Why China’s Workers are Losing Their World by Marc Blecher
Back to Blecher's Faculty Observation		The Sources of Hegemony How did the thinking of most Chinese workers, even the most impoverished and politically active ones, become subject to the hegemony of the market and the state? Markets have well-known structural features that entice those they dominate to accept them as the status quo. They also atomize those they subject, offering the prospect of individual solutions and undermining worker solidarity. The workers I interviewed tended to think that their best approach toward the difficulties they experienced was an individual one--work harder, seek out a new job, or get more education. They scoffed at collective action. Markets also divert away from politics the energies of people with leadership potential. The most dynamic workers I interviewed were, not surprisingly, those who were managing nicely in China's new economy, by maintaining good positions in their firms or through private entrepeneurship. Markets also create experiences that mitigate against opposition to them. Where and when they work well, they create a pool of consumer goods that, while not lifting all ships, can have a decidedly soporific effect. Even unemployed, dispirited workers thought they would benefit through opportunities for their spouses or children; others thought growth was robust enough to hold out a reasonable hope of something coming their way, such as the much-hoped-for foreign buyer for their enterprise. Memories of the Cultural Revolution also reinforce market hegemony. Even those who still think it a noble experiment generally also regard it as a failure because of its overwrought politicization, its perversions of class-based political struggle, and its social and economic havoc. This view still produces a palpable sense that there is no alternative to the "reforms". Likewise, national (and nationalistic) comparisons have helped foster support for market-based development in China. The fact that Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have prospered so well under capitalism--never mind that they in fact adopted a heavily statist variant--was specifically used by the Dengist leadership to mobilize support for its "reforms" in the early 1980s. And the fact that China is doing so well compared with Russia and much of Eastern Europe and Central Asia is, for many workers, the proof of the market pudding. In looking at state hegemony, it is critical to note that, in China, the state has persuaded many workers that it is no longer responsible for an individual's economic situation or even capable of doing anything to solve these problems. The workers I interviewed tended to attribute their problems to their firms' management or to local leaders, rather than to the state as an institution. Many also considered China's high level of unemployment as a problem that overtaxes the state, rather than as one caused by the state. Yet they also give it credit for the overall prosperity and growth that China has achieved since 1978, and think that the state can protect them from the effects of the market by providing layoff allowances, unemployment benefits, and subsidies to the poor. The Chinese state has worked to reinforce the structural bases for its hegemony. Hegemony operates most profoundly, of course, at the level not so much of what people think as of the categories in which they think. The press induces China's workers to think in terms of relatively harmless categories. In one very common example, a Workers Daily story on state enterprise "reform" tried to appear objective by presenting survey data. But all the questions were framed in terms of the specific characteristics of enterprises. "When asked to choose whether they preferred to work in state-owned, private, joint venture, or stock companies, 58 percent chose state-owned. They were then asked whether they would approve if their factory were doing pretty well and were made to take over a money-losing plant. 55 percent said they would approve, 30 percent disapproved, and 15 percent said they would have to look at the situation to decide." Such a story induces workers to think about their problems in terms of the ownership forms or the economic fortunes of their firms and not in terms of the market or of state policies themselves. Another typical story directed at workers blamed their plight in part on the unwillingness of enterprises to provide training, which directs workers' thinking to human capital rather than to capital or to the capitalistic state. Likewise, the state works hard to persuade workers that problems come not from the state but from the market and their failure to adapt to it. This same survey "found" that workers thought the second leading cause of an enterprise's problems after "poor leadership" was "poor conditions in the market". The state also continues to hector workers about how they ought to accept market-based logic in their own lives. For example, Workers Daily published a reader's debate over a story it had published about a model worker named Ren Jianye, who turned down a cash prize that accompanied his honor. One of Ren's critics argued: "For him not to accept it reflects a spirit of not asking for anything. But it has bad side effects. Not to accept it plays into the spirit of eating out of the same pot, in which some people rest easy on the fruits of others' work, in which some people work more but don't get more, all of which depresses the labor activism of many people. If people like Ren are paid more, this protects the people who work and contribute more, which in turn disturbs the people who waste their days." Here we begin to see a more insidious rhetorical approach that divides the working class. The same Workers Daily has depicted young workers as lazy "good for nothings" who lack pride in their work and are unwilling to upgrade their skills. <...more>
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