 lbs.) of tortillas with the
minimum wage. In 2016, it was only 5 kilos 820 grams (12.94 lbs.)!
The downward standardization of Mexican salaries, in the context of NAF-
TA, was endorsed by the upper echelons of the Mexican government and the
unions that under Salinas stripped the voice from the workforce in the negotia-
tion of the treaty, a condition that continues to this day, with accumulated ef-
fects in the US as well, given the practically non-existent growth in salary in
that country.
Luis Videgaray, Secretary of Foreign Affairs during the agonizing and bloody
Peña Nieto government sought to extend the catastrophe six more years by
keeping his party in power. With a nostalgic echo to the ears of the northern
neighbor, just in the good old days, the government and private sector com-
prised a single negotiating team based in the “globalization,” meaning the po-
tentiation of the negotiating capacities of the great transnational companies,
from their center and their periphery. It is a stratagem for the super-exploitation
of the workforce that combines wage caps dictated by the private sectors from
inside and out with growing productivity but in a context for “North America”
of a persistent downward salary standardization/stagnation with an elevated
electoral risk for the Republicans and Trump. It is not surprising that in a re-
cent interview Lighthizer asked himself: “Do I believe that Mexican labor laws
have had a negative effect on the United States? … Yes, I think so.”9
He immediately added “the position of the US President Donald Trump and
that of the Democrats on labor standards ‘are not that far off.’” It is clear that
the commercial representative is talking about precarization and the brutal
wage ruin in Mexico and not about the truly progressive laws that exist on pa-
per, torn to shreds every day by the upper echelons of the government, corpo-
rations and union cronyism. This is also in the center of the interest of not just
the bankers and investors in NAFTA, but also of US politicians. Ever since a free
trade agreement with Mexico had begun to be contemplated, the Democratic
leadership considered the absence of class instruments that would allow an
increase in the income of Mexican workers as NAFTA’s primary obstacle. Now,
for Trump, extreme inequality in the US is a matter of political demagogy, al-
though he does not seem to be fully aware of what this entails, because he
9 The Baja Post “US will seek to negotiate ‘compliant’ labor standards in NAFTA”, June 26, 2017,
in https://www.thebajapost.com/2017/06/26/u-s-will-seek-to-negotiate-compliant
-labor-standards-in-nafta/.
xviii Foreword
keeps exploiting it while getting rid of any existing regulation that keeps in
check the mega speculative urges of Wall Street.
According to a study by Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty,
Emmanuel Sáez and Gabriel Zucman (2016) and data from Global Wealth/
Credit Suisse, at the base of the processes that carried Donald Trump to the
White House is a structural issue observed decades ago, but which shows its
face in this study that exhibits that, between 2015 and 2016, the wealthiest 1%
of the US channeled in its favor the wealth of 90% of US households, equiva-
lent to $4 trillion or an average of $3 million per household. The wealthiest 10%
captured an average windfall of $1.3 million per household.
Almost half of that extracted by the 1% came from the middle and lower
class. The authors of the study estimate that the plutocracy took $17,000 per
household/average from 90% of the population. The loss of wealth by the mid-
dle class rose to $35,000 per household/average. This amounted to 50 million
households being batted with an estimated loss of wealth of $1,760,000,000,000
and for the poorest 50%, real household income did not increase in 40 years!
US Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders was the only politician of the
three countries of NAFTA that dared to say:
In the United States, Jeff Bezos—founder of Amazon, and currently the

world’s wealthiest person—has a net worth of more than $100 billion. He
owns at least four mansions, together worth many tens of millions of dol-
lars. As if that weren’t enough, he is spending $42 million on the con-
struction of a clock inside a mountain in Texas that will supposedly run for
10,000 years. But, in Amazon warehouses across the country, his employ-
ees often work long, grueling hours and earn wages so low they rely on
Medicaid, food stamps and public housing paid for by US taxpayers.
SANDERS 2018
I quote him here also because he labeled his political campaign as ‘socialist’,
something unheard of at that scale in the history of the US as well as in either
of the other signatory nations of NAFTA. And, for Marini, the socialist revolu-
tion was the path to take. This was not to be for the US Democratic Party’s
leadership that devoted considerable resources, efforts and borderline (if not
openly illegal) electoral manipulation, to stop the solid electoral progress of
Bernie Sanders. Sanders was the only major politician in the three NAFTA na-
tions that dared to challenge the powerful fossil fuel industry and the internal
combustion engine automotive industry, with a massive mobilization like the
one when confronting fascism during World War II. This time the danger is
Foreword xix
global warming and climate change, that threaten as never before in recorded
history, global biota, humanity included.10
John Saxe-Fernández
10 John Saxe-Fernández is a researcher at the Programa el Mundo en el Siglo XXI (The World
in the 21st Century Program) of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and
Humanities at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, he is Full Professor on the
Faculty of Political and Social Sciences. He teaches the “Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of
Capital” seminar and is a member of the Postgraduate Faculty in Latin American Studies
and Political Science. Among his recent books are: Crisis e Imperialismo (Crisis and Impe-
rialism), CEIICH/UNAM, 2012 and La Compra-Venta de México (The Mexico Purchase),
Plaza & Janés, 2002 (New electronic edition, CEIICH/UNAM, 2016). He is the coordinator
of La Explotación de Combustibles fósiles no Convencionales en Estados Unidos: Lecciones
para América Latina; Hacia una Sociología Política del Colapso Climático Antropogénico
(The Explotación of Non-Conventional Fossil Fuels in the United States: Lessons for Latin
America); and Towards a Political Sociology of Anthropogenic Climate Collapse, 2018/2019.
Figures and Tables
Figures
1 Global economy trajectory (1945–2016) and average growth of advanced

countries (2011–2016) 140
2 GDP by world regions: 1998–2016 165
3 Volume of world merchandise trade 166
4 Average annual growth of real wages in the world, 2006–2015 187
5 Average wages per hour in the manufacturing industry of several countries,
2005–2016 188
6 United States: Real hourly wage growth over business cycles, cycle peak
to cycle peak 191
7 Gap between productivity and a typical worker’s compensation,
1948–2014 192
8 United States: Minimum wage with productivity, without productivity and
current real minimum wage, 1950–2016 193
9 United States: Average price of the basic goods basket, 2008–2017 203
Tables
1 Salaries in emerging Asian economies 106

2 Growth rates in real gross domestic product by area and country,
1998–2017 161
3 Unemployment rate and total unemployment: Trends and projections,
2007–2017 183
4 Remuneration and productivity in selected countries, 2007–2016 189
5 Growth of labor productivity, total hours worked and real GDP for major
advanced economies, 1999–2016 190
6 Main highly-skilled manufacturing occupations, 2015 194
7 United States: Average hours worked by full-time US workers,
aged 18+, 2014 199
8 United States minimum monthly salary, 2008–2017 200
9 United States: Price of rental housing per month and year, 2008–2017 201
10 United States: Proportion of annual minimum salary and average annual
average salary/rental price of dwelling, 2017 202
11 United States: Selected monthly and annual expenses, 2015 204
12 The SLF in dependent capitalism and in advanced countries 209
Introduction
The present book is divided into three parts. Part 1 contextualizes the dimen-
sions of super-exploitation in the framework of the geopolitical crisis of capi-
talism and imperialism and the necessity that this system has in consolidating
the super-exploitation regime of the labor force to counter both its structural
crisis as well as its inevitable fall in the rate of profit. Chapter 1 first gives a brief
account of the significance of the geopolitical concept and its relation to the
super-exploitation of the labor force. Chapter 2 then locates the current poli-
tics of the United States government commandeered by President Donald
Trump especially in terms of his intension of promoting protectionist policies
making use of Executive Orders, affecting the large working and immigrant
classes in the country.
In Part 2, the attention turns to existing debates surrounding the deepening
reliance upon super-exploitation in advanced capitalism. Chapter 3 focuses
on the relationship between dependency theory and super-exploitation, at
the same time highlighting the relevancy of explaining contemporary phe-
nomena that occurs both in Latin America and the global economy. Chapter 4
is centered on the contemporary debate on the question of the extension of
the super-exploitation of the labor force in advanced capitalism and, in par-
ticular, in the United States. Two problematic issues will be addressed: (a) what
is the super-exploitation of the labor force according to Marini? And (b) what
is the possibility of its extension within advanced capitalism or in the core
imperialist nations?
We highlight this Marinist position in the same way the Brazilian writer
would have: the labor force becoming the essential factor in extraordinary
profits during the neoliberal phase of capitalism since the 1980s, right at the
point where social-democratic and right wing academics were proclaiming the
theories of ‘The End of Work’, clothed by neoliberalism and positivism (Haber-
mas 1984; Offe 1985: 129-150; Reich 1992; Rifkin 1996; and Méda 1995. For criti-
cisms see: Antunes 2003, 2005 and Sotelo 2003, 2012, 2015). Here we raise a
working hypothesis which is new and which has not been contemplated by
authors of dependency theory, not even by Marini himself, consisting of a
fourth form of the super-exploitation regimen that is being constructed
through the imposition of the precariousness of work and renewing itself
through the process of precarization of all the elements that make up the
world of work such as salaries, functions, categories and subcategories, social
benefits, labor costs, unionization, collective bargaining agreements, flexibility
and deregulation.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, �� | doi:10.1163/9789004415652_002

2 Introduction
Part 3 contains four chapters that tie super-exploitation to the increasing

precariousness of labor in a context of structural crisis. Chapter 5 explains
some Marxist arguments in the Grundrisse and in Capital in relation to the
crisis of working hours, tied to Marini’s theory of super-exploitation of the la-
bor force. The purpose is to demonstrate that Marx’s approach to the constant
reduction of the necessary work hours and the unusual increase of unpaid sur-
plus labor (the surplus value appropriated by capital) is the axis that articu-
lates the increase in the exploitation of labor in general and, in particular, of
the super-exploitation in the dependent countries. We resume and deepen our
theoretical-methodological approaches elaborated in other works consisting
of the study of the relationship between (relative) surplus value and the super-
exploitation of the labor force in order to understand, within the global
capitalist formation, the extension of this last category in the world capitalist
economy and in advanced countries. It will also address the hypothesis of the
universalization of the law of value and the extension of super-exploitation to
advanced capitalism as a tendency that, more than just conjectural, tends to be
implemented in the production structures and work processes of advanced
capitalism affecting the social relations between labor and capital.
We understand, although it is not the subject of this book, that geopolitics
and the dynamics of super-exploitation entail a profound impact on nature
and the environment, in addition to seriously threatening the extinction of fos-
sil resources such as oil, gas and coal, wild species and animals, increasing the
structural and civilization crisis of world capitalism putting in danger the very
existence of humanity (see Altvater 2014). It is necessary to mention, for ex-
ample, the General Law of Biodiversity approved on December 15, 2017, by the
Mexican Senate that, according to environmental groups, puts large areas of
the country at risk including natural protected areas as well as especially con-
ditioned spaces for native species and virgin ecosystems. With this law large
mining and energy companies will be given the go-ahead to exploit these spe-
cial spaces putting at risk these territories, entire communities and indigenous
peoples.
Chapter 6 argues that fictitious capital forces the system to suffer low rates
of economic growth and, therefore, affects the general profitability of capital,
for which it resorts ever more to the super-exploitation regime. Chapter 7 ad-
dresses the crisis of US capitalism and the possibilities that the government
led by Trump, through its protectionist policies, could take the economy of
that country and the world economy out of the current hole in economic and
social growth.
Finally, in Chapter 8 we give a concrete study of the nature of the super-
exploitation of the labor force in the dynamics of a developed capitalist
Introduction 3
c ountry such as the United States, because it offers a point of comparison with
the nature of this phenomenon in dependent countries, especially Mexico. For
this, we make use of the most relevant bibliography, although we must clarify
that it is scarce, given the temporality, the proximity of the phenomenon that
is still in the making, and due to the (almost) null debate on this relevant
and transcendent subject that is only just emerging as a research minefield, as
indicated in Chapter 3.
Part 1
Geopolitics, Imperialism and Neo-Protectionism
in the United States
∵
Chapter 1
Geopolitics and Super-Exploitation
In this chapter we will briefly reflect on the concept of geopolitics and its rela-
tion to the super-exploitation of the labor force in order to then give a global
perspective of the problem of the extension and installation of this important
category to economies and productive systems of advanced capitalism, a cat-
egory that comes from the Marxist dependency theory.
1 Geopolitics and the Extension of the Super-Exploitation of the

Labor Force
As Ruy Mauro Marini stated (1985a) on the subject of international politics,

geopolitics is defined by geographic determinations as a consequence of three
factors. The first has to do with the division of states in class societies within
the framework of relations of domination and of subordination between them.
The second is the unequal development of economies in the context of ex-
panding capitalism and forms of labor exploitation. Finally, we will highlight
how some strong states dominate and subordinate other weaker ones in the
international, regional, national and local sphere. Geopolitics is made up of
two dimensions: the economic and the political. For the purposes of the pres-
ent book it is in our interest to place the first within the framework of the sec-
ond. In the international political economic sphere, national and transnation-
al forces operate together with monetary and financial organisms.
Geopolitics is a material expression of the International Division of La-

bor (idl) on a global scale, from which every state strategizes in the
midst of the globalization of capital leaving behind the political division
of labor within its territory, principally within three sectors: technocrats,
military and politicians.
ramirez 2017: 59–60
From the above definition, we propose that the super-exploitation of the labor
force began to operate in a first stage—beginning with the end of the colonial
period in Latin America in the mid-nineteenth century, but in a more concrete
manner with the beginning of the process of industrialization that took place

8 Chapter 1
in the 1930s—exclusively in the economic and productive systems of the eco-

nomically, technologically, and financially dependent subordinate capitalist
countries. The centers of power and finance of imperialist nations in advanced
capitalism were then found in England, the United States, Germany, France
and Japan. On the other hand, the unequal development of some economies
provoked a correlative expansion of the exploitation of labor that tends to
deepen and homogenize in this system as a whole. Thus, with the universaliza-
tion of the law of value in the capitalist mode of production on a global scale,
this panorama has been changing rapidly since the 1980s, accompanied by pro-
cesses of restructuring, transnationalization, flexibilization and precarization
of the world of labor under the command of large multinational corporations
that operate simultaneously in different countries without losing their umbili-
cal cord that unites them and keeps them linked to their countries and their
original centers of power.
In this sense it is necessary to mention that geopolitics cannot be consid-
ered without acknowledging the internal and international security policies of
the United States, since it operates a strong surveillance using the Central In-
telligence Agency (cia), as well as an intense intervention of the Department
of Defense in the dynamics of business expansion (see Saxe-Fernández 2006).
In this sense and context we locate the meaning of the geopolitics of super-
exploitation that, by virtue of the internationalization of the productive cycles
of the dependent nations under the command of the economic and political
powers of the advanced countries, has been installed in branches and sectors
of the production of the latter.
In other words, together with the hegemony it kept, and maintains, the pro-
duction of relative surplus value in the central spheres of supranational power
concentrated in the hegemonic capitalist countries and their territorial spaces
of accumulation (the United States, Japan, Germany, and France) are designed
to impose on the workers patterns of organization and production of goods
and services that undermine the labor force and their precarization to forms
that end up being similar to a super-exploitation regime, but not identical to
what is seen in dependent countries.
The globalization mechanisms that are disseminated in a particular way
through financial systems under the control of fictitious capital (see Chapter 6)
is today hegemonic on a global scale when compared to the other fractions of
capital (productive, commercial, usurious). It makes it possible for this design
and the new computer, telematic, communication and microelectronic tech-
nologies to operate in the interest of the massive diffusion of the new methods
of exploitation and work organization that can be synthesized in the paradigm
of flexible Toyotism of Japanese origin mainly based on the intensification of
Geopolitics and Super-Exploitation 9
the labor force; the decomposition and flexibilization of the basic components
of the job such as the salary, the category and the functions performed by the
worker, which pass to be manipulated and planned from above under the free
will of the managers of the companies and in the logic of the increase of the
business profits that constitute the essential objective of the system.
The result of all this is the precariousness of labor that is practically prevail-
ing all over the world and which, from our perspective, expresses the most
important metamorphosis assumed in the present century by the super-
exploitation of labor as an operative category—although not constitutive as it
was historically for dependent capitalism—of the international economy (see
Chapter 4).
A map of the international productive territory, despite the national and
regional differences that can be seen in terms of population, borders, ideolo-
gies, culture, political systems, economic potential and insertion in the world
market, reveals that from the point of view of the work processes and the
characteristics of their active subjects (workers) runs a parallel line that ho-
mogenizes the conditions of work and life for vast sectors of humanity. This is
characterized by the increase in the average rates of exploitation of work in the
context of the fall of the average rate of productivity, a decrease in nominal
and minimum wages, and a decrease of purchasing power of consumer goods
and essential services. This occurs not only to maintain ‘normal’ conditions for
daily, weekly, and monthly exploitation of the work force, but also to maintain
levels of unemployment, underemployment, informality and performance of
jobs and activities of all kinds without the corresponding guarantees in terms
of social security and contractual and human rights.
This does not constitute a conjectural situation that can be reversed through
retroactive policies of development and Keynesian ideas, which have been
completely erased from the point of view of capitalist logic. For its part, neolib-
eralism has no other future and destiny—even in the periods of renewal and
relative growth—than to deepen and extend the precariousness of the world
of labor to try to counteract the current historical state of capitalism.
From the point of view of space, territory and the processes of accumulation
and valorization of capital, which has made possible the deployment of a geo-
politics of the super-exploitation of the labor force on a global scale, there have
been strong impulses of globalization of capital (transnationalization) and the
opening of borders, above all commercial ones suggested by international or-
ganizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (true
State instruments since 51% of the shares belong to the North American Trea-
sury Department). A growing technological and productive homogenization
has taken place that has laid the groundwork for the precarization of the world
10 Chapter 1
of labor, taking away social and labor rights and creating the structural, labor
and political conditions to operate the super-exploitation regime without un-
dermining the hegemony that the production of relative surplus value enjoys
in the countries of advanced capitalism. In this sense, the assertion that the
globalization of capital, be it through outsourcing or the application of direct
or indirect investments in different parts of the world, is due to, as Dierckxsens
(2017: 40) points out, the obsolescence of technology and not only to the in-
crease in labor costs, regardless of the loss experienced in wages.
Therefore we can say that together with the super-exploitation of the labor
force, there’s a strong technological devaluation or obsolescence of capital in
the hegemonic stage of productive heterogeneity (1950–1990), which for trans-
national capital is still profitable in dependent economies. Nevertheless, as
Marini stated, it is losing its profitability as it homogenizes and devalues tech-
nology and, in general, fixed capital, leaving then the selected work force as the
essential factor of the process of reproduction of global social capital and of
the profit rate.
Marini explains (see Chapter 3) that the main mutation that occurred in the
world of labor in the 1980s and 90s is bound to make the labor force the pivotal
producer of extraordinary profits for capital and, especially, for the owners of
large multinational corporations that have both the support of their imperial-
ist states and that of dependent countries. In the case of the United States,
which is an economy of war and armaments based on an Industrial Military
Complex of Security and Intelligence (Sandoval 2017), subsidies hidden from
large monopolies by military spending constitute one of the most advanta-
geous practices both to overcome competition and to strengthen its expansion
abroad.
It should not be believed that the protectionist policy announced by the US
government annuls the bases for the full expansion of the super-exploitation
regime in the advanced countries under the North American leadership. On
the contrary, regardless of the possibilities of the eventual implementation of
said policy, the structural conditions of North American capitalism and the
world economy make it impossible to retrace the economic, social, productive,
and labor system to the conditions that prevailed during the post-World War ii
period in terms of work processes, social benefits, salaries and social security.
Due to the conditions that we observe in the following chapters, we consider
that the current period, characterized from the point of view of the world of
labor by precarization, flexibilization and super-exploitation, has no turning
point. In any case, it will be the organized action of the working class, the pro-
letariat and the popular classes that will determine, through class struggle, the
Geopolitics and Super-Exploitation 11
paths to follow in order to reverse this pernicious situation completely unfa-

vorable to their class interests.
2 Conclusion
As outlined above, the geopolitics of super-exploitation has been made possi-

ble thanks to the processes of globalization of capital. Particularly, it has been
the financial and structural crisis that has opened up the possibilities for this
regime to operate in advanced countries. It may assume particular forms in
accordance with the characteristics of these economies, which differentiates
them from the economic-social formations of dependent capitalist countries.
This is not dissolved by the extension of the super-exploitation regime to de-
veloped countries because it is they who maintain the hegemony of relative
surplus value in their territories and productive spaces, and in the social rela-
tions of production that they deprive between labor and capital.
Chapter 2
Donald Trump and Imperialist Praxis
The defeat of the Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton, and the triumph
of the Republican Party candidate Donald Trump as President of the United
States, is a faithful reflection of the structural crisis of capitalism that was noted
by some national and international commentators as linked to the resounding
failure of Obama’s administration in public policy. Therefore, the policies an-
nounced by Trump, at least in his political discourse, focused on protectionism
and attacking nations that do not conform to the interests and prerogatives of
the State Department and, of course, of its ruling classes. This discourse is
aimed at compensating for the loss of wages and benefits of the white working
class who were supposedly impoverished by the previous Democratic admin-
istration of Obama. It goes hand in hand with the brutal attacks against im-
migrant and undocumented workers, the majority of whom are Mexicans and
against whom, in the first instance, it implemented its first executive orders
(see Wolff 2018).
It could be said, briefly, that while Hillary Clinton represents the class in-
terests of the imperialist fraction of speculative financial capital (of a ficti-
tious type), Trump represents those of industrial capital, civil and military,
that certainly in the first case has lost ground in inter-capitalist competition
globally. And in particular, against active competitors such as China, Germa-
ny and Japan, especially China that has expanded its scope of action, for ex-
ample, to Latin America and Africa, particularly since 2010. Yet, we must
clarify that from a historical point of view and of the imperialist geopolitics
both fractions (Democrats and Republicans; see Note 6, Chapter 5) act as one
when their interests are threatened and disrupted in any serious circum-
stance vis-à-vis the working classes or the states that are considered ‘hostile’
to the United States. So do not be fooled by the ‘benignity’ of any of these
forces against the problems and contradictions of capitalism because they
will always revert against workers and peoples. The verdict of the Supreme
Court of the United States on January 21, 2010, known as Citizens United vs.
The Federal Election Commission, which allowed the participation of private
companies in electoral campaigns, reveals the extent to which the political
system is completely designed to strengthen the interests of the ruling class
and that of big capital.

Donald Trump and Imperialist Praxis 13
1 The Vicissitudes of Neo-Imperialism1
Historically, imperialist capitalism has constructed geo-political and strategic

coordinates and parameters of its action in the world space. The former define
the location and position in different points and spaces of the earth where
military bases are usually established to guard and reproduce their interests.
The parameters are those that guide the imperialist action in terms of the ful-
fillment of the objectives stipulated in the coordinates. The above is stated in
order to emphasize that the imperialist system is not limited to the action of
one country, such as the United States, Germany, France or England, a block
(nato) or a region (EU). Rather, it corresponds to a global system within the
very structure of operation of the historical capitalist mode of production in its
current phase that we can characterize as neo-imperialist when we add the
phenomena that have been incorporated such as fictitious capital, unusual de-
velopment of technology, the computerization of processes and products, the
deployment of so-called globalization, and the simultaneity of commercial
transactions thanks to systems interconnected by means of computer technol-
ogy, since the original concept was formulated creatively by Lenin and other
Marxist authors. Or as Bellamy (2015: 37 and July 1, 2015) stated: “The question
of ‘new imperialism’ is reduced to the question of neo-liberalism or any par-
ticularly brutal incarnation of expropriation”.
In this context, regardless of the person that occupies the Imperial Presi-
dency in the United States—that, according to Saxe-Fernández (2006: 29, 40,
122; see also Schlesinger 1973), we understand both as a concrete expression of
contemporary imperialism and as a symbiosis between corporations and the
State, which expresses itself in the pre-eminence of power executive—the
president in turn must move within the strict framework which sets the pa-
rameters and coordinates of an imperialist system that, in order for it to repro-
duce itself, must necessarily do so by completing the actions of deployment of
investments, appropriation of territories, invasion of countries, imposition of
policies of any kind (protectionist or free-trade or their combination), reserv-
ing the right to at any time resort to the use of force. This explains why the
United States is brewing a war in Syria (where it illegally occupies part of its
territory, as in Iraq and Libya) as well as in the Korean Peninsula today. It
1 From our perspective, the prefix ‘neo’ encompasses the classical theory of imperialism in its
Marxist sense in order to contemplate the new elements and phenomena that have been
added over the course of its historical development up to the present day.
14 Chapter 2
should simply be noted that, after the attacks on September 11, 2001, the US has
fought at least 11 wars around the world. An event that, at the same time, served
to overshadow a statement made by the then Secretary of Defense of the Unit-
ed States, Donald Rumsfeld, one day before the September 11 tragedy, that $2.3
trillion could not be accounted for and had been lost by the Pentagon.
As Anderson (2014: 141) states:
The Democratic Party takeover of the White House in 2009 brought little
alteration in American imperial policy. Continuity was signaled from the
start by the retention or promotion of key personnel in the Republican
war on terror: Gates, Brennan, Petraeus, McChrystal. Before entering the
Senate, Obama had opposed the war in Iraq; in the Senate, he voted $360
billion for it. Campaigning for the presidency, he criticized the war in the
name of another one. Not Iraq, but Afghanistan was where US firepower
should be concentrated. Within a year of taking office, US troops had
been doubled to 100,000 and Special Forces operations increased sixfold,
in a bid to repeat the military success in Iraq, where Obama had merely
to stick to his predecessor’s schedule for a subsequent withdrawal.
The emphasis placed on the candidacy of Donald Trump, which nobody would
have bet on at first, overshadowed the role played by all previous rulers, Demo-
crats or Republicans, particularly the Obama administration, in terms of their
invasions of sovereign countries, wars, deportations of thousands of undocu-
mented people and other atrocities of the imperialist system which is in no
way derived from a ‘peculiar way of governing’ but of an aggressive foreign
policy that represents, since the end of the US Civil War (1861–1865) the inter-
ests of the big monopolies. Everyone wanted to wish away Trump’s victory
against Mrs. Clinton who considered herself a follower of Obama’s policies,
painted by the hegemonic media under the sponsorship of Wall Street as a
‘defender’ of human rights; and as someone who would ‘save’ the most impor-
tant program of the Democratic Administration: the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (ppaca also known as ‘Obamacare’) and halt the deporta-
tion of undocumented people. The mainstream media ignored their warmon-
gering efforts against nuclear powers like China and Russia. There is nothing
new under the sun! Only the illusory design of public figureheads that appear
different in a perverse reality that threatens the very existence of humanity.2
2 During the Obama presidency, the US military bombed Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Paki-
stan, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. Since assuming his first presidential term on January 20, 2009,
the president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after bombing seven countries, arming the
Islamic State and provoking military conflicts in several countries (see RT January 20, 2016).
Like the Roman Empire, in the United States the power of the president is
almost omnipotent. The president is chosen indirectly every four years in No-
vember, not by the people, but by 270 delegates who make up the Electoral
College consisting of 538 members of the political elite of that country selected
in individualized ways by each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The presidential candidate is given the authority to select who will be the vice-
presidential candidate. The Electoral College was established in the original
US Constitution as a compromise between direct election by a popular vote of
eligible citizens and election solely by a vote in the US Congress. It is, there-
fore, an indirect vote and not an electoral system based on universal, direct
and secret voting—as seen in other capitalist countries—since 1787 when the
founders of that country decided not to trust their citizens but rather to de-
posit all the weight of the election on the States. That system was ratified by
the Twelfth Amendment to the US Constitution (Amendment xii) in 1804 and
survives to this day, not without presenting serious problems. In the 2016 presi-
dential election, for example, it was demanded that the votes be recounted.
Many in some states, especially Democratic Party supporters, asserted suspi-
cions that electoral fraud had occurred. The ‘popular vote’ gave the Democratic
candidate a majority of around three million votes, making Trump announce
that in the event that he lost the election, he would not recognize those results
(Wolff 2018).
From a certain angle, Trump is the product of television and of the anti-
democratic electoral system. In effect, as Goldstein says (La Haine May 14,
2017):
He won the presidency using his television career as a springboard and

through taking advantage of the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party
leadership, and his campaign strategists also took advantage of the anti-
democratic institution of the Electoral College to win an electoral victory
while losing the popular vote. (Clinton was certainly also an enemy of the
people: corrupt, militaristic and owned by Wall Street.)
Of course, without forgetting his participation in the overthrow of democratically elected

presidents such as Manuel Zelaya in Honduras (deposed and expelled from the country on
June 28, 2009) and Fernando Lugo in Paraguay (dismissed through a controversial impeach-
ment trial on June 22, 2012), as well as his, albeit covert, role in the recent parliamentary
coups d’état that have been seen in Latin America in recent years. For a global perspective see
Petras January 10, 2017. Along this same line, on March 9, 2015, President Obama issued an
interventionist decree declaring Venezuela to be “a threat to the security of the United States”
that was rejected both by the Venezuelan people and by popular, social and union move-
ments throughout the world. (For a definition of the Democratic Party and Obama, see
Unión del Barrio August 15, 2017.)
16 Chapter 2
A heap of analyses, opinions, and reports, from mass media and from social
media networks, were diffused to coincide with the speeches of the candidates
in an attempt to persuade the general public to support and vote for them. Mrs.
Clinton’s discourse was practically the same as the arguments of past Demo-
cratic presidents, prioritizing warmongering threats against Russia and Chi-
na.3 Meanwhile, the xenophobic, racist and conservative Trump primarily
went against the undocumented and immigrants in general. He promised to
‘recover’ the power of the United States—framed in what is known as ‘Ameri-
can Exceptionalism’ (Lipset 1996)—through protectionist policies that already
existed under the neoliberalism of the ‘free market’ that is in crisis today. By
the way, it is not the only occasion in which this ebullient euphemism has been
evoked (for a critical view, see Hodgson 2009).
Thus, for example, the US president Barack Obama spoke of the ‘exception-
alism’ of the United States before the 68th UN General Assembly, as a response
to the article written by his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin for The New
York Times (see Putin September 12, 2013) where he questions this national
singularity proclaimed by the leader from the White House. In his speech
Obama stated “some may disagree, but I believe that the United States is ex-
ceptional, partly because we have demonstrated good will, through the sacri-
fice of blood and money, advocating not only for our own interest, but for the
interests of all”. In this regard, the analyst Eric Draitser (September 29, 2013)
addressed Obama’s speech and said that the old notion of the exceptionality of
the United States has deep roots in the American psyche but that now the
world has undergone a ‘tectonic change in global geopolitics’ that puts into
question the superiority of Washington. For Draitser this really means the de-
sire of the United States:
to assert its right to dominate politically, economically and militarily or in

any other way where it deems appropriate … Obama is using this rhetoric
to put himself above Putin morally, above the Chinese, and above any of
the so-called ‘troublemakers’ in the UN Security Council … The language
that Obama is using is used not only to show that, somehow, the United
States is above other countries, but also that it is above international law,
3 “Clinton… is furiously anti-Russia and is one of those who are pushing to use nato, Ukraine
and so on, to surround Putin’s Russia, and we must not forget the country that is now the
biggest boogeyman: China” (Valenzuela 2017: 107). In fact, as Chomsky (2017, 204–205) says
“… the hawks in Washington see China as a potential enemy of the first order, and a good part
of the military planning is being oriented according to that eventuality”.
above the same institutions that the UN represents, and above all that
has happened since the Second World War.
Draitser concludes that all of Obama’s anger against Russia and Putin corre-
sponds to the fact that Russia does not accept ‘exceptionalism’ and that we are
seeing ‘a tectonic shift in global geopolitics’, since the countries that 10 years
ago would not have dared to question the notion of exceptionality and the ca-
pacity of the United States as well as their right to assert its military authority
throughout the world, are now doing so.
Unlikely as it is, Trump has promised the resurrection of a protectionist
industrial capitalism that will promote a process of ‘re-industrialization’ that,
according to him, was strongly damaged by the previous Democratic adminis-
trations, especially through nafta. As a representative of the interests of US
industrial capital, Trump said he would promote protectionism, even threaten-
ing to impose sanctions and taxes on entrepreneurs who intend to invest and
take their factories abroad, particularly to Mexico where real hourly wages in
dollars are 10 to 14 times lower than those in the United States. In this protec-
tionist context, Trump said that he would apply compensatory taxes consisting
in the imposition of a 35% tariff on all those companies and capital that leave
the United States (see Table 4 and Figure 5). Even members of the Austrian
Marginalist School, under the emblematic figure of the Nobel Prize for Eco-
nomics, Friedrich von Hayek—father of austerity policies—were left stunned,
since for advanced and dependent capitalism these types of policies were
functional in the ‘Welfare State’ environment that today everyone repudiates,
especially neoliberal entrepreneurs, the main supporters of the ‘free market’
such as the imf and WB.
It is evident that with the protectionist policy proclaimed by the new presi-
dent of the United States, this situation will be exacerbated, not only for Mexi-
can workers, but also for Americans themselves. In fact, the ravages on this side
of the border are already beginning to appear due to demands to prevent the
installation of new transnational plants of North American origin in Mexico,
from which they extract multimillion-dollar profits at the expense of the
super-exploited labor force. Thus, Trump managed to convince the owners of
the American company, Carrier, which specializes in air conditioning equip-
ment, to halt a move of their factory to the state of Nuevo León, Mexico, suppos-
edly ‘saving’ around a thousand American jobs in Indiana. Will the owners of this
company maintain workers’ wages 10 or 14 times higher than those that would
be paid to Mexicans, whose income is historically low? Similarly, the transna-
tional company Ford, at the behest of Trump, decided to cease the expansion
18 Chapter 2
of its factory in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. We must point out that this American
policy, though attributed to Trump, is not new.
In this regard, Juárez (November-December 2017: 16) notes that following the
2008–2009 crisis, the uaw union and the management of the three major North
American car companies (GM, Chrysler and Ford) signed agreements in 2011
cancelling investments that were to be made during the next 5 years in Mexico,
Brazil and China with the reorientation of said investments to the United
States. Under this new government administration we will have to see how they
will solve the problem of having to pay much higher wages per hour in the Unit-
ed States, with a differential of up to thirty times that paid to Mexican workers
(see Figure 5). Therefore, from the point of view of business and capital, it is an
inconvenience to return these companies and jobs to the United States, being
that in congruence with their capitalist interests they are looking for low-wage
countries and regions in search of extraordinary profits. Remember that capital
has no homeland; it has only interests. And it defends them at all costs!
We must emphasize that one of the comparative advantages between Mex-
ico and the United States, in terms of immigration and the global cycle of
capital, has been precisely the economic annexation of the former by the lat-
ter country (see Saxe-Fernández 2002). This is coupled with agricultural and
manufacturing production based largely on export maquiladoras command-
ed by international capital. The Mexican economic system has specialized in
the massive export of supernumerary, cheap, docile and flexible labor that
does not practically count with human and labor rights and that has nurtured
the ranks of the army of workers in the United States allowing the bosses of
this country to obtain large and juicy profits in industry, profitable agricul-
tural activities and services of all kinds (see Chapter 6). Therefore, undocu-
mented activity is not, as the Republican president thinks, something harmful
to the economic cycle and the reproduction of capital. On the contrary, it
turns out to be the greatest advantage that American capitalism has in order
to obtain high rates of exploitation and an accumulation of surplus value de-
rived fundamentally from the combined mechanisms of intensive and exten-
sive labor and the very low salaries that, even today, are located below the
wages of Chinese workers and other countries of the so-called third world
(see Figure 5).
This is one of the advantages that help explain the historical dynamism of
the US economy since at least the 1960s. That is why we say that the protec-
tionist policies that President Donald Trump threatens to impose as part of his
security and labor practice are not only doomed to failure, but also will have to
be redesigned by Congress confronting the rebellious and competitive reality
of a complex global capitalism in a secular crisis whose internal dynamics have
established the mechanism of the super-exploitation of the labor force as the

best system of production of surplus value and capital accumulation based
upon the flexibility of labor, labor deregulation, low wages, the precariousness
of the components of the world of labor, and the evisceration of workers’ social
and contractual rights practically all over the planet.
In our view, the illusory nature of this policy is not so much that it cannot
be materialized, since the history of capitalism has shown that it has been in
different times of its development. In fact, it was imposed during the crisis of
subprime mortgages during the crisis of 2008–2009 with the intense inter-
vention of the State to save the fictitious capital from wreckage. But the fact
that this proclamation, with a certain dose of demagoguery coming from a
businessman-president prone to liberalism, is made at a time when global cap-
italism faces more than merely a crisis of globalization or of the ‘free market’
economy identified with the capitalist practices of neoliberalism. It is a sys-
temic and civilizational crisis that is part of a secular cycle of decadence, not
only of capitalism as a form of accumulation and exploitation of the labor
force, but as a mode of production and life, in whose heart Humankind no
longer has any future or, if it has one, it will be within barbarism, its own ex-
tinction (see Mészáros 2001).
From another perspective, perhaps this is the best way to kill the goose that
lays the golden eggs, which largely explains, from the 19th Century to the pres-
ent, the ‘American miracle’ and its ‘exceptionalism’. It is evident that in the
current era of so-called globalization or monopolistic globalization of capital,
the main advantage, not only comparatively but also competitively, on a world
scale is precisely the wage differentials, which tend to fall all over the world. In
this neo-imperialist era of high concentration and centralization, extraordi-
nary capital gains are the engine of contemporary capitalism (Marini 1996)
and are preferably based on the super-exploitation of the labor force, so that its
price is constantly pressed downward, contributing to the increase of unem-
ployment, the average exploitation rate in the system, the flexibilization of the
labor force and its precarization, as well as the deterioration—or disappear-
ance—of labor rights and benefits such as pensions and retirement, social
security systems, training, scholarships, food vouchers, housing and health
programs, among others.
Another factor that deserves our attention is that the United States cannot
be treated as any other country with which it could be compared to (Mexico,
South Africa or Brazil). Additionally, and different from these, it is the main
representative and chief of the capitalist-imperialist world system through its
economic and financial organisms: such as the imf and the WB; diplomats,
such as the UN; the ministry of the colonies, as is the oas to the United States;
20 Chapter 2
and militaries, such as nato. This is often forgotten and as Chomsky (2017: 222)
says “… It is often misleading to focus on a single region of the world, forgetting
that Washington plans on a global scale”, a practice that Petras and Veltemeyer
(2005: 14) say is:
… a project of world domination, submission of peoples and countries

around the world to the interests and the dominant power of an imperi-
alist state. Imperialism, according to this definition, takes on different
forms and involves the application of economic, ideological, political and
military power.
Even ex-president Carter defined the United States as an “oligarchy with un-
limited power to bribe” (The Intercept July 30, 2015).
So we affirm that any representative of the executive of the imperial presi-
dency, independent of the party to which they belong and from being elected
by the College of Electors, essentially does not change the vocation or the im-
perialist practices of the United States. At most they govern and make decisions
in their own peculiar way, but obviously within the unalterable framework of
its imperialist policy throughout the world. It is in this context that we must
view the differences between Barack Obama and Donald Trump on matters
such as immigration and Free Trade Agreements, foreign interventionism, do-
mestic politics, healthcare, and sanctuary cities, to mention just a few topics of
interest.
As a result of Hillary Clinton losing the presidential election in the Electoral
College, a campaign was launched that sparked hysteria in the corporate me-
dia, among the Left’s own intellectuals, and even those on the Right, creating a
sense that Trump was going to bring about the ‘end of the world’. It was seen as
the mephistophelian stage of ‘human civilization’, as if we were not already in
the aftermath of a civilizatory hecatomb caused by capitalism, threatening the
very existence of humanity. This narrative was prevalent in the media, such as
in the pro-Clinton cnn, whose spokespeople predicted that she would be the
winner of the electoral contest. Since it did not go their way, a whole series of
‘explanations’ were discussed to justify what had transpired. The truth, essen-
tially, was that the ritual was fulfilled and the president-elect was precisely the
one who threatened to expel from his country 3 million undocumented im-
migrants in a first wave because, in his opinion, they were rapists, thieves, mur-
derers, vicious and all other kinds of qualifiers, exposing his deep racism and
xenophobia. The furious onslaught of the US President against migrant work-
ers, especially against 11 million undocumented Mexicans was widely repudi-
ated by social organizations in the US.
Part of the myths and fallacies that motivated sectors of the electorate, in-
cluding Hispanics, to vote for the Republican candidate were the following: (a)
immigrants take Americans jobs; (b) there is a very limited number of jobs,
therefore, a greater number of immigrants will bring more competition that, at
the same time, will put downward pressure on salaries; (c) undocumented
workers, foreigners, particularly Mexicans that constitute the majority, are vi-
cious, rapists and criminals and ‘degrade’ the public and social life of Ameri-
cans; (d) North American unions are against immigration because it ‘harms’
the white American working class; e) immigrants do not pay taxes; (f) they are
a burden on the economy; g) they send remittances to their countries of origin
and ‘harm’ the United States, causing strong fiscal deficits; and h) they repre-
sent a ‘danger’ because they are invading the United States (see Chomsky 2011).
All these myths promoted by the dominant media controlled by Washing-
ton caught the minds and consciences of a one-dimensional North American
society (Marcuse 1964) currently in a deep crisis—which, among other expla-
nations, is the crisis of the ‘American way of life’ and the so-called Welfare
State. The corporate controlled media manipulates this malleable society with
ideas using mass media, electronic and social networks, and helped propagate
the poor arguments that the Democratic candidate presented throughout her
campaign. These arguments were guided by the policy guidelines implement-
ed by her party and those marked by the class interests of financial capital—
forming an ideological orientation that resulted in the election of the Republi-
can candidate. It is evident that this ideological spectrum radiated by the
North American ruling classes and the national and international media will
damage Mexico-US relations and, in particular, cast shadows of uncertainty
over the populations of both countries. On top of all of this, in the face of struc-
tural, financial and monetary crisis, remittances from the United States are
central to obtaining foreign currency in Mexico due to the precipitous drop in
oil derivatives due to the decrease in the average price of the mixture. Mexican
oil exports fell from $116 to $53 dollars per barrel in March 2012 according to
the Ministry of Economy of the federal government. Remittances also remain
the main source of foreign currency because tourism has been affected by the
violence of the repressive and counterinsurgent practices of the Mexican State
throughout the national territory, including massive violations of human rights
that help create a climate of widespread insecurity in the country that ‘scares’
tourists and visitors.
In short, we are looking at an imperialist system, as portrayed by Lenin and
other Marxist analysts (see Bellamy 2015), that does not change despite the ar-
rival of Trump or of any other person who has been elected. The United States
is an active protagonist despite the increase in its problems and its relative
22 Chapter 2
decadence4 as some authors linked to world system analyses, and dependency

theory, demonstrate. Indicative of this loss of United States supremacy is the
fact that the Obama administration fell as a heavy burden on a government
already reaping the most negative results of recent decades. Not only because
the Democratic candidate lost the elections in the Electoral College amid a
series of criticisms and after having shown that she had the support of Wall
Street and financial capital, and not because Obama never fulfilled his prom-
ises to push for immigration reform in his two terms of government, but also
because of the serious limitations of successfully imposing his aggressive poli-
cies against various nations of the world. A paradigmatic case is Syria, where
the imperialist project commanded by the United States and terrorist groups
against the legitimate government of President Bashar Hafez al-Assad is being
lost, thanks in large part to the military, logistical and strategic support pro-
vided by Russia as an allied power. It must be remembered that at the same
time that the government of that country proclaimed that it was about to de-
feat the terrorist forces in Aleppo, the United States and the UN proposed a
‘ceasefire’ the intention being to use that truce to their advantage and to re-
group and strengthen the forces that the State Department called the ‘the
moderate opposition’. The United States failed to overthrow the legitimate gov-
ernment of Syria that enjoyed overwhelming military support from Russia, fi-
nally achieving the liberation of the strategic city of Aleppo by defeating and
expelling the terrorist forces that sought to divide it in favor of the geopolitical
and strategic interests of the West and the United States, in the same way they
did to Iraq. TeleSur television reported that in mid-September 2017 the Syrian
army had achieved total control of 85% of the national territory, at the same
time predicting an imminent victory.5 The important thing is that up until now
the Syrian-Russian strategy of maintaining Syria’s territory and nation-state in-
tact has come out on top. Similarly, and also without success, there were at-
tempts at overthrowing the democratically elected Bolivarian government.
It is noteworthy that in the absence of solid arguments to explain the defeat
of Mrs. Clinton and the triumph of Donald Trump, the emotional outgoing
speech given by Obama went as low as to accuse the Russian president, Vladimir
4 For illustration of this relative fall of the United States, even at the military level against pow-
ers the size of Russia and China, see Sapir 2008.
5 On December 8 and 9, 2017, respectively, the Russian Ministry of Defense, President Putin
and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced the complete liberation of the Syrian
territory and the final and complete defeat of Daesh (Islamic State). Meanwhile Iraq officially
announced the end of the war against Daesh and the defeat of the Islamic State. Both cases,
especially the first one, meant a resounding strategic failure of the military option for the
United States.
Putin, of being the architect of the victory. According to him (cyber) espionage
was used against the Democrats and their candidate. Yet, it was Mrs. Clinton
who was discredited by the fbi for endangering the security of the State
through controversial emails. At his annual conference, the Russian president
stated: “The administration of the outgoing President of the United States,
Barack Obama, divided the nation by calling for voters to not vote for the Pres-
ident-elect (Donald Trump), that was a step that divided the nation”. He also
recalled that the Democratic Party not only lost the presidential elections, but
also the Senate and Congress where Republicans now have the majority. Mock-
ingly Putin asked, “Is this also my work?” in reference to the accusations that he
was directly responsible. He added: “All of this shows that the current Admin-
istration suffers structural problems and the elite of the Democratic Party does
not understand the real situation”. He took the opportunity to assert “I think it
is positive that 37% of the voters of the Republican Party sympathize with the
Russian President … That means that a large part of the American people have
the same idea of how the world should be, sharing common problems and
dangers” (efe and AP, Moscow, Russia, December 23, 2016).
Another event of undeniable importance was the approval by the UN Secu-
rity Council, on December 23, 2016, of a historic resolution condemning the
Israeli settlements in the West Bank with 13 votes in favor of the members of
the Security Council and the surprising abstention of the United States. For the
Palestinian government, this represented a heavy blow against Israel. However,
it was leaked that Trump, in coordination with the government of the latter
country, tried unsuccessfully to prevent the adoption of that resolution. This
gives an indication of its foreign policy on the Middle East in the next months
and years6, as well as in other regions such as Latin America, especially in rela-
tion to Cuba and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela today besieged by the
internal forces of the extreme right. There was also a declaration by the US
government saying they will not rule out military intervention against this
South American nation. Kurt Tidd, the admiral and head of the United States
Southern Command, signed operation “Venezuela Freedom-2” agreeing to un-
conventional war aimed at the overthrow of the constitutional government of
Venezuela in order to reinstate the right wing government and return it to the
neoliberal Fourth Republic controlled by the United States.
6 With the announcement of the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem (which is the legal
and legitimate capital of Palestine) on December 5, 2017, Trump recognized Jerusalem as the
‘capital’ of Israel. This aroused strong and intense reactions of unrest in different countries,
governments and international organizations that considered such a unilateral decision to
have enormous repercussions for the global peace process in the Middle East.
24 Chapter 2
In the context of the crisis of the global capitalist system, these events mark
a turning point in world history characterized by the relative decline of the
supremacy of the United States, as commander of the imperialist system, in
the context of the emergence of new powers of undoubted nuclear stature
such as Russia, China, India, North Korea and Israel among the most impor-
tant, and with undoubted capacity to destroy the planet several times over.
However, even under these conditions, US military spending in 2016, accord-
ing to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (cited by Peterson
Foundation June 1, 2017) totals $611 billion against $511 billion that is the total
for China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, the United Kingdom, Japan and
Germany.
It is not by chance, therefore, that the rhetoric of the elected president of
the United States revives old protectionist and nationalist policies, practices
and ideologies accompanied by rabid racism, particularly against non-white
communities, exacerbating xenophobia and making promises that are practi-
cally unrealizable. He promises for ‘the good of the American people’ and ‘hu-
manity’ to revive what was once called ‘American exceptionalism’ that will
return to them the old imperial power that it enjoyed historically against prac-
tically all the countries of the world, particularly in the post-World War ii
period. This ‘ideal’ of the elected businessman makes one recall the racist
stench pronounced by a California State Attorney in 1930: “… It was us whites
who found America first and we will protect ourselves in our enjoyment of it”
(Chomsky 2011: 4).
As president-elect, Trump caused his first diplomatic incident with China
by having a telephone conversation with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen,
prompting the Chinese Foreign Ministry to file a complaint. This broke with
diplomatic protocol that had existed for decades, something that may not
have happened if the president-elect had been Mrs. Clinton. Inside the Unit-
ed States the racist and xenophobic promulgation of Trump and his entou-
rage of the ‘white’7 (as they like to self-qualify assuming that you can classify
the human being into ‘races’ as you do with animals) engulfs North American
social and political fabric, intensifying racism and encouraging fascist and far-
right organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, to hold open demonstrations in
support of the president-elect. Thus we have the uncovering of the sewers of
7 In his first speech as president Trump said: “Today’s ceremony has a very special meaning …
Because today we are not simply transferring the power of one administration to another, or
from one party to another, but we are transferring the power of Washington, to give it to the
people”. Reading between the lines this phrase refers to that ‘white race’ that founded the
United States.
historical racism and violence, as well as an enkindling of class struggle in the

United States. It should be mentioned that there are around ‘784 active hate
centers’ (Sanders in Tasini 2015: 143). An unfortunate event occurred in Char-
lottesville, Virginia on August 14, 2017 when a known ultra-right and white
supremacist group took to the streets to defend a statue of Robert E. Lee, a
general of the Confederate slave states during the Civil War. During this event
a white neo-Nazi man killed one person and injured several other people who
had joined the anti-fascist counter-protest. The media and others have said
that this incident took place because of President Trump’s racist policies, in-
spiring and encouraging racists with his statements.8
These examples demonstrate that all social, political, cultural, geo-strategic
and military problems that surround the practices of imperialism on a global
scale in no way depend on the personality of those who temporarily assume
the political crown of the ongoing global power (United States). On the con-
trary, it is the historical-structural conditions of multiple relationships and
determinations of class struggles, economic and political crises, natural ca-
lamities and environmental disasters that are the main problem. It is the
implementation of neoliberal economic policies under the auspices of the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. And it is the annexation of
countries and territories, coups d'états, crises of bourgeois democracy and an
endless number of problems whose solutions are far from being found that are
central. These are what in the long term determine the action of the rulers and
the peculiar way in which they affect the course of imperialism’s development
on a global scale.
8 Although from an earlier period in the US, we must mention the horrific massacres perpe-
trated by unhinged individuals such as the one that occurred in Blacksburg, Virginia on April
16, 2007 where there were 33 dead and 29 injured; Tucson, Arizona with 6 dead and 14 injured
on January 8, 2011; the July 20, 2012 tragedy in Aurora, Colorado with 12 killed and 59 injured;
and that of December 14 of the same year with 20 dead children and 6 adults in Newtown,
Connecticut. A terrible massacre left 59 dead and 527 injured at a country music concert on
Sunday, October 1, 2017, perpetrated by a shooter from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay
Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Yet another tragic event occurred on February 14, 2018 (on Valen-
tine’s Day, a day paradoxically meant for love and friendship) perpetrated by a 19-year-old
student, Nikolas Cruz, with a R-15 semi-automatic rifle that killed 17 students and injured 14
people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the city of Parkland, in southeastern
Florida. The ngo Gun Violence Archive reported that in less than two months of 2018 there
were already 30 mass shootings. However, before these atrocities occurred the government
neglected to reform the laws that allow the indiscriminate sale of weapons and their use.
Because for the system in the US, like war, this business means juicy profits defended with
blood and fire by parliamentary leaders and governmental authorities.
26 Chapter 2
The White House businessman is a genuine representative of North Ameri-

can imperialism who, beyond his egocentric, authoritarian and remarkably ag-
gressive profile, does the job for a system that began to be built in the second
half of the 19th Century. Imperialism is an economic, political and domination
system, whose raison d'être is territorial expansion, the dispossession of peo-
ples, communities, countries and entire regions, that does not hesitate to re-
sort to use of force and war (Selser 1994, 1997, 2001). A Republican triumph in a
capitalist world that is currently submerged in deep systemic crisis and deca-
dence is perfectly natural. That is why it is completely secondary if the Impe-
rial Presidency is occupied either by Bush, Obama, Clinton or Donald Trump.
At most, the only thing that changes is ‘the style of governing’, but only within
the structural order of the geopolitical and military interests that overdeter-
mine it and whose synthesis expresses the unity of the military and financial
leadership within the US power bloc.
It is a delusion, to say the least, to think that the course of history would
have changed radically if it would have been Hillary Clinton, or someone else
in power. Ultimately, the behavior of the United States would not change, for
example, in Latin America in terms of attempts to overthrow the progressive
governments (of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador) considering what they have
already done, in Argentina and through the parliamentary-institutional coup
in Brazil, for the benefit of US interests, the imf and the WB. To forget that
premise is to attribute the essential dynamic of changes to circumstantial,
secondary and subjective factors such as the election of a candidate, the par-
ticularities of his or her performance, and his or her personal good or bad in-
tentions. By doing this we misunderstand that social and human phenomena
run and are constituted as historically determined global products that dialec-
tically articulate multiple relationships that explain their nature and their
dynamics within a concrete totality.9 These facts, we insist, are typical of an
imperialist system regardless of who heads it. The most serious thing is that
sectors of the left have assumed these theses to the extent to the extent of de-
fending ominous and neo-Pan-American treaties such as the North American
Free Trade Agreement (nafta), present characters of the ruling elite such as
Mrs. Clinton or Obama as ‘democrats and human rights defenders’ and, what
is more regrettable, cite them as the architects that will ‘solve’ the serious crisis
of the global capitalist system, not understanding that this crisis is a genuine
9 Against the fragmentation of knowledge, the American philosopher, quantum physicist and
disciple of Albert Einstein, David Bohm (2002: 32), labeled the method of holistic, procedural
and non-divisible apprehension, as “Totality Not Divided into Flowing Movement”.
product of its structural, social, political, environmental and military contra-

dictions that far exceed the individual actions and the will of the rulers.
It is logical and completely viable to think that Trump’s presidential man-
agement, a team of white billionaires in power, will affect the world with its
peculiar way of intervening in domestic and global events. These facts reveal
the behavior of a ruler in the unalterable framework of imperialist politics that
all the representatives of the United States obey, both in their own country and
in relation to the nations of the world. Not to abide by these guidelines may
even imply the dismissal of the president in turn, as happened, for example,
with President Richard Nixon after losing the war in Vietnam.
In our opinion, the emphasis placed on protectionist politics constitutes a
historical turning point in international relations which the United States
maintains with Mexico and, of course, with Latin America. There is an impulse
to apply a ‘nationalism at all costs’ that recalls the best moments experienced
during the Great Depression of the 1930s where, alongside the expansion of US
imperialism, there were internal measures designed to ‘protect’ the United
States from the economic crisis and the attacks from abroad. That was the fa-
mous ‘New Deal’ consisting of a set of measures implemented by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1937 to counteract the causes of the
economic crisis that erupted in 1929. It was based on a protectionist policy that
aimed to guarantee the recovery of the growth rate of the United States through
programs to combat unemployment and sponsor a future development that
was ultimately not achieved. It was only after World War ii that the United
States finally emerged as a super-power in the international sphere, only to be
contained by the other superpower, the extinct Soviet Union.
The ultra-nationalist Trumpism recalls the most nefarious moments of furi-
ously anticommunist McCarthyism driven, in the context of the Korean War,
by Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Cold War period in the
United States (1945–1985). Today we can just add supremacism, sexism, xeno-
phobia and racism to the mix and we get a complete picture of the character-
istics of the Trump administration for the next four years and beyond.
The emergent revival of protectionism in the United States represents a fail-
ure, and at the same time expresses the crisis of the neoliberalism of the imf
and of great international capital, that by blood and fire prevailed in the last
three decades with greater or lesser intensity across the world. In a way the
bottom of the iceberg was revealed with the defeat of Hillary Clinton who rep-
resented the interests of financial capital both in the United States and outside
of it. The triumph of the Republicans was characterized as disastrous yet, ac-
cording to the Department of Commerce, US gdp grew only 1.6% in 2016
28 Chapter 2
(see Table 2), the weakest growth since 2011 and slightly above the average for
the period 2007–2013, which was 1.1% (see Table 5).
The policy and strategy of Trump intends to promote protectionism within
the United States that will tentatively allow it to recover its deteriorated indus-
trial and educational system with a view to recovering the so-called ‘American
exceptionalism’ and, by this means, counteract its visible loss of hegemony in
the international system.10 But let’s not be naive; it will continue to impose the
free market, commercial openings, privatization, and the classic restrictive
and monetarist policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank externally. That is, in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East they will
maintain and intensify their destabilizing policies, especially in Syria, when it
suits their expansionist and militaristic interests. In this context, war is only a
pretext to hide policy and strategy failures.
A project of this nature requires time and investment to create the possibil-
ity of counteracting the deep contradictions of a capitalism in a systemic crisis
that is increasingly immersed in a quagmire without an exit from economic
stagnation, expanding unemployment, precarization of work, and the sharp-
ening of the struggles of classes and all kinds of conflicts and social calamities.
These conditions drive them to recover their rates of profit by revitalizing the
war and weapons economy, combined with the increase in exploitation and
the super-exploitation of the labor force (see Chapter 7 of this book).
We will have to see what happens first, a ‘rebirth’ of that prototypical indus-
trial economy of Fordism-Keynesianism that flourished in the first half of the
20th Century with a ‘Welfare State’ and a workforce with ‘reintegrated rights’,
or the term of a failed administration that has to rethink its imperialist project
of capitalist redeployment on other bases and in a global context completely
different from what it was after World War ii. What needs to be understood
fundamentally, in the long term, is that the two exhausted ‘projects’ are not
viable for the ‘saving of capitalism’ on either side of the border and in the inter-
national environment. It will take at least more than four years. It remains to
be seen whether Trump can manage to incubate the industrial-production egg
in the belly of the worn-out American capitalist system before it explodes in
his face! You cannot compare the administration of a Trump hotel brand with
an extensive and complex country like the United States that lives inside the
convulsive and chaotic world capitalist economy.
10 For a prospective of thought tanks see National Intelligence Council January 2017.
2 Executive Orders and the North American Crisis
There’s a dangerous imperialist hologram that inhabits the mind of Donald

Trump and which radiates rays of light in opaque circles that gradually dissi-
pate until they vanish. Flanked by borders and walls that divide it, not only
geographically, physically, territorially, and culturally, the United States intends
to ‘shield itself’ from ‘external enemies’ such as the bulky and ‘dangerous’ hu-
man crowds, including millions of undocumented Mexican workers that the
new government equates with terrorists. It intends to do this by using its pow-
erful military and anti-immigrant paramilitary groups (such as the official bor-
der patrol) and racists (such as the Ku Klux Klan, which most of the time is
supported and promoted by the United States). This is just a continuation and
deepening of Obama’s ‘border security’, in other words its militarization, only
now it is presented by Trump (Chomsky 2011: ix).
Donald Trump’s attitude should not be of any surprise, for in less than a
week he decreed two Executive Orders of enormous importance not only for
Mexico but for the whole world and, in particular, for Latin America. It is clear
that the businessman is the purest expression of the need to implement a pol-
icy that focuses on the defense and preservation of the interests of the capital-
ist system as a whole. This is done by trying to recover its own national space
through protectionism and an offensive against immigrant and undocument-
ed workers, especially the Mexicans whom it has super-exploited in a b arbarous
and cruel manner since the 1960s when Mexico, a dependent and underdevel-
oped country, became an exporter of a cheap supernumerary labor force to its
northern neighbor. In a decree on January 23, 2017, Donald Trump ordered the
official exit of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (tpp),
signed on February 4, 2016 by 12 countries in the Pacific and Asia that represent
around 40% of the world economy and one third of total international trade:
Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, Brunei, Canada,
the United States, Mexico, Peru and Chile.
It must be remembered that, among other objectives, this agreement pro-
moted by the United States was to counteract the growing increase of China’s
presence and influence in world trade and reestablish US power. The North
American Free Trade Agreement was signed on December 17, 1992, and came
into operation on January 1, 1994. Serious concerns and omens were raised
which assured everyone that in the event that the pan-Americanist fta disap-
peared, the world would enter into a schizoid situation of chaos and anarchy,
and the (capitalist) system would decompose. Obviously, in the promotion of
this calamitous scenario, the hegemonic media, with their seat in developed
30 Chapter 2
countries and correspondents in underdeveloped countries, play a central

role.
3 The Wall of Ignominy
On January 25, 2017, Trump decreed two Executive Orders on immigration

matters. First the construction of the border wall 3,000 kilometers in length on
the border between Mexico and the United States supposedly to “fight the il-
legal trafficking of people and drugs and prevent terrorist acts”. However, this
is not new. People forget that there was already around 1,600 kilometers of wall
and fences, whose building began in early 1994 during the Clinton administra-
tion, first in California and later in Arizona and New Mexico (Toro 2017: 228).
According to Wikipedia, on December 15, 2005, the United States Senate ap-
proved a plan to reinforce the border between the two countries and build:
… a border wall of about 1,123 kilometers, a length that could compare it to

the Great Wall of China. On May 17, 2006, the United States Senate ap-
proved by a majority (83 votes in favor and 16 against) the amendment that
foresees the construction of said wall with 595 kilometers of extension
plus 800 kilometers of barriers to prevent the passage of automobiles.
With this in mind, we must recall the lightning visit that the businessman
made to Mexico, while he was still a candidate for the presidency of the United
States, at Peña Nieto’s invitation (who was advised by Videgaray, with the
absolute silence of the members of Congress). Here he was emboldened, and
reiterated that he was going to build a border wall of 3,145 kilometers along the
border between the United States and Mexico to stop the flow of undocumented
immigrants. He went on to say: “I promise… it will have to be paid for by Mexi-
cans in any way, even by confiscating the remittances millions of undocumented
workers who work in the United States”. At his first press conference as Presi-
dent-elect, on January 11, 2017, Donald Trump reiterated the threat that Mexi-
cans would have to pay for the Wall of Ignominy between Mexico and the United
States, either through direct payment in cash, through taxes or through the im-
position of conditions that force the country to pay by pressing it during
the renegotiation of the Free Trade Agreement (nafta). Finally, on May 1, 2017,
the United States Congress approved, by 235 votes in favor and 192 against, the
defense budget presented by the White House for the amount of $788 billion.
Money which was requested as a budget for the Pentagon and of which $600
million will be allocated for the construction of some sections of the wall of
ignominy. Despite this, its construction becomes more and more remote.
4 Sanctuary Cities: the Dreamers or the Fallacy of the ‘American

