Most of this WSJ commentary is "China could..." Pardon the sarcasm, but
I'm sure the CPC wants Mr. Katz's opinion.
The specific measures for rural education sound like a mere sop.
The original report noted the hard labor of peasants trudging behind
water buffalo. The commentary admits that even so, rural emigrants to
cities pose a severe employment problem. Don't expect the regime to
boost rural displacement even more by funding farm mechanization in a
big way.
The most interesting remark: "Over the past decade, China eliminated
nearly 20 million factory jobs despite the explosion in industrial
output." (I've seen similar remarks but still don't know an
authoritative figure. Anyone got that?) Productive expansion today
simply does not require massive numbers of industrial workers. The
growth decades of auto in the U.S. - 1920-1960 - required huge numbers
of semiskilled workers. They were able to build trade unions successful
in winning economic gains. The growth decades of modern electronics -
1970- 2000 - saw no such demand for semiskilled labor, and not enough
demand for skilled labor to make a big economic difference. I tried to
lay out how capitalist accumulation has reached a limit in From
Capitalism to Equality: An inquiry into the laws of economic change. On
a historical scale of time, the end of this mode of production is near.
Charles Andrews
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