Agrarian Change, Migration and Development

The focus and concern of Agrarian Change, Migration and Development is the problem of labour migration. Delgado Wise and Veltmeyer explore the dynamics and development implications of the migration processes set in motion by the world capitalist system. The dynamics of these processes are international, in regard to the international or cross-border flows of labour migrants, and internal to countries that have undergone, or are undergoing, a process of agrarian change and social transformation. While it may appear that these migrants are free to choose to abandon their communities and families in the search for a better way of life, the authors show with devastating logic that the decisions made by so many migrants are rooted in the workings of the world capitalist system, which converts them into a pool of surplus labour to be pulled into and out of the system as required by capitalists in their endless search for private profit.