Dream’
daca is the program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that grants
residence and work permits every two years. It is intended for those who came
to the United States ‘illegally’ when they were children. One of its benefits is
that those covered under daca temporarily avoid deportation; however, it
does not grant citizenship nor permanent residence. This has to be done
through other channels and procedures. People brought from childhood to the
United States are known as dreamers. There are around 800,000 of which
more than 622,000 are undocumented Mexicans who have been able to survive
in the United States without fear of being deported thanks to this program that
was created by decree on June 15, 2012 by President Barack Obama. However,
Trump canceled it on September 5, 2017. Trump now intended that applicants
would be investigated for criminal records or for being a threat to national se-
curity and they must be students or have completed military service. If they
pass the investigation, their deportation is deferred for two years with the pos-
sibility of renewal and they become eligible to obtain, for example, a driver’s
license, a work permit, or enroll in college.
Protesters from the threatened group denounced that around 800,000 peo-
ple would lose benefits under the envisioned cancellation of this program.
While final approval of the decree soon became embroiled in prolonged litiga-
tion, fear and stress set in for thousands of young people who remain in the US
in a state of defenselessness, even though the Department of National Security
has affirmed on several occasions that “… although they no longer have daca
protection …” these Dreamers are not a ‘priority’ for deportation since immi-
gration agents only endeavor to persecute immigrants with criminal records.
However, according to a study by the Center for American Progress about 8,000
undocumented youth, an average of 122 per day, have lost the benefits of daca.
The objective of the Trump government is to ultimately eliminate the ‘sanctu-
ary cities’ (approx. 300 across the United States) by suspending the federal
funds that have been allocated to them up until now. This measure equally af-
fects counties or states that refuse to provide federal authorities with informa-
tion on the immigration status of persons who are detained by the police. So
far, the mayors of ‘migratory sanctuaries’ refuse to collaborate with the federal
32 Chapter 2
migration authorities, claiming that they will not carry out functions of this
nature.
This Executive Order, together with others issued by the tycoon-president,
often declared through his twitter account, are supposedly aimed at guaran-
teeing ‘border security’ and the application of immigration laws, as well as
‘improving the internal security of the country’. This includes, among other
measures, the hiring of 5,000 border agents, the detention of ‘suspect’ persons
that violate state, federal and migratory laws, and the prohibition of the prac-
tice of ‘catch and release’ consisting of the release of detainees for immigration
violations. With this new provision the detainees will remain in police custody,
that is, prisoners, while their deportation is determined. Local and state police
officers will serve as ‘immigration agents’ through the reinstatement of the
287(g) Program, which is an agreement between local law enforcement agen-
cies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ice), which empowers po-
lice to enforce immigration laws, acquire resources (public or private) to build
‘immigrant detention centers’ and prepare reports that quantify and detail the
economic, military and humanitarian aid that the United States has given to
Mexico, directly or indirectly, in the last five years. This constitutes a state of
counterinsurgency and internal detention framed as internal security, making
all people ‘suspicious’ and ‘criminal’ before the gaze of agents and police until
they can prove their innocence.
Other domestic public security measures in the United States include:
enforcing the full application of immigration laws against all immigrants con-
sidered ‘deportable’ and using all available systems and resources to enforce
immigration laws; canceling funds destined to cities and counties called ‘sanc-
tuaries’; guaranteeing the ‘deportation of people with deportation orders’;
elaborating ‘lists of deportable persons’ that include all those considered by
the authorities to be a ‘risk’ for the public or national security, such as those
convicted or accused of committing crimes, immigrants who are involved in
fraud or people who have ‘abused’ public benefits or who have deportation
orders; and, imposing fines and sanctions on undocumented immigrants and
those responsible for their illegal entry into the national territory (the so-called
‘polleros’ who generally act with impunity, with the complicity of Mexican
and/or United States immigration authorities). Additionally, they plan to hire
10,000 agents for the Immigration and Customs Office (ice). From a position of
strength the State reserves the right to demand that the countries receive their
emigrants once they are deported from the United States under threat of im-
posing sanctions in the case of rejection or non-compliance. Using the threat
of extinguishing daca and building the wall, Trump declared in the media
that “… there can be no daca without the desperately needed wall at the
Southern Border and ending the horrible chain migration and the ridiculous
Lottery System of Immigration, etc. We must protect our Country at all costs!”
(Chicago Tribune December 24, 2017). In short, either daca is preserved along
with the wall or, if not authorized by Congress, the program must disappear
affecting thousands of immigrants and families.
Keeping with this line, the tycoon-president signed a decree, Executive Or-
der 13769, entitled: Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the
United States, dated January 27, 2017, prohibiting or delaying the entry into the
United States of citizens from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Ye-
men, and establishing that the citizens of these countries, predominantly Mus-
lims, will not receive visas to enter the United States until their situation is
‘determined’ by means of a thorough investigation. However, this last provi-
sion was soon to be suspended by judges, not without first causing irritation in
the population who had large protests and demonstrations of repudiation,
even in airports. A relative triumph was achieved after this social mobilization
that encouraged Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Federal District Court of Brook-
lyn (New York) to rule that refugees or other persons affected by the measure
cannot be deported back to their countries.
The Justice Department filed an appeal against the suspension and the busi-
nessman wrote in his twitter account: “Due to the prohibition being lifted by a
judge, many very bad and dangerous people may be entering our country, a
terrible decision”. This appeal was soon to be dismissed by judges, and to date
it has not come to fruition. Symptoms of social unrest against the pernicious
Executive Orders began to show a few days after the inauguration of Trump’s
mandate. It was recognized as an anti-democratic instrument of the American
political system which seriously damages the rights of thousands of undocu-
mented workers and immigrants, many of whom, having their papers in order,
would still have to leave the United States simply because they are Muslim.
There was also a conflict that brewed from another Executive Order, to re-
sume the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines sus-
pended by the previous president, Barack Obama. The two projects faced
strong resistance from environmental groups and indigenous peoples who de-
nounced the oil pollution that comes from tar sands oil whose production
emits 17% more ‘greenhouse’ gases. The Dakota Access Pipeline had already
caused protests and resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux indigenous tribe
who claimed that the construction of the pipeline would damage their sacred
burial grounds and contaminate the waters of the Missouri River on which
their way of life depends.
34 Chapter 2
5 Regional Blocks and the Automotive Industry in Mexico: the Rules

of Origin in nafta
The 1980s witnessed a process of transition centered on the exhaustion of the

mass production model (Fordist-Taylorist) that emerged in the first decades of
the 20th Century and developed widely after World War ii, and a new produc-
tion model called ‘flexible automation’ was implemented specializing in the
manufacture of the automobile. According to various specialized research this
model, also known as the ‘slender production system’, has the following
characteristics:
1) It gives extensive attention to the systems of training and specialization
of the workers with direct results in the increase of productivity, that is to
say, the organic relation between each unit of effective time of work on
the part of the workers and the type and use of the machinery and tech-
nology with which that work force is related in the productive space of
the factory.
2) Variation in the type of automotive products, both in the terminal indus-
try and in auto parts, accompanied by a fragmented diversification of the
markets. Unlike the Fordist-Taylorist model, a single product can address
the changing structure and the needs of differentiated and segmented
markets.
3) The Toyotist model revolutionizes production costs, since competition is
no longer verified only in terms of prices and salaries, but also in relation
to the quality and productivity of finished products. Hence the boom, in
the 90s of the last century, of the production method known as Total
Quality Management (tqm) of Japanese origin (Coriat 1991).
4) The development of the strategy of multiple and variable markets, driven
by automotive manufacturers and incorporated into other industries,
achieved a substantial reduction in the inventories of companies through
the adoption of production and administration mechanisms that have
strengthened social relations between the suppliers and the manufactur-
ers, and thus reached the possibility of planning more exactly for the
tastes, styles and needs of the consumers, through the ‘revolution of qual-
ity’ and not only for prices.
5) This led to the structuring of a new supply method known as Just-in-time
(jit) manufacturing (just-in-time production or the Toyota Production
System [tps]), which allows the simultaneous adaptation of production
(machines, raw materials, etc.) to the changing structure of internation-
al demand that claims evermore the elaboration of new products that,
under the previous system, was impossible to develop in terms of its

physical, technological, financial and market characteristics.
6) It is said that this new model of production and organization of work also
revolutionized demand, which made it possible to reduce the stocks of
the plants. However, this is exaggerated because, although the Just-in-
time system somehow made it possible to manage production according
to demand, it has not been able to solve, structurally, the large and com-
plex problems of overproduction of goods in capitalism.
On a global scale, the automotive industry has become the leading sector of
the industrialized countries that have substantially increased their levels of
productivity and the scales of competitiveness of their transnational corpora-
tions in various parts of the world. Therefore, in the last 20 years, but particularly
throughout the 1980s, the manufacturers insisted on promoting a p rofound
revolution in their forms of production and business organization that sub-
merged the entire branch into an intense process of restructuring, which has
been adopted by most companies in other industries.
We can affirm that the course of competitiveness and productivity in the
world will depend, to a large extent, on the form assumed by the global restruc-
turing of the automotive industry. Although at present it is concentrated in
a small nucleus of companies, they nevertheless make 70% of international
sales. Thus, for example, in 1987, in relation to total production, only 10 compa-
nies competed for the first places. General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Nissan,
Peugeot-Citroen, Renault, Chrysler and Fiat among others. At present, this is
still the automotive map led by the large transnational companies of Europe, the
United States and Japan, to which we can add some South Korean companies
such as Hyundai and Kia Motors, and China’s saic Motors. It is this productive,
dynamic core of the world automotive industry which leads the technical
innovations, the methods of business organization and work, the new config
urations of the markets and the new ways of supplying auto parts for the assem-
blers, as well as the territorial location of plants in different parts of the world.
The revolution and the restructuring of Toyota at the international level cre-
ated regions that produced for the automotive industry, which, in fact, can be
traced to the 1970s, 80s and 90s, when three large regional blocks appeared on
a global scale: the European region headed by Germany; the region of South-
east Asia led by Japan; and the North American region, led by the United States,
including Canada and Mexico.
The importance of the automotive industry in the negotiations of nafta
lies in the fact that it is a highly dynamic sector of the national industry in
Mexico, which, after the petrochemical industry, contributed 2.3% of gdp, and
36 Chapter 2
9% of the total of the gdp of the manufacturing industry in 1990. In the same
year this industry generated 10% of manufacturing employment, calculated as
some 400,000 workers distributed as follows: 60,000 in the terminal industry;
140,000 in the auto parts industry; 120,000 in the maquiladora automotive in-
dustry; and, finally, 80,000 that are occupied in the distribution chains of the
country. In 2015, this participation in manufacturing gdp reached 18.5% and
contributed 20.9% of manufacturing employment in this same year.
However, despite the importance of this industry at the national level, there
are a number of problems that concern the competitive insertion in the re-
gional context. In the first place, the fact is that it is an industry fully controlled
by the leading international companies such as General Motors and Volkswa-
gen, to mention two of the most important ones. Secondly, there is a low par-
ticipation of the maquila industries of Mexico in the national production
chains, since most of their production takes place in the United States and to a
lesser extent in Canada. Finally, due to the fact that:
… nafta has not meant a relevant factor for the growth of the productive
capacity of the industry, even though the commercial opening has repre-
sented the opportunity to increase sales abroad, at the same time the
country has increased consumption of imported goods: exports as a pro-
portion of gdp represent 28.5%, while imports 33.1%, with data for 2016.
idic August 2017: 1
From the above it is evident that the generation of deficits is only alleviated by
external indebtedness, cuts to public spending (including social spending),
and increases in taxes on the population.
6 nafta, the Tripartite Negotiations and Donald Trump’s Position
As the Republican candidate, as president-elect and acting president, Trump

declared that he would reform or, if necessary, abandon the North American
Free Trade Agreement (nafta) signed between Mexico, Canada and the Unit-
ed States, among other reasons, because he considers it an ‘unfair’ treaty and
because “it is one of the worst that the United States has signed … and has cost
thousands of American jobs”. A few weeks later a document was leaked, pre-
sumably an Executive Order that the president was going to sign, with the title:
“Notice of withdrawal from nafta” (Executive Order January 10, 2018). The let-
ter says: “… It is the policy of this administration to renegotiate, or withdraw
from, the trade agreement that does not serve the interests of the United States”
(Forbes April 29, 2017 and Reforma April 28, 2017). Trump backed his various
initiatives through threatening to reformulate the North American Free Trade
Agreement (nafta) as a ‘disaster’ for the United States: “nafta is a disaster for
the US economy. What we agreed to with Mexico and Canada is a disaster, we
are going to revise the treaty” (La Jornada April 21, 2017)11 he exclaimed. What
Trump does not say—and of course, this does not interest him—is that since
the treaty came into operation the number of Mexicans that live below the
poverty line has increased to 14 million and about 2 million small US farmers
have been displaced by big businesses (Sanders in Tasini 2015: 133).
The determination of the national content of 34% for the auto parts indus-
try and 62.5% for the Rule of Origin12 of the finished vehicles in the recent ne-
gotiations of nafta poses an important challenge to the national industry,
insofar as it will have to deepen its restructuring and confer greater national
content in relation to imports of auto parts, equipment and strategic automo-
tive inputs to face international competition in better conditions. Since the
negotiations of nafta began, the most difficult and controversial sectors to
define their ‘rules of origin’ have been productive branches as diverse as finan-
cial services, insurance, agriculture, energy, auto parts and terminal automo-
tive industry. In the case of this last industry, negotiations could be unlocked
by setting the ‘national content’ or ‘national value added’ at 34%, which should
contain the products of the auto parts industry of the three countries that
make up the Treaty and 62.5% as Rule of Origin or ‘regional content’, for all
those manufactured automotive vehicles that wish to enter the US and Cana-
dian markets and enjoy the Preferential Regime. That is, the elimination of
tariffs on the entrance of vehicles which prove to have a rule of origin. Trump’s
government proposes to increase the rule of origin up to 85% and convert it
from regional to national depending on each country, where evidently the
great beneficiary will be the United States because it requires that of 85%, at
least 50% come from the United States, to which the other two members of the
11 Trump: “nafta was a disaster and continues to be a disaster for our country”, “Remarks
by President Trump at Signing of the Memorandum Regarding the Investigation Pur-
suant to Section 232(B) of the Trade Expansion Act”, The White House, Washington,
D.C., April 20, 2017 in: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2017/04/20/remarks
-president-trump-signing-memorandum-regarding-investigation.
12 The rules of origin are the percentages that nafta requires the goods to contain. In this
case, automobiles, produced with inputs coming, in some percentage, from the region
that integrates the Treaty, in this case, North America (United States, Mexico and Cana-
da). They are included in Annex 401 of nafta that refers to the local content that they
must have in the products that are exchanged between the countries so that they are free
of tariffs.
38 Chapter 2
Treaty are opposed. Above all, Mexico is hurt the most because it is a depen-
dent and underdeveloped country without a proper national industry, exclu-
sive of maquiladoras that are predominantly transnational.
Below we summarize the results of the Fourth Round of negotiations of the
Free Trade Agreement held in the United States. We collected the information
from the Reforma newspaper (October 17, 2017).
This is the regional content, particularly of automobiles, that must be man-
ufactured in the nafta region in order not to be penalized with tariffs. For cars
and pickup trucks:
− Regional content: from 62.5% to 85%.
− US content: 50%.
The United States government is pushing for an ‘expiration clause’ to be incor-
porated into the fta that stipulates the obligation to renegotiate every 5 years
to evaluate its extension or its extinction in terms of US interests. In addition,
the United States government is pressing to eliminate Chapter 19 on the ‘Settle-
ment of disputes and conflicts’ between members of the fta, such as anti-
dumping and countervailing measures to make it voluntary to appeal or not.
Experts estimate that the costs of an eventual exit and extinction of the fta
would result in the loss of some 50,000 jobs in the auto parts industry in the
United States if Mexico and Canada impose tariffs as they did before the sign-
ing of the fta. The increase in the international regional content of origin in
automobiles is calculated to cause losses of about 24,000 jobs in the United
States and 1,000,000 jobs in Mexico, together with the collapse of production in
branches such as textiles and automotive that are strongly integrated to the
North American economy. Canada, too, would lose around 125,000 jobs.13
7 Conclusion
The United States government’s stance to promote protectionism and all kinds
of policies aimed at compensating the United States in the economic crisis and
to recover its ‘exceptionalism and unilateralism’, must be observed in a context
of multipolarity and competition between powers at the international level.
For the workers, this does not mean that their living and working conditions
will gain substantial improvements with the promises of the government
headed by Trump. Furthermore, from the perspective of the world of labor,
13 For the background, as well as for different topics of the fta, see Sánchez (coordinator),
tlc, Twenty Years, Ratings and Perspectives, Juan Carlos Editor-lxii Legislature of the
Senate of the Republic of Mexico, 2014.
they will have to deal with the consequences of such protectionist policies that
are completely favorable for capital and the ruling class, with the deterioration
of the real wages of the workers and the increase of the average rates of exploi-
tation and super-exploitation of the labor force.
In the next chapter we address the debate on the effects of such policies on
living and working conditions, with particular emphasis on the ongoing pro-
cess of extending super-exploitation in productive and labor systems that seri-
ously affect working class immigrants, though with greater or lesser intensity
in accordance with their struggles, their demands and their specific location
within the class structure of American society.
Part 2
Debates on the Extension of Super-Exploitation
in Advanced Capitalism
∵
Chapter 3
Dependence and Super-Exploitation
This chapter aims to explore the theoretical perspective of the exploitation of

work in Marx. In the chapter following, we discuss the relationship of one of
the most important theses of the Marxist dependency theory (tmd) elucidat-
ed by Marini: the extension of the super-exploitation of work to advanced
capitalism as a new form of the expanded reproduction of capital, to counter-
act the economic crisis of capitalism and the growing problems in the produc-
tion of value and surplus value that press the fall of the average rate of profit in
the system.
1 Theory and Method of Exploitation in Marx
With respect to Marx’s theory of the exploitation of labor, some observations

are imposed that have often been misunderstood or ignored by the critics of
Marxism and dependency theory. In the first place, Marx erects his enormous
work (Capital), at a very high level of abstraction. Thus, for example, in relation
to the theory of value, it supposes a situation in which this value corresponds
to its price. A correct methodological question that, nevertheless, does not
mean that this is indeed the empirical behavior in the historical reality of the
capitalist mode of production.
Secondly, the concept of exploitation of labor, as the fundamental social
relation of historical capitalist society, for Marx is a relevant concept that
builds the theory of surplus value and profit within the capitalist mode of pro-
duction and no other. That is, in the absence of the concept of exploitation, the
elaboration and understanding of the law of value is unimaginable as the cen-
tral axis of capitalist production and accumulation. The German author al-
ludes to this himself when he writes:
Every production enterprise of merchandise is, at the same time, a com-

pany for the exploitation of labor power, but under the capitalist produc-
tion of merchandise, exploitation becomes a formidable system, which,
as it developed historically with the organization of the process of work
and the gigantic progress of technology, it revolutionizes the entire eco-
nomic structure of society and eclipses all previous epochs.
marx 2000. Vol. ii, p. 37

44 Chapter 3
To forget this premise, or to omit it, in the analysis of the concrete reality of
the capitalist social relations of production is not only to limit the structural
view from which the totality is appreciated, but also to grossly distort the social
and labor reality producing fragmented and fetishized visions that hide funda-
mental relationships. This brings us to a third observation, relative to the fact
that from the definition of the law of value, Marx exposes the methods of
exploitation of labor identified with absolute surplus value and with relative
surplus value, as those basic to the reproduction of the capitalist system in a
long-term historical context. This means understanding both forms of surplus
value as articulated concepts within a specific historical-social formation, in
which work processes and social relations of production are combined. The
periodization that arises from these two concepts of surplus value is none
other than the one that incorporates the predominance, or lack thereof, of the
productivity of labor based on technological development over the extension
of the working day and the intensity of work or its articulation.
That is, it sets the tone for studying the genesis of the development of the
capitalist mode of production in its multiple articulations and definitions that
result from it. Strictly speaking there is no independent phase of capitalism
that has been based exclusively on the prevalence of absolute surplus value (in
the prolongation of the working day) and another phase that left that behind
to build on the exclusive domain of relative surplus value. Rather, we consider
that since the industrial revolution that began in the second half of the 18th
Century, in which this form of surplus value began to gain ground until it
became hegemonic throughout the entire system, the other forms and mecha-
nisms corresponding to the first, and other forms of production such as coop-
eration and craft work, coexist with it and unfold in each historical process of
its substantial development.
In other words:
…the periodization of capitalism, according to Marx, is not resolved in a

period in which absolute surplus value prevails and another in which rela-
tive surplus value prevails, but in the manufacturing period in which, to-
gether with the extension of the working day, the method of extracting
absolute surplus value, we can observe the increase in the intensification
of work and its standardization, a method of production of relative surplus
value, with which the real basis for the full validity of the law of value is felt.
Thus, the empire of the laws of the market and a manufacturing period in
which the pressure of capital increases in favor of the prolongation of the
day, a tendency counteracted by the workers’ struggles for the reduction of
Dependence and Super-Exploitation 45
it and, on the basis of the industrial revolution, the productivity of labor is

developed. It is also a method of production of relative surplus value,
opening horizons to the deployment of the productive forces only limited
by the relations of production in which it is framed.
marini, sotelo and arteaga 1981: 66
It is from here that we must view the prism of Taylorism, Fordism and mass
production up to the modern systems of organization and exploitation of the
workforce centered on today’s flexible Toyotism. Each one of them involves
social relations immersed in a virtuous combination for capital supported
both in the forms of production of absolute and relative surplus value. Some-
thing we will return to later when we analyze the super-exploitation of the la-
bor force.
Finally, let us consider that the attempts to establish an ‘inverse proportion-
ality’ of the absolute and relative surplus value in the texts in which the theory
of the super-exploitation of the labor force has been developed, are derived
from an enormous incomprehension of the different forms that it, the surplus
value, can assume in its concrete articulation within certain conditions of pro-
duction and circulation of capital. Therefore, it was necessary to carry out this
task to locate the specificity of capitalist exploitation in dependent countries,
even if they resemble, according to some authors, the historical dynamics of
classical capitalism.
Unlike other authors within the framework of dependency, the entrepre-
neurial task to develop a political economy of dependence and exploitation in
Latin America was undertaken, precisely, by Marini. It is this line of work that,
in our opinion, deserves to be deepened, in order to comprehend the contem-
porary conditions and contradictions of capitalist exploitation.
2 The Marxist Theory of Dependency and Marini’s Ideas
In his Dialectic of Dependence, Marini formulated an outline for the Marxist

dependency theory, a noble task which is open to contributions since it is a
passport to present and future generations of intellectuals, students, academ-
ics and collectives that are investigating and publishing in Europe, Argentina,
Brazil or the United States. It is a critical perspective in the face of the domi-
nant theories with roots in Eurocentric ideas that spread from the centers of
power since the 1980s and 90s in the midst of the capitalist crisis and the disin-
tegration of the socialist bloc and that, today, are in a systemic crisis.
46 Chapter 3
An example of this is the International Monetary Fund that, faced with the
bankruptcy of the American firm Lehman Brothers in September 2008,
logically, from its ultra-neoliberal perspective called for State intervention to
‘save capitalism’ and overcome its difficulties. While the most conspicuous rep-
resentatives of international fictitious capital were backing away from their
market laws and appealing for State aid to save themselves from ruin and bank-
ruptcy, capitalism was being restructured by ‘structural reforms’ in Europe and
throughout the world, which is on the verge of recession and the deepening of
its difficulties in the economic, political, social and military orders.
In the words of Vasconcellos (2014: 23–24):
the guru of monetarism, Milton Friedman, can be considered as the god-

father of the current financial crisis. Yet now he is not the economist of
the moment, because what is taking place today on the stage of the impe-
rialist right is the need to return to Keynes. Even Bill Gates and George
Soros, facing the crisis of sub-prime mortgages, are stating that they are
Keynesians which does not mean that they are progressive and advanced,
because Keynes himself wanted to make England a minor ally of the
United States and since 1933 was dedicated to avoiding the collapse of
capitalism.
Now it is up to Donald Trump to try and avoid this collapse with supposed
protectionist and interventionist state policy measures.
What Marini does in Dialectic of Dependency is to take up Marx, Lenin,
Bukharin and other authors, such as Mandel, including Brazilians and Latin
Americans, and build categories and apply them to the study of the develop-
ment of the laws of the Latin American dependent capitalist social formation
which on a concrete level makes it possible to chronicle the country and the
region since:
…capitalism penetrated Latin America at the national, regional and local

levels. Planted by the metropolis, the capitalist structure is ‘ubiquitous’
throughout the geography of the satellite. With the arrival of colonialism
what was a pre-capitalist geography became capitalist, so it would not
make sense to designate it ‘pre-capitalist’.
vasconcellos 2014: 67
Marini’s thought is bold, deeply critical, objective, concrete and projective. He

easily forges categories and concepts that allow one to erect suggestive hypoth-
eses and create a specific theory: that of dependency. The basic categories
touched upon for this are: labor-value, surplus value, super-exploitation, profit,
land rent, reproduction pattern, unequal exchange, transfer of value, social
classes, state (counterinsurgency, fourth power), sub-imperialism and antago-
nistic cooperation. Without these there is no dependency theory and there
would only be a sociological-Weberian or other approach to dependency such
as that of Cardoso and Faletto (1969) that privilege the mode of domination,
class alliances and a dependency category that is just a transitional one that
can be overcome without overcoming capitalism—which is what Marini right-
ly proposes. For this, he takes up Lenin’s theory of imperialism and simultane-
ously incorporates Marx to build the formulation of super-exploitation theory
and only later integrates unequal exchange to then arrive at the definition of
dependency:
…understood as a relation of subordination between formally indepen-

dent nations, in which the relations of production of subordinate nations
are modified or recreated to ensure the expanded reproduction of depen-
dence. The fruit of dependence cannot but reap more dependence, and
its liquidation necessarily supposes the suppression of the relations of
production that it touches.
marini 1973: 18
In his Written Report, Memoria (Marini 1991) which was a requirement for his
reincorporation to the University of Brasilia, Marini himself considers that
Dialectic of Dependency is an ‘undeniably original’ text that helped to open
new paths for Marxist and Latin American studies in the region. It locates, us-
ing a different perspective, the study of the Latin American reality under the
socio-historical specificities of our countries. It is also considered that there
are other texts that are complementary and essential to the original: “The Cy-
cle of Capital in the Dependent Economy” (Marini 1979: 37–55); “Extraordinary
Capital Gain and Accumulation of Capital” (Marini April-June, 1979: 19–39);
and “State and Crisis in Brazil” (Marini July-September, 1977: 76–84), which was
material he prepared for an open competition to obtain a position as a profes-
sor on the Faculty of Economics at the National Autonomous University of
Mexico.
These texts show that there was a logical and dialectical continuity in Mari-
ni’s writings, articulated with the fundamental notions that he originally raised
in Dialectics of Dependency and that, definitely, had nothing to do with struc-
turalism, nor with the functionalist theories of modernization and underde-
velopment. In my opinion this overlap updates the main point of the Marxist
dependency theory in the general framework of Marxist thought in the 21st
48 Chapter 3
Century as the only critical doctrine and methodology of capitalism in all its
forms and extensions to the set of dominant paradigms.
The synthetic approach of Marini in Dialectics of Dependency articulates the
super-exploitation of labor with the development of productivity (this is also
linked to relative surplus value) in the dependent countries, thus discovering
their intimate correlation and structural differences with developed countries.
Marini highlights that:
…influencing a productive structure based on the greater exploitation of

workers, technical progress made it possible for the capitalist to intensify
the pace of work of the worker, raise their productivity and, simultane-
ously, sustain the trend to remunerate them in a proportion inferior to its
real value (1973: 71–72).
And in another essay he says:
…but once an economic process has been launched on the basis of super-
exploitation, a monstrous mechanism is launched, whose perversity, far
from being mitigated, is accentuated by the dependent economy’s tech-
nical progress which increases productivity.
marini 1978: 63–64
Marini thus demonstrates that the super-exploitation of labor restricts the in-
ternal markets of consumption of the majority of the population, especially
the salaried, so the dependent system tends to turn to the outside to solve its
problems and ensure its cost effectiveness. Thus, for example, the unfolding of
the Latin American export economy is a phenomenon that was projected from
the mid-19th Century to the mid-20th Century, something that has been fully
documented by the historians of the region.1 Again, as Marini warned, Latin
America’s economy, which today is in crisis, has been unfolding abroad since
1982 in an incessant search to try to alleviate its difficulties of production of
goods through productive specialization for the world market.
In regard to this, Marini’s approach is as follows:
The unbalanced configuration of the Latin American economies, with a

marked preponderance of the sumptuary goods industry, and the restric-
tion of their markets, determined primarily by the super-exploitation of
1 For example, Halperín 1993, Cardoso and Brignoli 1979, and from the perspective of the Marx-
ist dependency theory, Vitale 2011.
labor and expressed in a growing concentration of income, actually

pushed them towards the crisis, leaving them no other alternative than
to—parallel to the attempt to open new fields to foreign investment,
which reproduced in an expanded way the initial contradiction—try and
achieve preferential external markets….
marini 1996: 52–53
It is not by chance, therefore, that today most of the Latin American countries,
progressive or neoliberal, rest in two patterns of accumulation and reproduc-
tion of capital sustained in mono-exporting economies, although with a certain
degree of technological development with respect to the basic characteristics
that they developed during the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries.
On the other hand, since the 1950s—when industrialization in Latin Amer-
ica was carried out, particularly in the largest countries of the region, Argentina,
Brazil and Mexico—absolute and relative surplus value began to be articulat-
ed in the field of emerging industries. In particular, transnational companies
began to import their investments, their technological patterns and their
methods of business management and workforce, as it occurred for example in
the automotive industry with the Fordist-Taylorist system of mass production
in the long post-war period. Thus, a dogma was created which stated that the
full development of capitalism under the leadership of transnational monopo-
listic companies and of foreign capital in dependent countries was finally
possible.
With the advent of capitalist development over ‘national bases’ through in-
dustrialization, it was thought, in effect, that dependence was definitively
‘overcome’. But in reality:
…when many believed that this transition ‘extinguished’ dependency

and the theory that sustained it, Marini’s thesis on the super-exploitation
of labor was superimposed on the economic-social reality of the region
and was redefined according to its structural features.
luce 2012: 119–141
In support of the verification of this hypothesis, in the course of the 1960s, the
largest dependent countries in the region, particularly Brazil, began to experi-
ence recurring structural crises and merchandise production, but operating,
unlike in the past, on an industrial base and not only on the old export econo-
my of raw materials and food (Marini 1973: 75).
In the course of the 70s, this situation would push the economies of the re-
gion in countries such as Chile, Argentina or Brazil to embark on the path of
50 Chapter 3
productive restructuring to adjust their economies according to the world

market. An approach that in the Marxist dependency theory was developed
under the concept of capital reproduction pattern implying dialectical articu-
lation between production, distribution, exchange and consumption (see
Marini 1982).
For Marini, the basis of this pattern is the super-exploitation of labor which,
as a production and exploitation regime articulates the intensification and
prolongation of the working day, and the expropriation of the part of labor
necessary for the worker to intensify his labor force, defined as “…a mode of
production founded exclusively on the greater exploitation of the worker, and
not on the development of his productive capacity” (Marini 1973: 40, my own
emphasis).
For Marini this mode of production—in contrast to what his critics
affirm—does not annul, in the dependent economies, the relative surplus value.
On the contrary, it develops in a restricted manner. It does not generalize, it
does not impose its logic, nor its hegemony in the production and accumula-
tion of capital—as it does in advanced economies—even in periods of intense
industrialization as occurred in Latin American countries in the last quarter of
the 20th Century. Particularly in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, which signifi-
cantly increased their industrialization coefficients in the postwar period until
the end of the 70s.
This thesis marks the substantial difference between industrialized and de-
pendent capitalism. In the first, there is the increase in the productive force,
where the hegemonic regime that was imposed after the industrial revolution
in England, is commanded by relative surplus value. In particular, where it
helps to reduce the amount of socially necessary work time for the production
of the value of the work force and, consequently, the necessary working time,
which results in an increase in the mass of surplus value and, therefore, in the
quota. In addition, relative surplus value governs the reproduction of capital as a
priority and overdetermines the process of constitution and the concrete variet-
ies assumed by the super-exploitation of labor in the context of its historical-
structural specificities (see Biondi Guanais 2018).
On the other hand, in dependent economies, things happen differently, al-
though within the process of capitalist production. Here, the super-exploitation
of labor is the hegemonic category that subordinates relative surplus value
that is developed restrictively along with other mechanisms of exploitation of
labor, from archaic forms of exploitation and production such as absolute sur-
plus value, servitude or slavery, but completely subordinated to the logic of
super-exploitation. In this regard, Marini’s conclusion is clear:
…The conditions created by the super-exploitation of labor in the depen-

dent capitalist economy tend to hinder its transition from the production
of absolute surplus value to that of relative surplus value, as the domi-

nant form in the relations between capital and labor. The disproportion-
ate gravitation that takes place in the dependent system of extraordinary
surplus value is a result of this and corresponds to the expansion of the
industrial reserve army and to the relative strangulation of the capacity
of production. Rather than mere accidents in the course of dependent
development or elements of transitional order, these phenomena are
manifestations of the particular way in which the general law of capital
accumulation affects the dependent economy. In the end, it is the super-
exploitation of the work that we have to refer to in order to analyze them.
marini 1973: 100, our emphasis2
From this thesis it follows that dependent capitalism develops in function of

super-exploitation, without stagnation—as critics unfoundedly claimed—and
reinforces it at the same time as it hinders the generalization in the productive
system of relative surplus value that in advanced capitalist countries is hege-
monic and overdetermines the other forms of exploitation, in particular, abso-
lute surplus value. The most important conclusion we can draw from above is
the one that indicates that, as a result of both forms of exploitation and of the
various regimes of production of surplus value, integrated economies are so
constituted and these are the advanced capitalist ones and those not integrat-
ed into their territorial-national spaces (dependent and underdeveloped):
…the developed countries have two triumphs in hand: the first is their
immense superiority in terms of research and development, which is
what makes technical innovation possible; there is a real technological
monopoly that aggravates the dependent condition of other countries.
The second is the control exercised in the transfer of industrial activities
to the most backward countries, both for their technological capacity and
investment, a control that acts in two ways: one, prioritizing the transfer
of industries less intensive in knowledge to the most backward countries.
Two, dispersing the stages of merchandise production between different
nations, thus preventing the emergence of nationally integrated economies
… These two faculties, which are the privilege of the developed centers,
have an impact, as they have always done, on the international division of
the work in the plane of the production.
marini 1996: 58–59, my own emphasis
2 This emphasis highlights that Marini worked with the general laws of capitalism while focus-
ing on the particular forms assumed in a dependent economy including the super-exploitation
of labor.
52 Chapter 3
In order to eradicate the erroneous characterization of Marini’s thought as be-

ing ‘economic reductionism’ it is necessary to emphasize its indication—that
many of its critics have omitted, sometimes deliberately—particularly that “…
the implications of super-exploitation go beyond the plane of economic analy-
sis and must also be studied from the sociological and political point of view”
(Marini 1973: 101).
Taken together, the essence of Marini’s thought exposed in his works in
terms of the theory of dependence3 is the super-exploitation of labor, which
consists of remunerating work force below its value, the structural basis of the
cycle of capital of the dependent economy that develops and reproduces, even
with the development of labor productivity and relative surplus value, to the
extent that the latter fails to become hegemonic in the economy and society,
being partly responsible—together with the action of the State and private
capital—of underdevelopment and the backwardness that characterize our
societies in general. From which it is inferred that the expanded reproduction
of dependence extends and intensifies as global capitalism develops, at the
same time that strong movements of extension of the super-exploitation of
labor are manifested in the economies and in the productive systems of the
advanced capitalist countries and in the international economy.4
3 Importance and Validity of Dependency Theory
One may or may not agree with Marini about the central theses that emerge
from his conception of dependency theory. But what can certainly not be ig-
nored is the original contribution that, in our opinion, Marini makes in the
specific field of the exploitation of labor, that is, the fact of proceeding to link
organically and dialectically the forms of relative and absolute surplus value
(the headache, or the nemesis, of the critics) with the development of labor
productivity. Therefore, it is technology that the neoclassical and developmen-
talist authors, together with the investment of capital, perceive as both ‘pro-
ducer of value’ and of ‘social development in general’ hiding its deep lacerating
3 See Marini Memoria, 1982, in http://www.marini-escritos.unam.mx/, where the author

recounts the intellectual biography of the theory of dependence and its fundamental
contributions.
4 For the role played by super-exploitation of labor as a lever for the development of productiv-
ity, an issue that involves relating the current flexibilization of the labor force and labor mar-
kets with the dynamics and consequences of the introduction of new technologies in Latin
America, see Luce June 2012: 119–141.
and degrading effects on the world of labor. Let us insist that this last proposi-
tion means that dependency theory in no way moves in the field of the t heories
of the economic stagnation of neoclassical line, as the critics claim unfound-
edly, but in the unharmonic and anarchic capitalist development in macro and
microeconomic conditions of structural dependence. Marini says that the cen-
tral thesis in this regard is that the more technology develops the more that
exploitation of labor takes place, and not the other way around.
In our opinion, this is true for the following reasons. First, because histori-
cally Marini’s dependency makes it impossible at the structural level to carry
out the central thesis that the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Lat-
in America and the Caribbean has proposed since its inception: that, insofar
as Latin America developed industrialization and import substitution, retain-
ing and reinvesting ‘technical progress’ and developing domestic markets—
particularly in the relatively more developed countries such as Brazil, Mexico
and Argentina—would reach their full economic ‘autonomy’ to the same ex-
tent (Rostow 1960; cepal February 1962: 1–24; and Prebisch 1987).
Not only has this not occurred in the last decades, but on the contrary we
have increasingly seen, as Marini proposes in various works (Marini 1992), a
deepening of the hard and characteristic features of dependence, although
with a changing of their forms: subordination to the world market; super-
exploitation of the labor force; unequal exchange of value and surplus value
for the benefit of the advanced capitalist countries, the fourth power and
antagonistic cooperation; lag of the productive systems of the consumption
needs of the working masses; and sub-imperialism (Marini 1973, April–June
1977, 1985 and 1985a).
The liberal, social democratic and neoliberal currents present a flattering
outlook for the ‘developing countries’ (inspired by World Bank approaches)
and a panorama that tends toward ‘independence’ and to the ‘sovereignty’ of
nations and the labor force. On the contrary, the dependency thesis of the
super-exploitation of the labor force sees a tendency to the exacerbation of the
super-exploitation of the labor force, stimulated to a great extent by the flexi-
bilization of the work that occurs in the productive dimension of our econo-
mies and societies.
Marini’s original contribution that so deserves our attention consists in the
following affirmation. That Latin America contributed to hasten the passage
from absolute to relative surplus value in classical capitalism at the time of the
industrial revolution; a concrete idea that becomes the guiding thread of any
contemporary theorizing on the super-exploitation of the labor force. There-
fore it is necessary to at least think about the following topic: the role that
contemporary Latin America is playing as a wage region for the development
54 Chapter 3
of industrialized countries such as the United States, Western Europe and

Japan, especially in light of the conversion of many of our countries, such as
Mexico, into food importing countries. In this directive, the nafta is regis-
tered between the United States, Mexico and Canada around very low salaries
that Mexican workers earn, 10 or 15 times less than those of the other two coun-
tries. Even at the inter-professional level, this wage difference can reach up to
30 times per hour (see Chapter 8).
Another important issue is the role played by the super-exploitation of
labor as a lever for the development of productivity, an issue that implies re-
lating the flexibilization of the labor force with the introduction of new tech-
nologies in Latin America. The increase in the productivity of labor, whether
in its production of relative surplus value or not (when it does not affect the
cheapening of the goods and services that constitute the value of the labor
force) in every way deepens the super-exploitation of the labor force and at
the same time increases the rate of capital gain by producing a greater quan-
tity of goods. Marini’s approach in this regard is that the super-exploitation of
the labor force does not deny the possibility that dependent countries be-
come specifically capitalist, because it never opposes the concept of super-
exploitation with the behavior of the development of labor productivity
in dependent countries, nor even on the basis of relative surplus value, which
is developed but subordinated to the super-exploitation of the labor force
regime.
Take two texts from Marini himself where we find the dialectical relation-
ship between super-exploitation and productivity. In the first Marini writes:
…influencing a productive structure based on the greater exploitation of

workers, technical progress made it possible for the capitalist to intensify
the pace of work of the worker, raise their productivity and, simultane-
ously, sustain the tendency to remunerate it in proportion less than its
real value.
marini 1973: 71–72
And in another sentence he states:
…but once an economic process is launched on the basis of super-

exploitation, a monstrous mechanism is launched, whose perversity, far
from mitigating, is accentuated by the dependent economy who resorts
to the increase of productivity through technological development.
marini 1978: 4
No one can doubt that in our countries, particularly since the 1950s, the import
substitution industrialization in Latin America developed strongly and the
production methods of absolute and relative surplus value were articulated
under the hegemony of the latter in the exclusive field of cutting-edge indus-
tries (electronics, automotive, durable consumer goods, capital goods) com-
manded by the predominantly North American transnational corporations.
These import their investments, their technological patterns and their meth-
ods of business management and force of work as it happened, for example, in
the automotive industry with the Fordist-Taylorist systems of mass production
promoted after the World War ii and, later, with Toyotism of Japanese origin in
the 80s coinciding with the entrance of neoliberalism and the so-called market
economies with a predominance of monetarist approaches, imposing austeri-
ty and reducing public spending to the detriment of social spending.
On these points, which deserve to be illuminated through critical and objec-
tive analysis, some elements have been advanced. For example, Marini (Pref-
ace 1993) defines globalization as the process centered on the generalization of
the law of value, that is, in the determination of socially necessary labor time
for the production and reproduction of the labor force in truly international
conditions for the first time. However, we must clarify that this diffusion in no
way implied overcoming the structural dependence of the Latin American
countries, much less the super-exploitation regime that prevails to this day. In
addition to conceiving in this novel way the process of globalization as that
legal-institutional framework for nations to settle their international relations,
Marini also highlights the debate on the question of the super-exploitation, as
that process that would not only be exclusive to the Latin American dependent
economies, but, with globalization and the structural and superstructural pro-
cesses that accompany it, would be generalizing to less and less restricted work
environments and to the work processes of the industrialized countries them-
selves, affecting more and more generalized segments of the working class of
those countries (Sotelo 2010 and 2012).
Such is the case, for example, of the automobile industries within the Free
Trade Agreement (nafta) of Mexico with the United States and Canada,
where the existence of a labor force ten or twelve times cheaper in Mexico
with respect to the other countries, has made Canadian and American manu-
facturers move their factories to Mexico as a means to achieve a decrease of
the real wages of the workers of that region of ‘North America’, stimulating at
the same time the growth of the industrial army of reserve and, therefore, the
increase in the rates of exploitation of work. This is what, in essence, Marini
refers to when he talks about the universalization of the law of value, which
56 Chapter 3
qualifies, basically, as a process of historically ongoing globalization that, al-

though unequally, affects all salary scales both at the minimum and inter-
professional levels that operate in the same branch of production. Here we
must note that while both the determination of wages and the formation of
the value of the labor force are strongly influenced by national conditions, never-
theless the globalization of the law of value implies that, beyond their historical-
structural differences and macroeconomic, socially necessary work time for
the production of goods, the labor force is also influenced by international
conditions through productive investments in work processes, financial sys-
tems, the implementation of cutting-edge technologies and, finally, by the
growing influence of networks such as the internet in the conditions of opera-
tion and determination of the law of value and labor markets (see Alves 2018).
It is in this context that we place the flexibilization of labor as a device of
the new pattern of capitalist reproduction specialized in production for export
as the most refined product of the most significant structural and institutional
changes that have been occurring in recent years in terms of the international
division of labor, mainly through structural reforms promoted by the State.
The result consists, from the point of view of capital, in the fact of conceiving
this flexibilization of work as the ergonomic decomposition5 of the workplace
of the worker of the unitary elements that integrated it, such as salaries, con-
tractual category and functions performed, in independent and polyvalent ele-
ments to be reactivated according to the needs of production and the changing
dynamics of the markets by introducing ruptures and tensions in the world of
labor (see Chapter 8, on Work and social tension). Obviously, this does not
break with the centralization of the capital of said components but it controls
them through business management by means of sophisticated procedures
that allow their rationalization and improvement in the production and work
processes. This flexibilization has caused new phenomena in the spectrum of
the labor world that, in our opinion, tend to worsen living and working condi-
tions in addition to fortifying the super-exploitation regime, that is, the effec-
tive articulation between the production of absolute surplus value, relative
surplus value and the expropriation of part of the consumption fund of the
labor force and the consequent reduction of wages below the value of the la-
bor force:
a) The determination of wages by the levels of labor productivity, a trend
that is currently immersed in the economic policies of modernization in
5 Ergonomics is responsible for the study of man-machine systems; more precisely it is defined
as the “communications technology in men-machine systems” (de Montmollin 1967).
Latin America and in the advanced capitalist countries. This is a phe-

nomenon that works against the worker to the extent that the trends to
stagnation of wages, or its clear decline, are increasingly independent of
the movements of the productivity of companies, which even when they
are rising they do not benefit the salary scales, much less the economic
and social benefits as seen in the United States.
b) The search for efficiency and international competitiveness of fixed capi-
tal in determining globalized value. This issue implies greater techno
logical dependence to the extent that the productive, monetary and
commercial cycle of the technical-scientific processes of the dominant
technological pattern is monopolized by the large industrialized centers
and, in particular, by the monopolistic firms of transnational corporations.
c) Finally, wage policies that blur their social and welfare dimensions
through a State that increasingly minimizes its responsibilities to the
economy and society by following the hardest canons of neoclassical and
neoliberal manuals. The laissez faire in this neoliberal capitalism acquire
their full dimension both against workers and humanity.
The flexibility of labor, as a juridical-institutional device of the ongoing pro-
ductive restructuring of the new pattern of capitalist reproduction, appears to
show in its socio-labor aspect what is substantial within the process of transi-
tion from one labor paradigm to another. That is the deregulation of work and
the weakening of collective labor contracts for their subsequent conversion
into flexible devices, easily adaptable to the needs of accumulation and valori-
zation of capital in the structural dimension of factories and capitalist mar-
kets. As we pointed out, to promote these processes of deregulation of the
world of work, capital has been imposing labor reforms in the most diverse
countries of Latin America, Europe and the United States, to codify laws, regu-
lations, codes and statutes that consecrate the new rules of the game that will
operate the antagonistic worker-employer relations (Sotelo April–June, 2013
and May 2, 2017; Thè and Soriano September 22, 2016).
Against the affirmations that confer a functional and positive correlation
between technological development and improvement of working conditions,
we support the following corollary: this correlation is deployed in a way that is
inversely proportional to that proposed by the ideologues. The greater the
technological development and increasing incorporation of state-of-the-art
technologies in production and work processes, the greater the unemploy-
ment generation through the bankruptcy of companies and massive and/or
selective dismissals, stimulated by restructuring, privatization policies and
transnational commercial opening. These are conditions that arise from the
analysis of the Marxist dependency theory and its guiding principle sustained
58 Chapter 3
in the category of super-exploitation within conditions of a process of struc-

tural dependence that has been reinforced by technological modernization
that, at the same time, drives a further advanced development of dependent
capitalism into the sphere of the interests of big financial capital and of the
modern fraction of the world and Latin American bourgeoisie, at the expense
of decimating the working and living conditions of thousands of Latin Ameri-
can workers who, seeing their fundamental rights violated, have no alternative
but to go to precarious employment, accept low wages that do not meet their
needs with high exploitation rates via prolongation of the working day, labor
intensity or wage reduction as has been happening in recent years. This is one
of the conditions that capital and the State demand of workers to maintain
their sources of employment. For those segments of the labor force that do not
accept these conditions or that do not fit into the restructuring plans of the
companies, the future that awaits them is to be located in the ‘informal sector’
of the economy or, frankly, in open unemployment and in misery.
4 Formulation Level of the Marxist Theory of Dependency
I believe that it is necessary to follow the footsteps of these theoretical-

methodological and research premises to locate the dimension of the contem-
porary Latin American dependent capitalist social formation that is the level
at which Marini is located, in order elaborate the Marxist dependency theory.
In this regard, in an interview, Marini says:
…dependency theory is not born as Marxist thought, it incorporates

Marxist instruments … the more it advances in its approaches, the more
it needs Marxism until finally it is considered entirely on the plane of
Marxism.
sotelo July–December 1990: 53
For this reason the author insists that only Marxist theory could study and un-
derstand dependence fully, so the structural-functionalist elements had to be
extirpated and completely overcome for the explicit purpose of producing a
new theoretical elaboration (Marini 1992: 102).
A large amount of criticisms of the Marxist dependency theory—many of
them unfounded and with very weak arguments—were forged ignoring the epis-
temological level that emerged in the political debate of the mid-1960s in Latin
America. This basically explained the problems of backwardness, dependence
and underdevelopment, as well as the paths of transformation and liberation.
In part, this was why there was a silencing impact from the Brazilian military
dictatorship and the intellectual and media censorship that it institutionalized
and which, in the case of Marini, provoked exile from his country for about
20 years. His thinking and fundamental contributions are scarcely being uncov-
ered and reread in Brazilian classrooms, universities and academies even
now. Even the dominant left, for example, in universities such as São Paulo or
unicamp continue to ignore his work. Most Latin American academic centers
today give an extremely restricted and marginal reception to his work.
Marini (1978: 57–106) held a heated polemic with the Brazilians Cardoso and
Serra (1978: 9–55) forcing him to respond with important clarifications of his
main elaborated expositions in Dialectics of Dependency. However, only a few
years ago this controversy was barely known in the Portuguese language in
Brazil. From the beginning, apart from Cardoso and Serra’s criticisms that were
published, he was virtually unknown in his own country. As Vasconcellos (2014:
114) says, Marini was censored before the unscrupulous attack of the Brazilian
authors in the cebrap magazine that one of them directed. It was only after-
wards, because of the efforts of Marini’s colleagues and friends that his master-
ful response was to become known to the youth and the general public, even
outside Brazil. And in particular, thanks to the Mexican Journal of Sociology of
the unam in 1978. With this in mind, it was the ignorance of Marini’s thought,
as well as of other authors linked to him, which made it possible to ignore
these polemics and the discussion of the theoretical-methodological and ana-
lytical level of the Marxist dependency theory.
Vania Bambirra reflected upon the Marxist dependency theory in an inter-
esting book published in Mexico in 1974, republished in Portuguese by the Uni-
versity of Santa Catarina6 forty years later. In the newer publication’s Preface,
Bambirra states that:
Many thought that the dismantling of Salvador Allende’s government

would lead to the decline of the theory that had influenced his program
but this did not happen and it continued to flourish as a theoretical
framework for understanding the reality of Latin American societies not
only in the works of its developers, its disciples, academic works, but
also in the influence that it exerted on the leaderships of the revolution-
ary movements, and continues to exert on the progressive and socialist
6 Fortunately, the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Brazil, reissued this book by Bamb-
irra, in 2013 for its dissemination in Portuguese to the Brazilian public, especially university
students.
60 Chapter 3
governments that were elected and that are governing in several coun-
tries of the continent.
bambirra 2013: 26, our translation
A vital question must be asked: is the breakdown of structural dependence not

part of the agenda in those countries? We must reconsider this essential issue
for social change and the future of the peoples of Latin America. It clarifies
that the road to socialism through peaceful means practically throughout the
world is a very remote and almost exceptional possibility. However, without
giving a final verdict in this regard, Bambirra tells us in her preface that the
phenomenon of the emergence of progressive governments in Latin America
takes place in a context of crisis that she considers a terminal crisis of the sys-
tem that can lead to a more or less peaceful transition without civil war or
general insurrection. It is obvious that the author is thinking of the cases of
Bolivia and Venezuela that are meddling in politics in order to accelerate the
great engine of the history of transformation and social change, a situation
that is still in the making in those countries.
Certainly, Marini’s dependency theory pondered social struggle and change
through revolutionary processes led by their respective vanguards (Marini
1985), understanding, however, that not every revolutionary process entails an
eminently military exit, although it may at some point go through a military
process. As is the case in Colombia today where there is a process of negotia-
tions with the government that for the time being has led to the signing of the
peace agreement between the government and the guerrilla of the farc-ep
and not yet with the National Liberation Army (eln). Or as is the case in Ven-
ezuela where, although there was a conquering of the political power through
elections by the Bolivarian forces led by commandante Hugo Chávez Frías, the
nation has not been exempt, as it happens at present, from the violence on the
part of the organized right as shown by two failed coups d’état (April 11, 2002
and February 12, 2015 and a subsequent spill of violence and guarimbas) that
were effectively fought off by the Bolivarian government against the domestic
and international right linked to the United States government.
The Marxist dependency theory conceives the simultaneous struggle
against imperialism and capitalism, not in stages, nor for the reasons put for-
ward by the historical currents of the communist parties. Marini correctly ar-
gues that the anti-imperialist struggle, if it is not simultaneously anti-capitalist
and for the eradication of structural dependence, will fail to successfully
achieve its strategic objectives. Indeed, we must go deeper into this because
the other perspectives from the left (Endogenism, Gramscism) have not yield-
ed satisfactory results for the masses and for most of the popular sectors in the
last decades. On the contrary, they are immersed in the neoliberal policies pro-
moted by the right wing in power.
In Venezuela there is no way to exit 21st Century Socialism (see Chávez
January 2011). We are seeing the enormous difficulties currently facing the Bo-
livarian project and its government. The right wing are battered in a context of
intense class struggle, as President Maduro calls it, and the ruling classes op-
posed to this project do not waver in using violence—for example through the
famous guarimbas (street riots, vandalism and blockades of streets and ave-
nues)—and using all the means at their disposal to defeat the constitutional
government of Nicolás Maduro and reestablish and defend their interests with
the support of the United States.
The same happened in Ecuador where the right wing insisted on discredit-
ing the Citizens’ Revolution and attempted to overthrow it through what the
then President Rafael Correa called a ‘soft coup’. They did this after the official
proposal of the law of inheritances and capital gains that affected the interests
of the powerful enriched oligarchy of the country that represents less than 2%
of the population. An articulated onslaught of the right and the extreme right
in Latin America is taking place against all the governments considered
progressive and any content and social vocation committed to being the alter-
native to neoliberalism. Thus, a peaceful or violent solution is not a matter re-
solved by the government or by the Venezuelan people or by the other so-called
progressive governments: it will depend on the correlation of forces and on the
future development of events in those countries, at the regional and interna-
tional level.
From the above we can summarize that the Marxist dependency theory is
able to provide novel theoretical-methodological elements to explain the
essentiality of the structural and political-social phenomena of the Latin
American current that, obviously, did not exist at the time when the author
published that splendid book. As it has happened with other authors, Marini
was silenced by the military regime and by the later regimes headed by the civil
governments after the democratization that took place in the continent after
1985 (For this topic see Salles 2013).
5 Point of Departure for a Reevaluation of Marini’s Thought
Marini is a transcendent author, particularly among the circles of the Latin

American and world left who, unlike others,—such as Cardoso who rolls him-
self in the ramshackle sewers of neoliberalism or the old representatives of the
communist parties whose organizations disappeared—continue to influence
62 Chapter 3
important sectors of the progressive Latin American intelligentsia (Traspadini

and Stedile 2005 and Marini 1992). Despite the loss of prestige and the attempts
to place it in oblivion, Marini—together with other people such as Gunder
Frank and the Brazilian philosopher Álvaro Vieira Pinto, practically unknown
to date (Vasconcellos 2014: 101)—is epistemologically reemerging with new
vigor. Not among the generation that practically gave the arm a twist and
turned towards fashionable theoretical perspectives; but in the ranks of the
new generations, the workers and other social forces and movements. For ex-
ample, the Landless Workers’ Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Ru-
rais Sem Terra (mst) of Brazil has vindicated Marini, and other representatives
of popular movements, leaders, academics, and students, who are increasingly
using Marxist dependency theory. There are even groups that have emerged in
social media networks that often promote the thinking of Marini and stimu-
late discussion on it, as well as dissemination through other electronic means
of communication.7
In order to reevaluate Marini’s thought and its relevance in the light of con-
temporary events, it seems pertinent to return to the definition of dependence
as ‘subordination relation’ (Marini 1973: 18). Thus, for example, the subordinate
relations of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Latin America, Asia, and Africa to the
advanced countries and with the United States are modified and/or recreated:
for what? To ensure the extended reproduction of dependence! Not to over-
come it, a question that would imply the simultaneous anti-capitalist and pro-
socialist struggle. Is this definition of dependency still valid? In my opinion it
is and it is at this level that we have to generate, as C. Wright Mills said, a socio-
logical imagination that creates new categories, concepts, hypotheses, theses,
renewed ideas that account for the world in which we are living and the role
that our region plays in it.
For this, the second step we have to take is of critical importance. The first
step is the one that we discussed about the location of the level at which the
dependency theory has to be developed, as Bambirra correctly stated. The
crucial second step is to adjust the theoretical-methodological framework of
said theory to the contemporary conditions of dependency and see what new
phenomena are added to the analysis and the themes. What we may call neo-
dependence. In other words, we must specify the concrete forms assumed by
the accumulation of capital, the production of value, of surplus value, the rent
of land, the State or the class struggle in societies structured on the periphery
7 This is the case, for example, of the magazine Rebelion; http://www.rebelion.org/; of La

Haine, http://www.lahaine.org/; and of International Alternative Journalism (pia), http://
www.noticiaspia.org/; among others.
of advanced capitalism under dependent capitalist reproduction patterns in

their respective historical social formations.
From the perspective of the Marxist dependency theory we think that there
are new problems and research lines that need to be elucidated. Thus, at the
level of the concepts, I consider that the prefix ‘neo’ must be given specific
propositive contents according to the architecture of the Marini dependency
theory outline with a focus on the super-exploitation of the labor force. In real-
ity, it means that the worker is expropriated by capital from part of his fund of
reproduction and the value of his labor power and this becomes a source of
capital accumulation. Essentially, Marini proposed this thesis for countries
that operate in conditions of structural dependence—particularly Latin
American ones—and that today, due to the scientific-technological develop-
ment and the secular crisis of historical capitalism, the capitalist system as a
whole is progressing toward a geometric fall of its compound rates of growth
and productivity (Harvey 2012).
We consider that, contrary to the negative effects that the fall of the Soviet
Union and the affirmation that the Washington Consensus produced in social
thought, among others—events that were used by neoliberalism to announce
the ‘end of history’—a kind of reversal is occurring marked by the structural,
systemic and civilizational crisis of 2008–2009, the resurgence of critical
thinking. Specifically, there’s a resurgence of Marxism, in general, as a theo-
retical and analytical horizon of reflection in a very important nucleus of Eu-
ropean intellectuals and thinkers and in the United States itself. It is rethinking
holistically—against the one-dimensional fragmentation of knowledge im-
posed by neoliberalism—to remove all the webs that the neoliberal straitjack-
et imposed on us and is beginning to rescue topics such as the labor theory of
value, unequal exchange, the transfers of surplus value to the advanced cen-
ters, the role of the State and the super-exploitation of the force of work, etc.,
in order to understand the essentiality of contemporary economic, social, po-
litical and cultural problems.
Unlike the neoliberal, social democratic and neo-developmentalist ap-
proaches that are now completely exhausted, which once presented a promis-
ing outlook for the ‘developing countries’ (as the dominant international
agencies like to classify the dependent countries) painting a panorama of ‘in-
dependence’ and ‘sovereignty’ of nations and the labor force. In reality, the
theses of the super-exploitation of labor and dependence envisage a tendency
towards the exacerbation of exploitation and the struggles of class stimulated
by the flexibilization of work that occurs in the productive dimension of our
societies through the impulsive imposition of all kinds of ‘structural reforms’
proclaimed by the dependent bourgeoisies and by the international monetary
64 Chapter 3
and financial bodies that represent the economic and geopolitical interests of
the advanced countries and imperialism.
6 Globalization and the Law of Value
This topic deserves to be examined from the perspective of the critical and
objective analysis of the Marxist dependency theory. A key to this is the so-
called ‘globalization’ that Marini addressed in several works (Marini 1993; see
also Saxe-Fernández 1999). In particular, one of the last pieces he wrote (Mari-
ni 1996) nowadays remains relevant in view of the depth of the crisis of capital-
ism and the almost nil possibilities of overcoming it. It is only through the
repression of workers and oppressed classes by capital and the State that it
survives, as is the case in many parts of the world such as in Greece, Spain,
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Honduras to name a few.
Marini defines globalization as a process centered on the generalization of
the scope of validity of the law of value, that is, on the determination of so-
cially necessary labor time for the production and reproduction of the labor
force in truly international conditions for the first time. In addition, this con-
cept of globalization thus defined would be extended not only to the labor
force, but also to the other elements that determine the cost of production,
that is, to fixed capital, in which the means of production count, and the tools
of work and land (considered as a means of production, but also as a means of
circulation: as a raw material). They are incorporated into the final product:
merchandise.
What is common in these three elements (labor, land and capital) lies,
Marini says, in the fact that globalization—with its financial instruments—
spreads, almost simultaneously, technical progress (information technology,
biotechnology, new materials and microelectronics) in global production pro-
cesses. Technologies designed by—and private property of—the great scientific-
technological-financial centers to commercially develop a new technological
paradigm that is qualitatively different and superior to that which was known
as a Fordist system of mass production. A system that dynamized the indus-
trial production in the long post-war period and that, in the course of the 80s,
would give way to the Toyotist system of production and organization of social
work on the basis of the application of new technologies, knowledge and of
the monumental intensification of the labor force as a method of extraction-
production of surplus value.
As an extension and universalization of the law of value, following the
thread of Marini’s thought, globalization generated a series of phenomena of
various kinds in the course of the 80s that need to be discussed and analyzed
through, at least, six interrelated phenomena.
7 Dissociation of the Economic Cycle from the Employment Rate
This point is fundamental to understanding the contemporary problems of the

capitalist crisis, economic growth, and the behavior of the employment and
unemployment rate since the mid-1970s. Thus, says Marini, after stably display-
ing unemployment rates equivalent to 4% of the labor force until 1973, these
rise rapidly in the twenty-four most industrialized countries and reach their
peak in 1983 (8%) affecting more than 30 million people. Despite the fact that
the recession had been overcome in the early 1980s, unemployment still oscil-
lated around 6% in 1990 to grow again in subsequent years (Marini 1996: 55). In
this way, and verifying Marini’s thesis, we find that in 2012, in oecd countries,
the unemployment rate reached 7.9%, 10.5% in the whole of the European
Union, and 11.4% in the countries of the Euro Zone in that same year. In short,
capitalism has been able to maintain its growth through an increase in unem-
ployment, wage reduction and the increase in the exploitation of labor, com-
bining the monumental flexibilization and precarization of the world of work
in recent years.
8 Generalization of the Super-Exploitation of Labor in the Capitalist

System
In addition to conceiving globalization as the juridical-institutional frame-

work of indispensable reference among nations, Marini understands the
super-exploitation of labor as an extensive process throughout the contempo-
rary world as is happening in Europe, the United States and Japan to mention
the main emblematic emporiums of Western capitalism. For example, in Europe
‘zero hours’ work contracts are proliferating, barely concealing the existence of
an invisible slavery that puts the worker in an indefinite position, at the service
of capital for his ruthless exploitation and extraction of surplus value. A para-
digmatic example of this is Great Britain—the classic capitalist empire that
created the great modern industry—where around 1 million people currently
work under this modality, under the whip of this semi-slavery work regime
within the civilized and democratic Western capitalism (for a description of
the ‘zero-hour contract worker’ see El Telégrafo March 4, 2017). Two other ‘nov-
el’ forms of ‘atypical work’ now are ‘mass work’ and the transfer (migration) of
66 Chapter 3
retired people, mainly European, to low-income senior citizens’ residences in

underdeveloped countries.
Both forms must be integrated within the concept of super-exploitation of
Marini’s work. In this way the worker, Marini says—in a frank rebuttal of the
theories of the end of work that argue that work is no longer a central category
in the contemporary world (for example, Offe 1985: 129–150; Habermas 1984;
and Méda 1995. For a critique see Antunes 1999; Sotelo 2012 and 2015a; and
Alves 2000)—becomes the essential factor that produces extraordinary profits
due to the tendency to equalize the organic compositions of capital in the
world economy and the process of technological homogenization that in-
creased the importance of the worker as a source of extraordinary profits
(Marini 1996: 65).
In this way, the super-exploitation of labor became a fundamental factor in
facing the intensification of capitalist competition on a world scale counter-
acting the difficulties that capital faces in the production of value and surplus
value. In this context, the new organization of work, such as Toyotism and
other flexible devices corresponding to ‘neo-Fordism’, must be located and
aimed at intensifying the labor force and bending its resistance to changes in
order to reassess the worker as source of production of value and competitive-
ness for capital.
From the sociological point of view, we characterize this phenomenon as
the advent of a monumental process of precarization of the work force that
extends on a planetary scale, which, in a few words, deteriorates the conditions
of life and reproduction of the working classes. According to the International
Labor Organization these are conditions experienced by more than 3 billion
human beings all over the planet. Within this social perspective a research line
emerges: the issue of concentration of income as one of the perverse features
of the dependent economy, which continues to encourage production at the
borders of the restricted market, with the bulk of the production focused on
luxury products, which do not enter, or only do so in a very limited proportion,
in the consumption of the majority of the workforce.
Only restricted segments of the population (the dominant and middle class-
es) will continue to benefit from the conditions of dependent capitalism. This
concentration of income reflects the changes underway in the productive
sphere, that is, where the income of the different classes of society is forged. In
this way, a polarized production structure leads to polarization and growth in
the upper and lower spheres of domestic markets and, consequently, in in-
comes. The empirical evidence of the Latin American countries has revitalized
the theory of dependence at this methodological and thematic level.
The problem of concentration of income in the dependent economy causes

the system to seek outward outlets, while sponsoring the super-exploitation of
labor as an internal measure by the lumpen-bourgeoisie and capital to recover
from the losses implied by transfers of value towards the centers, and the fall of
business profits. At the same time, the need to forge a new international divi-
sion of labor is reinforced, commanded by the great imperialist powers.
9 The New International Division of Labor
For Marini, the new international division of labor provokes a return of de-
pendent countries to the simpler international division of labor of the 19th
Century, but under fully capitalist methods and coverage of reprimarized, ex-
tractivist economies which are aimed at the world market and which are the
current configuration of countries like Argentina, Brazil and Chile among
others (Marini 1996: 59). Even countries such as Mexico, which erected a pat-
tern of accumulation of export manufacturing capital, continue to coexist
with the agrarian and mining economies corresponding to the primary export
economy.
Globalization and the new international division of labor have modified in-
ternational relations and the old center-periphery ‘model’. Where the depen-
dent nations were called exporters in the 19th Century and industrialized in
the 20th Century with certain development focused on the internal market,
they are turning again to the outside in the 21st Century. Brazil and other
countries of the Southern Cone, for example, transfer value and surplus value
(unequal exchange) in parallel with its conversion into mono-export and ex-
tractivist economies. Brazil now exports 40% of primary goods leading with
soybeans, and the copper standard is higher yet for Chile.
These types of reproduction patterns are hegemonic in the Latin American
region: extractivist and reprimarized, nations turn their heads abroad, along-
side the pattern of secondary Mexican manufacturing-maquiladora accumula-
tion dependent on the North American economic cycle and its automotive
transnational companies.
At the economic level, one of the characteristics of what we might call the
‘new dependence’—due to the adherence of new phenomena that have
occurred in recent decades—is the propensity to specialize production in
Latin American economies stimulated by the systematic application of neolib-
eral economic policy with certain contents of technological development. The
specialization of production is a concept that defines the new profile of these
68 Chapter 3
economies in terms of the orientation of their resources (capital, labor and

land) to the most profitable activities of the world market, to the detriment of
production and internal markets, causing strong movements of recession, cri-
sis and recurrent imbalances.
As a result of the specialization of production, economic restructuring and
changes in the historical pattern of capital reproduction, we can see, for ex-
ample, that the percentage of Argentina’s manufactured exports went from
23.2% of the total in 1980 to 25.7% in 1988. Even so, this country maintains a
high proportion of primary products in its exports. Brazil increased its manu-
factures more significantly: from 38.7% to 47.8% of total exports in the same
period. The most radical change was experienced by Mexico where manufac-
tures increased from 29.9% of total exports in 1980 to 70.5% in 1991, while pri-
mary products were reduced from 11.5% to 7.6% and hydrocarbons (oil and
gas) from 58.6% to 21.9% of exports in the same period marking a qualitative
change in the pattern of reproduction of capital.
What explains Brazil’s serious economic difficulties after having experi-
enced a relative boom in its rate of economic growth—of 3.5% and 5% aver-
age, between 2008 and 2013, against an average fall of -2.9% between 2014 and
2017—is China’s decline in its import guidelines that seriously affected that
country and others, such as those of the Southern Cone. This did not happen
in 2008–2009 because of Brazil’s growth, one of the highest in all of Latin
America, precisely because of China’s expansion in that period. Recently, how-
ever, the economic growth rate has slowed (standing at around 7%) as well as
India and other so-called ‘emerging’ countries like Nigeria and South Africa
(see Table 2).
From the perspective of the Marxist dependency theory this opens a field of
study of interest for the theory of dependence: will there be a new center in the
global economy represented by China, next to the traditional centers, such as
the United States, Germany, France and England? How will this influence an-
other central issue, the constitution of what we can call ‘new peripheries in the
world economy’ arising from the disintegration of the socialist bloc? How is
the historical empire-dependence international relationship affected, qualita-
tively and quantitatively, with the emergence of China as the second economic
power of the planet, particularly against the United States? Will the unequal
exchange that involves transfers of value and surplus value to the centers in
these new conditions continue to operate?
All of them ask questions that give thematic content to the ‘neo’ prefix and,
through it, to social science and contemporary Latin American theoretical and
critical thought.
10 Redefinition of the State within the Framework of the

Democratization Process in Latin America
Marini was unfoundedly criticized because of his supposed ‘marked econo-

mism’; a mechanical extrapolation that, it was claimed, he made from an eco-
nomic and political-social point of view without any theoretical and analytical
intermediation. There’s nothing more false than this. Also, because he suppos-
edly ‘did not address’ as a specific object of study the concept of State as politi-
cal scientists do, which is not accurate because in several of Marini’s texts there
are valuable and sufficient elements that address this, a task aimed at forging a
theory of the Latin American contemporary dependent state.
11 Democracy and the Fourth Estate
Following the sequence from the populist state, going through the counterin-
surgency state —which corresponds to the military dictatorships—until
reaching the constitution of the State that Marini calls the Fourth Power that
shelters the presence of the armed forces and corresponds to the advent of the
‘governable and restricted democracies’ that emerged in the mid-80s practi-
cally up to the present. Considering the study of the nature of the State and its
relationship with the government and the existing regime in the so-called pro-
gressive countries such as Bolivia and Venezuela, it is possible to understand
the link the author made between State, democracy and socialism to under-
stand the nature of power in contemporary times. In this respect, Marini’s
concept of the Domination System is very useful—and its conceptual differen-
tiation with the concept of the State—understood as “…a set of elements on
which a class bases its power, and the institutional expression of that power,
the State, taken as the cusp of the system of domination” (Marini 1976: 93).
To understand the question of the State, it is necessary to locate two pro-
cesses that occur in parallel until the end of dictatorships and the arrival of
governable democracies. On the one hand, the end of the expansive period
of military dictatorships with the Argentine dictatorship in 1976 that lasted
until the fall of the Chilean dictatorship in 1990–1991, and, on the other, the
end of the revolutionary cycle—which began with the triumph of the Cuban
revolution—in 1989 when the Sandinista insurgency in Nicaragua was defeat-
ed with the low intensity war and a series of very particular phenomena that
occur in that region. This is reinforced by the collapse of the ussr and its inclu-
sion in the area of capitalism that will have a brutal impact to such an extent
70 Chapter 3
that almost all the communist parties of the planet disappear, and the advent
of the Washington Consensus (1989). But a particularly disastrous effect of the
above has been on the plane of thought, of the development of ideas.
Since then, the only remaining country in the socialist and critical thinking
sphere—in the middle of the swamp of neoliberal capitalism—is Cuba, a bea-
con that illuminates the process and is still there—supported by the ongoing
experiments of Bolivia and Venezuela—with alternatives different from capi-
talist neoliberalism, from the perspective of eclac and, of course, from other
retrograde and negative experiences from the economic and social point of
view, such as the Mexican neoliberal ‘model’ in its full structural failure.
For Marini, the state of the fourth power is that in which the armed forces
exercise a
…role of vigilance, control and direction over the whole state apparatus.
This structural and operating characteristic of the State will only be, of
course, but the result of the subjugation of the state apparatus by the
armed forces (beyond the structures of parliamentary democracy) and of
the legal order of military origin imposed on political life, in particular
national security laws.
marini 1987
This is how Marini describes the constant pressure and blackmail of the Latin
American military to guarantee and maintain its influence, status and institu-
tional determination in the affairs of the State as a condition for accessing the
transition to democracy, particularly in countries such as Argentina, Chile and
Brazil, which rushed into such regions since the mid-1980s.
Obviously, in the case of Brazil the implicit commitment of the political
bureaucracy and the representatives of the state power has been to guarantee
unrestricted amnesty to the military repressors as a sine qua non condition of
their return to the barracks, despite the fact that the people and citizens de-
manded that the State accept their responsibility for the crimes committed by
the dictatorship (Salles 2003: 131).
Thus, an agreed transition was established without rupture, peaceful and
conservative, in which “the economic policy did not change, the Armed Forces
maintained their capacity for political intervention intact and that later was
progressively and partially reduced, responsibilities were not defined by State
terror and the bionic senators (elected indirectly or appointed) participated in
the constituent assembly of 1987–88” (Salles 2003: 134–135).
This commitment, incidentally, is sustained to the present time in terms of
violation of human rights during the military regime as evidenced by a report
by the National Truth Commission (cnv) dated December 10, 2014 that docu-
mented the brutalities perpetrated by the military dictatorship in Brazil, by the
way, still the only country in the Southern Cone that does not judge the crimes
against humanity perpetrated by the dictatorship (Comissão Nacional da Ver-
dade (cnv) de Brasil. Relatório December, 2014). In this way, since the 1980s, the
commitment to the military caste was forged to amnesty them and institution-
ally distance them from any possibility of trial that would lead to imprison-
ment, sine qua non to harmonize the ‘peaceful transition’ to democracy. “A
strategy began to be developed that would be fully implemented in the 80s,
when the double movement of military ideology and democratic restoration
demanded an immediate solution” (Marini 1992: 22, our translation). The disas-
trous results of the US defeat in the Vietnam War, the rise of the ‘human rights’
policy promoted by the Carter administration and the effects of the Falklands
war (April 2–June 14, 1982) contributed decisively to this. While certain events
helped to promote democracy—controlled, restricted and governable—in Lat-
in America, this did not imply in any way the loss of influence on the state ap-
paratuses by the Latin American Armed Forces, but rather a restructuring, no
longer as direct protagonists of state power, but now under the shelter of civil
institutions and their formal constitutional powers—executive, legislative and
judicial—that had been asphyxiated by the bloody dictatorships of yesteryear.
Marini states:
It has to do with carrying out a political ‘opening’ that preserves the

essence of the counterinsurgency state … (consisting of) the institution-
alization of the direct participation of big capital in economic manage-
ment and the subordination of the powers from the State to the armed
forces, through the state organs that have been created, in particular, the
National Security Council … It is leading … towards a State of four pow-
ers, or more precisely, to the State of the fourth power, in which the
Armed Forces will exercise a role of vigilance, control and direction over
the whole state apparatus.
marini October–December 1978: 27–28
From the perspective of the US Department of State, this originated, for

the Latin American reality, the concept of ‘viable democracy’ … that pro-
moted a democratic-representative type of regime protected by the
Armed Forces … that did not constitute a real rupture with the doctrine
of the counterinsurgency.
marini 1992: 23
72 Chapter 3
In other words, Marini argues:
The strategists of Washington have begun to shuffle a new formula for

