Global Value Chains and Global Value Transfer

Abstract

This chapter discusses the restructuring of production that has taken place over the last thirty years, namely the rise of global value chains/global production networks, and how this has shaped the transfer of value from the Global South to the Global North via direct channels of appropriation along these chains and the tendency towards impoverishment of workers engaged in primary production associated with this. In addition, this chapter discusses new financial avenues for the appropriation of value created in the Global South that have opened up as global value chains intersect with chains of finance such as in the financialization of commodity chains, and the rise of global wealth chains as routes via which multinational corporations channel value created along global value chains in order to avoid fiscal claims, legal obligations, or regulatory oversight. Finally, the chapter considers the future of global value chains under the ongoing crisis of capital.