This feels like more of a weakness of statistics than anything else. As someone whose extended family lived through those times, the life of a factory worker or laborer in China today is...
This feels like more of a weakness of statistics than anything else. As someone whose extended family lived through those times, the life of a factory worker or laborer in China today is incomparably superior to that in the 1960s. The period of time where the article states inequality increased, is the period of time actual mainland Chinese people are the most happy with.
In practice, wealthy inequality is better than having nothing equally.
Most westerners don't realize just how desperately poor China was. I know you know this, but for others - China's GDP per capita in 1985 was ~$300 in today's dollars.
Most westerners don't realize just how desperately poor China was. I know you know this, but for others - China's GDP per capita in 1985 was ~$300 in today's dollars.
I don't think the author necessarily disagrees with the fact that life for your average Chinese factory worker is better now than it was in the 1960s. From the introduction:
I don't think the author necessarily disagrees with the fact that life for your average Chinese factory worker is better now than it was in the 1960s. From the introduction:
To be sure, this is about relative distribution of income, not about absolute income changes for the Chinese workforce. Incomes and living standards have risen dramatically since the 1980s, and the country achieved an impressive record of poverty reduction, all of which should be recognized and applauded. But the fact remains that Chinese workers have lagged far behind the owners of capital and the government when it comes to income gains. It may not be the abject labor extraction envisioned by Deng, but it is labor extraction nonetheless.
Yeah I think that's something that's often missed in critiques of capitalism. Income inequality is often treated like the mother of all statistics and proof of extreme exploitation, and maybe in...
Yeah I think that's something that's often missed in critiques of capitalism.
Income inequality is often treated like the mother of all statistics and proof of extreme exploitation, and maybe in some ways it is. Shouldn't the actual thing we're trying to optimize for be general human well being though?
Like, is a society where the rulers live in golden floating places, but everyone else lives in huge, comfortable homes without any medical issues, economic anxiety or crime worse in any way to a society where everyone is dirt poor and starving?
The thing I care about is if rich people are making life horrible for poor people. I don't really care about the fact that rich people are richer than everyone else in isolation.
I think a lot of people get hung up on an abstract idea of fairness versus overall general well-being.
Its a good point, but I think the inequality matters more for zero sum games and power dynamics. So where everyone is rich, but the ultrarich are really rich, its great from a materialistic point...
Its a good point, but I think the inequality matters more for zero sum games and power dynamics. So where everyone is rich, but the ultrarich are really rich, its great from a materialistic point of view. However, when it comes to having agency over your own life, or social standing, it is worse off. So its a trade off.
Which matters more? When you are dirt poor, absolute wealth matters more, but as you get richer, the inequality bites more for each unit increase in wealth. It would be interesting to know where the hypothetical equilibrium would be, and how it would vary in different cultures.
I get where you're coming from, but I disagree. Maybe in theory, but in the example at hand, Chinese today - in their more unequal society - have vastly more agency than they did when they were...
So where everyone is rich, but the ultrarich are really rich, its great from a materialistic point of view. However, when it comes to having agency over your own life, or social standing, it is worse off. So its a trade off.
I get where you're coming from, but I disagree. Maybe in theory, but in the example at hand, Chinese today - in their more unequal society - have vastly more agency than they did when they were starving, but equal, peasants.
Fundamentally, money is optionality: you have more agency over your life when you're sort of rich.
I think this essay misses out by not discussing the urban-rural economic divide in China. While the hukou system probably wasn't discussed to make the essay more approachable for non-experts, the...
I think this essay misses out by not discussing the urban-rural economic divide in China. While the hukou system probably wasn't discussed to make the essay more approachable for non-experts, the creation of essentially a second class of citizens who hold rural hukou seems important for the kind of argument the author is making, especially as blue-collar work is increasingly performed by rural hukou internal migrants working in the cities outside of their household registration area.
Yes, great point! If we’re talking about the alienation of labor and all that, is there any example more relevant than the hukou system? I mean it’s almost literally the creation of a new bourgeoisie.
Yes, great point! If we’re talking about the alienation of labor and all that, is there any example more relevant than the hukou system? I mean it’s almost literally the creation of a new bourgeoisie.
I would agree with you there. When I said agency over life, I meant more in social standing, but in terms of physical limitations of social interaction such as transport or free time to do so, yes...