Latin America, which is expressed in the idea of a ‘viable democracy’. The
vagueness of the concept conceals the conviction—often expressed by
the Geisels, the Videla and Pinochet—that the Latin American peoples
are not yet ripe for ‘full democracy’. But it also points to a political solution
that, without reaching ‘full democracy’, translates into an institutional
regime that, by respecting essential democratic freedoms as much as pos-
sible, may have some social support. With this nuance, the American for-
mula is closer to the practice of the Brazilian military than to that of their
Argentine, Chilean, Uruguayan colleagues … Putting the euphemisms
aside, ‘viable democracy’ really means restricted democracy, which cor-
responds to the search for the institutionalization of the Latin American
counterrevolution.
marini December 16, 1976
Furthermore, he states:
…Brazilian political life was characterized, until the mid-1980s, by the ef-
fort made by the military to maintain the initiative and control of the
liberalization process, in an attempt to achieve an institutional reformu-
lation that would formally assure them a position corresponding to the
Fourth power of the State. The exercise of this power would remain in the
hands of the corporate organs of the military institution, and of the intel-
ligence apparatuses, and its highest authority would be the National Se-
curity Council. Similar formulas inspired the Chilean Constitution of
1980, and also the one that the Uruguayan military took to plebiscite in
1982, in which it was rejected, as well as the demands presented by the
Argentine military on the eve of leaving power, only partially attended.
marini 1992: 24
Marini adds “a balance of events shows that only in Chile was the state of four
powers fully reflected, although, far from guaranteeing political stability, it has
become a constant source of institutional conflicts” (Marini 1992: 24–25).8 As
8 This last paragraph does not appear in Marini’s article (July–December 1985: 3–11), since it
was added in his book published later, in 1992, when the Chilean process had matured.
can be seen, the State of Counterinsurgency in the case of Brazil—other au-

thors speak of the ‘State of National Security’—corresponds to the period of
the military dictatorship that came to power through the coup d’état, while, for
the democratizing phase, said State became one with the Fourth Estate. This
means that when there is a crisis of the dependent capitalist reproduction pat-
tern and the State based on the dictatorial regime, the military will try to rene-
gotiate with the system (the bourgeoisies, with foreign capital and, particularly
with the United States), their privileges and perks and that somehow there is a
return—often formal—from the military caste to the barracks, although in
fact they continue to exert an overdeterminant influence on the economic,
social and political dynamics of our nations. This phenomenon, which emerg-
es concomitant with the democratization process Marini calls the ‘Fourth Es-
tate State’, which is added to the legislative power, the judicial power and the
executive power, and, of course, the military power, although the military caste
is no longer in the center of the system of domination as it existed in the 60s
and 70s in the most dictatorial and bloodthirsty societies of Latin America and
the Caribbean.
On this political plane as a result of the process of democratization experi-
enced by the region which had led to the generalized constitution of civil
political regimes based on the division of powers formally expressed in the
executive, legislative and judicial branches, a central conclusion is highlighted.
That the tensions between the bourgeois representative democracy in power
in Latin America and the growing social struggles and mobilizations, particu-
larly by the popular sectors and the workers, generate very marked tendencies
towards political authoritarianism (an expression of the existence of the State
of the fourth power) as can be seen in those regimes that, after the period of
dictatorships, came to power mainly through elections, as is the case in Peru,
Honduras, Guatemala, Chile or Paraguay. This working hypothesis is that of a
necessary concentration of power in the State in order to ensure the special-
ization of production (the new model of the reproduction of dependent
capitalism) and the maintenance of a polarized, regressive and highly concen-
trated income structure in favor of capital (national and foreign) and to the
detriment of the workforce and the majority of the population.
12 The Sub-imperialism Subject
A contemporary theme that is spilling a lot of ink, and that has provoked nu-
merous studies, is the one related to sub-imperialism (Sotelo, 2017a). What is
Brazil today and what role does it play at the regional and international levels?
74 Chapter 3
For Marini, the theme of sub-imperialism—also called ‘privileged satellite’ or

in Gunder Frank’s words about Brazil: “a minor partner of the United States in
Latin America” (Frank 1969: 200)—was a question of economic and political
strategy. Its methodology had to consider a series of questions; first its histori-
cal expansionism and its current expansion is well argued by Salles (2013). In
addition, it must be considered how Brazilian capitalism depends more and
more on outward expansion and the modalities that this expansion assumes in
Latin America and overseas. It is stronger today due to the internal austerity
policies being promoted by the de facto president Michel Temer, who keeps
Brazil in a deep crisis and recession, and where companies and capital as a way
of looking for a n exit look outward. That is, they look toward international
trade today even though it is also experiencing a significant contraction that
coincides with the low growth rates experienced by the world economy in re-
cent years (see Chapter 7 of the present work).
In this regard Marini perceived—but did not measure its magnitude or its
strategic importance simply because the phenomenon had not fully developed
at that time—that who is heading the subregional expansion now is actually
the Brazilian State through the nedsbb (see Boito 2018: 71), the National Eco-
nomic Development and Social Bank of Brazil, to countries like Bolivia and
others in Africa. This issue needs to be deepened in light of the current global
economic crisis and the particular contradictions that Brazil is going through,
especially after the institutional coup against the constitutional and legitimate
government of Dilma Rousseff.
The Marxist dependency theory, and Marini in particular, provide the gen-
eral framework for understanding the phenomenon of sub-imperialism in its
totality, as it is constituted in concrete historical conditions within the Latin
American capitalist social formations that are the intermediate level where
dependence is inserted as theory and object of study, as we saw above.
Although several countries in the region have sub-imperialist characteris-
tics and traits, only Brazil is constituted as a State and an economic system
with these characteristics. Therefore, it ends up differentiating itself from the
dominant imperia l isms of advanced capitalism (United States, Germany,
France, Japan, England) and the rest of the countries on the periphery of capi-
talism in the dependent areas that do not possess the conditions, mechanisms
and processes necessary to constitute themselves as sub-imperialists. Rather,
they end up being dominated by the classical imperialist powers and by the
bourgeoisies and sub-imperialist ruling classes that are in economic, social,
political and military conditions to overturn their productive apparatus, their
investments, and exports in order to obtain significant benefits through the
exploitation of labor by capital. They also compensate for the constant trans-
fers of value and surplus value in favor of the imperialist centers given their
substantive condition of being countries that are simultaneously dependent

on the imperialist productive systems and on the dynamics and contradictions
of the world market and the international division of labor.
A concept used by Marini to apprehend the sub-imperialist phenomenon
was what he calls antagonistic cooperation that reflects the relationship be-
tween an imperialist (United States) and a sub-imperialist (Brazil) country. It
implies antagonism, relative confrontations of powerful national bourgeoisies,
but without reaching breakdown, or open confrontation, but cooperation and
inter-bourgeois c ollaboration that is more the rule than the exception, and
what will govern the relations between these bourgeoisies of the United States
and other dominant centers of power (Marini 1985a: 77).9 The current de facto
government led by Michel Temer cooperates fully and has no major antago-
nisms with the United States; they complement each other in terms of regional
geopolitics (Ramirez 2017).
13 The Problem of Integration and Overcoming Dependence
Marini insisted on the question of the integration of Latin America. He

conceived it as a historical need of the peoples to strengthen their unity and
identity in the face of the Pan-American expansionism of imperialism that has
historically bee n registered in the region, driven by US imperialism. He re-
viewed the integration processes that occurred in the past from the Hispanic
Americanism that unfolded after independence forming national States before
the attempts of t he ‘reconquest’ on the part of Spain; the Pan-Americanism
that, after the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, in 1823, extends from Mex-
ico, Central America and the Caribbean, and, later, to South America under the
tutelage of the United States in its expansionist confrontation with Europe.
In this way,
…the importance that Latin America is gradually assuming for the Unit-
ed States will lead them to accentuate their projection on it and, going
beyond the Caribbean—which they always consider their direct zone of
influence—to seek to alienate the continent as a whole. The American
international conference—which, summoned by the North American
government, brought together in Washington, from the end of 1889 to the
9 This is what happened with the friction between the United States and Brazil during the
government of General Ernesto Geisel (1974–1979) because of the issue of human rights and
nuclear energy that ended with the agreements signed with the Federal Republic of Germany
to launch a nuclear factory (Salles 2013: 86).
76 Chapter 3
beginning of 1890, the nations of the hemisphere—marks the beginning

of an active diplomacy, which took shape in Pan-Americanism.
marini 1992: 118–119
Inter-Americanism, which emerged after the World War ii and, in particular,

with the creation of the Colonial Ministry officially known as the Organization of
American States (oas), which replaced and renewed the old Pan-Americanism,
went on to support the thesis of ‘Latin American integration’ under the unde-
niable hegemony of the United States:
…within the framework of a growing integration of the productive appa-

ratuses of the Latin American nations, through direct investments of
capital and the action of the commercial and financial mechanisms.
Thus, the counterpart of North American hegemony was the configura-
tion of a new form of dependence, more complex and, at the same time,
more radical than that which had prevailed in the past.
marini 1992: 128–129
The most important result of inter-Americanism was the creation, in 1961 in

Punta del Este, of the Alliance for Progress (alpro) on the initiative of the
United States and with a triple objective: to strengthen the structural depen-
dence of the region, to solve the problems of the dependent bourgeoisie that
brought on the economic crisis, and strengthen the blockade against Cuba. Lat-
er, at the end of the 1950s, at the initiative of Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uru-
guay, the Latin American Free Trade Association (alalc) was created with the
objective of increasing trade amongst them through tariff reductions and
the promotion of free trade, at the same time as counteracting the influence of
the gatt, created in 1947. However, as Marini points out, the alalc ended up
being a favorable instrument to the interests of large transnational corpora-
tions to the detriment of Latin American countries. In addition, under the
patronage of the United States and local businessmen, the Central American
Common Market (cacm) was established in Central America in December
1960.
In 1980, alalc was replaced by a new organization: the Latin American As-
sociation for Development and Integration (aladi), which seeks to redress the
problems of intraregional trade liberalization and to demand renegotiations in
this area. However, the first truly regional organization, the Latin American
and Caribbean Economic System (sela), was created in October 1975 com-
posed of 28 Latin American nations, relatively independent of the line of the
United States. The Common Market of the South (mercosur) emerged on

March 26, 1991 through the signing of the Treaty of Asunción. Later, at the ini-
tiative of the US government and transnational corporations, nafta (North
American Free Trade Agreement) arose through an agreement that was signed
by the Mexican government on December 17, 1992 and enforced on January 1,
1994, as the Zapatista insurrection began in the Mexican southeast. Today, the
Trump government has challenged this treaty if it does not conform to US in-
terests, even threatening to abandon it.
In addition, to counteract mercosur, the Enterprise for the Americas Ini-
tiative of President George H.W. Bush was implemented on June 27, 1990, sup-
posedly to make ‘an association’ for the 90s. At the same time it promoted
‘market-oriented reform programs’ in the region to ‘guarantee’ economic
growth and political stability. An attempt to prolong the neoliberal nafta,
signed between the United States and Canada, was the North American
proposal to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas (ftaa) in Miami (De-
cember 1994) to expand it to the rest of the Latin American States and the
Caribbean, with the exclusion of Cuba. However, at the Fourth Summit of the
Americas, in Mar del Plata (November 2005), the ftaa was ultimately depos-
ited in the dustbin of history.
Faced with these projects of ‘integration’ commanded and induced by the
United States, alternatives have arisen focused on the social and national inter-
ests of the Latin American peoples. Such is the case of the Bolivarian Alliance
for the Peoples of Our America (alba) that, on the initiative of Cuba and Ven-
ezuela, was created on December 14, 2004 (as the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas) and, later, was renamed the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of
Our America in its vii Extraordinary Summit held in Nicaragua (June 29, 2009),
signed by the Heads of State and Governments of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia,
Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Perhaps the consolidation of that renewed Latin Americanism that Marini
spoke of is crystallizing with the intense process of integration and political,
economic, social and cultural unification of the region since the creation of
the Caribbean Community (caricom, August 4, 1973); of mercosur (March
26, 1991); of the Central American Integration System (sica, December 13,
1991); of petrocaribe created by President Hugo Chávez on June 29, 2005;
the Union of South American Nations (unasur, April 17, 2007); and the Com-
munity of Latin American and Caribbean States (celac, February 23, 2010),
also considering alternative media such as telesur, an alternative news net-
work created on July 24, 2005 and that began its regular transmissions on Feb-
ruary 9, 2007 in Venezuela.
78 Chapter 3
The process, however, has to be much more profound and radical. Accord-
ing to Marini, under his theoretical-political considerations, for there to be a
genuine economic integration that, at the same time advances in the process
of political integration, there has to be an updating of the ideal Bolivarian in-
tegration, in such a way that the Latin American peoples can:
…build new political and legal superstructures, endowed with negotia-

tion capacity, resistance and pressure that is required to have an effec-
tive presence before the existing super states, those that are emerging in
Europe, in Asia and in America itself.
marini 1992: 146, our translation
14 Conclusion
These are the new contemporary issues that must be addressed and developed
critically and with a historical-contemporary perspective capable of appre-
hending and elucidating the phenomena that today explain their conformation
and behavior in the interest of a true understanding capable of contributing to
the development of social struggles aimed not only at ‘overcoming neoliberal-
ism’ but also capitalism and, even more important, dependency. These are the
true causes of all the difficulties and calamities that workers and societies in
the world go through. They are themes that help to critically update the Marx-
ist dependency theory and Marini’s thought—and not to reject it. The wave of
phenomena and the limits to which historic capitalism is coming, if not its
definitive fall—which is desirable of course—present structural limits whose
nature it is necessary to investigate to create new concepts and categories that
finally build better future alternatives, capable of transcending this monstrous
system of wage slavery and misery sustained in the capitalist mode of produc-
tion to contribute to hasten its imminent historical decline.
To deploy this strategic objective, the Marxist dependency theory and Mari-
ni’s thought, under the self-criticism and recovery of the main lines of Latin
American social thought of the 20th Century, should aim to recreate a new,
alternative theoretical base for the 21st Century of a global nature that is able
to apprehend and characterize the historical reality, its surreptitious tenden-
cies and the secular cycles in which the peoples, communities and societies of
our America are immersed.
In short, an urgent elaboration, with the renewed strength of critical think-
ing and a theory placed at the service of peoples, workers and science, as a
visible path that makes it possible to collectively erect a new economic, social
and human world order without exploitation or regimes of domination based,
for the first time in the history of humanity, on freedom, democracy and on
social and human relations of equality and fraternity between men and wom-
en, peoples, societies and communities.
Chapter 4
Approaches and Theoretical Controversies
A rich discussion has arisen as a result of Maríni’s thesis regarding the possibil-
ity that, in developed or advanced capitalism, the regime of super-exploitation
of the labor force is constituted. In this chapter, we discuss two theoretical
perspectives that have arisen both from the authors who support it and from
those who deny it and affirm that this would imply diluting the dependency
theory.
1 Generalization of the Super-Exploitation of Labor

in Advanced Capitalism
In recent years an idea has been gaining strength regarding the possibility that
an intense sft (Solution-Focused Therapy) process is spreading in the devel-
oped world, that is, in the advanced economies of central capitalism, due to
the many difficulties that capitalism is experiencing on a global scale. Marini
was the pioneer of this approach (1993 and 1996; Sotelo 2010; Smith 2016;
Arrizabalo 2016; Martins September–December 2017). Other authors have
shown skepticism about this idea or hypothesis. For our part, we assume it in
a proactive and indicative way as a research guide, not a truth wrapped in a
rigid and dogmatic scheme but only to initiate a process of investigation and
reflection in the theoretical-methodological framework of the Marxist depen-
dency theory. In particular, we adhere to Marini’s thesis as he originally
formulated it:
In this way it is generalized to the whole system, including the advanced

centers, what was a distinctive feature—although not exclusive—of the
dependent economy; the generalized super-exploitation of labor.
marini 1996: 65
In both perspectives, there is not yet that accumulation of data, information

and evidence with which other topics within the social sciences count, enough
so that this work can be successfully crowned and put to good use. However,
some steps can be taken in this direction in order to check it and, if necessary,
validate it in light of the mutations and crises that contemporary capitalism is
experiencing in its current neo-imperialist and neoliberal phase.

Approaches and Theoretical Controversies 81
On the other hand, the understanding of the possibility that capitalism

extends super-exploitation to its advanced areas, still remains in its infancy
and is restricted to certain theoretical expressions, some empirical ones, and
to a small nucleus of authors who have perceived it in the light of the prob-
lems of contemporary capitalism (Martins 2011; Smith 2016). This is explained,
in part, by the recent nature of the phenomenon that is gradually spreading
through a series of economic measures and public policies that are being
implemented in the imperialist countries under the guidelines of the imf, the
European Central Bank and The European Comission; a triad also known as
the ‘Troika’. Even so, more and more authors recognize and value the impor-
tance of super-exploitation of labor as a specific mechanism of exploitation.
For example, Smith (2016: 250–251) recognizes that super-exploitation is a
third mechanism for extracting surplus value from the worker, including in
dependent countries:
Global labor arbitrage—that is super-exploitation, is forcing down the

value of labor-power, the third form of surplus-value increase, is now the
increasingly predominant form of the capital-labor relation. The prole-
tarians of the semi-colonial countries are its first victims, but the broad
masses of working people in the imperialism countries also face destitu-
tion. The new, youthful, and female proletarians of low-wage countries
dug capitalism out of the hole in which it found itself in the 1970s, to-
gether with workers in the imperialism countries. It is their mission to dig
another hole to excavate the grave in which to bury capitalism and there-
by secure the future of human civilization.
However, the issues and contents regarding this problem that are addressed
in the context of the crisis of capitalism are multiplying and, regardless of the
various interpretations that have been made, it is expressed in the social as-
pect and in the precarious world of work through a series of measures that
negatively affect wages, working time and consumption in the countries of
the European Union, in the United States, in Japan and, of course, in Latin
America as witnessed today by the cases of Argentina and Brazil, where wild-
capitalist neoliberalism has been reimposed, and majorities have seen their
living and working conditions reduced with disproportionate increases in un-
employment, poverty, precariousness and wage reduction (Salvia and Donza
2017).
For capital there is no other possible way out other than further deepening
these reforms, thus underpinning the entry of the super-exploitation regime
into these societies and opening the possibility of constituting, for the first
82 Chapter 4
time in history, an authentic international proletariat capable of raising com-

mon tasks of transformation and radical social changes.
In any case, the economic, political and institutional bases are being cre-
ated so that the super-exploitation of labor can operate and extend its radius
of action to the developed countries, as Marini correctly proposed. In this
way, super-exploitation becomes the ring that binds the new systems of work
organization (post-Fordism, Toyotism, organizational reengineering) sus-
tained by the intensification of precarious and temporary work, as well as a
marked trend of declining real wages of workers as it happened systemati-
cally since the Reagan-Bush administration in the United States (Chomsky
2017: 157).
When we affirm that the super-exploitation of labor is installed in the inter-
national economy in no way do we consider that it no longer constitutes the
defining characteristic of the dependent economy. If this were the case, Marini
himself would not have made this approach, which, unfortunately, was not
mentioned by his critics. On the contrary, it means, that capital, in its pursuit
of profit, has no qualms or limits in exploiting the labor force, even in redou-
bling exploitation (or hyper-exploitation) to maintain its reproduction on a
growing scale according to its profitability. This is consistent with another of
Marini’s proposals which articulates the law of value with the tendency to-
wards the universalization of super-exploitation in advanced countries:
We must bear in mind that the tendency that goes in the direction of
increasing super-exploitation is not only valid for the capitals that
yield value, in the process of transfer, but also applies to those who ap-
propriate value, since it is evident that it allows them to obtain amounts
of value higher than what they could normally incorporate. In other
words, the universalization of the law of value, tending to allow only
transfers of value that, in their context, can be considered legitimate,
does not point to the suppression of super-exploitation, but rather to its
exacerbation.
marini 1993: 10
It is dependent capitalism that ‘yields value’ and those aggrandized appropri-

ate it for their own benefit. The extension of the super-exploitation of the labor
force allows capital to obtain a huge surplus value through this procedure
where the most benefited are the hegemonic capitalists of the imperialist
countries that appropriate this additional value. The only limit is marked, in
any case, by the class struggles and by the structural and political-social deter-
minations of both formations of the world capitalist economy.
2 Marini’s Approach
Globalization generalizes and stimulates the law of value, the determination

of the value of the labor force and of the merchandise (material and immate-
rial) for the time of socially necessary work for its production and reproduc-
tion under truly international conditions. With the help of computers and the
Internet, it is more feasible to know and determine the value of the workforce
of Japanese, German, North American or Mexican workers and measure their
quantitative and qualitative magnitudes. With the law of value, the super-
exploitation regime is installed in developed countries, although adopting
particular forms. This hypothesis finds theoretical support in the thought of
Marini (1996: 49–68) and it was precisely he who warned early in some of his
writings what many authors prefer to ignore or misinterpret.
With the extension of the super-exploitation of the labor force there has
been a trend characterized by three factors: (1) technological diffusion tends to
standardize goods to facilitate their exchange on a global scale, which in the
long run; (2) caused a greater homogenization of the productive and techno-
logical processes; and (3) triggered a process of equalization of labor produc-
tivity and its intensity. In this sense, the importance of super-exploitation in
the international production system was resized against all the forecasts made
by the ‘end of work’ theorists.
Marini (1996: 61) revealed the tendency of the system to homogenize con-
stant capital and directly affect the determination of the rate of profit. He
found in this phenomenon a point of inflection that divided two historical ep-
ochs of world capitalist development. The first epoch is characterized by the
structural and technological heterogeneity of the system. As a result of the
foregoing we obtain a second strategic conclusion of the Marinist analysis:
technological homogenization by stimulating the equalization of the organic
compositions of capital in the world economy causes the worker to become
more important as a source of extraordinary profits (Marini 1996: 65). The final
result is that super-exploitation is constituted as the main factor that faces the
intensification of capitalist competition on a world scale in order to counteract
the growing difficulties faced by capital in its contradictory process of produc-
tion of value and surplus value, putting it in a dangerous slope before dismea-
sure of value.1
1 The ‘dismeasure of value’, as defined elsewhere (Sotelo 2010: 131) is a “… problem that pro-
duces, on the one hand, a marginal reduction of socially necessary labor time to the d etriment
of the production of surplus labor and, on the other hand, a strengthening of the moments
and spaces of production of anti-value, both phenomena are translated into increasing
84 Chapter 4
…the lack of a source of intensive and generalized extraction of relative

surplus value (which is what distinguishes the dynamics of mature capi-
talist accumulation), and the attempts to compensate for this lack by re-
sorting to the extension and deepening of the absolute surplus value….
piqueras 2014: 144
We add, in our theoretical perspective of super-exploitation, that together

with absolute surplus value, it has operated on an enlarged scale the intensifi-
cation of the labor force that has brought the Toyotist system and the expro-
priation of (a part) of the consumption fund and the wages that corresponds
to the value of the labor force and its conversion into a part of the accumula-
tion of capital.
Computer technology manages to suppress, virtually and relatively, the limi-
tations of physical time and spatiotemporal differences between production
centers and consumer markets, no matter how distant they may be. While at
the same time extending the unemployment caused, increasing the rate of
exploitation of employed workers through the increase of the working day (ab-
solute surplus value), its intensification (relative surplus value), and the remu-
neration of the labor force below its value (super-exploitation). These three
conditions are essential to the super-exploitation regime in any circumstance
from which Marini infers that:
…it is generalized to the whole system, even to the advanced centers,

which was a distinctive (although not exclusive) feature of the depen-
dent economy; the generalization of labor super-exploitation. The conse-
quence (which was its cause) is to make the mass of surplus workers grow
and to exacerbate their pauperization….
marini 1996: 65
It is important to note that in Underdevelopment and Revolution Marini still did

not see this trend more and more present in advanced countries. Indeed,
pointing out the differences between absolute surplus value, based on the pro-
longation of the working day, and the relative value, which occurs, even with-
out altering the length of that day when the socially necessary work time
decreases production and reproduction of the labor force, arguing that:
d ifficulties to achieve the self-valorization of capital and, therefore, negatively affect the rate
of profit”. This thesis finds support in Marx Vol. ii, 1980: 227, et seq. For another perspective
see Prado 2005.
It is still possible to identify a way of increasing surplus value, originat-

ing from a reduction in wages that does not correspond to a real reduc-
tion in the necessary labor time. This case tends to be exceptional in
advanced capitalist countries, but it has a generalized character in back-
ward capitalist countries, such as Brazil, where it creates a situation of
super-exploitation of labor. In the text exclusively for the purpose of simpli-
fication, the expression absolute surplus value is also taken to designate this
latter modality.
marini 1985: 148, my italics
As we see, Marini established an equivalence between the super-exploitation

of absolute surplus value as an increase in the working day. Once this equality
is dissipated and assuming the specificity of super-exploitation as a specific
regime of surplus value production, the idea is to conceive, in addition, super-
exploitation as a mechanism of exploitation of a structural nature that authors
like Cardoso reduce to a phenomenon of conjectural nature. In fact, in a cri-
tique of Marini, Cardoso and Serra (1978: 51) argue that:
…at the same time that he establishes the logical deadlines of ironic
imaginary needs (stagnation, underconsumption, super-exploitation,
sub-imperialism) he transforms into an irrepressible tendency what is
the phase of a cycle, and what need is an alternation or contradictory
possibility.
It is appreciated, then, that for these authors the super-exploitation of the

labor force constituted only a phase of a cycle, that is to say, a conjectural phe-
nomenon that can be very well surpassed, even, within the functioning struc-
ture of the dependent capitalism. Under this same conviction and ideological
lineage Cardoso worked busily as secretary of the Treasury and then as presi-
dent of Brazil. This is why super-exploitation is becoming an important factor
in the world economy and its processes of valorization and accumulation of
capital, which does not annul the structural relations of dependence with the
imperialist centers.
It remains to be said that in the current conditions of the relationship be-
tween dependence and exploitation it is necessary to develop articulated stud-
ies that are deployed in four directions, which make up the following from the
point of view of the new features of dependence. In the economic sphere, one
of the characteristics of what we can call the ‘new dependence’ is the propen-
sity to productive specialization of Latin American economies, stimulated by
the systematic application of neoliberal economic policy. Thus, we can say that
the productive specialization is a concept that defines the new profile of Latin
86 Chapter 4
American economies based on their propensity to specialize and orient their

resources (basically capital, labor power and land) in the most profitable
activities overturned to the world market, even to the detriment of domestic
production and the market, causing strong recessive internal movements and
recurrent imbalances. The second line of research, from the social point of
view, deals with the concentration of income as that perverse feature of the
dependent economy, which continues to stimulate the production in r estricted
bands of the market; therefore, orienting the bulk of production as sumptuary
production, insofar as it does not enter, or enters very little, into the majority
consumption of the labor force.
The reduced segments of the dominant, middle and intermediate classes of
the population are those that continue to benefit from the development of
the dependent capitalism embedded in the world market. Obviously, the con-
centration of income is only a reflection, more or less approximate, of the
underground movements that occur in the productive sphere, that is, where
the income of the different classes of society is forged. In this way, a polarized
production structure leads to increasing polarization in the high and low
spheres of internal markets and, therefore, of income. The empirical evidence
referring to Latin American countries revitalizes the methodological level
of the theory of dependence regarding the verification of the conformation of
two spheres of the internal market: one split towards the internal market of
low income and the other towards the high income market, with the irruption
of a third sphere focused on the world market strongly controlled and mo-
nopolized by big transnational companies. Thirdly, it highlights the line of re-
search concerning the increasing extension of the super-exploitation of the
labor force, even in the labor and productive systems of the developed capital-
ist countries that is observed with greater intensity after the great capitalist
crisis of 2008–2009 in the European Union, Japan and the United States, affect-
ing the living and working conditions of their populations. Finally, a fourth ar-
ticulated level of dependency analysis and its relation to the super-exploitation
of labor lies at the political level, confirming the problem of the relationship
between democracy and the growing propensities for political authoritarian-
ism observed in those countries where the right has triumphed. This working
hypothesis requires relating the necessary concentration of power in the
State from assuring the productive specialization of the new dependent capi-
talist reproduction patterns and the maintenance of a polarized structure
strongly concentrated in favor of the income of capital, and to the detriment
of labor.
In sum, the super-exploitation of labor, the productive specialization, the
concentration of income, unemployment, misery and the exclusionary policies
of the Latin American capitalist states, formally democratic but really rooted in
the counterinsurgent and authoritarian power structures, configure the per-
verse traits of a structural dependence that is opposed to the claims of Latin
American democratization by the workers and the popular classes of Latin
America, whose political meaning is none other than the requirement
of greater participation in the decisions that affect them to resolve their main
demands.
3 Criticism of the Concept of Super-Exploitation
As a possessor of money, in the commodity market, the capitalist is not faced

with the ‘work’ in general (Arbeit), but with the worker (Arbeiter) who actually
just sells his labor force (arbeitskräfte); but more specifically sells the use value
of his or her labor force (Wert der nutzung). In Capital, Marx distinguishes the
concept of ‘work’ from that of ‘labor power’ when he says that “Labor … is the
substance and the immanent measure of value, but in itself it has no value”
(Marx Vol. I, 2000: 449). Supposedly Dias finds an ‘imprecision’ in Marini in the
use that this author makes of the concepts ‘work’ and ‘work force’. But Marini
was perfectly clear about Marx’s demarcation of the difference between labor
and labor power, as well as the conclusion that labor on its own ‘lacks value’.
Marini uses them as synonyms, not only in his paramount work Dialectics of
Dependence but also in all his texts that refer to the topic of super-exploitation
and the concepts of labor and labor-force, without altering the conceptual es-
sence of Marx’s theses of the critique of political economy. This difference is
seen, for example, in the following passage when he writes that:
The superiority of capitalism over other forms of mercantile production,

and their basic difference in relation to them, lies in the fact that what
they transform into a commodity is not the worker—that is, the total
time of the worker’s existence, with all the dead points that this implies
from the point of view of production—but rather its labor force, that is,
the time of its existence usable for production, leaving the same worker
the responsibility to take over non-productive time, from the capitalist
point of view.
marini 1973: 43–44
Therefore, while it is true that other authors do not differentiate ‘labor’ and
‘labor-force’—without considering their conceptual and analytical implica-
tions—Marini builds his Dialectics of Dependence always in the light of this
88 Chapter 4
conceptual and categorical differentiation, allowing it to erect super-

exploitation as the structural and constituent foundation of dependent capi-
talism in conjunction with its insertion in the world capitalist economy.
4 Super-Exploitation of the Labor Force, or Labor?
In light of these considerations, when Marini talks about super-exploitation, in

essence, he is referring to both the work force as a concept and the worker him-
self. What should interest us should not be trying to find a non-existent impre-
cision between both concepts, but to understand the qualitative function that
Marini’s theory plays in the elucidation of the essence of dependent capitalism
that rests upon super-exploitation. Therefore, when in Marini’s texts we read
the category of super-exploitation, we assume that he is referring to what the
laborer, the worker, essentially sells and that it is the use value of his labor force
and not his labor in general, their physical and total corporeality as befits the
slave regime. In this regard, for example, Marx clarifies that: “The living work-
ing time that the capitalist acquires in the exchange is not the exchange value,
but the use value of the capacity for work” (Marx 1980: Vol. ii, 195). If this were
not the case, if Marini did not understand this essential difference it would be
extremely difficult to reach the conclusion identifying super-exploitation as
the essential category of the dependent capitalism system, both in its specific-
ity as a producer of value and surplus value, as in the concrete manner in which
it is produced and reproduced in correspondence with its dependent and sub-
ordinate insertion to the hegemonic centers of advanced capitalism, and
which correspond precisely to the most dynamic ones such as the United
States, England, Germany, Japan or France, in addition to others located in the
nomenclature of that type of capitalism.
5 Super-Exploitation of the Labor Force: Category or Concept?
Dias (2013: 72) undertakes the task of clarifying the super-exploitation of the
labor force category, in particular to envisage a supposed ‘imprecision’ in its
use by Marini. On this subject, three issues are raised: one, related to the labor-
force and labor relationship; a second in reference to the discussion on Mari-
ni’s theory on the difference between labor force and super-exploitation; and
finally on the discussion about whether the latter is a category or a concept. In
the end, the author discusses in what sense one can understand the Marinist
hypothesis that poses a tendency to the extension of super-exploitation in ad-

vanced countries.
To address the issue of the plausibility of the super-exploitation of the labor
force (category, concept, mode, notion, mechanism or regime?) becoming gen-
eralized to the capitalist system as a whole, including to advanced countries,
Dias wonders whether it is or is not a category, a concept, or a mechanism of
exploitation producing surplus value. Put simply, the answer is positive to the
second and even as an instrument, while it is negative if it is a category because
it is a ‘founding’ of a reality (dependent capitalism) that cannot be extrapolat-
ed to other realities, that is, from the periphery dependent on the imperialist
center. Let’s see:
It is simply understood as specific ways of raising the rate of surplus val-

ue, so that wages fall below the values of the labor force, of course, since
it is the operation of capitalism, whatever it may be, that does it. Con-
sidered as a category, in the terms discussed here, specific to dependent
capitalism, as a way of compensating precisely the structural constraints
that define dependence—mechanisms of value transfer—, of course
not.
dias 2013: 90
In the first place, the author accepts that for Marini super-exploitation is not
synonymous with ‘greater exploitation’—because it has ‘a theoretical meaning
of its own’. Immediately, however, he asks whether Marini sees it as a category
or not, for which he refers to the philosophy dictionary of the Italian philoso-
pher Nicola Abbagnano to define the meaning of categories and their differ-
ences with concepts, precisely in philosophical terms and that, for reasons of
the nature of our research, we will not address in this book.2
Considering that the category, and not the concept, of super-exploitation is
the center of the Marxist dependency theory and its foundation, it is yet not so
in the theoretical system of Marx where this category is just a form or mecha-
nism to raise exploitation. But also for another reason: due to a premise of a
methodological nature consisting of the fact that in Capital he always assumes
that the price of goods and labor corresponds to their value. This was obviously
a valid premise in the very high level of abstraction that Marx later considered
in Volume iii of Capital to address the problem of the transformation of values
2 In addition to Abbagnano (1971), see Aristotle (2004); Kant (1998); Garcia (2000); and Bagu
(2008).
90 Chapter 4
in production prices. Since for Marx this question of the super-exploitation is

not a category, Dias (2013: 90) concludes, therefore, “Marini does not clarify the
difference between categories and ways of raising the rate of surplus value, this
answer that becomes obvious, in this author, is not clear”. It is clear that this
question ‘is not clear’ because Marini does not part in any of his works from an
abstract-philosophical discussion of the categories in the terms in which this
author does. What we can say is that the categories as expressions of the con-
stitution of reality are not metaphysical or teleological, that is, idealistic. They
do not arrive to establish themselves forever. This means that, rather, they are
historical-social, temporary and are modified as reality itself is modified (Lenin
1975). A socialist revolution, for example, overthrows the super-exploitation,
and even the law of value, to constitute a new mode of production and a new
non-capitalist social formation, that is, socialist and with it all the epistemo-
logical categories of capitalist reality.
Secondly, we consider that although established in a very high level of ab-
straction as opposed to concepts, these categories correspond to hierarchical
orders of reality. What we interpret in the subject that concerns us, that is,
super-exploitation, is a certain reality that can be the dependent capitalist for-
mation. Or, as Marini says, the founding element in another reality, in classical
and advanced capitalism, is only a subordinate category to another founding
category of that reality, as it may be the relative surplus value that in said capi-
talism constitutes the motor, or fundamental category, of the production of
surplus value and of the accumulation of capital. It should also be noted that
although super-exploitation is the category by antonomasia of dependent cap-
italism, it would not have any specific meaning had it not been constituted in
terms of the development and expansion of world capitalism, in the same way
that it would lack an explanation without the subordination dependent on the
same. There is, therefore, the dialectic between the two that in our hypothesis is
expressed in the constitutive and operative character of the super-exploitation
category. The unequal and combined development of capitalism, for example,
does not replace super-exploitation but serves as a dialectical tie that assem-
bles and specifies the transfers of value and surplus value, through the specific
cycle of the dependent economy, to the center of the capitalist countries for its
accumulation and reproduction of capital.
From the foregoing, he points out that the author who tries to clarify Mari-
ni’s theoretical ‘inaccuracies’ about the theory of value and super-exploitation
engages in a reiterative discussion with the supposed objective of clarifying the
question that he himself formulated about whether super-exploitation raises
the absolute surplus value and also the relative surplus value:
The last clarification regarding the categorical treatment given by Marini

is related to one of the most present elements in the debate on the Marx-
ist theory of dependence. This is the well-known question of whether
overexploitation in dependent economies implies only the raising of ab-
solute surplus value or whether it incorporates elements of relative sur-
plus value.
dias 2013: 90
The author then enters into a discussion about the conceptual differences be-
tween labor productivity and intensity, which we will not address here (see
Chapter 5) because we consider that Marini clarified this discussion sufficient-
ly well in several of his works on these concepts (Marini 1978 and 1979). On this
question we observe that, although Marini addressed the consequences of the
intensity and productivity of work in the rate of extraordinary profit (1979: 24),
Dias disregards this important reflection that is fundamental to the Marxist
dependency theory. In addition to evoking this question the author exposes his
lack of understanding of the specificity of super-exploitation and its difference
to absolute and relative surplus value. In this regard Marini writes in Dialectics
of Dependence (Marini 1973: 92–93):
…the concept of super-exploitation is not identical with that of absolute

surplus value, since it also includes a mode of production of relative sur-
plus value which corresponds to the increase in the intensity of work. On
the other hand, the conversion of part of the salary fund into the fund of
capital accumulation does not strictly represent a form of production of
absolute surplus value, since it simultaneously affects the two working
times within the working day, and not only the time of surplus labor, as it
happens with absolute surplus value. Super-exploitation is defined more
by the greater exploitation of the physical strength of the worker, as op-
posed to the exploitation resulting from the increase of his productivity,
and tends to be expressed in the fact that the labor force is remunerated
below its real value (our emphasis).
The expropriation of part of the workers’ consumption fund that becomes an

additional source of capital accumulation, and the remuneration of the value
of the labor force below that value—as a product of that expropriation—
constitute the mode and specificity, at the same time, are inherent in the dif-
ference of super-exploitation with respect to the concepts of absolute surplus
value and relative surplus value. What we can agree on with Dias is that in no
92 Chapter 4
way is the dependent capitalist economy based, solely and exclusively, on the
production of absolute surplus value through the prolongation of the working
day or in the different forms assumed by the intensification of the labor force.
The increase of the rhythm of work by the machinery or of the radius of action
of the same, as Marx demonstrates, can derive, as exploitation mechanisms, in
the production of relative surplus value, depending on its incidence, or not,
in the sectors producing basic articles and those of a social and historical
nature that affect the determination of the value of the labor force in social,
not individual terms. Either through the branches of the production sector of
means of production, or in those other producers of consumer goods destined
toward the replacement of the work force as merchandise.
We consider that this issue was settled by Marini (1978: 63–74; 1985: 16–18,
20, 107–116, 199) in concluding that the foundation of the dependent capitalist
economy is the super-exploitation that combines the forms of the production
of absolute and relative surplus value, to which it adds a third specific mecha-
nism of exploitation and production of surplus value, and that is the expro-
priation of part of the consumption fund. Which constitutes the value of the
labor force of the worker and its conversion into an additional source of capital
accumulation. Here the key (whether you want to use category, concept, mech-
anism, or all combined) is the concept of mode of production based on the
greater exploitation of the worker, and not in the development of their produc-
tive capacity (Marini 1973: 40).
6 Can the Super-Exploitation of the Labor Force Be Extended

to Advanced Countries?
Based on these questions, Dias goes on to discuss this issue which summarizes
affirmatively if it is the case of conceiving the super-exploitation as a concept
and instrument of production of surplus value, while denying it if it is under-
stood as a category.
If the specificity of dependent economies is in need of responding to the

different mechanisms of value transfer to the center of world capitalist
accumulation based on super-exploitation, this category could not be
used to understand the specificity of core capitalism.
dias 2013: 90
We diverge from this somewhat simplistic reasoning that detracts from the
necessary dialectical mediations and articulations between concepts and cat-
egories, such that it is the reality itself that is the unit of multiple relationships
and determinations. Our central hypothesis is that super-exploitation has his-

torically been a constituent of Latin American economies and societies that
are dependent, but increasingly operational, on the production of value and
the valorization of the capital of advanced capitalist economies. There would
remain an objection by Dias: that although concept-mechanism accepts that
super-exploitation can operate in the central economies, this happens in a
conjectural way:
If super-exploitation is understood as a specific way of raising the level of

exploitation of the labor-force, there would be no objection in this chap-
ter. After all, it is in capitalism’s nature, whatever it is, especially when it
is in difficulty to continue with its process of accumulation, through rais-
ing the rates of surplus value.
dias 2013: 94
Only we have to clarify that capital constantly struggles to increase surplus

value in any of its stages, be it in descent or ascent, an issue that has nothing to
do with the fact that super-exploitation is or is not a phenomenon passenger.
This is the classic thesis of many authors who consider super-exploitation as a
mere device that transitorily activates in the advanced capitalist countries at
times when it presents difficulties in the production of surplus value and prof-
its and after the crisis is overcome it ‘returns’ to its ‘normal state’. In contempo-
rary capitalism this behavior is not appreciated anywhere, nor in its most
recent stages. Rather what is observed is a growth characterized by low rates of
economic growth and recurrent crises.
Beyond the philosophical-conceptual appraisals of the categories, for us the
essential thing is to conceive, as a mechanism or as a category, super-exploitation
as a device that is installed—in part to counteract the fall in the rate of profit
and the dismeasure of value with the intervention of the State in the developed
capitalist-imperialist countries in a structural way. Not cyclical or conjectur-
al—in the very functioning of their productive and labor systems, subordinat-
ed to the logic and the historical regime of production of relative surplus value,
not to compensate the transfer of value but the growing problems of the
production of value and surplus value (dismeasure of value). As Piqueras (2014:
141) says in relation to the crisis of capitalism that comes b etween 2008–2009
with the epicenter in the United States: “…there was no surplus value in the
production that could be achieved to pay the high valuation rates required by
finance”.
We consider that this is the line that emerges from the conception of Marini
in the texts where he reflected on this. It must also be acknowledged that he
did not develop the subject in depth and perhaps he left it for others to venture
94 Chapter 4
into, as indeed is happening today. The important thing is to consider that the
sense that conferred to the increasingly concrete and generalized tendency of
the extension of super-exploitation in the system as a whole, was to conceive it
as a structural mechanism and not only transitory in times of crisis, as sug-
gested by Dias in his text (he confirms this in his recent 2017 work). Further-
more, we keep in mind the horizon of the fall in the rate of profit due to
the articulation of two movements found: the increasing tendency towards
thehomogenization of constant capital (fixed and circulating) and the confor-
mation of the labor force as the mechanism and an essential factor in the pro-
duction of extraordinary profits in the system as a whole.
Both phenomena will have a differentiated effect on both dependent and
advanced capitalism without dissolving their conceptual and categorical
specificity in the contours of their respective socio-economic formations. In
this regard it is worth considering this observation of Alves (2016: 51) which
does nothing but enrich the previous thesis, in the sense that the precariza-
tion of the labor force is an articulated product of both a lower rate of cheap-
ening of the value of constant capital (fixed and circulating), which affects,
therefore, a proportional reduction in the rate of profit, as well as the accel-
eration of the devaluation of the value of labor (dismeasure of value). From
another angle, the first phenomenon caused a ‘slowdown’ in technological
innovations since the 90s or a “…brake in the scientific application to pro-
duction” (Piqueras 2014: 118). Both movements articulated that the Marinist
thesis confirmed the importance assumed by the worker (his or her labor-
force) as an essential force in the production of extraordinary surplus value
and, therefore, of extraordinary profits in the time of prevalence of ficti-
tious capital as a dominant capitalist regime and the ideologies of the ‘end of
work’.
7 Super-Exploitation of the Labor Force or Violation

of Labor Force Value?
Osorio argues that “super-exploitation is a particular form of exploitation and

this particularity is that it is an exploitation in which the value of the labor
force is violated” (Osorio 2016: 155, author’s italics). On the market side, this
violation of the labor force occurs in the act of buying and selling labor while
in production it is caused by a greater intensive and/or extensive wear that
implies, according to the author, an ‘abnormal wear’ of the same, even if it is
remunerated. The result is that the salary ceases to equal its total value.
In short, for this author super-exploitation is reduced to the simple violation of
the law of value (Osorio 2016: 131–181).
The slightly different approach taken by Luce (2013: 145–165) is more dialec-
tical and less mechanical when it comes to the meaning of the words ‘viola-
tion’ or ‘transgression’ of the law of value. In this regard, he says: “To begin with,
the words transgression and violation should not be read in the sense of an
annulment of the law of value. In fact, for Marx, the law of value does not im-
ply price equality” a subject that Marx deals with in Chapter ix of Capital Vol.
iii, which shows that goods are not bought and sold for their values, but for
their production prices and that these are governed by market prices. From the
foregoing, Luce deduces that:
…the super-exploitation of the labor force consists of the law of one’s

own tendency of dependent capitalism, which follows the orientation to
counteract the transfer of value to which the dependent economies are
undermined by an international division of labor … The category of
super-exploitation must therefore be understood as (i) a set of modalities
that imply the remuneration of the labor force below its value and the
premature exhaustion of the worker’s physical and psychic strength; and
(ii) which form the basis of dependent capitalism, along with the transfer
of value and the division between the phases of the capital cycle.
luce 2013: 147
This quote can be interpreted in four articulated and dialectical dimensions of

the meaning of super-exploitation: (a) the remuneration of the labor force be-
low its value as a result of the expropriation of a part of it; (b) the reduction of
the useful life of the worker; (c) the transfers of value and surplus value to the
imperialist countries; and (d) the split of the capital cycle of the dependent
economy into two spheres of the internal market: one, of high consumption
destined to the layers, and middle and upper classes, of the bourgeoisie and
the oligarchy; and another, the low sphere, corresponding to popular and
worker consumption. These dimensions constitute the foundations of depen-
dent capitalism to which we must add the output of exports represented by the
world market, especially in periods of crisis. This will differentiate quantita-
tively and qualitatively capitalism dependent on the metropolitan although, as
Marini and Vania Bambirra say, under their same general laws. Luce qualifies
in this way the characterization of the idea of violation or transgression of the
law of value by conferring an articulation with the thesis that, in the end, this
action perpetrated by capital does not mean that the law of value no longer
works—or is canceled—but it is ultimately the historical-structural configura-
tion that ends up taking on the dependent capitalist formation in relation to
the world economy. Thus, it clarifies this controversial point that avoids reduc-
ing super-exploitation to the mere act of violating the law of value.
96 Chapter 4
Let’s go back to Marini’s approach to evaluate this last conclusion:
…the three mechanisms identified—the intensification of work, the pro-

longation of the working day and the expropriation of part of the work
necessary for the worker to replenish his labor force—configure a way of
production based exclusively on the greater exploitation of the worker,
and not on the development of his productive capacity and whose essen-
tial characteristic consists in that … the worker is denied the necessary
conditions to replace the wear and tear of his work force.
marini 1973: 40
On the one hand, the prolongation and intensity cause a greater wear on the
labor force that results in its premature exhaustion, while the expropriation of
the consumption fund and its conversion into capital accumulation prevents it
from even consuming what is strictly necessary “…in order to keep their work
force in a normal state, in capitalist terms, these mechanisms mean that the work
is remunerated below its value and correspond, then, to super-exploitation”
(Marini 1973: 41–42).
We must retain two things: (a) that the three mechanisms correspond to the
production of absolute surplus value, to relative and super-exploitation, and
configure a specific way of exploiting labor with a charge in the greater exploi-
tation and not in the development of productive capacity as it happens in the
advanced countries; and that (b) it is precisely this mode of production which
is the foundation of the dependent capitalist economy. This mode of produc-
tion is the concrete form assumed by the universal capitalist laws in depen-
dent economic-social formations. From which it is deduced that the ‘violation
of the law of value’ is the expression, par excellence, of the ‘state of normality’
and of permanent functioning that it assumes by virtue of the attributes iden-
tified above.
Although the essential characteristic of super-exploitation, in general terms,
consists of its remuneration below its value—which must be determined in
both quantitative and qualitative terms to establish the level and magnitude of
that normality—it results, as Marini points out, in a way of exploitation that
combines, empirically, the prolongation of the working day, the intensity and,
finally, the particular mechanism of the super-exploitation; expropriation in
favor of the accumulation of capital of a part of the consumption fund and of
life that corresponds to the worker.
There is one final point on the theme of the universalization of the super-
exploitation in contemporary capitalism. Osorio recognizes this possibility,
but on the condition of:
…distinguishing the specific forms that predominate in the imperial

world (sic) and in the dependent world with the differentiated conse-
quences in the forms capital reproduces, as well as in the differentiated
bases that establishes for the development of the class struggle.
osorio 2016: 182
Obviously it is not about erasing the specificities assumed, in any case, by

super-exploitation in advanced capitalism. If so, this author would be right in
his statement that would be nullifying not only the dependency theory, but the
relationship and raison d’être of the pair: imperialism/dependency or, if you
like, ‘center/periphery’. But like Dias, the super-exploitation in the centers is of
a conjectural nature only and it operates in periods of crisis like the one that has
been felt for several decades in global capitalism depositing, by the way, all its
weight onto the backs of the workers. Our position is different, we consider that,
as stated by Marini, super-exploitation is being installed in the productive
systems and in the organization of work of the imperialist countries in a struc-
tural and systemic way, although subordinated to the logic and laws that gov-
ern the production of relative surplus value and its institutional correlates such
as the State, scientific-technical development, imperialism and the autonomy
of its capital cycles that maintain it as a hegemonic category. Thus, under this
conception and method, and along the lines of Marini, we consider that the di-
lemma of the universalization of super-exploitation in c ontemporary capital-
ism is resolved, both with respect to its scope and its limitations.
8 Super-Exploitation: a Political Category?
Arrizabalo (2016: 165) criticizes what he calls the ‘notion’ of super-exploitation

of Marini in the sense of discarding it and reducing it to a simple technique
based on the inability of the labor force to replenish its use value and to repro-
duce itself under ‘normal’ conditions. His approach is the following:
Marini formulated the notion of ‘super-exploitation’, for Latin America in

particular, associated with three mechanisms: ‘the intensification of
work, the prolongation of the working day and the expropriation of part
of the work necessary for the worker to replenish his workforce’.
First we must clarify that what this author calls ‘notion’ is, for Marini, within a
global understanding of the theory of value/labor and the critique of political
economy, a mode or regime of super-exploitation that is articulated dialectically
98 Chapter 4
with the production of absolute surplus value and relative surplus value, with-
out which that ‘notion’ would have no meaning. Second, from the above, the
author infers, without understanding the essence of Marini’s approach, as we
will see later, that said super-exploitation:
…refers to the real fact of life and work conditions so deeply precarious,
that the reproduction itself of the worker seems to be threatened and,
therefore, cannot even be reproduced as such labor force; it would also
seem that we should talk about something more than exploitation, that
is it would be necessary to speak of super-exploitation.
arrizabalo 2016: 165
The key to Arrizabalo’s criticism comes from the word ‘normality’. In fact, he
adds:
Marini states that consumption is denied, which allows the labor force to
be conserved in a ‘normal state’. However, he argues, in reality there are
no such ‘normal states’ as an irremovable reference for establishing the
reproduction of the work force.
Without further explanation, super-exploitation as a theoretical notion “…

clashes with the very foundation of the law of value”, because according to the
author, “…the degree of exploitation is not defined in a technical or absolute
way, but in a relative way; it simply consists of the participation of wages in the
total of the new value produced” (Arrizabalo 2016: 166). And how are salaries
determined? The formula with which the previous quote ends expresses the
new value created by the labor force and corresponds to the ratio of variable
capital (wages) to surplus value () while the rate of exploitation of the labor
force is determined by the relationship between the socially necessary labor
time () to produce and reproduce the labor force divided by the unpaid surplus
labor time (corresponding to the effective magnitude of the surplus value pro-
duced by the worker and whose expression is):
nw *
Operating rate (%) =
ew **
* Necessary work
** Excess work
The exploitation is a social relation between labor and capital, from which sur-
plus value results and what:
…In the framework of this relationship, the worker, working to obtain a

given remuneration, creates a value corresponding to it in a limit that is
lower than the working day to which he is attached; consequently, in the
excess time to which the reproduction of the value expressed by its remu-
neration strictly corresponds, it creates a surplus value. The relationship
between these two times of production contained in the workday repre-
sents the degree of exploitation to which the worker is subjected, a de-
gree that is, then, equal to the rate of surplus value.
marini 1985: 113
We must consider the differences between the concepts ‘exploitation rate’,

‘mass’ and ‘rate of surplus value’ to understand the different modalities as-
sumed by the super-exploitation category in the context of the law of value.
Because, as Marini warns, one of the specificities of super-exploitation consists
precisely in simultaneously modifying the two magnitudes of the total working
day and, therefore, the mass and the rate of surplus value with their respective
repercussions on the profit rate. It is curious that a Marxist author of undoubt-
ed analytical rigor, such as Arrizabalo, does not notice that the word, ‘normal’,
in Marx’s theory, refers to the quantitative and qualitative determination of the
value of labor power (x time to produce, for example, x amount of food, health,
housing, recreation, clothing). That is to say, its essential components as value
of use, determined by the time of socially necessary work and by all the mate-
rial and historical-moral values that constitute it. And this is precisely what
Marini refers to when he affirms that the super-exploitation, in addition to the
prolongation of the working day and the intensity, includes surplus value:
…A third procedure, which consists in reducing the consumption of the

worker beyond his normal limit, for which “the necessary background of
the worker’s consumption actually becomes, within certain limits, a fund of
capital accumulation”, thus implying a specific way of increasing the ex-
cess labor time.
marini 1973: 38–39, the author’s original italics
It is very important to point out that in the previous quote the phrase: “the
necessary fund of consumption of the worker becomes, in fact, within certain
limits, a fund of accumulation of capital” is attributed to Marx (2000: 505)
when he writes that:
It will be recalled that the share of surplus value depends in the first in-
stance on the degree of exploitation of the labor force. Political economy
100 Chapter 4
attaches such importance to this factor it is identified with the promo-

tion of accumulation by intensifying the strength of the performance
with the promotion of accumulation through the redoubled exploitation
of the worker. In studying the production of surplus value, we always start
from the assumption that wages represent, at least, the value of labor pow-
er. However, in practice the forced reduction of wages below this value is of
too great importance for us not to pause for a moment to examine it.
Thus, the necessary background of the worker’s consumption actually be-
comes, within certain limits, a fund of accumulation of capital.
marx Vol. i, 2000: 505, italics in original
Even Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations (1977: 72) writes in this regard that
what can be considered as normal is:
Man must always live by maintaining himself with work. Therefore, his
salary must be enough at least for his maintenance. It is essential, more
often than not, that they earn more than what they need, otherwise it
would be impossible to maintain a family, and then the race of those
workers would never go beyond the first generation.
If the above does not correspond to the law of value because it ‘clashes’ with its
own foundation, then Marx himself would be placing himself in an anti-Marxist
position or, at least, very far from it. But as you can see, when Marx uses the
expressions ‘redoubled exploitation’ of the labor force and salary reduction
below the value of the labor force, obviously it presupposes that there is a ‘nor-
mality parameter’ (where the price of merchandise corresponds to its value)
and that, in capital, is given by the magnitude of socially necessary labor time
expressed both in quantity, time and, finally, in money that, in the case of the
worker, corresponds to his salary, of course as long as the price corresponds to
the value. Therefore there is nothing mysterious when Marini, relying on Marx,
defines super-exploitation as a specific mechanism of exploitation and extor-
tion of surplus value by the capital derived from the expropriation of part of
the workers’ consumption fund, which it turns into an additional source of
capital accumulation (Marini 1973: 38–39). In a capitalist system, what pre-
vents capital from expropriating part of that consumption fund?
In any case here we have to introduce the class struggle as the determining
factor within the structural conformation of super-exploitation. Rather than
viewing the word ‘normal’ as a subjective value or moral character as does the
neolithic economy in the style of Böhm-Bawerk for example, Arrizabalo evades
citing the objective mechanism that determines super-exploitation and quali-

tatively differentiates the capitalist social formation dependent on the one
corresponding to the countries of advanced capitalism. In this way, Marini
synthesizes the super-exploitation concept:
…the three identified mechanisms—the intensification of work, the pro-

longation of the working day and the expropriation of part of the work
necessary to the worker to replenish his labor force—configure a mode of
production based exclusively on the greater exploitation of the worker,
and not in the development of its productive capacity. This is consistent
with the low level of development of the productive forces in the Latin
American economy.
marini 1973: 40
How does the production of labor increase in the capitalist economy? There
are three methods pointed out by Marx. But first we must point out that there
is no surplus value when only the quantity of use values increases through an
interaction between labor force and scientific-technical d e velopment. Here
the unit value of the goods falls but there is no creation of surplus value be-
cause the necessary work is not reduced. The first method, the most primitive,
consists in the prolongation of the working day or absolute surplus value. The
second refers to the intensification of the labor force. The third, the most com-
plex, which concerns the production of relative surplus value, is based on this
interaction but affects branches and sectors of production that determine, di-
rectly or indirectly, the value of the labor force causing the reduction necessary
in labor time and, therefore, the increase in surplus value. On the other hand,
super-exploitation includes the theory and mechanisms of surplus value in a
(dependent) context where, due to the low level of materia l and scientific-
technological development of the productive forces, determined at the same
time by the cycle of capital and the constant transfers of value to the centers,
preferably emphasize the prolongation of the working day (which includes the
production of absolute surplus value), the intensification of the rhythm, and
the wear and tear in the productive process of the labor force that may or may
not correspond to the relative surplus value as it affects the branches of con-
sumption and means of production connected with the first in the production
of articles that enter, and determine, the value of the labor force.
As for the production of relative surplus value, which raises the material
productive forces of society through scientific-technological development and
contributes to the reduction of labor time socially necessary for the p roduction
102 Chapter 4
of goods, including the labor force of the worker, it occurs, of course, in the
dependent economies, although subordinated to the super-exploitation mode
that, at the same time, overdetermines it.
Among the various causes of super-exploitation of the labor force in depen-
dent economies, Marini highlights a fundamental historical-structural nature
and that consists of the fact that:
…The participation of Latin America in the world market will contribute

to the axis of the accumulation in the industrial economy shifting from
the production of absolute surplus value to that of relative surplus value,
that is, the accumulation becomes more dependent on the increase in
the productive capacity of the work than simply of the exploitation of the
worker.
marini 1973: 23
It is this contradictory relationship between super-exploitation and relative

surplus value based on the increase in productivity that generates and repro-
duces the dependency relations within the binomial Center-Dependency, ad-
vanced countries-dependent countries in the contour of world capitalism. As
you can see, the essence of Marini’s approach, which coincides with the cen-
tral thesis of this book, is that the dialectic between the production of absolute
and relative surplus value, with its specific mechanisms of production articu-
lated, highlights a third specific element of exploitation based on the greater
exploitation of the worker. And not on the development of labor productivity,
which, as we have previously stated, although it was intensely deployed in the
course of Latin American industrialization in the dependent countries of
greater relative capitalist development such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina,
particularly in the post-World War ii period, however, always constituted—
relative surplus value—a mechanism subordinated to the super-exploitation
regime. In this contradiction lies the essence of Latin American dependency
and underdevelopment. Without developing this point, which is not the sub-
ject of this book, we emphasize that this situation is exacerbated by the dein-
dustrialization experienced by the Latin American economy since the entry of
neoliberalism in the course of the 80s.
Finally, Arrizabalo criticizes Marini unfoundedly in the political plane stat-
ing that he supposedly supports the idea of the existence of ‘two qualitatively
different types of exploitation’: the ‘normal’ and ‘super-exploitation’. First, note
how this author differentiates super-exploita t ion from normality, a ques-
tion that Marini never makes, and then blames him for ‘confronting’ the work-
ing classes of the dependent world with those of the developed world because:
…It paves the way for a hypothetical conflict between the passive subjects
of both (two differentiated segments of the working class, the workers of
the advanced economies and the workers of the backward economies),
as their shared interest in abolishing exploitation disappears, that one of
these segments would have the immediate priority of reaching the mere
exploitation that allows it to overcome its particular situation of super-
exploitation. From here some expositions are d erived that are known
as ‘third-world’, in the sense that they cons i der the central nucleus of
exploitation develops between nations and, th e refore, the workers of
the most advanced economies are part of the exploiters. This formula-
tion collapses immediately, both from the theoretical point of view …
and empirically, as soon as the inequality of classes is not analysed with
vigour in these more advanced economies, but r ather their necessary
increase.
It is necessary to clarify that both relative and absolute surplus value and
super-exploitation are based on a rule of normality and that is precisely what
determines the value of the labor force in capitalism and in contemporary so-
cieties. Therefore, it is improper to assign to Marini an imaginary opposition
between super-exploitation and ‘normality’ and artificially replace them with
‘working class of the center’ and ‘working class of the periphery’, respectively,
in such a way that, when Arrizabalo affirms that: “This formulation collapses …
both from a theoretical and empirical point of view”, evidently in a theoreti-
cal and empirical vacuum since in none of his texts does Marini formu-
late such falsehoods regarding supposed clashes of the working class against
the working class derived from his thesis regarding dependence and the
super-exploitation.
Perhaps other ideological speculations, alien to Marini, did but that is the
case neither of the Marxist dependency theory nor of Marini, so we do not deal
with them here. He, rather, postulated the unity of the working class on the
international level—as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Che and many others did at the
time—not to “improve the conditions of the salaried workers” within their
own capitalism—which is rather the position held by the Keynesians and the
reformist Marxists—but to overcome it in terms of the construction of a new
democratic and socialist economic and social system led by the working and
popular classes. Not losing sight of the fact that the struggle is not between the
working class of the dependent countries against the working class of the
countries of advanced and imperialist capitalism. This can only be sustained
by a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the work of the Brazilian
104 Chapter 4
thinker. And of course the capitalists of the dependent countries themselves

who are interested in consolidating the fragmentation—of the working
class—and, therefore, their defeat.
9 A Dependency Theory without Super-Exploitation?
In his article: “Successes and Problems of Super-exploitation” Katz (2017) pro-

poses to ‘demonstrate’ that dependency theory can exist without the concept
of super-exploitation that was allegedly ‘omitted’ by Marx, and that theory can
be ‘updated’ by the concept of ‘generalized precarization’. In synthesis, he pos-
tulates a ‘theory of dependence without super-exploitation’ based on ‘low
salaries’.
Katz (2017) makes a critical assessment of the Marinist concept of super-
exploitation concluding that it can be replaced by the ‘low remuneration’ of
the labor force ‘resource’ (sic!). For this, it includes both ‘contraceptive’ super-
exploitation authors (Cardoso-Serra, Cueva and more) that may or may not
accept the theory of dependence, as related to this concept (Bambirra 1978;
Osorio 2016; Martins 2011; Higginbottom 2010; Smith 2016; Sotelo 2012) howev-
er, the author’s understanding of it remains undetermined. It is based on au-
thors who in their time were critical of Marini, as was Cueva (1974):
Cueva criticized Marini’s concept in which he shares his diagnoses of the

dramatic situation faced by Latin American wage earners, and also point-
ed out that some term referring to these nightmares should be used,
which is why he stated that the theoretical mistakes of super-exploitation
did not invalidate the practical presence of simile of that category … Its
divergence with the concept and coincidence with the Marxist theory of
dependency opened a path of important reflections.
katz 20173
And the list could be enlarged: next to Cueva, Cardoso-Faletto (1969), Singer
(1980) and others, there are authors like Bartra (1978 and 1991) who, under the
ideological clothing of the Mexican Communist Party and the French structur-
alism of the time, contributed argumentation against the theory of dependence
3 It is necessary to clarify that Marini never moralized the ‘dramatic’ situation of the ‘Latin
American wage-earners’, much less ‘their nightmares’. Marini was rigorous and always used
Marxist concepts, laws, hypotheses, and categories characteristic of the critique of political
economy.
in favor of a conception consistent with the structural dualism of ‘sub-capital-

ism’. Bartra, like Cueva—who, by the way, confused the category of pauperism
with that of super-exploitation (see Bambirra 19784 and Sotelo 1994: 289–318)—
favored the ideological garb of Althusserian structuralism, of the ‘articulation
of modes of production.’
Returning to the previous citation, a ‘path of important reflections’ that,
according to Katz, was opened by Cueva precisely against what Cueva

