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Expansion of the global labor force available to capital in recent decades has occurred mainly as a result of two factors: the depeasantization of a large portion of the global periphery by means of agribusiness; and the integration of the workforce of the former “actually existing socialist” countries into the world capitalist economy. Between 1980 and 2007 the global labor force, according to the International Labor Organisation (ILO), grew from 1.9 billion to 3.1 billion, a rise of 63 percent. The data on the global workforce compiled by the ILO conforms closely to Marx's main distinctions with regard to the active labor army and the reserve army of labor. Two realities dominate labor at the world level today. One is global labor arbitrage, or the system of imperial rent. The other is the existence of a massive global reserve army, which makes the world system of extreme exploitation possible.