The role of collective mobilization in the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India (1950–2005)

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India after 1950 was a product of the different capabilities of the Chinese and Indian governments to mobilize the labor force and financial resources of the rural population. By mobilizing unpaid labor and the financial resources of the villagers through mediation by the collectives (before 1984) and local administrations (from 1984 to the abolition of agricultural taxation and compulsory rural labor mobilization in 2006), the Chinese state developed rural infrastructure and the quality of the labor force at a pace and geographical scope that was far beyond its limited fiscal capacity. Efforts by the Indian state to establish rural organizations with similar mobilization capabilities failed due to the effective opposition of well-entrenched political and economic interests in the countryside. Unable to mobilize the labor and financial resources of the villagers, the Indian government relied primarily on its limited fiscal resources, which produced a much slower development of physical infrastructure and labor force quality. These are the primary reasons why China’s rural economy developed much more rapidly than India’s, which contributed significantly to the divergence of their national economies in the post-1950 era.     

Rural unions and the struggle for land in Brazil

Studies of Brazil's agricultural labor movement have generally neglected its relationship to the struggle for land, but this is neither fair nor accurate. Analyzing the rural labor movement's historical contributions to the land struggle in Brazil, this contribution has been organized into three main periods, emphasizing social relations, institutional activism and policy changes. It argues that despite the peculiarities of different historical contexts, rural labor consistently provoked protest against policies that privileged large landholders, whose concentration of power over land and labor resources continually worsened Brazil's ranking as one of the most unequal of nations. For more than half a century, the most constant opponent of this situation among the peasantry has been the National Confederation of Workers in Agriculture (CONTAG), a corporatist organization of rural labor unions founded in 1963.     

Male workers in the female-dominated long-term care sector: evidence from England

Labor market changes, including growing opportunities to work in the long-term care (LTC) sector, may attract more men to this traditionally female-dominated occupation. Analyzing an English national workforce data-set we investigate whether men are remaining within traditional masculine jobs or crossing traditional boundaries into more emotional, and personal care work. We examine organization, local area effect, and service provision on the probability of attracting more men to the workforce. The analysis utilizes multivariate statistics and mixed-effect models. The findings highlight both horizontal and vertical segregation in the types of jobs undertaken by men in the LTC sector. A research agenda is identified.     

Swampwalls: dark matter and the lumpen army of art

Dominant notions of contemporary art are being overturned not by some radical avant-garde theory or movement, but instead by an “uprising” from within the confines of the “art factory,” as well as by newly embodied instances of informal everyday creativity that high culture has long overlooked. Theorists Negt and Kluge might have described this insurrection as the partial unblocking of a counter-public or proletarian sphere: a realm of fragmented identities and working class fantasy generated in response to the alienating conditions of capitalism. A more specific cultural interpretation suggests this mutiny from within and assault from below is the irrepressible brightening of “creative dark matter:” that marginalized and systematically underdeveloped aggregate of creative productivity, which nonetheless reproduces the material and symbolic economy of high culture. The results are explosive, or at least potentially so as this long, pent-up shadow archive spills out into the once forbidden dwelling place of mainstream law and order and high cultural privilege. Meanwhile, a new wave of socially engaged art is thriving on the margins of the art world. Like an enormous production warehouse this “post-public” creativity is developing sustainable farming, reenacting historical labor demonstrations, providing public services lost to decades of deregulatory economic policy, and initiating local bartering systems and environmental cleanups. Its vitality is something Joseph Beuys could have only dream about. And not surprisingly even this “autonomous” and “Interventionist” art is selectively becoming part of the mainstream culture industry through what Gilles Deleuze describes as an “apparatus of capture.” Nevertheless, one result of this new confrontation reveals this vibrant imaginary “from below” is pushing artistic production, pushing also discourse, pedagogy and cultural institutions into radically re-thinking definitions and possibilities not only involving the possibilities of contemporary avant-garde art practices, but also about the very nature of creativity, democracy, and political agency more broadly.     

