I'll assume there are convincing labour movements in China, but what clear-cut evidence of this do we have available from a US/western vantage point?
When labour is in short supply and workers are confident of finding work, I would say that their inclinations towards any sort of action, individual or collective, will be determined mostly by cultural norms.
Low-level tech workers in Silicon Valley are not contemplating forming unions just because the NasDaq hit 3000 yesterday.
BTW property values in China have inflated rather dramatically in big cities, and (this is conjecture) but rents have probably ratcheted up to match. A demand for minimum wage increases doesn't seem so radical if you can't afford adequate shelter--household formation. That's an economic breaking point, not a sign of advanced class consciousness, right?
On 3/16/12, Marv Gandall <marvgand at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2012-03-16, at 1:14 PM, c b wrote:
>
>> michael perelman
>>
>> Yes, China wants to develop its consumer base, but other countries are
>> having to respond to the demand for higher wages because of pressure
>> from below. Are Asian elites more advanced or are they responding to
>> working class pressure that is non-existent here in the US.
>>
>> ^^^^^^
>>
>> CB: China's CP leadership is no doubt more advanced than the US bourgeois
>> elite.
>
> Anyone yet mention that Chinese manufacturers on the coast are experiencing
> labour shortages and have had to pay higher wages or relocate inland or to
> neighbouring countries where labour is cheaper? The more the interior
> industrializes, the more disincentive there is to migrate, pressuring
> coastal wages even more. As China moves up the value chain, wages are also
> rising to meet the demand for more highly skilled workers. Where labour is
> in short supply and workers are confident of finding work, they are more
> inclined to engage in job action and other forms of protest for better pay
> and benefits.
>
> So there's nothing inherently more astute about Asian bosses of big
> state-owned or private firms. Their needs require that they make concessions
> to their workers. US capitalists aren't faced with a confident, assertive
> working class in a rapidly expanding economy where permanent manufacturing
> jobs are plentiful, as they once were. Now American workers are scrambling
> to find work, and it is not they, but their employers, who are demanding and
> winning concessions in the ongoing struggle between the classes.
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