ABSTRACT
This chapter uses Hage’s ‘ethnic surplus value claim’ to introduce a Marxist critique. The focus is on understanding how value is sourced from labour. It explains the relevance of Marx’s original theory by drawing out the importance of the cost of reproducing labour daily and the profit available from that labour. The chapter is analytical in purpose and applies a theory of value as a way of interpreting the claims about Productive Diversity as a policy that concerned labour or other occupational forms. Claims and evidence on the struggle or contest over migrant labour’s share of value are discussed. The chapter considers this within a global market economy context to establish that low cost labour is a driving force of transnational production dispersal.
