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The following is part of Cornell

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Contemporary China
Initiative Lecture Series

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under the Cornell
East Asia Program.

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The arguments and viewpoints of

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this talk belong
solely to the speaker.

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We hope you enjoy.

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We are very pleased this week to have

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Professor Eli Friedman
who is the associate professor

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of International and Comparative

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Labor in our own School of
Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell.

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He's the author of a book titled
"Insurgency Trap: Labor

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Politics in Postsocialist China."

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And an editor of the book "China on Strike:
Narratives of Worker's Resistance."

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The most recent of his many essays is

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about CCP migrant labor policy

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as a form of just-in-time urbanization.

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It's really excellent.
I recommend it.

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He's also an important public
intellectual having written

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for "The Nation," "Jacobin," 
"The Financial Times," and a dozen

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other high circulation outlets.
He's a recipient of the

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MacIntyre Award for

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Exemplary Teaching at Cornell
in the School of Labor Relations

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and you can study with him
right here if you haven't started to

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do so, which I suspect you will.

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The CCCI is
really a great forum.

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I've got to enjoy it

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as a listener for the
last several years.

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And it's really a
pleasure to be here

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now as a presenter.

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Before getting into
the material I also

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wanna  give a shoutout to

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the Institute for Social
Sciences here at Cornell,

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which has really played

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a decisive role in
supporting my research,

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where I'm part of a
research group on

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Chinese cities right now

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which is headed by
Jeremy Wallace,

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faculty member in the
government department.

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And, as you might guess

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based on my position
in the ILR school,

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I'm a labor scholar.

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Going back to 2011 when
I first showed up here

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I never would have imagined
that I'd be writing

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a book about urbanization.

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But here I am.
Cornell has been

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a really wonderful place

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both to be a China
scholar and to study

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cities and urbanization.

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So I encourage you all

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to take advantage
of the sorts of resources.

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So today I'm gonna be presenting
material from a book that I'm

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in the process of writing

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titled "The Urbanization
of People."

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This is a project
that looks at how the

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urban state in China manages

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flows of people amidst
what has been

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referred to as the largest

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migration in human history,

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currently numbering
more than a quarter of

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a billion people who are moving

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largely from rural areas to cities.

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I'm gonna present some of the

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key arguments from the
book as well as some of

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the conceptual innovations
that I develop

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and some of the
information on government policy.

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I have also a lot of data,

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in fact the majority of my data
is ethnographic and interview

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data, on people's
lived experiences,

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on how state policy

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and changes in the structure
of the economy are

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experienced within

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migrant communities
in urban China,

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as well as various sorts of

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coping mechanisms in forms
of social resistance.

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Unfortunately all of
that really interesting

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qualitative data is gonna be

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left out of this talk just

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because of time constraints.

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Okay so let's begin in

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the summer of 2011
in the city of Beijing.

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A couple of weeks before

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the school semester
is going to begin,

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the city launches an
attack on migrant schools.

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And they demolish a couple
dozen schools for the

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children of migrant workers,

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leaving tens of thousands
of people without a place

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to go to school shortly before

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the semester is going to start.

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And then they leave parents

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scrambling trying to
find somewhere to put

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their children into school
or sending them back

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to their  hometowns
in rural areas.

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Before proceeding,
I've already used

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a term that I need
to define, and that

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is the migrant school.

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So what is a migrant school?

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Migrant schools are institutions

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in urban areas in China
that serve people who have

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been excluded from
the public school system

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by virtue of their hukou, or their

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household registration system.

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I'm gonna talk a lot more
about that and the processes

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of exclusion. These schools are

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largely or completely
privatized and

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totally dependent on the tuition

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of their students
that they serve,

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exclusively or almost
exclusively non-local students,

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people who come
from outside of the city.

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As you can see in this
photo from one of

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the schools that I
studied in Beijing,

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they are badly under-resourced

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and that's because they
are totally privatized

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but they serve a market

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that does not have
very much money

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so tuition is low
and therefore they don't have

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resources to provide students
with quality education.

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So when I talk about
migrant schools

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this is what I'm referring to.

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In my earlier research
on labor conflicts,

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which was mostly based
in Guangdong Province,

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I'd heard a lot about
difficulties that parents,

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migrant parents, have in terms of

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getting access to education
for their children.

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But the school demolitions that

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I was reading about from the
comfort of my office here

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in Ives Hall seemed
really dramatic.

