Michael, this seems like a strange perspective. Why dont you try imagining that you are a worker and thinking about the kind of economic transformation that you would want and how you would want to achieve it--what kind of policies would be helpful and why--what is the government proposing and why, etc.
You talk about China as a classless entity rather than a country with a class system. I am sure that US capital would like to restart the growth engines in the US while maintaining labor discipline as well. At the same time, they would probably choose maintaining labor discipline over growth if it came down to it. Look at how little change in economic structure we have seen in the wake of the great recession and with a possible double dip on the horizon. And the same is true in China. The regime doesnt like to see worker activism--but that doesnt mean that they are supportive of meaningful changes in the strategy. Look at their stimulus program--very little redistributive in the public spending, for example. Marty On 6/16/2010 4:25 PM, Michael Perelman wrote: > While I was there, I got the impression that China was > trying to make the transition to where they could > create more relative surplus value, getting off the > low-wage sweatshop model. > > The question is how they can make the transition and > still maintain labor discipline. > > > On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 01:17:38AM +0200, Anthony D'Costa wrote: > >> I would like to see how or for that matter which country/economy expanded >> without generating absolute surplus value. While I would not like to live >> in China, I think the Chinese economic transformation is remarkable. Long >> hours is necessary for surplus generation. There is no short cut to it. >> It's a matter of throughput. The only question is who puts in the long >> hours and who reaps the benefits? >> >> Anthony >> >> >> > > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