(1988) later affirmed when he claimed that the theory of dependence and
super-exploitation (Moreano 2008)5 are ‘resolved’ in total dismissal of the
super-exploitation category, which is the essential rudiment of the Marxist
dependency theory of Marini and other dependency theorists. They would
replace it with a ‘dependency theory’ on its own without super-exploitation.
Drawing on other authors, Katz feeds his position by pointing out that the
differences in productivity and class struggles explain the ‘wage divergences’
(low, high and medium) that “structurally separate an underdeveloped region
from another advanced one”. And with wisdom we state the obvious: “That’s
why the values of the labor force (and the corresponding consumption bas-
kets) are substantially different”. But this is not the core of his approach, nor
are there any inconsistencies such as:
In the developed economies, the high value of this resource (sic)—the

work force of Adam Smith—restricts the drama of impoverishment only
to the excluded … In both cases, the prices of labor goods (sic) are estab-
lished by the capitalist rules of exploitation.
To suppose that in the imperialist countries of advanced capitalism the ‘drama

of impoverishment’ does not affect the ‘not excluded’ is to say that the majority
of the workers o f society are metamorphosing reality according to the pre-
sumed existence of a fictitious capitalism with a human face (see Chapter 6).
4 Cueva says: “Therefore, even that trait that Marini points out as more typical of these—[the
dependent societies, AS], that is, overexploitation … could well be enunciated with a rather
classic name: the process of pauperization…”, Cueva 1974: 67. However, “… the concept of
super-exploitation should not be confused with that of pauperization, as Cueva does … be-
cause it refers to the living conditions of the worker and not the productive process” (Bamb-
irra 1978: 70).
5 As Moreano says in his presentation of Cueva’s book Between the Anger and the Hope of
1967 (Agustin Cueva Hoy 2008: 14–15): “Over the years, it is evident that the most advanced
theses of the Dependence theory has shown its surprising validity, Agustín Cueva recognized
it on several occasions, and Ruy Mauro Marini—whose Dialectic text of dependence is
undoubtedly the greatest theoretical effort of interpretation in Latin America—accepted
Cueva’s contributions to the debate”.
106 Chapter 4
The debate about the value of the labor force also leads to misunderstand-
ings. Katz mentions that it cannot be quantified because it incorporates physi-
ological and social components, in addition to the historical-moral and, we
add, cultural. It reminds us that for Marx the essential is to determine the value
of the labor force of all commodities by the quantity and time of labor socially
necessary in their elaboration. And this is, effectively, the definition of the law
of value that operates against classical, neoclassical and Keynesian theories.
And he asks himself: “which goods are privileged and which ones are discard-
ed?” Do those requirements include the car, vacations and health services? If
‘Western welfare standards’ are used, do they guarantee the full and total re-
production of the value of the labor force? Then he assumes that, for example
in Japan and the United States, there would be super-exploitation. If so, who
knows by what hazards of fate do we consider a nation such as Bangladesh,
holding without data and without any basis, that: “…it could be said that the
burden of super-exploitation does not reach Bangladesh, where the elemen-
tary reproduction of the work is done through a basket of ultra-basic consump-
tion” (sic!). With this, he moves away from the social and labor reality expressed
by the dramatic data that we record in Table 1 related to Asian countries that,
by the way, do not weigh much the consumption of the employees of ‘ultra-
basic’ products.
Table 1 Salaries in emerging Asian economies (in euros)
Livable wage Minimum wage
Bangladesh 329.40 68
Cambodia 352.95 121.25
China 524.4 248.10
Philippines 388.1 276.6
India 249.75 155
Indonesia 308.6 204.5
Malaysia 357.70 195.9
Pakistan 264.8 101.9
Sri Lanka 288.7 56.40
Thailand 335.20 172.5
Vietnam 354.70 138.70
Source: Modaes Latinoamérica, June 2016. https://www.modaes.com/entorno/

bangladesh-sri-lanka-y-camboya-encabezan-la-brecha-entre-salario-minimo-
y-digno-es.html.
As we can see, Bangladesh does not turn out to be one of the countries most
‘favored’ by Asian capitalism, right along with Sri Lanka. In reference to the
same country Smith (2016: Figure 5.6: 159) shows the insufficiency of the hour-
ly wage of the Sri Lankan workers of the textile industry in relation to its
purchasing power in 2008 with the indicator ‘Purchasing Power Parity’ which
measures the standard of living of a country and allows it to be compared with
that of others, and Bangladesh appears below countries like Pakistan, India,
Egypt, Peru and Mexico.
Wanting to show the differences between advanced capitalism and the un-
derdeveloped dependent countries supposedly in the determination of the
value of the work force, Katz confuses and equates the concept of poverty with
super-exploitation, recalling what happened with Agustín Cueva when he
identified the latter with that of pauperization: “The great diversity of national
parameters that currently exist to define poverty patterns illustrates this statis-
tical complexity”. As we can see, the author, of course, began by discussing the
question of the determination of the theory of value and super-exploitation
and ended by talking about the obviously diverse ‘poverty patterns’, not only
among the countries of advanced capitalism (United States, Germany, France,
Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece) and those of the dependent and underdevel-
oped, but, even, within the latter.
10 Unequal Exchange and Super-Exploitation
Unlike the approaches of the developmentalists and Shumpeterians, the trans-

fers of value and surplus value from the periphery to the center, based on the
divergences of productivity and the prices of production in the international
market, strengthen what is called ‘unequal exchange’ that obviously affects the
dependent and underdeveloped economies. But what Katz affirms is not de-
rived from this attribution to Marini where he places the cause of the ‘econom-
ic-social backwardness’ to super-exploitation. Marini is much more dialectical
and original in establishing the world market-unequal exchanges-super-
exploitation relationship in dependent economies.
His approach is actually the following:
The super-exploitation of labor is spurred by unequal exchange, but it

does not derive from it, but from the profit fever created by the world
market, and is fundamentally based on the formation of relative over-
population. An economic process based on super-exploitation, a mon-
strous mechanism is set in motion, whose perversity, far from being
108 Chapter 4
itigated, is accentuated by the use of dependent economies to increase

m
productivity through technological development.
marini 1978: 63–64
Marini derives the transfers of value and surplus value of super-exploitation

(remember that capital per se does not create value or surplus value), which is
intensified by the unequal exchange between advanced and dependent capi-
talisms in favor of the former within the framework of the existence of an ex-
tended and structural industrial reserve army (see Felix 2017). In this sense
Marini (1973: 40) reaffirms this thesis when he writes that: “The effect of the
unequal exchange is—insofar as it puts obstacles to its full satisfaction—that
of exacerbating that desire for profit and thus sharpening the methods of ex-
traction of surplus labor”. That is why the following statement by Katz is
obvious:
Transfers of surplus value between different bourgeoisies do not imply

any type of exploitation, they establish modes of domination regulated
by coercion to compete in adverse conditions for the periphery.
Again it must be noted that Marini never made such a statement. But we must
emphasize the inevitable consequence in the medium and long terms of these
transfers of value and surplus value to central capitalism: sooner or later it
helps to double the exploitation of the labor force of dependent countries.
Evidently, the transfers of value, surplus value and profits between the dif-
ferent fractions of capital, in themselves, only cause a redistribution of those
values among the different bourgeois fractions. They do not imply the direct
exploitation of the labor force, simply because this redistribution by the distri-
bution of the existing surplus value and, therefore, of the profits, occurs in the
sphere of competition and the circulation of capital, and not in the field of
production and the process of work and valorization where, indeed, the value
and surplus value of capital appropriation is created and produced under strict
norms of exploitation and the scientific organization of labor. However, it
must be added that the struggle between the various monopolistic fractions of
capital and of the dominant classes exacerbates, as Marini says, the increase of
productivity through technological development and, in particular in the de-
pendent and underdeveloped countries. This is correlative with the greatest
increase in the exploitation of the working classes by the capital structured in
systems and regimes of super-exploitation jealously erected and guarded by
the dependent bourgeoisies or, as they are called by Frank (1972), lumpen-
burgeoisies and the capitalist State. It is worth noting that at present the
d ependent countries, no matter their ‘degree of development’, such as Brazil,

Egypt, South Africa or Mexico, continue to transfer value and surplus value to
the hegemonic capitalist countries of the center recreating unequal exchange,
which stimulates and feeds back super-exploitation, although it does not come
directly from this onerous exchange, as Marini himself clarifies.
Only the incomprehension of the above leads to statements like this:
This record of changing and stratified values of the workforce (high in
the center, low in the periphery and medium in the semi-periphery) re-
quires using classical Marxist concepts, distanced from the beginning of
super-exploitation.
katz 2017
In this perspective, Katz proposes that in order to ‘overcome’ Marini one must
‘advance in the updating of dependency theory’. Relying on Dussel, this is
derived from a supposed confusion of Marini’s work between the causes and
effects of super-exploitation and unequal exchange, in which the Brazilian au-
thor ended up pondering, supposedly, the second as the cause of the first.
Hence, for Katz, super-exploitation (which does not exist either as a concept or
as a category) is in any case ‘a secondary effect and not the epicenter of depen-
dency’. And what is the substitute here for super-exploitation with which
Katz’s new dependency theory will be crowned? To answer this he resorts to
the help of Dussel:
The correction introduced by Dussel allows us to overcome the over-di-

mensioning of super-exploitation, it also contributes to introducing pay-
ment replacements below the value of the labor force for remunerations
commensurate with the low value of that resource (sic!).
dussel 2014
With this rethinking we can move forward in the updating of dependency

theory. The lifeline for updating dependency theory, according to Katz’s as-
sumption, is the formulation of that theory but without the uncomfortable
‘epicenter’ of super-exploitation for which he now resorts to the help of Samir
Amin, who supposedly formulated the thesis of the world organization and
the mechanisms of protection of surplus value of advanced capitalism, which
is possible due to a supposed “…convergence of different economic-social for-
mations within the same world market” that enable advanced countries to be
‘self-centered’ while the dependent and underdeveloped remain ‘disjointed’.
And he concludes that this characterization highlights that dependency
110 Chapter 4
relations are determined by the polarized structures of the world market,

which reinforce the particularities of the work force of underdeveloped
countries.
Here we enter a dead end: dependency relations are determined by the ‘po-
larized’ structures of the world market and ‘reinforce’ the particularities of the
labor force of dependent countries. But what Katz and Amin do not explain is:
(a) why, and due to what causes, this structural configuration of world capital-
ism occurs; and (b) what are those particularities of the work force of the un-
derdeveloped countries? It will be said that is the low salaries that the workers
of these countries receive, but we can say that the same happens in large sec-
tors of workers of the imperialist countries that are subjected, day by day, in
recent years, to the reduction of their real wages, to the precarization of work
and its flexibilization, as well as to a verifiable process of deregulation of the
world of work, of their rights and conquests, from the so-called structural re-
forms implemented by the bourgeoisies and the states of capitalism advanced
in conjunction with international financial and monetary agencies. Quite
simply, two states, one from the ‘periphery’ (Brazil) and another from the privi-
leged ‘center’ (France) demonstrate the above.
With Amin’s arguments, Katz explains, in the style of the neoclassical econ-
omists, that the divergences of the workforce and the production of extraordi-
nary profits in the dependent countries obey a supposed ‘immobility of work’
in the dependent countries, instead of attributing the cause to the effective
articulation of technological competence and super-exploitation, as Marini
certainly does to the point of erecting the labor force as the main producer of
extraordinary profits since the 80s (1996: 65):
The counterpart of this situation is that it increases the importance of

the worker as a source of extraordinary earnings. Although, of course,
their qualifications and skill vary from nation to nation, his average in-
tensity rises as he uses superior technology, without necessarily translat-
ing into a significant reduction in national wage differences, which means
that the internationalization of production processes and the constant
diffusion of the industry to other nations will be accentuated, not simply
to exploit the advantages created by commercial protectionism, as in the
past, but above all to cope with worldwide intensification of competi-
tion. The super-exploitation of the labor force plays a prominent role in
this movement.
Here it is truly scandalous to speak of ‘immobility of labor’, for example be-

tween Mexico and the United States—that is, in a dependent country and an
advanced imperialist capitalism—when, historically, day-to-day migrations
and immigrations of labor are made to the benefit of the United States, “…in
comparison with the vertiginous displacement of capital and goods” that
supposedly—only—occurs in the central countries. With all this our author is
spared the work of talking about super-exploitation, preferring to do so with
the elementary notion of the existence of a global structure of low wages in the
periphery and high in the centers, which is not a novelty as other authors have
investigated this since the beginning of the 80s (see Fröbel, Heinrichs and
Kreye 1980). A reality that Marx himself warned about early in his main writ-
ings and, in particular, in his Grundrisse and, of course, in Capital (a subject
adressed in Sotelo 2010). Nothing new under the sun!
From here everything is explained by low wages, even the ‘little’ extension of
‘peripheral Fordism’ (Lipietz 1985) in dependent economies that “…is indis-
pensable for explaining the greater intensity of the crisis in underdeveloped
countries”. Although Marini does not speak of the Fordism that narrates the
subjection of the worker to the assembly line in the production of automobiles
in literal terms and that is rather a descriptive, rather than analytical, manifes-
tation of relative surplus value, nevertheless he ponders the latter in its limita-
tions to generalize and establish itself as hegemon of the capital accumulation
processes of the dependent countries, being hindered by structural and socio-
political dependency relations to lead the accumulation and reproduction of
capital as historically occurs at least since the industrial revolution in advanced
capitalism.
In this regard, Marini (1973: 100, original italics) concludes: “The problem is
thus to determine the character that the production of relative surplus value and
the increase in labor productivity assume in the dependent economy”, asserting
that:
…The conditions created by the super-exploitation of the labor force in

the dependent capitalist economy tend to hinder its transition from the
production of absolute surplus value to that of relative surplus value, as
the dominant form of relations between capital and labor.
Is Fordism not a mechanism of exploitation and organization of work aimed at

the production of relative surplus value? For Marini from this contradiction
enormous gravitation is derived, that in the dependent economy assumes the
extraordinary surplus value for the benefit of the great national and foreign
capital, and in a preponderant way, of the enormous transnational monopolis-
tic companies.
Katz pretends to explain the imbalances between the narrowness of the in-
ternal consumption markets due to insufficient investments by capital, sup-
posedly due to the existence of ‘low-wage economies’. Thus, he says:
112 Chapter 4
Marini rightly recorded this enduring contradiction of the peripheral

economies, but he made an extreme analysis without noticing that this
imbalance is not based on super-exploitation. The withdrawal of con-
sumption is due to the simple validity of reduced wages of the value of
the labor force.
What would happen to Katz’s theory of dependence in the hypothetical case of

an increase in wages in dependent economies: would it be equated with the
value of the labor force or be above it? Here we return to the universe of tau-
tologies: why are wages reduced?
By severely ruling out the super-exploitation of labor as one of the essential
causes of the narrowness of the internal consumer markets for workers and
the popular classes that make up the majority of the population, there is no
other recourse but that of low wages as the essential explanatory factor. We
must argue, however, strictly speaking, that super-exploitation does not iden-
tify mechanically with the existence of low, medium or high salaries. But, as
Marini stated in various texts, what institutionalizes and formalizes it in the
dependent economy is the existence of a mean wage that is generally below
the real and total value of the labor force, but above, in some proportion, the
general minimum wage that exists in all the capitalist societies of the world.
The super-exploitation of the labor force is an essential category that ex-
presses the process of expropriation, as we said, on the part of the value and
the workers’ consumption fund, although the remuneration is above that val-
ue. This is a fourth form that the super-exploitation of labor assumes even in
advanced capitalist societies, which Marini did not warn us about and could
not have done so, simply because it is a phenomenon that is beginning to be
observed in these societies particularly since the 1980s with the monumental
large-scale deployment of the precariousness of the world of work (see Chap-
ter 8).
A part of the high wages of the working class of the imperialist countries,
which are above the social value of the labor force, is expropriated by capital
through precarization. It is very likely that the intensification of this process
that severely threatens the social and contractual rights of workers reduces
wages below the historical social value of the labor force and, therefore, places
the remuneration below that value. This is already happening in the United
States and is becoming generalized to the capitalist countries of the former
Welfare State that was longed for by the Keynesians and social democrats. But
we must emphasize that this also depends on the struggles of the workers and
their favorable or unfavorable result in the correlation of forces against capital
and the State.
The debate about where exploitation is greater, whether in the periphery or

in the center, has no more value than the question of whether the chicken or
egg came first. Simply put, exploitation ultimately implies a relationship of
forces between labor and capital and will be greater or lesser, in an imperialist
economy or in a dependent one, and in it’s multiple branches and productive
sectors, according to the results of class struggle. In some advanced branches
of the countries dependent (for example, in the electronic, automotive or tele-
communications industry singularly transnationalized, and that coexist with
super-exploitation) the scale of the exploitation of labor could be greater than
in the countries of advanced capitalists; and vice versa. Here you can find
branches of production where the exploitation and surplus value are higher
than in the dependent countries. The political and geo-strategic vision of glob-
al capitalism articulates the set of processes, sectors and productive branches,
individual and collective labor forces, infrastructures, institutions and means of
communication, among others, for the sake of a common goal: maximum profit
making that is vital to perpetuate capitalism in crisis in its current epoch of
decadence. In this context we understand the extension of super-exploitation
(Marini) and the form that it assumes under the garb of monumental pre-
carization as one of the great social issues of the 21st Century (Castel 1998).
Against those who reduce super-exploitation to a simple ‘violation of the law
of value,’ we agree with Katz in the following sentence: “Dependency is not
based on violation but on compliance with the law of value”. That is why for us
the substantive that defines the super-exploitation, once constituted and deter-
mined through research and statistics, the social value of the labor force, is the
expropriation of a part of that value and its conversion into accumulation of
capital. A phenomenon that is expressed, as Marini says, in daily life—and as
a consequence of the above—in the fact that the work force is remunerated
below its value due to the confluence of two movements, which are little under-
stood by the critics of the Brazilian thinker: the historical structural increase
in the value of the labor force and the consequent stagnation or miniscule
advancement of wages and real purchasing power for their sustenance.
Katz constructs his ‘theory of dependence without super-exploitation’ by
means of the artifice of substituting the payment of the labor force below its
value for the ‘low remuneration of that factor’ (sic!). Note that for this author
the labor force, as in the classic and postclassic universe, is reduced to a simple
‘factor’. The other component of his theory consists of “…prioritizing interna-
tional transfers of surplus value in the explanation of dependence”. Katz
contends that Marini did not contemplate either component because he sup-
posedly remained stuck in the ‘post-war Keynesian scenario’. Marini did not
study, assures Katz, what happened in the last decades as the precarization of
114 Chapter 4
work, zero-hour contracts, outsourcing, widespread informality, the deregula-

tion of labor standards, toyotization and automation of processes and produc-
tive activities, and their fragmentation into watertight compartments, etc., and
an infinity of new economic and socio-labor phenomena that have emerged in
the contemporary scene.
11 Marini’s Renovated Vision
If Katz were more insightful in the investigation and analysis of Marini’s texts,
he would have noticed that this author did transcend the ‘post-war Keynesian
scenario’, not only perceiving the problems derived from the Fordist mass pro-
duction paradigm that became generalized after World War ii but also those of
the modern system of organization and exploitation of work called Toyotist or
Onhist that flourished in Japan and have become widespread in the contempo-
rary world. This is why Marini states that:
The companies resorted in large scale to the outsourcing of their person-

nel, which implies the dismissal of workers and their subsequent re-
employment through small service providers, which exempts them from
expenses for social benefits. At the same time, they adopted measures
framed in so-called flexibilization, a procedure that obliges the worker, in
exchange for stability in employment, to accept changes that affect the
workplace and the salary in its duration and intensity. In the end they ac-
centuated existed differences in the labor markets, creating an increasing
distance between the worker and the material production process, which
has contributed to increasing the hierarchy between them according to
the degree of their qualification, both from the point of view of employ-
ment and renumeration. These facts, in the first instance, are largely
attributable to technological change, the same thing that makes the inci-
dence of knowledge in the production process stronger (1996: 56–57).
This is an approach that, by the way, is very close to Marx’s general intellect in
his Grundrisse (1980, Vol. ii: 230). So would not it be more productive to study
and analyze these phenomena that emerged in the era of savage neoliberalism
and proto-capitalist globalization with the theoretical, methodological and
analytical tools offered by the Marxist dependency theory with its neuralgic
axis centered on the theory of super-exploitation, which is the epicenter of the
capital cycle of the dependent economy? Why is it believed that these various
forms of segmented, flexibilized, precarious, just in time, interim, virtual work,
etc., together with new regulations and modalities invented by capital to remu-
nerate workers less and less, incapacitate super-exploitation as the explana-
tion for a capitalist rationality that imposes that regime centrally within the
imperialist countries?
Contrary to Katz, we affirm that the prevalence of low wages in current capi-
talism is not synonymous with the lack of super-exploitation. On the contrary,
it is this latter category that ultimately explains this salary configuration at the
local, national and international levels, together with global factors such as the
economic crisis, problems of unemployment, scarcity of natural resources par-
ticularly fossil fuels, over-accumulation of capital, underconsumption and re-
alization of merchandise that today explain, to a large extent, the situation of
structural stasis in which contemporary capitalism is immersed both in its pro-
ductive sphere and in international trade (Beinstein 2016 and Saxe-Fernández
2012: 42).
Regarding the question of the extension of super-exploitation to advanced
capitalism, we simply comment that the arguments used against this proposal
by both Katz and other authors who have criticized this position are unfound-
ed. It is not really a question, as in the mathematics of applying a syllogism to
the Aristotelian style that reads, for example: if A = B, and B = C then C = A. If
the super-exploitation of the labor force is a constituent and specific category
of the dependent countries (A), and is extended to the imperialist countries of
advanced capitalism (B), then Katz would say, (C) “it has lost the specificity
that Marini assigned” while, as if they were entirely right,
…critics of the extension of the concept of super-exploitation highlight

these contradictions, remembering that it is a category of dependent
economies and claim that the extension of its incidence undermines the
Marxist theory of dependence … They estimate that the pillars of that
conception are put at risk.
A syllogism does not solve the real problems of capitalism and super-
exploitation.
With the limits imposed in the imperialist countries, and in the most ad-
vanced economies, by the hegemonic prevalence of the production of relative
surplus value, of the fictitious capital and its connection with the incessant
scientific and technological development sponsored by the great monopoly
capital of those countries, it impregnates the processes of production and val-
orization of capital charged with the greater extraction of surplus value from
the working classes, including important expropriations of their consumption
fund and part of their salaries generating, then, super-exploitation.
116 Chapter 4
Finally, to build his dependency theory without super-exploitation, Katz

elaborates a eclac-Wallersteinian scheme that includes four vertical param-
eters: (a) An advanced center; (b) a new center (?); (c) an ascending semi-
periphery (?) and a descending semi-periphery (?); and, finally, (d) a periphery,
which associates three (horizontal) extremely formal and ambiguous catego-
ries: (a) the ‘formally exploited’ (?); (b) the ‘informally exploited’ (?); and (c)
the ‘super-exploited’ (?). With the crossing of these with the parameters, the
aim is to determine the value of the labor force according to the theory of ‘val-
ue chains’ (see Hopkings and Wallerstein 1986: 157–170).
12 Conclusion
For the purposes of this topic, which we have developed previously (Sotelo
2012), we synthesize our theoretical position and conception in the framework
of the Marxist dependency theory on the plausibility of the extension of the
super-exploitation of the labor force in the productive economies and systems
of contemporary imperialist capitalism. The following is valid for future
research, at a theoretical and methodological level, exposing our knowledge
regarding this important thematic line.
The substantial difference between advanced and dependent capitalism is
that in the first the production of relative surplus value is hegemonic in the
economic and productive system, as well as in the accumulation and repro-
duction of capital. While in the dependent capitalist countries this surplus
value is subordinated to the hegemony of the super-exploitation regime. The
important thing is to determine if the super-exploitation of labor is imple-
mented and developed under the conduction of the economic cycle and
relative surplus value and with the structural limits and blocks that these im-
pose on it in advanced capitalism. This we have called operational super-
exploitation. Or, if it constitutes the hegemony of the cycle of capital, the
relations of exploitation, the production of surplus value and of the labor rela-
tions between labor and capital in the dependent countries, we have denomi-
nated it as constituent super-exploitation.
In other words:
The substantial difference of advanced capitalism, with respect to the de-

pendent one, consists in the fact that relative surplus value is hegemonic
in the productive system, while in the latter said surplus value is subordi-
nated to the old capitalist forms of production, to absolute surplus value
and to super-exploitation of labor that preceded relative surplus value.
sotelo 2012: 165
In dependent capitalism the dependency category does not lose its specific-
ity because it continues to orbit around the super-exploitation axis; nor does
the imperialist economy lose its own specificity since the axis of its processes
of production, accumulation, reproduction and exploitation of labor contin-
ues to hegemonically depend on the production of relative surplus value from
which super-exploitation is configured in a subordinate but structural way.
In short, we consider that this is the promising path that can update and
develop the Marxist theory of the super-exploitation of labor for the 21st Cen-
tury, and not the formal Wallersteinian-eclac scheme immersed in a descrip-
tive conception that does nothing but undermine the theory of dependency.
To dispense with the super-exploitation category, which is the basis and main
axis of the Marxist dependency theory, and simply replace it with a low-wage
economy, as is clear from Katz’s approach, is like trying to reformulate, for
example, Wallerstein’s world system analysis without its centers, without its
peripheries, without its semi-peripheries and without its ‘external areas’ and
replace them with the Negri and Hardt’s concept of ‘empire’.
The debate about the extent of the super-exploitation of labor or the labor
force has not yet spilled much ink. Among other things because this category
is generally considered as exclusive of the dependent countries and that it
could hardly be extended to the developed ones. However, in recent times an
interesting polemic has begun on this transcendental subject that promises to
enrich and deepen our knowledge in the perspective of the Marxist depen-
dency theory by adding new forms of knowledge on the exploitation of work
and its characteristics in the environment of the current processes of global
restructuring of capital and its effects on the world of labor. That is why we
consider that the previous debate, and the positions that are pointed out, are
just the prelude to a great discussion that is developing in the medium and
long term between the workers and the left intelligentsia in order to under-
stand the new capitalist configuration of the international division of labor
and capital, as well as the perspectives that are opening up for the working
class and the proletariat in the 21st Century.
Part 3
Crisis, Super-Exploitation and the Precarization
of the World of Labor in the United States
∵
Chapter 5
Hypothesis on the Capitalist Crisis and Super-

Exploitation of the Labor Force
From the above debate we synthesize our conception of the central theme of
this book that consists of sustaining the plausibility of the extension of the
super-exploitation of the labor force in advanced nations and productive
systems. In order to do this, in this chapter, we make an effort to relate the hy-
pothesis within the framework of the Marxist dependency theory and the
substantial postures elaborated by Marx in both the Grundrisse and Capital.
1 Dismeasure of Value and Surplus Value
The main trends of capitalism discovered by Marx in his fundamental works,

far from having been outdated or invalidated in terms of a complex and rebel-
lious reality that supposedly discarded them for having been ‘overcome’ in the
process of globalization and ‘financialization’ of the capitalist world economy,
are being confirmed with mathematical accuracy according to this system, as
a way of production and social formation, developed from its essential contra-
dictions and reaffirming its structural and systemic crises, aimed at its self-
dissolution. Of course, stimulated by the class struggle throughout the world,
and by the conscious action of intervention by people in matters that concern
their preservation and reproduction.
These trends, which in our opinion were configured as structural behaviors
and operate with the status of law, are:
a) As the productive forces develop, there is a negation of the socially neces-
sary labor time or the reproduction of the value of the use of labor power
by capital to benefit the increase of surplus labor unpaid to the worker
(surplus value).
b) Through the production of commodities acquiring a predominantly sci-
entific character—the general intellect (Marx Vol. ii, 1980: 230)1—the
work process and the workforce assume the form of immaterial work
1 Amin (2012: 16) correctly clarifies that “The economy has always been ‘cognitive’, because
production has always implied the implementation of knowledge, even in the most primitive
hunter-gatherers of pre-history”. On the other hand, Gramsci (1975: 15) writes that: “There is

122 Chapter 5
pronouncing the phenomenon of alienation that is characteristic of

capitalism and its social metabolism,2 as a source of inspiration for the
‘theories of the end of work’. Both elements reproduce the false idea that
capital is an ‘immutable thing’ that can work without the worker, without
his labor power, and that is constituted in an automatic mechanism able,
in itself, to produce the social wealth that is distributed in society outside
the class structures and the social relations of production and exploita-
tion. This is one of the ideas that feed what in sociology of work3 we
call the ‘theories of the end of work’ that since the 60s and 70s of the last
century, but particularly, in the last two decades, extended to the
academic and scientific-political world sowing uncertainties about the
essence of capitalism and presenting it as an ‘eternal’ category whose
problems and contradictions can be ‘corrected’ through structural re-
forms (structural adjustment programs) and economic-social adapta-
tions, and techniques, but obviously never overcome them.4
c) The third phenomenon that results from these tendencies consists, ac-
cording to Marx, in the fact that working time becomes the only determi-
nation of capitalist production of use values and, to that extent,—here is
what is transcendent—: “…the immediate labor is reduced to a more
meagre, insignificant proportion (geringen) and qualitatively at an un-
doubtedly essential moment, but subaltern against general scientific
work, the technological application of the natural sciences on the one
hand, and on the other, the face of the general productive force resulting
from the social structuring of global production, a productive force
that appears as a natural gift of social work, even though it is actually a
no human activity from which any intellectual intervention can be excluded, you cannot
separate the faber man from the sapiens” (author’s italics).
2 See Marx Vol. ii, 1980: 222–223. We use the social metabolism category of capital in the same
sense as Mészáros 2001a: 48, when he says that as a “control mode and a single command
structure … in which, for the first time in history, … human beings have to confront, in the
form of capital, a mode of social metabolic control which can and should be constituted
also—in order to reach its fully developed form—as a system global, demolishing all obsta-
cles that come their way” (Ibid: 52).
3 According to Castel (1998), the work of Simone Weil, La Condition Ouvriere published in
France in 1951, that describes the ‘work in crumbs’ or fragmented work, constitutes the begin-
ning of the sociology of work that will continue with authors like Friedmann and Naville
1962.
4 In this sense, the notion of ‘new economy’ is attributed to Michael Mandel (1996). Originally
a concept that was coined by the economist Brian Arthur, this was popularized mainly by
Kevin Kelly (1997), editor of the North American magazine Wired. For a good critique of this
current of thought, see Guillén 2007, especially Chapter 1 (pp. 35–74). For a critical view see
also: Grobar 2007: 77–94.
Hypothesis on the Capitalist Crisis and Super-Exploitation 123
istorical product. Capital works, thus, in favor of its own dissolution as

h
the dominant form of production” (Marx 1980: 222).
d) Articulated, these three processes convert the worker and his workforce,
into a simple appendix of the machinery. In an ‘extra factor’ of produc-
tion and “what was once the activity of the living worker becomes the
activity of the machine, in this way the appropriation of labor by capital,
capital in so far as it absorbs work in itself, is opposed to the worker in a
brutally obvious way” (Marx Vol. ii, 1980: 227). This contraposition ac-
quires its maximum rationalization with the flexible Toyotism that has
hegemonized the world of production of relative surplus value and
super-exploitation.
Marx warns of a deep contradiction between the material basis of the magni-
tude of value for working time and its replacement by the machinery that
hides the opposition between labor and capital. This remains the essential de-
termination of bourgeois society, precisely due to the fact that capital does not
find important mechanisms to replace this contradiction, which makes it re-
main in a process of crisis that leads it to its own dissolution. In keeping with
this, the production of wealth appears entirely dependent, not so much on the
labor force of the worker and the length of total social work but “…on the gen-
eral state of science and the technological process, or on the application of this
science to production” (Marx Vol. ii, 1980: 228). In this way a direct correlation
is generated between science and the material development of capitalist pro-
duction. Thus, as the latter unfolds, the same thing occurs with it and there are
two disproportions: a) between the time of work and the wealth produced on
one side; and on the other, b) between abstract labor and the power of science
and technology controlled by capital (Marx Vol. ii, 1980: 228).
But on the surface of society an illusory impression is always created—that
is strengthened by the fictitious capital that feeds back its ideologists with the
theories of the end of work, since it erases the trace of surplus value but gener-
ates profit—that finally capital managed to ‘become independent’ of the labor
force and, at the same time, ‘solved’ the problem of the production of wealth
and surplus value without the intervention of the former. It was thought, then,
that a magic formula had been found to produce surplus value and wealth
without the concurrence and participation of the human workforce, and now
that role has been played by machines, technology, science and, finally, by ficti-
tious capital and its concomitant fictitious profits (Carcanholo 2013). We must
have arrived, then, in the naive world of Pangloss described by the French en-
cyclopedist philosopher François Voltaire. As Carcanholo says, when fictitious
capital stands as the hegemonic device of capital in the world from the
mid-70s:
124 Chapter 5
Work, therefore, lost its centrality and technology, information and the
domain of knowledge were erected to the category of magical entities
capable of everything and became an object of worship. Finally capital
would not need to dirty their hands in production to be itself an able be-
ing capable of generating profits, high profits. Furthermore nature would
be secondary.
carcanholo 2013: 137
However, as Antunes (2018: 257) clarifies: “Fictitious capital is not a separate

and opposed alternative to the productive world, but it controls it to a large
extent and only a fraction of it, of fictitious capital, deviates from production”.
It would have created, thus, artificially of course, an illusionary effect with its
inertial force, according to Valenzuela (2017: 60) “…which generates profits and
does not suffer from realization problems”. Or the best of all possible worlds
that even the most extreme of speculators would envy!
The above indication is essential to understanding the ideological bases of
most of the theses of the end of the work so fashionable in our times, baring
them in the light of the constant crises of capitalism and its propensity to
drop its rate of profit at the worldwide level because of the diminishing par-
ticipation of the labor force in the production of value and surplus value. The
same capital, concludes Marx, involves a contradiction that is expressed in the
fact that, insofar as it tends to reduce the maximum socially necessary labor
time, even hypothetically approaching zero, on the other hand it can not do
without this time (already reduced to the extreme)—and rather depends on
it—both to measure wealth, and to produce value and surplus value (Marx
Vol. ii, 1980: 229) since capitalist reproduction depends on these last two
categories.5
Surplus labor, then, on which surplus value depends, at the same time as it
becomes the strategic objective and the science that seeks to prolong it, is con-
stituted in the question of vie et de mort necessary work (Marx Vol. ii, 1980: 229).
It should not be forgotten that capital is accumulated work that is constantly
increased by the living work of the worker. Thus, there is a kind of investment
in which the socially necessary labor time depends on the unpaid surplus, the
first which is systematically reduced as the productive forces of society de-
velop, and the second, which grows less due to the systematic displacement
of the workforce by technological development and the implementation
5 Again we quote Amin (2012: 33) to emphasize that: “The reproduction of capitalism is based on
the extraction of surplus value. The production of value (and not wealth) defines the horizon of
your worldview. It is worthwhile, then, to avoid the confusion between value and wealth”.
of automation in production processes. Both movements, however, cause a

strengthening of the secular trend to the fall of the average rate of profit in
the system that in the long term will be offset by the indebtedness of com-
panies and the emigration of capital to the financial sphere of speculative
capital.
The growing reduction of socially necessary work time, with the consequent
increase in surplus unpaid work, translates into two phenomena correlated in
the medium and long terms. On the one hand, it generates the dismeasure of
value that we have already broken down following the theoretical-method-
ological footprint of Marx’s Grundrisse and Capital (see Sotelo 2010 and 2012;
Prado 2005; and Alves 2012) and, on the other, it stimulates the migration of
productive capital predominantly to the financial sphere where it is central-
ized and causes a greater monopolization of the world capitalist economy in a
few hands. Both phenomena end up punishing the average rate of profit, while
stimulating inter-capitalist competition with the supreme aim of appropriat-
ing extraordinary profits.
In the end these are subordinated to super-exploitation as we saw earlier
and at the same time accelerate the monopolization of the world economy.
This is the perverse cycle of super-exploitation—always accommodating to
capital—that we can identify with the Prometheus Tragedy that Alves (2016)
talks about, when the capitalist crisis and the fictitious capital, which is he-
gemonic in contemporary capitalism, cause accumulated surpluses of capital-
money (investment) derived from super-exploitation and neoliberal policies
of precarization of work, to deviate into the speculative sphere of fictitious
capital and feed it back; “…increasing the chronic instability of the commod-
ity system, the increase of mass unemployment and wage precariousness, the
degradation of the person who works, deepening the crisis of civilization of
capital in its multiple dimensions” (Alves 2016: 45, author’s italics).
This is the sequence followed by capitalism in the world and in the United
States, according to Valenzuela (2017: 43):
…Financial investment in recent decades has become more and more at-
tractive in terms of performance. In which high interest rates are not the
only influence, but fundamentally, in neoliberal contexts tend to unleash
speculation and speculative bubbles, capital gains (difference between
the purchase price and the sale price of financial assets) that are obtained
through fictitious capital. The impact of this phenomenon has been so
strong that many corporations that operate in the industrial space have
diverted their investment funds to the purchase of financial securities,
which allows achievements (profits) superior to those obtained through
production.
126 Chapter 5
In the next section we attempt a dialectical interpretation of the relationship

between the production dynamics of relative surplus value—which essentially
implies the substantive reduction of socially necessary labor time for the pro-
duction and reproduction of the labor force by increasing productivity using
scientific-technological development when it affects the branches, sectors and
companies that produce wage goods for the working class—and the increase
in the average exploitation of the labor force. Which, it is worth mentioning,
goes hand in hand with an unusual increase of super-exploitation in the terms
raised by Marini in his fundamental works.
2 Hegemony of Relative Surplus Value and Super-Exploitation
The theory of the exploitation of wage labor linked to the Critique of Political
Economy (cpe)—the basis of Grundrisse and Capital—is built on a very high
level of abstraction where the concept of exploitation (as a fundamental rela-
tional category and constituent of historical capitalist society) is fundamental
to the theory of surplus value and profit within the capitalist mode of produc-
tion. In the absence of this concept one cannot even imagine the elaboration
and comprehension of the law of labor-value as the central axis of the theory
of capitalist production and reproduction, just as one cannot understand the
Marxian theory of dependence—or the Weberian theory of dependence
linked to Cardoso and the Escola de São Paulo. Marini contributed a specific
theory about the nature of dependent societies using the tools of political
economy, in particular, Capital, which contains a general appreciation of the
development, crisis and decadence of capitalism contemplated from the Latin
American perspective:
This is why I consider that studies on dependency acquire the status of

theory. Obviously, not in the sense of a general theory of the capitalist
mode of production as this was accomplished by Marx, nor of the ‘depen-
dent capitalist mode of production’ as this does not exist, but of the study
of dependent capitalist economic-social formations. That is, an analysis
at a lower level of abstraction, capable of capturing the specific combina-
tion of production modes that have coexisted in Latin America under the
hegemony of capitalism.
bambirra 1978: 26
The above quote locates the theoretical-methodological range in which Marini

constructed his peculiar conception of the super-exploitation of the labor
force—in the framework of the Latin American dependent formation—

derived from the theory of the value and the prices of production that express-
es the specificity of the social relations and of production that operate in the
dependent economic-social formations within the capitalist world economy.
Within the theoretical, methodological and analytical support of Marxism
and the theory of value, Marini contributed important theoretical and analyti-
cal tools to the Latin American social science of labor, not integrated into
other theoretical perspectives, to understand the world phenomena from a
critical view of all the economic-social formations of the dependent countries
that differentiated from the trajectories that marked the historical develop-
ment of European capitalism. This did not imply, as it was interpreted, that he
conceived of ‘two capitalisms’, but only one: the dominant imperialist and the
dependent subordinate of the world capitalist formation. He indicated the
necessary articulation of surplus value (absolute and relative) and the super-
exploitation with the productivity of labor as two forms of manifestation in
the context of the expansion of world capitalism and the insertion and subor-
dination of the dependent economies to the hegemonic centers. The most
conspicuous result of his research can be summarized in that process by which
technological and productive development increases super-exploitation, and
not the reverse as functionalism and neoclassical economics argue through
their mentors of ergonomic science.
In this regard, Marini states that:
Far from a development that integrates increasing layers of the popula-

tion to consumption, based on the increase in labor productivity, what
predominates in a dependent economy like Brazil’s is the forms of super-
exploitation (sharpened, indeed, by the increase in productivity), which
not only exclude these masses from consumption, but also from the pro-
ductive employment created by the accumulation of capital.
marini 1985: xi
The author argues that, historically, the dependent countries contributed to

the transition from absolute to relative surplus value in classical capitalism
(England) at the time of the industrial revolution (mainly during the 19th Cen-
tury). At present, these countries, no matter their degree of economic develop-
ment, continue to transfer value and surplus value to the hegemonic capitalist
centers, configuring the famous unequal exchange that stimulates super-
exploitation, although it does not come directly from it (Marini 1978: 63–64.
For a discussion of unequal exchange see Emmanuel, Bettelheim, Amin and
Palloix 1971; Emmanuel 1972; Mandel 1975; Frank 1979: 48; and Shaikh 2006,
128 Chapter 5
e specially Chapter 4). Lastly, at the same time, and contradictorily, these coun-
tries block, or discourage, the development of relative surplus value in terms of
labor productivity within their production and capital reproduction systems,
deepening tendencies to redouble super-exploitation based on the reduction
of the workers’ consumption fund and its conversion into an additional source
of capital accumulation (Marini 1973: 100). In this sense, super-exploitation is a
genuine direct mechanism to counteract the fall in the rate of profit that the
blockade causes, and attenuates, thus to some extent, its contradictions.
In Dialectics of Dependency, in a high level of abstraction, we find a kind of
typology of two economic-social formations that exist in the world economy
(Marini 1973: 40). The first is based on the greater extensive and intensive ex-
ploitation of the labor force, and the second on the productivity of work and
the development of relative surplus value linked to advances in science and
technology. From the point of view of the production of surplus value two situ-
ations can be observed: one in which it is produced preferably without neces-
sarily verifying super-exploitation and which, roughly speaking, corresponds
to the advanced countries; and another, which is achieved through the super-
exploitation of workers in the dependent countries, regardless of the fact that
in some sectors and branches of the economy there is a production of relative
surplus value (automobiles, petrochemicals, electronics, production of ma-
chinery and tools, etc.) Marini states that:
…the increase in surplus labor time always means a greater exploitation

of the labor force, in this sense, the workers of the central economies are
subject to a constant intensification of their exploitation. However, it is
radically different if the greater degree of exploitation corresponds to a
real decrease in the work required. That is, if it is done without the work-
er’s remuneration falling below its value, or if the extension of the surplus
labor is done at the expense of the labor time necessary for the worker to
reproduce their own value, that is, to create a value equivalent to that of
the goods indispensable to their subsistence. In the latter case, the labor
force will be remunerated at a price lower than its real value, and the
worker will not only be subject to a greater degree of exploitation, but
rather is the object of a super-exploitation.
marini 1985: 115–116
This division begun to change from the 80s when the international economy
entered a phase characterized by the continuous decrease of national eco-
nomic borders in order to cover increasingly larger, demanding, complex and
competitive markets led by the powerful multinational corporations, the
f ictitious capital and the dismeasure of value. This intensified the competition
between the big companies of the world to obtain—and appropriate—
extraordinary profits that are the motor of the contemporary development of
capitalism (Marini 1996: 49–68). In this context, technological development
was deepened and disseminated to standardize goods and facilitate their ex-
change (this is the meaning of so-called globalization), which in the long run
tended to homogenize the productive processes, the productivity of the work
and, concomitantly, its intensity. This technological homogenization stimu-
lated the levelling of prices and the generalization of the law of value (Marini
1996: 64 and Piqueras 2014: 110) through inter-capitalist competition and the
unusual development of financial capital, at the same time that it impacted
the world of work in its essential components: salary, category and function, as
well as in the social and contractual conditions, dismantling the historical
rights acquired by workers.
According to Piqueras (2014: 112–113) the disintegration of the Soviet bloc
and the full incorporation of China into the world market from the 1990s and
its subsequent entry into the World Trade Organization (wto) at the begin-
ning of 2000s (in December 11, 2001) completed the “…universalization of the
law of value”. The opening of these nations and the world market, which began
in the 80s, contributed to the economic and political practices of neoliberal-
ism: external opening, privatization of the public sector, financial liberaliza-
tion, dismantling of the social institutions of the welfare state, regulation of
the labor force, employment and wages by market forces and by the extraordi-
nary rate of profit. This era of the neoliberal welfare state, in the course of the
capitalist crisis of the mid-70s, is succinctly expressed by Streeck (2016: 38)
when he states that:
Since the State could no longer be trusted, and given that almost every-
where the same democratic system of social control governed, the only
solution that remained was an escape to the market: it was about freeing
the capitalist economy of the bureaucratic and corporate political con-
trols of the period of reconstruction, recovering profit margins that
would be obtained through free markets and deregulation rather than
through government policies with the danger of the social obligations that
came with them (our emphasis).
This transition to the neoliberal State (“Neoliberal State of Social Welfare for
Privileged Elites”, we might say) resulted in the unleashing of a series of re-
forms, particularly labor markets and social security systems that sponsored
the flexibilization of the workforce, and whose most conspicuous result was
130 Chapter 5
not only the “…fundamental revision of the postwar welfare state” (Streeck
2016: 39), but practically its liquidation, particularly in the advanced capitalist
countries of Western Europe. However, we must emphasize that at the center
of this process of transition and subsequent consolidation is the extreme cen-
tralization of speculative financial capital, also called fictitious capital that is
now dominant in the world according to the approaches of some authors
(Chesnais 1993 and Autumn, 2016; Carcanholo 2013; Nakatani and Carcanholo
2015: 31–59; Alves 2016; and Valenzuela 2017).6
The peculiarity of the super-exploitation regime is that it hinders, structur-
ally and socially, the development of productive capacity and the possibility of
greater incorporation of cutting-edge technology in the labor processes of de-
pendent countries. These phenomena make it impossible for relative surplus
value to become a hegemonic system capable of leading the economic process
of these countries, contrary to the theories supported by the Weberian depen-
dency theorists, such as Cardoso and Faletto (see Martins 2013: 28 and Goto
1998: 107), who maintain that industrialization and foreign capital generalize it
in the dependent economies, disregarding the obstacles identified by Marini,
so that this does not happen and they, nevertheless, continue to prevail. One,
then, enters into a vicious cycle that the (dependent) economy is unable to
overcome because it never completed its cycle of industrialization and—in
addition—because the obstacles prevail in preventing derivatives from the in-
dustrialization adopted in the past (truncated, unfinished and insufficient
6 Of course, this fictitious capital has a specific social and political class subject. In this regard,
Alves (2016: 25) states that “The power of command of financial capital over other fractions
of capital—banking capital, capital productive and commercial capital—is a political power
constituted, for example, by financial deregulation, opening up of national economies and
privatization of state-owned enterprises”. Thus the representatives of flesh and bone, with
names and surnames, of the imf, the World Bank, the oecd, the Federal Reserve and all its
tentacles personified in the countries that they dominate would be integral parts of this class
and corporate subject immersed in fictitious capital. For Valenzuela (2017: 241–242) the dom-
inant power bloc is composed of the big financial bourgeoisie, the great exporting bourgeoisie
and the big monopoly bourgeoisie, where the first holds its hegemony in that bloc. For the
representatives of the dominant bourgeois bloc in Trump’s United States see Petras May 9,
2017. For his part Dierckxsens (2017: 34) warns of the existence of two dominant factions of
capital in the United States in conflict, both unproductive from the point of view of the value/
labor theory: the one that denominates ‘global financial capital’ (globalized Anglo-American
financial capital that controls the Federal Reserve and Wall Street) and that of ‘financial-re-
gional-continental capital’ (‘continental financial oligarchy’ that leads the fta and the EU)
that, in some way, will be confronted with Trump’s ‘industrial nationalism’ (ibid: 35), al-
though the latter is forced to make alliances with the second and with the ‘productive multi-
polarism’ (ibid: 46 and 49).
[Fajnzylber 1983] as well as by the way it was articulated with the cycle of
capital, with the class structures and the political power of the advanced
capitalist countries, in the specific case of Mexico with the North American
economy).
At this level of our explanation we highlight one of the threads of depen-
dency theory that consists in determining the relationship between relative
surplus value and super-exploitation: “The problem is in determining the char-
acter that relative surplus production assumes in the dependent economy and the
increase in labor productivity” (Marini 1973: 100, author’s italics). Therefore, it is
vital to consider two essential problems: the first, why and due to what causes,
in the dependent economy, does relative surplus value have so many difficul-
ties in achieving and constituting a hegemonic regime in the production and
work systems, as happened in classical capitalism throughout its development
after the great industrial revolution in England from the mid-18th Century and
during the 19th Century.
Secondly, how is it that, particularly when import substitution industrializa-
tion arises and develops in Latin America, almost exclusively in Mexico, Brazil
and Argentina, the super-exploitation of the labor force continues to subsume
and limit relative surplus value, thus failing to become hegemonic and failing
to compete with the large industrialized centers? For example, the policy es-
tablished by the military dictatorship after the 1964 coup in Brazil prompted
measures to counteract the economic crisis such as the reduction of wages
that affected not only the working class but even sectors of the salaried pet-
ty bourgeoisie (Marini 1985: 184). Another example occurred later in the
midst of an ‘economic miracle’ (1968–1973) when the Volkswagen company in
Brazil achieved, without significant technological changes, a significant in-
crease in its productivity due to the increase in the speed of its assembly lines
(intensity of the work) that enabled the average production per worker to go
from 10.4 vehicles in 1971 to 14 vehicles in 1973 (Debate Proletario, No. 1,
January–March 1978). To us, the essence of this problem lies in dependence
and super-exploitation.
Martins captures this condition well when he compares the dynamics of the
dependent countries with those of advanced capitalism:
While the centers tend, as the capitalist mode of production and its
industrial technological base develop, to gravitate around the relative
surplus value, the dependent countries will base their accumulation
patterns in the super-exploitation of the labor force (our translation)
(2013: 17).
132 Chapter 5
This means that, contrary to certain interpretations that deny the reality
that super-exploitation is spreading to advanced capitalism, we see that it runs
under the limits and the hegemony of relative surplus value in these countries,
while the relative and restricted deployment of this modality happens without
breaking the structural and political hegemony of super-exploitation that
operates as a constituent category, as we mentioned above.
The specific and characteristic that prevails historically in the dependent
economies is the constitution of a dependent-articulated-subordinate mode of
production to the world capitalist system, as Marini said about the super-
exploitation regime that hinders the implantation and generalization of rela-
tive surplus value as the axis of the process of accumulation and reproduction of
capital, as well as the corresponding organization of work. This is because, from
the beginning, advanced capitalism articulated and subordinated absolute sur-
plus value (prolongation of the working day) and intensification7 to relative sur-
plus value,8 at least since the industrial revolution in England and incorporated
workers into the consumption (of part) of the goods produced by the Fordist
factories of the great modern industry of the 20th Century (Castel 1998).
This phenomenon influenced Marx (Capital Vol. iii, Chapter xiv, 2000: 235)
so that he could observe the empirical possibility of super-exploitation—the
reduction of the salary below the value of the labor force—as a coincidental
and fortuitous phenomenon aimed at counteracting—along with other de-
vices such as scientific inventions and the recurrence to the world market—
the tendency for the rate of profit to fall,9 as a long-term structural behavior
7 The intensity of work produces relative surplus value when it is generalized and affects
the productive branches of Sector I and/or ii that determine the articles or goods-salary of
the value of labor force because it manages to reduce the total time socially necessary in the
working day. But, when this does not happen, it does not change that value and the intensity
as well as the prolongation of the working day result in a greater amount of merchandise. For
details see: Marini April-June 1979: 19–39.
8 Aglietta (1976: 35) gives this dialectical articulation: “…The absolute and relative surplus val-
ues are indissociable. They create the need for capitalism to continuously transform the con-
ditions of production”. Therefore, there is a—fictional—division of the history of capitalism
that shares two stages: one based on the prevalence of absolute surplus value and another
one in relative surplus value. Although this tends to become hegemonic in the system of
capitalist production of goods, it does not exclude the first, as can be seen today where in
practice, due to various factors, a powerful movement of global capital is deployed to in-
crease the working time and, therefore, absolute surplus value through structural reforms
and labor codes. See Sotelo 2012 and 2015.
9 We should note that Marx’s discovery of the law of the tendency to the fall of the rate of
profit, in Capital Volume iii, is its fundamental contribution since “In theoretical terms what
is expressed in the culmination of Capital: the law of the tendency to decrease the rate of
and as a regularity of the general analysis of capital as Marini observed for de-
pendent countries and economies in particular. This is consistent with the
methodological premise sustained throughout Capital that says that the value
of the labor force (like that of any other commodity) always corresponds to its
price. A subject that will involve, in Vol. iii of Capital, the study of the conver-
sion of the values, that is, of the socially necessary work time in production
prices = C + V (Price of Cost) + G (Average Profit), an issue that did not develop,
therefore, in the Market Price, already concretized in real capitalist competi-
tion (Dussel 2014: 60). This author points out that in Capital there are three
conceptual levels of competence: the most abstract is book i; the intermediate
one is book ii; and, finally, the most concrete is that of book iii (Dussel 2014:
61). The explanation is that:
…The category of ‘production price’ is theoretically the last categorical

stage at which Marx arrived in his ‘scientific’ life. He never reached the
level of ‘market price’ or competition; for this he would have written the
second treatise on competition. In a way, Chapters 4 and thereafter are
corollaries. Chapter 3, so essential, indicates the fundamental contradic-
tion of capital, but does not have the analytical centrality of the ‘produc-
tion price’.
dussel 2014: 67
Arrizabalo (2016: 136) explains the difference between the market price and
the production price: just as the price of production fluctuates around the val-
ue, the market price does so based on the production price. He asks: “Does the
incorporation of the notion of production price imply a questioning of the law
of value, to which prices are determined by values?” His answer is obviously
negative, saying that:
profit, explains in a dialectical way, the intrinsically contradictory nature of capitalist accu-
mulation, from which important implications derive and, in particular, the need for intensi-
fying exploitation”, Arrizabalo (2016: 81). In this way, “Marx’s theoretical approach, which
starts with the law of value, culminates with the law of the trend in the decline of the rate of
profit, which explains the limits of capitalism” (Ibid: 146). This thesis was confirmed, by Marx
in Grundrisse (1980 Vol. ii: 281), when, in relation to the tendency to fall of the rate of profit,
he affirmed that: “This is, in all respects, the most important law of the modern political
economy and is essential to understand the most difficult relations. It is, from the historical
point of view, the most important law. It is a law that, despite its simplicity, has never been
understood and, even less, consciously expressed”.
134 Chapter 5
…values actually govern prices, not directly but mediated by the social
distribution from surplus value for appropriation as profit. That is why we
say that profit is the modified form of surplus value. If it were not so, if
there were n o value or surplus value, the average profit would be an
average of nothing, that is, it would be nothing … The competition makes
the individual profit rates level out to your average.
But he clarifies, against the neoclassical postulates,
…that competition does not create profit but, on the contrary, it is this
that generates the competition for its distribution. If there is no surplus
value generated, there is nothing to distribute. That is why the capitalists
are simultaneously allies and rivals, allies against the work to try to pro-
duce the highest possible surplus value and rival each other as competi-
tors in their distribution with its modified form that is profit.
Marini’s merit lies in the fact that he forged the super-exploitation category as
the hard core and guiding principle of capitalist development in the underde-
veloped socio-economic formations of the periphery of the world system that
made it possible to differentiate it, historically and structurally, from the devel-
opment of the classic capitalist countries. The analytical correlation of relative
surplus value/super-exploitation was never well understood by the critics of
the Brazilian thinker as was seen in Chapter 2, since it is the axis of his theory
and the bas i s for understanding the dialectic: development-underdevelop-
ment-dependence. Applying this difference and correlation to the analysis of
contemporary capitalism, in particular to the new historical stage that opened
at the end of the 80s—with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the disintegra-
tion of the Soviet Union, and the imperialist invasion by the United States of
Iraq in the so-called Gulf War (1991),10 with the widespread and large-scale ap-
plication o f information technology to material and immaterial production
and telecom m unications (third industrial revolution)—Marini points out
three conditions that capital had to join up to open this new stage of history.
In the first place, he accentuated the degree of exploitation of labor through-
out the system to increase the mass of surplus value, which was possible, he
10 The period that makes Sapir (2008: 9) characterize this stage of history as the prelude to
the 21st Century and the “…emergence of the United States as a dominant and uncon-
tested power”.
adds, thanks to the defeats of the workers and popular movements in the core
capital countries and those in the periphery, including Latin America. This ac-
tually made it possible to build and disseminate a rational political-ideological
base to just i fy the imposition of neoliberal structural reforms throughout
the world. S e cond, it intensified the concentration of capital in advanced
economies to ensure investments in scientific-technological development and
industrial modernization, which implied strong value transfers from the de-
pendent Latin American countries (the so-called unequal exchange for which
the extreme external indebtedness of the underdeveloped nations contributed
enormously) that increased the accumulation of capital and, consequently, ag-
gravated the problems of employment, salary, marginality and misery. As Bel-
lamy writes (2015: 53), “Part of the imperialist rent remains in the peripheral
country and is not transferred to the center, but is rather a payment to the local
ruling classes for the role they play in the game of globalization”. The third
condition enlarged the scale of the market to place the large investments nec-
essary for t h e modernization of the industrial and services apparatus, thus
canceling or counteracting the small and medium-sized companies who even-
tually became interested in participating in this modernization process.
These conditions reinforced the monopoly character of the capitalist econ-
omy under th e influence of the expansion of its multinational companies
throughout the planet, while at the same time achieving a reactivation of the
laws and the basic mechanisms of the system: … especially the law of value …
that operates by comparing the real value of the goods, that is, of the time of
work invested in its creation, including the time required for inputs and means
of production, as well as the reproduction of labor power (Marini 1993: 10) and
expressed itself both in the generalization of the law of value/work and in the
construction of a solid cross-border bridge that paved the way for the expan-
sion of the super-exploitation regime in the productive systems and in the so-
cial relations of the advanced capitalist countries.
3 Does the Generalization of Super-Exploitation Blur Dependence

Relations?
We propose that the super-exploitation of the labor force that used to be exclu-
sive to the dependent economies is now becoming an articulated mechanism
with the methods of production of relative surplus value. The transnational
corporations and the State in the core capitalist countries have a powerful im-
pulse given by structural reforms in the process of neoliberalism—labor, fiscal,
treasury and social welfare—in contrast to what happens in dependent
136 Chapter 5
c apitalism, where the deployment of relative surplus value is systematically

blocked by the prevalence of the super-exploitation regime that operates as
the structural basis of the reproduction of capital on a global scale (Smith 2016;
Higginbottom 2010; Alves 2016).
We also postulate that the neoliberal structural reforms promoted since the
80s are not aimed at promoting, let alone generalizing, the production of rela-
tive surplus value and the productive cycle of capital (p … m … d … p), but
rather the strengthening of the super-exploitation regime independently of
the modernization of the technical-productive processes that are registered in
some regions of the economy or, even, in strategic sectors linked to the world
market such as agro-industry, automotive, oil, mining or export agriculture that
are the engines of development of most of the dependent primary-exporting
countries.
In this context, the super-exploitation of the labor force is implanted in the
core countries of the world system as a way to contain the fall in profitability
and investments without altering its essence or replacing it in the dependent
countries. From another angle, super-exploitation in the capitalist centers is
the counterpart of the dismeasure of value and the prevalence of fictitious
capital in the economic and political relations of domination. Therefore, the
relation of periphery/center domination, metropolis/satellite or, better, impe-
rialism/dependence as some authors suggest (Dias 2013; Osorio 2016; and, from
another perspective, Hardt and Negri 2002) is not blurred.11 On the contrary, it
is now doubly articulated both in the advanced centers of capitalism as well as
in the regions we call ‘new peripheries’ in the world economy who came after
the fall of the socialist bloc and the former Soviet Union by ex-socialist coun-
tries that remained linked to the center of the imperialist countries and trans-
national corporations from Germany, France and England, to mention the
most important ones (see Sotelo 2007 and Toussaint November 10, 2017). The
most relevant aspect that operates in favor of the most developed countries of
the European Union is the abysmal wage difference that large transnational
corporations take advantage of against workers who receive very low remu-
nerations for the performance of their work, as expressed by Toussaint:
This disparity allows large European companies to be very competitive,

in particular, the German industrial companies that transfer a part of
11 Cardoso and Serra (1978) most definitely do, as Marini (1978: 102) says, erase the structural
and categorical differences existing between advanced capitalism and dependent capital-
ism in order to reduce them to the simple descriptive figure of ‘development of capitalism
in the center and in the periphery’ adopting docilely the center/periphery figure of
eclac.
their production to workers from countries like Bulgaria, Romania and

others in Central and Eastern Europe. The parts are returned to Germany
for assembly and final product finishing, and finally, those products,
whose wage cost was compressed to the maximum, are exported to Euro-
pean Union countries or to the world market. It must be highlighted that
inside of the EU no import/export fees are paid (2017).
This reality has extremely negative consequences for the majority of the Euro-
pean Union, as expressed by Toussaint:
What workers and people receiving aid from social services are currently
experiencing in Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain was imposed on
workers in developing countries during the debt crisis of the years 1980–
1990. In the course of the 1980s, the offensive had also affected the work-
ers of North America since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, of Great
Britain under Margaret Thatcher—the Iron Lady—and the workers of
the former Eastern Bloc were also subjected to brutal policies during the
1990s imposed by their governments and the imf. Henceforth, and in a
much less brutal way than experienced by the peoples of the Third World
(from the poorest to the so-called emerging economies), the offensive
targeted German workers from 2003–2005. The nefarious effects for a sig-
nificant part of the German population are felt even today, despite the
success of German exports limiting unemployment numbers and a part
of the working class not feeling the consequences directly. As of 2010, the
social attacks extended to the rest of Europe (2017).
In both forms of capitalism, the difference consists in the place occupied by

relative surplus value and super-exploitation in production systems and in so-
cial relations. In addition, in the dependent countries, widespread informality,
together with a high level of unemployment and structural underemployment,
contribute to curbing the ‘modernization of the economy’ by preventing the
generalization of the production of relative surplus value and its constitution
as hegemonic within the system. It is necessary to clarify that these methods
are frankly capitalist and in no way correspond to previous ‘non-capitalist’ or
‘pre-capitalist’ modalities of production, as Singer (1980) came to support in
his criticism of Marini, who, by the way, did not understand the central argu-
ments.12 In advanced capitalism, on the other hand, super-exploitation is
12 Without having understood the essence of Marini’s approach to the Super-exploitation of

the labor force, Singer (1980: 202, author’s emphasis) asks: “…If the working class of Latin
America (and, of course, also of the other undeveloped countries) does not live from the
138 Chapter 5
limited to the dominant cycles of capital—functioning in regional and inter-

national terms through the world market—under the hegemony of relative
surplus value; the incessant increase in the productive capacity of work, the
monopoly of the source code of science and technology under the exclusive
domain of the imperialist countries and their application to productive and
labor processes. Finally, the terms of the internal dynamics of the consumer
markets demand a certain purchasing power of the working classes that dy-
namize them. Even while wage levels are being dramatically reduced forming
low-wage working populations who are poor, precarious, versatile, flexible and
with a low purchasing power and with limited access to acquire the basic sat-
isfactions not only to maintain, in normal conditions, the reproduction of the
labor force, but even to perpetuate biological and social life.
In this way, super-exploitation becomes a reality increasingly present in the
industrialized countries of global capitalism, and affects the working and liv-
ing conditions of large segments of the working classes. The new morphology
of this system is based on the super-exploitation of the labor force, but as-
sumes different forms in each country and region depending on, as we have
said, the regime that predominates, either of relative surplus value or super-
exploitation; or even a hybrid form resulting from both and, of course, in con-
sonance with the class struggle.
4 Conclusion
Today’s world is much more complex than that of previous decades. For this
reason, in dependent countries, super-exploitation determines and limits the
production dynamics of relative surplus value, despite advances in industrial-
ization and incorporation of technology in production and labor processes
through industrialization and through the substitution of imports, the devel-
opment of agro-industry and of modern mining that incorporate components
of computer science and of other microelectronic technologies.
Meanwhile, in advanced countries—convulsed by the crisis and the severi-
ty of the austerity policies practiced by their neoliberal governments against
their workers and populations—super-exploitation is a category that depends
on the dynamics of production and reproduction of relative surplus value, and
consumption of his own products, where do they then get their subsistence? The only
possible answer (which Marini, however, does not make explicit) is that workers’ subsis-
tence originates in other modes of production”. And of course! Marini did not ‘make explicit’
what this author refers to, simply because he never conceived of super-exploitation as a
precapitalist category, but frankly capitalist.
of political-institutional determinations referring to the dimension of the

State and the power of the unions, by lowering the value of the labor force and
influencing the reduction of the goods and services that constitute its con-
sumption fund to help increase both the mass and the rate of surplus value (for
the definition of these categories and their difference, see Aglietta 1976: 29).
Chapter 6
Fictitious Capital and Super-Exploitation of Labor

in Contemporary Societies
We find a positive correlation between fictitious capital, as a concept that

characterizes the current phase of world capitalism, and super-exploitation
insofar as the system contracts from the point of view of its compound rates
of macroeconomic growth, capital and investments that are dislocated from
the productive capital to the financial-speculative sphere, accumulating in a
frantic search for obtaining maximum yields. The result of this phenomenon
is to apply restrictive policies to both wages and living and working condi-
tions while increasing the average rates of exploitation of work in its multiple
manifestations.
1 The Globalization of Imperialism and the Crisis of Capitalism
The imperialist system—which emerged and consolidated from the mid-19th

Century onwards—contributed to the generalization of the industrial and pro-
ductive system of big industry in the next century, particularly after World
War ii. Harvey (2012: 152 and 157) points out that the close connection between
Fordism and Keynesianism during the period 1950–1974 was a response to the
expansion of global capitalism (see Figure 1), which, at the same time, made it
possible for newly emerging nations, that had liberated themselves from colo-
nialism in Asia and in Africa, to once again be caught in the networks of de-
pendence, underdevelopment and backwardness within the economic and
6
5
3.8
3.4 3.4
1.8 1.6
1945–1974 1975–1980 1980–1990 1990–2000 2001–2010 2011–2016
World Economy Advanced Countries
Figure 1 Global economy trajectory (1945–2016) and average growth of advanced countries
(2011–2016)

Fictitious Capital and Super-Exploitation of Labor 141
political systems of advanced capitalist nations such as England, France, Ger-

many, Italy, Spain and the United States (for more on underdevelopment see
Baran 1957; for a critique of Weber’s conceptions of underdevelopment, see
Frank 1979).
What resulted, thus, was something similar to what happened a century ear-
lier with the Latin American nations in the period of the formation of their
national states through the independence and national affirmation processes.
The expansive period of postwar capitalism and monopolistic imperialism
stimulated the development of the material productive forces of Latin Ameri-
can countries and others of the third world that managed to establish some
segments of industry, first light and later heavy—on the production line, of
means of production and semi-finished products—at the same time as adopt-
ing and developing niches of production and state-of-the-art technology mar-
kets, although dependent on the developed centers. This was the case of Brazil,
Mexico and others like South Korea in the course of the 70s when they de-
ployed the import substitution processes and, lastly, exports through the sup-
port of the State. But in the following decade, the pattern of neoliberal and
de-industrializing capital accumulation, stimulated by the application of
structural adjustment policies in the economic, social and political orders, was
imposed. It seemed that, and history would confirm it with the passage of time,
the dependent countries of Latin America concomitantly with the arrival of
the 21st Century, entered into that status, as they did in the 19th Century, as
dependent exporting economies of primary goods and products linked to the
export of natural resources. That is to say, as Marini (1996: 60) argued, with “…
forms of dependence that we believed disappeared with the nineteenth cen-
tury”. In the next decade this process would be completed, particularly after
the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 in Europe when the process of collapse began
and with the crisis of the welfare state, understood as the state and political
form that articulated the productive process with the social structure (Vasa-
pollo 2004: 45).
…in the wake of neoliberal economic policies that prepared the introduc-
tion of the euro and extended the single market, the extension of mem-
bership to new states of Central Europe has taken this process further by
exerting external pressure on wages and labor rights with the blackmail
of the relocation. Precarization and unregulated competition with mi-
grant workers are the last phase of this process, which is not only restruc-
turing the very composition of the European working class, but also their
identities and political allegiances.
búster 2005
142 Chapter 6
The economic and political pressures exerted by the European bourgeoisies

from the centers of power concentrated in Brussels—and supported by excep-
tional socio-economic conditions offered by the New Eastern European pe-
ripheries arising from the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the socialist
bloc in the imperial sphere, tend to precarize the world of work, to make it
more flexible, lower its wages and extend the super-exploitation of the labor
force to the working classes of the countries of the European Union. This is
already visible in countries such as Germany and France and in all of southern
Europe such as Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain.
Based on these trends, the capitalist crisis that triggered a historical crisis of
legitimacy of the neoliberal project in that region acts positively. From a c ertain
angle, this crisis was reflected in the social nonconformity and the illegitimacy
of the constitution of the European Union when questioning the European
unifying project; a historical event that was expressed with a ‘No’ thanks to
55% of the total votes by French citizens which rejected the Constitution of
the European Union on May 29, 2005, as well as the subsequent ‘No’ vote by
62% of the Dutch citizens. However, the British brexit vote was to be the
most forceful expression of this historical-social phenomenon that has had
enormous repercussions not only in the European Union, but also throughout
the whole world economy. This was highlighted by the independence attempts
of Catalonia to affirm its full territorial autonomy, exposing the policy of the
monarchical Spanish State, until now only slowed down by repression exerted
against the Catalan people. Both crises have structural and subjective roots, as
Búster (idem) argues when he states that:
the process of neoliberal restructuring of the European economy, initi-

ated in its current phase with the Maastricht Treaty, responds to and ag-
gravates the low level of economic growth and its capacity to compete in
the global economy with the United States and Japan.
The mechanism used by European capital since the 90s to counteract the fall
in the rate of profit, which, among other factors, is the result of the low average
growth of the European economy’s productivity and low investment in tech-
nology, is the “…increase in the exploitation of work, either directly by reducing
wages and increasing hours of work, or dismantling the so-called ‘European
social model’” (Búster, idem). This thesis also finds support in Brenner (1999:
396) who points out that the recovery of the profitability of the North Ameri-
can economy was derived from the containment of wages, technical change
and the rationalization of the manufacturing industry. In addition, Petras and
Veltmeyer (2005: 102) observe that:
The downward profit rate in the key economic sectors (and their main
multinationals) cannot be reversed if the labor legislation of the clien-
telist states is not ‘reformed’ through international financial institutions
and repression—in charge of the police apparatus and military of the
clients—of organized resistance …Rates of return of 35% are not obtained
in democratic and participatory societies with full labor and union rights.
Thus, we understand the meaning of the labor reforms that have been carried
out in many countries, including Latin American ones where from the early
80s (with special emphasis on Chile and its military dictatorship) the regula-
tions and labor laws have been adjusted to the conditions of valorization and
profitability of capital under the auspices of the neoliberal policies of the State
and of big capital increasingly focused on the super-exploitation of the labor
force (see Antunes September 4, 2017; Sotelo 2014; Guamán and Illueca 2012).
2 Fictitious Capital, Precarization and Universalization of Super-

