Author: Shuwan Zhang
The subordination and insubordination of migrant workers in contemporary China
The subordination and insubordination of migrant workers in contemporary China
-The fast industrialising of China and the agency of migrant workers
Abstract
The fast developing China’s economy is accompanied by the growing group of internal migrant workers. Also the growing number of migrant workers also comes with the rising of the agencies of migrant workers. The question is how to unfold the relationship. In this paper, I introduced a new perspective to explain the changing relationship between state, capital, and labour in China, which is the autonomy of migration theory, seeing the agency of migrant workers as an active force to trigger socio-economic changes and social transformation. The interaction, if visualised and concretised, is studied as the interaction between the control system of state and capital to capture migrant workers and the fight back of migrant workers, which is the subordination of migrant workers to capital and the insubordination of migrant workers from capital. The interaction not only facilitates the consolidation of the agency of migrant workers but also trigger the upgrade of the control system.
The paper provides concrete empirical evidence to trace the interaction of migrant workers’ agencies with the development of different regions. Different historical preconditions lead to different pathways of capitalist development, which are related to the different strategies of subordination of migrant workers to capital in China. Also, although migrant workers are always involved in escaping from the existing control regime, they resistant and fight back differently according to the differences in the control regime and subordination strategy. Additionally, the Chinese state does not simply act as an agent of capital but also has autonomy from the business. It is widely influenced by the struggles and resistance of the working class. Therefore, the escape and insubordination of migrant workers not only triggers a chase by capital, but also by the state apparatuses, through mechanisms such as the mobility control system (the hukou system), the legal institution of labour relations (labour laws), and the state-run official trade unions.
It offers a suggestion of future trends in the insubordination of migrant workers in China: along with the spread of neoliberalism and the integration with the global market, increasing numbers of people are dragged into capital relation, and the subordination of labour to capital is deepening.