This article is from public number: cultural aspect (ID: whzh_21bcr) , author: Xiong Yi Han (international relations and public Affairs, Fudan University School), from the title figure: vision China

Recently, the employees of a fund company died unfortunately, and then a large Internet company was exposed to violent layoffs. The issue of labor protection once again caused great concern. These two seemingly unrelated social events are indeed a problem in the same structural context: the new work organization model has greatly changed the previous work form. Under pressure, the myth of middle-class stability has begun to break and become A member of the “new poor”.

This article explains the “new poor” phenomenon from the perspective of capital accumulation and the labor system. The article points out that the centralized global market makes competition increasingly accumulate, and the emergence of a flexible accumulation system makes it possible to standardize production flexibility and production processes, but it also passes the costs and risks of flexibility to workers. As a result, while the capital maximized profits, “functional poor” also appeared in large numbers. The article originally contained the February 2016 issue of “Cultural Aspect”, which only represents the author’s point of view.

Global picture of the new poor: How is the intersection of the three worlds possible?


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Proletariat, middle class, and the new poor


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If the proletariat is the soul of the historical narrative of socialism, then the middle class is the social backbone of developed capitalism. The new poor, however, has crossed the social divide between socialism and capitalism, developing and developed countries, and has become a new global phenomenon. An intersection is formed in the three worlds that are far apart.

In the United States and Europe, the traditional poor are unemployed, while the new poor are busy people with jobs, short-term workers or long-time part-time workers, many of whom come from foreign countries. New immigrants, including illegal immigrants, are also partly “losers” squeezed from the middle and working classes.

In Japan, the emergence of M-type society has changed the social structure of “100 million total middle class”.In the gradual collapse, many young people are even afraid to get married and have children. In China, the new poor are mainly temporary workers, “ant families” and migrant workers. They do not have labor contracts or relatively stable contracts, engage in high-intensity or even dangerous work, lack the protection of social welfare systems, and earn income. Meager, scarce opportunities for social mobility.

Compared with the proletariat, the new poor are not a real class. They lack a sense of identity based on occupation and work. Many people lack stable employment relationships and labor contracts. They use temporary workers. Participating in the labor process as a dispatcher or casual worker is more like a peripheral member of the factory system.

The new poor are usually not members of unions and lack the ability to act collectively and to bargain; they are skirmishers in the labor market, wandering on the verge of unemployment. When the economy is booming, they can still have a job to talk about; when the economy is in recession, they can only sit back and wait for the tsunami to take away everything they have. The new poor are vaguely aware of the problem, but they do not have solutions to the problem and transform the world, nor the ability to mobilize on a large scale.

In the final analysis, the new poor are not a class, but a “black people” composed of people from all walks of life. In a consumer society, their poverty is not, first of all, material deprivation, but of decent loss. At the material level, they are poor, although most of them are relatively poor, most of the new poor have solved the problem of food and clothing; at the spiritual level, they have accepted consumerist values, and their income can never keep up with the desire to shop. growth of. The author believes that the problem of the new poor must be truly explained in the field of production. This article will interpret the essence of the new poor from the perspective of capital accumulation and the labor system.

Flexible accumulation and the birth of the new poor

Fordism was the dominant model of the capitalist system from the 1940s to the 1970s. It followed the operating principle of “mass production, mass consumption.” The core characteristics of Fordism are: (1) large-scale mechanized production; (2) standardized parts and assembly; and (3) uniform and uniform finished products. The substantial increase in labor efficiency has enabled capitalists to increase the share of workers in distribution, increase the purchasing power of workers, in turn boost consumption, and promote the expansion of reproduction; at the national level, collective bargaining, social legislation, and the welfare system have benefited Ford The maintenance of the production system.

In 1973, the first oil crisis broke out, triggering the first severe economic crisis in the post-war capitalist system. Since then, the golden age of the working classThe gradual passage of labor and capital, the “honeymoon” of labor and capital is over; Enterprises use instant production and outsourcing to replace Fordism characterized by large-scale production and mechanized management. Core workers (full-time employees) positions, and increase employment of flexible working hours, part-time working hours, temporary dispatched workers, and even followers , As well as family laborers who work from home and accept orders; The gap between core workers and marginal workers is growing, core workers continue to enjoy the glory of “producers as consumers” in the Ford era, and marginal workers are caught in “all over the world” Luo Zhe, not a silkworm breeder. ”

Simply put, elastic accumulation includes three levels:

First is flexible employment. Including labor flexibility, workers do not have to form a long-term stable employment relationship with the enterprise; salary flexibility, that is, set salary conditions according to the individual circumstances of employees, rather than collective negotiation between the union and the enterprise; time flexibility, that is, It does not have to be an 8-hour day, but it can be part-time or flexible.

Second is flexible production. That is to adjust to the rapidly changing market demand or order at any time, to produce in small batches, to reduce inventory as much as possible, thereby reducing the risk of slow sales and storage costs. Production is no longer a matter within a country, and companies are increasingly inclined to ship semi-finished products to factories around the world, and then sell the finished products to overseas markets after assembly is complete.

Finally, flexible consumption. Consumer fatigue of singular products in the era of Fordism. Products in the post-Ford era increasingly make consumer orientation shift from mass consumer culture to niche consumer culture, that is, the pursuit of personalized and customized products. The change in the mode of capital accumulation has also profoundly affected the structure of the labor market. When facing external risks such as increased competition, declining profits, and market changes, employers will promote more flexible work systems and labor contracts, the so-called flexible employment.

So, the labor market is divided into two components, the core part of which is the primary labor market, which is composed of full-time employees who have long-term employment relationships and affect the development prospects of enterprises. These core employees enjoy better job security and benefits and opportunities for retraining and promotion, but this group is getting smaller and smaller.

The fringe of the labor market is made up of two people. One part is the secondary labor market consisting of full-time employees, including clerks, secretaries, clerks, and low-skilled blue-collar workers. They are treated less than core employees and have fewer opportunities for advancement.

Due to their low technical content, these employees are highly substitutable and can be recruited from the labor market at any time, so they have high mobility; the other part is composed of part-time employees, fixed-term contract workers, dispatch workers, and subcontractors. The composition of workers has fewer job security and benefits than the previous marginal group, and is more flexible in number. It can be replenished quickly or can be fired at low cost. Enterprises can adjust the size of these employees at any time according to orders.

The elastic accumulation system responds to the uncertain prospect of global competition through the flexibility of production and the standardization of production processes. In fact, the costs and risks of flexibility are passed on to workers. It is precisely such a new type of capital accumulation that created the large-scale emergence of the new poor. Because under the flexible accumulation system, workers have become more insecure and have further lost their ability to act collectively.

The single-center multinational company model in the era of Fordism gave way to the multi-center multinational company model. The branches of multinational companies tend to be more independent and adopt different production processes and management systems, not to mention those geographically dispersed and financial Independent suppliers and outsourcers; capital (company) and labor ( Unions) ‘s organizational interaction is gradually disintegrating; class politics is gradually diminishing, and the influence of highly organized parties and unions is declining, replaced by fragmented interest groups, and cultural identity is no longer affected by class consciousness; full-time Employment positions are declining; services surpass manufacturing, and the informal employment sector is expanding.

In the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher ’s neo-liberal policies became popular all over the world. Countries around the world followed the example of Britain and the United States, relaxed government controls, and implemented a “new deal” of internationalization and economic liberalization.

Globalization has also helped fuel the situation. Because capital is easy to “vote with your feet,” countries