The mercantilist neoliberalism that prevails in the Latin American countries

and practically all over the world is oriented towards the supply of raw materi-
als, and transfers value and surplus value to the benefit of the industrialized
centers activating, in these, their processes of accumulation and reproduction
of capital. The problems that this causes in the economic growth rates (press-
ing them downward) and in the current account of the balance of payments, in
addition to permeating them with external indebtedness, is stimulating the
export of labor, mainly to the United States, and strengthening the develop-
ment of fictitious capital. This is defined by Harvey (2012: 206) as the “…capital
that has a nominal value in money and existence over documents, but that, at
any given moment, lacks the backing of real productive activity or physical col-
lateral assets”.
For Chesnais (2002: 63–64):
…a ‘patrimony’ or a ‘capital’ made up of securities is fictitious capital,

composed of credits, that is, promises about future productive activity,
which are then negotiated in a very particular market that fixes its ‘price’
according to very special mechanisms and conventions.
It operates, in this way, under the formula D-D “and not on the productive capi-
tal: P…M…D…P”. Fictitious capital, which generates fictitious profits according
144 Chapter 6
to Carcanholo and Sabadini (2015: 125–159), is now dominant in the world; it

constitutes a regime or pattern of reproduction of capital. It is simply carried
out in the sphere of monetary and financial speculation that characterizes the
global capitalist economy. Chesnais denominates this regime as the “regime of
accumulation of financial dominion” and defines it in the following terms:
The fight against neoliberal globalization and its consequences presup-

poses that we begin by recognizing that we are facing a fully constituted
regime and that it is also a particular configuration of imperialism. It is
necessary to overcome the analysis of the ‘globalization of capital’ under-
stood simply as a new stage in the long process of internationalization of
industrial capital, and move towards the idea of a new regime of accumu-
lation, which I call ‘globalized accumulation regime under financial
domination’.
chesnais 1993: 25–26
When the author states that this regime is dominated by the ‘financial’ they are
referring to a central fact that is also organized at the local, national and inter-
national levels to generate the structural and legal-political conditions that al-
low private capital (national and international) to appropriate interest and
dividends resulting from speculation (‘financial income’ or ‘fictitious earn-
ings’) under stable and safe conditions for them (Chesnais 2003: 47). For this to
take place, and be fully realized, it requires the active intervention of the
State—and the implementation of reforms that liberalize financial markets
based on monopoly interests—for the benefit of investors and international
financial organizations. These are, more than the industrial capital, the real
actors of the globalized regime of capital accumulation where their current
institutional representatives are the imf and the World Bank “…as State and
class instruments … subrogated to the US Department of Treasury” (Saxe Fer-
nandez and Fal 2012: 38).
For Chesnais, that regime, which is the product of the combination of eco-
nomic liberalism and the deregulation policies promoted by the State, has
three characteristics: (a) it constitutes a global systemic totality guaranteed by
the supremacy of the economic triad: the United States, Japan and the Euro-
pean Union; (b) it subsists subordinated to the supremacy of financial capital;
and, finally, (c) it maintains a strong propensity to yield low rates of economic
growth (Chesnais 1993: 26 and Graph 1 of this book). These explain, as we said
previously, one of the edges of the policies of capital and of the State tending
to generalize the super-exploitation regime in the Marinist sense (see Chapters
3 and 4).
Under the fictitious capital scheme, which involves the financial domina-
tion regime, the value of pension and investment funds and insurance in 21
oecd countries counted financial assets worth 13.4 billion dollars, which in
1990 represented 83% of the total gdp of those countries. By the middle of that
decade, those assets reached 23.1 billion dollars, an amount that far exceeded a
total amount of their consolidated gdp (cepal [eclac] 2001: 17). In 1999, the
value corresponding to all the financial transactions carried out by these coun-
tries surpassed the total gdp of the main developed capitalist countries by
360%, a phenomenon that provoked intense movements of fictitious capital
through the stock exchanges responsible for a greater concentration and cen-
tralization of capital without a counterpart in the creation of value (Vasapollo
2004: 144). Another indicator of the ‘financialization’ of the world economy,
according to the Federal Reserve Office of the United States, indicates that fi-
nancial assets over real assets (which are those that intervene in production)
went from 38.8% in 1980 to 110.3% in 2003 (Sauviat 2005: Table No. 2: 43). In
2015, according to Beinstein:
Derivative financial products constitute the decisive majority compo-

nent of the global speculative scheme, only five US banks plus Deutsche
Bank have accumulated these fragile assets for about 320 billion of dol-
lars equivalent to approximately 4.2 times the Gross World Product
(2015), that represents 65% of all the global financial products registered
in December 2015 by the Bank of Basel (2016).
What is important here is to emphasize that this type of capital is recycled in a

profitable way to the industrialized and computerized countries of the neo-
imperialist system and causes, in turn, external indebtedness—with growing
deficits in the balance of payments—and the de-accumulation of capital in
most Latin American countries and the underdeveloped world that remains
prostrated before international financial and monetary organisms in a kind of
unconditional servility on the part of their bourgeoisies and financial oligar-
chies, essential to the reproduction of the structural enclaves of dependency.
In the regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the New Peripheries (NP)
and their expansion in the European Union (EU) as spaces for the production
of wealth and the super-exploitation of the labor force pose great challenges
and new problems for the populations and workers of these regions, among
other things, because they imply increasing devaluations of their economies,
of their exports and, above all, of their salaries and incomes with all the social,
political and environmental calamities that this represents: social instability,
demonstrations, popular uprisings and crises of legitimacy of political regimes.
146 Chapter 6
This at the same time affects, directly or indirectly, countries such as Greece,
Spain, Italy and, recently, Donald Trump’s United States.
These investments, along with the monopoly of technology held by devel-
oped countries and the supremacy of (fictitious) financial capital, cause con-
tractions in dependent economies producing severe and recurrent structural
and financial crises and cycles of capital de-accumulation (deindustrializa-
tion) to the benefit of the developed centers. All this stimulates transfers of
value and surplus value from the dependent economies in order to continue
being ‘subjects of credit’ of the international organizations through the risk
rating agencies such as the North American Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Inves-
tors Service, and Fitch Ratings shared by the United States and the United
Kingdom and that, together, dominate more than 90% of the global financial
market as representatives of the interests of great international capital of fi-
nancial dominance.
The capital cycle of the neoliberal dependent economy—in the contour
of crisis and recession processes such as that which affects much of Latin
America—increases unemployment, stimulates labor migration to developed
countries such as the United States, provokes social exclusion, and stimulates
imperialist pressures and threats of military force when it becomes the last
guarantee of maintenance of the system of domination as is currently the case
with the imperialist threats of the United States to intervene militarily in
Venezuela because its interests do not suit the policies implemented by the
Bolivarian government and the National Constituent Assembly1 in charge of
drafting a new Constitution. “We have many options for Venezuela, including
a possible military option”, Trump said while playing golf during a press confer-
ence at the Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey (The New
York Times, August 12, 2017).
Obviously these phenomena (hegemony of fictitious capital, contractionary
economic cycles and systemic crises that involve the financial crisis, energy,
poverty, environmental and available patterns of knowledge) (Saxe-Fernández
2012) are negatively impacting employment, increasing unemployment and
stimulating the flexibilization, deregulation and precarization of the labor
force that, seen as a whole, represent the form assumed by super-exploitation
in advanced capitalism. This, however, is imposed more as a necessity of capi-
tal to maintain its reproduction and their rates of profit at rising levels than as
a system able to sustain them with increasing masses of value derived from
technological development and increased labor productivity (relative surplus
value.) In other words, capitalism has entered a pit with no exit where it
1 For an analysis of the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela, see Sotelo (2017).
increasingly produces less value and surplus value (dismeasure of value), is-
sues that induce an extension of the super-exploitation of the labor force and
of fictitious capital on a universal scale as a recurrent mechanism to maintain
the system at increasing levels of extraordinary profits that are stimulated by
an intensified inter-capitalist competition between the large monopolies and
globalized conglomerates due to global distribution and the extraordinary rate
gain.
3 Winners and Losers in the Fictitious Regime of Neoliberal

Quasi-Stagnation
Based on all the above, we are interested in raising two questions that concern
the hypotheses of this book. The first is to verify who should maintain a system
that does not grow, or grows very little, and that is directed to quasi-stagnation.
The second, little elucidated, refers to the fact that sooner or later the regime
of financial domination, on which neoliberal capitalism is based, will enter its
terminal phase—if it has not already done so—and will necessarily have to be
replaced by another regime or economic and political system. The essential
question is whether it will be capitalist or anti-capitalist in nature. For some it
is still possible to re-edit the old and dilapidated capitalist neo-development
and return to the post-war welfare state based on the internal market and on
welfare policies. This is, essentially, the approach of the Keynesians, while for
others, with whom we agree, this is not possible and the crisis will have to be
resolved through an anti-capitalist solution, a socialist solution if you will, in
favor of the workers and oppressed peoples. This is the discussion.
In relation to the first question, it must be said that neoliberal economics, in
a capitalist economy, finds its limits in the logic and in the modalities of the
reproduction of global capital. It is necessary to raise the rate of surplus value
and lower the value of the labor force, which is achieved through the defeat of
the workers’ and trade union movements. These two conditions of reproduc-
tion, once achieved, collide with another trend that is inherent to the neolib-
eral model: the impossibility, for the reasons noted above, to boost the growth
rates of the product (according to Figure 1) and the accumulation of capital,
without disturbing the bases of the hegemony on which parasitic reproduction
of the loan money capital cycle of the banking and financial fractions of the
national and foreign bourgeoisie lie. Therefore, a crisis phase of the current
pattern is opened, in the process of decomposition, so that the various social
and political forces dispute the hegemony of power in order to find a replace-
ment pattern (for Mexico, we discussed this topic in Sotelo 2017).
148 Chapter 6
For Valenzuela (1995) the central theme in this regard is to ask that if the
model leads, in the medium and long term, to a situation of stagnation or qua-
si-stagnation, then why is it still valid? What holds it? The author provides us
with two possible logical answers to these questions.
1) In the first place, because the loan capital money (one of the dominant
subjects within the power block according to Note 6, Chapter 5) is inter-
ested in maintaining price stability, even at the expense of depressing the
rate of growth, since inflation devalues i ts money capital. So this does not
happen or, at least, to slow down its movement, it directs its policy in the
sense of slowing down the rate of gdp growth. This situation produces
a ‘demonstration effect’ in the system. It decreases the rate of creation
of productive jobs and increases the reserve industrial army in its vari-
ous modalities: open, disguised or ‘inform a l’, precarious, intermittent,
outsourced among others, and whose function is summarized in four im-
portant movements: (a) pressing wages downward; (b) an intensive or
extensive increase in the rates of exploitation of work; (c) an increase in
competition for jobs among the workers themselves; and, (d) an increase
in the rate of profit of the fractions of the capital benefited with this situ-
ation. Combined, these factors are erected in the rational bastion of pub-
lic policies to combat inflation: “To avoid inflation”, says Valenzuela (1995:
32) “the system chooses the route of economic stagnation”. In the same
sense Piqueras (2014: 140) assures that “the recurrent monetarist policies
of late capitalism, aimed at containing in f lation, eliminating obsolete
capital and containing wages, did nothing but diminish economic activ-
ity and further reduce the purchasing capacity of the labor force”, that is,
against the internal consumer markets due t o the fall in purchasing
power.
2) Second, the above creates a paradox that has been warned about on mul-
tiple occasions by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
and that is derived directly from the external sector, as an element of re-
alization of the surplus: a situation of economic growth is maintained,
the deficit has to be raised, and vice versa, as the dominant option ema-
nates from the large financial and industrial capital, to whom, as we saw,
the stagnation or a lower rate of gdp growth is appropriate leaving, then,
the option to stop economic growth in order to obtain external surpluses
and fictitious earnings. This is the great paradox of the savage capitalism
of our days: to grow, the system has to generate growing deficits in the
current accounts of the balance of payments of the countries and vice
versa. But in order to not affect the dominant regime, the ‘more rational’
option is chosen: the ceasing of growth using super-exploitation.
4 What Comes after the Terminal Crisis of Neoliberalism?
As for the issue of replacing one reproductive regime with another, the hypoth-
esis raised by developmentalist Keynesianism that says that the capitalist crisis
can be ‘reversed’ is entirely improbable for us due to the detriment of fictitious
capital and reorienting investments, as was done in the past, to the productive
sphere of capital with redundant effects in the social sphere: income distribu-
tion, improvement of the Gini index, increase in real wages and social benefits
for workers.
Some authors explicitly deny this possibility. This is the case of Carcanholo
and Nakatani (2015: 103) who affirm that there are those who still believe in the
possibility of a return to a new Keynesian type stage—or similar, that would
not be so new—that could again make concessions to the workers, as a result
of the possibility of a structural crisis of the parasitic speculative capital accu-
mulation regime based on fictitious capital and the generation of fictitious
profits. While hypothetically considering this possibility, the authors point out
that it would not imply or solve the problem of acute social inequalities, much
less address the needs and demands of workers. Rather, the crisis of parasitic
and speculative capitalism would give rise, say the authors, to a baneful capital-
ism (Carcanholo and Nakatani 2015: 104) that stands barbarously with the ‘neo-
protectionist’ policies of Donald Trump in the United States. They criticize
authors who support the thesis of ‘reversibility’ within capitalism, from neolib-
eralism to a kind of productive social Keynesianism based on class collabora-
tion. In another text Nakatani and Sabadini (2015: 155–156) rightly deny that:
Capitalism can overcome the current phase—(of crisis)—enough to im-

pose limits through economic and political mechanisms, on ‘financial
capital’. Such conceptions accept that there is capitalism in today’s do-
main of financial capital. However, they believe that a return to produc-
tive capitalism is possible, and even capable of making concessions to the
workers. On top of this, those who adhere to the mentioned conceptions
believe that the opposition, financial capital versus productive capital,
appears concretized in different hands, forming completely different frac-
tions within the bourgeoisie. It would be much easier, and enough, to pro-
mote the progressive (sic) productive bourgeois fraction, the dominant
sector, and ally with it, or better, subordinate politically to her (authors’
italics).
In the United States, President Trump’s protectionist political proclama-

tions have not threatened, let alone put in check, parasitic or fictitious financial
150 Chapter 6
capital since, as Bernie Sanders says, “…Congress does not regulate Wall Street
today, today Wall Street is the one that dominates the Congress” (cit. in Tasini
2015: 75). Thus, the government has been in charge of dismantling social secu-
rity systems (such as ‘Obamacare’, see Chapter 7): reducing aid to sanctuary
cities, implementing harmful immigration reforms for millions of documented
and undocumented workers, and lowering taxes on the ruling classes and
financial capital.
5 Conclusion
In synthesis, we declare that at a global level the capitalist crisis in its neolib-
eral phase corresponds to the prevalence of fictitious capital and fictitious
profits, in the environment that we denominate excess of value with all its con-
sequences in the accumulation of capital and economic growth, as well as in
the world of work. This crisis is not going to be solved with the return to
Keynesian developmentalist-type practices, but it will try to find a solution, to
some extent, through a deepening of this fatal and parasitic capitalism that
will continue to protect the hegemonic interests of the great national and for-
eign capital that now imposes super-exploitation, even, to the working classes
of the imperialist countries of advanced capitalism, in relation to the white
working class of the United States.
Chapter 7
The North American Capitalist Crisis
Much emphasis has been placed on the decline of the economic supremacy, or
hegemony, of the United States in the global context. Previously, we observed
some elements to account for this phenomenon. However, this does not mean
that in the medium term this reality will disconnect or separate that country
from the strategic-political-military hegemony that exists today in regard to
countries such as Russia, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, and even Iran.
However, as we will point out in this chapter, in recent years, although it has
experienced relative economic improvement since the great crisis of 2008–
2009, the United States still maintains its growth rate below its historical post-
war average. Along with an exorbitant financial deficit, only alleviated in the
external plane by its imperialist policies against several nations and, internally,
by means of the increase of interest rates, containment of the wages, growth of
the temporary employment and cuts for social programs, the US has suppos-
edly solved the internal situation together with the increase of the rates of ex-
ploitation of work and the application of protectionist policies that favor big
capital as shown by the recent tax reduction with the first tax reform applied
by the Trump government to the detriment of social programs aimed at the
wider population.1
1 The tax reform of Donald Trump was approved by the House of Representatives (with 227 in
favor and 203 against) on December 19, 2017 and then, with minor amendments, by the Sen-
ate (with 51 votes in favor and 48 against) to be sent again to the House of Representatives for
final approval on December 20, 2017. This in a climate of discontent and social rejection that
was ignored by the corporate media at the same time that it spread the ‘success’ of President
Trump to meet campaign promises. It contemplates a cut of taxes to companies and rents
that would ascend to $1.5 trillion in a term of two years by lowering the tax rate of 35% to
21%, representing the greater fiscal exemption that favors to great capital and to the rich
classes in the last decades, entered into force on January 1, 2018. Put simply, the companies
and people of the United States, according to Sanders (cit. in Tasin 2015: 161), evade taxes
worth $100 billion per year that are diverted to tax havens. It is important to point out that
the upper part of the salary income is taxed with a tax rate of 39.6% (Sanders cit. in Tasin
2015: 30). According to various sources, this measure will mean that the State will stop col-
lecting around $1 billion over the next decade. According to the newspaper Reforma (Decem-
ber 16, 2017) it is estimated that the measure increases the budget deficit by some $1.5 billion
in the next 10 years to reach a total of $1.45 trillion and increases the national debt by $20
trillion. It also repeals the obligation to have health insurance, hitting the ‘Obamacare’ pro-
gram and, consequently, millions of US citizens who will suffer its negative effects as of 2019,
while currently there are 46 million Americans who lack medical insurance (Sanders cit. in

152 Chapter 7
1 Crisis of the Pattern of Accumulation and of the Mechanisms of

Production of Value and Surplus Value
The historical root of the financial and real estate hecatomb of 2007–2008 is
the structural crisis of the world capitalist economy, which had its roots in the
United States and branched out into the rest of the international economy. We
can get an idea of the characteristics of that crisis if we compare it with the one
that broke out in 1929–33, which, like the present, occurred within a long de-
pressive wave of the international economy.2 The difference lies in that the fi-
nancial resources were barely around 30% of the world gross product, while
now it exceeds more than 20 times that, revealing the hegemony that the Unit-
ed States has acquired with neoliberalism, fictitious capital and their financial
institutions.
The Bank of Basel estimates that world capitalist financial resources repre-
sent $612 trillion, that is, between 11 and 12 times the gross world product (data
obtained from Denvir August 5, 2008). Citing data from Mitsubishi ufj Securi-
ties, Mészáros compares the size of the ‘real economy’ estimated at $48.1 tril-
lion, with the so-called ‘financial economy’ (sum of stocks, securities and
deposits), which amounts to $151.8 trillion. “In this way the financial economy
has been inflated to three times the size of the real economy, growing espe-
cially fast during the last two decades”. (Mészáros 2008)
Mészáros concludes that “we are now in the presence, not of a financial pre-
eminence over industrial capital [but rather] that today’s capitalism is basi-
cally financial”. It can be said that the crisis of capitalism today is financial, due
to the weight of fictitious capital in the dynamics of the economy as a whole;
but it is also industrial, service, technological, agricultural and environmental
and acts under the predominance of capital finance, and, within it, of specula-
tive or parasitic capital.
Tasin 2015: 36 and 39). Regarding the medium and long-term repercussions of Trump’s fiscal
reform, it is foreseeable that they deepen social inequality against the salaried majorities of
the United States, while at the same time concentrating even more the available monetary
and financial resources in the hands of the great capital and the enriched dominant and pos-
sessing classes of the United States. According to the Tax Policy Center (tpc) with the tax
reform (gop Tax Law) the top 1% of society will receive an additional $33,000 per year, while
the poorest will only get an additional $40 from that tax cut.
2 According to Mandel (1980) the world crisis of 1929–1933 occurred in the context of the de-
pressive wave of 1919–1940. The current one, in our opinion, also occurs within a wave of this
type that began with the capitalist world crisis of the mid-70s of the last century. A reevalua-
tion of this theory can be found in an article that Mandel wrote before his death (2008).
The North American Capitalist Crisis 153
In this context we associate the management and crisis of Fordism-Taylorism,

and its relative overcoming by Toyotism and flexible automation, with the mo-
dalities of neo-imperialism (of financial predominance) whose policies pro-
moted by the World Bank and the imf, particularly since the 80s, have been
directed to avoid, at all costs, the devaluation of capital, counteract the fall in
the rate of profit and maintain its domination on a world scale. This is due to
the fact that the crisis is one of overproduction (greater supply than demand)
and of realization-subconsumption of merchandise and capital (therefore,
production of anti-value and difficulties of the realization of surplus value).
It must be remembered that crises are cyclical, that is to say that the capital-
ist economy periodically passes through a succession of moments of expan-
sion, prosperity, recession, depression and crises in which the State and the
policies of capital intervene. Each cycle has peculiar characteristics and is ir-
reversible; its succession describes an ascending spiral as a structural historical
process that in each cycle of around ten years sees the duration of periods of
economic growth and value production decrease and those of recession, de-
pression and crisis increase.
In this regard Marx stated:
This example of labor strikingly shows how even the most abstract cate-
gories, in spite of their applicability to all epochs—just because of their
abstract character—are by the very definiteness of the abstraction a
product of historical conditions as well, and are fully applicable only to
and under those conditions.
1982: Vol. i, p. 26
Therefore, the categories are historical. This thesis is contrary to the dominant
narrative, since it affirms that the categories of thought are a faithful reflection
both of the ‘external reality’ to man (the empirical world, nature) and of his-
tory, and that in no way constitute isolated or eternal categories, as those of
‘globalization’, ‘end of history’, ‘postcolonialism’, ‘democracy’ or ‘postmoderni-
ty’ that preach idealistic currents.3
3 The following words of an Italian author of the 17th Century regarding ‘globalization’ are elo-
quent: “Communication among peoples has spread to such an extent throughout the terres-
trial globe that it can almost be said that the whole world has become one city in which there
is a constant fair with all kinds of merchandise, and where any man, through money and
staying at home, can provide and enjoy everything produced by the land, animals and human
industry. What a wonderful invention!” Geminiano Montanari, Della Moneta Trattato Mer-
chantile, written in 1683, and quoted by Marx in the Grundrisse (Vol. iii: 151). At that time,
only the ‘wonderful’ technology of communication networks (the internet) and its hardware,
154 Chapter 7
In short, as Lenin observed:
The external world reflected by our mind exists independently of our

mind. This materialist solution alone is really compatible with natural
science, and it alone eliminates both Petzoldt’s and Mach’s idealist solu-
tion of the question of causality.
lenin 1975: 89
In this way the contemporary capitalist crisis, although it has common features
with other previous crises, its form of manifestation has peculiar characteris-
tics that distinguish it, for example, from that of 1929–33, which necessarily has
to be reflected in the concepts analysed (see Shaikh 2011). In addition, the glo-
balized and savage character of current capitalism offers a certain margin and
different outputs. This is not the ‘terminal crisis of the system’, in spite of its
severity and spectacularity, that certain Marxists are postulating; but it is a pre-
lude to the exhaustion of the progressive phase, from the point of view of the
development of the productive forces, of capitalism in historical terms.
Capital possesses devices that allow it to relatively self-regenerate in order
to find self-valorization, among which are to be found, in times of ‘normality’:
the intervention of the State in financial systems; the increase of tax rates; in-
flation; the extension of credit; the privatization of energy companies in the
hands of the State; the manipulation of the exchange rates that favor the spec-
ulators; but also, in extreme cases—when the crisis and the class struggle are
uncontrollable for imperialism and its security agents, putting the system of
domination check—repression and brute force (as in Iraq, Afghanistan or
Syria).
Ultimately, the imperialist war and the generalization of the socio-economic
regime of labor super-exploitation are imposed as ‘exits’ to alleviate the crisis
and allow the recovery of economic growth and the rate of profit, although at
a much lower level than that achieved during the Trente Annés Glorieuses.
Since the 80s, when the ‘stabilization strategies’ of neoliberalism and finan-
cial capital assumed supremacy, modern capitalist crises begun to demand,
much more than ever before, the restructuring of the world of labor (that is, of
wages, the organization of the work process, union courses and training pro-
grams, qualifications, and the reserve industrial army) in order to adapt it to
the logic and operating conditions of the so-called ‘free markets’. In this
the computer, was lacking, appearing three centuries after those prophetic words were
uttered.
rocess, the policies of the capitalist state are aimed at stimulating the growth
p
of the profit rate, counteracting the pressures to reduce the rate of accumula-
tion and favoring the restructuring and deregulation of the labor force (see
O’Connor 1984 and 1973).
These conservative policies of regressive industrial reconversion and adjust-
ment of national economies to the requirements of large companies were not
enough in the 80s and 90s, as they are not enough today, to solve the capitalist
crisis. What it does is project into new spaces, dangerously threatening the vi-
ability of both the system and humanity itself. These spaces are now biodiver-
sity, the environment, air and territory, which will be converted into merchan-
dise, that is, subject to the rigid law of value and surplus value.
Bensaid (September 3, 2008) expressed this point it in the following way:
It is not only about the privatization of companies or even services, but,

more broadly, the privatization of information, of rights (with the ad-
vance of power in the contractual relationship to the detriment of the
law), of urban space, of water, air and everything that lives. It is a social
disintegration that takes different forms in rich countries and in fragile
states (…) It has also resulted in atrophy of the public space and a dis-
turbing anemia of democratic life.
This pattern of reproduction and social life is expressed in the significant

changes in the State that make it a neoliberal, minimalist and entrepreneurial
State; in a ‘criminal and security State’ (Bensaid) that is imposing itself with
great force in the world in order to legalize the policies of big capital in eco-
nomic, social and environmental matters, commodifying goods, territories and
the labor force. In the ‘era of democracy’ this type of configuration can be
called, as we saw earlier (Chapter 3), State of the Fourth Power (Marini 1987:
69–95 and October 18-December 1978: 21–28); a ‘democratic’ State with great
influence of military power, which is capable of being revitalized both in the
countries of advanced capitalism and, with much greater force, in the depen-
dent and underdeveloped countries that have assumed a democratic political
configuration.
The neoliberal-conservative dimension that the capitalist state has assumed
is substantially more functional to the reproduction of capital and completely
incapable of meeting the growing food, health, education, housing and recre-
ation needs of the masses as postulated by Keynesian authors and Neoclassical
and Weberian currents. Or Oliveira’s (1998: 29) proposal for a ‘public fund’—
resources that the State allocates to the reproduction of labor power, or to social
security, welfare or food—an ‘anti-value’: “A public fund that has no value in
156 Chapter 7
sustaining capital, which destroys the self-reflective nature of value, central to

the constitution of the capitalist system as a system for valuing value”. The
theoretical implication of this idea, supported by Piero Sraffa, is a paradigm
shift: this ‘public fund’ distorts the concepts and realities of capital and labor
power; the ‘de-commodification’, and the former withdraws its functions from
being a budget-parameter of the system, so that these functions can be directly
managed by the public fund of the State.
The difficulty of this thesis lies in the fact that the author does not
investigate—and here lies all the weakness of his analysis and, therefore, his
explanatory inability—the origin of the resources of that public fund from the
perspective of the theory of value and the creation of surplus value, since it is
from the latter that, ultimately, it is born. The State can redistribute part of the
surplus value, but this depends on the nature of that State (fascist, dictatorial,
democratic-progressive) in accordance with the class struggle and the power
of the proletariat to force that State to serve its interests. But something else
happened: the capital restructuring process adapted the productive system to
the needs of the accumulation and reproduction of the capital of the devel-
oped countries of the West, forcing neoliberalism to resort to the privatization
of a large part of the functions previously performed by the State as well as the
imposition of shock-adjustment-stabilization economic policies. This adapta-
tion was also achieved through phases of (relative) economic growth that, lat-
er, resulted in structural and financial crises in the world capitalist system
which in Mexico had its peak in 1994–1995 and in 2001 (See Sotelo 2014, and
Petras and Veltmeyer 2003).
The beneficiaries of these policies were the large transnational corporations
supported by the dependent states and the imperialists. It reinforced the cohe-
sion of capital at the industrial, commercial, rentier, banking, financial and
fictitious levels, with which an ideological panorama of ‘globalization of trans-
national power’ was presented. It proclaimed, then, the ‘end of history’ and
labor in the context of the rise of the new economy (see Note 4, Chapter 5) and
the ‘Washington consensus’.
The result of all these changes during the 80s and 90s of the last century was
not the constitution of a ‘productive, competitive and robust capitalism’ as a
result of the neoliberal restructuring of fixed capital and variable capital (labor
force); but of the parasitic form of fictitious capital (Chesnais November 1993;
Carcanholo and Nakatani 2015: 89–124; and Carcanholo and Sabadini 2015:
125–159). It is a hegemonic supremacy in the globalized capitalism of the 21st
Century that severely punishes the productive systems and the growth rates of
productive and industrial employment. This supremacy of fictitious capital
(which does not create value or surplus value but does subject productive
capital to its dominance), coupled with the contraction of the average growth
rates of the productive and economic system, submerged capitalism in the
most severe crisis we have suffered since 1929–1933 (Shaikh February 2011).
In short, the current financial crisis is only a manifestation of profound
changes and adjustments in the world of labor that operate in the productive
systems and in the business organization, where the precariousness of the
world of work constitutes the surface of a much deeper phenomenon that is
the generalization, in the advanced capitalist system, of the super-exploitation
regime of the labor force and the imposition of a flexible relationship between
labor and capital whose tendency is to consolidate itself as the new normativ-
ity of labor and contractual relations.
This is the essence of the new social relations of production, which resulted
from the crisis and from the restructuring of the capitalist mode of production
on a global scale.
2 Crisis and the Relative Decline of North American Supremacy
However, it must be clarified that it is not possible to understand the dynamics

and structure of the world economy without the participation of the United
States as a global imperialist power, in the same way that North American dy-
namics cannot be understood without understanding the global economy. In
this sense, the argument put forth by Vergopoulos (2005) stands out: in the
past, the economic and political supremacy of the United States seemed invin-
cible, while at the present time the ‘American locomotive’ is completely impo-
tent to take the world economy forward, and rather it has gradually been
submerged in imbalance and disturbance.
Recently President Trump completely forgot this premise when affirming in
the World Economic Forum at Davos that: “When the United States grows the
world grows” even though this locomotive is strongly influenced by China’s
economy since 2010 when it overtook the United States as the largest industrial
and manufacturing center in the world (Stettner, Yudken and McCormack
June 13, 2017). It is no coincidence, either, that currently more than 70% of in-
dustrial employment is located in dependent countries (Delgado and Veltmey-
er 2017: 13). The 1985 Plaza Accords in New York, promoted by the then newly
appointed Secretary of the Treasury James Baker—which brought together the
so-called G-5 (United States, Japan, Germany, France and Great Britain)—was
the first time the country imposed its policy on the rest of the world and
158 Chapter 7
d evalued its currency with the support of the other members of the group in
order to promote their exports.
Now this relationship of forces no longer exists, at least not in the same way
that was so favorable to the United States that enjoyed its benefits from the
middle of the last century through the impetus of the former Marshall Plan
also known as the European Recovery Program (erp) for the economic recon-
struction of the European economies devastated by the war. Today, however,
this country is finding more and more difficulties and obstacles to impose its
will in a forceful and unilateral manner as seen, for example, in Venezuela,
Iran, Syria and North Korea.
Among the causes of this situation is the growing deficit of the United States
which forces it to resort to external debt, which could cause a contraction of
the world economy without parallel in history (Vergopoulos 2005: 109 and 175)
as the bulky US global debt jumped from $2.7 trillion in 1989 to more than $10
trillion in 2008 (approximately 65% of its gdp), most likely increasing as the
crisis deepens.
The result of this situation is alarming and paradoxical: “As long as the pros-
perity of the United States is maintained, its external positions will deteriorate
and it will be less able to exercise the role of global economic and monetary
stabilizer” (Vergopoulos 2005: 182). In this way, it has reached a point where the
old ‘hegemony’ of US imperialism has given way to an accumulation of imbal-
ances derived from international dynamics and the development of new geo-
economic and political blocs such as Asia, Europe and the Latin American one
(alba) created on December 14, 2004 as a Bolivarian Alternative on the initia-
tive of Cuba and Venezuela, which later became known as the Bolivarian Alli-
ance for the Peoples of Our America in its vii Extraordinary Summit held in
Nicaragua on June 29, 2009.
Vergopoulos points out the differences between the period of the Trente
Glorieuses of world capitalism (1945–73) and the Déclin du néo-libéralism of
protocapitalist globalization stating that:
during the period of productive functioning of the world monetary sys-

tem of Bretton-Woods (1944–1971) commercial aspects and stabilization
of markets were prioritised, while today the focus is on financial aspects
and international financial integration (2005: 116).
With the Trump government in the United States a new situation is emerging
characterized by financial instability, the decline of economic growth rates
and the deep crisis of US imperialist hegemony due to the rise of new nuclear
powers such as Russia, China, North Korea, India and Iran.
From the second postwar period, the recovery reinforced the military power
of the United States, which is, in the first instance, the one that promoted so-
called globalization with its imperial and class interests in collusion with the
European and Japanese imperialists. Capitalism experienced, thus, its most
extensive stage of potential growth that somehow dragged with it the other
economies of Western Europe, as well as Japan. Since then, beginning in the
mid-1970s and in the course of the 1980s, the policies implemented by the gov-
ernments of the developed capitalist countries, supposedly to counteract the
effects of the crisis, prioritise the financial sphere and speculative capital,
without proposing reforms that promote the development of the productive
and social structure. In the 80s and 90s of the last century, then, the welfare
state gradually transitioned from the accumulation of Fordist-Taylorist capital
and its Keynesian policies to a new pattern of accumulation that privileges fi-
nancial speculation, degradation (Braverman 1974) and fragmentation of the
labor force under monopoly capital (flexibilization, labor deregulation and
precarization), and the incorporation of technological development to the
productive process and the organization of labor.
At the level of international relations, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in
November 1989, an American unilateralism was established, which a decade
later would give way to a certain dispute between the three blocs to strengthen
their supremacy in their regional spaces. In this context, the crisis of August
2008 in the United States broke out in the form of a housing crisis that caused
the collapse of 504 points or 4.4%, of the Dow Jones index on September 15 of
that same year, after the insolvency of the US bank Lehman Brothers, which in
turn caused stock markets around the world to suffer a catastrophe. The conse-
quences were that the investment bank Merrill Lynch was acquired by the
Bank of America and aig requested a multimillion ‘bridging loan’ from the
Federal Reserve. That crisis demonstrated the failure of neoliberal policies.
Indeed, in the face of the biggest bank failure in the United States in the last
24 years, which was that of the Californian bank Indymac (with $35 billion in
assets), and in the face of the cascading bankruptcies of other real estate com-
panies, the US State enabled an authentic Keynesian interventionist policy
through the Treasury and the Federal Reserve who demanded that the govern-
ment adopt measures to help private real estate consortiums like Freddie Mac
(Federal Home Loan Mortage Corporation), with a debt of $740 billion, and
Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortage Association), with $800 billion, in a res-
cue whose cost was estimated at around $100 billion.
The collapse of giant financial groups such as Citigroup—which was res-
cued by the US government in November 2008 through a plan that included
the acquisition of $20 billion in shares and guarantees of billions of dollars in
160 Chapter 7
assets considered ‘risky’—; Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers
which on June 9, 2008, announced, without declaring bankruptcy, losses of
1,700 million euros. On November 10 the US government ‘rescued’ the largest
insurer in the world, the American International Group Inc. (aig) for $150
billion due to deep imbalances in their financial balances. In general it is esti-
mated that the losses amount to around 250 billion euros, while the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund placed the rescue at about 610 billion euros.
Before the crisis and the possibility of bankruptcy of the North American
financial system, on October 3, 2008 the Congress of that country approved the
injection of $700 billion for the Department of the Treasury to acquire the debt
classified as ‘bad quality’ from private banks in order to ‘rescue’ them. Howev-
er, this rescue in a great act of state protection of the banks—and of the finan-
cial and real estate speculators that represent them—did not solve the crisis,
but rather deepened it.
According to Shaikh (2006: 71) in 35 economic cycles in 150 years in the Unit-
ed States since 1834, next to the great North American depressions of 1873–1893
and 1929–1941, 2008–2009 constitutes the first great depression of the 21st Cen-
tury (Shaikh February 4, 2011) that extends to the present. After this crisis the
recovery of the rate of profit in 2010 obeyed, according to Shaikh, an increase
in the rate of exploitation of labor through a decrease in the growth of real
wages of workers (Shaikh February 4, 2011, and The White House, Economic
Report of the President January 2017: Figure 1–3: 25), along with other State
policies such as the rescue of companies that had declared bankruptcy after
the crisis with true Keynesian actions.
The erratic neoliberal economic policy pursued by the government which
favored fictitious capital further stimulated the economic slowdown to the ex-
tent of causing, in 2009, a severe drop in the economic output of the United
States and a decrease in the economic activity of that country that contracted
at an annual rate of 5.7% between January and March of that year, according to
the Department of Commerce of that country (See Table 2).
Thus, the global crisis was stimulated even further, particularly in the
automotive industry, which continues to be one of the most dynamic in the
manufacturing sector, whose private administrations even announced, and ex-
ecuted, mass layoffs of hundreds of workers, which will not be absorbed again
in the future except in very disadvantageous conditions such as diminished
rights, and precarious and segmented jobs.
This is how, for example, in February 2009—in the midst of the subprime
crisis—the US private sector cut 697,000 jobs, the annual unemployment rate
that month was 8.1% and GM announced the firing of 3,500 workers in its sub-
sidiary Opel in Germany. Other measures taken by the government and capital
Table 2 Growth rates in real gross domestic product by area and country, 1998–2017
[percent change]
Area and country 1998–2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016a 2017a
annual
average
World 4.2 3.0 −.1 5.4 4.2 3.5 3.3 3.4 3.2 3.1 3.4
Advanced economies 2.8 .1 −3.4 3.1 1.7 1.2 1.2 1.9 2.1 1.6 1.8
(breakdown)
United States 3.0 −.3 −2.8 2.5 1.6 2.2 1.7 2.4 2.6 1.6 2.2
Eurozoneb 2.4 .4 −4.5 2.1 1.5 −.9 −.3 1.1 2.0 1.7 1.5
Germany 1.7 .8 −5.6 4.0 3.7 .7 .6 1.6 1.5 1.7 1.4
France 2.4 .2 −2.9 2.0 2.1 .2 .6 .6 1.3 1.3 1.3
Italy 1.5 −1.1 −5.5 1.7 .6 −2.8 −1.7 −.3 .8 .8 .9
Spain 3.9 1.1 −3.6 .0 −1.0 −2.6 −1.7 1.4 3.2 3.1 2.2
Japan 1.0 −1.0 −5.5 4.7 −.5 1.7 1.4 .0 .5 .5 .6
United Kingdom 2.9 −.6 −4.3 1.9 1.5 1.3 1.9 3.1 2.2 1.8 1.1
Canada 3.2 1.0 −2.9 3.1 3.1 1.7 2.2 2.5 1.1 1.2 1.9
Other advanced
economies 4.0 1.7 −.9 5.9 3.4 2.1 2.3 2.8 2.0 2.0 2.3
Emerging market
and developing
economies 5.8 5.8 2.9 7.5 6.3 5.3 5.0 4.6 4.0 4.2 4.6
Regional groups:
Commonwealth of
Independent
Statesc 6.2 5.3 −6.3 4.7 4.7 3.5 2.1 1.1 −2.8 −.3 1.4
Russia 5.8 5.2 −7.8 4.5 4.0 3.5 1.3 .7 −3.7 −.8 1.1
Excluding
Russia 7.5 5.6 −2.4 5.1 6.2 3.6 4.3 2.0 −.5 .9 2.3
Emerging and
developing Asia 7.6 7.2 7.5 9.6 7.9 7.0 7.0 6.8 6.6 6.5 6.3
China 9.9 9.6 9.2 10.6 9.5 7.9 7.8 7.3 6.9 6.6 6.2
Indiad 7.1 3.9 8.5 10.3 6.6 5.6 6.6 7.2 7.6 7.6 7.6
ASEAN−5e 3.7 5.4 2.4 6.9 4.7 6.2 5.1 4.6 4.8 4.8 5.1
Emerging and
developing
Europe 4.2 3.1 −3.0 4.7 5.4 1.2 2.8 2.8 3.6 3.3 3.1
162 Chapter 7
Table 2 Growth rates in real gross domestic product by area and country, 1998–2017 (cont.)
[percent change]
Area and country 1998–2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016a 2017a
annual
average
Latin America and

the Caribbean 3.1 4.0 −1.8 6.1 4.6 3.0 2.9 1.0 .0 −.6 1.6
Brazil 3.0 5.1 −.1 7.5 3.9 1.9 3.0 .1 −3.8 −3.3 .5
Mexico 2.9 1.4 −4.7 5.1 4.0 4.0 1.4 2.2 2.5 2.1 2.3
Middle East, North
Africa, Afghani-
stan, and Pakistan 5.3 4.8 1.5 4.9 4.5 5.0 2.4 2.7 2.3 3.4 3.4
Saudi Arabia 2.9 6.2 −2.1 4.8 10.0 5.4 2.7 3.6 3.5 1.2 2.0
Sub−Saharan
Africa 5.2 5.9 3.9 7.0 5.0 4.3 5.2 5.1 3.4 1.4 2.9
Nigeria 7.0 7.2 8.4 11.3 4.9 4.3 5.4 6.3 2.7 −1.7 .6
South Africa 3.7 3.2 −1.5 3.0 3.3 2.2 2.3 1.6 1.3 .1 .8
a All figures are forecasts as published by the International Monetary Fund.

b For 2017, includes data for: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovak
Republic, Slovenia, and Spain.
c Includes Georgia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine, which are not members of the Common-
wealth of Independent States but are included for reasons of geography and similarity in
economic structure.
d Data and forecasts are presented on a fiscal year basis and output growth is based on gdp
at market prices.
e Consists of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Note: For details on data shown in this table, see World Economic Outlook, October 2016,
published by the International Monetary Fund.
Source: International Monetary Fund.
were: (a) reduced wages; (b) reduced working hours; and (c) freezing or reduc-
ing salaries of employees and executives while the official unemployment rate
reached 9.5% in June 2009.
The three American automotive giants, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford,
asked the government for a ‘rescue package’ of $34 billion to prevent the indus-
try from going bankrupt, while the presidents of the first two companies de-
clared that they would be willing to merge the two, which would lead to a cut
in hundreds of thousands of jobs in the automotive sector—and, by extension,
in their productive complexes due to the ‘demonstration effect’ that the pro-
cess would cause, thus affecting the whole of the industry—because of the
elimination of the factories and operations that it would have caused.
The capitalist crisis, centered in the United States, does not derive from a
contradiction between the so-called real economy and the speculative econo-
my, as formally presented by the media and most of the financial experts in the
field, even if one of the coordinates of the crisis derive from fictitious capital
with all its sequel of bankruptcy of companies, banks, businesses and produc-
tive systems, as is happening in the global automobile industry including in
the United States.
The financial, real estate and credit insolvency problems—which are as real
as the fall of the rates of profit for the entrepreneurs—are only manifestations
of the difficulties, obstacles and problems that occur in the productive dimen-
sion and in the valorization of capital (see Chapter 5). This is the fertile soil
where governments are trying to alleviate contradictions by resorting to
monetarist and cutting measures such as the issuance of currency and the
regulation of the fiscal deficit to subsidize companies and businesses whose
objective is purely and simply speculation, as it happens in Europe, in the Unit-
ed States, and is spreading to the rest of the world.4
Other measures, such as the timid intervention of the State in the economy
and in the regulation of exchange rates are insufficient given the catastrophe
that represents the deep crisis of the North American and European business
emporium, which cannot find a way to solve capitalism without sharpening its
contradictions and precipitating new growth of inflation, asset destruction
and unemployment. Of course, it is not the end of the capitalist system, as is of-
ten suggested. But it is the prelude to the exhaustion of the progressive phase of
capitalism, as a mode of production, and the beginning of a new phase tending
towards structural stagnation that is much more destructive and contradictory
for humanity, because now it incorporates natural resources, the environment
and the ecological systems of the planet to the irrational, massive and indiscrimi-
nate exploitation for the production of goods and services (see Saxe-Fernández
2013: 9–40). The system can only thus remedy its destruction, and postpone it
for some time … that is, if imperialist war does not break out first!
Since World War ii and outside of the brief period of recovery and growth
of the US economy in the Clinton era there has been no other sign that it can
overcome its difficulties. In the first, the new economy, as it was called
4 In the United States, the seriousness of the crisis was expressed through the financial reform
of the Barack Obama government of July 21, 2016, known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Re-
form and Consumer Protection Act aimed at stabilizing the financial markets, with little
success.
164 Chapter 7
(see Note 4, Chapter 5), associated exclusively with the microelectronic

revolution and the internet, was like a sigh and an illusion of outdated intel-
lectuals who imagined that capitalism would finally have the capacity to bend
its contradictions to find a solid path of growth and long-term development,
inclusive and democratic. For example, at the end of the 1990s, the oecd
(1999) published a book with the significant title of The Future of the Global
Economy. Towards a Long Boom? and summarized that:
As the 20th Century draws to a close, the powerful forces of change rep-
resent a long and sustained economic boom for the coming decades: the
transition to a knowledge-based society with its potentially huge produc-
tivity gains; more integrated global markets for goods, services, capital
and technology; and a growing environmental awareness that could ac-
celerate the shift towards new patterns of production and consumption
that require fewer resources. The result could be several decades of
above-average economic growth, substantial increases in income and
wealth, and significant improvements in the welfare of the whole world.
oecd 1999
During the 90s US capitalism seemed to draw a trajectory, which some pre-
sumed was structural, stabilized, economic growth, with a downward trend in
the rate of unemployment and control of inflation, and that was accompanied
by a behavior similar to that of finance. That is how:
…The expansion of the economy was accompanied by a similar stock

boom, due to its vigor and duration, with the one experienced during the
1920s. Between January 1991 and August 2000, when the peak of the boom
was reached, the index Dow Jones of the New York Stock Exchange in-
creased 4.09 times, while the nasdaq index, which measures the value of
the shares of the new economy, multiplied 10.2 times
guillén 2007: 36–37
The ‘miracle’ was surprising, as were its results: it was a new scenario that
seemed to take the US economy out of the hole. However, unable to maintain
the cycle of sustained growth that, by the same token “…ended at the end of
the nineties in the stock market cataclysm of the dot-com companies” (Piquer-
as 2014: 143), the recession of the United States (in 2001, the gdp only grew by
1%) finally threw those illusions aside and ended
…the idyll about the supposed disappearance or regulated attenuation of

the capitalist economic cycle, confirming once again the cyclical nature
of this mode of production, now at global synchronic levels and, on the

other hand, it has made evident the impotence of the technocratic in-
struments (among others, those of financial engineering) to regulate the
global capitalist economy, even if only in terms of US hegemony.
grobart 2007: 82
Unlike the yearnings of the new economy, capitalism is immersed in a deep

structural crisis that is not only commercial, financial, exchange and monetary—
as propagated by the media and as we saw in the previous chapter—but of a
much more complex, multifaceted and profound nature that is expressed
throughout the system. It is increasingly difficult to produce enough value and
surplus value to, on the one hand, create reinvested capital surplus and, on the
other, reverse the current phases of the economic recession and, at the same
time, guarantee a new stage of growth of the world economy similar to that
identified by the new economy.5 It has been well below that which it drew in
the post-World War ii period, during Les Trente Glorieuses, and which today
presents a difficult picture of quasi-stagnation only solved by the still dynamic
economies of China and India that, however, have also begun to experience
difficulties that concern the monetary and financial circles and businessmen
of the West (see Figures 1 and 2).
12
9.9
10
8
6.28
6
4.2
4 3 3.1
2.8 2.8 2.4 2.13
2 1.16 1.27 1
0.34 0.25
0
World Advanced usa Euro Zone Japan Latin America China
Countries
1998–2007 2008–2016
Figure 2 gdp by world regions: 1998–2016
5 See Note 4, Chapter 5. We propose this thesis in Sotelo 2010 and 2012. It should be clarified
that we are not talking about ‘development’, but about growth, which, from the point of view
of neoclassical theory, “…consists of eliminating institutions and organizations of any kind
that limit markets and competition, be they cartels, chambers of commerce and industry,
unions and taxi drivers’ unions or minimum wages and protection of employment” (Streeck
2016: 131).
166 Chapter 7
3
2.7
2.5 2.4
1.5 1.3
0.5 0.26
0
2013 2014 2015 2016
Figure 3 Volume of world merchandise trade
Harvey (2012a: 109) assures us that, in the long term, capitalism has to grow at
a compound rate of not less than 3% to survive. That is, in order to recreate an
environment conducive to growth in which to invest the surplus of capital cre-
ated by the work force. This thesis is also presented by Piqueras (2014: 142)
when he argues for the reduction of its investment spaces, because “There
does not seem to be a capitalist solution to such a challenge, beyond causing
false exits through new fictitious capital swings” (idem). On the other hand
Saxe-Fernández and Fal (2012: 41) accurately state that “…what is at stake is the
impossibility that capital manifests, periodically, of being able to guarantee its
conditions of reproduction”.
The problem does not rest soley in the fact that capitalism does not grow in
this magnitude (3% or a little more), but in the fact that world trade does not
have a relationship with world gdp that has been declining in recent years
passing through a coefficient of 3.4 in 2010 to 0.6 in 2016 (wto April 12, 2017).
The same can be seen in relation to the volume of international trade that goes
from an already low growth rate of 2.4% in 2013 to 1.3% in 2016, well below the
global gdp growth which was 3.1% last year (Figure 3 and Table 2).
3 Conclusion
This problematic and negative relationship between the sphere of production

and reproduction of capital and the world market is one of the most relevant
and expressive characteristics of what we call ‘excess of value’: the growing
difficulties of capital in general; of its monopolistic companies internationally;
and even of fictitious capital to create new value and surplus value, a question
that explains and justifies the extension and application of the super-exploi-
tation of the labor force as a mechanism that operates to some extent as a
counteracting force of the contraction of the world market and the fall of the
profit rate.
This is, then, the problematic and complex scenario of the capitalist crisis
that the US government faced under the presidency of President Donald
Trump and that, apparently, is not the situation only for this government, but
also for the other conservative governments of Europe, Japan and Latin Amer-
ica. Particularly where social rights and conquests have been dramatically re-
versed against workers and the public, as seen in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil,
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Germany and even in the United States itself.
Chapter 8
United States: Precariousness of Work and Super-

The precarization of work is the process of updating work precariousness

to adjust the social relations of production to the social, political and techni-
cal conditions that accumulation and valorization demand, within the frame-
work of the conflict between work and capital, under the determinations of
the capitalist crisis and the need to recover its general rates of profitability. In
view of this updating process, this chapter articulates the precarization, as a
new form of the precariousness of salaried work, with super-exploitation of
the labor force as a regime that conforms to the structural conditions and poli-
cies of the advanced capitalist countries, particularly, under the limits and
over-determinations imposed by the production of relative surplus value,
which, however, remains hegemonic in the system, as we saw in Chapters 4
and 5. The graphs and statistical tables give an account of the above and we
conclude, considering the differences with the dependent economies, particu-
larly Mexico, that this regime is already a reality for millions of workers in the
United States.
1 Crisis, Tension and Social Fragmentation in Neoliberal Capitalism
The word ‘barbarism’ in the Latin conveys ‘backwardness’, ‘savagery’ or ‘feroci-

ty’. It has been, and is, widely used by evolutionary and structuralist theories in
the social sciences, generally to confer a negative bias on the nonindustrial,
peripheral, underdeveloped, ‘illiterate’ societies that are supposedly ‘below’
the Western capitalists—‘in lower stages of the chain of human and
economic-social development’—those that, at the same time, call themselves
‘civilized’, ‘modern’, ‘developed’, with ‘higher ranks’ in relation to the former.
This is how the dichotomy originated: ‘civilization vs. barbarism’ giving impe-
tus to terrible atrocities against the indigenous peoples carried out by Western
imperialists of advanced capitalism.
There is a close relationship between work and barbarism that nowadays is
clearly manifested in the increasingly widespread legal-institutional vulnera-
bility of the sellers of their labor force in relation to labor and social rights.
Unlike in the past, when there were at least some laws, regulations and labor

Precariousness of Work & Super-Exploitation of Labor Force 169
regulations that regulated and protected those rights attained by the workers
and proletarian struggles in the course of the 20th Century, today the women
and men who work, increasingly do so in conditions of vulnerability, precari-
ousness, insecurity and physical and intellectual fatigue. In this way, a working
regulation was imposed that returns the worker to conditions very similar to
those that prevailed in the 19th Century under the impious whip of Taylorism,
when the employers and the State were practically all powerful to implement
and impose their conditions of exploitation, misery and of work that set the
worker categories that constituted the world of labor. As this situation is nei-
ther conjectural nor accidental, but is systemic, structural and historical, it has
been embedded within the socio-labor metabolism of the reproduction of
capital and it’s overcoming necessarily implies the overcoming of that system.
2 Work and Social Tension
In the absence of a powerful and active organization of the working class ca-
pable of resisting and tackling the processes of restructuring, segmentation
and flexibilization of work, capital imposes an environment of socio-labor ten-
sion that bifurcated in the intricate economic-legal-institutional system and
psychic-emotional, ultimately neutralizing and counteracting the rebellious
attempts of workers to fight for their interests and class demands (Standing
2011 and 2013; for a critique see Sotelo 2015).
The current precariousness of work, through the process of precarization,
produces an additional phenomenon that we define as social tension that is a
state that keeps a community, group or social individual exposed to the actions
of opposing and aggressive forces, as well as to a hostile, latent situation, be-
tween people, groups, social classes, nations and races. Logically, when this
state of tension expands, there is the danger of fracture and, later, of the rup-
ture of the network of the social fabric that articulates the world of work and
its diverse participating actors. Social tension is a set of opposing social forces
and relations that interact in labor and labor processes, in unions, in institu-
tions and in legal-political regimes. These forces can provoke tension, but also
ruptures, deformations and permanent crises that shake the established order,
either in the sense of reinforcing it or, in the sense of contravening and sub-
verting it.
We emphasize that this socio-labor phenomenon of social tension is hetero-
geneous and unequal. First of all because in some places, countries, regions,
legal-labor regimes, institutions and productive processes, there are still labor
relations that maintain, in substance, the rights and prerogatives of workers
170 Chapter 8
within the integrity of a labor contract that articulates category, salary and
function performed, as occurs in those European countries within the frame-
work of the welfare state and Fordism—which today have entered into a deep
crisis—while in others, for example, Spain, Greece and Portugal, or in many
places of Latin America (Argentina, Brazil and Mexico) this is no longer the
case. Here, on the contrary, deregulation, flexibility, informality, precarious-
ness, instability in employment and the loss of social and labor rights were
erected in a hegemonic regime in neoliberal capitalism. In the words of Beck
(2000: 96):
… workers never (regardless of their skills and curriculum) were more

vulnerable than in our days: they work individually, without any collec-
tive counterweight and more independently than ever, they work in flex-
ible networks whose sense and patterns are indecipherable to most of
them.1
The heterogeneity of the work contract is manifested in two ways: one that
maintains the old Fordist proceedings that articulated the role played with the
other components: salary and category (A); and, the new one that corresponds
to the neoliberal, flexible, Toyotist and polyvalent that makes possible the just
in time system characterized by the disarticulation and the autonomization of
said components (B). The latter (B) assumes the hegemony and tends to absorb
the first (A) in the contour of the socio-labor metabolism of neoliberalism. It is
unequal, because in both situations there are different cases depending on the
characteristics of the country, its degree of economic development and, above
all, the workers’ and union struggles to maintain their fundamental rights. In
other words: the intensity and magnitude of the heterogeneity and inequality
of labor, socio-labor and organizational processes will depend on the struc-
tural processes determined by the level of development of the organic compo-
sition of capital and the incorporation of technology; of the stability or crisis of
the economic system; the characteristics of the State; and, finally, of the degree
of cohesion, organization and struggle of the workers and of the exploited
classes of society in the defense and improvement of their living and working
conditions.
1 In another text, this author designates the ‘global risk society’ (weltrisikogesellschaft) to the
five interrelated processes that post-industrial society has the ability to confront in the ‘sec-
ond modernity’: globalization, individualization, the gender revolution, underemployment
and global risks such as ecological crises and financial markets (Beck 2007).
These characteristics that differentiate the heterogeneity and inequality of

social and labor relations by countries and regions have a common ingredient:
the tendency to precarious work as the economic crisis plays out and compa-
nies begin to adopt Toyotism and flexible methods of production and organi-
zation of work (for this topic from the point of view of education see Antunes
and Pinto 2017). Some authors have insisted as Vasapollo (2007) points out that
one of the characteristics of the current world of labor is the conversion of
‘atypical’ work as a rule rather than an exception, while for the French sociolo-
gist Castel (1998: 516) it is a gross error to consider precarious work—contracts
for specific work, internships, part-time jobs subsidized by the State—as
‘particular or atypical’ and adds that, in general, both unemployment and pre-
carization, must be considered as phenomena “embedded in the current dy-
namics of modernization”.
For his part, Beck (2000: 135) believes that “the deregulation and flexibiliza-
tion of work introduces in the West as normal what for a long time was a sur-
mountable catastrophe: the informal economy and the informal sector”. The
same author establishes as one of the principles of what he calls ‘second mo-
dernity’ that “the formal society of work and full employment, and with it the
network woven in the welfare state enters into crisis before a new mode of
‘delocalised’ production and cooperation” (Beck 2000: 28–29). According to
this author, the ‘second modernity’, which implies ‘reflective modernity’, is de-
fined by ecological crises, backward-paying work, individualization, globaliza-
tion and the sexual revolution (Beck 2000: 25), including the crisis of world of
labor (arbeitswelt) and the environmental crisis (umweltkrise).
3 Precarious Work and Structural Reforms
From being a product of the crisis of capitalism and labor markets, precarious
work became a legal-institutional principle of labor regimes and individual
and collective contracts that are consistent with the policies and interests of
capital representative agents: the businessmen and their bureaucratic, repres-
sive and administrative apparatuses. Indeed,
It seems as if socio-economic security, as defined by the International

