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The Industrial Reserve Army and Wage Setting in China
ESTHER MAJEROWICZ
We propose a Marxist interpretation of wage setting in postreform China and an account of the formation of its industrial reserve army (IRA). We discuss the party-state shifting strategies toward depeasantization and the social forms under which laborers were absorbed in nonagricultural activities. Far from experiencing the end of unlimited supplies of labor, China has built a massive IRA that has nonetheless changed in shape and composition. We explore how the IRA influences the wage rate formation and the evolution of class struggle and state policies responding to it, which together explain the broad patterns of wage behavior in China.
Issue No :- 1 (2022)
Pages :- 21-56