Capitalism, Inequality and Labour in India is a crowning achievement following over half a century of research conducted by the sociologist Jan Breman. Indeed, if the book were the product of the music industry a passing title would have been “Best of Jan Breman.” Although making fleeting references to other communities and parts of India, the main focus of the book are the Halpatis – literally holders of the plough, a respectable name given by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to a caste of agricultural laborers in South Gujarat – and the transformation of the labor relations between them and their lords/employers over the last century. This being said, the in-depth analysis of this admittedly regional case reveals a broad spectrum of economic and social developments relevant for the whole of India and even more broadly for the Global South.

Based on already published works by Breman (there are passages that are taken verbatim from journal articles published decades ago), the book features nine chapters and provides the reader with two intricately interwoven historical dimensions. On the one hand, we have the story of the Halpatis – from life in bondage in the early 20th century to a monetization of labor through the overarching commercial forces and into a form of neo bondage later in the century, defined by advances of money, debt, and circular migration. On the other hand, a careful reading also reveals Breman’s own intellectual journey through the years – the incorporation of new paradigms into his own research and the transformation of his theoretical understanding in the face of actual social transformations on the ground. The historical immersion notwithstanding, the issues addressed in the book remain more topical than ever. According to Breman, currently 15 percent of India’s labor force, “amounting to 50–75 million men, women and children in the informal economy are unable to sell their labour power when, where, to whom and at what price they would want to claim for their livelihood. […] More than 80 per cent of them hail from residual categories of Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, the lower chunks of the Other Backward Castes and the dispossessed among the Muslim minority.” (p. 233) Drawing a longue durée into colonial times, the book allows the reader not only to understand new predicaments facing informal labor in India today but also to track continuities and explore possible solutions.

The main theoretical thrust of the study (or rather compilation of studies) revolves around the issue of bonded labor and more implicitly around the question as to how different arrangements of labor relate as a factor of production to broader systemic changes. Is capitalism predicated on what Karl Marx called free laborer in a double sense (doppeltfreier Lohnarbeiter), i.e. free to sell one’s labor and free from the means of production (dispossessed). In other words, is it possible that bonded labor exists under capitalism? Is it possible that the processes of proletarianization is reversed, i.e. followed by de-proletarianization in which labor is bonded again? These are by no means trifling questions. Indeed, they have produced some incandescent debates not only among Marxists but also among economic historians and scholars of classical economics in general. Jan Breman was himself part of such debates, sometimes subjected to harsh criticism.1 Particularly in the wake of global history, these questions have become superfluous. By now, it is largely accepted that as a system of production capitalism employed (or rather incorporated) a variety of labor arrangements (including chattel slavery) not least by means of commodity chains – think cotton.2 In the book at hand, Breman concedes to the existence/possibility of bonded labor under capitalism – while the labor he is looking at tended to become free in the double sense in the latter half of the 20th century it soon was caught in a new form bondage by means of debt. Breman clearly relates the monetization of labor with the advance of capitalist relations of production in the Indian countryside. Moreover, the monetization that Breman describes did not necessarily lead to palpable improvements, as it was also associated with the loss of patronage and some privileges that were now available exclusively through the market. Whether agreeing completely with these arguments, one has to compliment the author for a convincing unfolding of the story and a compelling reasoning. Against this powerful background, minor flaws of the book include some tautological repetitions of both descriptions and arguments as well as a few typos. All of these were, of course, avoidable by means of a more rigorous process of proof reading.

Breman acknowledges the “people who allowed me to get close to the work they do and the life they lead, while being denied the decency, respectability and dignity which should qualify their human experience.” (p. XIII) The author’s closeness to and commiseration for the subjects of his book become only clearer as the book progresses. Indeed, it is difficult to keep aloof and not to empathize with the plight of the footloose labor described here. Still, Breman traverses the frontier between academic knowledge production and political activity so often in this book that the dividing line blurs and eventually vanishes altogether. Far from the convention, the positions laid bare here certainly require courage. Whether the clear political messages conveyed in the book also compromise on academic standards is perhaps in itself a political question – does the reader believe that all social acts carry political charge or, conversely and some might say in reactionary fashion, do we believe that knowledge could be devoid of politics? If the former were true and keeping in mind the present political climate in South Asia and other parts of the world, it is indeed academically honest – power/knowledge remorse aside – to expose the political implications related to the sociological and historical work produced through decades of research. In this sense, Jan Breman’s work will certainly stand the test of time not only as evidence to the sufferings and fights of the dispossessed laboring, but also as an exercise in academic excellence, fueled by empathy that ultimately generated profound and intricate scholarly insights.

Notes:
1 Tom Brass, Labour in Post-Colonial India. A Response to Jan Breman, in: The Journal of Peasant Studies 28/1 (2000), pp. 126–146.
2 Sven Beckert, Empire of cotton. A new history of global capitalism, London 2015.