The Assemblage of Power: The Role of The State in Minimum Wage Policy in Indonesia

<p>The minimum wage is an essential issue for workers in Indonesia. Employers still apply the minimum wage to all workers, regardless of their experience. Further, the calculation of the minimum wage is still based on an estimate for single workers. This calculation can mean that a worker is unable to meet the daily needs of their dependent family. Workers in Indonesia are trapped in debt and poverty. The minimum wage in Indonesia is intended as a safety net to prevent workers from falling into poverty, with workers’ welfare the responsibility of the state. This study aims to examine the role of the state in determining the minimum wage policy. The outcomes of this process cannot be separated from the strength of workers and employers to communicate their interests. As a semi-peripheral country within the international division of labour, the minimum wage policy in Indonesia is influenced by the interests of international capital. This qualitative study uses the capitalist state theories of Miliband, Poulantzas, and Jessop to examine the role of the state and worker-employer relations, and the influence of the international market on determining minimum wage policy in Indonesia -with world-systems analysis also drawn on to investigate the international market context. Overall, this study proves that wage rates are the result of the struggle of the agency, i.e. workers, employers, and government personnel through various institutions, regulatory products and laws. The various regulations and institutions of the state ensure that the struggle between these interest groups takes place in a way that does not endanger capitalism as the prevailing economic and political system. For workers, the struggle for increased wages occurs at two levels. Firstly through tripartite institutions -Institutions where workers, employers and government representatives negotiate wages and other industrial relations issues- and laws that are created by the state to limit struggles around the wage rate. Secondly, through a larger, democratic space in strikes or demonstrations are staged. Employers mostly pursue their interests through parliamentary, tripartite institutions and through occupying prominent positions in government structures. International markets affect the determining of wage policy through the actions of international and regional institutions that provide access to overseas debt, and who stipulate the conditions to be followed by the Indonesian government in receipt of this debt.</p>

The Assemblage of Power: The Role of The State in Minimum Wage Policy in Indonesia

<p>The minimum wage is an essential issue for workers in Indonesia. Employers still apply the minimum wage to all workers, regardless of their experience. Further, the calculation of the minimum wage is still based on an estimate for single workers. This calculation can mean that a worker is unable to meet the daily needs of their dependent family. Workers in Indonesia are trapped in debt and poverty. The minimum wage in Indonesia is intended as a safety net to prevent workers from falling into poverty, with workers’ welfare the responsibility of the state. This study aims to examine the role of the state in determining the minimum wage policy. The outcomes of this process cannot be separated from the strength of workers and employers to communicate their interests. As a semi-peripheral country within the international division of labour, the minimum wage policy in Indonesia is influenced by the interests of international capital. This qualitative study uses the capitalist state theories of Miliband, Poulantzas, and Jessop to examine the role of the state and worker-employer relations, and the influence of the international market on determining minimum wage policy in Indonesia -with world-systems analysis also drawn on to investigate the international market context. Overall, this study proves that wage rates are the result of the struggle of the agency, i.e. workers, employers, and government personnel through various institutions, regulatory products and laws. The various regulations and institutions of the state ensure that the struggle between these interest groups takes place in a way that does not endanger capitalism as the prevailing economic and political system. For workers, the struggle for increased wages occurs at two levels. Firstly through tripartite institutions -Institutions where workers, employers and government representatives negotiate wages and other industrial relations issues- and laws that are created by the state to limit struggles around the wage rate. Secondly, through a larger, democratic space in strikes or demonstrations are staged. Employers mostly pursue their interests through parliamentary, tripartite institutions and through occupying prominent positions in government structures. International markets affect the determining of wage policy through the actions of international and regional institutions that provide access to overseas debt, and who stipulate the conditions to be followed by the Indonesian government in receipt of this debt.</p>

A Crise Financeira Internacional de 2008 como Resultado da Dinâmica do Eixo Sino-Americano de Acumulação l The 2008 International Financial Crisis as a Result of the Sino-American Axis of Accumulation’s Dynamics

