The New Helots

Originally published in 1987, and now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Robin Cohen, this work argues that a major engine of capital's growth lies in its ability to find successive cohorts of quasi-free workers to deploy in the farms, mines and factories of an expanding international division of labour.

Robin Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford. For the first decade of his academic career, he worked on comparative labour issues. His books included Labour and Politics in Nigeria (1974) and the co-edited collections The development of an African working class (1975), International Labour and the Third World (1987), African Labor History (1978) and the current title, Peasants and Proletarians. He subsequently wrote on the themes of migration, globalization and diasporas. His best-known work is Global diasporas: An introduction (3rd edition, 2022).

1. Unfree Labourers and Modern Migrants 2. Theories of Migration: The US and its Labour Reservoirs 3. The Reproduction of Labour-Power: Southern Africa 4. The Functions of Migrant Labour: Europe 5. Policing the Frontiers: Regulating the Supplies of Migrant Labour 6. Habituation and Resistance: The Experience of Migrant Workers 7. The 'New' International Division of Labour: Plus ça change