Anthony D'Costa wrote:
> Jim is right that accumulation can place in various ways but a peasant-based
> economy, turning collective, and then creating an industrial base from a
> very primitive technological base must be based on lengthening the [working]
> day.
China is pretty high-tech these days, isn't it? Last time I heard,
Lenovo bought out IBM's personal computing business, while there's a
lot of high-tech activity going on there.
> Here the state, in the absence of capitalists, have been the master
> exploiter.
China has a significant capitalist class these days, too. That class
is largely merged with the CP and the state, but it still exists.
> Only much later with learning by doing other forms of surplus
> extraction take over. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore all had long working
> days and all of them have had considerable competent states in guiding
> development trajectories. All of them enjoy varying forms of democratic
> rights, perhaps not in the usual liberal sense.
What does "democratic rights, perhaps not in the usual liberal sense" mean?
> China, however, is a real
> test case but then its size is nothing like the other four. In other words
> cheap labor hasn't quite been exhausted but it's getting there. And the
> pressure to re-evaluate the yuan, worker strikes, human rights pressure,
> etc. are also pushing for a turning point.
We should also remember who gains and who loses from the stretch-out
of the working day in China. The winners are the individual members of
the ruling class, even though the ravaging of the Chinese working
class has the long-term impact of undermining the production of
surplus-value.
We should be less concerned with the "inevitability" of long working
days (which is akin to the Kuznets idea that even though industrial
revolutions involve steepening inequality, eventually the benefits
"trickle down" automatically, presumably due to the benevolence of
capitalism) and more concerned with defending the working class. If we
think that democratic rights in the usual liberal sense are a good
idea, they are more likely to be won by struggle from below than to
granted as charity from above.
--
Jim Devine
"Those who take the most from the table
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the taxes are destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary folk." – Bertolt Brecht.
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