Inclusive dualism : labour-intensive development, decent work, and surplus labour in Southern Africa /
W. Arthur Lewis, the founding father of development economics, proposed a dualist model of economic development in which 'surplus' (predominantly under-employed) labour shifted from lower to higher productivity work. In practice, historically, this meant that labour was initially drawn out...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford ; New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
2019.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Series: | Critical frontiers of theory, research, and policy in international development studies.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | W. Arthur Lewis, the founding father of development economics, proposed a dualist model of economic development in which 'surplus' (predominantly under-employed) labour shifted from lower to higher productivity work. In practice, historically, this meant that labour was initially drawn out of subsistence agriculture into low-wage, labour-intensive manufacturing, including in clothing production, before shifting into higher-wage work. This development strategy has become unfashionable. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) worries that low-wage, labour-intensive industry promises little more than an impoverishing 'race to the bottom'. This text argues that decent work fundamentalism, that is the promotion of higher wages and labour productivity at the cost of lower-wage job destruction, is a utopian vision with potentially dystopic consequences for countries with high open unemployment, many of which are in Southern Africa. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xii, 212 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-206) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780191876967 0191876968 0192578472 9780192578471 |