have been criticized for being too determinist and rigid in their thinking in viewing individuals as victims or “pawns” that passively adapt to macro-forces, thereby largely ruling out individual agency. Moreover, rigid forms of historical structuralism have been refuted by recent history, as various formerly developing and labour exportin
countries have achieved sustained economic growth in the past decades despite – or perhap
thanks to – their firm connection to global capitalism (Sen 1999). For most southern European
countries and some “Asian Tigers”, the incorporation into global capitalism and, possibly
high labour migration have apparently worked out well, despite gloomy predictions som
decades ago (Almeida 1973; Papademetriou 1985).