Tom Brass se centra en cuestiones agrarias y relaciones laborales rurales, basándose en una profunda formación académica. Sus análisis profundizan en las complejidades de la sociedad rural, ofreciendo perspectivas perspicaces sobre las dinámicas de poder y el trabajo en estos entornos. El estilo de Brass se caracteriza por su minuciosidad y rigor académico, proporcionando a los lectores una comprensión detallada e informada de los temas que explora. Sus extensas publicaciones contribuyen significativamente al discurso en curso sobre las comunidades rurales y su evolución.
Exploring the interplay between class, nationalism, and modernity, this book delves into the agrarian myth through various historical contexts. It highlights how these themes have shaped societies and influenced cultural narratives, offering insights into the complexities of socio-economic structures and their historical significance.
Unfreedom, Capitalism and Primitive Accumulation
Challenging conventional beliefs, this volume explores the notion that capitalism relies on the exploitation of 'free labor.' It delves into the complexities of economic systems and questions the foundational assumptions about labor dynamics within capitalism, offering a fresh perspective on the interplay between labor and economic structures. Through critical analysis, the book invites readers to reconsider established narratives and understand the deeper implications of labor in capitalist societies.
Since its inception, Development Studies has tended to restrict its critical enquiries to nations in the ‘Third World.’ The field’s important studies of labor markets, who circulates within them, and the controversies such issues generate, have hitherto been confined ’lesser developed’ societies. In this important collection, drawing from key texts over the course Tom Brass’s career, these concerns are deftly deployed to examine how these same phenomena affect metropolitan capitalist countries. The reviews, review essays, and essays collected here examine these issues that are now relevant to metropolitan capitalism, as well as their political and ideological effects and implications
Historically, capitalism has always integrated various forms of unfree labour, including chattel slavery, convict labour and debt bondage. Contrary to purported wisdom, these forms of exploitation have not disappeared during the twentieth century. Fascist and Stalinist dictatorships used forced labour on a massive scale, while unfree labour has been increasing in several parts of the world in recent years.Labour historians have traditionally somewhat neglected the problem of coerced labour. Focusing on so-called «free» wage labourers, their living conditions, cultures and struggles, they implicitly supposed a more or less unilinear development from unfree to «free» labour to have taken place under the influence of emerging capitalism, gradually encompassing the globe.The present collection of 24 essays attempts to rethink these issues. The volume is divided into two sections: the first deals with theories about unfree labour while the second consists of case studies examining its presence or absence in particular historical contexts in the «first», «second» and «third» world. The authors use various Marxist or neoclassical approaches and disagree on four substantive points: the market, labour scarcity, gender and state intervention. These crucial differences are explored and clarified. The debate continues.