[학술동향] "중앙아시아에 50만명의 한인이 살고 있다" (학술저널 담비_2007.6.9.)

"중앙아시아에 50만명의 한인이 살고 있다"

고려인 강제 이주 70주년 맞아 학술대회 열려

리뷰팀 review@dambee.net

▲ 스탈린의 사나운 트럭은 저 광할한 허허벌판의 한밤중에 사람들을 내려놓고 사라졌다.

올해는 고려인들이 소련의 극동 지방에서 스탈린에 의해 강제로 중앙아시아로 이주된 지 70주년이다. 지금으로부터 70년 전 가을 날 한 밤중에 연해주에 살고 있던 우리 조상들이 중앙아시아의 사막 한 가운데에 강제로 이주를 당하였다. 정들었던 집과 다니던 직장을 모두 잃고 한 달 이상 걸려 도착한 곳이 아무것도 없는 허허벌판이었다.

▲ 이주 초창기의 고려인들의 모습

하지만 고려인들은 사막 한 가운데에서 움집을 짓고 먹을 것을 찾아 나섰고, 집단 농장에서 열심히 일을 하면서 새로운 삶의 터전을 만들어 나갔다. 그리고 옛날 압록강 이북 지방까지 평정하였던 고려인의 정신적 기개와 용맹심을 계승하자는 취지에서 자신들을 고려인 또는 고려사람이라고 불렀다.

그렇게 고려인은 탄생하였고, 현재 우즈베키스탄, 카자흐스탄, 키르키즈스탄, 아제르바이젠 등에 50여만명이나 살고 있다. 그들이 한국말을 사용하지 않고, 한국문화를 많이 잃어버렸다고 해도 그들의 생물학적인 한민족이다.

한국인들에게 고려인의 존재는 낯설다. 과거 연해주에 살았던 우리 조상들이 어떻게 중앙아시아에까지 가서 살게 되었으며, 그렇게 어려운 환경 속에서도 생존해 나온 역사를 바르게 알자는 움직임이 이번 70주년을 맞아 매우 활발해질 조짐이다.

▲ 맨 왼쪽이 정상진 翁

이번 학술대회에서는 현지에 거주하는 고려인 2명의 초청 강연회도 열린다. 정상진 씨는 19살의 나이에 직접 강제 이주를 경험했으며 현재 생존해 있으면서 그때 당시의 상황을 증언할 수 있는 몇 안되는 이다. 북한에서 살기도 한 그는 북한 문화선전부 부상(차관)을 역임하기도 해 북한의 문화예술활동의 실상도 잘 알고 있다. 특히 월북작가인 홍명희, 이기영, 한설야 등의 많은 작가들과 문인 활동을 같이 하였기 때문에 월북작가의 동향을 증언해 줄 수 있는 거의 유일한 생존자라는 점에서 강연회에 대한 관심이 쏠리고 있다.

또 한 명의 초청자는 송 라브렌티로서 모스크바 영화학교를 졸업한 뒤 카자흐스탄에 거주하면서 강제 이주를 소재로 한 다양한 희곡을 쓰고, 다큐멘타리 영화를 제작해온 이다. 특히 일본에 그의 영화가 소개되고 일본 지방 순회 강연회를 다니면서 강제 이주의 역사적 사건을 이야기해왔다.

이번 고려인 강제이주 70주년 기념 학술대회는 해외한인 연구를 중앙아시아 지역으로 넓히는 계기가 될 것으로 보인다. 근래에 해외한인에 대한 적지 않은 연구 결과물이 발표되면서 해외 한민족 문학 연구의 넓이와 깊이를 더해 왔지만 대부분이 미국이나 일본 또는 중국 등 지역에 관련된 것이었다. 반면 러시아와 카자흐스탄, 우즈베키스탄 등에 거주하는 고려인들에 관한 것은 아직도 많지 않은 실정이다.
 
특히 이들 고려인들이 남긴 문학작품은 가장 먼저 독파해야 할 자료이다. 저 척박한 땅에서 뼈저리게 겪어야 했던 고난의 역사와 박해로 얼룩진 자취를 고스란히 담고 있는 살아있는 역사이기 때문이다.

1. 일시: 2007년 6월 15일 금요일 오전 10시-오후6시
2. 장소 : 홍익대학교 와우관 세미나실(제1분과), K동 103호(제2분과)
3. 주 최: 한국현대문학회, 국제한인문학회
4. 주 관: 홍익대학교
5. 후 원: (주)동해 인테크
6. 대회 문의: 학술대회 준비위원회 사무실
우정권(단국대 교수) :041-550-3119 / 019-383-4839 / jgwoo8@hanmail.net

<프로그램>

<제1분과> 장소 : 와우관 세미나실

오전 10:00-10:30 접수 및 등록

오전 10:30 - 12:00 1부 : 한국문학의 정체성
사회 : 정호웅(홍익대 교수)

조선족 문학 디아스포라 ; 김학철 문학상 작가를 중심으로
발표자 : 박진숙(성균관대 교수)
토론자 : 구재진(국민대 교수)

상해 『독립신문』소재 신채호의 작품 발굴 및 그 의의
발표자 : 김주현(경북대 교수)
토론자 : 김영민(연세대 교수)

12:00 - 13:00 점심식사(홍익대 남문관 식당)

13:00-15:40 2부 : 고려인의 역사와 문화, 문학
사회 : 방일권(일제강점하 강제동원피해 진상규명위원회 연구원)

고려인 강제 이주의 역사
발표자 : 심헌용(국방부 군사편찬연구소 연구원)
토론자 : 배은경(한국외대 역사문화연구소 연구원)

타쉬켄트 주 고려인 꼴호즈의 변화
발표자 : 임영상(한국외대 교수)
토론자 : 박마야(한국학중앙연구원 대학원)

신순남 화백의 그림에 나타난 강제 이주의 애환
발표자 : 이혜승(한국체대)
토론자 : 최태만(국민대 교수)

고려인 문학 창시자 조명희의 문학 세계
발표자 : 이정숙(한성대 교수)
토론자 : 김성수(성균관대 교수)

16:00 - 16:20 축사
홍익대학교 총장 권명광
한국현대문학회, 국제한인문학회 회장 장사선

16:20 - 18:20 3부 고려인 문인 초청 강연 및 발표, 토론회
사회 : 우정권(단국대 교수)

문학 작품에 나타난 강제 이주의 애환
강연자 : 정상진
(카자흐스탄 고려인 문학평론가, 전 북한 문화부 차관)
좌장 : 이명재(중앙대 명예교수)
토론자 : 김필영(강남대 교수)

영화와 희곡에 나타난 강제 이주의 역사적 비극성
강연자 : 송 라브렌티
(카자흐스탄 고려인 극작가, 영화 감독)
좌장 : 박명진(중앙대 교수)
토론자 : 안숙현(단국대 교수)
통역자 : 김 나타샤(경희대 고려인 유학생)

18:20 폐회
18:20-21:00 만찬 (홍익대 문헌관 16층)

입력 : 2007년 06월 09일 18:29:00 / 수정 : 2007년 06월 09일 18:34:50

[학술뉴스] 중화질서란 용어, 어떻게 생각하십니까 (학술저널 담비_2007.6.8.)

중화질서란 용어, 어떻게 생각하십니까

<역사용어사전> 편찬을 위한 [비교사 집담회]

연구정보팀 research@dambee.net

서울대 역사연구소에서는 '역사용어사전' 편찬을 위한 제1회 '비교사 집담회'를 개최한다. 아래는 취지문의 주요내용과 집답회 관련 내용이다.

"왜 우리나라에서는 역사가 세 분야인가? 해방 후부터 지금까지 한국사, 동양사, 서양사로 나뉘어왔다. 그것은 근대화 과정에서 배우는 주체인 우리, 정체된 동양, 배워야 할 상대인 유럽을 서로 갈라놓았기 때문이었다. 그 동안 이 구분법은 세 분야의 학문적 수준을 높이고 각각의 연구자를 키우는 데에 공헌해왔다. 그러나 상호간에 벽을 쌓아 소통이 되지 않은 채 안주해온 것도 사실이다. 그러니 큰 안목으로 역사를 바라보는 대가를 길러내지 못하였다. 이제는 달라져야 한다. 칸막이를 허물고 서로 소통해야만 할 때가 된 것이다.

한국의 역사학은 (한)국사-동양사-서양사의 3분구조라는 독특한 학문편제를 갖고 있다. 그 안에 있는 우리에게는 당연해 보이지만, 외국의 사례들을 보면 특정의 역사적 형성물임을 짐작할 수 있다. 그것은 해방 직후부터 기본 틀로써 자리를 잡았는데, 일본의 선례를 따른 것이기는 하지만 신생 국가의 발전 전략에 맞지 않았다면 뿌리를 내리지 못했을 것이다. ‘근대화’를 ‘서구화’와 동일시하여 내재적 발전의 가능성을 사전에 차단했던 그간의 인식지평에서 3분법은 서구를 특화시켜주는 동시에 한국(사)학에게는 문명적 근거를 제공함과 아울러 보호막의 노릇을 해주었다. 그것은 유럽중심주의를 함축하면서도 자기정체성에 심리적 안정감을 제공해 주었다.

