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Neocolonial Global Capitalism and Imperial Desire in Lawrence Chua's Gold By the Inch

Lawrence Chua's Gold By the Inch depicts the conditions of Southeast Asia after decolonization in which the logic of exchange value ruthlessly circulates through commodified bodies and the local and global exploitation of labor. Chua's novel follows the interconnected relationships between the logic of capital and the logic of profit under the global capitalist mode of production and exposes the occluded narratives of the exploitation of differentiated racialized bodies. This essay argues that the text presents an incisive critique of the euphemistic notion of historical progress.