Marginality

Abstract

Marginality is the existence of part of the population that cannot produce as much as it needs for its survival. The marginals are those whose productive capacity is less than what it costs to employ them to produce. It would be like employing a hairdresser who costs more per hour to hire than everything he or she is able to earn in that hour. They are therefore dependent on transfers from above, or if the transfers are not there, in principal, they would starve without community munificence. Elsenhans believes the developing world is facing this reality with regard to its potential workforce; therefore, he takes the perspective of labour in the production process that much of labour today is not value creating, which is in contradiction to perspectives from Marxism to neoclassical economics.