사실 3구분법은 한국 역사학의 발전에도 크게 이바지했다. 그것은 세 분야의 전문화를 키워 학문적 수준을 높였으며, 정체성을 만들어주어 학계의 형성을 도왔다. 그것은 분과학문체계의 건설이라는 시대적 요청에 잘 부합했으며, 세 분야는 그 체계의 일부가 되었다. 참으로 역사학의 3분법은 우리 ‘근대성’의 일부가 되었고, ‘근대주의’의 한 표현이다. 하지만 그것은 분과학문체계를 통해 굳어져 구조가 되면서 전문화의 대가를 요구한다. 삼분 구조는 역사학 내부에 칸막이를 만들어 역사세계를 잘게 나눔으로써 상호 소통을 힘들게 하고 궁극적으로 통합적인 역사상의 구축을 어렵게 한다. 한국의 역사학은 근대성의 극복이라는 새로운 시대적 요청에 직면해 있는 것이다.

‘역사용어사전 편찬팀’은 연구의 제1차 년도를 끝내면서 비교사집담회를 시작한다. 1차적 목표는 사전편찬의 도움을 받겠다는 것이다. 애초 우리는 낙관적이었다. 외국의 좋은 본보기를 참조한다면 길이 거기 있을 것이라 여겼다. 하지만 우리는 곧 그것이 ‘옮겨놓을’ 수 있는 것이 아님을 깨달았다. 우리말로 된 사전을 만든다는 것 자체가 이미 그 용어들로 표상되는 역사세계의 주체가 누구인지를 엄중하게 묻고 있었다. 그 용어들의 상당수는 바다 건너로부터 ‘옮겨’ 왔지만 우리 현실의 일부가 됨으로써 자신의 고향에 대해서도 새로운 물음을 제기할 터였다. 사전의 대표제어가 되는 근대국가, 봉건제, 노예제, 공과 사, 중화질서, 문명, 문화 등의 용어들은 역사세계가 마치 양(洋), 해(海), 만(灣)으로 나눠지면서도 하나인 비할 데 없이 큰 온 바다임을 현현하는 듯했다.

하여 편찬팀은 조금은 어깨에 힘을 주기로 했다. 3인 1조가 되는 발표·토론자를 아예 한국사, 동양사, 서양사 분야에서 한 분씩 모셔 소통의 장으로 삼겠다는 것이다. 대표제어의 집필을 한 사람이 하여 뒤섞임과 넘나듦이 일어날 수밖에 없다면 차라리 염도의 차이를 크게 하여 삼투압을 높이겠다는 것이다. 우리는 동일한 사상(事象)에 대한 다양한 접근로의 교착으로 역사학의 3분 구조를 극복할 수 있는 계기까지는 아니라고 하더라도 그 단초는 마련해 볼 수 있지 않을까 한껏 용기를 내본다.

따라서 우리 편찬팀은 대표제어의 집필과 그것을 뒷받침하기 위한 비교사집담회를 통해 다음의 두 가지 점을 기대한다. 첫째, 집필 자체가 비교사의 실험장이다. 이런 식의 집필은 기왕의 역사서술에서는 일어날 수 없었다. 한 주제를 놓고 200자 원고지 100매로 동서고금을 아우른다는 것 자체가 집필자에게 미증유의 경험을 가져다 줄 것이다. 역사용어사전의 편찬 자체가 비교사의 흔치 않은 무대가 될 것이다. 둘째, 그런 식의 발표를 놓고 학문영역이 서로 다른 3명의 전문가가 토론을 벌이는 것 역시 흔치 않은 광경일 것이다. 차이를 확인하는 것으로도 족하며, 소통의 가능성을 발견한다면 금상첨화일 것이다.

우리는 대표제어 가운데 절반 정도인 20여개의 꼭지를 집담회에 올릴 계획이다. 첫 번째 주제로 ‘중화질서’를 잡았다. 발표자는 이 분야의 권위자인 이성규 교수님을, 토론자로는 송기호(한국사, 발해사 전공), 김경현(서양사, 고대로마사 전공) 교수님을 모셨다. 흔치 않은 자리에 많이 참석해 주시기를 앙망한다."(최갑수 서울대 교수 씀)

제 1회 주제 : <중화질서(中華秩序)>

발표 : 이성규(서울대 동양사학과 교수, 중국고대사 전공)
토론 : 송기호 (서울대 국사학과 교수, 발해사 전공), 김경현(고려대 사학과 교수, 고대 로마사 전공)
시간 : 6월 15일(금) 오후 3시
장소 : 서울대학교 인문대학 5동 327호 (철학과 세미나실)

   -향후일정-     
제 2회. <근대국가> (9월중 예정)
발표 ; 최갑수(서울대 서양사학과 교수, 역사용어사전 편찬책임자)
토론자 ; 미정
제 3회. <봉건제>
제 4회. <수취체제>, <토지제도>
제 5회. <공과 사>
제 6회. <귀족>, <신분제>
제 7회. <관료제>, <군주제>
제 8회. <계급>, <노예제>
제 9회. <유토피아>, <종말론>
제 10회. <문화>, <문명>

입력 : 2007년 06월 08일 15:29:53 / 수정 : 2007년 06월 08일 15:33:56

[디아스포라의 눈] 재일조선인이 ‘과거의 망령’일지라도 (한겨레신문_2007_6.9.)

재일조선인이 ‘과거의 망령’일지라도
	한승동 기자

	» 디아스포라의 눈

디아스포라의 눈

〈우리 학교〉라는 영화를 봤다. 오늘 내가 객원교수로 있는 성공회대 학생 주최 상영회가 열린 덕이다. 학생 요청으로 상영회에서 내가 강연을 하기로 했다. 강연 제목은 ‘재일 조선인으로 살아간다는 것’으로 잡았다. 실은 이 영화에 대한 평판은 전부터 듣고 있었으나 보러 가진 않았다. 바쁜 탓도 있었지만 내키지 않았다.

내키지 않았던 이유는 여럿 있었지만 굳이 하나 들자면 한국 사회의 일종의 ‘재일 조선인 붐’에 위화감을 느꼈기 때문이다. 한국에 와 보니 종종 〈GO〉 〈피와 뼈〉 〈박치기〉 등의 영화가 화제가 됐는데 그때마다 어색한 느낌이 들었다. 나는 이들 영화를 좋게 평가하지 않는다. 〈박치기〉는 1960년대 말 교토를 무대로 삼고 있다. 교토에서 태어난 나는 그 당시 거기에 있었다. 이 영화 주인공처럼 당시 〈임진강〉을 즐겨 부르는 일본인 젊은이들이 실제로 있었지만 “그 누가 내 조국을 둘로 나누어버렸는가?”라고 목청 높여 부르는 그들이 나는 싫었다. “누가”라니? 조선 민족 분단의 역사적 책임은 일본의 식민지 지배에 있다. 그것을 자각한다면 일본 젊은이들이 해야 할 일은 조선인에 동화돼 센티멘털한 정서에 잠길 것이 아니라 일본 사회를 변혁하는 것이어야 한다. 그런 그들을 호되게 비판하지 않고 오히려 마치 친구나 이해해 주는 사람을 얻은 듯이 기뻐하는 재일 동포들 모습을 보기도 편치 않았다.

위 세 작품은 모두 일본인 관객이 즐길 수 있도록 만들겠다는 걸 의식하고 만든 오락영화들이다. 거기서 강조되는 ‘재일 조선인 상’은 할리우드 영화의 흑인 상처럼 재일 조선인의 한 단면을 단순화해서 과장한 스테레오타입에 지나지 않는다. 쉽게 알 수 있는 이치이거늘, 한국에 와서 때로 이런 영화들에서 받은 인상만으로 피상적인 ‘재일 조선인’ 이미지를 만들어내는 듯한 사람들을 만났다. 그런 이유로 나는 한국의 ‘재일 조선인 붐’에 회의적이다.

“한국의 ‘재일조선인 붐’은 그만큼 가까워졌기 때문이 아니라 분단에 의한 타자화가 진행된 결과 아닐까? 지금 사람들은 식민지지배와 민족분단 등의 어두운 기억을 잊고 싶은 것이다. 하지만 재일조선인과 조우함으로써 역사의 아픔이 계속되고 있다는 것을 상기한다. 그래도 좋다. 그 책임을 끝까지 지고 싶다”

이번 〈우리 학교〉는 한국의 김명준 감독이 3년이라는 세월을 쏟아 홋카이도의 민족학교 학생, 교원들의 일상적인 모습을 찍은 다큐멘터리인 만큼, 위의 세 작품과는 달랐다. 이 영화는 지난해 부산 국제영화제에서 우수상을 받았고, 지금까지 5만명 이상의 관객을 동원했다고 한다. 불과 얼마 전까지의 한국이라면 생각할 수 없는 일이다. 막대한 피와 눈물을 대가로 치르고 여기까지 온 민주화를 부디 되돌리지 말기를 간절히 바란다.

이 영화에는 일본 사회에서의 차별, 심각한 재정난, 그리고 악화일로의 ‘북조선 배싱(때리기)’이라는 갖가지 곤란에 포위돼 있으면서도 건강하게 살아가는 재일 조선인 학생들의 모습이 순박하게 그려져 있다. 그것이 한국의 관객을 감동시키는 모양이다. 나 자신도 역시 두세 장면에서 뭉클 감정이 치밀어 올라와 눈물을 흘릴 지경이 되고 말았다. 그럴 거라고 예상하고 있었다. 이것이 내가 이 영화를 보는데 소극적이었던 또 하나의 이유이기도 하다. 그런 감정에 몸을 맡기거나 그때뿐인 카타르시스를 느끼거나 해서는 안 된다고 나는 자신을 경계하고 있다. 〈우리 학교〉 학생들이 보여 주는 순수함은 오랜 세월의 억압과 고립이라는 상황 속에서 부당한 외압으로 강제된 결과이기도 하다. 이런 농성 상태를 거쳐 일본 사회라는 외계에 나왔을 때 그때까지 잠재해 있던 갈등은 심각한 형태로 드러나게 된다. 하지만 영화에서 이런 문제는 거론되지 않는다.

