From my standpoint the conversation concerning China gets loud because of the lack of concrete economic and political data. Then ideology parades as insight.
Quite.
If China's non agricultural workforce is between 350 and 400 million . . . with roughly 100 million in the NON STATE SECTOR . . . then the question becomes what is the economic meaning of state sector and non state sector in China?
The self-described meaning of the state sector is here:
http://www.sasac.gov.cn/eng/eng_qygg/eng_qygg_0001.htm
This is its number 1 responsibility:
"1) ... to guide and push the reform and restructuring of the state-owned enterprises. Supervise the maintenance and appreciation of state assets value for those state-invested enterprises, reinforce the management of the state-owned assets, promote the establishment of modern enterprise system of the SOEs and improve enterprises’ Corporate governance, drive the strategic adjustment of the state-owned economic structure and layout."
Also, your employment numbers are fantastically off. Here's a report (2002) from China's State Council:
"The employees of state and collective enterprises and institutions accounted for 37.3 percent of the total urban employees in 2001, down from 99.8 percent in 1978. Meanwhile, the number of employees of private, individually owned and foreign-invested enterprises has increased drastically. In the countryside, the household is still the dominant unit of agricultural employment. However, with the implementation of the urbanization strategy and the development of non-agricultural industries, non-agricultural employment and the transfer of rural labor have increased rapidly. By the end of 2000, the number of employees of township enterprises had reached 128.195 million, of which 38.328 million were employed by township collective enterprises, 32.525 million by township private enterprises and 57.342 million by individually owned township enterprises. Since the 1990s, the labor force transferred from rural to urban areas has topped the 80-million mark."
from: http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/20020429/1.I.htm
Furthermore, since 2000, nearly *all* of the township and village enterprises have been formally privatized (usually sold to the managers), so the 38+ million listed above in the 'collective' economy can now be moved to the 'private' column.
Add it all up: 65 million employed in the state sector, 800+ million outside of it.
Also, the ratio of employees working in the state sector continues to decline, as does its share of GDP/assets, etc.
And furthermore, many of the SOEs are now no longer fully 'owned' by the State. The state merely has a controlling stake of the enterprises' shares, while management has been contracted out to
From the perspective of living labor, what is the difference between state and non-state management if their common goal is the ruthless expansion of value?
Let's forget about the 800 million in agriculture . . . who under the best conditions of industrial socialism ... can only alienate their products on the basis of exchange . . . no matter what the form of property in land.
There aren't 800 million in agriculture. There are somewhere around 800 million people registered in rural areas, but a little less than half of China's working age population is engaged in agriculture, around 450 million.
Jonathan
