The case of Bangladesh's superficial development - Why has the country's economic growth been the catalyst for working class underdevelopment?

孟加拉国经常被视为发展中国家通过快速和持续的经济增长摆脱贫困的典范。由于该国的成衣(RMG)行业在将孟加拉国转变为全球第二大服装出口国方面发挥了重要作用，这种经济增长通常会转化为工人阶级生活水平的提高。在现实中，这个国家遭遇了一个悖论，即增长前景看好，同时伴随着持续的财富不平等，这种不平等是由中产阶级内部象征性的改善和不稳定劳动力的增加塑造的。从2000年到2010年，非正规就业人数增加了10%，生活水平与欠发达国家持平。这项研究将调查为什么发展没有延伸到工人阶级，他们继续在国家生活工资下生存，几乎没有向上流动的机会。假设资本主义精英和国家之间的界限可能被模糊到这样的程度，即两者之间的共同构成关系积极地维持对工人阶级的压迫，以维持依赖廉价劳动力的经济。在促进注重提供服务和资源而不是社会动员的目标发展的过程中，似乎建立了一个虚假的进步叙述的幌子。这项研究将研究孟加拉国的成长期，将其作为其发展历程的起点，并重新定位国家和资本主义精英的角色，为国家的斗争提供一个新颖的描述。通过对RMG行业内劳工福利滥用的历史记录，以及随后对过去和现在的劳工制度的考察，这项研究将挑战现有的关于剥削是管理不善、治理不善和市场压力的副产品的说法。然后，这项研究将探索以劳工为主导的发展作为一种可行的替代方案的潜力。研究问题关于孟加拉国的研究在很大程度上是在南亚的区域背景下进行的，作为一个边缘案例，外国学者对其批评兴趣有限。当地的研究人员经常被提供一个与国家正面的“盒子”来容纳他们的发现，而在这个国家的研究受到领土认识论和民族主义防御的困扰。这些文献也没有区分不平等和贫困，一个共同的目标是强调经济政策如何将人们的收入水平提高到基本上是肤浅的贫困线以上。来自新自由主义和中央集权主义方法的其他分析已经将孟加拉国的发展历程联系起来，但无法完全解释为什么贫困的增长仍在继续。国家建立的性质一直被忽视，国家的作用经常被忽视/曲解，无论是在其未能使用权力方面，还是在其滥用权力方面。有必要重温孟加拉国形成时期的根本原因，以便通过批判性的劳动制度和GVC分析为新的劳工剥削审查奠定基础。随着对拉丁美洲、南非和亚洲的更多当代研究表明，自下而上的发展方法是可能的替代方案，也应该审查劳工主导的发展作为RMG行业内的规范性政治干预的潜力。要进行这项研究，必须提出三个问题：1.什么历史上的社会财产和阶级关系影响了孟加拉国自1971年以来的发展历程，是谁？2.RMG行业如何维持和(重新)生产剥削性劳动，以及阻止劳动者离开从根本上受到压制的劳动力池的真正障碍是什么？3.RMG行业内的基层劳工主导的发展将是什么样子，它如何影响国家做法和影响全球风险投资公司，以应对日益严重的价值获取危机和劳动力份额差距？

Bangladesh is often seen as an example of a developing country well on its way out of poverty through rapid and consistent economic growth. With the country's ready-made garment (RMG) industry playing a major role in transforming Bangladesh into the second largest global garments exporter, this economic growth would normally translate into improved living standards of the working class. In reality, the country has suffered from a paradox of promising growth accompanied by persistent wealth inequality molded by symbolic improvements within the middle class and a rise in precarious labor. Informal employment rose by 10% from 2000 to 2010 with living standards remaining on par with that of a low-developed country. This study will investigate why development has not been extended to the working class which continues to survive under the national living wage with little-to-no opportunities for upward mobility.It is hypothesized that the line between the capitalist elites and the state may be blurred to the degree that a co-constitutive relationship between the two actively perpetuates working class repression to sustain an economy that relies on cheap labor. A facade of false progressive narratives seems to have been built amidst the promotion of objective development focused on the provision of services and resources, rather than social mobilization. This research will study Bangladesh's formative years as the inception point of its development journey, and re-center the role of the state and capitalist elite to provide a novel account of the nation's struggle. By historicizing labor welfare abuse within the RMG industry, and subsequently examining past and present labor regimes, the study will challenge established narratives of exploitation being a by-product of mismanagement, poor governance and market pressures. The research will then explore the potential for labor-led development as a viable alternative.RESEARCH QUESTIONSResearch on Bangladesh has been largely examined within the regional context of South Asia and as a marginal case which draws limited interest in its critique from foreign scholars. Local researchers are often provided with a state-positive "box" to fit their findings in, with research in the country suffering from territorial epistemology and nationalist defensiveness. The literature also lacks a distinction between inequality and poverty with a common goal being to accentuate how economic policies have raised people's income levels above a largely superficial poverty line.Other analyses from neoliberal and statist approaches have contextualized Bangladesh's development journey but have been unable to fully explain why immiserizing growth continues. The nature in which the country was established is continuously overlooked with the role of the state often ignored/misinterpreted, both in its failure to use power and in its abuse of it. It is necessary to revisit the country's formative years where the root causes lie buried in order to lay the foundation for a novel examination of labor exploitation through critical labor regime and GVC analysis.With more contemporary studies of Latin America, South Africa and Asia suggesting bottom-up approaches to development as possible alternatives, the potential of labor-led development as a normative political intervention within the RMG industry should also be examined.To carry out this research, three questions must be asked:1.What historical social-property and class relations were influential in directing Bangladesh's development journey from 1971, and by whom?2.How is exploitative labor being sustained and (re)produced in the RMG industry, and what are the real barriers that prevent laborers leaving a fundamentally suppressive labor pool?3.What would grass-roots labor-led development within the RMG industry look like, and how could it influence state practices and impact GVCs to counter the growing value-capture crisis and labor-share disparity?