Trade Schools Offer Hope for Rural Migrants in China

Click here to read this NY Times story. It is a very interesting article and shows how a socialist system goes about addressing a societal problem with the interests of the people at heart. The story clearing shows that the aspirations and dreams of Chinese people are not dictated by some faceless "communist apparatchik." People attempt to better their condition as they do everywhere. In many parts of the world people can't change their circumstances and realize their dreams, so they flee and attempt to migrate, both legally or extralegally, to a country that has greater opportunity. Many rural Latin American immigrants to the US, like their counterparts in China, want their children to get a college education to better themselves economically. 

The article shows how this dynamic plays itself out in today's China. Rather than illegally  migrating to the US on rusting hulks like what occurred a decade or more ago, most Chinese immigration is now internal, from the countryside to the cities. This trend is about to be further promoted by the government in their push for countrywide urbanization. After the founding of the PRC migrant labour in China was mostly eliminated as it was very difficult to move from one place to another. Over the last three decades, due primarily to foreign investment in coastal factories, migrant workers have been exploited as a cheap form of labour that was poorly controlled by the government. The extralegal status of the migrants allowed government at all levels to ignore their basic needs. With the growing normalization of migrants in the cities the status quo is rapidly changing so as to quell the potential for social unrest. The right of the children of migrant labourers to education and health care in cities where their parents are not registered residents is of particular concern to this underclass of Chinese citizens, basically equivalent to our minimum wage workforce. Tensions between migrants and legal residents of cities have also arisen particularly when the migrants come from minority areas of China or provinces that are considered poor and backward. 

The article describes how the government is attempting to address these issues as they relate to education, in particular vocational education. Various efforts and reforms both in the public and private sectors are being made. You can read the article for details. The main point is that under a flexible, results oriented socialist system a variety of approaches can and are made to address a complex situation for the benefit of the people. 

The cynic or dogmatist may say that all the Chinese are doing is attempting to give industry new wage slaves so that a new bourgeoisie in and out of the Party can continue exploiting labour. But during the initial stages of socialism, particularly when it is built on the basis of pre-capitalist economic foundations as in China, there must be a prolonged period of state capitalism (the NEP - New Economic Policy - of Lenin) during which labour is still treated as a commodity. The socialist slogan from each according to their abilities, to each according to their work still requires a wage differential as in capitalist economies. 

Nonetheless, the article illustrates how socialist China actively seeks to solve problems relating to the people's livelihood in a pragmatic, realistic and results oriented way.