The introduction
Chapter 1 outlines the theoretical framework and supports it with empirical evidence. It focuses on the changing relationship between the broader economy and the household, as a result of waves of expansion of the world market and successive technological revolutions. This is addressed through an original reading of Marx, centred on what he described in Capital as 'the general law of social production': the idea that capital tends to disrupt and transform all previous modes of production, and that as competition intensifies globally, workers are obliged to exercise 'variation of labour, fluidity of functions, and mobility … in all directions'. To show the contemporary relevance of this idea, the chapter contrasts the relationship between the family and household and the wider economy in Marx's day and today.
Chapter 2 argues that since its creation in 1961 the OECD has been committed consistently not the the defence of the interests of the developed countries, but to the development of the global economy as a whole. In addition, drawing on some of the earliest official publications from the organisation and showing the continuity of its positions through the whole period to the present, it shows that it has explicitly made the case for increased competitiveness across the global economy, arguing that the advanced countries should abandon protectionism, and welcome competition as a spur to the constant transformation of their own economies as some areas of activity disappear and others are created.
Chapter 3 details the efforts of the World Bank to promote the development of a global proletariat, and increasingly to do so by developing a global framework for 'social protection' which increases the incentive to look for productive work. It detects a shift, from around the turn of the century, towards a focus on households as sources of labour, and hence a heightened emphasis on gender and youth, and a second shift after 2007-8 to 'nudges' and other behavioural tweaks as means to promote both entrepreneurialism and entry to the formal labour market. It concludes with an examination of the Doing Business series that promotes a comprehensive set of reforms, with a particular emphasis on creating a more flexible and mobile labour force.
Chapter 4 explores the efforts of the European Commission, the World Bank, and the OECD to realise the general law of social production in practice by producing a skilled, mobile and flexible global labour force. It examines a joint project involving all three, launched by the European Commission in the wake of the economic and financial crisis. This project addressed joblessness and underemployment, initially in relation to detailed analysis of a group of relatively less advanced member states of the European Union. It involved the identification at a national level of specific patterns of 'under-employed' groups, ranging from youth to women with caring responsibilities, and explored ways to mobilise them. The chapter then details related initiatives undertaken by the OECD and the World Bank in the same period.
Chapter 5 describes the full articulation of the politics of global competitiveness in seminal publications in 2019-2020 – the OECD’s Employment Outlook 2019: The Future of Work, and the World Bank’s 2019 and 2020 World Development Reports, The Changing Nature of Work and Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains. The crystallization of the project at this particular moment makes the text of particular contemporary relevance, as illustrated by an analysis of the response of the OECD to COVID-19
Chapter 6