Michael Perelman: China v. US Class Warfare

by Dollars and Sense

From Unsettling Economics:

China vs. the US: Class Warfare Posted August 17, 2009
Filed under: economics |
In July, Chinese workers murdered beat an executive to death in protesting an immanent privatization of their steel mill.

Canaves, Sky and James T. Areddy. 2009. "Murder Bares Worker Anger Over China Industrial Reform." Wall Street Journal (3 August): p. A 1.

The state responded by halting the sale.

McGregor, Richard. 2009. "Killing of China Steel Plant Boss Halts Sale." Financial Times (26 July).

Now the money is being returned to the intended privatizer

While not condoning violence, the role of the state is interesting here. China is not always known for respecting the interests of those who stand in the way of what we in the United States call economic progress. I would assume that a violent military response would occur here (unless the union would reorganize as a bank). Instead, the Chinese negotiated with the workers.

I assume that some sort of punishments will be meted out, but even so, I am amazed at what happened.

Here is the latest from the NYT

"A Chinese provincial government halted the privatization of a state-owned steel mill on Sunday, apparently capitulating to thousands of workers who protested last week and took an official as hostage. The protests, in Henan Province in central China, were the latest sign of increasing labor activism in China’s steel industry, the world's largest and a cornerstone of China's construction-dependent economy. Three weeks earlier, rioting workers beat to death an executive who had been overseeing the sale of another state-owned steel company, Tonghua Iron and Steel, in northeast China's Jilin Province, to a private business. The privatization of Tonghua was immediately postponed after that death."

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Labels: China, labor, Michael Perelman, Unsettling Economics

 

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8/17/2009 11:08:00 AM