내 책 〈디아스포라 기행〉에 대한 어느 독자의 서평에 다음과 같은 구절이 있었다.

“서경식씨 같은 재일 조선인은 우리에게 어떤 의미일까? 그들을 우리와 같은 공동체적 기반을 가진 사람으로 봐야 할까? 아니면 일본땅에 살고 있는 그저 타자일 뿐인 것일까? … 손을 잡는 연대는 언제나 서로에 대한 동일시의 애정에서 시작된다. 너와 내가 같은 슬픔을 공유하고 있다는 그 연대감. 하지만 재일 조선인을 바라보는 우리의 눈은 타자에 대한 경계 아니면 연민이다. 연민은 경계보다 낫긴 하지만 그것은 대등한 관계는 아니다.”

이 서평자의 견해가 얼마나 일반적인 타당성을 갖고 있는지는 모르겠으나, 옳거니 하는 생각이 들게 만드는 바가 있다. 재일 조선인과 한국 사람들은 “슬픔을 공유하면서 연대할 수 있다”고 나는 생각하고 있으나, 그것은 짝사랑에 지나지 않고 어느새 재일 조선인은 ‘타자’가 돼 있는지도 모르겠다. ‘타자’이기 때문에 신선하고, 안심하고 동정할 수 있는 것이다. 즉 한국의 ‘재일 조선인 붐’은 한국 사람들과 재일 조선인 간의 거리가 가까워졌기 때문이 아니라 오히려 분단에 의한 ‘타자화’가 그만큼 진행된 결과가 아닐까.

지난해 한국의 어느 지방대학에서 강연한 뒤 40대 교수가 흥미 깊은 감상을 털어놓은 적이 있다.

	» 서경식 도쿄경제대 교수·성공회대 연구교수

내 강연을 듣고 마치 ‘과거의 망령’이 눈앞에 나타난 듯한 느낌이 들었다는 것이다. 88올림픽을 거쳐 한국은 중진국에서 선진국으로 오르고 사람들의 의식도 급속히 변했다. 지금 사람들은 과거 식민지 지배나 전쟁, 군정의 가혹한 억압 등의 어두운 기억을 역사 교과서 속에나 밀어넣고는 잊고 싶은 것이다. 하지만 재일 조선인이라는 존재와 만나면, 그 역사가 실은 끝나지 않았다는 사실을 깨달을 수밖에 없다. 그 교수는 그렇게 말했다. ‘과거의 망령’. 일본인들한테서 듣기 싫도록 들은 이 말을 한국에 와서도 듣게 됐다. 그래도 좋다고 나는 생각한다. 그것이 ‘재일 조선인으로 살아간다는 것’이 아니겠는가. 우리들 재일 조선인은 식민지 지배와 민족 분단의 아픔이 아직 계속되고 있다는 걸 잊지 말도록 상기시키는 ‘과거의 망령’이다. 그 책임을 최후까지 지고 싶다.

번역 한승동 선임기자

서경식/도쿄경제대 교수·성공회대 연구교수

[관련기사]

•

‘집단적 죄’와 ‘국민적 책임’은 다르다

[북리뷰 기사] 20세기 유럽 지성사의 지도를 그리다 (한겨레신문_2007.6.9.)

20세기 유럽 지성사의 지도를 그리다
미국 사학자 휴스의 3부작 재출간 1890~1960년 사상 흐름 분석해 프로이트·베버·크로체를 최고지성 꼽아
	고명섭 기자

	» <의식과 사회>, <막다른 길>, <지식인들의 망명>

<의식과 사회>, <막다른 길>, <지식인들의 망명>
스튜어트 휴스 지음·황문수 김병익 김창희 옮김/개마고원 각 권 2만~2만5000원

 

 

20세기 사상의 나무를 그린다면 가장 굵직한 가지는 무엇일까. 1960년대 프랑스 철학계는 카를 마르크스, 프리드리히 니체, 지그문트 프로이트 세 사람을 20세기 사유의 문을 열어젖힌 사람이라고 지목했다. 폴 리쾨르는 이 세 사람을 가리켜 ‘의심의 세 대가’라고 규정하기도 했다. 가차없는 의심의 태도로 근대적 인간관을 뿌리까지 파고들어가 뒤엎음으로써 사유의 전복자가 됐다는 것이다. 20세기 후반 이래 이 프랑스적 규정은 거의 보편적인 설득력을 얻었다. 그러나 이들만큼 영향력이 크지는 않았어도, 이들과는 다른 시선으로 20세기 사상의 흐름을 살핀 사람도 여럿 있었다.

미국의 지성사학자 스튜어트 휴스(1916~1999)도 다른 시선으로 20세기 유럽 사상사의 흐름을 통찰한 사람이다. 그의 대표 저작은 1950년대 중반부터 20년에 걸쳐 쓴 〈의식과 사회〉 〈막다른 길〉 〈지식인들의 망명〉 3부작이다. 1980년대 초에 한국어로 번역된 바 있는 이 책들이 같은 번역자들의 재번역으로 다시 나왔다. 이 세 권 가운데 특히 첫쨋권 〈의식과 사회〉는 지은이 휴스를 지성사의 대가 반열에 올려 놓은 작품이다.

시기상으로 보면 이 책은 2차 세계대전의 참화에서 벗어난 지 10여년 뒤, 그리고 20세기 후반의 결정적 사건인 68혁명이 일어나기 10여년 전에 쓰인 책이다. 따라서 68혁명이 낳은 탈근대주의 사상의 영향은 나타나지 않는 반면에, 2차 세계대전으로 귀결한 20세기 전반기 역사에 대한 참혹한 기억은 생생하다.

	» 20세기 유럽 지성사의 지도를 그리다

〈의식과 사회〉에서 지은이가 분석하는 시기는 1890~1930년이다. 이른바 세기말과 세기초로 이야기되는 이 시기는 20세기를 준비한 사상이 만들어져 1929년 대공황과 1933년 독일 나치 체제의 성립으로 이어지는 시기다. 지은이는 이 시기에 왕성하게 활동했던 사상가·지식인들의 사상 형성과 영향에 주목하고 있다. 출생 시기로 보면, 1856~1877년에 걸쳐 있고 특히 1860년대 후반 출생자들이 중심이다. 이들이 사유의 어떤 공통분모를 지니고 한 세대를 풍미했다는 것이다. 지은이가 여기서 최고의 지성인으로 꼽는 세 사람이 오스트리아인 지그문트 프로이트(1856~1939), 독일인 막스 베버(1864~1920), 이탈리아인 베네데토 크로체(1866~1952)다. 이들의 사상이 20세기 전반기 지성사 지도의 큰 윤곽을 그렸다고 보는 것이다.

책의 도입부에서 지은이는 자신의 관점을 비교적 명확하게 이야기함으로써 논의가 어떤 방향으로 흘러갈지 미리 알려주고 있다. 미국에서 태어나기는 했지만, 지적인 교양은 유럽적 전통에서 물려받았으며, 특히 영국·프랑스·독일·이탈리아의 사상 안에서 훈련받았다고 그는 자신을 설명한다. 특히 기본 노선과 관점은 18세기 계몽주의를 따르고 있으며, 그 합리주의 사고방식으로 사태를 균형감 있게 보려 한다고 고백한다.

이런 관점 위에 서서 그는 19세기 말~20세기 초의 지성사 흐름이 독특한 역설을 품고 있었다고 지적한다. 그 시대의 유행이었던 반지성주의 또는 비합리주의에 격렬히 반발하면서, 결과적으로는 그것을 고무했다는 것이다. 지은이가 이 시기 가장 위대한 지성으로 꼽는 프로이트가 그런 역설을 선명하게 보여준다. 무의식이라는 비합리적인 세계를 합리적으로 이해해 보려 했던 프로이트는 그 놀라운 발견으로 오히려 비합리적인 것의 활보에 문을 열어준 꼴이 되고 말았다. 베버의 경우는 그 면도날 같은 위태로운 길에서 가까스로 균형을 유지했다고 지은이는 평가한다. 이를테면 ‘카리스마’라는 용어를 사회과학적 개념어로 만든 베버는 그 자신이 카리스마적 존재였다. 그러나 그는 이 비합리적 힘의 ‘악마적 측면’을 불신하고 멀리했다. “그는 자신의 사고에 잠재해 있는 위험을 잘 알고 있었다. 따라서 그는 지적 지도자의 역할을 거부했다.” 이렇게 서술할 때 지은이는 베버 사후 권력자로 등장해 유럽을 집어삼킬 히틀러라는 카리스마를 염두에 두고 있음이 분명하다.

첫쨋권을 펴낸 뒤 10년 뒤 쓴 후속작 〈막다른 길〉은 1930년부터 1960년까지 프랑스 사회사상을 살피면서 실존주의와 구조주의의 등장에 특히 주목한다. 셋쨋권 〈지식인들의 망명〉은 앞 책과 같은 시기를 다루지만, 히틀러의 집권과 세계대전으로 망명을 택했던 유럽 지식인들의 지리적·사상적 이동을 추적한다.

고명섭 기자 michael@hani.co.kr

China, Capitalist Accumulation, and Labor (Monthly Review)

[Monthly Review, May 2007, Volume 59, Number 1]

China, Capitalist Accumulation, and Labor

by Martin Hart-Landsberg & Paul Burkett

Martin Hart-Landsberg teaches economics at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Korea: Division, Reunification, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Monthly Review Press, 1998) and coeditor, with Richard Westra and Seongjin Jeong, of Marxist Perspectives on South Korea in the Global Economy (Ashgate Publishers, 2007).

