Organizational Model Of The Low Cost Of Labor Turnover And Class Reproduction

During the past 30 years, China has experienced continual high-rate economy growth and created"China Miracle". Among the various factors that lead to the Miracle, cheap labor is a dominant variable. How the supply of cheap labor can remain 30 years? The class reproduction of the migrant labor is a very important factor.The paper investigates the mechanisms and process of the class reproduction of migrant labor by studying the situation of living, education, career choice and working situation of migrant/left-behind children. Basted on the analysis framework of Burawoy in his study of international migrant worker, the paper points out that in the process of the reproduction of labor power of the migrant labor of China, the renewal of labor power is organized in a way of cost reduction. The low-cost organization mode of renewal of labor power is represented in two aspects: 1. the renewal of labor power is externalized to rural by city. Under this situation, the two process of maintenance and renewal of the reproduction of labor power is separated, one is realized in the city and the other is accomplished in rural; 2. The children are brought to city but are put into a situation of highly marginalized. They have to live in the maginal areas of city and are excluded to kinds of resources of city, the most important of which are the education resources.I call this organization mode of labor power renewal low cost because by this mode the state and capital just need to pay very low economy cost and politial cost. However, under this low-cost mode of labor power reproduction, the upward flow of migrant/left-behind children is heavily hindered and most of them have to end their education after graduation from junior middle school and begin to work. Although these young persons are different from their fathers in their job motivation and career choice, they still remain in the secondary labor market and therefore reproduce the class-status of migrant labor.We point out at the end of the paper, that except for class reproduction, the more serious problem for the children of migrant labor is their low-level personal development, which will not only results in deep crisis for the further economy and social development of China, but also make the social development deviate from its final goal, that is, fulfilling the all-around development of its individaul.