Há um consenso na academia em atribuir a causa da crise internacional de 2008 ao processo de financeirização da economia dos Estados Unidos. Esta pesquisa considera esse entendimento correto, porém insuficiente para entender com profundidade como a crise impactou a economia mundial e o sistema interestatal. O objetivo deste trabalho é fugir do “nacionalismo metodológico” que permeia essa visão e entender a crise de 2008 como uma crise da conjuntura da economia-mundo capitalista. Seguindo a análise dos Sistemas-Mundo, o artigo é iniciado com o estudo da atual conjuntura, de expansão financeira do ciclo sistêmico estadunidense, que deve ser entendida através dos processos complementares de financeirização econômica e reestruturação produtiva mundial. Em um segundo momento, a pesquisa se volta para entender como esses dois processos construíram um “eixo sino-americano de acumulação”. Finalmente, entende-se que, apesar da aparente simbiose dessa relação, ela apresenta um desequilíbrio estrutural que originou a crise de 2008.Palavras-chave: Crise Financeira Internacional de 2008; China; Estados Unidos.ABSTRACTThere is a consensus in academia to attribute the cause of the 2008 international crisis to the financialization process of the United States’ economy. This research considers this understanding correct, but insufficient for a deep understanding of the crisis’ impact in the world economy and in the interstate system. This research aims to escape the “methodological nacionalism” that permeates this vision, understanding the 2008 crisis as a crisis in the conjuncture of the capitalist world-economy. Following the World-Systems Analysis, this research starts with the study of the current conjuncture, the financial expansion of the American systemic cycle of accumulation, which must be understood through the complementary processes of economic financialization and world productive restructure. In a second step, the research turns to understand how these two processes built a “Sino-American axis of accumulation”. Finally, it is understood that, despite the apparent symbiosis of this relationship, it presents a structural imbalance that originated the 2008 crisis.Keywords: 2008 International Financial Crisis; China; United States. Recebido em: 10/04/2021 | Aceito em: 17/07/2021.

The Logic of Dispossession

One particular focus of world-systems analysis is to examine the historical trajectory of capitalist transformation in peripheral regions. This paper investigates the capitalist transformation in a specific peripheral area—the country of Bangladesh. In particular, it examines the role of dispossession in transforming an agricultural society into a neoliberal capitalist society by looking at the transformation of Panthapath Street in Dhaka, Bangladesh, since 1947. Building on the existing literature of dispossession, this article proposes an approach that explains the contribution of dispossession in capitalist accumulation. The proposed theory consists of four logics of dispossession: transformative, exploitative, redistributive, and hegemonic. These four logics of dispossession, both individually and dialectically reinforcing one another, work to privatize the commons, proletarianize subsistence laborers, create antagonistic class relations, redistribute wealth upward, and commodify sociopolitical and cultural aspects of urban life. This paper’s central argument is that dispossession not only converted an agricultural society into a capitalist society in Bangladesh, but that dispossession continues to reproduce the country’s existing capitalist system. This research draws on a wide range of empirical and historical evidence collected from Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2017 and 2018.

Onward To Liberation!—Samir Amin and the Study of World Historical Capitalism

This article presents theoretical and methodological insights of world-systems analysis via the works of Samir Amin and his major interlocuteurs. It is argued that Samir Amin was central to sparking the study of world historical analysis, and offered unique contributions to the discussions that emerged. It is demonstrated that this is due to Samir Amin’s ability to balance structure, specificity, and historical contingency, as well as his enduring commitment to human liberation.