Paul Burkett teaches economics at Indiana State University in Terre Haute and is the author of Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective (St. Martin Press, 1999) and Marxism and Ecological Economics (Brill, 2006). They are coauthors of China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle (Monthly Review Press, 2005) and Development, Crisis, and Class Struggle: Learning from Japan and East Asia (St. Martin Press, 2000).

Most economists continue to celebrate China as one of the most successful developing countries in modern times. We, however, are highly critical of the Chinese growth experience. China’s growth has been driven by the intensified exploitation of the country’s farmers and workers, who have been systematically dispossessed through the break-up of the communes, the resultant collapse of health and education services, and massive state-enterprise layoffs, to name just the most important “reforms.” With resources increasingly being restructured in and by transnational corporations largely for the purpose of satisfying external market demands, China’s foreign-driven, export-led growth strategy has undermined the state’s capacity to plan and direct economic activity. Moreover, in a world of competitive struggle among countries for both foreign direct investment and export markets, China’s gains have been organically linked to development setbacks in other countries. Finally, China’s growth has become increasingly dependent not only on foreign capital but also on the unsustainable trade deficits of the United States. In short, the accumulation dynamics underlying China’s growth are generating serious national and international imbalances that are bound to require correction at considerable social cost for working people in China and the rest of the world.1

Significantly, many on the left (including those who acknowledge that China is now predominately a capitalist country) find these criticisms of the Chinese experience largely beside the point. They see China as a viable and praiseworthy example of economic modernization.2 For them, the relevant counterpoint to China’s economic achievements is the long-run development crises experienced by countries in Africa and Latin America. These countries have failed to develop the productive forces necessary to generate significant long-term job opportunities in the “formal labor market,” with the result that the overwhelming majority of workers in Africa and Latin America are forced to eke out an existence in the relatively unregulated and non-institutionalized “informal sector” or in subsistence (or below-subsistence) agriculture. In contrast, China, with its dynamic industrial development and manufacturing export activity, is assumed to have made great strides toward overcoming such problems.

Although this assumption about the progressive nature of Chinese growth and employment creation seems beyond challenge, unfortunately it is false. In fact, the labor market outlook in China (and in the East Asian countries that are most closely integrated with China) is rapidly approaching a crisis situation similar to that found in much of Africa and Latin America. And this is not because capitalism has ceased to be a dynamic mode of production. Far from it: the emerging employment crisis is a direct outcome of transnational capital’s dynamic shaping and integration of China and a number of other East Asian countries into a regional system of export-oriented production.

Regrettably, the celebration of these countries as development successes has led many on the left to defend the position that (properly regulated) capitalism remains a historically progressive mode of production. But this ignores the possibility that the basic dynamics of contemporary capitalism themselves constitute the main barrier to sustained improvements in working and living conditions on national, regional, and global levels. Demonstrating that workers in China and throughout East Asia are increasingly suffering the very same labor outcomes as workers in Latin America and Africa offers a powerful argument against current celebratory accounts of the China–East Asia system.

China’s Economic Transformation

Beginning in 1978, the Chinese state launched a reform program that has produced an impressive growth record. According to the International Labor Organization, “Between 1990 and 2002, GDP per capita grew at a rate of 8.3 percent per annum. This phenomenal growth was driven by an industrial revolution that has made China a manufacturing powerhouse.”3

Underlying this program was a set of state policies that has, over time, led to the privileging of market forces over planning, private production over state production, and foreign enterprises and markets over domestic ones. One consequence is that Chinese economic activity has become increasingly dominated by transnational corporations. For example, the share of foreign manufacturers in China’s total manufacturing sales grew from 2.3 percent in 1990 to 31.3 percent in 2000. From 1998 to 2003, the share of industrial value added produced by state enterprises in the non-resource based industrial sector fell from 17.3 percent to 6.7 percent, while the share accounted for by foreign enterprises rose from 11.4 percent to 17.1 percent.4

Another consequence is that China’s economic growth has become increasingly dependent on foreign produced exports. Approximately 46 percent of foreign manufacturing production is exported, compared with only 16 percent for domestically owned manufacturing firms. Foreign firms now dominate China’s export activity; their share of China’s exports grew from 2 percent in 1985, to 30 percent in 1995, and 57 percent in 2004. As a result of these trends, the ratio of exports to GDP has steadily climbed from 16 percent in 1990 to 36 percent in 2003.5

Numerous studies have found that the contribution made by transnational corporations to China’s growth is substantial and increasing over time. For example, an analysis published by the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that approximately 30 percent of China’s growth over the period 1995–2004 was due to transnational corporate activity, with the foreign contribution rising to over 40 percent in 2003 and 2004.6

In terms of expenditure categories, the two main drivers of Chinese growth are exports and fixed investment—with much of the investment undertaken in support of export activity. Stephen S. Roach (managing director and chief economist of Morgan Stanley) estimates that investment and exports account for approximately 80 percent of Chinese GDP.7 As table 1 shows, the growing importance of gross capital formation and net exports has come largely at the expense of private (household) consumption, which fell as a share of GDP from 51.1 percent in 1988 to 38.9 percent in 2005.

This focus on export-oriented capital accumulation highlights China’s growing external dependence. China’s exports are largely directed toward the U.S. market. According to one analyst, if one includes goods that are re-exported from other countries (especially Hong Kong), China’s exports to the United States account for about half of its total exports. “Thus export growth is largely determined by the growth of US demand. Because almost all of China’s exports are consumer goods, personal consumption demand in the US drives China’s export growth.”8

Moreover, even China’s fixed investment is heavily dependent on external forces. Foreign direct investment is one of the main determinants of investment in the country’s manufacturing sector. It also strongly influences Chinese spending on “domestic infrastructure, such as power generation, ports, and road and rail transport, which is critical to expanding manufacturing and export capacity. Finally, external demand also influences China’s domestic investment in real estate, which is necessary in securing locations for new manufacturing and power plants, as well as housing for employees.” According to one estimate, “external demand directly and indirectly drives about 65% of all domestic investment in China.”9

Table 1. Structure of demand, percent of GDP at current prices
	1988	1990	1995	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Private consumption	51.1	49.1	46.1	47.2	46.5	44.9	46.6	38.9
Government consumption	11.6	12.1	11.4	13.4	13.2	12.6	16.9	14.2
Gross domestic capital formation	36.8	34.7	40.8	38.5	40.2	43.9	50.5	44.1
Net exports of goods and services	1.0	2.7	1.7	2.3	2.7	2.3	3.0	4.6
Source: People’s Republic of China, Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries, Asian Development Bank, updated July 21, 2006, http://www.adb.org.

Supporters of China’s growth strategy tend to minimize the significance of the country’s reliance on foreign investment and exporting. Rather, they emphasize that China’s reform strategy has enabled the country to steadily upgrade the sophistication of its industrial activities, thereby demonstrating that the country is indeed making major strides towards development. One of the most commonly used measures of this progress is China’s growth as a producer and exporter of electronics and information technology goods. In fact, “After almost a decade of explosive growth in its electronics sector, China has overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest supplier of information technology goods, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.” These exports now account for more than 28 percent of total Chinese exports.10

Although impressive, this accomplishment is misleading as a measure of China’s national technological development. One reason is that China’s electronic and information technology products are generally of lower technological sophistication. For example, China’s main high-technology exports are in consumer electronics, office equipment and computers, and communications equipment. Within these categories, China’s leading products are DVD players, notebook computers, and mobile telephones, respectively. As two leading China observers, Lee Branstetter and Nicholas Lardy, point out, “Each of these is a high volume, commodity product sold primarily by mass merchandisers of electronic products....The huge volumes and low unit costs of these products undermine the argument that these are high-tech products.”11

Perhaps more revealing of China’s ongoing foreign technological dependence is the fact that China, as Branstetter and Lardy note, “does not in any real sense manufacture...[high-technology] goods. Rather it assembles them from imported parts and components. For example, domestic value-added accounts for only 15 percent of the value of exported electronic and information technology products. All the rest is import content. In short, for many of these products it is doubtful that China is supplying anything but the labor required to produce these goods.”12

Finally, not only is China’s high-technology production dependent on imported technology, it is largely carried out by foreign-invested firms (most of which are wholly foreign owned). For example, in 2003, foreign-invested firms accounted for approximately 90 percent of China’s exports of computers, components, and peripherals and 75 percent of its exports of electronics and telecommunications equipment. Not only do foreign firms dominate China’s high-technology export activity, they are also coming to dominate China’s domestic markets. For example, between 1998 and 2002, foreign firms increased their share of total domestic high-tech sales from 32 percent to 45 percent.13

Moreover, the foreign domination of this sector continues to grow. According to China’s Ministry of Information Industry, the percentage of foreign ventures in China’s electronic information industry rose from 58.7 percent in 2000 to 77.4 percent in 2005. And, in the first two months of 2006, these foreign firms were responsible for 86.9 percent of China’s total exported electronic products.14

Although committed to a program that has emphasized market liberalization and reliance on foreign capital, the Chinese state simultaneously tried to promote a few “national champions” in an attempt to ensure the establishment of a domestically rooted industrial base. Among the most important are: Huawei (which produces telecommunications equipment), Haier (consumer appliances), Lenovo (computers), TCL (televisions), and Baosteel (steel).

