China Should Abolish Peasant Worker System

The financial crisis demonstrates the tremendous influence of peasant workers immediately. A large number of them lost their jobs and went back to the hometown. But they just found out that nothing could be done and then flowed back to the city. More importantly, many peasant workers are not alone, but the whole family.

They have been left hometown for years, with children studying in the local school in which city they also worked at. Once they get back to the hometown, not only the job hunting becomes a problem, but a series of trouble will be met such as children attending schools.

It is suggested that peasant workers could be rearranged back to build up socialist new countryside. But it’s really not that easy because the peasant workers cannot be deemed as peasants any more. It’s hard for them to work as a farmer as before. Since they have knowledge of the outside world after years’ drifting around, a thoroughly different recognition for both themselves and the outside communities has been formed.

The importance of peasant workers

In fact, when it comes to transport during Spring Festival or epidemic like SARS, or economic recession, it is always the knottiest problem for the governments at all levels to deal with the relevant problems about peasant workers.

From experiences of other countries, China has no choice but abolishing the peasant workers system on this problem. In this country, the appearance of peasant workers is inevitable outcome of history, and expression of improvement of social system in its early days.

Before embracing the reform and opening-up policies in 1978, China was typically dualistic society where a hard and fast line was drawn between countryside and city. But after that, as a result of the success of reform in rural places, a great many of surplus labor has been produced. In the mean time, industrial reform and urbanization needed new labor. In consequence, the household registration system began to release and peasants entered into cities continuously from then on.

On the one hand, they separated themselves from the statue of peasants. On the other hand, they are not formal worker and citizen of the urban in that the special title – peasant workers has coming out.

Although there is no official statistics about the number of peasant workers in China, the amount would be extremely colossal from various researches. But it never goes too far to access the contribution than made by peasant workers for this country’s economy. It could be concluded that they are the main body of the second wave of industrialization and urbanization since the reform and opening-up policies have been carried out. They provide exceedingly cheap labor for the globalization, industrialization and urbanization of China.

It is precisely from this point of view, some economists acknowledge that peasant workers are the main factor that China obtains the strongest completion world wide.

It also revealed in the aspect of politics in recent years the importance of peasant workers in the process of economic of China. As the rights of them are often being violated, the government seeks to guarantee their interests through the new law of employment contracts. At the same time, the official bodies begin to provide systematic way allowing them express their opinions and interests.

The hidden trouble of institutionalizing peasant workers

For example, the representatives of peasant workers appealed in National Party congress while the number is very small, as well as the proportion. It means the peasant workers assume the airs of ‘constituency’ or functional community. In other words, the overall trend is making it institutionalized for this social group.

However, the institutionalization of peasant workers will be a long-term pain to China or even with countless hidden trouble. If that becomes real, the community of China will change from dualistic society to three-component society, which is urban, countryside and peasant workers who are between them.

The peasant worker system is not accord with the demand of productivity development. In most of the industrialized countries nowadays and in the transformation of the process from conventional dualistic society to industrialized society, the development of economic and urbanization required the peasants becomes the modern citizen. At the same time, industrialization and urbanization effectively absorbed the peasants shifted from rural places.

Since the Chinese economic reform, the industrialization and urbanization of China is absolutely unrivaled. Nevertheless, the speed of absorbing peasants is quite slow. It is not the problem of the ability to do so, but the peasant workers system.

As every aspect of the system fail to concern about the peasant workers, it leads to the discrimination on behalf of the system. In other words, if the peasant workers system is not abolished, the productive forces of this huge social group cannot be liberated.

In recent years, government of China promotes the socialist new countryside policy, which shows the determination to solve the issues of agriculture, farmer and rural area. But it is absolutely not means to induce them back to home. To thoroughly solve this issue, it has be depending on industrialization and urbanization to reduce the peasants.