Book launch of Capitalist Value Chains: Labour Exploitation, Nature Destruction, Geopolitics
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 pm
- Venue
- SOAS SWLT & online
- Room
- Wolfson Lecture Theatre
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
Do Global Value Chains (GVCs) really “boost incomes, create better jobs, and reduce poverty”?
In his new book, co-authored with Christin Bernhold, Benjamin Selwyn challenges this mainstream view by introducing the concept of Capitalist Value Chains (CVCs). Benjamin Selwyn will discuss how CVCs generate highly exploitative jobs, deepen poverty, stunt human development, and damage the environment. Rather than waiting for the promised benefits of “upgrading,” he highlights how workers’ collective action, within specific historical and geographic contexts, can improve pay and conditions. The talk also invites us to imagine a world beyond these capitalist relations of exploitation.
Registration
This event is free to attend but booking is essential.
Organiser
This seminar is hosted as part of the SOAS Global Development Seminar Series
About the speaker
Professor Benjamin Selwyn
Benjamin Selwyn is a professor of international relations and international development at the University of Sussex, and co-author with Christin Bernhold of Capitalist Value Chains: Labour Exploitation, Nature Destruction, Geopolitics (2025, Oxford University Press). He is the author of The Struggle for Development (2017), The Global Development Crisis (2014), and Workers, State and Development in Brazil (2012), and co-editor of Class Dynamics of Development (2017).
Event poster
Image credit: Thomas Kinto via Unsplash