However, despite the fact that many of these companies have grown quite large, few have succeeded in becoming internationally competitive or profitable. In addition, these leading firms have done little to advance national interests in terms of technological development. Most continue to rely on imported foreign equipment to stay competitive and spend little on indigenizing their purchased technology. They have also done little to support the development of national technology supply networks. In fact, “China’s best firms are among the least connected to domestic suppliers: for every $100 that state-owned electronics and telecom firms spend on technology imports, they spend only $1.20 on similar domestic goods.”15

Unfortunately for Chinese planners, the reasons for such failures are largely found in the very logic of the country’s economic reform strategy—specifically its direct and heavy reliance on transnational corporations. In this regard, the Chinese growth strategy has differed greatly from that employed by Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. As a Brookings Institute economist observes, those countries “relied almost exclusively on domestic firms to manufacture and to export commodities; China has largely relied on FIEs [foreign invested enterprises] to produce exports, and virtually no domestic Chinese companies control significant export networks.” The Economist adds that because “the central government has allowed foreign companies into China at a much earlier stage of its development...these [firms] now control the bulk of the country’s industrial exports, have increasingly strong positions in its domestic markets and retain ownership of almost all technology.”16

In sum, China’s post-reform policies have produced an economy that is increasingly dominated by foreign capital and foreign produced exports. This development has undermined the state’s capacity to plan and direct economic activity. It has also greatly increased the economy’s dependence on the ability of the United States to sustain ever greater trade deficits.

The East Asian Transnational Production Network

East Asian economies are also going through a major transformation, one that has largely proceeded in concert with China’s restructuring. Most economists view this development positively, crediting China’s import dependent growth for generating ever expanding markets and new production possibilities for the other countries in the region. However, this framing masks the real nature of the transformation. In reality, China’s post-reform economic activity and the resulting economic restructuring of other East Asian countries cannot be adequately understood in national or even international terms. Rather, East Asian economies, including China, are being linked and collectively reshaped by broader transnational capitalist dynamics, in particular by the establishment and intensification of cross-border production networks by transnational corporations.

As part of this transformation, all East Asian economies have become more trade oriented, with exports playing an increasingly central role in driving growth. For example, from 1990 to 2004, net exports as a percent of GDP rose from 2.1 percent to 21.4 percent in Malaysia, and from –7.6 percent to 5.1 percent in Thailand. One reason for these large increases is that, unlike in China, growth has not been supported by investment. In fact, as the Asian Development Bank notes, “outside the PRC, widening [trade] surpluses are more closely associated with stunted levels of investment....With the exception of Cambodia, PRC, and Viet Nam, investment rates in East Asia and Southeast Asia are still well below their average pre-crisis levels.”17

More importantly, the transformation has also involved significant changes in both the geographical direction as well as the nature of East Asian manufacturing export activity. As table 2 shows, over the period 1992–2003, Greater China (defined as the mainland and Hong Kong) shifted its export orientation from East Asia, especially developing East Asia, to NAFTA and the EU. Specifically, the share of Greater Chinese exports to developing East Asia fell from 53.8 percent to 30.4 percent. Over the same period, the rest of East Asia shifted in the opposite direction. For example, the six listed members of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) increased the share of their exports to East Asia from 36.8 percent to 48.0 percent. And, as table 3 shows, East Asian trade in manufactures is becoming increasingly narrowed to the export and import of parts and components rather than final goods. Looking just at the AFTA countries, trade in parts and components accounted for approximately half of the group’s total increase in manufactured exports and 70 percent of its total increase in manufactured imports over the period 1992–2003. China stands out as one of the few countries whose exports remain largely final goods.

This development reflects the rise of a transnational corporate structured regional production system, with China largely functioning as the final production platform. In other words, the region’s growing focus on trade in parts and components is largely a consequence of China’s new position as an import-dependent producer of high-technology exports. Thus, in 2003, semiconductors and other electronics components accounted for approximately 40 percent of the region’s total exports of parts and components. Adding parts and components related to telecommunication equipment and office and automated data processing machines brings the total to 90 percent.18

Table 2. Destinations of manufactured exports (percent of total exports by region or country)
Destinations
Exporters	Years	EA	Japan	DEA	GCH	AFTA	NAFTA	EU
EA	1992	36.6	4.7	31.9	17.1	11.5	30.3	19.6
	1996	43.8	7.4	36.5	16.4	15.9	27.6	16.6
	2003	45.6	7.4	38.2	22.2	11.6	25.8	15.7
Japan	1992	25.1	—	25.1	9.0	11.2	32.7	20.8
	1996	34.4	—	34.4	10.7	17.0	30.8	16.2
	2003	35.9	—	35.9	17.8	11.5	28.7	14.9
DEA	1992	44.0	8.6	35.5	23.2	11.0	25.9	17.1
	1996	46.8	11.5	35.3	19.0	14.4	24.1	16.0
	2003	47.3	10.1	37.2	23.2	11.2	23.7	15.4
GCH	1992	56.4	2.7	53.8	45.3	6.5	19.1	14.7
	1996	46.2	8.8	37.4	26.5	7.5	25.9	18.8
	2003	39.1	8.7	30.4	19.0	6.9	27.7	20.9
AFTA	1992	36.8	8.8	28.0	7.1	19.3	27.2	19.7
	1996	45.0	11.1	33.9	8.2	23.6	23.5	16.0
	2003	48.0	10.0	38.0	13.5	21.3	20.7	14.2
Note: The country groups are as follows: EA is East Asia (Japan, China, Hong Kong SAR, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam); DEA is Developing East Asia (East Asia excluding Japan); GCH is Greater China (China plus Hong Kong SAR); AFTA is the ASEAN Free Trade Area (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam); NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Area (United States, Canada, Mexico); EU is the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom).
Source: Athukorala & Yamashita, “Production Fragmentation and Trade Integration,” 243.

Japan remains the main driver of the region’s production sharing operations, providing a dominant share of the region’s parts and components. In 2001, for example, 70.5 percent of Indonesia’s regional imports of parts and components came from Japan; the corresponding figures were 53.8 percent for Korea, 52.5 percent for the Philippines, 50.5 percent for Taiwan, 48 percent for Thailand, and 43 percent for China. China’s unique role as the region’s ultimate production platform is highlighted by the fact that it is the only country in the region that runs a regional trade deficit in parts and components. In 2001, for example, Greater China (defined here with the substantial intra-trade between Hong Kong and China netted out) ran a regional parts and components trade deficit of $17.6 billion, split almost evenly between Japan and the rest of East Asia. Japan’s unique position is highlighted by the fact that it ran a regional parts and components trade surplus of $29.3 billion, while the rest of East Asia recorded a regional parts and components trade deficit of $5.8 billion (because its collective deficit with Japan was larger than its surplus with Greater China). Thus, the mirror image of China’s growing surplus in trade with the United States, and secondarily the European Union, is its growing deficit in trade with East Asia.19

Table 3. Parts and components (P&C) in manufacturing trade, in percent
	Share of P&C in mfg. exports		Contribution of P&C to growth of mfg. exports	Share of P&C in mfg. imports		Contribution of P&C to growth in mfg. imports
Country/region	1992	2003	1992–2003	1992	2003	1992–2003
EA	20.3	27.5	33.5	21.4	35.3	45.6
Japan	21.2	27.9	47.5	14.2	21.5	27.8
DEA	19.3	27.3	31.2	23.5	38.9	49.8
China	5.5	15.2	17.1	17.6	34.3	38.4
Hong Kong	20.2	12.3	—	28.1	44.2	—
Rep. of Korea	17.1	25.5	30.9	25.2	33.6	40.7
Taiwan	28.3	39.5	52.2	16.9	37.3	57.1
AFTA	24.7	40.6	49.9	28.2	47.1	67.7
Indonesia	3.7	13.9	25.1	18.5	18.5	18.5
Malaysia	38.7	42.7	44.6	35.2	55.7	74.4
Philippines	19.8	63.8	70.1	24.8	63.1	76.1
Singapore	27.0	46.7	59.7	30.0	49.2	70.8
Thailand	19.1	26.7	31.0	24.7	32.5	41.0
Note: See the note to table 2 for country groupings.
Source: Athukorala and Yamashita, “Production Fragmentation and Trade Integration,” 239–40.

Overall, East Asia’s growth has become increasingly dependent not only on the export of parts and components, which are largely detached from any national base of production, but also on a select few products in a select few industries as determined by the changing needs of transnational corporations. This development has led to a serious misreading of East Asian economic dynamics. As two prominent Asian trade analysts observe, the growth in the intra-regional trade of parts and components causes a significant double-counting of trade “because goods in process cross multiple international borders in the course of their production sequence. The total amount of trade involving the goods while in process can be a multiple of the final value of that good.” Thus, although total trade figures show a rise in the share of intra-regional trade thereby suggesting greater regional self-sufficiency, figures for final goods show quite the opposite trend. For example: the intra-regional share of final manufacturing trade for Developing Asia fell from 44.6 percent in 1992 to 35.2 percent in 2003. Therefore, along with China, the entire region’s growth is becoming ever more dependent on external sales, especially to the United States and the European Union.20

Moreover, although this regional production system appears to promote higher value added production, it in fact offers limited gains in value added to the various countries that compete with one another to participate in it. For example, an UNCTAD study found that “participating in international production chains” often leaves the host country “locked into its current structure of comparative advantage...thereby delaying the exploitation of potential comparative advantage in higher-tech stages of production.” These limitations have “been causing concern in recent years, even in some of the East Asian countries which have been more successful in exploiting various advantages associated with TNCs [transnational corporations].”21

China’s Labor Dynamics

Although some analysts have begun to acknowledge the problems highlighted above, especially those related to the region’s growing dependence on sales to the U.S. market, few have examined the labor market implications of East Asia’s accumulation dynamics. By contrast, it is widely recognized that in Latin America and Africa, employment growth has been inadequate, so that growing numbers of workers in these regions have been forced to accept irregular work. As the IMF has noted:

With slower GDP growth in the latter part of the 1990s, employment also suffered, particularly for wage earners. The quality of new jobs deteriorated, with many concentrated in micro-enterprises or self-employment at relative low wages. The share of the informal sector—defined as employment without access to social benefits or unemployment protection—rose to about 50 percent of total employment in Latin America.22  

It is widely assumed that the situation is different in East Asia where capital accumulation remains robust, especially in China. However, the reality is quite the opposite; workers in China and the rest of East Asia are being forced to battle conditions very similar to those in Latin America. Here we focus on the situation in China.

