Theorizing Labor Control in the Global Apparel Industry:
A Case of Bangladesh
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2026.1354Keywords:
apparel industry, Bangladesh, Dhaka, instrumental oppression, labor control, RMG factories, social despotism, structural oppression, sweatshopAbstract
This article looks at the Bangladeshi apparel industry and critically draws on the extant literature on labor control to theorize how market and non-market actors control apparel workers and exploit their labor power at the bottom of a global value chain, reinforcing the modern world-system as a capitalist world-economy. My research draws on empirical evidence collected from 20 apparel factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and secondary sources to identify a new regime of labor control. I call this regime of labor control social despotism—a regime that deploys legal means, illegal coercion, informal power relations, and structural violence to dominate and exploit workers. Social despotism is created by two reinforcing forms of oppression: instrumental oppression and structural oppression. Market actors organize instrumental oppression to normalize coercion in the factory, creating the forced consent of workers to their exploitation. Market and non-market actors organize structural oppression, limiting workers’ collective bargaining power within the factory and marginalizing their existence in social life. Both forms of oppression are present throughout four distinct phases of labor control: searching for the cheapest labor forces and manufacturing sites; recruiting workers; organizing work; and socializing, rewarding, and punishing workers. In short, social despotism constitutes a new regime of labor control within the world’s second-largest apparel industry during the current phase of the modern world-system, where social institutions, including the state and family, collaborate with market institutions, such as multinational corporations and manufacturing industries, to exert control over workers both within and beyond factory settings.
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