ABSTRACT
A central element of contemporary capitalism and imperialism is the emergence of a new international division of labour that reconfigures relations of power and dependence on the North-South or centre-periphery horizon of the world system. I refer here to the exportation – direct and disembodied – of labour power. This process, commanded by monopoly capital, is based on and fundamentally has to do with the South-North export of low and highly skilled labour power. This chapter delves into the analysis of this phenomenon, taking into consideration the geographical redistribution of manufacturing activities and the profound restructuring that innovation systems are currently experiencing, with Silicon Valley at the forefront. It is a phenomenon that disrupts dependency relations between countries and unleashes new modalities of unequal exchange and uneven development, which gives way to a reframing of the development question for the twenty-first century, particularly in times of the Covid-19 pandemic that has exacerbated the consequences and outcome of what amounts to a central contradiction of capitalism.
