It can be said that the working-class movement at present is standing in the valley of historical time, a place between the completion of the descent of labour movements that began with neoliberal globalisation and its ascent that is yet to begin. The organised strikes in the formal sector, often under the leadership of the central trade unions linked with electoral parties, have declined drastically. However, this does not in any way signal the blunting of the contradiction between labour and capital.

This contradiction is finding new expressions in novel forms of struggle, which is precisely the object of Abhinav Sinha’s new book In the Valley of Historical Time: Towards the History of the Working Class Movement in Delhi (Brill, 2024). In this book, Sinha takes a close look at the modus operandi of capital since the 1970s to explain the crisis of conventional trade unionism, as well as the spontaneous outbursts of creativity in movements of informal workers in recent times. Through a detailed study of workers’ movements in Delhi in the periods of Fordism and post-Fordism, Sinha carefully evaluates the implications of the changing structure of the world imperialist system for working-class struggles.

In this book launch, Abhinav Sinha will talk us through key arguments of the book with Tom Vickers acting as discussant.

This is a hybrid event taking place at King's College London.

Register for in-person attendance here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/seminarincontemporarymarxisttheory/1505482

For Zoom, register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtdeChrT8uEteRjv0QVO4sGliCgDrhW3Lt#/registration

SPEAKER

Abhinav Sinha is a Marxist theorist, historian and political activist based in New Delhi. He has written on problems of political economy, caste, fascism and working-class movements. His recent books include Subversive Interventions (Rahul Foundation, 2019) and On the Caste Question: Towards a Marxist Understanding (Rahul Foundation, 2019).

Tom Vickers is an Associate Professor in Sociology at Nottingham Trent University. He is the Director of the GMB-NTU Work Futures Observatory and Co-Coordinator of the Ecologies of Labour network. Vickers, moreover, is the author of Borders, Migration and Class in an Age of Crisis: Producing Immigrants and Workers (Bristol University Press, 2019) and Refugees, Capitalism and the British State: implications for social workers, volunteers and activists (Ashgate Publishing, 2012).