ABSTRACT
Drawing on the case of India, this chapter analyses how informal workers’ social relationships with the state, capital, and formal workers have changed over time under varying regimes of capitalist accumulation. During the shift from agrarian to industrial capitalism (1940s–1970s), Indian state regulations created a minority of formally protected labour, formally registered capital, and a standard employment relationship, while retaining and defining informal labour as an excluded, invisible, unprotected “other”. During the shift from industrial to finance capitalism (1980s–present), the Indian state has overtly incorporated unprotected informal labour into its development agenda, making it a new ideal and the foundation of non-agricultural employment growth. Within this context, it is no wonder that Indian informal workers’ movements target the state. First, they have fought the state for new labour regulations that offer material redistribution from capital to informal workers and for economic policies that support informal workers’ livelihoods, rather than punish them. Second, they have struggled for emancipation from earlier formal workers’ movements that excluded them by demanding the state recognise informal workers as legitimate economic actors – as workers. The chapter concludes with implications for future research on informality. Informal workers’ movements are in their infancy and are constrained by the marketisation forces of the state and capital. But these challenges must not negate their significance in mobilising and enacting new state policies that re-shape contemporary understandings of “labour” and “capital”.
