Labor Process and the Social Structure of Accumulation in China1

Zhongjin Li and Hao Qi
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Zhongjin Li: Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA
Hao Qi: Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

Review of Radical Political Economics, 2014, vol. 46, issue 4, 481-488

Abstract: Inspired by the interplay between social structure of accumulation theory and labor process theory, this paper is to specify the particular mechanism that labor institutions take in accomplishing China’s rapid capital accumulation in the reform era. The paper starts by proposing a framework to understand the relation among overtime work, labor process, and the wage gap and presents the puzzling contradiction between low wages and the need to sustain the reproduction of labor power for Chinese workers. The paper then details the bi-directional determination between the subordination of labor in the workplace and the wage gap, and further analyzes the critical conditions for the stability of the current labor institutions and sustaining capital accumulation.

Keywords: labor process; social structure of accumulation; wage gap; living wage; Chinese economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B51 J31 J53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:46:y:2014:i:4:p:481-488

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