 What happens in global commodity chains?
 Production of shoes, clothes, toys, consumer electronics
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Design
Factory investment, ownership, & management
Manufacturing (some call “sweatshop labor”)
Marketing
 Where does each function take place?
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Core?
Semi-periphery?
Periphery?
 Which functions command the biggest share of the profits?
1

Background to reading on “global commodity chains” and sweatshop labor
Dependency
Core
Periphery
World Systems
Core
Semi-periphery
Periphery


World systems theory
 There is some potential for countries in the periphery to develop and move into the “semi-periphery,” although they are unlikely to catch up to core countries.
Global commodity chain studies draw on the insights of dependency/world systems theory
2

Chinese Development in Comparative
Perspective
 China was extremely backward in late 19th and early 20th C
 Agriculture —failed to keep up with population growth leading to extreme poverty
 Little industrial development

China Faced Severe Military Threats
 Repeatedly defeat in war
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
Opium Wars 1842, 1860
Sino-Japanese War 1895
 Resulted in limits on sovereignty
 China “carved up like a ripe melon”
 treaty ports, foreign
“concessions,”
 extra-territoriality

Chinese Development in Comparative
Perspective

China’s early failed response to the challenge of the West
 Contrasts w/ Japan
 resistance to “Westernization”
 China: how to adopt Western technology without
Western values?
 Internal crisis
 population pressure
 1600s: 125 million; mid-1800s: 400 million
 peasant rebellions
 1850-1880 —est. 100 million deaths

Chinese Development in Comparative
Perspective
 China begins to catch up
 Successful industrialization
 Military implications

Origins of the Chinese Communist System
 Communist Party of
China founded 1921

 Fights for power
People’s Republic of
China founded 1949

Origins of the Chinese Communist System
 Sources of support for
Communist revolution in China
 redistribution of land to peasants (land reform)
 appeal to socioeconomic interests
 resistance to Japanese invasion (1937-45)
 appeal to nationalism

Origins of the Chinese Communist System

China looks to Soviet Union for model of “catchup” development
 Soviet-style planned economy
 Totalitarian regime under Mao Zedong

Chinese Development in Comparative
Perspective
 China attempts to adopt Soviet-style planned economy
 Contrasts w/ Soviet Union

Compare starting points of “First Five-Year Plans”
 Soviet —1927
 China —1953
 Even more backward (Gerschenkron)
 China: Lower agricultural output (Soviet 5x higher)
 China: Lower industrial output (Soviet 4x higher)

Chinese Development in Comparative
Perspective


Lenin’s innovation
 vanguard party leads proletariat in establishing socialism
Mao’s innovations


 vanguard party leads peasantry –not proletariat—in establishing socialism voluntarism (where there’s a will there’s a way)
 Contrast orthodox Marxist emphasis on real material conditions mass mobilization

 Mao tries to compensate for China’s relative backwardness
 “Great Leap Forward” 1958-61

Chinese Development in Comparative
Perspective
 Mao tries to compensate for China’s relative backwardness
 “Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution”
1966-76
 part struggle over correct model for economic development
 part struggle for power w/in CCP (Chinese
Communist Party)



Crisis of political legitimacy
Communist utopia?  or economic stagnation
 Per capita household expenditures
 Increased only 2.2% 1952-75
 1975 per capita consumption
 Grain, cooking oil, meat
 lower than in 1950s
14

 Crisis of political legitimacy
 Nationalism (wealthy/strong China)?
 Demonstration effect/challenge of East
Asian “tigers”
 South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore
15

Reform in China and Comparisons with
Russia
 Communist Party welcomes reform
 Cultural Revolution chaos in China
 made reform more welcome/more urgent to Communist Party cadres
 Contrast: entrenched bureaucracy in Soviet
Union

Reform in China and Comparisons with
Russia
 China introduces market forces
 Mao’s death creates political opportunity
 Communist Party begins economic reform 1978
 Under new leader Deng Xiaoping

Reform in China and Comparisons with
Russia
 Economic
 China still a largely agricultural economy as of
1978
 Huge opportunities for growth through industrialization
 Contrast: Soviet Union had already completed transition from agricultural to industrial economy

Reform in China and Comparisons with
Russia


Contrast: “Shock therapy” in Russia
Gradualism in China
 Introduce market forces into agricultural sector first

Reform in China and Comparisons with
Russia


Contrast “Shock therapy” in Russia
Gradualism in China
 Gradual change in smaller industrial sector



Froze plan obligations at 1984 levels
Introduced prices “on the margin” made reform less painful in China

Reform in China and Comparisons with
Russia
 Russia —neo-liberal-informed policies destroy state sector
 China —market-oriented policies link state and market
 Fundamental change in strategy
 From planned to market economy
 With active but more selective state intervention
 Pre-WTO: high tariff barriers, bank loans for state industry tax breaks for exporters, key industries



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Spectacular economic growth
 About 9-10 percent per year since the late 1970s
Increasing incomes on average (7-fold increase in 20 years)


1985: $293
2006: $2,025
Improving literacy
 1978: 37 % of adults illiterate
 2005: <10 %
Improving infant survival
 1978: 41 deaths per 1,000 live births
 2005: 23
Major drop in absolute poverty


Between 1990 and 2004 the number of people living on a dollar per day fell by 246 million, while total population rose by over 156 million.
Growth has helped to lift several hundred million people out of absolute poverty, with the result that China alone accounted for over 75 percent of poverty reduction in the developing world over the last 20 years.


Symptoms of a “19 th -Centurystyle” capitalism
 Large and growing income inequality

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1983: 0.28 (gini coefficient)
2001: 0.447
 Environmental degradation
 China has 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities , largely due to high coal use and motorization.
 Lack of protection for vulnerable social groups
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Poor
Unemployed
 Elderly
 Sick