Media reports on the economic meltdown have mainly concentrated on
the impact of the crisis on the rich nations, with little concern for
the mass of the population living in what used to be called the Third
World. The current view seems to be that the setbacks in these
"emerging economies" may be less severe than expected. China's and
India's high growth rates have slackened, but the predicted slump has
not materialized. This line of thought, however, analyses only the
effects of the crisis on countries as a whole, masking its
differential impact across social classes. If one considers income
distribution, and not just macro-calculations of gdp, the global
downturn has taken a disproportionately higher toll on the most
vulnerable sectors: the huge armies of the poorly paid,
under-educated, resourceless workers that constitute the overcrowded
lower depths of the world economy.
To the extent that these many hundreds of millions are incorporated
into the production process it is as informal labour, characterized
by casualized and fluctuating employment and piece-rates, whether
working at home, in sweatshops, or on their own account in the open
air; and in the absence of any contractual or labour rights, or
collective organization. In a haphazard fashion, still little
understood, work of this nature has come to predominate within the
global labour force at large. The International Labour Organization
estimates that informal workers comprise over half the workforce in
Latin America, over 70 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa and over 80 per
cent in India; an Indian government report suggests a figure of more
than 90 per cent. Cut loose from their original social moorings, the
majority remain stuck in the vast shanty towns ringing city outskirts
across the global South.
<http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2800>Link
--
Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/11/myth-of-global-safety-net.htm>monochrom
at 11/04/2009 11:06:00 AM
