Re-organizing Peasant Labour for Local Resilience in China

Abstract

The recurrent crises of financial capitalism that has erupted within core countries have resulted in a double cost-transfer to countries in the Global South in conditions where the South suffers from political upheaval, economic down turns and social unrest. Encountering the challenges of global financialization and de-industrialization, the Global South needs to strengthen national sovereignty over common resources and enhance its capability of re-organizing the labour force, in order to protect the livelihood of the majority. Other than the usual approach of providing more urban jobs, an alternative that is more socially and culturally beneficial to society in the long term is to enhance local resilience against globalization and reactivate rural communities to promote jobs as well as reincorporate young people. Though the Chinese government’s central policy of ‘New Socialist Countryside’ attempts to absorb the crises of overproduction and unemployment through large scale domestic investment in basic infrastructure and social welfare in rural areas, it does not necessarily strengthen local resilience. Local resilience evolves through initiatives from below for social transformation through self-organization, popular participation, reciprocity and ecological practices.