I would agree with you there. When I said agency over life, I meant more in social standing, but in terms of physical limitations of social interaction such as transport or free time to do so, yes you are right.
In the early 1980s, rural Chinese workers saw their incomes surge amid the country’s economic liberalization. It was the beginning of one of the most remarkable feats in history as hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens rose out of poverty. But while many watched in awe, one high-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party was worried by what he saw happening.
Deng Liqun (no relation to Deng Xiaoping, China’s leader at the time, who had initiated the economic reforms) noticed that many rural businesses had started to hire a large number of workers. Deng, citing Das Kapital by Karl Marx, began to sound the alarm about the greedy capitalists extracting surpluses from the Chinese proletariat. To him, large private businesses were inherently exploitative.
Deng’s warnings were ignored, but they turned out to be prescient: China’s workforce was about to get squeezed. According to official Chinese statistics, in the real economy—that is, agriculture, industry, and utilities—the share of labor compensation relative to the value of all economic inputs, such as raw materials, production components, and capital, fell from 21 percent in 1987 to 15 percent in 2023, the last year for which data are available. (The share of wages for service jobs, including in real estate, finance, and the government sector, is roughly on par with what it was in the 1980s.) In other words, the relative position of Chinese factory and farm workers today is worse than it was before China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
This feels like more of a weakness of statistics than anything else. As someone whose extended family lived through those times, the life of a factory worker or laborer in China today is incomparably superior to that in the 1960s. The period of time where the article states inequality increased, is the period of time actual mainland Chinese people are the most happy with.
In practice, wealthy inequality is better than having nothing equally.
Most westerners don't realize just how desperately poor China was. I know you know this, but for others - China's GDP per capita in 1985 was ~$300 in today's dollars.
I don't think the author necessarily disagrees with the fact that life for your average Chinese factory worker is better now than it was in the 1960s. From the introduction:
Yeah I think that's something that's often missed in critiques of capitalism.
Income inequality is often treated like the mother of all statistics and proof of extreme exploitation, and maybe in some ways it is. Shouldn't the actual thing we're trying to optimize for be general human well being though?
Like, is a society where the rulers live in golden floating places, but everyone else lives in huge, comfortable homes without any medical issues, economic anxiety or crime worse in any way to a society where everyone is dirt poor and starving?
The thing I care about is if rich people are making life horrible for poor people. I don't really care about the fact that rich people are richer than everyone else in isolation.
I think a lot of people get hung up on an abstract idea of fairness versus overall general well-being.
Its a good point, but I think the inequality matters more for zero sum games and power dynamics. So where everyone is rich, but the ultrarich are really rich, its great from a materialistic point of view. However, when it comes to having agency over your own life, or social standing, it is worse off. So its a trade off.
Which matters more? When you are dirt poor, absolute wealth matters more, but as you get richer, the inequality bites more for each unit increase in wealth. It would be interesting to know where the hypothetical equilibrium would be, and how it would vary in different cultures.
I get where you're coming from, but I disagree. Maybe in theory, but in the example at hand, Chinese today - in their more unequal society - have vastly more agency than they did when they were starving, but equal, peasants.
Fundamentally, money is optionality: you have more agency over your life when you're sort of rich.
I think this essay misses out by not discussing the urban-rural economic divide in China. While the hukou system probably wasn't discussed to make the essay more approachable for non-experts, the creation of essentially a second class of citizens who hold rural hukou seems important for the kind of argument the author is making, especially as blue-collar work is increasingly performed by rural hukou internal migrants working in the cities outside of their household registration area.
Yes, great point! If we’re talking about the alienation of labor and all that, is there any example more relevant than the hukou system? I mean it’s almost literally the creation of a new bourgeoisie.
I would agree with you there. When I said agency over life, I meant more in social standing, but in terms of physical limitations of social interaction such as transport or free time to do so, yes you are right.
Anyone have an archive link? I'm unsure if it's still ethically sound to use archive.is anymore
Does the gift link not work for you? It still works when I click it.
I see a "sign up for free to read the rest of it" box blocking. Might be regionally dependent
Is a PaywallSkip link okay? I usually provide archive.ph links.
It is! Thank you, and I hadn't known about that domain before, will keep for next time thanks ~