Book review of "Workers, State and Development in Brazil. Powers of Labour, Chains of Value"

Abstract

This book is written in the best of political economy tradition. Selwyn places class and labour at the centre of his analysis of Brazil’s agrarian change and capitalist development. The text starts with an impressive, enlightening and critical discussion of global commodity chain analysis within mainly Marxist and world systems theories of capitalist development. The author engages with a large number of authors such as Banaji, Bernstein, Brenner, Byres, Gereffi, Kaplinsky, Silver, E.P. Thompson, Wallerstein,Wood, E.O.Wright and, interestingly, Schumpeter. In a most original way, he weaves these different contributions into a theoretical framework appropriate for his research on the struggles of rural labour and how they shape processes of capitalist development. Selwyn’s aim is to write labour history from the bottom up within the context of globalization.