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January 22, 2016

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Home » Opinion » Book review

‘The Precariat’ examines impact of globalization on labor market

ACCORDING to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics on January 19, China’s migrant workers now earn an average of 3,072 yuan (US$470) per month, up 7.2 percent from a year ago.

In comparison, China’s overall economy grew by just 6.9 percent last year, the slowest rate of increase in over two decades.

This is good news for migrants — that is to say, the migrants who manage to get their wages. To my knowledge, many receive their pay on an annual basis, with the period before the Spring Festival being the preferred time to collect.

For a variety of reasons — including insolvency within the real estate and manufacturing industries, often as a result of old-fashioned greed among unscrupulous bosses — some workers and contractors unfortunately fail to receive their pay. Some only receive a fraction of what they’re due, while others are stiffed entirely.

Unsurprisingly, such situations have been known to ignite disputes.

Recently the State Council issued a circular urging local government to use “multiple means” to help migrants get their back wages. According to statistics, during the first three quarters of 2014, delayed wages resulted in a total of 11,007 conflicts/confrontations, up 34 percent from the same period a year earlier.

It is incorrect to see the plight of Chinese migrant workers as more than a temporary phenomenon in the process of development, but examining their vulnerability against the background of globalization might afford us new insights as we grope for a solution.

Labor market flexibility

In his book “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class,” Guy Standing explains how neoliberal policies in the West and the advance of globalization have contributed to the growth of the “precariat,” a class of individuals defined by the precarious nature of their economic lives.

Those in this group often include short-term laborers who are often underpaid and overworked. Many of them are women working service jobs without contracts and young people disenfranchised by a lack of job and career opportunities.

Neoliberals advocate for labor market flexibility, the crux of which is that businesses should be free to find workers in whatever country’s costs are lowest. As a consequence, people follow work, within and across borders. As Standing claims, “Neoliberal economists sought to create a global market economy based on competitiveness and individualism.”

Today, many in China hold anything “global” in high esteem.

I remember an anecdote I heard a couple of years ago.

A young man asked for the hand of a girl, only to be rebuked. Disdaining his proposal, she claimed that she worked for a “Global 500” company.

In fact, the young woman had only the most tenuous connections to this company, which would be entirely within its rights to send her packing with a few months of severance pay whenever it suited the bottom-line.

So many have become disposable workers, or members of an underclass in sprawling multi-national companies.

The much-touted phenomenon of globalization has increased the number of low-paid, rootless workers and deepened social stratification. At the root of this tendency is the unscrupulous espousal of market principles, as seen in the commodification of nearly everything.

“Commodification has been extended to every aspect of life — the family, education system, firm, labor institutions, social protection policy, unemployment, disability, occupational communities and politics,” Standing observes.

The consequences of this are: “If everything is commodified — valued in terms of costs and financial rewards — moral reciprocities become fragile.”

Jong-Wha Lee observed recently on this page (“Policy shortcomings and inadequate job training exacerbate skills gap in Asia,” January 18) that “Asia has plenty of educated young workers. But, at a time of industrial upgrading and ever-increasing technological sophistication, the knowledge and skills gained in school are often insufficient.”

Lee believed more knowledge- and technology-sharing would strengthen everyone’s efforts considerably. What eludes Lee is that digitalization and technology itself are at the core of a dehumanizing process driving alienation as workers are required to serve the machines better.

“The global economy has no respect for human physiology. The global market is a 24/7 machine; it never sleeps or relaxes,” Standing writes.

The hegemony of technology manifests itself in all spheres of life, as nearly every intellectual is called to adapt to a multi-media working environment. But none is harder hit than the precariat, for they lack the potential to adjust, many of them having spent their whole working lives as machinists or on an assembly line.

The insecure status of the precariat means many of them eventually suffer anger, anomie, anxiety and alienation, or the four A’s, according to Standing.

Having no sense of a future leads to anger. Living on the edge of society with no predictable income increases their anxiety.

Their alienation comes with the realization that they work only under orders from others, not for self-respect or self-satisfaction.

Anomie springs from being commodities that others, in effect, buy and sell. As they never get a chance to specialize or professionalize, they must do the work that’s available.

Short-termism

As Standing concludes, “The precariat is defined by short-termism, which could evolve into a mass incapacity to think long term, induced by the low probability of personal progress or building a career.”

A paradigm shift is taking place as the glut of temporary workers creates a disincentive for firms to hire full-timers or to offer full benefits or healthcare, for employers prefer to contract with temps who labor longer hours for lower wages.

A hallmark of the precariat is young workers’ connection to social media. Such connectivity in turn conditions them for precariat life.

People spent 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook in 2010. This excessive online connection suggests a “collective attention deficit disorder syndrome.”

This syndrome is profitable in a way — their connection to work never stops.

A lack of leisure will in turn lead to less and less participation in “public life,” thus leading to the precariat being doubly disempowered.

The ideal solution is probably social. As Confucius observed over 2,000 years ago, what disrupts a society is not a lack of wealth, but its uneven distribution.

Western governments have used billions of citizens’ dollars to bail out greedy bankers. Why not subsidize the lives of legal residents?

As Marxists believe, only when people live in dignity without having to pursue uncertain, humiliating labor, can they have time and freedom to effect self-realization.




 

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