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Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6 octobre
2007
The Enterprise’s Labor Relationship of China:
Transformation, Tension, and Towarding Harmony
Ding Wei min
School of Economics of Tianjin Normal University, P. R .of China
Email Address: [email protected]
Qi Zhi ping
Department of Politics and Law
of Dong Guan Technology University, Dong
Guan city,Guang Dong province, P. R .China
Email Address: [email protected]
Abstract: The enterprise’s labor relationship means a social economic relationship that
comes from the labor- process which between the laborer and the user of the labor-power. It is
the fundamental and primary part of the whole social economic relationship.
In the Capital (1867) Marx pointed that: “in this work I have to examine the capitalist mode
of production, and the conditions of production and exchange corresponding to that mode”,
accordingly, the research about the labor relationship becomes an important part of the
economics of Marx. In Volume One of the Capital, Marx first pointed that, in the market, the
users of the labor-power and the laborers appeared as the owner of the money and the owner of
the labor-power. “He and the owner of money meet in the market, and deal with each other as on
the basis of equal rights”. But, because the labor-power possessor has no means of production,
while the capital appropriates them, so the laborer must sell his labor-power to the money owner,
it becomes the capitalist particular wage-labor relationship or labor-capital relationship. This
relationship’s most important manifestation is the capitalist and his agents administer and
supervise the production procedure, at the same time, the labor attached to the capital. Because
this attachment relationship is only different from all the other attachments on the surface, so
Marx said the labor was attached to capital in form. Secondly, Marx analysised the capitalist
production mode transform from cooperation to handicraft industry and to industrialization,
explained that on the basis of labor attached to capital in form, how turning into attached to
capital in substance, from emerging to developing and to becoming mature. At last, Marx
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6 octobre
2007
analysised from the point of reproduction about the influence on the capitalist labor-capital
relationship under the condition of the capital accumulation, the economic growth,
competitions among capital, the worker’s struggle, the globalization of capital and so on, from
all above, Marx concluded that the labor-capital relationship of the capitalism must be replaced
by the new tape of relationship. Thus it can be seen, Marx explained the nature and evolution of
labor relationship on the basis of the ownership of means of production and the production
mode theory, it is Marx labor relationship theory’s fundamental, at the same time, it is the basic
research approach used by this paper.
In recently decades, the left academies in western also made a lot of researches about the
change and characteristic of labor relationship, and have a lot of gains. The western’s relevant
work and research achievements popular in China’s economics area such as: Braverman,
Harry.1974, Labor and Monopoly Capital, and his discussion about the contemporary capitalist
deepening labor division while the workers deskilling; Marglin, S. A., 1974, What Do Bosses
Do? The Origins and Functions of Heirarchy of Capitalist Production, and his discussion about
the capitalist enterprise’s hierarchy and labor division’s effect on the information asymmetry
between the labor and the capital; D. M. Gordon, and some other persons,1982, Segmented
Work, Divided Workers, and Gordon’s legacy Fat and Mean: The Corporte Squeeze of Working
Americans and the Myth of Managerial “ Downsizing”, in which he put forward the SSA (The
Social Structure of Accumulation) theory and used this theory to analysis the tendency where
the America workers’ skill and political attitude change. A series of papers such as: Kotz, D. M.
2006, Contradictions of Economic Growth in the Neoliberal Era: Accumulation and Crisis in
the Contemporary U.S. Economy （2001，2003，2006）, in which he analysised under the
Neo-liberalism where the American labor relationship’s character and tendency turning into.
Duménil, Gérard, and Lévy, Dominique, 2004, Neoliberal Dynamics: A New Phase? and, 2006,
Finance and Management in the Dynamics of Social Change, and some other papers researched
under the Neo-liberalism the class structure’s change and the class conflicts in American and
France, which affect their institution; and so on. These works make strong impression on us.
This paper’s research mostly under the background of above works and the relevant researches
made by Chinese scholars in recently years.
In this paper, section 2 briefly reviews the past years after China’s opening and reforming, as
the ownership-structure’s transformation causing the enterprise’s labor-relationship change,
and concluding the characteristic of this new emerging relationship. Section 3 explains Chinese
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6 octobre
2007
labor relationship transformation on the basis of experimental data, and points out ,on one hand
it pulls China’s economy growth, on the other hand, it makes labor conflict suits increase
dramatically, the labor relationship progresses significantly tension. Section 4 analysises the
main reason why labor relationship more and more tension. Section 5 introduces what Chinese
government does to regulate the labor relationship, and forecasts the prospect of Chinese
enterprise’s labor relationship’s development. The most important result of this paper is:
accompanied with Chinese economy’s reform deepening and completely involved into the
globalization, Chinese enterprise’s labor relationship becoming especially complicated. The
enterprise’s labor relationship are in transformation period, on one side, most enterprise’s labor
relationship becoming tension, on the other side, many factors push the enterprise’s labor
relationship towarding homony.