Reverse Subsidies in Global Monopsony Capitalism
Gender, Labour, and Environmental Injustice in Garment Value Chains

Purchase of gendered labour and environmental services below costs of production become reverse subsidies, captured by global brands.

Dev Nathan (Author), Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee (Author), S. Rahul (Author), Purushottam Kumar (Author), Immanuel Dahagani (Author), Sukhpal Singh (Author), Padmini Swaminathan (Author)

9781316512272, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 May 2022

312 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.55 kg

'SEWA (Self Employed Women's Association) started organising women workers – working from home such as – quilt makers and garment workers, four decades ago. In fact the work of these women workers was not even counted or considered as work either by the contractors or by the Government. It was SEWA that coined the term 'Homebased Workers.' Today SEWA is glad that this term and the work of women is accepted and recognised globally. In this book, we are happy to note that the authors have integrated homeworkers into the overall analysis of exploitative conditions in global value chains.' Reema Nanavaty, Executive Director, SEWA

This book provides a firm analytical base to discussions about injustice and the unequal distribution of gains from global production in the form of global monopsony capitalism. It utilizes the concept of reverse subsidies as the purchase of gendered labour and environmental services below their costs of production in garment value chains in India and other garment producing countries, such as Bangladesh and Cambodia. Environmental services, such as freshwater for garment manufacture and land for cotton production, are degraded by overuse and untreated waste disposal. The resulting higher profits from the low prices of garments are captured by global brands, using their monopsony position, with few buyers and myriad sellers, in the market. This book links the concept of reverse subsidies with those of injustice, inequality and sustainability in global production.

1. Introduction
Part I. Framework: 2. Gender, labour and environmental justice in GVCs
3. Knowledge, global monopsony capitalism and labour
Part II. Factory: 4. Living wages and labour subsidies
5. Extractive labour subsidies: The overuse and discard of women's labour in garment production
6. Gender based violence as supervision
Part III. Household: 7. Rural subsidies
8. The household as production site: Homeworkers and child labour
Part IV. Environment: 9. Tiruppur: The environmental costs of success
10. Externalized costs of cotton production
Part V. Value Capture: 11. Value capture in global monopsony capitalism
12. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Labour economics [KCF], Economics [KC], International relations [JPS], Sociology: work & labour [JHBL], Sociology [JHB]