Globalization is Good
Rohit Azad
WORKERS, UNION AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM: LESSONS FROM INDIA by Rohini Hensman Tulika Books, 2012, 415 pp., 825
February 2012, volume 36, No 2

This is a provocative and refreshing book on the condition of the working class under globalization with special reference to India. If there is one thing that comes to mind after reading this book it is the last few words of the Communist Manifesto: ‘Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains’.

This book is a good example of ‘theory bursting into praxis’ thanks to the author who is not only a scholar on labour issues but also an active participant in the labour movement. It analyses the process of globalization, its potential benefits to the working class and the role that global labour can play in shaping this process. The book is divided into ten chapters with the first four primarily focussing on a theoretical analysis of globalization and the rest an attempt at preparing a blueprint for the labour movement to shape it to its advantage.
Rohini Hensman argues that though globalization in its present neoliberal form is detrimental to the interests of the working class, the process of globalization per se opens a space hitherto unavailable for the advance-ment of these interests. The rider, however, is that for this to happen the working class has to work in unison and become more inclusivist in its worldview unlike what we have witnessed so far, a nationally, or sometimes even more locally, segmented working class movement. Given this approach, this book can be read as two parallel lines of argument: one, how globalization creates objective conditions for the way forward; two, the subjective role of the working class to push the frontiers of human emancipation.

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