SOCIAL IDEAS DISTRIBUTION IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Многомерные и сложные изменения реалий, которые можно наблюдать в современной общественной жизни, происходят под влиянием множества самых различных факторов. Однако даже невзирая на произошедший в социальных науках идеационный поворот, большинство исследователей все еще настаивают на материалистических интерпретациях этих процессов. Неполнота таких объяснений соответствующим образом порождает пробелы, которые требуют нетривиального и своевременного социально-философского осмысления. Включение идеальных параметров способно преодолеть порочный круг, заданный пониманием трансформационных процессов через многочисленные материальные изменения. Настоящая статья посвящена рассмотрению дистрибуции социальных идей как самостоятельного фактора, объясняющего преобразования в современном мире. Теоретико-методологическую базу исследования составили современные научные работы и разработанный автором мультипарадигмальный подход изучения социальных преобразований, учитывающий положения акторносетевой теории, неоинституционализма, мир-системного анализа, нарративного подхода, теории фреймов и ряда других исследовательских установок. Определено, что дистрибуция социальных идей уходит корнями еще в античные социально-философские концепции, но обретает действенную мощь лишь в Новое время. Показана тесная связь понимания дистрибуции идей с рациональной деятельностью. Выявлено, что в современном мире на основании комбинирования традиционных методов транслирования идей акторы все чаще прибегают к их сочетанию с психологическими знаниями и компьютерными технологиями. На основе анализа современности установлено, что неиссякаемый плюрализм методов дистрибуции и переход в иррациональную плоскость дает больший прагматический эффект и в духе классической праксиологии позволяет оптимизировать ресурсы, используемые влиятельными субъектами при дистрибуции идей в процессе инициирования и проведения социальных преобразований. Multidimensional and complex changes in realities that can be observed in contemporary social life occur under the influence of many very different factors, but even despite the ideational turn that has taken place in the social sciences, most researchers still insist on materialistic interpretations of these processes. The incompleteness of such explanations accordingly generates gaps that require nontrivial and timely socio-philosophical reflection. The inclusion of ideal parameters is able to overcome the vicious circle set by the understanding of transformational processes through numerous material changes. This article is devoted to the consideration of the distribution of social ideas as an independent factor explaining transformations in the contemporary world. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study was made up of modern scientific works and a multi-paradigm approach to the study of social transformations developed by the author, taking into account the provisions of the actor-network theory, neoinstitutionalism, world-systems analysis, the narrative approach, the theory of frames, and a number of other research strategies. It has been established that the distribution of social ideas is rooted in ancient socio-philosophical concepts, but gains effective power only in Modernity period. The close connection between understanding the distribution of ideas and rational activity is shown. It was revealed that in the contemporary world, on the basis of a combination of traditional methods of broadcasting ideas, actors increasingly resort to their combination with psychological knowledge and computer technologies. Based on the analysis of the contemporary period, it has been established that the inexhaustible pluralism of distribution methods and the transition to an irrational plane gives a greater pragmatic effect and, in the spirit of classical praxeology, allows to optimize the resources used by influential actors in the distribution of ideas in the process of initiating and carrying out social transformations.

Middle Kingdom Enters Middle East

Through the lens of world-systems analysis, this research argues that Beijing is creating a miniature world-system overlapping with the United States-led world-system via its Belt Road Initiative (BRI). Although China has not yet become a core power, its BRI seems to possess the qualities of a new world-system in the making, within which China enjoys hegemonic traits such as economic and military might and capable alternative institutions. This BRI-bound world-system consists of BRI participant states whose areas and processes are being molded to better fit China as core and hegemon; a phenomenon known as peripheralization. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) appears to be peripheralizing Arab states into this BRI-bound world-system through China’s growing economic dominance of the region and promotion of new modi operandi. After arguing the emergence of the BRI-bound world-system and establishing China’s peripheralization capacity, Lebanon is taken as a case study of a peripheral MENA state to illustrate how predominant Western hegemony can hamper China’s peripheralization apparatus, forcing it to choose areas/processes of the highest immediate relevance for focused peripheralization efforts.

Theorizing Capitalist Imperialism for an Anti-Imperialist Praxis

How does one craft an explicitly left theory of anti-imperialism that would animate an anti-imperialist praxis? World-systems analysis has a long history of engagement with theories of anti-imperialism from an explicitly Leninist perspective. For the founding fathers of World-Systems Analysis—Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Samir Amin, and Andre Gunder Frank—anti-imperialism was an early central concern. Each of the four founders of world-systems analysis reads Lenin’s theory of imperialism seriously, but each has slightly different interpretations. One significant commonality they share is that they adopt Lenin’s periodization of imperialism, seeing imperialism as emergent in the late 19th century as part of a particular stage within the historical development of capitalism. However, as I will argue in this essay, perhaps it would be preferable to temporally expand Lenin’s concept of imperialism. Walter Rodney’s concept of “capitalist imperialism,” as I shall show in this essay, similarly calls Lenin’s periodization into question. Thereby, putting Rodney in conversation with Amin, Arrighi, Frank, and Wallerstein, leads me to further historicize world-systems’ theories of global imperialism thereby refining existing theories and levying that to build stronger praxis.