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The Labour Law System, Capitalist Hegemony and Class Politics in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2016

Elaine Sio-ieng Hui
Elaine Sio-ieng Hui*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

This article investigates how the Chinese labour law system has helped to reproduce capitalist hegemony, i.e. the ethico-political, moral and cultural leadership of the ruling class. Based on intensive fieldwork in the Pearl River Delta and 115 interviews with migrant workers, this article shows that the labour law system has exercised a double hegemonic effect with regards to capital–labour relations and state–labour relations. Through normalizing, countervailing, concealing and transmuting mechanisms, the labour law system has been able to buffer both the market economy and the party-state from workers’ radical and fundamental criticism. However, the double hegemony mediated through the labour law system has influenced the Chinese migrant workers in an uneven manner: some of them have granted active consent to the ruling class leadership; some have only rendered passive consent; and some have refused to give any consent at all.

摘要

本文探讨中国的劳动法体制如何再生产资本主义的文化霸权--即统治阶级的政治, 道德和文化领导。透过在珠三角地区进行的深入田野调查和 115 个工人访谈, 本文展示中国的劳动法体制对资本—劳工关系和国家—劳工关系, 发挥了双重的文化霸权影响性。透过四种机制—常态机制, 抵消机制, 隱蔽机制和变换机制, 劳动法体制令到工人没有对市场经济和党政作出最根本和激进的批评。可是, 透过劳动法体制再生产的双重文化霸权对工人的影响不一。有些工人对统治阶级的领导给予积极的认同; 有些则给予消极的认同; 有部份工人完全没给予认同。

Keywords

hegemonyChinalabour lawsclass consciousnessclass politicsmigrant workersthe state文化霸权劳动法阶级意识阶级政治农民工国家
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 226 , June 2016 , pp. 431 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2016 

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