Primitive accumulation in modern China

Abstract

This article surveys the history of primitive accumulation in China, from the early 1980s to the mid 2000s. It observes that the principal means of primitive accumulation have been the transformation of state and collective enterprises into capital, the peasants' loss of land through various forms of dispossession, and the voluntary migration of peasants from agricultural to industrial pursuits. These mix dispossession and market mechanisms in complex ways. They have involved the creation of markets; but more, the creation of workers and capital. While the processes that drive primitive accumulation have economic logics, they also have logics that derive from concerns over social welfare, over environmental management, and over ethnic struggles. Furthermore, the state has been closely involved in the entire process-as a regionally differentiated actor, directly involved in ownership, asset transformation and the control of migration. Primitive accumulation in China does not have one motive, does not simply reflect class interests, is not a particular case of a global capitalist project, but is complex and localised.The nature and dynamics of primitive accumulation have been widely debated. Empirical, theoretical and polemical contributions have drawn on the experience of various parts of

Reply to So, Perelman, and Post

“…But my arguments were not interventions into debates about the causes of the primitive accumulation in China, nor about the causes of the twists and turns that the process has taken; to argue coherently about these causes would require another paper or more, so I shall only sketch how I would develop my argument to respond to their questions. Their comments certainly extend the analysis presented in Webber (2008), but my argument will differ in several respects from the arguments stated by Post and So. Charles Post makes several comments. He argues that I had not specified that means of production become capital when competition forces companies to make a surplus that has to be reinvested in capital accumulation and goes on to comment on the lack of capitalist social relations in the countryside.…”

Some Reflections on Agrarian Change in China

“…Second, the drivers, modalities and effects of massive labour migration from the countryside constitute perhaps the most confusing aspects of debates about primitive accumulation in rural China, in part because of the lack of wholesale dispossession of its small farmers (the third element, below). For example, Pun and Lu suggest ‘a path of (semi‐)proletarianization of Chinese peasant‐workers’ (2010, 493), an ‘ unfinished process of proletarianization ’ (ibid., 498, emphasis in original) that is

largely self‐driven , arising from people's strong sense of acquiring freedom by means of dagong [labour migration] and within the context of a huge rural–urban chasm, which itself has emerged in the reform period's rapid industrialization and globalization (500) … Unlike the English working class, the Chinese working class faced no coercion effectively forcing on them a process of proletarianization (ibid., 505, emphases added).

For Webber (), the mass of labour migrants from the mid‐1980s were

fleeing overpopulation and relative poverty in rural areas (304) … In terms of sheer numbers, more important than dispossession in removing rural people from their means of production, has been the market mechanism – through migration. The allegiance of these people to wage labour is purchased through the market rather than compelled by dispossession .

…”

“…Webber (, 305) acknowledges that ‘[some] land dispossession has occurred, leaving some rural residents landless or with very small holdings’ and continues ‘Yet these are still only a small minority of rural residents. Land holdings remain more equally distributed than income (305) … capital has invaded the countryside … [with] little indigenous capital accumulation in the countryside (306) … the countryside is still stubbornly dominated by independent commodity producers (310)’ .…”

“…Finally, privatization in the course of primitive accumulation and/or ‘accumulation by dispossession’ – with China an example for Harvey () of the latter – is emphasized by, among others, Buck (), with reference to new ‘urban‐to‐rural subcontracting patterns and conventions’, Walker and Buck (), also with a mostly urban focus, and Webber (, ), with a focus on the privatization of (‘rural’) Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs) since the 1990s (see also Zhan).…”

The Dynamics of Primitive Accumulation: With Application to Rural China

“…I then provide a simple model of one of the principal interactions between ICP and the capitalist economy-migration. [In the interests of brevity, other avenues of primitive accumulation are ignored in this paper; they are reviewed in Webber (2008a;2008b;2012).] After examining the distribution of incomes in urban and rural China, I estimate a model of primitive accumulation in rural China.…”