Before looking at job creation, it is important to comment, at least briefly, on employment conditions for those with jobs. For many, including those employed in Guangdong, where approximately one-third of China’s exports are produced, these conditions are far from satisfactory. For example,

base assembly-line wages in the Pearl River Delta, the province’s manufacturing belt, have been virtually frozen at about $80 per month for the past decade, according to a recent survey by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. Factor in inflation over roughly the same period, and average pay in real terms has declined by as much as 30%. The reason: China’s rise as a manufacturing power has contributed to a surplus of global production capacity for all kinds of goods, from sneakers to DVD players to plastic lawn chairs. With the price of raw materials rising and factory profit margins shrinking, blue-collar workers are at the losing end of a long chain of supply and demand.23 

The situation in Guangdong is far from unique. Migrant workers, who make up a growing share of the country’s industrial workforce, are increasingly responding to these conditions by initiating job actions (including strikes) or quitting and returning to their home villages. Worried companies have been forced to raise wages, but according to one estimate, “even after doubling between 2002–2005, the average manufacturing wage in China was only 60 US cents an hour, compared with $2.46 an hour in Mexico.”24

The central government has begun issuing decrees calling for local governments to raise local minimum wages in line with inflation. But, according to Anita Chan, “in reality the wages of the migrant industrial workers are often considerably lower than the official standards. For one thing, the minimum wage, set by the month, does not reveal the illegally long hours worked by migrant workers to attain that minimum. According to a survey I conducted in China’s footwear industry, the average workday there amounts to about 11 hours each day, often with no days off—that is, about an 80-hour work-week.”25

Moreover, many migrant workers are not even being paid what they are owed. At least one government survey found that 72.5 percent of the country’s nearly 100 million migrant workers are owed wages, especially those employed in the construction and coastal export sector. Non-migrant workers employed by state owned enterprises are not immune from these developments; they are routinely told by their managers that “they must accept a decline in conditions and welfare or be replaced by migrant workers from the countryside.”26

Those analysts that do acknowledge the difficult conditions under which Chinese workers labor, generally view them as a temporary cost that must be paid as China continues its industrial forward march.27 As they see it, what is critical is that, in contrast to much of Africa and Latin America, China’s industrial growth continues to draw more and more Chinese into formal labor-market relations, thereby advancing modernization and a progressive process of development. However, they are wrong.

Recently, several international organizations have reworked sometimes inconsistent Chinese government labor data to create a more reliable picture of Chinese employment trends. Here we rely on the work of the International Labor Organization (ILO).28 The ILO began its study by organizing Chinese enterprises into seven different categories: state and collective enterprises, joint ownership enterprises, limited liability corporations, share holding corporations, foreign owned and operated enterprises, small-scale private registered enterprises, and individual registered businesses. The first five comprise the formal urban sector and the last two the informal urban sector. The ILO then used these enterprise forms to establish four different employment categories: regular formal wage employment (for those employed in urban formal sector enterprises), regular informal wage employment (for those employed in small-scale private registered enterprises), regular self-employment (for those running individually registered businesses), and irregular employment (for those engaged in casual-wage employment or self-employment—often in construction, cleaning, and maintenance of premises, retail trade, street vending, repair services, or domestic services).

Significantly, regular formal wage employment in China’s urban sector actually declined at an annual average rate of 3 percent over the period 1990–2002. Total regular (formal and informal) wage employment remained basically unchanged over this period, registering a zero average rate of growth. Only irregular employment grew, increasing at an annual average rate of 18.5 percent.29

Table 4 provides a more detailed view of these trends. In particular, employment in state and collective enterprises (what the ILO calls the traditional formal enterprises) fell by 59.2 million over the thirteen year period. Despite the country’s rapid growth and the government’s support for new, non-state forms of enterprise, the new emerging formal enterprises (cooperative enterprises, joint ownership enterprises, limited liability corporations, shareholding corporations, and foreign-funded enterprises) generated only 24.1 million jobs. The result was an overall decline in formal sector employment of 34.1 million. Even with the employment contribution of the informal urban sector (registered small privately owned enterprises and individually owned enterprises), the Chinese economy managed an overall increase in regular employment of only 1.7 million workers over the thirteen year period. This was far from sufficient to match the growth in labor supply. Thus, growing numbers of Chinese workers have been forced to accept irregular employment which, with an increase of 80 million, now comprises the largest single urban employment category. A growing share of this irregular work is accounted for by China’s burgeoning sex industry. While the Chinese government says there are 3 million prostitutes nationwide, independent estimates put the figure at up to 20 million (with sex work accounting for up to 6 percent of China’s GDP) once sex laborers in massage parlors, entertainment establishments, and even barber shops and beauty salons are properly included.30

Table 4. Urban employment by type, in millions
	TF	EF	EP	ES	IRR	Total
1990	139.1	1.6	0.6	6.1	15.3	162.7
1991	142.9	2.2	0.7	6.9	13.7	166.4
1992	145.1	2.8	1.0	7.4	14.1	170.4
1993	143.1	5.2	1.9	9.3	22.6	182.1
1994	141.0	7.4	3.3	12.3	18.3	182.2
1995	140.4	8.7	4.9	15.6	17.0	186.4
1996	139.0	9.4	6.1	17.4	23.9	195.8
1997	135.9	10.8	7.5	19.4	30.5	204.1
1998	107.2	16.3	9.7	22.6	56.8	212.6
1999	99.9	17.8	10.5	24.1	68.2	220.5
2000	93.3	19.3	12.7	21.4	81.3	228.0
2001	86.5	21.4	15.3	21.3	91.4	235.9
2002	79.9	25.7	20.0	23.5	95.3	244.4
Note: TF is employment in traditional formal enterprises (state and collective enterprises), EF is employment in emerging formal enterprises (cooperative enterprises, joint ownership enterprises, limited liability corporations, shareholding corporations, and foreign-funded enterprises), EP is employment in small-scale private registered enterprises, ES is employment in individual registered businesses, and IRR is irregular employment.
Source: Ghose, “Employment in China: Recent Trends and Future Challenges,” 27.

This massive increase in irregular employment is even more shocking when one realizes that growing numbers of workers have actually been leaving the urban labor market. For example, the labor force participation rate of urban residents fell from 72.9 percent in 1996 to 66.5 percent in 2002. In addition, outright unemployment also remains a serious and growing problem. As the ILO explains: “A major consequence of the reforms of the 1990s has been the emergence of open unemployment in China’s urban areas.” Official government figures seriously understate the seriousness of the problem in part because of the narrow definition used. For example, the urban unemployed are limited to those persons “with non-agricultural household registration at certain working ages (16–50 years for males and 16–45 years for females), who are capable of work, unemployed and willing to work, and have been registered at the local employment service agencies to apply for a job.” Using more commonly accepted international definitions, the ILO estimates that the 2002 unemployment rate for long term urban residents was in the 11–13 percent range.31

Table 5. Regular manufacturing employment by type, in millions
	TF	EF	EI	Total
1990	51.7	1.3	0.9	53.9
1991	52.6	1.8	1.3	55.7
1992	52.8	2.3	1.3	56.4
1993	50.3	4.3	1.8	56.4
1994	48.4	5.9	2.7	57.0
1995	47.5	6.9	3.4	57.8
1996	45.7	7.2	4.0	56.9
1997	42.5	8.3	4.5	55.3
1998	26.2	11.5	5.6	43.3
1999	22.7	12.3	6.0	41.0
2000	19.3	13.1	6.3	38.7
2001	16.2	13.9	7.2	37.3
2002	13.3	15.8	8.2	37.3
Note: TF is employment in traditional formal enterprises (state and collective enterprises); EF is employment in emerging formal enterprises (cooperative enterprises, joint ownership enterprises, limited liability corporations, shareholding corporations, and foreign-funded enterprises); and EI is employment in emerging informal enterprises (small-scale private registered and individual registered enterprises).
Source: Ghose, “Employment in China: Recent Trends and Future Challenges,” 29.

The situation in manufacturing is much the same. As table 5 shows, despite the growing importance of manufacturing over the period 1990–2002, overall regular (formal and informal sector) manufacturing employment actually fell by 16.6 million workers. Once again, employment activity in the new emerging formal and informal enterprises was not sufficient to compensate for the enormous declines in state and collective employment.

Unfortunately, China’s employment crisis is likely to get much worse very soon. Along with the massive pools of job-seekers generated by rural underemployment and state-sector layoffs, the number of jobless university and high school graduates is increasing rapidly. Of the close to 5 million university graduates projected for 2007, nearly 1.5 million will be unable to find work, according to the Chinese Ministry of Education. Similarly insecure prospects are in store for the great majority of the country’s approximately 50 million high school graduates who enter the job market each year.32 In short, it is increasingly difficult to see a fundamental difference in terms of labor market trends between China, a country with dynamic capitalist accumulation processes, and Latin America, a region with acknowledged economic difficulties.