Labor Organization (ilo), would have become the privilege of a social
minority at the beginning of the 21st Century in most countries of the
world.
altvater 2011: 262
172 Chapter 8
This author mentions Germany, the most developed country in the Euro-
pean Union. In Italy, labor reforms implemented by the government with Law
848 of February 2003 fully introduced ‘the atypical work’ that dismantled, at
least, three fundamental characteristics of the work prevailing before the
reform that supported the ‘typical work’: (a) the stipulated schedule was of
integral time; (b) it recognized the right to set the time and place for the pro-
motion of the jobs of the employees, as well as for the start of the autonomous
activity of the independent or autonomous workers; and, (c) finally, a great
diversity of positions and roles were established between those who worked as
employees and those who worked as independent workers (Vasapollo 2006:
49).
Among other consequences of these so-called structural reforms that have
been implemented in Europe, in addition to encouraging unemployment, they
have stimulated the development of labor informality, according to Altvater, as
a real ‘bumper of globalization’ that fulfills four functions:
a) Ensures the subsistence of urban households.
b) Contributes to the solving of the crisis of the labor markets.
c) Reproduces itself in small informal and precarious companies, that
super-exploit their workers.
d) Houses a deep and exacerbated deposit of cheap labor force that nour-
ishes the work needs of transnational companies (2011, 263).
We also add that it stimulates the increase in exploitation and intensifies com-
petition among workers that, among other effects, causes low wages, precari-
ous employment and increased unemployment. The same happens with the
increase in social tension among the working classes. In effect, Toyotism and
flexible automation adapt the work to the markets and needs of companies
(just in time) and generalize their precarization in a context of union weakness
or of no worker organization.
Thus, precarious work, the generalized reality that is increasingly incorpo-
rating broad sectors of the working classes around the world, in the first in-
stance, introduces a state of tension in the subjects who see themselves losing
their labor and social rights and are confronted with a harsh reality of scarcity
and competition for jobs of any nature and, of course, an uncertain and ques-
tionable future that even creates mental health problems (nervousness, anxi-
ety, depression, fear, suffering), in addition to the increase in accidents at work.
Being able to spend, thus, weeks, months, or even whole years in unemploy-
ment, these workers end up obtaining an insufficient and precarious quasi-
employment that provides a meagre income to half satisfy their needs and
those of their families, and if they give up looking for a job it ends up favoring
official statistics in the sense that the rate of open unemployment will show as
if it has declined.
Alcoholism, drug addiction, anguish and the permanent state of stress—on
which the computer organization of Toyotist work is built—accompanies the
interval of unemployment and is extended even when temporary employment
is found, which barely allows them to survive. When that happens to an indi-
vidual, the same happens on a larger scale, to hundreds and thousands of peo-
ple who share the same situation of precariousness and that face similar
adverse circumstances that entrap them. The workers’ collective, then, experi-
ences a generalized phenomenon of social tension that is either organized for
struggle or is shaping up to a possible social fracture—which can be extended
to the worker family, to the couple, to the circle of friends and to the individual
himself when feeling frustrated—signifying the disintegration and conversion
to uncritical individualism that is the worst enemy of social struggles in gen-
eral and of the workers in particular.
From here to suicide, then, is a possible ‘exit formula’ from the objective and
individual crisis. The result of all these changes, among others, has been an
increase in illness and death at work as indicated by the afl-cio in a report on
death at work (May 31, 2011). Also a wave of suicides in France Telecom, which
had 100,000 employees in that country, was tragically triggered between 2008
and 2010 with more than sixty registered of which 27 are linked to work, ac-
cording to the trade union platform Stress Observatory and Forced Labor Mo-
bility (Pérez April 28, 2011).
The International Labor Organization (ilo May 24, 2002) reveals that about
5,480 people die every day in the world due to accidents or occupational dis-
eases, or 2 million every year. In addition, 270 million workers suffer from inju-
ries and 160 million acquire occupational diseases such as rsi (Repetitive
Strain Injury), which is an occupational disease that occurs due to repetitive
efforts within an excessive workday of between 14 and 15 hours a day—which
is very common these days—with little or no rest for the worker. Another col-
lateral phenomenon is stress at work—what psychologists call ‘burnout’ (syn-
drome of exhaustion or chronic work fatigue)—that produces at least three
disorders: emotional and physical exhaustion; low labor productivity; and, de-
personalization of the worker. For this topic see Sennett 1998.
From alienated and tense work a ‘capture-appropriation of the subjectivity’
is produced in the worker by the capital that increases work-related illnesses
with an emphasis on mental disorders, which explains the drastic expansion of
pharmaceutical businesses—and their transnational laboratories—that profit
from human health and misfortune, particularly through the massive sale of
174 Chapter 8
antibiotics and antidepressants that generally do not act on the causes but
only on the symptoms of the disease.
If the class contradictions between labor and capital fail to restore a certain
‘equilibrium’ within the adverse junctures for the former as a result of
negotiation and the class struggle between labor and capital, then a threshold
is entered that can cause social fracture; a situation of mass unemployment
eventually characterized by the absence of benefits or subsidies and, therefore,
of security in society. This phenomenon implies an acute social regression de-
rived from the restructuring of capital and its systemic crises in the world of
work that entails an inherent reduction and consequent degradation of labor
rights and living conditions not only of the men and women who work, but the
population in general. The social fracture means a ruthless and dangerous
process of fragmentation of the working class, its unions, socio-cultural spheres
and symbols articulated in the family, in daily life, in the ways of thinking and in
ideologies, as well as in the public dimension of everyday social reproductivity.
When we speak of fragmentation, we refer to:
… a confusion about the question of difference and sameness (or unity),

but the clear perception of these categories is necessary in each phase of
life. To be confused about what is different, and what is not, is to be confused
about everything. So it is not accidental that our fragmentary way of
thinking is leading us to a wide range of crises: social, political, economic,
ecological, psychological, etc., both in the individual and in society con-
sidered as a whole. This way of thinking supposes the endless develop-
ment of a chaotic and foolish conflict, in which the energies of all tend to
be lost in antagonistic movements or, if not, in misunderstandings.
bohm 2002: 39–40
Social fragmentation is a necessary and vital phenomenon of capital in general

and of dominant ideologies in particular (positivism, evolutionism, sociologi-
cal functionalism) to erect the scientific and technological organization of
work—and its productive processes—as a function of interacting subjects
that adjust to their interests and conditions and, at the same time, that are in-
capable of resisting the system because they remain fragmented and isolated.
In short, this is the essence of the socio-metabolism of capital in the epoch of
neoliberalism, of flexibility, precarious work and informality that annul, first,
the collective and, later, the individual to isolate him from his fellows and
submerge them in a psycho-traumatic emptiness that is consecrated by the
dominant ideology through the media and its organic intellectuals that serve
as support.
In this way fragmentation and Toyotist organization go hand in hand, in

that, promoted by neoliberal policies they manage to fragment the working
class. They deregulate, reduce or annul their social and labor rights in a context
of deepening the regime of super-exploitation of the labor force that at pres-
ent, by the way, is becoming generalized in the economic, social and produc-
tive system of advanced capitalism.
As human phenomena, fragmentation and social fracture are also seen in
ideas and social sciences that present fetishized, nebulous, partial and distort-
ed visions of social reality in order to make them pass as objective and holistic
and generate an ‘immutable’ vision of the existing social order, so much so that
it becomes impossible to overcome them and at the same time induce social
conformity (Roitman 2010) in the very core of workers’ subjectivity and that
can be interpreted, according to the author, as:
… a type of behavior whose characteristic trait is the adoption of inhibi-

tory conducts of the conscience in the process of construction of reality.
It appears like a rejection towards any type of attitude that entails con-
frontation or contradiction with the legally constituted power.
roitman 2010: 1
This conformism is an ideological perspective that the system constructs and

disseminates every day ex-ante—and projects ex-post—of the relationship be-
tween globalization, technological development and the world of work
through the human relations departments of the large corporate companies
that disseminate them in the media. This illusion derives from a theoretical
premise that supposes, in abstract terms, that scientific-technical develop-
ment and its application to labor processes and labor organization, would con-
tribute to counteract social tension, precarization and fragmentation in order
to strengthen the overcoming of the negative elements of the restructuring
and the structural reforms.
It must be clarified that the alleged autonomy of science and technology—
through the schools and the general teaching-learning process (Gramsci 1975;
Antunes and Pinto 2017; and Camaranno 2004)—has no other objective than
that of guaranteeing capitalist reproduction. This is the reason why it limits,
but does not replace, wage labor in the production of value and surplus value.
Rather, it is possible to warn that the technology involved in the productive
processes, as well as the adoption of new forms of work organization based on
neo-Fordism, neo-Taylorism, reengineering and Toyotism (all of them called
‘soft technologies’), seriously threaten the working populations of the entire
planet. In the medium term they reinforce six areas of work restructuring:
176 Chapter 8
rivate property, individualism, depoliticization, culture, the purchase and

p
sale of labor power, and science and technology, at the same time that they
extend their radius of action to the economy and society.
On the ideological level, the struggle of ideas and class and anti-corporate
awareness on the part of the working classes of all countries and continents
are fundamental for the critical and conscious understanding of the social, po-
litical and labor reality, as well as for the discovering and stimulation of the
potentialities of its transformation in all planes of human existence. The inde-
pendent organization of the workers is often also affected by the ideological
apparatuses—dissuasive and repressive—that manipulate the State and the
private (communication) companies called ‘cultural industries’ but which, in
reality, are authentic state-class ideological apparatuses and capital.
These can be positive in the hands of workers when they induce reflection
and analysis on the subject of work and, above all, when they postulate that it
is their concrete subjects that can potentially transform the existing societies
and the capitalist system that serves as sustenance. The workers recover their
creative potential in order to become a historical subject of transformation of
the mode of production and of society with a view to forming a new non-
capitalist formation. To quote an author: “work, far from losing its power, is
presented with all its explosive charge, putting into play class recomposition
dynamics” (Vasapollo 2004: 75) where the new historical subject of transforma-
tion should arise and overcome the capitalist social formation: the revolution-
ary proletariat.
This realistic vision of society and the world of work is opposed to the fig-
ures and images promoted by the private and official media that cannot find
support in the social reality of our countries and societies, as well as in macro
and micro trends that are projected on the horizon of the world of work: reduc-
tion of workforce of companies; replacement of workers by automation; re-
duction of wages and social benefits; increase in labor turnover rates; increases
in productivity charged to the redoubled exploitation of labor; and inflation of
prices and costs of popular consumer goods that determine the value of the
labor force.
Capitalist society is characterized by the instrumental reason that destroys
jobs, precarizes work and causes structural unemployment. It also governs the
organization of work and the logic of the production of value, surplus value
and profits. This means that resources, such as process reengineering (Ham-
mer and Champy 1993)2 that leads to job reductions (Sennett 1998) or Toyotism,
2 Re-engineering (Business Process Re-engineering) is the constant adjustment of companies to

the changing reality of capitalism, for what is part of zero in order to review and radically
redesign the processes and achieve radical improvements in performance such as costs,
as the dominant forms of organization and exploitation of work, become ev-

ermore encompassed in the different labor organizations and will not func-
tion adequately on the old patterns of accumulation and reproduction of
capital supported by Keynesianism and Fordism. It was necessary to restruc-
ture these—as well as their legal-political and ideological-administrative
institutions—so that the organization of work in the making could become
hegemonic in the creation of value and in the valorization of capital in accor-
dance with the new demands of the business game strategic reposition in the
production of surplus labor (surplus value).
This instrumental logic, sustained in criteria of profitability and rational-
ization of capital to obtain high shares of profit, effectively causes the subor-
dination of the labor force to capital. Its characteristics are extended and
homogenized in production and in the world of work, including in the depen-
dent countries of Latin America. This is independent of the specific (dispersed)
forms assumed by the fragmentation of the labor force and, in particular, of
salaried work as a characteristic derived from the neoliberal policies of labor
flexibility that have favored short-term hiring (temporary, seasonal, part time),
the fragmentary payment for hours worked, extended the legal causes of the
termination of the labor contract by disposition of the companies, and re-
duced the compensation for justified or unjustified dismissal. All these are
historical demands of the employers of all the capitalist countries of the world
to strengthen their domain over work in order to strengthen and make their
systems of organization and exploitation more efficient. The vehicle of their
imposition is structural reforms (structural adjustment, privatization, exter-
nal openings, labor reforms) that encourage deregulation, go through frag-
mentation, precarious work, and culminate in the constitution of the state of
social-psychological tension as a powerful tool that counteracts the capacities
and organizational desires of the workers because it combines the objective
conditions (economic crises, unemployment, low wages, high rates of exploi-
tation and competition) with the subjective conditions (lack of class con-
sciousness among workers, job disillusionment, anguish at the threshold of
unemployment, poverty and defeat).
The isolated workers, tense and turned into individual subjects with a deep
feeling of helplessness, face the powerful and indefatigable apparatuses of
bourgeois society (media, repression, prison, psychiatric hospitals, judicial sys-
tems) that condition and modify their behavior (for example, from being active
quality, service and speed. In most cases it involves massive layoffs of personnel. We can,
thus, identify, in terms of its effects in the world of work, re-engineering with precarization
as a mechanism for enforcing precariousness. It can be concluded that any structural reform
that imposes the system implies directly or indirectly industrial and labor re-engineering.
178 Chapter 8
and struggling, to passiveness and unconditional acceptance of the existing

order) engulfing the workers and their identity. In this alienation (see Mészáros
1970) they become estranged from their own work and their products, which
isolates them from the collective workers and from society itself. The final re-
sult, says Castells (2004: 29), is a flagrant contradiction between the self and
the ‘global networks of instrumental exchanges’ that is synthesized in a dan-
gerous break in the communication channels.
The extension and deepening of alienation, social fragmentation and the
state of tension that is introduced by labor flexibility3 and the new paradigms
of the social organization of the work process, such as Toyotism, create a
threshold that can cause both a state of fracture and rupture of the communi-
cating vessels and values and the networks among the workers’ collectives
(which can even affect class cohesion) and the instruments of struggle such as
unions, strikes, potential political manifestation—and above all—the consti-
tution of the working class as the vanguard of radical and transformative social
change.
Somehow in the course of the 1980s that strategic objective was achieved: to
neutralize and, in extreme situations, to defeat the social movement of work-
ers practically all over the world with the help of the imperialist State led by
Reagan in the United States and the Iron Lady in England. This historical, social
and political fact was the basis of the crisis of the welfare state for its subse-
quent de-structuring in the 90s and its conversion into a hegemonic neoliberal
state, which contributed to the disintegration of the ussr and the imposition
of the Washington Consensus, among other transcendent historical facts.
This resulted in an ideological ‘demonstration effect’ on the ‘finishing’ of the
class struggle. In particular, the historical struggle of the working class was
fragmented and out of step to undertake effective resistance to this task. In-
stead, the organic intelligentsia of the dominant system proclaimed that the
so-called (new) ‘movements and social subjects’ in abstracto were the ‘only ac-
tors’ who were the protagonists of social change, among whom appeared the
women’s groups, the ngos, the anti-globalization or anti-systemic movements,
peasants and indigenous people and students, among others, but all of them
isolated, because the labor and union movement in the course of the 80s
suffered severe blows—even physical ones—having been defeated by the re-
structuring of capital, which, with the support of the media, introduced and
3 Castel (1998: 337–338.) Considers that flexibility “… is not reduced to the need to adjust me-
chanically to a specific task, but requires that the operator is immediately available to re-
spond to fluctuations in demand”.
reinforced neoliberalism and flexible market economies based on the just-

in-time system, the precarization and super-exploitation of the world of work.
As a result of this crisis and the restructuring of capital, the working class
was fragmented and disarticulated from its class organization. The social frac-
ture and social tension played that role and introduced isolationism, uncritical
individualism and the feeling of defeat among its ranks, a phenomenon that
was expressed in a sharp drop in the rates of unionization worldwide practi-
cally up to the present. While this situation was played out in the union ranks
of the working class, the State achieved hegemony (consensus/repression/
fracture) with the help of the media and electronic media, as well as executing
privatization of the economic and social system (the accumulation of capital
through dispossession) and the promotion of market forces as presumed mo-
tors of the general development of society and economy.
In short, the crisis, fragmentation and restructuring constituted an addi-
tional lever to deregulate, flexibilize, fracture and precarize the world of work
in the course of the first fifteen years of the 21st Century. Capital initiatives—
privatization, structural adjustments, reduction of costs and labor reforms,
massive dismissals of workers, reorientation of their investments towards
competitive sectors and high profitability—advanced in the direction of deep-
ening and encouraging fragmentation, social fracture and the monumental
extension of the precarious and informal work we see today. If this had not
happened it would be hard to imagine that capital would have given the ‘tiger
jump’ to solve the deep capitalist crisis of the welfare state and the subsequent
restructuring of capital from the mid-70s. The process is not mechanical but,
rather, it articulates the structural conditions that occur in the work processes
under the imperatives of the management of the companies and their profit
rates, but also under the conditions of the class struggle that, in particular, usu-
ally deploys the workers through the unions, the mass organizations and the
real workers’ parties and the anti-capitalist left.
4 (Temporary) Employment and Job Insecurity
A pattern by which the precariousness of work is imposed is temporary em-

ployment, according to some authors. For example, Standing (2013: 63–64) ar-
gues that:
Competitiveness through the use of temporary work is increasingly im-

portant in the global system, as companies strive to emulate what other
180 Chapter 8
market leaders in their sector do in other countries, a pattern known as

the ‘dominant effect’.
The International Labor Organization (ilo 2016a: 3) distinguishes four broad

categories of what it calls “atypical forms of employment”: (1) temporary em-
ployment; (2) part-time work; (3) temporary work through agency and other
multiparty work relationships; and (4) covert employment relationships and
economically dependent self-employment. This international body outlines
two important conclusions:
a) In general, in industrialized countries, atypical employment can be found
in almost all economic sectors, with predominance in low-wage occupa-
tions. In developing countries, casual employment continues to represent
a significant portion of wage-earning employment but there has also been
a proliferation of atypical employment in sectors where typical employ-
ment was more common, such as in the public sector or manufacturing.
b) Compared with other population groups, it is more likely to find women,
young people and migrants in atypical employment modalities. This
overrepresentation reflects the greater difficulties these workers have in
entering and remaining in the labor market. Especially in the case of
women, it reflects the unequal distribution of unpaid work in the home
and the consequences of this inequality in the possibilities they have of
obtaining permanent employment, due to the schedules and availability
required by some permanent jobs, as well as the doubts that some em-
ployers have about the hiring of women due to these demands (ilo
2016a: 7).
There is evidence that temporary employment has increased globally in recent
years. Thus, the ilo (2017: 28) indicates that as of the second quarter of 2016,
temporary employment in the European Union (28 countries considered)
reached 14.3% of total employment. However, in other countries, which in-
clude the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, the proportion remains well above
20% and in others such as Croatia and France this employment is increasing.
In Japan about half of Japanese workers under the age of 25 have temporary or
part-time jobs, increasing by 20% compared to 1990, this situation being worse
for working women who earn 30% less on average than men (Goodman and
Soble October 7, 2017).
According to The Economist (July 16, 2016), since the economic recovery be-
gan in 2009, temporary employment represents one in ten new jobs in the
United States that, at the same time that it grows, its quality deteriorates
(Castillo 2012: 259). According to official figures, temporary workers obtain be-
tween 20% and 25% less per hour than permanent workers in the performance
of similar functions and fewer and fewer are covered by health and pension
plans, whose costs are increasingly incurred by the taxpayers. The newspaper
also highlights that in places where temporary work is imposed it negatively
impacts the salaries of permanent workers:
In states where less than 2% of the workforce was employed by tempo-

rary companies (temping firms) in 2000, the salaries of full-time workers
grew by an average of 3% per year between 2000 and 2015. On the con-
trary, they increased only 2.6% annually in states with a higher propor-
tion of temporary workers.
According to a Report of the United States government (gao April 20, 2015: 4)
this type of contingent employment rose from 35.3% of the total number of
workers employed in 2006 to 40.4% in 2010 and its number continues to grow,
affecting more and more different scales and categories of work, as well as sal-
ary amounts.
5 Unemployment as a Condition of the Super-Exploitation of Labor
Along with atypical employment and temporary employment, unemployment

figures prominently as part of the mechanisms aimed at increasing capital
gains. In this regard, Marini points out (1996: 65) that in order for the super-
exploitation of labor to operate under any circumstance, the existence of huge
unemployment is required as a sine qua non condition that simultaneously (a)
presses down wages, (b) increases the average exploitation rate in the system
and, (c) increases competition among the workers themselves.
Articulated, these measures are aimed at counteracting the decline in the
rate of profit of large monopoly companies in the world and the United States.
This confirms that the privileged era of capitalism is definitively behind us—
the famous Les Trente Glorieuses—and will never repeat itself despite the de-
lirious desires of the international financial organizations that believe it will.
For example, between 1960–1968 the average growth rate in the United States
was 4.4% and then it fell to 2.5% between 1979 and 1985. In the same period,
Japan declined 10.4% in the first to 4% in the second; West Germany went from
4.1% to 3%; France, from 5.4% to 1.1%; Great Britain, from 3.1% to 1.2%, while,
finally, the average growth of all oecd member countries fell by 5.1%, between
1960–1968, to 2.2%, between 1979–1985 (Harvey 2012: 153).
Along with this behavior of the world economy, another phenomenon
emerges as a characteristic of capitalism: the growing dissociation of the
182 Chapter 8
e conomic cycle from the behavior of the employment-underemployment rate.

Thus, according to Marini, after stably displaying unemployment rates equiva-
lent to 4% of the labor force, until 1973, these rose rapidly in the 24 most indus-
trialized countries and reached their peak in 1983 (8%) affecting more than 30
million people. However, despite the fact that the recession had been
overcome since the beginning of the following decade, unemployment still
oscillated around 6% in 1990 to grow again in the subsequent years (Marini
1996: 55).
In this way, and verifying Marini’s thesis, we find that in 2012, in the oecd
countries, the unemployment rate reached 7.9%, 10.5% in the whole of the
European Union and 11.4% in the countries of the Euro Zone in that same year
(Eurostat October 1, 2012 and ilo 2014). Cillo (April 13, 2017: 17) notes that be-
tween 2007 and 2015 the number of unemployed worldwide of people between
15 and 24 years went from 70.5 million in the first year to 73.4 in the second,
reaching the highest number in 2009 at 76.6 million unemployed youth. Al-
though there had been ups and downs, this behavior does not seem to have
changed at present (see Table 3).
On the contrary, it reveals that even if the unemployment rate is reduced, as
has been nominally occurring after the Great Depression of 2008–2009 in
some countries such as the United States, Great Britain or Japan, this has not
resulted in an increase of salaries nor in an improvement of the quality of the
jobs, which, has actually decreased both in skills and level of remuneration in
a context of growth of jobs that require advanced and specialized skills (Good-
man and Soble October 7, 2017). These constitute the minority in the global
labor markets (see Table 6).
Capitalism has only been able to achieve growth by combining unemp
loyment with precarious, informal, interim zero hour contracts, outsourced
work with low wages, and increased exploitation of work. What has been made
possible also thanks to the strong decline of the workers’ struggles and the
unionization rates that, for example, in the United States, fell from 20% in
1983 to half that today (Sander cit. Tasin, 2015: 81). The 2000s did not change
this labor panorama in the world or in the United States, to the extent that
the ilo does not see a reduction in open unemployment as shown in the
following.
Table 3 shows the high unemployment rates in the European Union, to a
lesser extent in the advanced economies and in France and Italy. In absolute
terms, unemployment reached more than 200 million people in 2017 and in the
EU this year it is above 22 million. In Latin America, with rates that averaged at
around 6.5% between 2014–2017, in this last year the affected population is
Table 3 Unemployment rate and total unemployment. Trends and projections 2007–2017
Unemployment rate 2014–2017 (%) Millions 2015–2017
2014 2015 2016 2017 2015 2016 2017
World 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.7 197.1 199.4 200.5

Developed 7.1 6.7 6.5 6.4 46.7 46.1 45.3
economies
Emerging 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.6 135.3 137.7 139.1
economies
Developing 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 15.1 15.6 16.1
economies
G20 economies 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.3 123.9 124.3 123.8
G20 advanced 7.3 6.8 6.6 6.5 42.2 41.2 40.2
economies
G20 emerging 4.9 4.9 4.9 4.9 81.7 83.1 83.6
economies
UE-28 10.2 9.4 9.2 9.1 23.2 22.7 22.2
UE-19 11.6 10.9 10.7 10.4 17.5 17.1 16.7
Subregions and Country Details

Arab States 10.1 10. 10.2 10.2 5.3 5.5 5.6
Saudí Arabia 5.9 5.8 5.7 5.7 0.7 0.7 0.7
Central and 9.1 9.2 9.4 9.4 6.8 7.0 7.1
Western Asia
Turkey 9.9 10.3 10.5 10.4 3.0 3.1 3.1
Eastern Asia 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.6 42.1 42.4 42.7
China 4.6 4.6 4.7 4.7 37.3 37.7 38.1
Japan 3.5 3.3 3.2 3.1 2.2 2.1 2.0
Korea, Republic of 3.5 3.7 3.5 3.4 1.0 0.9 0.9
Eastern Europe 6.8 6.9 7.0 6.9 10.2 10.3 10.1
Russian 5.2 5.8 6.2 6.1 4.4 4.7 4.6
Federation
Latin America 6.4 6.5 6.7 6.7 19.9 21.0 21.2
and the
Caribbean
Argentina 7.3 6.7 6.9 6.7 1.3 1.4 1.4
Brazil 6.8 7.2 7.7 7.6 7.7 8.4 8.4
Mexico 4.9 4.3 4.1 4.0 2.5 2.4 2.4
184 Chapter 8
Table 3 Unemployment rate and total unemployment. Trends and projections 2007–2017
(cont.)
Unemployment rate 2014–2017 (%) Millions 2015–2017
2014 2015 2016 2017 2015 2016 2017
Northern Africa 12.5 12.1 11.8 11.6 8.8 8.8 8.8

Northern 6.3 5.5 5.1 4.9 10.0 9.3 9.0
America
Canada 6.9 6.9 6.8 6.8 1.4 1.4 1.4
United States 6.3 5.3 4.9 4.7 8.7 7.9 7.7
Northern, 10.7 10.1 9.9 9.7 21.8 21.4 21.0
Southern and
Western Europe
Germany 5.0 4.6 4.6 4.7 2.0 2.0 2.0
France 10.3 10.6 10.4 10.0 3.1 3.0 2.9
Italy 12.7 12.1 12.0 11.5 3.0 3.0 2.9
United Kingdom 6.1 5.5 5.4 5.5 1.8 1.8 1.9
South-Eastern 4.3 4.4 4.3 4.2 15.1 15.2 15.1
Asia and Pacific
Australia 6.1 6.3 6.3 5.8 0.8 0.8 0.7
Indonesia 5.9 5.8 5.7 5.6 7.3 7.3 7.3
Southern Asia 4.2 4.1 4.1 4.0 28.8 29.1 29.4
India 3.5 3.5 3.4 3.4 17.5 17.5 17.6
Sub-Saharan 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.5 28.2 29.4 30.4
Africa
South Africa 24.9 25.1 25.5 25.7 5.1 5.3 5.4
Source: ilo, 2016b: Tabl3 3 1: 13.
over 21 million people. Here the case of Mexico stands out for its alleged ‘low’
unemployment rates of around 4.3%.4
4 It is necessary to clarify that the official Mexican statistic that inegi raises generally refers to
the ‘unemployment rate’ with a methodology and indicators that show the results reported
in this Table 3, with an average of 4.3. But in reality the rate of open unemployment in the
country is around 15% involving some 8,700,000 people unemployed in 2014 (Multidisci-
plinary Analysis Center (mac) January 28, 2015) against 2,070,000 according to the inegi
(about 6 million fewer people), which is due to the measurement methods and the official
indicators used by the Mexican government to hide the true figures of unemployment and,
therefore, of prevailing poverty that have increased in the years following.
Regarding the United States, in Table 3 something similar to Mexico occurs.

An average unemployment rate of 5.3% is observed in the period 2014–2017,
and other indicators raise this percentage. Thus, Williams (June 8, 2016, Figure
1: 3) calculates that the open unemployment rate in the United States in 2016 is
23% and not 4.69% as officially established by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of
that country.5
An example of the rupture of the correlation between economic growth and
employment is offered by the US manufacturing sector where, according to a
Ball State University report, the recovery of manufacturing production after
the 2008–2009 recession was achieved with millions of less workers and
through a strong impulse given to the automation of jobs (Stettner, Yudken
and McCormack June 13, 2017) in combination with the increase in productiv-
ity (relative surplus value), the greater exploitation of the worker (super-
exploitation) and the reduction of real wages. In this view, Marx’s law is verified
which says that, at the same time, as the reserve industrial army is conformed
5 In this regard, Torres (September 4, 2015) comments that in the United States there are six
official unemployment measures prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. U1: Percentage
of the active population unemployed 15 weeks or more. In August 2015 it was 2.2% and it was
2.9% in the same month of 2014. U2: Percentage of the active population that lost their job or
ended a temporary job. In August 2015 it was 2.6% and in the same month of 2014, 3.1%. U3:
It is the official rate of the ilo and the one normally used. It gathers, as a percentage of the
active population, the number of people who are unemployed and who have actively sought
work in the last four weeks. In August 2015 it was 5.1% against 6.1% in the same month of
2014. U4: Adds to U3 the ‘discouraged workers’, those being people who have stopped looking
for work in the last twelve months because the current economic conditions make them be-
lieve that there is no work available. In August 2015 it was 5.5% and in the same month of
2014 it was 6.6%. U5: This is the previous one (U4) plus people only marginally linked to the
labor market who are currently not working or looking for work, but indicate that they want
to do so. They are available to work and have sought work at some time in the last 12 months.
In August 2015, this range was 6.2%, and in the same month of 2014, 7.4%. U6: It is the previ-
ous plus the part-time employees who wish to work full-time but who cannot do so due to
economic reasons. In August 2015 it was 10.3% and in the same month of 2014, 12%. There-
fore, if this last rate is taken into account, it is much more realistic than the U3 when it comes
to really knowing which people are unemployed or not, and it reveals that the unemploy-
ment rate in the United States is double what is officially said. But it does not stop there. This
last U6 rate was modified in 1994 under Bill Clinton’s mandate to provide more favorable data
for the government. Until then it included not only the ‘short-term discouraged’ but also
those who had sought employment at some time in a period greater than a year. In his web-
site Shadow Government Statistics the researcher John Williams has been calculating the U6
rate according to how it was calculated before the modification introduced by President Clin-
ton. That is a much more realistic way, and it turns out that the unemployment rate of August
2015 in the United States would not be either 5.1% or 10.3%, but rather 23%.
186 Chapter 8
to the influence of the automation of the productive processes, a smaller

number of workers capital manages to obtain a larger mass of goods through
the greater exploitation of the labor force.
6 The Deterioration of Wages
The variable: employment-unemployment-underemployment influences wag-

es, upwards or downwards, depending on their behavior. What is preferable for
capital is undoubtedly a general lowering of wages, coupled with the lowering
of labor costs that include benefits and other components such as job security,
compensation for layoffs, training, transportation expenses, scholarships, and
so on, that capital strives to reduce significantly.
Smith concludes that:
In the face of an accelerated deterioration in living and working condi-

tions, increased insecurity, attacks on wages, security in employment and
(where they exist) social services, capitalism is increasingly unable to sat-
isfy the minimum social needs of a large part of the working population
of the imperialist nations and of the vast majority of the working popula-
tion of the developing nations (2016: 166).
Since the mid-70s, there has been a marked tendency to decrease both wages
and labor costs mainly through the so-called structural reforms. The Interna-
tional Labor Organization (ilo 2016, Figure 5: 7) shows a global trend to the fall
in wages, noticed between 2006 and 2015, without considering the participa-
tion of China, whose average wage, in 2016, was above that of Mexico and Bra-
zil and most of the Latin American countries, and only 30% below the average
of the economies of southern Europe (Spain, Greece or Italy) according to Eu-
romonitor International (Latin Post February 28, 2017). This same source points
out that while the average hourly wages in the Chinese manufacturing sector
tripled between 2005 and 2016, during the same period average manufacturing
wages fell from $2.90 per hour to $2.70 in Brazil, from $2.20 to $2.10 in Mexico
and from $4.30 to $3.60 in South Africa. In contrast, in 2015 in the United States
there was a relative increase in hourly wages (ilo 2016: 12), which reinforces
the assertion of how, from the business and capital point of view, it is inconve-
nient to return companies and jobs (mainly from Mexico) to that country,
being that in congruence with their capitalist interests framed in their pursuit
of profit they are seeking low-wage countries and regions, as we argued in
Chapter 2, in their search for extraordinary profits. Remember that capital
4
3.5 3.4
3 2.8
2.6 2.5 2.5 2.5
2.5 2.2
2 1.8 1.7 1.9 1.7
%
1.5 1.6 1.6 1.6

1.5 1.3
0.9
1 0.7 0.8
0.6
0.5
0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Global Without China 2 per. mov. avg. (global) 2 per. mov. avg. (without China)
Figure 4 Average annual growth of real wages in the world, 2006–2015
has no homeland; it has interests! And these are governed by the logic of
profitability.
Without considering China—which in recent years has been experiencing a
strong boost to the increase of its real wages and its internal market—in the
world on average they tend to decrease as shown in Figure 4.
Without China, as can be seen in Figure 4, the decline in real wages is pro�-
nounced very importantly from 2013. In its preface the ilo (2016/2017: 2) ex-
plains the recent behavior of real wages worldwide after the 2008–2009 crisis:
… world real wage growth began to recover in 2010, but slowed down from
2012, to fall in 2015 from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent, its minimum level in
four years. By excluding China, where wage growth was faster than any-
where else, real wage growth has fallen from 1.6 percent in 2012 to 0.9
percent in 2015.
In this unfavorable context for real wages, North Americans—although they

are below those of countries such as Luxembourg, Norway and Austria—still
remain high compared to other countries in the world, particularly dependent
ones such as Mexico and Brazil (in the latter, real wages have recently declined
according to a Joint ilo-cepal Report October 2017), as can be seen in the
manufacturing industry in Figure 5.
Hourly wages in the United States are well above Mexico and Brazil (around
6.7 times), where in the heat of the intense neoliberal policies that are being
applied in both countries, they tend to fall more and be pulverized in accor-
dance with business interests and of social austerity policies. Hence the illu-
sion and demagoguery that have arisen in the context of the ftaa negotiations
regarding the relocation of state-owned plants from Mexico supposedly for the
sake of recovering lost jobs (around 700,000 during the effective date of the
188 Chapter 8
25
20.3
20
15
10
5 3.6 2.9
2.2 2.1 2.7
0 1.2
0
United States China Mexico Brazil
2005 2016
Figure 5 Average wages per hour in the manufacturing industry of several countries,
2005–2016
ftaa) as Trump’s government alleges from a demagogic economic ultrana-

tionalism (see Financial Times April 28, 2017 and Chapter 2).
Table 4 shows the wage relationship in the manufacturing industry of both
countries; revealing that the ‘comparative and competitive advantage’ is pro-
vided by Mexico in benefit of the profit rate of the US monopolistic companies
that, in this way, obtain juicy extraordinary profits from unusual increases of
the super-exploitation of the labor force quotas on this side of the Mexican
border.
No matter how auspicious the ongoing negotiations between the represen-
tatives of the three countries that make up the fta, there is no doubt that this
wage structure, which is completely favorable and advantageous to the United
States and Canada, will not change favorably for Mexican workers. Spokes
persons from the United States and Canada insist on this increase because
they consider it a kind of ‘dumping’ in favor of Mexico. This would be to kill the
goose that lays the golden eggs and go against the secular logic of global capi-
talist accumulation and valorization based on exploitation and super-
exploitation of the labor force as the central axes of the production of surplus
value and monopolistic corporate profits in the era of secular crisis of ad-
vanced capitalism. Mexican real wages are more likely to continue to be
depressed—they are already below the Chinese and other underdeveloped
countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Belize, Kenya, the Dominican Re-
public and Bolivia in 2016—and, at the same time, global capitalist players take
advantage of this hierarchical structure of precarious, loose and deregulated
labor markets to do the same with real hourly and annual wages in the United
States and other developed countries.
Table 4 Remuneration and productivity in selected countries 2007–2016
Year Salaries in the manufacturing industry Remuneration in the Unit cost of labor Productivity of
(dollars per hour) manufacturing industry in the manufactur- labor in the
(dollars per hour) ing industry manufacturing
(Index: 2008=100) industry (Index:
2008= 100)
Mexico United France Chile Mexico Japan Canada Mexico United Mexico United
States States States
2007 2.5 17.3 13.8 3.1 4.6 19.1 20.2 94.8 96.5 101.6 100.7
2008 2.6 17.8 15.3 3.4 4.8 21.6 20.7 100.3 100.1 100 99.9
2009 2.3 18.2 14.6 3.4 4.2 23.2 18.4 87.8 103.6 98.9 99.2
2010 2.5 18.6 14.3 3.8 4.5 24.9 21.2 91.2 100.2 103.6 104.6
2011 2.6 18.9 15.7 4.3 4.8 27.3 22.8 94.2 101.2 105.8 105.4
2012 2.6 19.1 14.9 4.6 4.7 27.3 23.2 90.1 101.6 108.4 105.7
2013 2.8 19.3 15.7 4.8 5 22.1 22.6 97.4 102.8 108.2 105.7
2014 2.8 19.6 15.9 4.5 5.1 20.4 21.2 96 104.9 110.2 105.1
2015 2.4 19.9 13.5 4.2 4.4 17.9 19.1 84.1 106.5 109.7 105.3
2016 2.2 20.3 13.3 4.1 4 18.8 18.4 76 108.2 109.1 105.7
Precariousness of Work & Super-Exploitation of Labor Force
Source: Office of the President of Mexico, 4th Government Report, 2016: 755.
189
190 Chapter 8
7 Salaries versus Productivity in the United States
At a global level there is a historical decline in labor productivity, with particu-

lar emphasis on the developed countries of Western capitalism and its main
economies, including the United States in a context of slowdown in the rate of
economic growth (gdp).
Table 5 shows that productivity falls by half between 1999–2006 and 2007–
2013, especially in the European Union, the United States and Japan, which
Table 5 Growth of labor productivity, total hours worked and real gdp for major
advanced economies, 1999–2016
United Japan United Euro area EU-28

States Kingdom
Labor productivity growth (gdp per hour, annual average, percent)

1999–2006 2.8 2.2 2.3 1.5 1.9
2007–2013 1.3 1.3 0.2 0.6 0.7
2013 0.4 1.5 0.3 1.0 1.0
2014 0.7 −0.1 0.1 0.3 0.4
2015 0.7 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.8
2016 −0.3 0.8 −0.1 0.3 0.5
(Projection)
Growth in total hours worked (annual average, percent)
1999–2006 0.6 −0.6 0.7 0.9 0.5
2007–2013 −0.2 −0.6 0.4 −0.6 −0.4
2013 1.2 −0.1 1.8 −1.5 −0.7
2014 1.9 0.3 2.8 0.6 1.1
2015 2.1 0.4 1.6 1.2 1.3
2016 1.9 0.1 1.8 1.2 1.2
(Projection)
Real gdp growth (annual average, percent)
1999–2006 3.4 1.6 3.0 2.3 2.6
2007–2013 1.1 0.6 0.7 0.2 0.4
2013 1.6 1.5 2.2 −0.3 0.2
2014 2.6 0.2 2.9 0.9 1.4
2015 2.8 1.0 2.3 1.7 2.1
2016 1.6 0.9 1.7 1.5 1.7
(Projection)
1 0.8
0.5
0.5 0.3
0
–0.2
–0.5
–1
–1.5 –1.4
–2
–2.1
–2.5
Nov73/January80 January80/July81 July81/July90 July90/March2001 March2001/Dec2007 Dec2007/Oct2016
Series 1 –1.4 –2.1 –0.2 0.5 0.3 0.8
Figure 6 United States: Real hourly wage growth over business cycles, cycle peak to cycle
peak
constitute the hard core of the advanced industrial capitalist economy. The
subsequent trajectory is even more hazardous for all, and in 2016, for the Unit-
ed States with a projection of −0.3%. Obviously, this situation in the United
States will be compensated for by a decrease in the growth rate of real wages
per hour as shown below in Figure 6).
The compensation per hour, after the sharp falls that occurred between 1973
and 1990, is recovered in the subsequent years, but with extremely low rates
that at most reached 0.8% per year between 2007 and 2016. It is verified that
this negative behavior toward workers is not a temporary situation or conjunc-
ture, as it is affirmed, but is a structural situation that is constituted in an econ-
omy of low wages, of precarious labor and of intense exploitation of the labor
force, with a tendency in growing expropriation of a part of the salaries that go
to the coffers of the accumulation of capital (see Chapter 8 on Violation and
expropriation of salary). This reinforces our hypothesis, as argued by other au-
thors (Smith 2016; Shaikh 2006 and February 4, 2011) relative to the fact that
one of the central mechanisms used by capital to counteract the fall in its rate
of profit is precisely to maintain and to press down the real wages of workers.
Apparently, in the context of the weakness of the labor and union struggles
worldwide, the era of low wages as a mechanism for increasing the general
rates of return of capital came to stay and settle, as Marini explains, as a pref-
erential mechanism of obtaining extraordinary profits, regardless of the up-
ward or downward behavior of business cycles.
8 Two Stages of US Salary History
In the salary history of the United States there are two periods: one, starting
after the World War ii, and the second from the structural and financial crisis
192 Chapter 8
of the mid-70s (see Mandel 1972: especially 150). In the first, hourly compensa-
tion adjusted for the inflation-benefits binomial (in addition to wages for the
vast majority of US workers) increased in line with productivity-wide increas-
es in the economy. Thus, compensation per hour became the main mechanism
for transmitting productivity, which somehow resulted in an improvement in
the population’s living standards. Figure 7 shows that during the period of
1948–1973 labor productivity grew 96.7% in real terms, but decreased to 72.2%
between 1973–2014, that is during the second period, while the average remu-
neration, which was 91.3% in the first, fell to 9.2% in the second, that is, slightly
more than 900%.
This indicates that the productivity trajectory, which decreases 74.5% in
terms of percentage—and that, theoretically, should improve its terms of cor-
respondence with real wages supposedly because they are two complementary
variables, as, it is worth remembering, the neoliberal ideologues preach—is
disconnected and does not prevent the collapse of the latter in the period
1973–2014 as shown in Figure 7.6
Cumulative % change since 1948
120
100 96.7
91.3
80
72.2
60
40
20
0 9.2
1948–1973 1973–2014
Productivity Hourly compensation
Figure 7 Gap between productivity and a typical worker’s compensation, 1948–2014
6 It should be clarified that the data of the figure 7 refers to the average remuneration per hour
of the production workers / non-supervisors (“nonsupervisory workers”) in the private sector
and the net productivity of the total economy. The “net productivity” is the growth of the
production of goods and services minus the depreciation per hour worked. “Nonsupervisory
employees include those individuals in private, service-providing industries who are not
above the working-supervisor level.” This group includes individuals such as clerical workers,
repairers, salespersons, operators, drivers, physicians, lawyers, accountants, nurses, social
workers, research aides, teachers, drafters, photographers, beauticians, musicians, restaurant
workers, custodial workers, attendants, line installers and repairers, laborers, janitors, guards,
and other employees at similar occupational levels whose services are closely associated
Current minimum salary Min.wage with productivity Minimum wages as a proportion of average wages
20
18.85
18.17
18
16
14
12.88
12 11.23 11.35
10.29 11.05
10 9.63 10.01 9.58 10.29
9.21
8.56
8.79 7.14 7.94
8 7.61 7.25
7.17 6.73
5.94
6
4 3.51
0
1950 1960 1968 1980 1990 2000 2010 2016
Figure 8 United States: Minimum wage with productivity, without productivity and
current real minimum wage, 1950–2016
Figure 8 measures two scenarios in which the behavior of the real minimum
wage changes depending on whether or not it is accompanied by the trajectory
of productivity and the evolution of minimum wages.
It is observed that the historical trajectory of the level of the minimum wage
in 2016 ($7.25 per hour) is decoupled from both the behavior of the average
wage ($11.35) and that of productivity ($18.85). According to this source if the
case had been to maintain a positive correlation with productivity as it hap-
pened during the period before 1973, the current level of the minimum wage
would be an hourly amount of $18.85, something that would bring benefits in
purchasing power both for salaried workers who receive this amount and for
those who exceed it and, even, for those who earn higher incomes in the salary
and interprofessional hierarchy of that country, which are influenced by aca-
demic and qualification grades as can be seen in Table 6 corresponding to the
manufacturing industry:
This same behavior is seen with respect to hourly wages. Thus, since 1973,
the hourly compensation of the vast majority of US workers has not increased
in line with the productivity trajectory. In fact, this type of remuneration has
almost stopped growing with a marked tendency to stagnation (see Figure 7).
Net productivity grew 72.2% between 1973 and 2014 or 1.33% each year. How-
ever, the actual remuneration per hour of production/nonsupervisory workers
with those of the employees listed”. This note was extracted from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics, Chapter 2: no date: 2, at the suggestion of my friend and translator Jake Lagnado whose
excellent curricular credits appear at: http://www.proz.com/profile/36361.
194 Chapter 8
Table 6 Main highly-skilled manufacturing occupations, 2015
Average
Current Growth
annual Education
employment 2014–2024
salary
Machinists 391,120 $ 43,220 10% High school +

training
long term
Welders 382,730 $ 42,450 4% High school +
training
moderate
Industrial 334,490 $ 51,890 18% High school +
machinery training
mechanics long term
Industrial 256,550 $ 88,530 1% Bachelor’s degree
engineers
Computer- 146,190 $ 39,500 17.5% High school +
controlled training
machine tool moderate
operators
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics, cited
in Stettner, Andrew, Joel S. Yudken and Michael Mc Cormack, “Why Manufac-
turing Jobs Are Worth Saving”, The Century Foundation, 13 June 2017, https://
tcf.org/content/report/manufacturing-jobs-worth-saving/.
(which are part of the ‘typical workers’)7 of production, and which represent
80% of the labor force, increased only 9.2%, or 0.22% annually in the same
period (Figure 7), most of which corresponds to the growth of 41 years to the
period 1995–2002, according to the source cited in Figure 4.
Net productivity grew 1.33% each year between 1973 and 2014, faster than
the poor annual 0.20% in the median hourly compensation (Bivens and Mishel
September 2, 2015, Table 1: 8). In essence, about 15 percent of the product
ivity growth between 1973 and 2014 translated into higher hourly wages and
benefits for the typical North American worker. Since 2000, the gap between
productivity and payment has increased even faster. Thus, the net growth in
7 The typical worker is the average worker in the United States with a particular emphasis on
the white worker and constitutes about 80% of the total number of American workers. See
Figure 7 in this chapter.
productivity of 21.6%, between 2000 and 2014, only translated into a net in-
crease of 1.8% in compensation adjusted for inflation for the average worker
(8% of net productivity growth, according to Bivens and Mishel September 2,
2015: 2). These increases in productivity are concentrated in specific sectors of
the manufacturing industry:
Almost all of the productivity growth that occurred in the manufacturing

industry between 2000 and 2015 was concentrated in one sub-sector:
computer and electronic products. The reported increase in productivity
was an anomaly as a result of the way the government calculates the add-
ed value of increasingly powerful computer chips.
stettner, yudken and McCormack June 13, 2017: 8
It also highlights the fact that the decline in productivity has a negative im-
pact on the creation of jobs:
… Productivity growth has slowed during the last decade compared to

the 1960s and the 2000s, when manufacturing employment remained
stable and productivity grew at a steady pace. During the most recent
period of decline, the problem has been exactly the opposite of what the
Ball State University team put forward: productivity growth has slowed
down which has made American manufacturers less competitive and
employing far fewer workers.
stettner, yudken and McCormack June 13, 2017: 8
The Ball State Universiy report does not reduce, as it happens with other offi-
cial analyses, the explanation of the decrease of jobs between 2000 and 2015,
the period that covers the recession of 2008–2009, to purely technological is-
sues. It indicates, on the contrary, the weight of trade and international com-
petition in the last two decades, especially due to Chinese competition and the
signing and application in 1994 of the North American Free Trade Agreement
with Canada and Mexico. The United States’ deficit with China increased from
$83 billion in 2001 to $347 billion in 2016 and with Mexico it went from a bal-
ance in 1994 “… before the ratification of nafta, to a deficit of $63 billion in
2016” (Stettner, Yudken and McCormack June 13, 2017: 8).
The impact of this competition has been so strong that authors (Autor, Dorn
and Hanson 2013, cit. in Stettner, Yudken and McCormack, June 13, 2017: 8) es-
timate that the productive areas exposed to Chinese competition in the United
States caused the loss of 2.5 million jobs in the same period and for others
(Kimball and Scott December 2014, cit. in Stettner, Yudken and Cormack June
196 Chapter 8
13, 2017: 8) this is still higher. More than half of the manufacturing jobs that are
lost are as a consequence of international competition. In general terms be-
tween 1970 and 2015, manufacturing employment stopped representing 25% of
total jobs in the United States in the first year to fall to only 9% in the second,
and the number of workers in the manufacturing industry went from 17.5 mil-
lion in 2000 to 11.7 million in 2015 (Sanders cit. in Tasin, 2015: 158). As can be
seen, capitalist competition has its costs that, unfortunately, workers pay.
Bivens and Mishel highlight that since 2000 more than 80% of the diver-
gence between the growth of (median) remuneration and net growth in pro-
ductivity has been driven by the increase in inequality (specifically, greater
inequality in the participation of workers’ income in relation to capital own-
ers). Throughout the 1973–2014 period, inequality accounts for more than
two-thirds of the divergence between productivity and wages. They also point
out that if the hourly wage of North American workers had kept pace with
productivity growth since the 1970s, income inequality during that period
would not have increased, at least on the scale at which it did so (see Figure 8).
On the other hand, the growth of productivity, which does not affect the remu-
neration of workers concentrated in the highest level of the salary pyramid
(extended by the perceptions of senior business executives [ceos] who re-
ceive up to 400% more than the average worker (Sanders cit. in Tasini, 2015:
79), increased the income of capital owners by making the rich richer, the poor
poorer and pushed the less poor into ‘industries without chimneys’. These
structural behaviors indicate that while the improvement in productivity in
recent times provided the potential for a relative growth of remunerations for
a large number of workers, particularly for the stable and skilled, it turned
against them. This can be illustrated with the following passage of the high
profits that employers receive due to low wages and appalling working condi-
tions in the United States:
The billionaire commercial conglomerates such as Walmart, exploit

workers by paying them miserable wages and providing them with little
or no benefits. Walmart earns $16 billion in profits per year because they
only pay their workers between $10 and $13 per hour and depend on state
and federal assistance to provide impoverished families with Medicaid…
and food stamps. Amazon’s plutocrat, Jeff Bezos, exploits workers by pay-
ing them $12.5 per hour while he has accumulated more than $80 billion
in profit. The ceo of ups earns $11 million per year by exploiting his
workers with a payment of $11 per hour. The ceo of Federal Express, Fred
Smith, earns $16 million annually and pays his workers $11 per hour.
petras October 05, 2017
At the inaugural act of his candidacy for the presidency of the United States,
Bernie Sanders, exclaimed that:
… as we have seen in recent years… the number of millionaires and bil-

lionaires has increased while millions of Americans work more hours in
exchange for a lower salary, and while we have had the highest child pov-
erty rate of any major country on earth.
tasini 2015: 17
Bivens and Mishel conclude that in order to correct these negative trajectories,
policies aimed at stimulating the generalized growth of wages should be
promoted not only to promote productivity growth (through full employment,
technical innovation and public investment), but also to restore the broken
link with workers’ wages. The gap between these and productivity is not relat-
ed to the stagnation of the individual productivity of the ordinary worker, as
shown by the fact that although US workers, on average, made significant
progress in education, this did not translate into an increase of their productiv-
ity or their salaries and their material well-being.
The Economic Policy Institute identifies three reasons for the stagnation of
wages in the United States:
a) First, the stagnation of wages did not occur because productivity growth
(income and wealth creation) declined (Figure 7). It was also associated
with a ‘slowdown’ in productivity growth, but even with this slowdown,
productivity made wages grow in previous decades. None of this growth
influenced the salaries of the typical worker, nor of undocumented
immigrant workers. And neither did the distribution of income and the
living and working conditions of the American working population im-
prove. Less likely will it be with the new antisocial policies that President
Trump is promoting, particularly against immigrant workers and, among
them, the undocumented who are, in their majority, of Mexican national-
ity against whom the wall of ignominy and the racist and social exclusion
policies are erected that will have disastrous consequences.
b) Secondly, the remuneration trajectory did not manage to follow that of
productivity, mainly due to two key dynamics that affect the increase in
inequality: (1) the inequality of remuneration (more wages and salaries
accumulated in the upper part of the scale of salaries) and, (2) the change
in the proportion of the total national income that goes to the owners of
capital very far from the wages of workers and, in general, of the average
wage earners at the base of the pyramid. The policy of the North Ameri-
can regime to reduce taxes on the wealthy classes and on capital through
198 Chapter 8
cuts in social spending, for example on health (Medicare), only reinforc-

es this situation to the detriment of workers and, in particular, to the
most vulnerable within the class structure of the United States (see
Note 1, Chapter 7).
c) Third, even if productivity growth is boosted in the long term, this will
not result in broad-based wage gains unless policies of ‘reconnection’ of
productivity growth are implemented with the salary of the large major-
ity of the population (Bivens and Mishel 2015: 2). But this is not the logic
nor the practice of capitalism in its neoliberal form in the United States
that, under various modalities, is also the dominant power in the world
economy.
9 Living and Working Conditions
The above situation for North American workers, with particular emphasis on
both immigrants and the undocumented, has aggravated the general condi-
tions of life and work due to the economic crisis, the slowdown in employment
growth rates, especially in full time and indefinite, the increase in temporary
employment, the fall in labor productivity, low wages and the increase in pov-
erty, due to the inflation of essential products of the basic basket of workers
and general consumption.
In the United States, the working week runs from Monday through Friday.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average working week for all
employees (including part-time work) working in private industries in the
United States amounted to approximately 34.4 hours in 2016. Job performance
is considered ‘normal’ at 40 weekly hours, but this exists only in the statistics.
The real time has a duration that fluctuates between 45 and 50 hours per week,
due above all to the low salaries that have to be supplemented by prolonging
the workday. The Gallup annual Work and Education Survey (Saad August 29,
2014) shows that full-time workers, on average, work 47 hours a week as a
means to compensate for the low wages they receive in relation to the high
cost of life in the United States (see Figure 9 and Table 11).
As can be seen in Table 7, whose data are extracted from the Gallup annual
Work and Education Survey, 50% of full-time adult workers worked between 41
and 60 hours or more per week in 2014, while 42% did 40 weekly hours. Only a
minority (8%) worked below this level. The conclusion of the Gallup survey
indicates a clear lengthening of the working day that in some cases reaches 12
hours per day for workers who work between 50 and 60 hours or more per week:
Table 7 United States: Average hours worked by full-time US workers, aged 18+2014 (%)
60+hours 18
50 to 59 hours 21
41 to 49 hours 11
40 hours 42
Less than 40 hours 8
Source: Gallup, in saad, 9 August 2014.
As can be seen in Table 7, whose data are extracted from the Gallup Annual
Labor and Education Survey, 50% of full-time adult workers worked between
41 and 60 hours or more per week in 2014, while 42% did 40 weekly hours. Only
a minority (8%) worked below this level. The conclusion of the Gallup survey
indicates a clear lengthening of the working day that in some cases reaches 12
hours per day for workers who work between 50 and 60 hours or more per
week.
The percentage of full-time workers in the United States has declined
since the recession began in 2007 but the number of hours they declare to
work each week has remained stable at around 47 hours. Meanwhile 4 out of
10 workers say they do an average of 40 hours in the work week, many oth-
ers are working more than that, including almost 1 in 5 (18%) who work 60
hours or more, which translates to days of up to 12 hours from Monday to
Friday, or on shorter weekdays but with a lot of time spent working on the
weekends.
This is a typical form of production of absolute surplus value. Although sur-
plus labor hours are remunerated as ‘overtime’8 the worker continues to wear
out the means of production or constant capital and transfers part of its value
preterite to the merchandise; by wearing down their work force and creating
an equivalent to the value (aliquot) of their labor force, in addition to generat-
ing a bit more of surplus value and, therefore, of profit for capital.
8 The Fair Labor Standards Act (flsa) stipulates that the calculation for the payment of over-
time is at least one and a half times the regular rate of payment of an employee after 40 hours
of work in a working week. See United States, Department of Labor, at: https://www.dol.gov/
general/topic/workhours/overtime.
200 Chapter 8
10 The Housing Problem and the Purchasing Power of the Minimum

and Average Salary
An additional, but essential, factor is the issue of rental housing whose cost in
relation to monthly and annual real wage is increasingly insufficient to satisfy
this essential component of social, human and working life in any part of the
world, where the United States, as will be shown below, is not the exception as
it is sometimes believed. According to the Pew Research Center (pew), 30% of
the US labor force earns a minimum wage. This is nearly 21 million people, and
it is the federal government that sets the salary (Table 8).
Since July 24, 2009 this is $7.25 per hour, an amount that has not changed to
date and that is insufficient in accordance with the standard of living. This
means that a worker who works 40 hours a week during the 52 weeks of the
year earns $15,080 per year, an amount that is completely insufficient to cover
the expenses of a family (see Table 11).
In the case of ‘non-supevisory’ production workers (‘production and non-
supervisory workers’ or ‘typical American worker’; see Note 7 in this Chapter)
who constitute 80% of the labor force, in 2017 they obtained the equivalent of
$723.67 per week, which is an annual amount of $34,736.16 dollars according to
the United States Department of Labor (Goodman and Soble October 7, 2017).
The average annual rent for a two-bedroom house in 2017 according to The
People History, has an approximate cost of $19,200 per year, double what it cost
in 2008, as shown in the following Table 9.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, full-time workers
who earn a minimum wage cannot afford a two-room rental in any US State
without investing more than 30% of their income. The annual report of the
Out of Reach group compares minimum wages and housing costs in states,
metropolitan areas and counties across the country. The 2017 records show
that the hourly wage rate needed for a ‘modest’ two-room rental is more than
double the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in all states, except four
(National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2017). The national housing wage in
2017 was $21.21 per hour for a two-bedroom rental house, or more than 2.9
Table 8 United States minimum monthly salary, 2008–2017 (US dollars)
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
892.7 1,014 1,135.3 1,256.7 1,256.7 1,256.7 1,256.7 1,256.7 1,256.7 1,256.7 1,256.7
Source: United States Department of Labor.

Table 9 usa, price of rental housing per month and year 2008–2017
2008 $800 (9600 yearly)

2009 $780 (9360)
2010 $945 (11,340)
2011 $955 (11,460)
2012 $1045 (12,540)
2013 $1195 (14,340)
2014 $1314 (15,768)
2015 $1,258 (15,096)
2016 $1,300 (15,600)
2017 $1,600 (19,200)
Source: People History. June 2018.
times higher than the minimum federal wage of $7.25 per hour, and the hous-
ing wage for a one-room rental costs around of $17.14, or 2.4 times more than
the federal minimum wage (National Low Income Housing Coalition 2017: 1).
The Report indicates that currently an average American worker needs to earn
$19.35 per hour to pay the rent in a two-bedroom unit, above the average hour-
ly wage of $15.16 earned by the average US worker, and 2.5 times the federal
minimum wage. It is also more than the average hourly wage of the average US
worker, which is $17.09. In 13 states with expensive cities and exorbitant rents—
including California, Washington, New York and Virginia—one person would
have to earn over $20 per hour to pay the rent for a two-bedroom house (Na-
tional Low Income Housing Coalition 2017).
In Table 10 we have synthesized the information of the workers subject to
the minimum wage regime (about 21 million people or 30% of the labor force
in the United States, immigrant workers making up a high number) and the
average salary of the ‘typical worker’ which constitutes more than 80% of the
labor force, revealing the insufficiency of both categories in terms of housing.
In the first case, the average annual housing rent ($19,200) exceeds by 21.45%
the total income, which even allocating everything to the payment of housing
only covers 78.54% of the rental value, while in the second, you have to allocate
55% of the salary amount to pay the rent, leaving the remaining (45%) to pro-
vide for the other needs of the worker and his or her family (see Table 11).
On the average income (about $25,000 per year), the North American work-
ing class spends more than two-thirds of their salary on the rent of a precari-
ous house where in a good part of the cases people have to make do with all the
consequences that this entails in matters of discomfort, unhealthiness, space
and family well-being.
202 Chapter 8
Table 10 United States: Proportion of annual minimum salary and average annual average
salary/rental price of dwelling, 2017
Minimum annual wage Average annual wage
Housing rental $15,080 dollars (78.54%) $34,736 (55%)

2 rm. (average annual = US$19,200)
11 Purchasing Power of the Salary and Basic Basket of Consumer

Goods
It is difficult to calculate in products, value and price the cost of a ‘basic basket’
that more or less expresses an average purchasing power of salaries in the Unit-
ed States. There is an approach, although limited.
This basket or basic basket of consumer items that we see in Figure 9 includes,
in the opinion of the source cited, basic products for life in the United States.9
The annual average cost of this basket is observed through years. It stands out
that after having reached its highest peak in 2012 ($79,280), although a de-
crease is observed in the subsequent years, in 2017 it increases again above 2011
and 2016, although this decrease is minimal, of the order of 9.4%, but with a
new increase of around 1% in 2018 (see The People History).
While the price of this basket increased 32% between 2008 and 2017, the
wage also increased but in a lower proportion at around 12% during the same
period, generating a deficit in the purchasing power of 20%. Combining both
calculations, in light of the line that draws the trend in Figure 9, it can be con�-
cluded that the salary loses ground more and more to acquire the basic bas-
ket so the worker is forced to seek other complementary sources of income
before the loss of his or her real purchasing power. This situation is aggravat-
ed if we consider that a series of product-factors, which make up the value
of the labor force, do not appear in the indicated basket, for example: (a) the
rent of the house or apartment (which on average absorbs around $800 per
9 In quantities of bread, potatoes, milk, bacon, dozen eggs, coke, water, tomato, butter, corn-
flakes, pizza, sugar, flour, ground beef, detergent, toilet paper, Campbell’s chicken soup and 1
gallon of gas. We must emphasize that this example is indicative and does not include es-
sential elements that also determine and integrate the value of the work force such as home
rental, health, education and, in general, those that Marx indicated as historical-moral
which, obviously, significantly increases said value and pronounces its deviation from the
real purchasing power of the worker’s wage.
90
79.28 76.75
80 74.48 73.5
70.37 69.74 71.77
70 66.17
59.21
60 54.11
50
40
30
20
10
0
2008' 2009' 2010' 2011' 2012' 2013' 2014' 2015' 2016' 2017'
Figure 9 United States: Average price of the basic goods basket, 2008–2017
month); (b) insurance and health care expenses; (c) electricity; and (d) water
consumption, transportation and education, to highlight the most important
factors.
A detailed investigation corresponding to 2015 on approaching the monthly
and annual value of the labor force based on the average household expenses
prepared by researchers of the Economic Policy Institute (Gould and Schieder
June 28, 2017) provides a more complete picture of household expenditures on
essential products based on a methodology that breaks them down according
to a household in which two adults work full-time (40 weekly hours a year) and
who together contribute between $40,000 and $50,000 a year. The result is ex-
pressed in Table 11:
It is appreciated that wage earners who manage to earn between $40,000
and $50,000 per year do not manage to adjust their income to acquire the basic
basket, even considering that these salaries are nominal and not real, that is,
net. Now, consider the annual minimum wages ($15,080) and the typical work-
er’s average ($34,736). In both the deficit is huge against the worker’s home, in
the first case at around 384% and in the second case 167%.
An interim conclusion relates that the working class (native, migrant or im-
migrant) cannot reproduce, in ‘normal conditions’, the value of their labor
force mainly derived from the insufficient wages they collectively receive.
Along with increases in the working time of the working day that is seen in
various sectors and branches of production, we can classify this situation as
structural and that typifies a super-exploitation situation due to the fact that
the worker cannot reproduce his or herself with the income that they receive.
In this sense, it can be said that they are being remunerated below their value
and corresponds, thus, to a super-exploitation resulting from a combined
movement of stagnation—or little growth—of purchasing power and an
204 Chapter 8
Table 11 United States: Selected monthly and annual expenses, 2015
Category Monthly Annual

expenditure expenditurea
Housing $1,257 $15,084

Shelter $717 $8,604
Utilities, fuels, and public services $302 $3,624
Electricity $117 $1,404
Telephone services $105 $1,260
Clothing $96 $1,152
Food $435 $5,220
Groceries $263 $3,156
Fruits and vegetables $49 $588
Health care $313 $3,756
Health insurance $222 $2,664
Prescriptions and medications $33 $396
Transportation $685 $8,220
Gasoline and motor oil $167 $2,004
Vehicle insurance $70 $840
Total $4,831 $57,972
a The calculation of the total and annual monthly expenditures is made by the author.
increase, perhaps slower than what happens in the dependent countries, of

the prices that constitute their consumption fund.
12 Violation and Expropriation of Salary
Along with the lengthening of the working day (or absolute surplus value)
there is a frank and open expropriation mechanism-violation of part of the
workers’ salaries, regardless of whether it reduces the total amount and places
it below the value of the labor force, as we have stated, which constitutes a
specific form of super-exploitation that has been spreading in the United
States and in the world of advanced capitalism, at the same time as weakening
the workers’ struggles, their unions and their class organizations.
Addressing the discussion of Chapters 3 and 4 regarding the extension of
the super-exploitation of the labor force in advanced capitalism, we consider
it a modality that next to those already identified (the prolongation of the
working day, its intensity and the expropriation of part of the value of the labor
force), the remunerations are above the value of the labor force in advanced
countries, or, in some of its productive branches it is subjected to super-
exploitation through the expropriation of part of that value and its conversion
into an additional source of capital accumulation.
We call attention to the expropriate verb and to what defines the third
mechanism of super-exploitation identified by Marini (1973: 40):
… the intensification of work, the prolongation of the working day and

the expropriation of part of the necessary work to the worker to replenish
his labor force—they configure a mode of production based exclusively
on the greater exploitation of the worker, and not on the development of
his productive capacity (emphasis added).
That would be the fourth form of the super-exploitation regime not contem-
plated, by the way, by Marini himself—who had no reason to have done so, we
clarify—nor by the majority of the dependency authors inscribed in the aspect
of dependency theory who assume that the floor of their capital cycle is just
the super-exploitation of the labor force, unlike other authors who preach the
approach of a ‘dependency theory without super-exploitation’ as we saw in
Chapter 4. The ideal form of this fourth form has been built primarily through
the imposition of precarious work and its update with the precarization of the
elements that make up the world of work such as salaries, functions performed,
categories and subcategories, social benefits, labor costs, syndication, collec-
tive bargaining agreements, flexibility and deregulation. In this sense, accord-
ing to Castillo (2012: 259):
… precarization does not correspond to a particular situation in the

countries that are more backward or more affected by the contradictions
and crises of the neoliberal model. Precarious work corresponds to a gen-
eral and complex trend, which is also developing in the most developed
economies.
According to Beck (2000) the precariousness of work is expressed in the advent

of the ‘risk society’ and the ‘Brazilianization’ of the advanced capitalist West-
ern societies. For Castel (1998: 527 and 609) the deterioration of the wage rela-
tion and the precariousness of work is the great social issue of the late 20th
Century and, we add, of the 21st Century. Meanwhile Bauman (2000) sees pre-
cariousness, instability and vulnerability as the main characteristics of con-
temporary capitalist societies. Any of these realities points to the destruction
206 Chapter 8
of the rights and achievements of workers accumulated through decades of

struggle as well as the wage reduction through various procedures in which
capital and its organic intellectuals are experts on.
Something similar can be said about the extension of the super-exploitation
of work as a universal phenomenon. But both phenomena we must clarify as-
sume diverse manifestations depending on the socioeconomic and sociopo-
litical conditions of the societies in question. In particular, in relation to the
correlation of forces between labor and capital for the working class as a whole
and its different fractions within it. Some will be more affected than others
based on these conditions and the class struggle.
According to a report of the Economic Policy Institute prepared by McNich-
olas, Mokhiber and Chaikof (2017) the stealing of wages by employers is scan-
dalous. They calculate that just between 2015 and 2016 the US Department of
Labor recovered a total of $2 billion in stolen wages thanks to collective law-
suits filed by workers before the labor courts. The Institute “estimates that low-
wage workers lose more than $50 billion annually in theft of wages”. Employers
“… refuse to pay promised wages, pay employees only for some of the hours
worked or do not pay overtime premiums when employees work more than 40
hours in a week” and:
Wage theft occurs when employers do not pay workers the full salary they
are entitled to for their work. This includes, for example, refusing to pay
workers the total amount of promised wages, not paying time dedicated
to preparing a work station at the beginning of a shift or closing at the
end of a shift and not paying overtime bonuses to workers who work
more than 40 hours a week.
The report says that if a full-time worker earns the federal minimum wage of
$7.25 per hour (around $15,000 per year), if his employer requires him to work
15 minutes ‘outside legal hours’, before and after his shift of 8 hours per day,
“that extra half hour of unpaid work per day represents a loss of around $1,400
annually for the worker, including the premiums for overtime that he should
have received”.
Finally, the report contemplates the following types of theft or expropria-
tion of part of the workers’ salaries and, from our perspective, what consti-
tutes an evident mechanism of super-exploitation of the labor force in the
United States via the violation of part of the salaries. The following form
more frequent modalities of expropriation of wages of workers in the United
States:
– Workers are paid below the legal minimum wage.
– Workers are not paid the time that exceeds 40 weekly working hours.
– Workers are often required to work outside the legal working hours before
or after covering their shift legally stipulated in the work contract.
– Transfers of the meal schedule to which the worker is entitled to, from the
middle of the day to after the end of working hours.
– Illegal deductions to wages.
– Tips are confiscated by not paying the difference between them and the le-
gal minimum wage.
– Locating the worker with a category other than the one set by his contract,
for example, as an ‘independent contractor’ in order to pay a salary below
the legal minimum, or avoid payment for overtime.
13 Conclusion
We have circumscribed our analysis of the super-exploitation of the labor

force to the particular case of the United States. From the findings of our
research and analysis, we conclude that the super-exploitation of labor is a
structural, not conjectural, fact of the productive systems and the social rela-
tions of exploitation and organization of work that they deprive in that coun-
try. Ávila, Martinez and Victoria affirm that the super-exploitation of labor:
… can be formed in a combined way in two territorial areas, Mexico and

the United States, the first in the periphery and the second in the center,
from a process of integration of the labor force market (2016: 91).
Validating, thus, the Marinist hypothesis of the extension of the super-

exploitation in advanced capitalism in its more developed region that is pre-
cisely the United States. Where, as we have said, it operates a hegemonic
regime of production and exploitation of the labor force based on the produc-
tion of relative surplus value, as it happens in other imperialisms of advanced
capitalism such as Germany, England, France or Japan. We must consider that
it is an imperialist country belonging to advanced capitalism—to which Mex-
ico has integrated its system of production and accumulation in a subordinate
way—and that, as we have insisted throughout the text and in other essays,
maintains the hegemony of the production of relative surplus value in their
economic, productive and capital accumulation systems.
This confirms what we have been saying about the arrival of super-
exploitation of the labor force as a category, as Marini postulates, expropriat-
ing a part of the consumption fund and the value of the labor force of the
North American worker to turn that part into an additional factor of the accu-
mulation of capital and the increase of its rate of profit. Our theoretical-
208 Chapter 8
methodological approach is inscribed in the Marxist dependency theory with

its axis articulated in the super-exploitation of the labor force. Part of the the-
ory of value, Marx’s work, and the critique of political economy, is touched on
by Marini, when he says:
… the super-exploitation of labor that implies, as we saw, that the labor

force is not remunerated at its value, leads to the reduction of the work-
ers’ consumption capacity and restricts the possibility of realizing these
goods. Super-exploitation is reflected in a salary scale whose average level
is below the value of the labor force, which implies that even those layers
of workers who achieve their remuneration above the average value of
the labor force (skilled workers, technicians, etc.) see their salaries con-
stantly pressured in a downward direction, dragged downward, by the
regulatory role that the average wage fulfills with respect to the scale of
wages as a whole.
marini 1979a: 53
In a concrete plane it is a question of constructing a typological scheme more

or less with the following profile and imaginary percentages that, with the re-
sults of the investigation, would confer their real contents.
The average salary is the average result of all the remunerations that are
verified in society, and exercises the regulatory function of the salary hierar-
chies. It is generally below and does not equal the real value of the labor force
(see Table 12), which is determined by the amount and time of socially neces�-
sary labor invested in its production and reproduction. The minimum wage
expresses the amount of goods and services that the worker and his family
must legally obtain in order to reproduce in theoretically more or less normal
conditions. However, in fact, in capitalist societies (dependent and many other
developed) this does not happen. The worker has to obtain another job, or 2–3
part time jobs, to supplement his stunted income based on the high cost of liv-
ing (see Table 12). It does not matter that this operation is carried out with
Mexican pesos, US dollars, sterling pounds, Brazilian reals or euros. The real
wage expresses the true purchasing power and it is still below the nominal
minimum and, of course, the average wage.
Usually with the payment or purchase of one or two products of the basic
food basket (food, housing and transportation, for example) it depletes its re-
serves, as we verified earlier in this chapter. It is possible, in both dependent
and advanced countries, that fractions and categories of workers (especially in
inter-professional capacities) receive an income equal to or greater than the
value of their labor force. However, as noted above, even in this condition, they
Table 12 The Slf in dependent capitalism and in advanced countries
Salary amount and value of the labor force Value of the labor force=100
Wages equal to or greater than the value 100-125-150

of the Slf
Average salary of society 80
Minimum nominal salary 50
Actual salary minus the inflation of the 30
basic basket
can be subject to super-exploitation insofar as part of their value is expropri-

ated and converted into an additional source of capital accumulation. In this
first expropriatory movement, the wage does not necessarily fall below its val-
ue. In part, this optimal result for capital is achieved through the p
recariousness
of work that implies lowering, or frankly dismantling, economic, social and
labor rights as well as the protective norms in force in labor law.
The data we have recorded in the tables and graphs above relating both to
the relationship between productivity and minimum and average wages, as
well as to the relationship between the expenses of working families and their
purchasing power—together with the increase in the working week beyond
the 40 hours that are considered normal time, and violations of working condi-
tions and wages—these elements and phenomena allow us to verify that, in a
structural manner, the super-exploitation regime operates in the United States
itself.
Epilogue
Debates about dependency and its extension to the advanced world of central
capitalism are slowly beginning to show evidence that this is indeed happen-
ing. Despite the different theoretical positions that are assumed in this regard,
the fact that super-exploitation operates in a conjectural manner or, according
to other positions, structurally, is already an indication that one of the theoret-
ical-methodological veins that are consolidated to explain the problems of
capitalism and its crisis, as well as to avoid or counteract the decrease in the
average rate of profit in the system, consists precisely in an articulation of eco-
nomic, political and organizational devices commanded by the monumental
precarization of the world of labor as the process through which the super-
exploitation of the labor force is consolidated.
It is worth observing, perhaps, that one of the most relevant issues is the
debate regarding whether the extension of super-exploitation invalidates the
theory of dependence, in the terms that it was originally developed by Marini,
as some authors maintain. Our answer is negative: not only is the relevance of
the Marxist dependency theory reaffirmed, with its categories, concepts, hy-
potheses and particular laws, but also it is updated to explain the new configu-
ration of world capitalism, particularly after the great financial and structural
crisis of 2008–2009 that shook the center of the world system, the United
States, characterized by dismeasure of value, the fall in the rate of profit that it
causes, as well as the prevalence of fictitious capital in the global reproduction
of capital.
Since super-exploitation in advanced capitalism is structural, we consider
that this current situation will not be changed by the arrival of Donald Trump
to the presidential power of the United States, which effectively marks a mile-
stone in international relations and in domestic affairs with respect to the
working classes, immigrants and society. In relation to the first point, in frank
provocation, which he himself has announced, he is willing to unleash World
War iii that today would be nuclear, creating a set of regional conflicts as has
already been done in the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, on the Korean Peninsula
against North Korea, in Ukraine, in relation to the conflict with Russia, and gen-
erating friction with another great power such as China. This is in addition to US
intervention in Latin America both with the strengthening of right-wing gov-
ernments, and against progressives such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia,
among others. Its stated objective is supposedly to recover the military-strategic
power that sustains the so-called ‘American exceptionalism’ and its unilateral-
ism in the international relations plane.

