Production Politics Of State Workers And Socialist Transition

Research on socialist transition has paid much attention on social stratification, social mobility and institutional change from macro structural or elite perspective, but it is insufficient to develop the research from micro living or ordinary people's perspective. This paper is intent to research on Chinese socialist transition by observing state workers' production politics. "Transition" here has two points: first, it refers to the changing historical fate of Chinese working class who plays a significant social role both in the state socialist era and after market reform; second, it also refers to the change of political economic system that leads to the changing fate of the working class. Specifically, based on the two theoretical postulations about the fate of socialist working class suggested by Burawoy and Ching Kwan Lee, this paper observed the labor relations in production and workplace organization under the theoretical frame of Factory Regime. On the one hand, I can identify a factory regime in a large-scale state manufacturing enterprise in post-state-owned enterprise(SOE) reform, from which I can explore the state workers' production politics and their prospect as the working class; on the other hand, I can try to give a look at the transitional approach based on the change of the factory regime and production politics. At the same time, I can also discuss and reflect the theory of production politics by my meaningful case study. By comparing with the research directed by Burawoy and Ching Kwan Lee, I find a "disorganized despotism" factory regime conceptualized by Lee has been constructed in Chinese large-scale manufacturing enterprise in post-SOE reform, however, the despotic production politics does not trigger the labor insurgency but dismantles the state workers as degraded individuals who has lost their class consciousness and class ability. Behind this changing fate of the working class, it is the change of the political economics of production - the new relationship among state, market and enterprise and the restructuring of management and struggles in productive field - that add the shadow of bureaucratic capitalism to the Chinese socialist transition. And in the meanwhile, with these findings, I think the relationship among state, market and enterprise could affect the change of the idea type of factory regime that would make a different production politics, therefore, I suggest that the relationship among state, market and enterprise might be the key point to further the research on the theory of production politics.