East Asian Labor Dynamics

The employment problems highlighted above are not unique to China. According to the Asian Development Bank, research shows that “employment elasticities across the region are low and that, in general, they decreased in the 1990s vis-à-vis the 1980s.”33 As table 6 illustrates, among the eleven countries examined, seven showed a decline in their employment elasticities, one remained relatively constant, and only three showed an increase. Thus, the employment contribution of growth is clearly diminishing. The negative trends for China, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan are especially striking.

 
The Asian Development Bank describes the importance of the results for China, “the world’s fastest-growing economy year after year,” as follows:

While in the 1980s it took a 3% growth rate of output to induce a 1% increase in employment, in the 1990s a growth rate of almost 8% was needed to achieve the same result. Estimates by the PRC’s National Development and Reform Commission reveal the challenge that is involved: in 2006 the country will need to generate about 25 million urban jobs to accommodate new entrants into the labor market, workers laid off from state enterprises, and rural migrants. However, urban areas are expected to be able to generate only about 11 million jobs.34

Conditions are far worse than even these low and declining elasticities would indicate since these studies do not distinguish between formal and informal employment. While countries generally have different criteria for what constitutes formal as opposed to informal sector work, what is striking is that the gains in employment in most of these countries, as in China, have largely been in the informal sector. Indeed, the ILO estimates that approximately two-thirds of all new jobs currently being created in Southeast Asia are in the informal sector. Thus, in the region with the most dynamic capital accumulation, not only are the employment effects of growth declining, but the jobs being produced are increasingly ones that offer the least protection and stability and the lowest earnings.35

Table 6. Employment elasticities
	1980s	1990s
Bangladesh	0.550	0.495
People’s Republic of China	0.330	0.129
Indonesia	0.435	0.379
India	0.384	0.312
Republic of Korea	0.223	0.225
Malaysia	0.683	0.406
Pakistan	0.406	0.553
Philippines	0.535	0.731
Singapore	0.375	0.711
Thailand	0.315	0.193
Taiwan	0.242	0.139
Note: The elasticities show the percentage increase in employment resulting from a percentage increase in GDP
Source: Felipe and Hasan, “The Challenge of Job Creation in Asia,” 1.

For example, in Indonesia, the employment share of the informal sector in total non-agricultural employment grew from 65.4 percent to 70.8 percent over the period 1998–2003. Similar but less dramatic increases took place in Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In India (the newest poster country), the employment share of the informal sector grew from 80.5 percent to 83.2 percent between 1993–94 and 1999–2000. Over that same period, Indian GDP per capita grew by approximately 4.7 percent a year. As the Economist observed: “Despite [Indian] manufacturing’s remarkable success, the number of jobs in its ‘organized sector,’ i.e., firms employing more than ten people, has hardly changed since 1991, at just above 6 million, out of a total of about 48 million in manufacturing as a whole.” Even in OECD-initiate South Korea, the self-employed and their unpaid family members now account for more than one-third of the total workforce.36

Beyond the high and rising share of informal work, there are also changes in the nature of formal sector employment which are undermining its status. Generally, formal labor status involves regular or long-term employment with an enterprise that is registered and thus regulated by government mandated labor laws. However, this is changing as registered enterprises are increasingly making use of temporary or contract workers while shedding permanent workers via explicit layoffs and forced or semi-forced “retirements.” As a result, a growing share of formal sector employment no longer includes employment security or other benefits previously associated with regular employment. In South Korea, for example, the percentage of wage workers with irregular labor status rose from 42 percent before the 1997–98 crisis to 55 percent in 2003, and these irregular workers receive on average only 53 percent of the hourly real wages paid to regular workers. Similarly, the share of contract labor in India’s formal sector manufacturing rose from approximately 7 percent of total person-days worked in 1984 to 21 percent in 1998. The share of non-regular workers in Filipino establishments with ten or more workers increased from 20.51 percent in 1991 to 28.20 percent in 1997. In short, as the Asian Development Bank explains, “the distinction between formal and informal sectors in terms of desirable job characteristics (from a worker’s perspective)…has become somewhat blurred.”37

As in China, a growing number of workers in the other East Asian countries suffer from open unemployment or involuntarily part-time employment. Official unemployment rates in Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea have recently exceeded 5 percent, meaning that hundreds of thousands of workers in these countries have been unable to find any work at all. And, as the Economist admits, “those figures do not include the legions of underemployed.” Younger workers are disproportionately afflicted by this unemployment and underemployment. Workers between ages 15 and 24 account for only a fifth of the workforce but half the unemployed in Asia as a whole, according to the ILO. In South Korea, about 5 million workers aged 20–34 are either wholly or partially unemployed and dependent on their parents for support. The overall official unemployment rate of about 9 percent for South Korean workers aged 15–29 thus represents only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.38

The Dynamics of Capitalist Accumulation

How do we explain these labor market outcomes? According to the Asian Development Bank, they are a result of “the interplay of three factors, namely, globalization, technical change, and competition.”

Specifically, this interplay leads to the adoption of “inappropriate technology.” As East Asian companies compete to produce exports for sale in developed capitalist countries, they are increasingly relying on technologies imported from those countries. Thus, “the modern sector in developing countries is not much different from those in industrial countries in terms of capital intensity. The problem is that given the supply of labor available, and given the rate of investment, the more capital intensive the techniques, the less employment will be required.”39

However, this framing, which pins the blame for employment stagnation simply on the rising capital intensity of production, leads to a false understanding of, and misdirected response to, the problems facing working people. For example, the common response by mainstream economists is to target government policies (and/or trade unions) for keeping wages at “artificially” high levels compared to the “price of capital.” Yet, this obviously makes no sense in the case of China or other East Asian countries like Indonesia where wages are abysmally low. Capitalists do certainly mechanize production in order to reduce labor costs. But the fact is that given the nature of the products produced, it is often—even usually—the case that mechanization lowers unit costs even at very low wage levels. In fact, given the nature of the output, more labor intensive production processes may not be physically feasible at all.

Industrial capital accumulation is not a process that, if unrestrained by regulations and/or worker-organizations, tends toward an equilibrium with labor force growth so as to ensure productive and regular employment for all. Far from it. As Karl Marx explained, the “industrial war of capitalists among themselves...has the peculiarity that the battles in it are won less by recruiting than by discharging the army of workers. The generals (the capitalists) vie with one another as to who can discharge the greatest number of industrial workers.” This war is especially intense in East Asia, where more and more production is being structured under the control of and according to the logic of competing transnational corporations (and their local subcontractors) operating through cross-border production networks. It is the real force underlying the recent statement by Singapore’s labor minister, responding to the seventeen-year high 6.3 percent official unemployment rate, “that the boom years of near-full employment would not return as Singapore faced competition from low-cost rivals in the region.” Similarly, explaining why India’s economy needs to grow at least 8 percent per year just to keep unemployment from rising, the Far Eastern Economic Review noted that the basic problem is that “companies are shedding workers and increasing productivity in the face of new competition.”40

More generally, much of the underemployment and unemployment in China and the rest of East Asia can best be understood as the result of the ongoing separation of workers from access to the conditions necessary for their production and reproduction, what Marx called “primitive accumulation.” David Harvey has recently coined the phrase “accumulation by dispossession” to describe this process—the change in terminology rightly emphasizing that this kind of separation and disemployment (creation of a pool of exploitable labor power) is not limited to the early history of capitalism on a global scale, but is rather integral to the system’s ongoing historical development especially in its latest, neoliberal phase.41

Even the “flexibilization” of employment that is promoted by governments in response to neoliberal market pressures can be viewed as a variant of accumulation by dispossession insofar as it involves erosions of workers’ job rights. This is obvious, for example, in the case of state-enterprise industrial workers in China, but it is also true for workers in other East Asian countries where capitalists—domestic and foreign—have responded to unionized worker struggles by locking out and then replacing them with contract workers and other temporary laborers. In Indonesia, for example, upsurging unionization, strikes, and wage-gains in the immediate post-Suharto period were followed by dismissals of workers (and replacements with contingent workers) exceeding 100,000 per year in 2002 and 2003. As Rustam Aksam, president of the Indonesian Trades Union Congress, observed, “Every country is now competing to reduce worker rights....We’re racing to the bottom.”42

In sum, the employment problems of China and East Asia need to be seen as part of “the growing failure of capitalism...to solve the elementary and, in the long run, the very survival requirements of the vast majority of those living under its sway.” Of course, this failure is multi-dimensional. Alongside these employment problems, there is also “the unprecedented scale and speed of the deterioration of the natural environment.”43 That working people in the most dynamic centers of accumulation are also suffering from this crisis is an indication of its deep, intensive, and above all system-wide character. Under capitalism, universal access to productive employment—including jobs in education, health care, and other areas oriented toward improving the conditions of human development—is always seen as an inefficient diversion from the business of competitive money-making. Better to maintain a massive reserve army of unemployed and underemployed as a check on workers’ bargaining power and as a source of cheap labor to service the consumption needs (servile, sexual, and entertainment-wise) of the capitalist class and its various professional functionaries. Seen from this perspective, it is clear that the answer to worker problems in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere for that matter, is not to be found in supporting policies designed to replicate capitalism’s so-called Asian success stories. Rather it lies in building national and international movements with an accurate understanding of, and a commitment to overcoming, the dynamics of contemporary capitalism.