Epilogue 211
So far these objectives have been unsuccessful as shown by the statements,

on the one hand, of the Syrian government and, on the other, of the authorities
of Iraq in the sense that both countries defeated the terrorists who were
sheltered under the cloak of the so-called Islamic State, in fact proven to be
backed by the United States, which had the objective of fragmenting these na-
tions in order to seize their energy and strategic resources (see Note 4,
Chapter 2).
Regarding the second point, with an undeservedly triumphalist air, Presi-
dent Trump announced the implementation of economic and social policy
measures with the aim of recovering the United States from the difficulties it
has experienced in recent years. He focused his speech on the implementation
of protectionist policies which included the construction of the Wall of Igno-
miny between the border of his country with that of Mexico, the withdrawal of
support funds for the sanctuary cities that until now have protected a certain
category of undocumented persons who arrived in that country since child-
hood but who have no right to citizenship, as well as many of the guarantees
that citizens enjoy in general. Another of the measures that he intends to pro-
mote with all the power granted by the Imperial Presidency is the renegotia-
tion of the Free Trade Agreement (nafta) that it maintains with Mexico and
Canada, in the shadow of the threat that if that treaty is not adjusted in line
with their commercial and strategic interests, the United States will eventually
abandon it.
From the domestic perspective, although official unemployment rates have
been reduced in relation to the economic crisis that shook it between 2008–
2009 (when they reached almost 10%), nevertheless, in relation to the world of
labor, there is an unusual growth in temporary employment and a strong trend
which pronounces the maintenance of stagnant wages as we show in this
book. This has caused the great majority of North American workers and
other categories of Hispanic and undocumented workers—predominantly
Mexicans—the inability to obtain sufficient income to pay the cost of the in-
dispensable basic basket of products and services necessary both for the social
reproduction of the work force, as well as for life.
Along with this situation, the US State has passed a substantial reduction of
fiscal taxes in clear benefit of great capital and the dominant and proprietary
social classes of the country through the last fiscal reform approved by Con-
gress on December 20, 2017, and initialed by Trump two days later (see Note 1,
Chapter 7). All this reinforces our central thesis that in one of the most devel-
oped countries of the conglomerate of the industrialized capitalist countries,
the United States and its ‘American way of life’, uses the super-exploitation re-
gime reinforced by labor flexibility, deregulation and precarization of work,
212 Epilogue
along with a spectacular fall in the unionization rates which decline workers’
struggles and that, in general, affect all of the North American proletariat.
It must be reiterated, however, that it should not be forgotten that whatever
form this regime assumes in advanced capitalism it will always be subject to
the rules and ordinances determined by the hegemony of the production of
relative surplus value in close articulation with scientific development and
scientific-technology on a large-scale, since it is the center of the system and
the center of capitalist social relations of production, at least since the first
great industrial revolution that solidified the capitalist mode of production.
Bibliography
Abbagnano, Nicola. 1971. Dizionario di Filosofia. Torino, UTET.

AFL-CIO. 2011. Informe 2011, “Dead on the job” cit. in: Norberto Emmerich, “Ajuste, des-
regulación, privatizaciones, despidos y cierres en Estados Unidos”. May 31. http://
www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=129447.
Aglietta, Michel. 1976. Regulación y crisis del capitalismo, Siglo xxi, Madrid.
Altvater, Elmar. 2011. El fin del capitalismo tal y como lo conocemos, El Viejo Topo,
Madrid.
Altvater, Elmar. 2014. “El capital y el capitaloceno”, Mundo Siglo xxi, Revista del
CIECAS-IPN, No. 33, Vol. ix, pp. 5–15.
Alvaredo, Facundo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Sáez and Gabriel Zuc-
man. 2016. Global Inequality Dynamics: New Findings, WID.world, December 31.
https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2017/preliminary/paper/en6b6859.
Alves, Giovanni. 2000. O novo (e precario) mundo do trabalho, Editorial Boitempo, São
Paulo, Brasil.
Alves, Giovanni. 2012. “Crisis de valorización y desmedida del capital. Breve ensayo
sobre la naturaleza de la crisis estructural del capital” in Adrián Sotelo, Dídimo Cas-
tillo and Esthela Gutiérrez, Capital, trabajo y nueva organización obrera, Ediciones
Miguel Ángel Porrúa-UANL, México, pp. 15–39.
Alves, Giovanni. 2016. A Tragédia de Prometeu. A degradação da pessoa humana que
trabalha na era do capitalismo manipulatório, Projeto Editorial Praxis, Bauru, SP.
Alves, Giovanni. 2018. O duplo negativo do capital. Ensaio sobre a crise do capitalismo
global, Praxis, São Paulo.
Amin, Samir. 2012. El capitalismo contemporáneo, El Viejo Topo, Madrid.
Anderson, Perry. 2014. Imperium et Consilium. La política exterior norteamericana y sus
teóricos, Editorial AKAL, Madrid.
Antunes, Ricardo. 1999. Os sentidos do trabalho, São Paulo, Boitempo.
Antunes, Ricardo. 2003. ¿Adiós al trabajo? Ensayo sobre las metamorfosis y el rol central
del mundo del trabajo, Ediciones Herramienta, Buenos Aires.
Antunes, Ricardo. 2005. Los sentidos del trabajo, Ediciones Herramienta, Buenos
Aires.
Antunes, Ricardo and Geraldo Augusto Pinto. 2017. A fábrica de educação, da especial-
ização taylorista à flexibilização de toyotista, Cortez Editora, São Paulo.
Antunes, Ricardo. 2017. “Brasil vai entrar numa época de manifestações sindicais e soci-
ais, diz sociólogo”, Entrevista de Pamela Mascarenhas, Jornal do Brasil, September 4.
http://www.jb.com.br/pais/noticias/2016/09/04/brasilvai-entrar-numa-epoca-de
-manifestacoes-sindicais-e-sociais-diz-sociologo.
Antunes, Ricardo. 2018. O privilégio da servidão. O novo proletariado de serviços na era
digital, Boitempo, São Paulo.
214 Bibliography
Aristotle. The categories. 2004. Kessinger Publishing, June.

Arrizabalo, Xabier Montoro. 2016. Capitalismo y economía mundial, Instituto Marxista
de Economía-ARCIS-UdeC, Segunda Edición, Madrid.
Autor, David H., David Dorn and Gordon H. Hanson. 2013. “The China Syndrome: Local
Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States”, American Eco-
nomic Review, Vol. 103, No. 6, pp. 2121–2168. http://economics.mit.edu/files/7723.
Ávila Armella, Andrés, Diana Tamara Martínez Ruiz and Eduardo Victoria. 2016.
“Explotación y Super-explotación México-Estados Unidos. La jornada de 8 horas en
los trabajadores de Chicago”, Revista Economía y Sociedad, No. 35, México, July–
December, pp. 89–106. http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=51049433005.
Bagú, Sergio. 2008. Tiempo, realidad social y conocimiento. Propuesta de interpretación,
Siglo xxi, México, 18th ed., p. 221.
Bambirra, Vania. 1974. El capitalismo dependiente latinoamericano, México, Siglo xxi.
Bambirra, Vania. 1978. Teoría de la dependencia: una anticrítica, ERA, México.
Bambirra, Vania. 2013. O capitalismo dependente latino-americano, IELA-Editora
Insular.
Baran, Paul A. 1957. The political economic of growth, Monthly Review Press, New York.
Bartra, Roger. 1978. El poder despótico burgués, ERA, México.
Bartra, Roger. 1991. Estructura agraria y clases sociales en México, ERA, México, 9th
Reimp.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000. Líquid Modernity, Polity Press and Blackwell Publisher Ltd.,
Cambridge.
Beck, Ulrich. 2000. Un nuevo mundo feliz, la precariedad del trabajo en la era de la glo-
balización, Editorial Paidós, Barcelona.
Beck, Ulrich. 2007. Weltrisikogesellschaft. Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Sicherheit,
Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
Beck, Ulrich. 2008. La sociedad del riesgo mundial. En busca de la seguridad perdida,
Editorial Paidós, Barcelona.
Beinstein, Jorge. 2016. “Alertas rojas: señales de implosión en la economía global.
El capitalismo global a la deriva”. La Haine, July 7. http://beinstein.lahaine.org/
b2-img/Beinstein_sealesglobales_julio2016.pdf.
Bellamy, John Foster. 2015. El nuevo imperialismo, El Viejo Topo, Barcelona.
Bellamy, John Foster. 2015. “The New Imperialism of Globalized Monopoly-Finance
Capital” in Monthly Review. New York, July 1. https://monthlyreview.org/2015/07/01/
the-new-imperialism-of-globalized-monopoly-finance-capital/.
Bensaid, Daniel. 2008. “La Humanidad más allá del capital”, September 3. http://www
.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=69759&titular=la-humanidad-m%E1sall%E1-del
-capital-.
Biondi Guanais, Juliana. 2018. “Pagamento por produção, intensificação do trabalho e
superexploração na adroindústria canavieira brasileira”, FAPESP-Outras Expressões,
São Paulo.
Bibliography 215
Bivens, Josh and Lawrence Mishel. 2015. “Understanding the Historic Divergence Be-
tween Productivity and a Typical Worker’s Pay. Why It Matters and Why It’s Real”,
EPI Briefing Paper, Economic Policy Institute, September 2. https://www.epi.org/
publication/understanding-the-historic-divergence-between-productivity-and-a-
typical-workers-pay-why-it-matters-and-why-its-real/.
Board of Governors. 2018. Report on the Economic Well-Being of US Households in 2017,
May 2018. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic
-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf
Bohm, David. 1980. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Routledge: Great Britain.
Bohm, David. 2002. La totalidad y el orden implicado, Editorial Kairós, Madrid, 4th ed.
Boito, Armando. 2018. Reforma e crise política no Brasil. Os conflitos de classe nos gover-
nos do PT, Editora UNICAMP-Editoria UNESP, SP.
Braverman, Harry. 1974. Labor and Monopoly Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review.
Brenner, Robert. 1999. Turbulencias de la economía mundial, Encuentro Siglo xxi-
LOMCENDA, Santiago.
Búster, G. 2005. “El No francés puede abrir la puerta a Otra Europa Posible”. http://
www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=15851, May 30.
Camaranno González, Jorge Luis. 2003. “Trabalho e cotidiano”, in Roberto Leme Batista
and Renan Araújo (org.), Desafios do trabalho. Capital e luta de classes no Século xxi,
Editora Praxis, Maringá, Paraná.
Carcanholo, Reinaldo and Paulo Nakatani. 2015. “Capitalismo especulativo e alternativas
para América Latina”, in Helder Gomes (organizer), Especulação e lucros fictícios. For-
mas parasitárias de acumulação contemporânea, Outras Expressões, SP, pp. 89–124.
Carcanholo, Reinaldo and Mauricio Sabadini. 2015. “Capital fictício e lucros fictícios”,
in Helder Gomes (organizer), Especulação e lucros fictícios. formas parasitárias de
acumulação contemporânea, Outras Expressões, SP, pp. 125–159.
Carcanholo, Reinaldo. 2013. Capital, essência e aparência, Vol. 2, Expressão Popular, São
Paulo.
Cardoso, Ciro F.S. and Héctor Pérez Brignoli. 1979. Historia económica de América
Latina, No. 2. Economías de exportación y desarrollo capitalista, Editorial Crítica,
Barcelona.
Cardoso, Fernando H. and Enzo Faletto. 1969. Dependencia y desarrollo en América
Latina, México, Siglo xxi.
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and José Serra. 1978. “Las desventuras de la dialéctica de
la dependencia” in Revista Mexicana de Sociología, año xi, Vol. xl, No. extraordi-
nario (E), IIS-UNAM, pp. 9–55.
Castel, Robert. 1998. As metamorfoses da questão social. Uma crónica do salário, Editora
Vozes.
Castells, Manuel. 2004. La era de la información, Vol. 1, Siglo xxi, México, 2004.
Castillo Fernández, Dídimo. 2012. “Estados Unidos: crisis económica, reestructuración
productiva y nueva precariedad laboral” in Dídimo Castillo and Marco A. Gandásegui
216 Bibliography
(coordinators), Estados Unidos, más allá de la crisis, CLACSO-Siglo xxi, México, pp.
258–287.
CEPAL. 1962. “El desarrollo económico de la América Latina y algunos de sus principales
problemas”, Boletín Económico de América Latina, Vol. 7, No. 1. February, pp. 1–24.
https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/40010/4/prebisch_desarrollo
_problemas.pdf.
CEPAL. 2001. Una década de luces y sombras, América Latina y El Caribe en los años
noventa, Bogotá, ALFAOMEGA.
Chávez Frias, Hugo. 2011. El socialismo del siglo xxi, Cuadernos para el Debate. https://
www.google.com.mx/#q=ch%C3%A1vez+y+el+socialismo+del+sigglo+XXI.
Chesnais, Françoise. 1993. “A fisionomia das crises no regime de acumulação sob
domináncia financeira” in Novos Estudos, CEBRAP, No. 52. November, pp. 21–53, 223.
Chesnais, Françoise. 2002. “La ‘Nueva Economía’: una coyuntura singular de la poten-
cia hegemónica americana” in F. Chesnais, G. Dumenil, D. Lévy and I. Wallestein, La
globalización y su crisis, interpretaciones desde la economía crítica, Catarata,
Madrid, pp. 63–64.
Chesnais, Françoise. 2003. ¿Crisis financiera o indicios de crisis económicas característi-
cas del régimen de acumulación actual? in Françoise Chesnais and Dominique Pli-
hon (coordinators), Las trampas de las finanzas mundiales, Akal, Madrid, pp. 41–57.
Chesnais, Françoise. 2016. “La ‘Nueva Economía’: una coyuntura singular de la potencia
hegemónica americana” in Françoise Chesnais “El curso actual del capitalismo y las
perspectivas para la sociedad humana civilizada”. Herramienta No. 58, Autumn.
https://www.herramienta.com.ar/articulo.php?id=2536.
Chicago Tribune. 2017. “Trump says no protection for Dreamers without wall”, Decem-
ber 24. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-daca
-20171229-story.html.
Chomsky, Aviva. 2011. Nos quitan nuestros trabajos y 20 mitos más sobre la inmigración,
Editorial Haymarket Books, Chicago, Illinois.
Chomsky, Noam. 2017. Hegemonía o supervivencia. La estrategia imperialista de Estados
Unidos, Ediciones B, Barcelona.
Cillo, Rossana. 2017. Nuove frontiere della precarietà del lavoro. Stage, tirocini e lavoro
degli studenti universitari, Editorial Ca’ Foscari, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia, April
13. http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/libri/978-88-6969-160-7/.
Comissão Nacional da Verdade (CNV) de Brasil. 2014. Relatório. Brasilia. Decem-
ber. http://www.memoriasreveladas.gov.br/administrator/components/com
_simplefilemanager/uploads/CNV/relat%C3%B3rio%20cnv%20volume_1_digital
.pdf.
Cooper, David. 2016, “The federal minimum wage has been eroded by decades of
inaction”, Economic Policy Institute, Economic Summary, in Spanish, July 25.
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-federal-minimum-wage-has-been-eroded
-by-decades-of-inaction/.
Bibliography 217
Coriat. 1991. Penser à l’envers. travail et organisation dans l’entreprise japonaise, Chris-
tian Bourgois Editor, París.
Cowen, Tyler. 2013. Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stag-
nation, enguin Group.
Cueva, Agustín. 1974. “Problemas y perspectivas de la teoría de la dependencia” in His-
toria y Sociedad, No. 3, México, pp. 55–77.
Cueva, Agustín. 1988. Las democracias restringidas en América Latina: elementos para
una reflexión crítica, Planeta, Quito.
Debate Proletario. 1978. No. 1, “El detrimento de las condiciones de vida del proletario
barsileño”. January-March.
Delgado Wise, Raúl and Henry Veltmeyer. 2017 “Aportes del Pensamiento Crítico Lati-
noamericano a la Teoría y la Práctica del Desarrollo”, Revista Mundo Siglo xxi, IPN,
No. 42, Vol. xii, Mexico, pp. 5–20. http://mundosigloxxi.ipn.mx/images/5-20_42.pdf.
de Montmollin, Maurice. 1967. Les Systèmes Hommes-Machines, Introduction à
L’ergonomie, PUF, Paris.
Denvir, Daniel. 2008. “Por qué esta crisis no es como las anteriores”. Interview with
Jorge Beinstein in Rebelión, August 5. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id
=71074.
Dias Carcanholo, Marcelo. 2013. “(Im)precisões sobre a categoria superexploração da
força de trabalho” in Niemeyer Almeida Filho (organizer), Desenvolvimento e de-
pendência. Cátedra Ruy Mauro Marini, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada,
Brasilia, (IPEA), pp. 71–97.
Dierckxsens, Wim. 2017. “Trabajo productivo y trabajo improductivo” en el marco de la
geopolítica del siglo xxi, Mundo Siglo xxi, IPN, No. 42, Vol. xii, pp. 33–51. http://
mundosigloxxi.ipn.mx/images/33-51_42.pdf.
Draitser, Eric. 2013. “La ‘excepcionalidad’ de EE.UU. no tiene nada que ver con su caráct-
er moral”, RT. September 29. https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/view/107072
-excepcionalismo-eeuu-obama-onu-putin.
Dussel, Enrique. 2014. El último Marx (1863–1882) y la liberación latinoamericana, Siglo
xxi, México.
El Telégrafo. 2017. “Los contratos de cero horas llegan a 910,000 en Reino Unido”, March
4. https://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/mundo/8/los-contratos-de-cero-horas
-llegan-a-910-000-en-reino-unido.
Emmanuel, Arghiri, Charles Bettelheim, Samir Amin and Christian Palloix. 1971. Impe-
rialismo y comercio internacional, Cuadernos de Pasado y Presente, No. 24,
Córdoba.
EmmanueL, Arghiri. 1972. Unequal Exchange. A Study of the Imperialism of Trade,
Monthly Review Press, New York and London.
Euromonitor Internacional. 2017. “China eleva el salario en la industria: supera a Méxi-
co y se iguala al de Portugal”, February 28. http://acercandonaciones.com/2017/02/28/
china-eleva-el-salario-en-la-industria-supera-amexico-y-se-iguala-al-de-portugal/.
218 Bibliography
Eurostat. 2012. “Euro area unemployment rate at 11.4%; EU27 at 10.5%”. October 1.
http://bancadati.anpalservizi.it/bdds/download?fileName=C_21_Strumento_8367
_documenti_itemName_0_documento.pdf&uid=40789285-bb5e-4d59-9996
-91bdb50325dd.
Executive Order. 2018. “Notice of Withdrawal from NAFTA”, January 10. https://
www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-nafta-canada-trump/trump-could-use-nafta
-withdrawal-letter-as-negotiating-leverage-idUSKBN1F000B.
Fajnzylber, Fernando. 1983. La industrialización trunca de América Latina, Centro de
Economía Transnacional-Editorial Nueva Imagen. México.
Faux, Jeff. 2013. “NAFTA’s Impacts on US Workers, Working Economic Blog”, Eco-
nomic Policy Institute, December 9, 2013. https://www.epi.org/blog/naftas-impact
-workers/.
Faux, Jeff. 2006. The Global Class War, How America’s Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future -
and What It Will Take to Win It Back, New York, John Wiley & Sons.
Faux, Jeff. 2008. La Guerra Global de Clases (Global Class Warfare), Autonomous Uni-
versity of Mexico City, Mexico 2008.
Faux, Jeff. 2017. “Trump is right to criticize NAFTA — but he’s totally wrong about
why it’s bad for American workers”. February 23. https://qz.com/917175/trump
-is-right-to-criticize-nafta-but-hes-totally-wrong-about-why-its-bad-for-american
-workers/.
Felix, Gil. 2017. “Sobre o conceito de exército industrial de reserva em Ruy Mauro Mari-
ni”, Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Economia Politica, No. 47. May–August,
pp. 104–128.
Financial Times. 2017. “Draft NAFTA order signals tougher US stance on trade partners”,
April 28. https://www.ft.com/content/db5ca62e-2c56-11e7-9ec8-168383da43b7.
Forbes. 2017. “President Trump’s Threat to Withdraw from NAFTA Signals a Tough-
er Approach to Trade”, April 29. https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/
2017/04/29/president-trumps-threat-to-withdraw-from-nafta-signals-a-tougher
-approach-to-trade/#153fd6787510.
Frank, André Gunder. 1969. América Latina: subdesarrollo y revolución, ERA, México.
Frank, André Gunder. 1972. Lumpen-Bourgeoisie and Lumpen-Development: Dependen-
cy, Class and Politics in Latin America, Monthly Review Press, New York.
Frank, André Gunder. 1979. Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment, Monthly
Review Press, New York and London.
Friedmann, Georges and Pierre Naville. 1962. Traité de sociologie du travail (2 volumes),
A. Colin, Paris.
Fröbel, Folker, Jürgen Heinrichs and Otto Kreye. 1980. The New International Division of
Labour: Structural Unemployment in Industrialised Countries and Industrialisation
in Developing Countries, Cambridge University Press.
Bibliography 219
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2015. “Contingent Workforce: Size, Char-
acteristics, Earnings, and Benefits”, April 20, p. 4. http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/
669899.pdf.
García, Rolando. 2000. El Conocimiento en construcción. de las formulaciones de jean
piaget a la teoría de sistemas complejos, Gedisa, Barcelona.
Goldstein, Fred. 2017. “Trump, el presidente gánster”, La Haine, May 14. http://www
.lahaine.org/mm_ss_mundo.php/trumpel-presidente-ganster.
Goodman, Peter S. and Jonathan Soble. 2017. “Global Economy’s Stubborn Reality:
Plenty of Work, Not Enough Pay”. October 7. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/
business/unemployment-wages-economy.html.
Goto, Roberto. 1998. Para ler Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Geração Editorial, São
Paulo.
Gould, Elise and Jessica Schieder. 2017. “Work sick or lose pay? The high cost of being
sick when you don’t get paid sick days”, Economic Policy Institute, June 28. https://
www.epi.org/publication/work-sick-or-lose-pay-the-high-cost-of-being-sick-when
-you-dont-get-paid-sick-days/.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1975. Los intelectuales y la organización de la cultura, Juan Pablos
Editor, México.
Grobart Sunshine, Fabio. 2007. “Ciencia y tecnología en Estados Unidos: controvertida
hegemonía. Apuntes para un debate centrado en la nueva economía”, in Marco A.
Gandásegui (coordinator), Crisis de hegemonía de Estados Unidos, CLACSO-Siglo
xxi, México, pp. 77–94.
Guamán, Adoración and Héctror Illueca. 2012. El huracán neoliberal. Una reforma lab-
oral contra el trabajo, Ediciones Sequitur, Madrid.
Guillén Romo, Arturo. 2007. Mito y realidad de la globalización neoliberal, Miguel Ángel
Porrúa, México.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. Theory of Communicative Action. Lifeworld and Systems: A Cri-
tique of Functionalist Reason. Vol. 2, Beacon Press, Boston.
Halperín Donghi, Tulio. 1993. Historia contemporánea de América Latina, Alianza Edi-
torial, Madrid, 14th ed.
Hammer, Michael and James Champy. 1993. Re-Engineering the Corporation, Harper. NY.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. 2002. Empire. London: Harvard University Press.
Harvey, David. 2012. La condición de la posmodernidad, Amorrortu, Buenos Aires.
Harvey, David. 2012a. O enigma do capital e as crises do capitalismo, BOITEMPO; SP.
Higginbottom, Andy. 2010. “Underdevelopment as Super-Exploitation: Marini’s Politi-
cal-Economic Thought”, paper presented at Historical Materialism Conference,
SOAS, London. November 13.
Hodgson, Godfrey. 2009. The Myth of American Exceptionalism, New Haven, CT, Yale
University Press.
220 Bibliography
Hopkins, Terence and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1986. “Commodity chains in the world-
economy prior to 1800”, Review, Vol. 10, No. 1. A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Cen-
ter for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations. Binghamton,
NY, pp. 157–170.
IDIC. 2017. “Tendencias de la manufactura mexicana”, Voz de la Industria, Vol. 5, No. 97,
August. http://idic.mx/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Tendencias-Manufactura-2016
_07-v2.pdf.
ILO. 2002. “Dos millones de muertes por accidentes laborales cada año”, May 24.
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/wcms_071435/lang
--es/index.htm.
ILO. 2014. Global employment trends 2014. Risk of a jobless recovery? Table 1, p. 19,
Geneva. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---
publ/documents/publication/wcms_233953.pdf.
ILO. 2016. Global Wage Report 2016–17, Wage Inequality in the Workplace, Geneva.
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/
documents/publication/wcms_537846.pdf.
ILO. 2016a. “El empleo atípico en el mundo. Retos y Perspectivas”, Geneva. http://www
.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/
publication/wcms_534518.pdf.
ILO. 2016b. World Employment Social Outlook. Trends 2016. Geneva, Table 1: 18. http://
ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/
ILO. 2016c. World Economic Outlook, October, published by the International Monetary
Fund. file:///C:/Users/Pipos/Downloads/_textpdf.pdf.
ILO. 2017. World Employment Social Outlook, Trends 2017, Geneva. http://www.ilo.org/
wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/
wcms_541211.pdf.
ILO-CEPAL. 2017. Coyuntura Laboral en América Latina y el Caribe. La transición de los
jóvenes de la escuela al mercado laboral, Informe No. 17, October. http://www.ilo.org/
wcmsp5/groups/public/---americas/---ro-lima/---srosantiago/documents/
INEGI. 2015. Sistema de Cuentas Nacionales. http://www.inegi.org.mx/est/contenidos/
proyectos/scn/.
The Intercept. 2015. “Jimmy Carter: The US is an oligarchy with unlimited political
bribery”, July 30. https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy
-unlimited-political-bribery/.
Juárez, Humberto. 2017. “Las negociaciones del TLCAN. El caso de la industria del au-
tomóvil en México”, in Revista Trabajadores, Año 21, No. 123, Universidad Obrera de
México, November-December, pp. 16–25.
Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason¸ Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Bibliography 221
Katz, Claudio. 2017. “Aciertos y problemas de la superexplotación” in Rebelion, http://

www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=231417, September 12.
Kelly, Kevin. 1997. “New Rules for the New Economy: Twelve dependable principles for
thriving in a turbulent world”, Wired Magazine, No. 11, pp. 140–197. https://www
.wired.com/1997/09/newrules/.
Kimball Will and Robert Scott. 2014. “China Trade, Outsourcing and Jobs,” Eco
nomic Policy Institute, December. http://www.epi.org/publication/china-trade
-outsourcing-and-jobs/.
La Jornada. 2017. “Trump: TLCAN, un desastre para EU”, April 21. http://jornada.unam.
mx/2017/04/21/economia/019n2eco.
Latin Post. 2017. “Report: Chinese Wages Now Higher Than In Brazil, Argentina And
México”, February 28. http://www.latinpost.com/articles/136802/20170228/report
-chinese-wages-now-higherbrazil-argentina-mexico.htm.
Lenin, Vladimir Ilich. 1975. Materialismo y empiriocriticismo, Ediciones en Lenguas
Extranjeras, Pekín.
Lipietz, Alain. 1985. “Fordismo, fordisme perifherique et metropolization”, CEPREMAP,
No. 8514, París.
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1996. American Exceptionalism. A Double-Edged Sword,
W.W. Norton, New York.
Luce, Mathias Seibel. 2013. “A superexploração da força de trabalho no Brasil: evidên-
cias da história recente”, in Niemeyer Almeida Filho (organizer), Desenvolvimento
e dependência. Cátedra Ruy Mauro Marini, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Apli-
cada, Brasilia, (IPEA), pp. 145–165.
Luce, Mathias Seibel. 2008. “La expansión del subimperialismo brasileño”, December 4.
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=76977.
Luce, Mathias Seibel. 2012. “A superexploração da força de trabalho no Brasil”,
Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Economia Política, São Paulo, No. 32, June,
pp. 119–141.
Mandel, Ernest. 1975. Late capitalism, New Left Books, London.
Mandel, Ernest. 1972. Decline of Dollar. A Marxist View of the Monetary Crisis. Monad
Press, New York.
Mandel, Ernest. 1980. Long Waves of Capitalist Development. A Marxist Interpretation,
Cambridge University Press.
Mandel, Ernest. 2008. “El debate internacional de las ondas largas”, Revista Mundo
Siglo xxi, No. 14, Centro de Investigaciones Administrativas y Sociales del IPN,
México, Autumn, pp. 5–16.
Mandel, Michael. 1996. “The triumph of the new economy, a powerful payoff from glo-
balization and the Info Revolution”. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/
1996-12-29/the-triumph-of-the-new-economy.
Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One-Dimensional Man, Beacon Press, Boston.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1973. Dialéctica de la dependencia, ERA, México.
222 Bibliography
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1976. “¿Hacia una ‘democracia viable’ en América Latina?” in El Sol
de México, México, December 16.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1976. El reformismo y la contrarrevolución. Estudios sobre Chile,
ERA, México.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1977. La acumulación capitalista mundial y el subimperialismo,
Cuadernos Políticos No. 12, April–June, pp. 21–39.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1978. “La cuestión del fascismo en América Latina”, Cuadernos
Políticos No. 18, October–December, pp. 21–28.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1979a. “El ciclo del capital en la economía dependiente”, in
Úrsula Oswald (Coordinator), Mercado y dependencia, México, Nueva Imagen,
pp. 37–55.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1978. “Las razones del neodesarrollismo” (answer to Fernando
Enrique Cardoso and José Serra), Revista Mexicana de Sociología, Vol. xl, número
extraordinario, México, IIS-UNAM, pp. 57–106.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1979. “Plusvalía extraordinaria y acumulación de capital”, in Cuad-
ernos Políticos, No. 20, México, April-June, pp. 19–39.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1982. Sobre el patrón de reproducción de capital en Chile,
Cuadernos de CIDAMO. http://www.marini-escritos.unam.mx/061_reproduccion
_capital_chile.html.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1985. Subdesarrollo y revolución, Editorial Siglo xxi, México, 12th
edition.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1985a. “Geopolítica latino-americana”, Arquivo Pessoal de Marini
depositado no Programa de Estudos de América Latina e Caribe-Universidade
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. http://www.mariniescritos.unam.mx/066_geopolitica
_latinoamericana.html.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1987. “La cuestión del Estado en las luchas de clases en América
Latina” in Various, La militarización del Estado latinoamericano, algunas interpreta-
ciones, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, México, pp. 69–95.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1996. “Proceso y tendencias de la globalización capitalista” in Mari-
ni and Márgara Millán (coordinators), La teoría social latinoamericana, Vol. iv,
Cuestiones contemporáneas, Ediciones El Caballito, México, 2nd ed., pp. 49–68.
Marini, Ruy Mauro, Adrián Sotelo and Arnulfo Arteaga. 1981. El proceso de trabajo en
México, Teoría y Política, No. 4, April–June, México, Juan Pablos Editor, pp. 59–74.
http://www.marini-escritos.unam.mx/322_proceso_trabajo.html.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1991. Memoria, Archive of Ruy Mauro Marini. http://www.marini-
escritos.unam.mx/002_memoria_marini_esp.html.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1992. América Latina: Dependencia e integração, Brasil Urgente,
São Paulo.
Marini, Ruy Mauro. 1993. Preface to Adrián Sotelo Valencia, México: dependencia y mod-
ernización, Ediciones El Caballito, México.
Bibliography 223
Martins, Carlos Eduardo. 2011. Globalização, dependência e neoliberalismo na América

Latina, Boitempo Editorial, São Paulo, SP.
Martins, Carlos Eduardo. 2013. “O pensamento de Ruy Mauro Marini e sua atualidade
para as ciências sociais”, in Niemeyer Almeida Filho (organizer), Desenvolvimento e
dependência. Cátedra Ruy Mauro Marini, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplica-
da, Brasilia, (IPEA), pp. 15–47.
Martins, Carlos Eduardo. 2017. “Algumas reflexões sobre o conceito de superexploração
do trabalho”, Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Economía Política, Vol. 48, RJ,
September–December, pp. 28–43.
Marx, Karl. 2000. El capital, Vols. i–iii, FCE, México.
Marx, Karl. 1980. Elementos fundamentales para la crítica de la economía política (Grun-
drisse) 1857–1858, Vol. ii, México, Siglo xx Editores, 8th ed.
Marx, Karl. 1982. Elementos fundamentales para la crítica de la economía política (Grun-
drisse), Vol. iii, México, Siglo xxi Editores, 12th ed.
McNicholas, Celine, Zane Mokhiber and Adam Chaikof. 2017. “Two billion dollars in sto-
len wages were recovered for workers in 2015 and 2016—and that’s just a drop in the
bucket”, Economic Policy Institute, December 13. https://www.epi.org/publication/
two-billion-dollars-in-stolen-wages-were-recovered-for-workers-in-2015-and
-2016-and-thats-just-a-drop-in-the-bucket/.
Méda, Dominique. 1995. Le Travail. Une Valeur en vie de Disparition, Aubier, Paris.
Mészáros, István. 1970. Marx’s Theory of Alienation, Merlin Press, London.
Mészáros, István. 2001. Socialism or Barbarism: From the “American Century” to the
Crossroads, Monthly Review Press. New York.
Mészáros, István. 2001a. Más allá del capital, hacia una teoría de la transición, Vadell
Hermanos Editores, Caracas.
Mészáros, István. 2008. “The unfolding crisis and the relevance of Marx”, Monthly
Review online, Nov. 4. https://mronline.org/2008/11/04/the-unfolding-crisis-and-the
-relevance-of-marx/.
Modaes Latinoamérica. 2016. “Bangladesh, Sri Lanka y Camboya encabezan la brecha
entre salario mínimo y digno”. June. https://www.modaes.com/entorno/bangladesh
-sri-lanka-y-camboya-encabezan-la-brecha-entre-salario-minimo-y-digno-es
.html.
Moreano, Alejandro. 2008. Antología y presentación al libro de Agustín Cueva, Entre la
ira y la esperanza, CLACSO-Siglo del Hombre, Quito, 2nd ed.
Multidisciplinary Analysis Center (MAC). 2015. Investigation Report No. 118. “Desem-
pleo y menos paga por más horas de trabajo: resultados a dos años de la reforma
laboral”, Faculty of Economics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico,
January 28, Chapter 2. https://cam.economia.unam.mx/reporte-de-investigacion
-118-desempleo-y-menos-paga-por-mas-horas-de-trabajo-resultados-dos-anos-de
-la-reforma-laboral/.
224 Bibliography
Multidisciplinary Analysis Center (MAC). 2015. Investigation Report No. 120. “México:
Esclavitud moderna. Cae 78.71% el poder adquisitivo”, Faculty of Economics of the
National Autonomous University of Mexico. June 11. https://cam.economia.unam
.mx/reporte-de-investigacion-120-mexico-esclavitud-moderna-cae-78-71-el-poder
-adquisitivo/.
Nakatani, Paulo and Reinaldo Carcanholo. 2015. “O capital especulativo parasitário:
uma precisão teórica sobre o capital financeiro, característico da Globalização”, in
Helder Gomes (organizer), Especulação e luçros fictícios. Formas parasitarias da
acumulação contemporânea, São Paulo, pp. 31–59, 229.
Nakatani, Paulo and Mauricio Sabadini. 2015. “Capital fictício e lucros fictícios”, in
Helder Gomes (organizer), Especulação e luçros fictícios. Formas parasitarias da
acumulação contemporânea, São Paulo, pp. 125–159.
National Intelligence Council. 2017. “Global Trends Paradox of Progress”, January.
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/nic/GT-Full-Report.pdf.
National Low Income Housing Coalition. 2017. “Out of Reach 2017, The High Cost of
Housing”. http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/OOR_2017.pdf.
O’Connor, James. 1973. The Fiscal Crisis of the State, St. Martin’s Press, New York.
O’Connor, James. 1984. Accumulation Crisis. Basil Blackwell, Oxford and New York.
OECD. 1999. The Future of the Global Economy: Towards a Long Boom? París.
Offe, Claus. 1985. “Work: The Key Sociological Category?” in Claus Offe, Disorganized
Capitalism, Cambridge, The MIT Press, pp. 129–150.
Oliveira, Francisco de. 1998. Os direitos do antivalor. A economía política da hegemonía
imperfeita, Editora Vozes, São Paulo.
Osorio, Jaime. 2016. Teoría marxista de la dependencia, Editorial Itaca-UAM-X, México.
Pérez, Andrés. 2011. “La crisis de suicidios en France Telecom se reabre trágicamente”,
Rebelión online. April, 28. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=127314.
Peterson Foundation, Peter G. 2017. “US defense spending compared to other coun-
tries”, June 1. https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defensecomparison.
Petras, James and Henry Veltmeyer. 2003. System in Crisis: The Dynamics of Free Market
Capitalism. London: Zed Books and Halifax: Fernwood Books.
Petras, James and Henry Veltmeyer. 2005. Empire with Imperialism: The Globalizing
Dynamics of Neoliberal Capitalism, Zed Books, London.
Petras, James. 2017. “La política económica de Obama ha sido muy valiosa para el gran
capital de Wall Street”, (Entrevista). La Haine. January 10. https://www.lahaine.org/
mm_ss_mundo.php/la-politica-economica-de-obama.
Petras, James. 2017. “Who Rules America? The Power Elite in the Time of Trump”. May 9.
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2153.
Petras, James. 2017. “How billionaires become billionaires”, Global Research. October 5.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-billionaires-become-billionaires/5612125.
Bibliography 225
Piqueras, Andrés. 2014. La opción reformista: entre el despotismo y la revolución. Una

explicación del capitalismo hitórico a través de las luchas de clase, Anthropos,
Madrid.
Prado, Eleuterio. 2005. Desmedida do valor. Crítica da pós-grande industria, Xama, São
Paulo.
Prebisch, Raúl. 1987. Capitalismo periférico: crisis y trasformación, FCE, México.
Presidency of Mexico. 2016. 4th Government Report 2015–2016. Statistical Annex.
https://framework-gb.cdn.gob.mx/cuartoinforme/4IG_Anexo_Estadistico
_TGM_26_08_16_COMPLETO.pdf.
Putin, Vladimir. 2013. “Putin: El ataque planeado contra Siria puede desencadenar una
nueva ola de terrorismo”, RT, September 12. https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/
view/105471-putin-carta-ataque-siria-eeuu.
Ramírez, Georgette Kuri. 2017. Geopolítica y subimperialismo en América Latina: el caso
de Brasil, Tesis de maestría, Programa de Posgrado en Estudios Latinoamericanos,
UNAM, México.
Reforma. 2017. “Filtran decreto con que EU salía del TLC”, April 28. http://www
.reforma.com/aplicacioneslibre/articulo/default.aspx?id=1101731&md5=c60b2ddef
d5cec7efbfa5e01579e82c1&ta=0dfdbac11765226904c16cb9ad1b2efe&lcmd5
=5c1e1f8f84a64a02a2929ffe79cf2edb.
Reforma. 2017. “Tocan temas sensibles del TLC”, October 17. http://gruporeforma
.reforma.com/interactivo/negocios/temas_sensibles_tlc/?lc=1.
Reforma, 2017. “Consolidan apoyo por plan fiscal de EU”, Mexico, December 16.
Reich, Robert B. 1992. The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capital-
ism, Vintage Press, New York City.
Rifkin, Jeremy. 1996. The End of Work. The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the
Dawn of the Post-Market Era. Nueva York: Putnam Book.
Roitman, Marcos. 2010. El pensamiento sistémico, los orígenes del social-conformismo.
Siglo xxi: México, (3rd reimp).
Rostow, Walt Whitman. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth, a Non-Communist Mani-
festo, Cambridge University Press.
RT. 2016. “Los 7 más odiados: las guerras de la presidencia de Obama”. https://actualidad
.rt.com/actualidad/197397-odiados-guerras-presidencia-obama. January 20.
Saad, Lydia. 2014. “The ‘40-Hour’ Workweek Is Actually Longer – by Seven Hours”, Gal-
lup News, August 29. http://news.gallup.com/poll/175286/hourworkweek-actually
-longer-seven-hours.aspx.
Salles, Severo. 2003. Ditadura e luta pela democracia no Brasil. O inicio da distensão
política (1974–1979), Quarteto Editora, Salvador.
Salles, Severo. 2013. Lucha de clases en Brasil (1960–2010), Peña Lillo-Ediciones Conti-
nente, Buenos Aires.
226 Bibliography
Salvia, Agustín (coordinator) and Eduardo Donza. 2017. Precariedad laboral e ingresos.
Incidencia del sector informal de la estructura productiva. 2010–2016, Observatorio
de la Deuda Social Argentina-Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, Buenos Ai-
res, October. http://www.uca.edu.ar/uca/common/grupo68/files/2017-Observatorio
-Precariedad-laboral-_e-ingresos.pdf.
Sánchez, Luis Jiménez (coordinator). 2014. TLC, veinte años. Valoraciones y perspectiv-
as, Juan Pablos Editor-lxii Legislatura del Senado de la República México.
Sanders, Bernie. 2018. “Let’s wrench power back from the billionaires”, The Guard-
ian, January 14. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/14/power
-billionaires-bernie-sanders-poverty-life-expectancy-climate-change.
Sandoval, Palacios, Juan Manuel. 2017. La frontera México-Estados Unidos. Espacio glob-
al para la expansión del capital transnacional, Secretaria de Cultura-Instituto Nacio-
nal de Antropología e Historia, México.
Sapir, Jacques. 2008. El nuevo siglo xxi. Del siglo americano al retorno de las naciones, El
Viejo Topo, Madrid.
Sauviat, Catherine. 2005. “Os efeitos do novo poder da finança nos Estados Unidos:
empresas fragilizadas e trabalhadores inseguros” in Carla Ferreira and André Forti
Scherer (orgs.), O Brasil frente à ditadura do capital financiero: reflexões e alternati-
vas, Fundação Heinrich Boll-UNIVATES-ATTAC, Porto Alegre-RS.
Saxe-Fernández, John (Coordinator). 1999. Globalización: crítica a un paradigma, Edi-
torial Plaza & Janés.
Saxe-Fernández, John. 2002. La compra-venta de México, Plaza & Janés, México.
Saxe-Fernández, John. 2006. Terror e imperio. La hegemonía política e económica de
Estados Unidos, DEBATE, México.
Saxe-Fernández, John and Juan Fal. 2012. “La especificidad de la etapa actual del capi-
talismo: los límites del crecimiento y sus consecuencias geopolíticas”, in John Saxe-
Fernández (editor), Crisis e imperialismo, Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplin-
arias en Ciencias y Humanidades-UNAM, México, pp. 31–60.
Saxe-Fernández, John. 2013. “Explotación de fósiles no convencionales en estados
unidos. lecciones para América Latina”, Revista Periferias 21, FISYP, Buenos Aires,
1er Semestre, pp. 9–40. https://fisyp.org.ar/media/uploads/p.21-saxe.pdf.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. 1973. The Imperial Presidency, New York, Houghton Mifflin.
Secretary of Economy of México. (n.d.) https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attach
ment/file/119066/Sector_Industria_Automotriz.pdf.
Selser, Gregorio. 1994. Cronología de las intervenciones extranjeras en América Latina,
Tomo I: 1776–1848. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Centro
de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Ciencias y Humanidades)/Universidad
Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco/Universidad de Guadalajara/Universidad
Obrera de México (Cuadernos del CIIH, Serie Fuentes, 12).
Tomo ii: 1849–1898, introducción de John Saxe-Fernández y prólogo de Sergio Bagú.
Bibliography 227
México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Centro de Investigaciones In-

terdisciplinarias en Ciencias y Humanidades)/Universidad Autónoma Metropolita-
naAzcapotzalco/Universidad Obrera de México (Cuadernos del CIIH, Serie Fuent-
es, 14).
Tomo iii: 1898–1945, introducción de John Saxe-Fernández. México: Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México (Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en
Ciencias y Humanidades)/Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco/
Universidad Obrera de México.
Sennett, Richard. 1998. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work
in the New Capitalism, W.W. Norton & Company: New York.
Shaikh, Anwar. 2011. “La Primera Gran Depresión del Siglo xxi”, Sin Permiso, February 4.
http://www.sinpermiso.info/sites/default/files/textos//XXI.pdf.
Shaikh, Anwar. 2006. Valor, acumulación y crisis. Ensayos de economía Política, Edicio-
nes RYR, Buenos Aires.
Singer, Paul. 1980. Economía Política del Trabajo, Siglo xxi, México, 1st ed.
Slate. 2017. “Canada Reportedly Wants the US to Scrap Its Right-to-Work Laws as Part
of a New NAFTA Deal”, Sep. 5. https://slate.com/business/2017/09/canada-wants-
the-u-s-to-scrap-its-right-to-work-laws.html.
Smith, Adam. 1977. La riqueza de las naciones, Vol. 1, Editorial Cruz O., México.
Smith, John. 2016. Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploi-
tation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis, Monthly Review Press, NYU Press.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. Interview with Ruy Mauro Marini. 1990. “Las perspectivas de la
teoría de la dependencia en la década de los noventa”. Revista Estudios Latinoameri-
canos, No. 9, CELA-FCPyS-UNAM, México, July–December, pp. 49–58.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 1994. “Dependencia y superexplotación”, in La teoría Social
Latinoamericana, Vol. 2, Dependencia y subdesarrollo, Ediciones El Caballito, Méxi-
co, pp. 289–318.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2003. La reestructuración del mundo del trabajo, superexplo-
tación y nuevos paradigmas de la organización del trabajo, ITACA-UOM-ENAT,
México.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2007. El mundo del trabajo en tensión. Flexibilidad laboral y
fractura social en la década de 2000, Editorial Plaza y Valdés-Facultad de Ciencias
Políticas y Sociales-UNAM, México.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2010. Crisis capitalista y desmedida del valor: un enfoque desde
los Grundrisse, coedición Editorial ITACA-UNAM-FCPyS, México.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2012. Los rumbos del trabajo. Superexplotación y precariedad
social en el Siglo xxi, Editorial Miguel Ángel Porra-FCPyS-UNAM, México.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2013. “México: Reforma laboral y precariedad social”, Revista Pa-
carina del Sur, No. 15, April–June. www.pacarinadelsur.comindex.php?option=com
_content&view=article&id=676&catid=14.
228 Bibliography
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2014. México (re)cargado: neoliberalismo, dependencia y crisis,

FCPyS-UNAM-Editorial Itaca, México.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2015. El Precariado: ¿nueva clase social? Editorial Miguel Ángel
Porrúa-FCPyS-FISYP-Argentina-Posgrado en Estudios Latinoamericanos-UNAM,
México.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2015a. The Future of Work: Super-Exploitation and Social Pre-
cariousness in the 21st Century, Brill, Boston, USA.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2016. Precariado ou proletariado? Editora Praxis, São Paulo.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2017. México desahuciado. Dependencia, régimen político y
luchas populares, CLACSO-Editorial Itaca, México.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2017a. Sub-Imperialism Revisited: Dependency Theory in the
Thought of Ruy Mauro Marini, Brill, Boston, USA.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2017. “La reforma laboral en el régimen de Temer: superexplo-
tación y precariedad social en el siglo xxi”. Rebelión, May 2. http://www.rebelion
.org/noticia.php?id=226098.
Sotelo Valencia, Adrián. 2017. “La asamblea nacional constituyente originaria y la consoli-
dación de la Quinta República Bolivariana de Venezuela”, La Haine. May 8. https://www
.lahaine.org/mm_ss_mundo.php/la-asamblea-nacionalconstituyente-originaria.
Standing, Guy. 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, London and New York,
Bloomsbury Academic.
Standing, Guy. 2013. El precariado. Una nueva clase social, Barcelona, Editorial Pasado y
Presente.
Stettner, Andrew, Joel S. Yudken and Michael McCormack. 2017. “Why Manufacturing
Jobs Are Worth Saving”, The Century Foundation, June 13. https://tcf.org/content/
report/manufacturing-jobs-worth-saving/.
Streeck, Wolfang. 2016. Comprando tiempo. La crisis pospuesta del capitalismo
democrático, Katz Editores, Buenos Aires.
Tasini, Jonathan. 2015. Bernie Sanders, Sus principales ideas para Estados Unidos, Capi-
tán Swing, Madrid.
The Conference Board. 2017. “Trusted Insights for Business Worldwide”. Total Economy
Database, Summary Tables, May. https://www.conference-board.org/retrievefile.
cfm?filename=TED_SummaryTables_Charts_may20171.pdf&type=subsite.
Thé, Nicole and G. Soriano. 2016. “Na primavera de 2016, um movimento inesperado:
reforma trabalhista e movimentos sociais na França”, September 22. http://www
.dmtemdebate.com.br/na-primavera-de-2016-um-movimento-inesperado
-reforma-trabalhista-e-movimentos-sociais-na-franca/.
The People History. 2018. June. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/.
The New York Times. 2017. “Trump Alarms Venezuela with Talk of a ‘Military Option’”.
August 12. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/world/americas/trump-venezuela
-military.html.
Bibliography 229
The White House. 2017. Economic Report of the President. Together with The Annual Re-
port of Council of Economic Advisors, January. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/
economic_reports/2017.pdf.
Toro, María Celia. 2017. “Vicisitudes del acercamiento mexicano Estados Unidos”, in
Marta Tawil Kuri, et al., Integración en América del Norte (1994–2016). El Colegio de
México, pp. 221–241.
Torres López, Juan. 2015. La Tramoya. September 4. http://blogs.publico.es/juantorres/
2015/09/04/pleno-empleo-en-estados-unidos/.
Toussaint, Eric. 2017. “Contradicciones Centro/Periferia en la Unión Europea y la
crisis del euro”, CADTM, November 10. http://www.cadtm.org/spip.php?page
=imprimer&id_article=15447.
Traspadini, Roberta and Joáo Pedro Stedile (organizers). 2005. Ruy Mauro Marini, Vida
e Obra. Editora Expressão Popular: São Paulo.
Unión del Barrio. 2017. “No le debemos nada al Partido Demócrata (i)”, Rebelión, Au-
gust 15. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=230254.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2011. Chapter 2, Employment, Hours, and Earnings from
the Establishment Survey. https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/homch2.pdf.
Valenzuela Feijóo, José. 1995. “El modelo neoliberal, contenido y alternativas”, Revista
Investigación Económica No. 211, Facultad de Economía-UNAM, México. January-
March, pp. 9–47.
Valenzuela Feijóo, José. 2017. ¿De la crisis neoliberal al nacionalismo fascistoide?
México y Estados Unidos, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa,
México.
Valladares, Mayra Rodriguez. 2018. “New Fed data paint a vivid picture of two Ameri-
cas”, The Hill, May 26. http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/389365-new-fed-data
-paint-a-vivid-picture-of-two-americas.
Vasapollo, Luciano. 2004. Novos desequilíbrios capitalistas. Paradoxos do capital e com-
petição global, Praxis, Londrina.
Vasapollo, Luciano. 2006. “O trabalho atípico e a precariedade” in Ricardo Antunes,
Riqueza e miseria do trabalho no Brasil, Vol. I, Boitempo, São Paulo.
Vasapollo, Luciano. 2007. O devir posfordista e o traballo atípico como elemento estra-
téxico, in: Rita Martufi and Luciano Vasapollo, O mundo do traballo fronte á global-
ización capitalista, Galicia, CIGa.
Vasconcellos, Gilberto Felisberto. 2014. Gunder Frank. O enguiço das ciências sociais,
Editora Insular, Florianópolis.
Vergopoulos, Kostas. 2005. Globalização: o fim de um ciclo. Ensayo sobre a instabilidade
internacional, Rio de Janeiro, Contraponto.
Vitale, Luis. 2011. Interpretación marxista de la historia de Chile. Vol. ii, Los decenios
de la burguesía comercial y terrateniente (1831–1961), LOM Ediciones, Santiago de
Chile.
230 Bibliography
Warren, Elizabeth. 2017. “Canada’s wake-up call to the US on NAFTA,” CNN, October 1,
pp. 1–4. https://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/29/opinions/nafta-canada-broken-labor
-policies-warren-opinion/index.html.
Weil, Simone. 1951. La condition ouvrière. Paris: Les Éditions Gallimard.
Williams, John. 2016. Shadow Goverment Statistics: Analysis Behind and Beyond Govern-
ment Economic Reporting. Public commentary on unemployment measurement,
June 8.
Wolff, Michael. 2018. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. New York, Henry
Holt and Co.
WTO. 2017. “Trade recovery expected in 2017 and 2018, amid policy uncertainty”, April
12. https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres17_e/pr791_e.htm.
Index
Abbagnano 89 Americas 24, 77–78, 158–59

absolute surplus value 44, 50–52, 56, 84–85, Amin 110, 121, 124, 127
90–92, 96, 98, 101–3, 111, 116, 132, 199, 204 amnesty, unrestricted 70
academics 45, 62 amount, total 145, 204, 206
accumulation 8–9, 18–19, 43, 47, 49, 57, 80, Anderson 14
90, 93, 100, 102, 111, 116–17, 132, 143–44, anti-capitalist 60, 147, 179
155–56, 158–59, 168, 177, 207 anti-value 83, 153, 155
pattern of 67, 152 Antunes 1, 66, 143, 171, 175
accumulation of capital 19, 50–51, 62–63, application, systematic 67, 85
84–85, 90–92, 96, 99–100, 113, 127–28, Approaches, theoretical-methodological 2,
135, 144, 147, 150, 179, 191, 204, 207–8 207
fund of 99–100 appropriation 13, 123, 134
accumulation patterns 49, 131 Argentina 26, 45, 49–50, 53, 62, 64, 67–68,
advanced capitalism 1–2, 7–8, 10, 41, 43, 63, 70, 76–77, 81, 102, 131, 167, 170, 183, 188
74, 80, 88, 90, 94, 97, 101, 105, 107, 109, Aristotle 89
111, 115–16, 131–32, 136–37, 146, 150, 155, armies, industrial 55, 148, 154, 185
168, 175, 188, 204, 207, 210, 212 arrival 21, 46, 69, 141, 207, 210
Afghanistan 14, 154, 162 Arrizabalo 80, 97–100, 102–3, 133–34
afl-cio 173 articulated level 86
Africa 12, 62, 74, 140, 145, 162 articulated mechanism 135
agencies articulated onslaught 61
dominant international 63 articulates, exploitation regime 50
local law enforcement 32 articulates category 170
agents, representative 171 articulation 44, 92, 94–95, 105, 210
Aglietta 132, 139 close 212
agreement 29, 32, 75, 77 concrete 45
collective bargaining 1, 205 dialectical 50, 132
agro-industry 136, 138 effective 56, 110
air conditioning equipment 17 multiple 44
al-Assad, Bashar Hafez 22 necessary 127
alalc 76 ascending spiral 153
alba 77, 158 asean-5e 161
Aleppo 22 Asia 29, 62, 78, 140, 145, 158
alienation 122, 178 Asian capitalism 107
Allende, Salvador 59 Asian countries 106
alliances 76, 130 assessment, critical 104
alternation 85 assets
Althusserian structuralism 105 fragile 145
altvater 2, 171–72 physical collateral 143
Alves 56, 66, 94, 125, 130, 136 real 145
American Exceptionalism 16, 24, 28, 210 Asunción 77
American jobs 17, 21, 36 atrocities, terrible 168
Americans 17–18, 21, 46, 151 attenuation, regulated 164
American way of life 21, 211 attributing 110
American workers 193, 201 attribution 107
232 Index
atypical work 65, 171 Bachelor’s degree 194

the 172 backwardness 52, 58, 140, 168
Aurora 25 economic-social 107
austerity policies 17, 138 Bagu 89
internal 74 Bambirra 59–60, 62, 95, 104–5, 126
social 187 bands, restricted 86
Australia 29, 184 Bangladesh 106–7
Austria 162, 187 Bank of America and aig 159
Austrian Marginalist School 17 bankruptcy 15, 46, 160
authoritarian 26 banks 145, 152, 160, 163
authorities private 160
federal 31 Baran 141
governmental 25 barbarism 19, 168
highest 72 Bartra 104–5
author’s understanding 104 Basel 145
automatic mechanism 122 Basel estimates 152
automation 114, 124, 176, 185–86 basic basket 198, 201–3, 208
automobiles 30, 34, 37–38, 111, 128 indispensable 211
automotive industry 34–36, 49, 55, basket
160 basic food 208
terminal 37 basic goods 202
automotive inputs, strategic 37 Bauman 205
autonomization 170 Bear Stearns 160
autonomous activity 172 Beck 170–71, 205
autonomy 53, 97 Bedminster 146
alleged 175 behavior
territorial 142 downward 191
auto parts 34, 37 empirical 43
supplying 35 long-term structural 132
auto parts industry 36–38 negative 191
average exploitation rate 19, 181 recent 187
average growth rates 157, 181 Beinstein 115, 145
average hours 198 Belgium 162
average income 201 Belize 188
average intensity 110 Bellamy 13, 21, 135
average price 21, 202 beneficiaries 156
average production 131 beneficiary, great 37
average profit 133–34 benefits 12, 19, 26, 31, 53, 57, 66, 74, 82, 86, 111,
average remuneration 192 121, 143–44, 146, 158, 174, 186, 188,
average salary 199, 201, 208 192–93, 196
average unemployment rate 185 abused public 32
average wage earners 197 social 1, 10, 57, 114, 149, 176, 205
average wages 186, 188, 192–93, 207–9 Bensaid 155
average worker 193–94, 196 Berlin Wall 134, 159
Ávila 207 Bezos, Jeff 196
axes, central 43, 126, 188 billionaires 196
axis 2, 102, 117, 132, 134, 207 white 27
main 117 binomial Center-Dependency 102
neuralgic 114 biodiversity 2, 155
Index 233
bionic senators 70 Brazilian military 72

biotechnology 64 Brazilian military dictatorship 59
Bivens 193–97 Brazilian reals 208
Blacksburg 25 Brazilian State 74
blockades 61, 76, 128 Brazil’s growth 68
blocks, large regional 35 breakdown 60, 75, 161
blocs Brennan 14
dominant bourgeois 130 Brenner 142
political 158 Bretton-Woods 158
Bohm, David 26 Brignoli 48
Böhm-Bawerk 100 British brexit vote 142
Bolivarian Alliance 77, 158 Brooklyn 33
Bolivarian Alternative 77, 158 Brunei 29
Bolivarian forces 60 Brussels 142
Bolivarian government 60, 146 brutal attacks 12
elected 22 brutal incarnation 13
Bolivarian project 61 brutalities 71
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela 23 budget deficit 151
Bolivia 26, 60, 69–70, 74, 188, 210 Bukharin 46
boom Bulgaria 137
relative 68 burnout 173
stock 164 Bush, George H.W. 77
sustained economic 164 Bush, George W. 26
border agents 32 business cycles 191
border patrol, official 29 businesses 18, 25, 163, 186
borders 9, 17, 28–30, 66, 211 big 37
national economic 128 pharmaceutical 173
border wall 30 business game 177
bourgeoisies 73–75, 95, 108, 110, 145, 149 businessman 29–30, 33
big financial 130 elected 24
big monopoly 130 business management 49, 55–56
dependent 63, 76, 108 businessman-president prone 19
foreign 147 Business Process Re-engineering 176
great exporting 130 Búster 141–42
national 75
salaried petty 131 calamities 78
branches environmental 145
advanced 113 natural 25
judicial 73 social 28
multiple 113 calamitous scenario 29
productive 37, 113, 132, 204 California 30, 201
Brasilia 47 Californian bank Indymac 159
Braverman 159 California State Attorney 24
Brazil 18–19, 26, 45, 47, 49–50, 53, 59, 62, 64, Camaranno 175
67–68, 70–71, 73–77, 81, 85, 102, 109–10, Cambodia 106
127, 131, 141, 162, 167, 170, 183, 186–88 Campaigning 14
Brazilian capitalism 74 campaign promises 151
Brazilian classrooms 59 campaign strategists 15
Brazilianization 205 Campbell’s chicken soup 202
234 Index
Canada 29, 35–38, 54–55, 77, 161, 184, 188, capital faces 66
195, 211 capital goods 55
Canadian markets 37 capital initiatives 179
candidate 16, 23, 26, 30 capitalism 1, 9, 12, 19–20, 43–44, 46–49, 51,
presidential 15 60, 64–65, 69, 74, 78, 80–81, 87–90, 93,
vice-presidential 15 95, 103, 121–22, 124–26, 129, 132–33,
capacity 17, 51, 70, 88, 142, 164, 177 136–37, 140, 146, 149, 152, 154, 159,
inter-professional 208 163–66, 181–82
productive 36, 50, 92, 96, 101–2, 130, 138, baneful 149
204 bury 81
purchasing 148 central 80, 108, 210
technological 51 classical 45, 53, 127, 131
undoubted 24 contemporary 19, 80–81, 93, 96–97, 115,
capital 2, 10–11, 17–19, 43–45, 47, 49–52, 125, 134
56–58, 62–68, 73–74, 81–87, 89–90, 93, core 92
95–96, 98–101, 108, 111–13, 115–17, 121–27, current 115, 154
130–36, 143–50, 152–57, 166, 168–69, expanding 7
173–74, 176–79, 186, 191, 197, 205, 207–8 fictitious 105
banking 130 globalized 156
circulation of 45, 108 historic 78
commercial 130 historical 63
constant 94, 199 industrial 17
export manufacturing 67 late 148
financial-regional-continental 130 parasitic 150
fixed 10, 57, 64, 156 perpetuate 113
foreign 49, 73, 111, 130, 150 postwar 141
fractions of 8, 108, 130 productive 149
global 132, 147 robust 156
globalization of 7, 9–11, 144 savage 148
global social 10 speculative 149
industrial 12, 17, 144, 148, 152 submerged 157
legitimate 23 capitalist 29, 44, 46, 48, 54, 65, 87–88, 101,
obsolete 148 104, 134, 137–38, 147, 164, 176, 212
organic compositions of 66, 83, 170 advanced 51, 113, 205
parasitic 152 dependent 46, 58, 126
private 52, 144 developed 2
productive 125, 140, 143, 149, 157 capitalist accumulation 133
speculative 125, 159 global 188
sustaining 156 mature 84
trans-national 10 capitalist centers 136
valorization of 9, 57, 115, 163, 177 capitalist competition 66, 83, 195
variable 98, 156 real 133
capital accumulation processes 111 capitalist countries 15, 90, 112, 177
capital accumulation systems 207 advanced 51–53, 57, 85, 93, 130–31, 135,
capital appropriation 108 168
capital cycles 47, 52, 95, 97, 101, 114, 116, 131, backward 85
146, 205 classic 134
loan money 147 dependent 11, 116
capital de-accumulation 145–46 dependent subordinate 8
Index 235
developed 86, 159 capitalist world economy 121, 127

industrialized 211 capital-labor relation 81
main developed 145 capital manifests 166
capitalist crisis 45, 65, 125, 129, 142, 149–50, capital-money 125
155, 163, 167–68 capital owners 195–97
contemporary 154 capital reproduction pattern 50
deep 179 capital reproduction systems 128
great 86 capital strives 186
capitalist development 49, 134 capital works 123
anarchic 53 capture-appropriation 173
relative 102 Carcanholo 123–24, 130, 144, 149, 156
capitalist economy 101, 129, 135, 147, 153 Cardoso 47–48, 59, 61, 85, 126, 130, 136
advanced industrial 191 ideological lineage 85
chaotic world 28 Cardoso-Faletto 104
dependent 50, 92, 96, 111 Cardoso-Serra 104
global 144, 165 Caribbean Community 77
capitalist exploitation 45 Caribbean Economic System 76
capitalist forms 116 Caribbean States 77
capitalist interests 18, 186 Carrier 17
capitalist logic 9 Carter administration 71
capitalist markets 57 Castel 113, 122, 132, 178, 205
capitalist methods 67 Castells 178
capitalist mode 8, 43–44, 78, 126, 131, 157, 212 Castillo 180, 205
dependent 126 Catalan people 142
historical 13 Catalonia 142
capitalist neoliberalism 70 catastrophe 159, 163
capitalist players, global 188 surmountable 171
capitalist practices 19 catch and release 32
capitalist production 43, 50, 122–23, 126, 132 categories 1, 7, 9, 46, 78, 88–90, 92–93,
capitalist rationality 115 104–5, 109, 115, 117, 124, 129, 133, 138–39,
capitalist reality 90 153, 170, 174, 180–81, 201, 203, 205–7,
capitalist redeployment 28 210–11
capitalist reproduction 56–57, 124, 175 essential 88, 112
capitalist rules 105 eternal 122, 153
capitalist societies 112, 176, 208 Center for American Progress 31
advanced 112 center/periphery 97
contemporary 205 center-periphery 67
historical 43, 126 center recreating 109
capitalist solution 166 centers 67–68, 73, 89–90, 92, 97, 101, 107,
capitalist State 108, 155 109–11, 113, 117, 130–31, 135–36, 207, 210, 212
capitalist structure 46 academic 59
capitalist system 29, 44, 63, 89, 100, 156, 163, active hate 25
176 advanced 63, 80, 84, 116, 136
advanced 157 developed 51, 141, 146
global 24, 26 dominant 75
worn-out American 28 great scientific-
capitalist terms 96 technological-financial 64
capitalist world 26 immigrant detention 32
capitalist world crisis 152 imperialist 74, 85, 89
236 Index
centers (Cont.) Chinese competition 195

manufacturing 157 Chinese Foreign Ministry 24
original 8 Chinese manufacturing sector 186
traditional 68 Chinese workers 18
working class of the 103 Chomsky 16, 20–21, 24, 29, 82
centers of power 8, 45, 142 chronic work fatigue 173
Central America 75–76 Chrysler 18, 35, 162
Central American Common Market 76 circulation 64
Central American Integration System 77 citation, previous 105
Central Europe 141 cities 25, 32, 153
Central Intelligence Agency 8 expensive 201
centrality 124 sanctuary 20, 31, 150, 211
analytical 133 strategic 22
centralization 19, 56, 145 Citigroup 159
extreme 130 citizens 15, 33, 70, 211
Century Foundation 194 eligible 15
Century Socialism 61 low-income senior 66
ceos 196 citizenship 211
cepal 53, 145 grant 31
Chaikof 205 Citizens’ Revolution 61
Champy 176 Citizens United 12
change civilization crisis 2
qualitative 68 civilization vs. barbarism 168
radical 68 civilizatory hecatomb 20
technical 142 clashes, supposed 103
technological 114 class alliances 47
tectonic 16 class bases 69
characteristics class cohesion 178
basic 49 class collaboration 149
expressive 166 class consciousness 177
following 34 class demands 169
fundamental 172 classes 21, 28, 63, 66, 86, 103, 130, 151–52, 176
main 205 exploited 170
market 35 immigrant 1
sub-imperialist 74 intermediate 86
Charlottesville 25 oppressed 64
Chávez, Hugo 77 popular 10, 87, 103, 112
Chesnais 130, 143–44, 156 social 47, 169, 211
Childhood Arrivals 31 upper 95
child poverty rate, highest 196 wealthy 197
Chile 29, 49, 67, 70, 72–73, 76–77, 143, 188 classic name 105
Chilean 72 classic thesis 93
Chilean Constitution 72 class structures 39, 122, 131, 197
Chilean dictatorship 69 class struggle 10, 25, 62, 97, 100, 113, 121, 138,
Chilean process 72 154, 156, 174, 178–79, 206
China 12, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, 29–30, 68, 106, 129, intense 61
151, 158, 161, 165, 183, 186–87, 195, 210 Clinton, Bill 185
China’s economy 157 Clinton administration 30
China’s expansion 68 Clinton era 163
Index 237
Clinton, Hillary 12, 14–16, 20, 22–24, competition 10, 21, 34, 38, 108, 110, 129,
26–27 133–34, 148, 165, 172, 177, 181, 195
Clinton’s discourse 16 intensifies 172
coefficient 166 international 37, 195
Cold War period 27 open 47
Colombia 60, 77 unregulated 141
colonialism 46, 140 competitive advantage 188
Colonial Ministry 76 competitiveness 35, 66, 179
colonial period 7 international 57
Colorado 25 competitive reality 18
commercial conglomerates 196 competitors 134
commitment, implicit 70 active 12
commodities 87, 106, 121, 133 complementary 47
Common Market 77 complementary variables 192
common problems, sharing 23 complex scenario 167
Commonwealth 161 complex trend 205
Commonwealth of Independent States 162 components
communication channels 178 basic 9
communication networks 153 essential 99, 129, 199
communist parties 60–61, 70 social 106
communities 2, 26, 78–79, 169 composition 141
non-white 24 compound rates 63, 140, 166
Community of Latin American and comprehension 126
Caribbean States 77 computer chips 194
companies 9, 17–18, 34–35, 43, 57–58, 74, 114, Computer-controlled machine tool
125–26, 151, 155, 160, 162, 171–72, 176–77, operators 194
179 computerization 13
bankruptcy of 57, 163 computers, new 8
big 129 concentration
dot-com 164 growing 49
energy 2, 154 high 19
international 36 concept conceals 72
large 155 conception 52, 93, 97, 105, 115–16, 121, 126,
large corporate 175 149
large European 136 descriptive 117
large monopoly 181 concept-mechanism 93
medium-sized 135 concepts 7, 43–44, 46, 50, 54, 62–64, 66–67,
monopolistic 166 69, 71, 75, 85, 87–92, 99, 104–5, 107, 109,
multinational 135 115, 122, 126, 140, 154, 156, 210
precarious 172 articulated 44
private 12 new 78
real estate 159 original 13
subsidize 163 conceptual differences 91
temporary 181 conceptual differentiation 69
compensation 177, 186, 191–92, 194 conceptual essence 87
hourly 192–93 conceptual levels 133
typical worker’s 192 concessions 149
competence 133 concomitant 73
technological 110 concurrence 123
238 Index
conditions 9–10, 24, 28, 30, 37, 45, 50, 56–58, conjectural 2, 93, 169, 207, 210
63, 66, 70, 74, 96, 103, 108, 111, 131–32, conjuncture 191
134–35, 143, 147, 153, 160, 166, 169, 174, Connecticut 25
177, 179, 181, 205, 208 connection 115
contemporary 45, 62 close 140
contractual 129 consensus/repression 179
current 85 consolidate 157
dependent 51 constant adjustment 176
general 198 constituent assembly 70
international 55–56, 64, 83 constituent foundation 88
legal-political 144 constitution 50, 68–69, 90, 132, 137, 142, 156,
living 58, 105, 138, 174 177–78
microeconomic 53 generalized 73
national 56 new 146
necessary 96 consumer goods 9, 92
new 68 durable 55
objective 177 popular 176
operating 154 consumer items 202
safe 144 consumer markets 84
sociopolitical 205 internal 112, 148
subjective 177 Consumer Protection Act 163
technical 168 consumption 48, 50, 53, 66, 81, 86, 98–99,
working 38–39, 56–57, 81, 86, 140, 170, 101, 106, 112, 127, 132, 138, 164
186, 196–98, 209 general 198
Confederate slave states 25 high 95
configuration increased 36
current 67 ultra-basic 106
democratic political 155 water 202
historical-structural 95 worker’s 99–100
new capitalist 117 consumption baskets 105
particular 144 consumption capacity 207
structural 110 consumption fund 56, 84, 91–92, 96, 100, 112,
unbalanced 48 115, 128, 139, 204, 207
configure 87, 96, 101, 204 containment 142, 151
configuring 127 contaminate 33
confiscating 30 contemporary societies 103, 140
conflicts 28, 33, 38, 130, 168, 210 context 2, 7–9, 13, 20, 24, 27–28, 38, 50, 56,
foolish 174 60–61, 66, 81–82, 99, 101, 113, 127, 129,
hypothetical 103 136, 152–53, 156, 159, 172, 175, 182, 187,
institutional 72 190–91
provoking military 14 global 28, 151
regional 210 regional 36
conformation, structural 100 unfavorable 187
confrontation 175 contextualizes 1
expansionist 75 continent 60–61, 75, 176
open 75 continuation 29
confusion, supposed 109 contour 94, 102, 146, 170
conglomerate 211 contraction 74, 146, 157–58, 167
Congress 18, 23, 30, 33, 150, 160, 211 contractionary 146
Index 239
contractor, independent 206 direct 123