Attention under repair: asceticism from self-care to care of the self

This essay examines the contemporary mindfulness movement as a cultural response to a larger problem of attention in the United States. As raw material for both capital (re)production and subjectivity, attention is a zone of indeterminacy and struggle for workers in a so-called immaterial economy. This essay suggests that the rise of concern around “paying attention” from the 1950s onward is driven by post-Fordist labor requirements more than networked technologies. First, it examines mindfulness as a technique of attention management for businesses and gives a broad survey of its current popularity and prevalence in US culture. Second, it proposes viewing techniques of attention like mindfulness through a triple lens of repair: (1) as managerial tools to repair psychic labor capacity for capital; (2) as practices that subjects use to repair alienation; and (3) as sites for reparative reading. Third, the essay illuminates the ties between Eve Sedgwick’s repair and Michel Foucault’s care of the self in order to suggest that resistance to practicing the self is founded on a paranoid defense. Its central argument is that attention is a method in Foucault's care of the self, and, as such, a potential portal into pleasure and political change rather than a mere feedback loop into capital.     

All the labor problems fit to print: the New York Times and the cultural production of the U.S ‘labor problem’, 1870–1932

The period that spanned the Gilded Age to the onset of the Great Depression saw the rise and relative decline of the US labor movement. The salient events of labor movements over these years undoubtedly shaped public perception about labor issues, and some scholars have been attempting to unpack the mechanisms through which depictions and characterizations of the ‘labor problem’ were produced in authoritative venues that could have shaped the future of the movement. This study goes beyond the standard practice of explaining news report volume to feature the political valance of the reports on the labor problem over a 63-year time period. The aforementioned period also saw significant changes in news reporting practices, with the rise of objective informational writing and the embrace of journalism as a profession. The change within journalism itself could potentially shape the depiction of the labor problem, yet such change has been overlooked by existing literature pertaining to the topic. This research makes a theoretical case for integrating social processes central to the labor movement and journalism from 1870 to 1932 and explains patterns in the cultural production of the labor problem in the New York Times by analyzing these two tracks of history in conjunction using both qualitative and quantitative data.     

人力资源开发与企业和谐劳动关系的构建

企业之所以进行人力资源开发,就是为了改变人力资源的既有状态,促使其向更高层次迈进。毫无疑问,这意味着对人力资源固有行为方式的改变。因此,人力资源开发也可以说是改变人力资源固有行为方式的行为。     

The political economy of labor market deregulation during IMF interventions

This study examines the relationship between policy interventions by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and de jure labor rights. Combining two novel data sets with unprecedented country-year coverage – leximetric data on labor laws and disaggregated data on IMF conditionality – our analysis of up to 70 developing countries from 1980 to 2014 demonstrates that IMF-mandated labor market policy measures significantly reduce both individual and collective labor rights. Once we control for the effect of labor market policy measures, however, we find that collective labor rights increase in the wake of IMF programs. We argue that this result is explained by the impact of union pressure on governments which, in such a context, are imbued with the policy space to respond to domestic interest groups. The study has broader theoretical implications as to when international organizations are effective in constraining governments’ choices.     

Turkifying Poverty,or: the Phantom Pain of Izmir’s Lost Christian Working Class, 1924–26

This article shows that ‘Turkification’, a term widely used by historians of modern Turkey to refer to the forced transfer of property from Christian into Muslim hands, ought to be conceptualized not only in the sense of ‘enrichment’ but also, with regard to the working classes, as a process in which Muslim people inherited the poverty of their Christian predecessors. Taking ?zmir as a case in point, the article first describes the plight of the overwhelmingly Christian working class prior to 1922. It then studies reports and editorials that discussed the economic and social situation in ?zmir in the years 1923 to 1926, after the Turkish victory and forced migration of her Christian population. Over the course of these years, ?zmir experienced a serious economic crisis, and bread prices reached levels that led to widespread undernourishment and hunger among the city?s poor. Agricultural production was lagging behind pre-war levels, and positive effects of ‘Turkification? policies were failing to materialize. By analyzing the contemporary journalists? attempts at explaining the crisis, but also pointing out national and transnational factors that they were probably unaware of, the article makes an original contribution to the economic and social history of early republican Turkey.     

大病风险冲击下农户户内劳动供给的性别差异分析——来自四川贫困县的证据

本文首先利用四川省秦巴山区一个县2696户农户调查数据和153户深度访谈数据,考察贫困地区农户大病风险以及大病风险下农户户内劳动供给的性别差异,然后通过典型案例总结大病风险下农户户内女性劳动供给的模式。研究发现,农村女性面临更多的大病风险,但却提供更多的户内劳动供给———从事更多的家庭收入创造活动和提供家庭成员大病患者的照料服务。文章最后讨论了大病风险下户内劳动供给性别差异的原因并提出了相关建议。