Notes

1.   We discuss these points in detail in Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett, China and Socialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2005); “China and the Dynamics of Transnational Accumulation, Causes and Consequences of Global Restructuring,” Historical Materialism 14, no. 3 (2006).

2.   Indeed, many believe that China’s emergence as a world economic power is creating a progressive alternative to the U.S.-dominated regime of neoliberal economics and military unilateralism.

3.   Ajit K. Ghose, “Employment in China,” Employment Analysis Unit, Employment Strategy Department, Employment Strategy Papers, 2005/14, ILO, 1, http://www.ilo.org.

4.   Hart-Landsberg and Burkett, China and Socialism, 48; OECD, Economic Surveys: China (Paris: OECD, 2005), 133.

 
5.   John Whalley and Xian Xin, “China’s FDI and Non-FDI Economies and the Sustainability of Future High Chinese Growth,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper Series, Number 12249, May 2006, 5. Hart-Landsberg and Burkett, China and Socialism, 121; Steven S. Roach “What if China Slows,” Global Economic Forum, Morgan Stanley, May 23, 2005. There is a similar trend with imports; in 2004, foreign invested enterprises accounted for approximately 60 percent of China’s total imports. Whalley and Xin, “China’s FDI,” 5.

 
6.   Whalley and Xin, “China’s FDI,” 9. However, some analysts regard these figures as upper bound estimates. See, for example, Lee Branstetter and Nicholas Lardy, “China’s Embrace of Globalization,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper Series, Number 12373, July 2006, 19.

 
7.   Stephen S. Roach, “China’s Control Problem,” Global Economic Forum, Morgan Stanley, July 21, 2006.

 
8.   Jephraim P. Gundzik, “What a US Recession Means for China,” Asia Times Online, September 27, 2006, http://www.atimes.com.

9.   Gundzik, “US Recession.”

 
10. David Lague, “China Overtakes U.S. as Tech Supplier,” International Herald Tribune, December 12, 2005; ChinaDaily.com, “China’s high-tech export grows 43.5% in past five years,” January 29, 2006. Approximately 42 percent of China’s electronics and information technology exports are sold in the United States; beginning in 2002, China became the largest exporter of these products to the United States (Branstetter and Lardy, “China’s Embrace of Globalization,” 36).

 
11. Branstetter and Lardy, “China’s Embrace of Globalization,” 37–38.

 
12. Branstetter and Lardy, “China’s Embrace,” 38. The computer industry is a noteworthy example. Approximately 80 percent of the world’s notebook and desktop computers are assembled in China, but most of the production is controlled by Taiwanese firms operating as original design manufacturers (ODMs). As a consequence, eight of China’s top ten exporters are Taiwanese companies that supply “branded PC sellers such as Dell with unbranded computers and components.” These Taiwanese firms may produce on the mainland but most of their components are supplied by other smaller firms that operate in other countries. As one analyst explains, “Almost all mainland China brings to the industry is cheap land and even cheaper labor. China is the manufacturing center of the global computer industry, yet it adds little value and therefore makes little profit.” According to another, “There are no Chinese ODMs and there are no significant Chinese suppliers to the Taiwanese ODMs or to their suppliers.” Tom Miller, “Manufacturing That Doesn’t Compute,” Asia Times Online, November 22, 2006, http://www.atimes.com.

 
13. Branstetter and Lardy, “China’s Embrace,” 39–40; George G. Gilboy, “The Myth Behind China’s Miracle,” Foreign Affairs (July–August, 2004).

 
14. People’s Daily Online, “Nearly 90 pct of China’s Electronics Exports are from Foreign Ventures,” April 15, 2006.

 
15. Economist, “The Struggle of Champions,” January 6, 2005, 59–61; Gilboy, “The Myth Behind China’s Miracle.” For example, as a result of its 2005 acquisition of IBM’s PC unit, Lenovo became the world’s third largest PC brand by volume. However, its profits have been on the decline. More importantly, “Like its rivals, Lenovo employs Taiwanese ODMs in the mainland to manufacture its branded computers....The company’s headquarters have moved to the United States, and US engineers are largely responsible for developing new products (in conjunction with their ODM suppliers).” Tom Miller, “Manufacturing That Doesn’t Compute.”

 
16. Barry Naughton, “China’s Emergence and Prospects as a Trading Nation,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, no. 2 (1996); Economist, “The Struggle of Champions,” 61.

 
17. Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries 2006, http://www.adb.org; Asian Development Bank, Asian Development Outlook 2006, 3, http://www.adb.org.

 
18. Prema-chandra Athukorala and Nobuaki Yamashita, “Production Fragmentation and Trade Integration,” North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 17 (2006): 241.

19. Francis Ng and Alexander Yeats, “Major Trade Trends in East Asia, What are their Implications for Regional Cooperation and Growth?” Policy Research Working Paper 3084, World Bank Development Research Group, June 2003, 60. The rest of East Asia includes Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.

 
20. Athukorala and Yamashita, “Production Fragmentation,” 246–47.

21. UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2002 (New York: United Nations, 2002), 75.

 
22. Anoop Singh, et al., Stabilization and Reform in Latin America, occasional paper no. 238, International Monetary Fund, February 2005, chapter 2, 7, www.imf.org.

 
23. Neil Gough “Trouble on the Line,” Time Asia, January 31, 2005.

 
24. John S. McClenahen, “Outsourcing,” IndustryWeek.com, July 1, 2006.

 
25. Anita Chan, “A ‘Race to the Bottom,’” China Perspectives, no. 46, (March–April 2003): 43.

 
26. Ching Kwan Lee, “‘Made in China,’” presentation at the 2004 Mansfield Conference, The University of Montana, Missoula, April 18–20, 2004, http://www.umt.edu, 2; Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, Chinese Labor and the WTO, 2004, http://www.ihlo.org, 22.

 
27. For a more complete examination of the social costs inherent in China’s growth as well as a refutation of arguments that present these costs as temporary, see Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett, “China and Socialism: Engaging the Issues,” Critical Asian Studies 37, no. 4 (December 2005).

 
28. Studies done by the ILO, Asian Development Bank, and IMF all present very similar employment trends. See Asian Development Bank, Labor Markets in Asia (Manila: Asian Development Bank, 2005), and Ray Books and Ran Tao, China’s Labor Market Performance and Challenges, IMF Working Paper, WP/03/210, 2003.

 
29. Ghose, “Employment in China,” 6.

 
30. Howard W. French, “Letter from China,” International Herald Tribune, December 14, 2006, http://www.iht.com.

 
31. Ghose, “Employment in China,” 8, 12, 13.

32. Edward Cody, “Students Grow Desperate Over China’s Tight Job Market,” Washington Post, November 24, 2006; Guan Xiaofeng and Wang ShanShan, “Job Shortage to Affect Graduates,” China Daily, November 29, 2006, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn.

 
33. Asian Development Bank, Labor Markets in Asia, 22.

34. Jesus Felipe and Rana Hasan, “The Challenge of Job Creation in Asia,” Asian Development Bank, ERD Policy Brief, Economics and Research Department Series No. 44, April 2006, 2.

 
35. Some countries limit the definition of informal employment to only self-employed and unpaid family workers, while other countries also include wage workers at small and/or unregistered enterprises. Indonesia is an example of the former, India of the latter. Asian Development Bank, Labor Markets in Asia, 18. Gianni Rosas and Giovanna Rossignnotti, “Starting the New Millennium Right,” International Labor Review 144, no. 2 (2005): 144. Southeast Asia is defined to include Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

 
36. Asian Development Bank, Labor Markets in Asia, 18, 20: Simon Long, “Now for the Hard Part: A Survey of Business in India,” Economist, June 3, 2006, 10; “The Self-Employed in Plight,” Korea Herald, February 12, 2005, http://www.koreaherald.co.kr.

 
37. Sang-hwan Jang, “Continuing Suicides Among Laborers in Korea,” Labor History 45, no. 3, 2004, 280–81; “Labor Group Seeks Equality for All Workers,” Korea Herald, January 16, 2003, http://www.koreaherald.co.kr. For details on forced retirements as a method of lowering labor costs, see Samuel Len, “Job Cuts Follow Recovery in South Korea,” New York Times, December 9, 2003; Joonmo Cho and Sunweong Kim, “On Using Mandatory Retirement to Reduce Workforce in Korea,” International Economic Journal 19, no. 2 (June 2005): 283–303; Data on India and the Philippines comes from Asian Development Bank, Labor Markets, 19, 56.

 
38. Kim Jung Min, “Victims of Efficiency,” Far Eastern Economic Review, January 29, 2004; Keith Bradsher, “After an Exodus of Jobs, A Recovery in Taiwan,” New York Times, March 19, 2004; Trish Saywell, “A Question of Jobs,” Far Eastern Economic Review, January 15, 2004; “The Jobless Boom,” Economist, January 14, 2006, 47.

 
39. Felipe and Hasan, “The Challenge of Job Creation in Asia,” 5; Asian Development Bank, Labor Markets in Asia, 30;

 
40. Karl Marx, Wage-Labor and Capital (New York: International Publishers, 1976), 45; Saywell, “A Question of Jobs”; Joanna Slater, “The Dangers of Jobless Growth,” Far Eastern Economic Review (May 6, 2004).

 
41. See David Harvey, The New Imperialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) and A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

 
42. Wayne Arnold, “In Indonesia, Unions Hit a Roadblock,” New York Times, May 21, 2004.

 
43.Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy, Stagnation and the Financial Explosion (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987), 203, 205.