contracts 114, 171, 206 intimate 48
collective 171 positive 57, 140, 192
collective labor 57 correspondents 30
interim zero hour 182 cost effectiveness 48
zero hours work 65 costs 18, 33, 36, 38, 64, 133, 153, 159, 176, 179,
contractual relations 157 181, 195, 199–201, 211
contradictions 12, 45, 75, 102, 111, 115, 122–24, annual average 202
128, 163–64, 175, 205 approximate 200
class 174 high 198, 208
deep 28, 123 nationalism at all 27
enduring 112 one-room rental 200
essential 121 wage 137
flagrant 178 counter 1
fundamental 133 counteract 9, 27–29, 43, 83, 93, 95, 128, 131,
initial 49 142, 153, 159, 175, 177, 191, 210
particular 74 counteracting 28, 76, 132, 135, 155, 169, 181
contraposition 123 counteract mercosur 77
contravening 169 counterinsurgency 32, 47, 71, 73
contribution, original 52–53 counterinsurgent 87
contributions 45 counterweight, collective 170
fundamental 52, 59, 132 counties 31–32, 200
control 8, 51, 70–72, 164 countries
achieved total 22 advanced 2, 8, 10–11, 62, 64, 82, 84, 89, 92,
social 129 96, 109, 128, 138, 140, 204, 208
social metabolic 122 backward 51
control mode 122 central 111
controversy 59 complex 28
conventions 143 computerized 145
convergence 109 core 136
conversion 54, 57, 67, 84, 91–92, 96, 113, 128, emerging 68
133, 171, 173, 178, 204 importing 54
cooperation 44, 75, 171 industrialized 35, 54–55, 65, 138,
antagonistic 47, 53, 75 180, 182
core capital countries 135 largest 49
core capitalist countries 135 low-wage 18, 186
core imperialist nations 1 oecd 65, 145, 182
Coriat 34 peripheral 135
Cormack 195 progressive 69
corn-flakes 202 semi-colonial 81
corollaries 133 sovereign 14
corollary, following 57 underdeveloped 30, 38, 66, 108, 110–11,
corporate organs 72 155, 188
corporate profits 188 under-developed 29
corporations 13, 55, 125 undeveloped 137
trans-national 136 countries block 128
Correa, Rafael 61 countries-dependent countries,
correlation 57, 61, 112, 134, 185, 205 advanced 102
analytical 134 country music concert 25
240 Index
coups 25, 73, 131 cycle 85, 90, 130, 146, 153, 164
failed 60 commercial 57
institutional 74 dominant 138
parliamentary-institutional 26 economic 18, 65, 67, 116, 146, 160, 164, 182
recent parliamentary 15 global 18
soft 61 perverse 125
covert employment relationships 180 productive 8, 136
credit 143, 154 revolutionary 69
subjects of 146 secular 19, 78
credit insolvency problems 163 vicious 130
crimes, committing 32 cycle peak 191
criminal and security State 155 Cyprus 162
crisis 2, 16, 18–19, 21, 24–27, 46, 48–49, 60,
64, 68, 80–81, 93–95, 97, 111, 113, 119, 123, daca 31, 33
125–26, 138, 140–42, 145–47, 149–50, extinguishing 32
152–54, 157, 159–60, 163, 168, 170–72, 174, daca protection 31
178–79 Daesh 22
constant 124 Dakota Access Pipelines 33
deep 21, 74, 158, 163, 170 damage Mexico-US relations 21
environmental 171 damages 33
global 160 danger 2, 21, 23, 129, 169
great 151 Davos 157
historical 142 day ex-ante 175
individual 173 death 152, 173
monetary 21 debt 159–60
permanent 169 external 158
political 25 global 158
previous 154 national 151
recurrent 93 debt crisis 137
subprime 160 decadence 19, 22, 26, 113, 126
terminal 60 declaration 23
crisis deepens 158 Déclin 158
crisis phase 147 de-commodification 156
critics claim 53 decomposition, ergonomic 56
Croatia 180 decree 29, 31, 33
cross-border bridge, solid 135 interventionist 15
Cruz, Nikolas 25 de facto government 75
crystallizing 77 defeat, complete 22
Cuba 23, 70, 76–77, 158 defender 14
Cuban revolution 69 defense 8, 14, 22, 29, 170
Cueva, Agustín 104–5, 107 defense budget 30
Cueva’s contributions 105 defenselessness 31
culmination 132 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals 31
cultural unification 77 deficit 36, 148, 195, 202–3
Current Employment 194 financial 151
Current minimum salary 193 fiscal 163
Customs Enforcement 32 growing 145, 148, 158
Customs Office 32 strong fiscal 21
cutting-edge technologies 56, 130 definiteness 153
Index 241
deformations 169 dependency category 47, 117

degradation, consequent 174 dependency relations 102, 110
degree 49, 99, 114, 134, 170 socio-political 111
deindustrialization 102, 146 dependency theorists 105
Delgado 157 dependency theory 1, 22, 43, 47, 52–53, 58,
demagoguery 19, 187 62, 80, 97, 104–5, 116–17, 131, 205
democracy 69–71, 79, 86, 153 new 109
bourgeois 25 updating 109
era of 155 updating of 109
full 72 dependency thesis 53
parliamentary 70 dependent areas 74
representative 73 dependent capitalism 9, 17, 50–51, 58, 66, 73,
restricted 69 82, 85–86, 88–90, 95, 108, 116–17, 136, 208
viable 71–72 dependent capitalism system 88
Democratic Administration 14 dependent capitalist formation 90, 95
Democratic administrations, previous 12, 17 dependent capitalist reproduction
Democratic candidate 15, 21–22 patterns 63, 73
democratic freedoms, essential 72 dependent countries 2–3, 8, 10, 45, 48–49,
Democratic Party 12, 14–15, 23 54, 63, 67, 81, 102–4, 109–11, 113, 115–17,
Democratic Party and Obama 15 127–28, 130–31, 133, 136–38, 157, 204
Democratic Party leadership 15 labor force of 108, 110
Democratic presidents 16 largest 49
democratic-representative type 71 underdeveloped 107
democratic restoration 71 dependent countries of Latin America 141,
democratization 61, 73 177
Democratization Process 69 dependent economies 10, 47–48, 50–52,
democrats 12, 14, 23, 26 54–55, 66–67, 80, 82, 84, 86, 90–92, 95,
demolishing 122 102, 107–8, 111–12, 114–15, 127, 130–32,
demonstration effect 148, 163, 178 135, 146, 168
demonstrations, open 24 dependent Latin American countries 135
denominate excess 150 dependent primary-exporting countries 136
Denvir 152 dependent self-employment 180
Department 8, 27, 31, 160 dependent state, contemporary 69
Department of Labor 199 depersonalization 173
dependence 45, 47, 49, 53, 58, 62, 74, 76, 85, deployment 9, 13, 45, 136
87, 89, 91, 103, 105, 112–13, 115, 126, 131, large-scale 112
140–41 restricted 132
expanded reproduction of 47, 52 depoliticization 176
new 67, 85 deportation 14, 31–32
structural 53, 55, 58, 60, 63, 76, 87 deposits, exacerbated 172
technological 57 depression 153, 172
theory of 52, 66, 68, 86, 104–5, 113, 210 great 27, 160, 182
dependence envisage 63 depressive wave 152
dependency 45–47, 58–59, 62, 78, 104, 109, long 152
113, 117, 126, 128, 145, 210 deregulate 175, 179
definition of 47, 62 deregulation 1, 57, 110, 114, 129, 146, 155,
extinguished 49 170–71, 177, 205, 211
dependency analysis 86 financial 130
dependency articulates 48 deregulation policies 144
242 Index
Derivative financial products 145 Dialectics of Dependency articulates 48

derivatives, preventing 130 dictatorial 73, 156
design 8 dictatorships 69–71, 73
illusory 14 Dierckxsens 10
destitution 81 dimensions 1, 7, 57–58, 95, 139
destruction, asset 163 productive 53, 63, 163
de-structuring 178 disaster 37
detention 32 disintegration 45, 68, 129, 134, 142, 173, 178
internal 32 dismantling 59, 129, 142, 150, 209
deterioration 19, 39, 205 dismeasure 93–94, 121, 125, 129, 136, 147, 210
accelerated 186 disseminates 135, 175
Deutsche Bank 145 distribution 50, 108, 134
devaluation 94, 153 divergences 104, 107, 110, 195–96
strong technological 10 diversity, great 107, 172
devaluations, increasing 145 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform 163
developed capitalist-imperialist dollars 17, 21, 145, 159, 189, 200
countries 93 domain 124, 149, 177
developed countries 11, 48, 51, 53, 82–83, 136, exclusive 44, 138
146, 156, 172, 188, 190, 211 domestic markets, developing 53
Developing Asia 161 domination 7, 69, 73, 79, 136, 146, 153–54
developing countries 53, 63, 137, 180 financial 144, 147
Developing economies 183 modes of 47, 108
development 9, 13, 19, 27, 44, 46, 49–54, 61, periphery/center 136
67, 70, 76, 78, 86, 90, 92, 96–97, 101–2, domination system 26, 69
126–27, 129–31, 134, 136, 138, 141, 143, 154, Dominican Republic 188
158–59, 165, 170, 172, 174 Dow Jones 159
advanced 58 Draitser 16–17
combined 90 dreamers 31
contemporary 129 dumping 188
degree of 109 duration 114, 153, 164, 198
dependent 51 Dussel 109, 133
economic-social 168 Dutch citizens 142
general 179 dynamic core 35
historical 13, 127 dynamics
imperialism’s 25 changing 56
long-term 164 class recomposition 176
material 123 internal 18, 138
productive 127
scientific 212 Earth 13, 196
scientific-technical 97, 101, 175 Eastern Asia 183
scientific-technological 63, 101, 126, 135 Eastern Bloc 137
unequal 7–8 Eastern Europe 137, 183
developmentalists 107 eclac 70, 136, 145
devices, flexible 57, 66 economic activity 148, 160
dialectic 90, 102, 134 economic conditions, current 185
dialectical 95, 107 economic crisis 27, 38, 43, 76, 115, 131, 171,
Dialectics of Dependence 45, 87, 91 177, 198, 211
Dialectics of Dependency 46–47, 59, 128 current global 74
Index 243
economic growth 65, 68, 77, 140, 142, 148, electricity 202–3
150, 153–54, 156, 164, 185, 190 electronics 55, 128
low rates of 2, 93, 144 elimination 37, 163
economic level 67 elucidation 88
economic output 160 Emerging Asian Economies 106
Economic Policy Institute 197, 203, 205 Emmanuel 127
economic reductionism 52 empire 44, 117
Economic Report 160 empirical evidence 66, 86
economic-social formations 11, 109, 126–28 employees 106, 162, 172–73, 198–99, 206
dependent 96, 127 employers 169, 177, 180, 196, 205–6
economic ultranationalism 188 employment 58, 65, 114, 129, 135, 165, 170–71,
economies 2, 7–8, 10–11, 21, 48–50, 52–53, 179–80, 185–86, 197
57–58, 68, 121, 128, 130, 133, 136, 145, 152, atypical 180–81
159, 161, 163–64, 176, 179, 183, 186, 191–92 industrial 156–57
advanced 50, 80, 103, 115, 135, 161, 182–83, manufacturing 36, 195
190 precarious 58, 172
backward 103 temporary 151, 173, 179–81, 198, 211
central 93, 128 end of work, theories of the 122
dependent exporting 141 environment 2, 117, 150, 155, 163, 166, 169
developed 105, 183, 205 equality 79, 85
dynamic 165 equalization 83
emerging 137, 183 Europe 28, 35, 45–46, 57, 65, 75, 78, 137, 141,
extractivist 67 158, 161, 163, 167, 172
financial 152 southern 142, 186
free market 19 European economies 142, 158
global 1, 68, 142, 157, 164 European Union 65, 81, 86, 136–37, 142,
imperialist 113, 117 144–45, 172, 180, 182, 190
industrial 28 Eurostat 182
informal 171 Euro Zone 65, 182
integrated 51 exchange 50, 83, 88, 114, 129, 165, 196
international 9, 52, 82, 128, 152 unequal 47, 53, 63, 67–68, 107–9, 127, 135
low-wage 111, 117 exchange rates 154, 163
mono-exporting 49 Executive Orders 1, 12, 29, 32–33, 36
national 130, 155 exhaustion 34, 154, 163, 173
neolithic 100 expansion 10, 17, 27, 51, 74, 90, 127, 135, 140,
new 122, 156, 163–65 145, 153, 164, 173
peripheral 112 expenses 17, 58, 114, 128, 148, 200, 209
productive 116 explanations 20–21, 90, 98, 113, 115, 131, 133,
real 152, 163 195
speculative 163 exploitation 8–9, 18–19, 43, 45, 48, 50–51,
underdeveloped 107 54–55, 79, 81, 84–85, 89, 91–94, 96, 98,
Ecuador 26, 61, 77, 210 100–103, 105, 108, 111, 113–14, 116–17, 126,
education 155, 171, 194, 197, 202 128, 140, 142–43, 148, 151, 177, 185–86,
Education Survey 198 188, 207
Egypt 107, 109 degree of 98–99, 128
elections 15, 21–22, 26, 60, 73 exploitation of labor 2, 7–8, 43–44, 50,
presidential 15, 20, 23 52–53, 65, 74, 113, 117, 160
Electoral College 15, 20, 22 exports 36, 56, 67–68, 74, 95, 141, 143, 145, 158
244 Index
expropriation 13, 50, 84, 91, 95–96, 112–13, financial mechanisms 76

191, 204, 206 financial organisms 7, 19
extension 1–2, 7, 11, 30, 38, 43–44, 48, 52, 64, financial preeminence 152
82–84, 115–16, 121, 128, 141, 147, 154, 162, financial systems 8, 56, 154, 160
167, 178, 204–5, 207, 210 Financial Times 188
extinction 2, 19, 38 financial transactions 145
extraction 65, 108, 115, 124 findings 158, 206
extraordinary profits 1, 10, 18, 66, 83, 91, 94, Finland 162
110, 125, 129, 147, 186, 188 fiscal exemption 151
Extraordinary Summit 77, 158 flexibilization 8–10, 19, 53–54, 56, 63, 110, 114,
129, 146, 159, 169, 171
factories 17–18, 34, 55, 57, 163 flexible automation 34, 153, 172
Faculty 47 food stamps 196
Fajnzylber 131 Forbes 37
Fal 144, 166 forces 12–13, 22, 26, 30, 55, 61, 63, 112–13, 127,
Faletto 47, 130 151, 155–56, 158, 164, 169, 204–5, 209
Federal Reserve 130, 159 armed 69–71
Felix 108 market 129, 179
fictitious 146, 149 social 62, 169
fictitious capital 8, 13, 19, 115, 123, 125, 129–30, terrorist 22
140, 143, 145–47, 149, 152, 156, 163, 167 Ford 18, 35, 162
favored 160 Fordism 45, 111, 140, 170, 177
international 46 peripheral 111
prevalence of 94, 136, 150, 210 Fordism-Taylorism 153
fictitious capital scheme 145 Fordist factories 132
fictitious capital swings, new 166 Fordist-Taylorist systems 49, 55
fictitious earnings 144, 148 forecasts 83, 162
fictitious levels 156 foreign policy 23
fictitious profits 143, 149–50 formation 56, 82, 107, 141
concomitant 123 forms
Fictitious Regime 147 concrete 62, 96
fictitious type 12 dominant 51, 111, 123, 177
figureheads, public 14 modified 134
financial assets 125, 145 new 43, 76, 117, 168, 175
counted 145 particular 11, 51, 83, 94
financial balances 160 formulas 72, 98, 143
financial bodies 64 Formulation Level 58
financial capital 21–22, 27, 129–30, 144, 146, foundation 89, 92, 95–96, 98, 100
149–50, 154 Fourth Estate 69, 73
big 58 Fourth Power 69, 72, 155
global 130 fracture 169, 178–79
speculative 12, 130 fragmentation 26, 104, 114, 159, 174–75, 177,
financial crises 146, 156, 191 179
current 46, 157 social 168, 174, 178
financial dominion 144 framework 1, 7, 45, 69, 76, 99, 108, 116, 121,
financial institutions 152 127, 168, 170
international 143 general 47, 74
financialization 121, 145 theoretical-methodological 62, 80
financial liberalization 129 unalterable 20, 27
Index 245
France 8, 13, 24, 68, 74, 88, 107, 110, 122, 136, Great Britain 65, 137, 157, 181–82
141–42, 157, 161–62, 180–82, 184, 207 Greece 64, 107, 137, 142, 146, 162, 167, 170,
France Telecom 173 186
free markets 16–17, 28, 129, 154 gross domestic product, real 161–62
Free Trade Agreement 20, 30, 38, 55, 211 groups, environmental 2, 33
French structuralism 104 growth 36, 55, 63, 65–66, 93, 148, 151, 155,
Friedman, Milton 46 160, 163–66, 182, 193–95, 197, 204, 211
fta 38, 130, 188 annual 187
ftaa 77, 188 net 193, 195
functions 1, 9, 32, 51, 56, 129, 148, 156, 170, 172, relative 9, 196
174, 177, 181, 205 Growth of labor productivity 190
fund, public 155–56 growth rates 27, 147–48, 151, 156, 161–62, 191
economic 68, 143, 158, 190
G20 183 low 74, 166
Gallup 198 Grundrisse 2, 111, 114, 121, 126, 133, 153
gdp Guamán 143
real 190 guarantees 9, 27, 70, 77, 106, 159, 165–66, 211
total 145 Guarimbas 60–61
gdp growth 148 Guillén 122, 164
General Motors 35–36, 162 Gunder Frank 62, 74, 108, 127, 141, 204
generation 36, 45, 62, 100, 149 Guyana 77
geopolitics, global 16–17
geopolitics of super-exploitation 8, 11 Habermas 1, 66
Germany 8, 12–13, 24, 35, 68, 74–75, 88, 107, Haine 15, 62
136–37, 141–42, 157, 160–62, 167, 172, 184, Harvey 63, 140, 143, 166, 181
207 hasten 53, 78
global capitalism 52, 138, 140 health 99, 155, 181, 197, 202
globalization 13, 19, 55–56, 64–65, 67, 83, health insurance 151, 203
129, 135, 153, 156, 159, 170–71, 175 hegemonic 8, 44, 51–52, 67, 116, 125, 131–32,
process of 55, 121 137, 168, 177
Globalization of Imperialism 140 hegemonic capitalist countries 8, 109
gm 18, 160 hegemonic category 50, 97
Goldstein 15 hegemonic centers 88, 127
Goodman 180, 182, 200 hegemonic media 14, 29
goods 8, 35, 37, 48, 54, 56, 89, 95, 101–2, 106, hegemonic regime 50, 131, 170, 207
111, 128, 132, 135, 139, 163–64, 186, 201, hegemony 8, 10, 28, 50, 55, 76, 116, 126, 130,
207–8 146–47, 151–52, 158, 170, 207, 212
primary 67, 141 Hegemony of Relative Surplus Value and
standardize 83, 129 Super-exploitation 126
Gould 203 heterogeneity 170–71
government 2, 22–23, 25, 38, 60–61, 69, 75, Higginbottom 104, 136
77, 137, 150, 159–60, 162–63, 167, 172, 185, highlights 1, 7, 51, 55, 86, 102, 131, 181, 195, 202
194 high rates 18, 177
constitutional 23, 61 High School 194
federal 21, 199 Hispanic 21, 211
legitimate 22, 74 historical reality 43, 78
progressive 26, 60–61 history 19, 26, 60, 77, 79, 82, 122, 132, 134, 141,
Government Report 189 153, 158
Gramsci 121, 175 end of 63, 153, 156
246 Index
Hodgson 16 income 17, 49, 66, 86, 145, 164, 192, 195–97,
homogenization, technological 66, 83, 129 200, 202–4, 208, 211
Honduras 15, 64, 73 concentration of 66–67, 86
horizon 45, 94, 124, 176 income distribution 149, 197
hourly wages 107, 186–87, 193, 196, 201 incorporation 129–30, 133, 138, 159, 170
household 203 independence 53, 63, 75, 141–42
houses, two-bedroom 200–201 India 24, 68, 106–7, 151, 158, 165, 184
housing 19, 99, 155, 201, 203, 208 indicators 107, 145, 184–85
Housing Problem 199 individualism, uncritical 173, 179
human beings 66, 122 individualization 170–71
humanity 2, 9, 14, 20, 24, 57, 71, 79, 155, 163 Indonesia 106, 162, 184
Hyundai 35 industrialization 7, 49, 130, 138
import substitution 55, 131
ice 32 industrialized centers, large 57, 131
ideological apparatuses 176 industrial reserve army 51
ideologies, dominant 174 industrial revolution 44–45, 50, 53, 111, 127,
ignominy 30–31, 197, 211 132, 134
ilo 171, 173, 180, 182, 184–87 great 131, 212
imbalances 111–12, 157–58 industry 18, 34–36, 51, 110, 141, 162–63, 165,
recurrent 68, 86 189
imf 17, 19, 26–27, 81, 130, 137, 144, 153 great modern 65, 132
immigrants 12, 16, 21, 29, 32–33, 198, 203, 210 national 35, 37–38
undocumented 20, 30, 32 terminal 34, 36
immigrant workers 197, 201 inegi 184
immigration 18, 20–21, 32–33, 111 inequality 103, 170–71, 180, 195, 197
immigration agents 31–32 inflation 148, 154, 163–64, 176, 194, 198,
immigration laws 32 208
immigration reforms 22, 150 initiative 37, 72, 76–77
imperialism 1, 5, 13, 20, 25–26, 47, 60, 64, 75, initiative of Cuba and Venezuela 77, 158
97, 140, 144, 154, 207 innovations, technical 35, 51, 197
imperialism countries 81 insecurity 21, 169
imperialist 46, 75, 156 instability 170, 205
imperialist capitalism 13, 103 institutionalization 71–72
imperialist countries 81–82, 95, 97, 105, 110, institutions 17, 113, 165, 169
112, 115, 136, 138, 150, 207 instrument 76, 89, 92, 178
imperialist policies 20, 151 insufficiency 107, 201
Imperialist Praxis 12–13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, integration 75–77, 207
27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39 intellect, general 114, 121
imperialist project 22, 28 intellectuals 20, 45
imperialist system 13–14, 21, 24, 26, 140 organic 174, 205
imperialist war 154, 163 intensification 8, 44, 50, 66, 82–84, 92,
Imperial Presidency 13, 20, 26, 211 96–97, 101, 112, 132, 204
implementation 10, 25, 56, 121, 124, 144, 211 intensity 83, 86, 91, 96, 99, 111, 114, 129,
Importance and Validity of Dependency 131–32, 170, 204
Theory 52 lesser 27, 39
imports 36–37, 49, 55, 138 intensity of work 44, 91, 132
improvement 38, 56–57, 149, 164, 170, 182, interaction 101
192, 196 inter-Americanism 76
incessant 115, 138 inter-capitalist competition 12, 125, 129
Index 247
interests 7–8, 12–14, 16, 18, 20, 27, 29, 36–37, Keynesianism 140, 177
58, 61, 68, 76, 78, 88, 144, 146, 156, 169, Keynesians 9, 46, 103, 106, 147, 155
171, 174, 187 kilometers 30
class 11–12, 21, 159 Kimball 195
strategic 22, 211 Korean Peninsula 13, 210
international capital, great 27, 146 Kreye 111
international division 51, 117 Ku Klux Klan 24, 29
new 67
internationalization 8, 110, 144 labor 2, 7–10, 18–19, 43–45, 49–54, 56–57,
International Labor Organization 66, 171, 64–65, 68, 74, 80, 86–89, 94, 101, 106,
173, 180, 186 108, 111, 113, 117, 122–23, 126–27, 134–35,
international levels 35, 38, 61, 73, 103, 115, 144 143, 153, 156–57, 159–60, 168–72, 176–78,
International Monetary Fund 9, 25, 28, 46, 189, 191, 199–200, 203, 205
148, 160, 162 international division of 7, 56, 67, 75, 95
international relations 27, 55, 159, 210 new international division of 67
international trade 74, 115, 166 super-exploitation of 9, 48–52, 54, 63,
inter-professional levels 54, 56 65–67, 80–82, 84–86, 107, 112, 116–17,
intervention 93, 121, 123, 154 140–41, 143, 145, 147, 149, 154, 181, 207
intense 8, 19 wage 126, 175
invasions 13–14 world of 8–10, 19, 38, 53, 56, 117, 119, 154,
investment funds 125, 145 157, 169, 171, 210–11
investments 13, 18, 28, 49, 51–52, 55, 74, labor and capital 2, 11, 98, 113, 116, 123, 157,
124–25, 135–36, 140, 146, 179 174, 205
investors 144 labor contract 170, 177
Iran 33, 151, 158 labor costs 1, 10, 186, 205
Iraq 13–14, 22, 33, 134, 154, 210–11 labor deregulation 19, 159
Ireland 107, 137, 162 labor flexibility 19, 57, 177–78, 211
Iron Lady 137, 178 labor flexibilization 56
Islamic State 14, 22, 211 labor force 1–2, 7–10, 19, 45, 50, 52–56, 58,
Israel 23–24 63–66, 80, 82–89, 91–92, 94–106, 108–13,
Italy 141–42, 146, 161–62, 172, 182, 184, 186 115–17, 121, 123–24, 126, 128–29, 131–33,
135–39, 142–43, 145–48, 155–57, 167–69,
Japan 8, 12, 24, 29, 35, 54, 65, 74, 81, 86, 88, 175–77, 181–83, 185–89, 191, 193, 199–210
106, 114, 142, 144, 157, 159, 161, 167, labor-force 87–88, 93–94
180–83, 190, 207 value 94, 208
Japanese origin 8, 34, 55 labor laws 143, 209
Job Insecurity 179 labor markets 52, 56, 114, 129, 171–72, 180, 185
job performance 9, 198 labor organizations 159, 175, 177
jobs 9, 18, 21, 26, 38, 148, 160, 162, 172, 176, labor power 43, 63, 86–87, 99–100, 121–22,
182, 185–86, 195, 208 135, 155–56, 176
manufacturing 194–95 labor processes 130, 138, 169, 175
part-time 171, 180 labor productivity 44–45, 52, 54, 56, 83, 91,
temporary 185 102, 111, 127–28, 131, 190, 192, 198
Juárez 18 labor reality 44, 106, 176
juicy profits 18, 25 labor reforms 57, 143, 172, 177, 179
labor relations 116, 169, 171
Kant 89 labor rights 10, 18–19, 141, 170, 174–75, 209
Katz 104–11, 113–16 labor standards 114
Keynes 46 Labor Statistics 185, 194, 198
248 Index
labor systems 10, 39, 93 Maduro, Nicolás 61

labor theory 63, 130 magnitude 74, 96, 99–100, 123, 166, 170
labor time 101, 106, 128 maintenance 73, 86, 100, 146, 211
necessary 55, 64, 83, 85, 98, 100, 121, 124, Malaysia 29, 106, 162
126 management 18, 153, 179
labor-value 47, 126 managers 9
large monopolies 10, 147 Mandel 46, 127, 152, 192
Latin America 1, 7, 12, 15, 23, 26–29, 45–46, manifestations 51, 111, 127, 154, 157, 163, 205
48–49, 52–55, 57–58, 60–62, 68–69, manufacturing industry 36, 142, 187–89,
71–75, 81, 87, 97, 102, 105, 126, 131, 135, 193–95
137, 141, 145–46, 162, 167, 170, 177, 182–83, maquiladoras 36, 38
210 Marcuse 21
Latin American 46–50, 55, 58–59, 61, 63, Marini, Ruy Mauro 1, 7, 10, 19, 43, 45–55,
66–67, 69–70, 72, 74, 76–78, 85–87, 93, 58–67, 69–72, 74–78, 80, 82–85, 87–93,
101–2, 104, 127, 141, 143, 145, 158, 186 96–105, 107–15, 126–38, 141, 155, 181–82,
contemporary 58, 68 191, 204, 207, 210
Latin American reality 47, 59, 71 markets 34–35, 44, 48, 56, 86, 129, 135, 158,
Latin Post 186 165, 172
law 2, 25, 44, 46, 61, 95, 97, 104, 121, 126, financial 144, 163, 170
132–33, 135, 155, 168, 172 internal 48, 67–68, 86, 95, 147, 187
general 2, 51, 95 Martins 81, 104, 130–31
leaders 16, 62 Marx 43–44, 46–47, 87–90, 92, 95, 99–101,
leaderships 49, 59 103–4, 106, 111, 114, 121–24, 126, 133, 153,
legitimacy 142, 145 202
Lehman Brothers 46, 160 Marxism 58, 63, 127
Lenin 13, 21, 46, 90, 103, 154 Marxist dependency theory 7, 43, 45, 47–48,
liberation 22, 58 50, 57–64, 68, 74, 80, 89, 91, 103, 114,
Libya 13–14, 33 116–17, 121, 207, 210
life Marxist dependency theory and Marini’s
daily 113, 174 thought 78
political 70, 72 Marxists 13, 154
social 21, 138, 155 Marxist Theory 58, 117
limitations 22, 84, 97, 111 Marxist theory of dependence 91, 115
limits, structural 78, 116 Marxist theory of dependency 58, 104
Lipietz 111 Marxist Theory of Dependency and Marini’s
Lipset 16 Ideas 45
liquidation 47, 130 Marxist thought 47, 58
location 13, 39, 62 Marx’s Theory 43, 99
Long Boom 164 masses 50, 60, 81, 84, 99, 127, 134, 139, 155,
low wages 19, 58, 111–12, 115, 172, 177, 182, 191, 186
196, 198 mass layoffs 160
lumpen-bourgeoisie 67 mass organizations 179
Luxembourg 162, 187 McCormack 157, 185, 194–95
McNicholas 205
Maastricht Treaty 141–42 measures, internal 27, 67
machinery 34, 92, 123, 128 media 20, 25, 32, 163, 165, 174–75, 177–79
machines 34, 123 corporate 20, 151
macro 53, 176 Medicaid 196
Index 249
medium 105, 108–9, 112, 117, 125, 148, 152 Mishel 193–94, 196–97
medium term 151, 175 modalities 65, 74, 85, 95, 99, 115, 132, 147–48,
membership 141 153, 197, 204
merchandise 43, 64, 83, 92, 100, 115, 132, 153, mode 47, 89, 91, 97, 105, 108, 122
155, 199 new 90, 171
mercosur 77 model, new 35, 73
Mészáros 19, 122, 152, 178 modernity, second 170–71
Method of Exploitation in Marx 43 modernization 47, 56, 135–36, 171
methodological 66, 114, 127 moments 83, 153
methodological level 86, 116 Monday 198–99
methodology 48, 74, 184, 203 monetary 7, 57, 144, 152, 165
Mexican border 188 money 16, 30, 87, 100, 143, 153
Mexican Communist Party 104 monopolization 125
Mexican government 77, 184 monopoly 138, 146
Mexican nationality 197 monstrous mechanism 48, 54, 107
Mexican neoliberal 70 Montmollin 56
Mexican oil exports 21 Moreano 105
Mexican pesos 208 movements 57, 62, 94, 110, 113, 124, 132, 148
Mexicans 12, 17–18, 21, 29–30, 32, 37, 188, 211 popular 62, 135
undocumented 20, 31 strong 52, 68
Mexican Senate 2 union 15, 178
Mexican southeast 77 Multidisciplinary Analysis Center 184
Mexican State 21 multinational corporations, large 8, 10
Mexican statistic, official 184 multiple relationships 25, 92
Mexican workers 17–18, 54, 83, 188 Muslims 33
undocumented 29 myths 21
Mexico 3, 17–19, 21, 27, 29–30, 32, 34–38, 47,
49–50, 53–55, 59, 62, 64, 67–68, 75, 102, nafta 17, 26, 30, 34, 36–37, 54–55, 77, 195,
107, 109–10, 131, 141, 147, 156, 162, 167–68, 211
170, 183–89, 195, 207, 211 negotiations of 35, 37
microelectronic technologies 8, 138 Nakatani 130, 149, 156
middle classes 66 narrowness 111–12
Middle East 23, 28, 162, 210 National Autonomous University 47
midst 7, 45, 131, 160 national content 37
migrants 180, 203 National Intelligence Council 28
migrations 65, 110, 125 National Low Income Housing
military 7, 12, 20, 22, 26, 29, 32, 72–73, 143 Coalition 200–201
military caste 71, 73 national security 31–32
military dictatorships 69, 71, 73, 131, 143 National Security Council 71–72
military option 22 nations 22–23, 27, 33, 51, 53, 55, 60, 63, 65,
military power 20, 73, 155, 159 73, 76, 100, 103, 106, 110, 129, 151, 169, 211
military regime 61, 70 dependent 8, 67
military spending 10 imperialist 8, 186
minimum wages 9, 165, 192–93, 199–200, natural sciences 122, 154
208 nature 2–3, 26, 28, 32, 69, 78, 89, 124, 126,
current real 193 147, 153, 156, 165, 172
federal 200–201, 206 conjectural 85, 97
misery 58, 78, 86, 135, 169 necessary work time 50, 56, 84, 125, 133
250 Index
negative effects 63, 151 obsolescence 10

negotiation capacity 78 occupational diseases 173
negotiations 37–38, 60, 174, 188 O’Connor 155
Negri 117, 136 oecd 130, 164
neoclassical 52, 57, 106, 155 Offe 1, 66
neoclassical economics 127 oil 2, 68, 136
neo-Fordism 66, 175 oligarchy 20, 95
neo-imperialism 153 Oliveira 155
neoliberal 25, 49, 63, 67, 85, 135–36, 141–42, operation 13, 29, 37, 56, 89, 163, 208
146–47, 155–56, 170 organization 8, 35, 43, 45, 61, 64, 97, 111, 114,
neoliberal capitalism 57, 70, 147, 168, 170 132, 154, 165, 170–71, 176–77, 207
neoliberalism 1, 9, 16, 19, 27, 55, 61, 63, 102, business 35, 157
129, 135, 149, 152, 154, 156, 170, 174 class 179, 204
neoliberal model 147, 205 international 9, 23, 146
neoliberal phase 1, 80, 150 international financial 144, 181
neoliberal policies 125, 143, 159, 175, 177 Osorio 94, 96–97, 104, 136
Neoliberal State 129 outsourcing 10, 114
Neo-Protectionism 5 Overcoming Dependence 75
Netherlands 162, 180 overdetermines 50–51, 102
networks 56, 140, 169, 171, 178 overexploitation 91, 105
social media 16, 62 overproduction 35, 153
New Peripheries (np) 68, 136, 145 overthrow 15, 22–23, 26, 61, 90
New York 33, 157 overtime 199, 206
New York Times 16, 146
Nicaragua 69, 77, 158 Pacific 29, 184
Nigeria 68, 162 Pakistan 14, 106–7, 151, 162
Nissan 35 Palestine 23
Nixon, Richard 27 Pan-Americanism 75–76
normal conditions 9, 97, 138, 203, 208 Paraguay 15, 73, 77
normality 96, 98, 102–3, 154 parameters 13, 116
North America 37, 55, 137 participation 12, 15, 36, 87, 98, 102, 123–24,
North American 10, 18, 21, 26, 35, 38, 55, 67, 157, 186, 195
75–77, 83, 122, 131, 142, 157, 160, 163, 187, patterns, new 56–57, 159, 164
196–98, 201, 207, 211–12 pauperization 84, 105, 107
North American Crisis 29 payment, balance of 143, 145, 148
North American Free Trade Agreement 26, Pentagon 14, 30
29, 36–37, 77, 195 Pérez 173
Northern Africa 184 period
northern neighbor 29 expansive 69, 141
North Korea 24, 151, 158, 210 manufacturing 44
np (New Peripheries) 68, 136, 145 periodization 44
periphery 62, 74, 89, 107–11, 113, 116–17,
oas 19, 76 134–36, 207
Obama, Barack 12, 14–16, 20, 22–23, 26, 29, new 68, 136, 145
31, 33, 163 perspective, theoretical 43, 62, 80, 84, 127
object 124, 128 Peru 29, 73, 77, 107
objection 93 petras 15, 20, 130, 142, 156, 196
object of study 69, 74 petrocaribe 77
obligation 38, 151 phases 44, 85, 95, 128, 156, 174
Index 251
current 13, 140, 142, 149, 165 postulates 104, 136, 176
phenomena 3, 13, 48, 51, 57, 60, 64, 66, post-war Keynesian scenario 113–14
73–74, 78, 81, 83, 85, 94, 112–14, 122, 125, post-war period, long 49, 64
130, 132, 140, 145–46, 151, 157, 169, 171, 174, post-World War ii period 10, 24, 102, 165
179, 181, 205, 209 poverty 81, 107, 146, 177, 184, 198
human 26, 175 poverty patterns 107
socio-labor 114, 169 power 8, 13, 15–16, 22, 24, 26–27, 38, 45, 47,
Philippines 106, 162 53, 61, 69–73, 75, 123, 130, 139, 142, 147,
Pinto 171, 175 155–56, 176, 211
Piqueras 84, 93–94, 129, 164, 166 dominant 20, 197
plane, political 73, 102 necessary concentration of 73, 86
police 31–32 political 8, 60, 130–31
policies 10, 12–13, 17–19, 25, 28–29, 36, 38–39, Prado 84, 125
131, 142, 146, 148, 153, 155–57, 159, 168, Prebisch 53
171, 196–97 precariousness 9, 19, 81, 112, 157, 168–70, 173,
destabilizing 28 205, 208
economic 25, 56, 67, 70, 85, 141, 156, 160 wage 125
exclusionary 86 Precariousness of Work and
human rights 71 Super-Exploitation 168
international security 8 precarious work 171–72, 174, 177, 205
nationalist 24 Precarious Work and Structural Reforms 171
neoprotectionist 149 precarization 1, 8–10, 19, 28, 65–66, 94, 110,
new antisocial 197 112–13, 119, 125, 141, 143, 146, 159, 168–69,
privatization 57 171–72, 175, 177, 179, 205, 211
protectionist 1–2, 10, 16–18, 27, 39, 151, 211 generalized 104
public 12, 81, 148 monumental 113, 210
restrictive 140 predominance 44, 55, 152, 180
retroactive 9 prelude 117, 134, 154, 163
social exclusion 197 premise 26, 44, 89, 157
structural adjustment 141 prerogatives 12, 169
wage 57 presidency 14–15, 30, 137, 167, 196
policies of capital 144, 153 prices, market 95, 133, 162
political authoritarianism 73, 86 prioritizing 51, 113
Political Category 97 priority 31, 50, 103
political economy 45, 87, 97, 99, 104, 126, private property 64, 176
207 privatization 28, 129–30, 154–56, 177, 179
political systems 9, 12, 141, 147 privileges 47, 51, 73, 159, 171
politicians 7 problems 7, 12, 15, 18, 21, 25, 36, 48, 58, 67,
politics 60 75–76, 81, 83, 86, 89, 104, 111, 114–15,
poorest 137, 152 122–23, 131, 135, 143, 149, 163, 166, 195, 210
population 9, 21, 33, 36, 48, 61, 66, 73, 86, 112, process 7–11, 13, 17, 39, 43, 50, 55–58, 60,
127, 138, 145, 151, 174, 182, 192, 197 64–66, 69–70, 73–74, 78, 80, 82–83, 85,
active 185 105, 108, 112–15, 117, 123, 127, 130, 132, 135,
Portugal 107, 137, 142, 162, 167, 170, 180 141–43, 168–69, 175–76, 179, 207, 210
Portuguese 59 economic 48, 54, 107, 130
position 13, 32, 47, 72, 97, 103, 105, 115, 117, productive 101, 105, 129, 141, 159, 169,
172, 210 174–75, 186
theoretical 116, 210 revolutionary 60
positivism 1, 174 technological 83, 123
252 Index
production 8, 11, 13, 34–36, 38, 43–45, 47–48, prolongation 44, 50, 58, 84, 92, 96–97, 99,
50–51, 55–57, 62, 64, 66–68, 83–84, 101, 132, 204
86–87, 90–94, 96, 99–102, 107–8, 110–11, protectionism 12, 17, 27–29, 38
115–17, 121–28, 131–32, 137–38, 141, 157, protectionist 13, 17, 24
163–64, 175–77, 199–200, 207–8, 212 purchasing power 9, 107, 138, 148, 192, 199,
manufacturing 18, 185 201–2, 204, 208–9
mass 45, 49, 55, 64 real 113, 202
merchandise 49, 51 Putin, Vladimir 16–17, 22–23
mode of 19, 50, 92, 96, 101, 163, 165, 176,
204 qualifications 110, 114, 154
production methods 34, 55 quasi-stagnation 147–48, 165
production modes 126, 138
production of anti-value 83, 153 races 24, 100, 169
production of relative surplus value 8, 10, racists 16, 24–25, 29, 197
44–45, 54, 92–93, 97, 101, 111, 115–17, 123, Ramirez 7, 75
128, 135–37, 168, 207, 212 rate 1, 28, 54–55, 83–84, 89–91, 93–94,
production prices 90, 95, 107, 127, 133 98–99, 124, 128, 132–33, 139, 142–43,
production processes 110, 114, 124 146–48, 151, 153–55, 160, 163, 173, 179,
productive activities 114, 143 181–82, 184–85, 191, 207, 210
productive forces 45, 50, 101, 121–22, 124, 141, tax 151, 154
154 rationalization 56, 142, 177
productive systems 7–8, 51–53, 75, 86, 97, raw materials 34, 49, 64, 143
116, 121, 135, 140, 156–57, 163, 175, 207 Reagan-Bush administration 82
productivity 9, 34–35, 48, 54, 57, 63, 91, 102, Real hourly wage growth 191
105, 107–8, 127–29, 131, 176, 185, 189–90, recession 46, 65, 68, 74, 153, 164, 182, 185, 195,
192–97, 209 199
development of 48, 52, 54 recovery 27, 78, 142, 154, 159–60, 163, 185
net 193 reduction 34, 44, 85, 95, 101, 110, 128, 132, 139,
productivity growth 193–97 166, 174, 176, 179, 182, 185, 207, 211
productivity trajectory 192–93 wage 58, 65, 81, 131, 176, 205
products 13, 15, 27, 37, 91, 137–38, 141, 144, Reevaluation of Marini’s Thought 61
147, 153, 171, 178, 201, 208, 211 reforms 25, 36, 81, 129, 144, 159, 172
essential 198, 203 tax 151–52
gross world 145, 152 regime 11, 51, 61, 69, 71, 73, 79, 85, 89, 108, 115,
primary 68 138, 144, 147, 168, 212
profile, new 67, 85 regional content 37–38
profit 1, 28, 43, 47, 82–84, 93–94, 108, 123–26, regions 13, 18, 23, 26, 35, 37, 46–49, 55, 62,
128–29, 132–34, 142, 146, 148, 153–54, 69–70, 73–77, 136, 138, 145, 169, 171, 186
160, 163, 173, 176–77, 181, 186, 191, 196, regulations 57, 129, 143, 163, 168–69
199, 207, 210 relations 1–2, 7, 23, 27, 34–35, 37, 43, 45, 47,
high 124, 196 51, 75, 86–87, 93, 95, 107, 110–11, 116, 133,
profitability 10, 82, 136, 142–43, 168, 177, 135–36, 147, 150, 166, 168–69, 195,
187 198–99, 205, 210–11
profitable activities 68, 86 relative over-population 107
profit rate 10, 99, 155, 167, 179, 188 relative strangulation 51
progress, technical 48, 53–54, 64 relative surplus value 8, 10–11, 44–45, 48–56,
projections 2, 32, 75, 115, 146, 183–84, 190–91 84, 90–93, 97–98, 101–2, 111, 115–17, 123,
projects 20, 28, 33, 61, 77, 155 126–28, 130–32, 135–38, 146, 168, 185,
proletariat 10, 117, 156 207, 212
Index 253
relative surplus value/ annual minimum 201

super-exploitation 134 low 18, 54, 104, 110, 198
remittances 21 monthly 199
remuneration 84, 91, 95–96, 99, 109, 112, 182, salary amounts 181, 201, 208
189, 193, 195–97, 204, 207–8 Salary and Basic Basket of Consumer 201
low 104, 136 salary scales 56–57, 207
rental housing, price of 200 Salles 61, 70, 74–75
replacement 92, 123, 176 Salvia 81
representatives 27, 46, 61–62, 70, 130, 146, Samir Amin 109
151, 188 Sánchez 38
repression 64, 142–43, 154, 177 sanctions 17, 32
reproduction 10, 44, 55, 63–64, 66, 73, 82–84, Sanders, Bernie 25, 37, 150–151, 182, 195–96
98–99, 117, 121, 124, 126, 138, 145–47, Sandoval 10
155–56, 166, 208 Santa Catarina 59
reproduction of capital 18, 49–50, 68, 90, 111, Sapir 22, 134
116, 132, 136, 143, 155, 166, 169, 177 Saudi Arabia 24, 162
pattern of 68, 144 Sauviat 145
reproduction of labor power 135, 155 Saxe-Fernández 8, 13, 18, 64, 115, 146, 163
reproduction patterns 47, 67, 155 scale, global 7–9, 20, 25, 35, 80, 83, 136, 157
Republican Party 12, 14, 21, 23, 27, 36 Schlesinger 13
resistance 33, 66, 78 science 78, 123–24, 128, 138, 175–76
resources 32, 68, 86, 104–5, 109, 155–56, 164, secretary 14, 85
176 sectors 7–8, 26, 35, 92, 101, 113, 126, 128,
financial 152 131–32, 172, 180, 194, 204
natural 115, 141, 163 economic 143, 180
responsibilities 57, 70, 87 informal 58, 171
resurgence 63 popular 60, 73
return 18, 23–24, 45–46, 62, 67, 70, 73, 93, 112, private 160
143, 147, 149–50, 191 public 129, 180
revolution 35 secular crisis 18, 63, 188
rhetoric 16, 24 security 10, 15, 18, 23, 143, 152, 174, 186
Rifkin 1 internal 32
rights social 9–10, 155
contractual 19, 112 Security Council 16, 23
fundamental 58, 170 segments 58, 103, 141
human 9, 14, 21, 70, 75 self-valorization 84, 154
social 167–68, 172 Selser 26
Roitman 175 semi-peripheries 109, 117
Rousseff, Dilma 74 Senate 14, 23, 38, 151
rulers 25, 27 Sennett 173, 176
rules of origin 37 sentence 54, 146, 156
ruling classes 12, 39, 61, 150 Serra 59, 85, 136
Russia 14, 16–17, 22–24, 151, 158, 161, 210 services 8, 18, 54, 65, 78, 139, 152, 155, 163–64,
177, 208, 211
Saad 198 public 203
Sabadini 144, 149, 156 social 137, 186
salaries 1, 9–10, 21, 34, 56, 94, 98, 100, 106, Shaikh 127, 154, 157, 160, 191
114–15, 129, 132, 135, 145, 170, 181–82, shelters 69, 71, 203
190–92, 197, 199, 201–7 shift 164, 206
254 Index
Singer 104, 137 Southern Cone 67–68, 71

situation 17, 33, 43, 49, 60, 85, 102, 104, 110, Soviet Union 63, 134, 142
115, 128, 148, 158, 167, 169–70, 173–74, extinct 27
179–80, 191, 197–98, 202, 204, 211 spaces 9, 13, 83, 145, 155, 201
skills 110, 170, 182 productive 11, 34
slope, dangerous 83 Spain 64, 75, 107, 137, 141–42, 146, 161–62, 167,
Slovak Republic 162 170, 180, 186
Slovenia 162 specialization 34, 67–68, 73
slowdown 94, 190, 197–98 productive 48, 85–86
Smith, Adam 80–81, 100, 104–05, 136, 186, 191 specificity of super-exploitation 85, 91
Soble 180, 182, 200 speculation, financial 144, 159
social change 60, 178 speeches 16, 24, 211
social formation 46, 58, 74, 90, 101, 121, 176 spending, social 36, 55, 197
social fracture 174–75, 179 spheres 58, 86, 95, 108, 144, 166
socialism 60, 69 financial 125, 159
socialist 59, 70, 90, 103 low 86, 95
socialist bloc 45, 68, 136, 142 productive 66, 86, 115, 149
socialist revolution 90 Sri Lanka 106–7
social metabolism 122 stability, political 72, 77
social metabolism category 122 stagnation 51, 85, 148, 193, 197, 204
social programs 151 economic 28, 53, 148
social reality 175–76 standards, living 192
social relations 2, 11, 44–45, 98, 122, 127, 135, State 13–15, 17, 19, 23, 31–32, 47, 52, 54, 56–58,
137, 168, 207, 212 62–64, 69–74, 77, 86–87, 93, 97, 105, 110,
social sciences 68, 127, 168, 175 112, 135, 139, 141, 143–44, 151, 153–56,
social security systems 19, 129, 150 169–72, 176–79, 181, 189, 196, 200–201
social tension 56, 169, 172–73, 175, 179 counterinsurgency 69, 71
social thought 63, 78 imperialist 10, 20, 178
social value 112–13 national 75, 141
social work 64, 122 normal 93, 96, 98
societies 43, 52–53, 57, 62–63, 66, 78–79, 81, state apparatus 70–71
86, 93, 101, 105, 112, 122–24, 152, 170, 174, state power 70–71
176, 178–79, 205, 208, 210 Stettner 157, 185, 194–95
bourgeois 123, 177 Streeck 129–30, 165
dependent 105, 126 strength 32, 80, 100
socio-labor metabolism 169–70 structural adjustments 177, 179
sociological 52 structural basis 52, 136
sociology 59, 122 structural behaviors 121, 196
Somalia 14, 33 structural conditions 10, 168, 179
Soriano 57 structural crises, recurring 49
Soros, George 46 structural crisis 1–2, 11–12, 149, 152, 210
Sotelo, Adrian 1, 45, 55, 66, 73, 80, 83, 104–5, deep 165
111, 116, 125, 132, 136, 143, 146–47, 156, 165, structural reforms 39, 46, 55–56, 63, 110, 122,
169 132, 135–36, 149, 171–72, 175, 177, 185–88,
source 58, 63, 66, 83–84, 91–92, 100, 106, 110, 191–92, 208
122, 128, 151, 162, 184, 189, 192–94, structure
198–200, 202, 204, 208 changing 34
South Africa 19, 68, 109, 162, 184, 186 economic 43, 162
South American Nations 23, 77 polarized 86, 110
Index 255
polarized production 66, 86 preceded relative 116

productive 48, 54 prevalence of absolute 44, 132
styles 34, 100, 110 producing 89
subcategories 1, 205 production dynamics of relative 126, 138
sub-imperialism 47, 53, 73–74, 85 production of absolute 56, 91–92, 96, 98,
sub-imperialists 74–75 101–2, 111, 199
subject 2, 7, 88, 90, 93, 95, 102, 111, 128, 133, rate of 99
155, 157, 172, 176, 208, 212 subordinated absolute 132
subjectivity 173, 175 transfers of 63, 108
subordination 7, 47, 53, 71, 90, 127, 177 surplus value production 85
Sub-Saharan Africa 162, 184 surplus workers 84
subsidies 10, 174 syllogism 115
subsistence 128, 138, 172 synthesis 26, 104, 150
substance 87, 169 Syria 13–14, 22, 28, 33, 154, 158, 210
succession 153 system 1–2, 8–9, 13, 15, 25–26, 29, 32, 34,
suicides 173 43–44, 64–65, 67, 69, 73, 80, 83–84, 94,
super-exploitation 1–2, 7–11, 19, 39, 41, 43, 121–22, 125, 132, 134–35, 137–38, 146–48,
45, 47–55, 57–59, 61, 63, 65–67, 69, 71, 154–56, 163, 165, 168–69, 174, 177, 210, 212
73, 75, 77, 79–117, 119, 121, 123, 125–29, dependent 48, 51
131–33, 135–40, 142–43, 145–48, 167–68, economic 18, 74, 157, 170
188, 204–8, 210 global 13, 179
extension of 2, 89, 94, 113, 115, 210 social 103, 179
mechanism of 204, 206 systemic crises 28, 45, 121, 146, 174
universalization of 82
super-exploitation category 58, 88, 90, 95, Table 17, 28, 68, 106, 145, 160–62, 166, 182–85,
99, 105, 117, 134 188–90, 193–94, 198–201, 203, 208–9
super-exploitation of work 43, 205 tariffs 17, 37–38
super-exploitation regime 1–2, 8, 10–11, Tasin 151–52, 182, 195
55–56, 80–81, 83–84, 97, 102, 116, 130, Tasini 25, 37, 150, 196
132, 135–36, 144, 157, 175, 204, 209, 211 taxes 17, 21, 30, 36, 151–52, 197
super-exploitation theory 47, 114 Taylorism 45, 169
superiority 16, 51, 87 technological development 44, 49, 54, 57,
supremacy 24, 144, 146, 154, 156, 159 67, 108, 115, 124, 129, 146, 159, 175
surplus 148, 166 technologies, new 52, 54, 64
surplus labor 83, 91, 124, 128, 177 technology 10, 13, 34, 43, 52–53, 123–24, 128,
surplus value 2, 18–19, 43–45, 47, 50–51, 53, 138, 142, 146, 164, 170, 175–76
62, 64–68, 74, 82–83, 88–90, 92–93, 95, Temer, Michel 74
98–101, 107–9, 113, 115–16, 121, 123–24, tendency, marked 73, 186, 193
126–28, 134, 139, 143, 146–47, 152–53, tensions 56, 73, 168–69, 172, 178
155–57, 165, 167, 175–77, 188 territories 2, 7, 9, 11, 13, 25, 155
development of relative 128 national 21–22, 32
extracting 81 Thatcher, Margaret 137
extracting absolute 44 Theoretical Controversies 80–81, 83, 85, 87,
extraordinary 51, 94, 111 89, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103, 105, 107,
hegemony of relative 11, 132, 138 109, 111, 113, 115, 117
highest possible 134 theory 43, 45–46, 49, 59, 62, 69, 74, 78, 97,
increasing 85 101, 104–5, 109, 113, 116, 126–27, 134, 152,
method of production of relative 44–45, 156, 207
135 threshold 174, 177–78
256 Index
totality 26, 44, 74 United States Department of Labor 199–200

total unemployment 183–84 United States Minimum 199
Toussaint 136–37 United States Senate 30
Toyotism 55, 66, 82, 171, 175–76, 178 universalization 2, 8, 55, 64, 82, 96–97, 129,
flexible 8, 45, 123 143
trade 195 universities 59
trade agreement 36 ups 182, 196
trajectory 127, 164, 191 US 14, 17, 20, 25, 31, 151, 160
transfers 23, 51, 63, 65, 82, 89, 136, 206 US capitalism 2, 164
transformation 58, 60, 82, 89, 176 US dollars 199, 208
transition 34, 49–50, 57, 70, 111, 127, 129–30, US economy 18, 37, 163–64
164 US government 23, 77, 159–60, 167
translation 60, 71, 78, 131 US imperialism 27, 75, 158
transnational companies 49, 172 US interests 17, 26, 38, 77
transnational corporations 35, 57, 77, 135 US labor force 199
large 76, 136, 156 US Salary History 191
transportation 202–3, 208 ussr 69, 178
treasury 85, 135, 144, 159–60
Trente Glorieuses 158, 165, 181 Valenzuela 16, 124–25, 130, 148
Trump, Donald 1, 2, 12, 15, 17–18, 24–25, validity 44, 64, 105, 112
27–33, 37–38, 30, 146, 149, 151–52, 157, Validity of Dependency Theory 52
167, 197, 210–11 valorization 85, 93, 108, 143, 188
value 43, 50, 52–54, 56, 62–63, 66, 81–84,
Ukraine 16, 162, 210 87–96, 99–101, 103, 105–9, 112–13, 116, 121,
underdevelopment 47, 52, 58, 102, 140–41 123–25, 127–30, 132–34, 136, 139, 145–47,
underemployment 9, 170 150, 152, 155–57, 164–65, 175–78, 194, 199,
undocumented people 14 201–4, 207–8, 210
unemployment 9, 19, 65, 81, 84, 86, 115, 137, law of 2, 8, 43–44, 55–56, 64, 82–83, 90,
146, 163–64, 171–73, 177, 181–82, 184 94–95, 98–100, 106, 113, 129, 133, 135, 155
mass 125, 174 new 98, 167
open 58, 173, 182, 184 real 48, 54, 91, 128, 135, 208
unemployment figures 181, 184 total 94, 112
unemployment rate 65, 164, 182–85 transfer 67, 109, 127, 143
official 162, 211 transfer of 47, 67, 82, 92–93, 95, 108
Unemployment rate and total transfers of value and surplus 68, 74, 90,
unemployment 183–84 95, 107–8, 146
Unequal Exchange and use 87–88, 97, 101, 122
Super-Exploitation 107 Vasapollo 141, 145, 171–72, 176
unionization 1, 179 Vasconcellos 46, 59, 62
unions 139, 165, 169, 174, 178–79, 204 vehicles 37, 131, 177
United Kingdom 24, 146, 161, 184 Veltmeyer 142, 156–57
United States 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12–33, 35–38, Venezuela 15, 23, 26, 60–61, 69–70, 77, 146,
45–46, 54, 57, 60–63, 68, 73–77, 81–82, 158, 210
86, 106–7, 110–12, 143–46, 149–52, Venezuelan people 15, 61
157–61, 163–64, 167–68, 180–82, 184–88, Vergopoulos 157–58
190–91, 193, 195–99, 201–4, 206–7, Vietnam 27, 29, 106, 162
209–11 Violation and expropriation of salary 191,
United States and Canada 55, 77, 188 204
United States and Japan 35, 65, 142, 190 violence 21, 25, 60–61
Index 257
Virginia 25, 201 131–32, 134–36, 138, 140, 142, 150–51,

Vitale 48 168–79, 181–82, 185, 198–200, 204–7
votes, popular 15 annual 198
vulnerability 169, 205 necessary 83, 98–99, 101, 124, 204
part-time 180, 198
wage differentials 19 precariousness of 1, 169, 171, 173, 175, 177,
wage divergences 105 179, 181, 183, 185, 187, 189, 191, 193, 195,
wage earners 203 197, 199, 201, 203, 205, 207, 209
wage growth 187 salaried 168, 177
real 187 temporary 82, 179–81
wage levels 138 unpaid 180, 206
wage relation 205 work and social tension 56, 169
wages 10, 12, 17–18, 56, 81, 84–85, 89, 98, 100, work contract 170, 206
112–13, 129, 131, 140–42, 148, 151, 154, 176, workday 99, 198
181, 186, 192, 196–97, 202, 205–9 workers 9, 17–19, 34, 36, 38–39, 48, 50,
determination of 56 54–58, 62–66, 78, 81, 83, 87–88, 91–92,
insufficient 204 94–103, 105, 110–12, 114, 121–24, 128–29,
miserable 196 131, 135–38, 147–49, 160, 167–70, 172–73,
period average manufacturing 186 175–82, 185, 195–202, 204–8
promised 206 full-time 181, 198–200, 206
reduced 112, 162 greater exploitation of 48, 54
reducing 142 migrant 20, 141
stagnant 211 permanent 180–81
stagnation of 57, 197 real wages of 82, 160, 191
wage slavery 78 salaried 103, 192
wage structure 188 temporary 180–81
wage theft 205–6 typical 193, 197, 201
wall 29–30, 32–33 undocumented 12, 21, 29–30, 33, 150, 211
Wallerstein’s world system analysis 117 wages of 197, 206
wall of ignominy 30–31, 197, 211 work force 9, 34, 50, 66, 87–88, 92, 96, 98,
Wall Street 14–15, 130, 150 105, 107, 110, 113, 166, 199, 202, 211
Walmart 196 workforce 28, 45, 49, 66, 73, 83, 97, 109–10,
war 10, 13–14, 22–23, 25–28, 158 121, 123–24, 129, 176, 181
civil 25, 60 working classes 10, 12, 55, 66, 102–4, 108, 112,
Washington 16, 21, 24, 37, 72, 75, 201 115, 117, 126, 131, 137–38, 142, 150, 169, 172,
Washington Consensus 63, 70, 156, 178 174–76, 178–79, 201, 203, 205, 210
waters 33, 155, 202 white 12, 150
wealth 123–24, 164 working day 44, 50, 58, 84–85, 91–92, 96–97,
production of 123, 145 99, 101, 132, 198, 204
Weil, Simone 122 working hours 2, 206
welfare state 21, 28, 112, 129, 141, 159, 170–71, working populations 175, 186
178–79 working time 81, 91, 122–23, 132, 204
Western Europe 54, 130, 159, 184 work organization 8, 82, 175
White House 14, 16, 26, 30, 37, 160 workplace 56, 114
Wolff 12, 15 work processes 2, 9–10, 44, 55–57, 121, 154,
women 79, 169, 174, 180 178–79
work 1–2, 9, 28, 30–31, 34–35, 43–45, 51–57, World Bank 9, 25, 28, 130, 144, 148, 153
59, 63–66, 80–81, 87–88, 90–92, 94–97, world capitalism 2, 90, 102, 110, 127, 140, 158,
100–103, 106, 108, 110–14, 122–25, 128–29, 210
258 Index
world capitalist economy 2, 82, 88, 125, 152 world system 134, 136, 210
world capitalist system 132, 156 world trade 29, 166
World Economic Forum 157 World War 28, 140
World Economic Outlook 162 World War ii 27, 34, 55, 76, 114, 163, 191
world economy 2, 10, 29, 66, 68, 74, 83, 85, Worth Saving 194
95, 125, 128, 136, 142, 145, 157–58, 165, 181, wto 129, 166
197
world market 9, 48, 50, 53, 67–68, 75, 86, 95, Yemen 14, 33
102, 107, 109–10, 129, 132, 136–38, 166–67 Yudken, Joel S. 157, 185, 194–95
world scale 19, 66, 83, 153

United States in A World in Crisis - The Geopolitics of - Adrián Sotelo Valencia - 2019 - BRILL - 9789004415652 - Anna's Archive

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

United States in A World in Crisis - The Geopolitics of - Adrián Sotelo Valencia - 2019 - BRILL - 9789004415652 - Anna's Archive

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

United States in A World in Crisis - The Geopolitics of - Adrián Sotelo Valencia - 2019 - BRILL - 9789004415652 - Anna's Archive

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Critical Global Studies

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/cgs

Adrián Sotelo Valencia

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sotelo Valencia, Adrián, author.

Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

1 Geopolitics and Super-Exploitation 7

2 Donald Trump and Imperialist Praxis 12

3 Dependence and Super-Exploitation 43

3 Importance and Validity of Dependency Theory 52

4 Approaches and Theoretical Controversies 80

5 Hypothesis on the Capitalist Crisis and Super-Exploitation of the Labor

1 Dismeasure of Value and Surplus Value 121

6 Fictitious Capital and Super-Exploitation of Labor in Contemporary

7 The North American Capitalist Crisis 151

8 United States: Precariousness of Work and Super-Exploitation of the

…[i]nstead of strengthening the rights of working people, the Trump ad-

Although continuity and structural characteristics amongst this administra-

3 North American Free Trade Agreement. https://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Home/Texts-of-

the past, this has amounted to a fatal prelude to exterminations. There is no

to overwhelm unions by cutting off their sources of income. It was noteworthy

On a macroeconomic level, the Federal Reserve numbers are outstanding,

Multidisciplinary Analysis Center of the National Autonomous University of

In the United States, Jeff Bezos—founder of Amazon, and currently the

1 Global economy trajectory (1945–2016) and average growth of advanced

1 Salaries in emerging Asian economies 106

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004415652_002

Part 3 contains four chapters that tie super-exploitation to the increasing

Geopolitics and Super-Exploitation

1 Geopolitics and the Extension of the Super-Exploitation of the

As Ruy Mauro Marini stated (1985a) on the subject of international politics,

Geopolitics is a material expression of the International Division of La-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004415652_003

in the 1930s—exclusively in the economic and productive systems of the eco-

paths to follow in order to reverse this pernicious situation completely unfa-

As outlined above, the geopolitics of super-exploitation has been made possi-

Donald Trump and Imperialist Praxis

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004415652_004

1 The Vicissitudes of Neo-Imperialism1

Historically, imperialist capitalism has constructed geo-political and strategic

He won the presidency using his television career as a springboard and

Of course, without forgetting his participation in the overthrow of democratically elected

to assert its right to dominate politically, economically and militarily or in

established the mechanism of the super-exploitation of the labor force as the

… a project of world domination, submission of peoples and countries

decadence4 as some authors linked to world system analyses, and dependency

historical racism and violence, as well as an enkindling of class struggle in the

The White House businessman is a genuine representative of North Ameri-

product of its structural, social, political, environmental and military contra-

2 Executive Orders and the North American Crisis

There’s a dangerous imperialist hologram that inhabits the mind of Donald

countries and correspondents in underdeveloped countries, play a central

3 The Wall of Ignominy

On January 25, 2017, Trump decreed two Executive Orders on immigration

… a border wall of about 1,123 kilometers, a length that could compare it to

4 Sanctuary Cities: the Dreamers or the Fallacy of the ‘American

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, �� | doi:10.1163/9789004415652_002

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, �� | doi:10.1163/9789004415652_003

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, �� | doi:10.1163/9789004415652_004

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, �� | doi:10.1163/9789004415652_005