In Volume I of Capital, Marx takes us on an odyssey through the secrets of the world of commodities produced under capitalism – their ‘real’ value, the exploitative nature of the labour process and the dark abode of production. His contribution to studies of early capitalism and working poverty is seminal, but how is Marx still relevant for the study of contemporary globalised production? This chapter identifies three tropes of Marxian methodology relevant to the study of India's ‘sweatshop regime’: first, the initial framing of the analysis around ‘the commodity’, to illustrate the concrete workings of ‘commodity fetishism’ and its links to regional comparative advantage; second, the study of different modes of extraction of surplus-value, their interplay and implications for the labouring body; and lastly, the mapping of distinct processes of subsumption of labour into capitalist circuits, resulting in various ‘forms of exploitation’. While celebrating the relevance of the Marxian method for the concrete analysis of contemporary sweatshops, the chapter also reflects on the need to complement it with insights on the social traits of exploitation and social reproduction, drawing from the radical feminist literature.