Workers' Politics in Shanghai

The industrial sector of China, as of Japan and many other nations, is a “dual” economy. Jobs with radically different labor productivities tend to receive different wages; thus, there are many kinds of labor-capital relations. Some workers perform their duties—often with the aid of machines—on a relatively permanent basis; these people have secure job tenure. Others are marginal workers, “lumpenproletarians” as Marx called them; sometimes they have jobs, sometimes they are unemployed. Often these are seasonal farm workers. They live in factory dormitories when they can obtain temporary positions in the city, and they keep strong ties with the rural villages from which they came.