High Non-Wage Employment in India: Revisiting the ‘Paradox’ in Capitalist Development

High non-wage employment persisting with high growth appears to be a paradox in capitalist development because commoditisation of labour power assuming the form of wage labour is specific to capitalism and the sole source of surplus value. This paper, drawing from various strands of Marxian literature, argues that capitalism never existed in isolation in ‘pure’ and pristine form, and the fundamental class process of surplus production is constituted by subsumed class processes and non-class processes that involve non-capital in several moments. Although the interaction of capital with the non-capitalist space signifies a confluence of separate processes, it overdetermines the existence and stability of capitalism by a complex dialectics of force and persuasion involving economic, political and ideological determinations.