Well the circumstances have remarkable similarities. Much of China's economic growth has been attributed to underpaid agricultural labor becoming better paid factory labor. (still underpaid but less so perhaps). That raises the amount of disposable income people have which raises their standard of living.
The next chapter in this book are unions (well that was the chapter that followed urban migration in many other countries) where the workers, demanding a fair wage for their work strike and stop production. This chapter can't start until there aren't enough underpaid agri-workers to fill the positions, but once there are, look out.
How all of that plays out in a totalitarian regime is not well understood at all. In the US and elsewhere the folks to took union organizers out behind a shed and shot them were eventually brought to justice and punished, enough so that the practice became too risky for the factories. It has been suggested that in highly corrupt or complicit governments that correcting force (justice for organizers against being shot) may prevent the formation of effective unions. And how that plays out on the world scene is even less well known since Europe and the US went through the union chapter when there wasn't instantaneous communication around the world.
Polish Solidarity in the 1980s operated in a similar situation, and their work was too economically vital, and political authority was just shy of being strong enough.
The Chinese leadership is aware that the basis of its continued legitimacy the miracle of well over 600 million people being lifted out of poverty since 1980. (A humanitarian achievement that arguably rivals any other in history)
Whether it is violent crackdowns on dissent or widespread work stoppages, the economic fallout would threaten that narrative.
Though cheap labor is an advantage over other manufacturing centers, it is the incredible size that creates the flexibility to immediately scale up production on short notice that might make these super factories stand out even more to clients. If that is the case, until factories of the same magnitude are built in countries with even cheaper labor, there may be room for significant wage growth among the workers.
How are they underpaid? Are you suggesting they would be making more money fulfilling a local economic need with similar skills and risks? China's economic growth is due to an oversupply of unskilled labour that are able to be trained at a cheaper cost than western automation.
Read up how BYD started up. It is very enlightening. The west had modern battery factories yet couldn't compete with BYD on the price of it's hand made batteries.
Well, underpaid by what metric? If each Chinese laborer produces $100/day in profit but only gets paid $10/day, morally they're being underpaid. And the fact that so many companies are still moving operations to China is itself evidence that on average more profit is allocated to capital holders when they use Chinese labor over, say, Californian.
But even if you take liberal/market ideology at face value, they're still being underpaid. To have a free market you've got to have free people. If you agitate for more workplace protections or (god forbid) try to start an independent labor union, getting shot or sent to a prison camp in the far western provinces of China isn't out of the question. This decreases labor's bargaining power relative to what it would be in a free market, which decreases wages.
Ok, I accept your second point. Regarding the first... If there was an unskilled labour that, by itself could produce $100/day profit for a majority of people, then you wouldn't have any $10/day labourers. This $100/day profit is only possible with the value added by the skilled labour. It is like this everywhere. For example, the artist who made the facebook logo only got paid in the hundreds of dollars yet the facebook logo produces much more than 10x that in profit. Yet, without the value that the facebook product adds to the logo, it would have been worthless. You wouldn't argue that the artist is underpaid.
They don't produce that much profit in China. Companies compete all the profits away, and the big profits in many profits are overseas. Which is not to say they are not necessarily underpaid but it is not a simple calculation.
Underpaid by the worker's definition of what they feel they should be paid. Granted we don't see a lot of the stories in the western media that might otherwise be told, however there is a consistent narrative of workers taking extreme actions to make this point. [1] [2]
Note: I'm using the term skill from a manufacturer's POV as being something that can not be simply done by a machine. Whether that is R&D or creativity as part of a manufacturing process.
It is obvious they feel underpaid. It is their interest to get the most pay for their labour as they can get. Doesn't mean that the economy can afford to pay them more. Nor does it mean they would be paid more with a different unskilled job. China's struggle is that it has a massive surplus of unskilled labourers. The only way they can keep these people employed is by producing unskilled jobs for a low cost.
What is an example of an unskilled job? Sticking stickers on products. How much does it cost to get a machine to do it? $X. Then if a human wants to do it they must be to do at a comparable cost, otherwise market forces will eliminate his job. China is leaving low value manufacturing in coastal regions (where most of the manufacturing is done due to lower logistic costs). The unskilled migrant workers who haven't made their saving yet, and don't soon, are going to be far worse off in the future as they will have less earning opportunity and will be competing additional against logistic costs.
Many people fail to understand that things won't start costing more if unskilled Chinese labour would cost more. What would happen is we would start using simple machines to do the work and there would be less unskilled Chinese jobs available (leading to a slowdown of the Chinese economy). Dish washer machines are rare in restaurants in China due to the cost of labour being comparable or less than a machine.
Ok, so you raise an excellent doctrinal question, its one of philosophy. What is the role of the state in employment?
A libertarian view would have the state remove any barriers (short of money) that would prevent an individual from improving their own skills.
A traditional capitalist view would have the state provide enough educational opportunity to become 'minimally skilled' and achieve a living wage.
A socialist view would add to the capitalist view with a support network for folks with additional disadvantages such as learning disabilities or other impairments.
A communist view would provide jobs regardless of skill even if the product produced nothing of economic value.
A despotic or corrupt view would empower people to enslave others to increase their economic output as long as it didn't make the state 'look bad' to the international press.
Its a spectrum (more like a 3D surface) with folks all over the map. So far there have been few long term successes when the laborers were not able to improve their own skill sets, and some pretty spectacular failures when the labor pool was artificially prevented from improving itself.
You're misrepresenting the socialist and communist positions here. They aim to provide all education (up to university level) on a meritocratic basis. Since they're committed to providing for everybody, their idea is to get everyone to do something useful (the "from everybody according to their ability" part).
If someone can't become skilled through training and education, they should be given work that doesn't
require education (say, a janitor). Makes that person feel more useful vs just giving them unemployment checks for staying home.
Fair point, it is part of the socialist and communist doctrine.
There is an interesting 'post period benefit capture' issue that comes up. Lets say you're a young rebel and fritter away your youth rebelling rather than learning. Sadly in the US a lot of these folks end up either in the criminal justice system or on the marginalized edge of society. There are some great programs run by ex-gang members in LA [1] that tries to give people the skills they need, after they realize they need them, which may be much later than when the 'system' would normally provide. Adults going back for a GED and then on to college for additional skills.
The next chapter in this book are unions (well that was the chapter that followed urban migration in many other countries) where the workers, demanding a fair wage for their work strike and stop production. This chapter can't start until there aren't enough underpaid agri-workers to fill the positions, but once there are, look out.
How all of that plays out in a totalitarian regime is not well understood at all. In the US and elsewhere the folks to took union organizers out behind a shed and shot them were eventually brought to justice and punished, enough so that the practice became too risky for the factories. It has been suggested that in highly corrupt or complicit governments that correcting force (justice for organizers against being shot) may prevent the formation of effective unions. And how that plays out on the world scene is even less well known since Europe and the US went through the union chapter when there wasn't instantaneous communication around the world.
Interesting times indeed.