by From Jayati Ghosh One of the enduring myths about capitalism that continues to be perpetuated in mainstream economic textbooks and other economic pedagogy is that labour supply is somehow exogenous to the economic system. The supply of labour is typically assumed (especially in standard growth theories) to be determined by the rate of population growth, which in turn is also seen as “outside” the economic system rather than in interaction with it. The reality is of course very different: the supply of paid labour has been very much a result of economic processes, not something extraneous to it. Throughout its history, capitalism has proved adept at causing patterns of labour supply to change in accordance with demand. Migration – whether of slaves, indentured labour or free workers –
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from Jayati Ghosh
One of the enduring myths about capitalism that continues to be perpetuated in
mainstream economic textbooks and other economic pedagogy is that labour supply is
somehow exogenous to the economic system. The supply of labour is typically assumed
(especially in standard growth theories) to be determined by the rate of population
growth, which in turn is also seen as “outside” the economic system rather than in
interaction with it. The reality is of course very different: the supply of paid labour has been very much a result of economic processes, not something extraneous to it. Throughout its history, capitalism has proved adept at causing patterns of labour supply to change in accordance with demand. Migration – whether of slaves, indentured labour or free workers – has been instrumental in this regard. The use of child labour similarly has been sanctioned and encouraged or disapproved and suppressed in varying
economic conditions. But nowhere has this particular capacity of capitalism to generate its own labour been more evident than in the case of female labour.Women have been part of the working class since the beginning of capitalism, even
when they have not been widely acknowledged as workers in their own right. Even when
they are not paid workers, their often unacknowledged and unpaid contribution to social
reproduction as well as to many economic activities has always been absolutely essential
for the functioning of the system. All women are usually workers, whether or not they are
defined or recognised as such. In all societies, and particularly in developing countries,
there remain essential but usually unpaid activities (such as cooking, cleaning and other
housework, provisioning of basic household needs, child care, care of the sick and the
elderly, as well as community-based activities), which are largely seen as the
responsibility of the women. This pattern of unpaid work tends to exist even when
women are engaged in outside work for an income, whether as wage workers or selfemployed workers. These processes are also integral to capitalism: the production of
both use values and exchange values by women is essential for the accumulation process.In contemporary capitalism, this integration of women’s work in both paid and unpaid
form has also become an essential means of stabilising economic systems through
downturns, when the costs of recessions and/or austerity policies are passed onto to
unpaid labour within families. If anything, this reliance has become even more marked in
recent years.