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And it seemed like,
as someone who's

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interested in the
politics of migration,

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seems like something I
needed to pay attention to.

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So that winter I went
to Beijing and I

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began poking around and doing
some preliminary research.

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And over the
subsequent years I've

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been doing research in

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a sporadic way, going there
in summers and winters

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in looking into this.
And over the next several years

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what I found was that

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the municipal
government, in Beijing

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but in other places as well,

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was using myriad shifts in

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bureaucratic arrangements to
slowly deprive migrants,

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migrant children,
of access to education,

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be it either the formal
public schooling

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or the informal and private
versions of schooling

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as is the case with
these migrants schools.

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Curiously, it's at
precisely the same time,

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around 2012-2013
and especially 2014,

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when the central
government begins

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advancing this slogan

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the urbanization of people,

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which is where I get
the title of my book.

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And for the first time in

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the history of the
People's Republic

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they begin talking
about actively wanting

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more people in cities.

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This idea, the urbanization of people

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is also conceptually important

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for me because it's not

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just about moving
people to cities.

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It's an implicit recognition
on the part of

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the state that there has been

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a disjuncture in the
urbanization process.

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And the disjuncture
that I think is really

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fascinating and generative
of much of urban politics

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is that capital has
been largely urbanized,

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it's an urban-centered economy,

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that people have been
urbanized as workers

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but people as full social beings

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have not yet been urbanized.

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And that's precisely
what this phrase,

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the urbanization of people

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is implicitly acknowledging.

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That human beings have been

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welcomed into the
city as workers

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but not as people
and the state now

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wants to begin to do
something about this.

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So why is the central
government now

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talking about wanting
more urbanization when

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this goes against just about

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everything that they've done

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over the previous decade
of the People's Republic.

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They believe that
advancing urbanization,

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advancing the urbanization
of people, will help them in

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the overriding economic
goal that has been

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established going all
the way back to 2003,

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which is rebalancing the economy.

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And rebalancing refers
to a lot of things.

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Fundamentally it
refers to increasing

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domestic consumption,
reducing inequality,

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and thereby reducing reliance
on foreign export markets,

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especially the United States.

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And it goes without
saying that the trade

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conflict between the United States
and China has only

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intensified that desire.

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It also refers to other
sorts of imbalances,

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regional inequalities,

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ecological destruction,
things like that.

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But they think that the

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urbanization of people
is going to be critical

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to advancing this issue

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of increasing
domestic consumption.

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Which is, as you can
see in this chart,

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a really pressing issue.

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In the reform era,

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consumption as a percentage of

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GDP has fallen
pretty dramatically.

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And if you look at China
compared to other

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East Asian countries

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at similar levels of development,

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domestic consumption counts
for a much smaller share of

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total GDP in China
than it does in other

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countries like South Korea or Taiwan

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or Singapore.

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So this is seen as a problem
for a number of reasons.

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One, because it's suggestive of

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high levels of inequality.

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Because most people are not
able to consume too much.

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But I think of

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greater concern to the
Chinese government,

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particularly after the
financial crisis in 2008,

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is it suggests dependence
on foreign consumers,

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notably in the United States,

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and also of course in Europe

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and Japan and other
developed countries.

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So they want to
push that line up.

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They believe the urbanization of

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people is going to advance that.

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Because if you look, historically,

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typically urban residents consume

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more than rural residents.

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This is intuitive and
something we all know

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and so the logic there is

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if there are more
people living

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in cities then there's going to be
more domestic consumption.

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In fact by 2013-2014

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when the government
starts using this phrase,

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the urbanization of people,

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the shift from an
industrialization led

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model of development to

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an urbanization led model of

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development was
already taking place.

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So here if we look at
the contribution to GDP

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of tertiary industry
as compared to industry,

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tertiary industry refers
basically to the service sector,

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you can see as early as 
I believe it's 2000 that

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the tertiary industry overtakes

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industry in terms of its
contribution to GDP.

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And that that divergence only

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expands over the
subsequent 15 years or so.

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Similarly, if we want
to look at a couple of

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key urban oriented industries,

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construction, finance,
and real estate,

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we can see that their
contribution to GDP

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has increased significantly
in the reform era

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and particularly so

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after 2008. A number that

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is frequently cited
is that in 2011

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more than half of China's
population became urban,

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which means that more
than half the population

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was living in urban areas.

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It's a number that
is frequently cited,

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but the implications of
that for thinking

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00:10:31,609 --> 00:10:33,199
about development
and for thinking about

263
00:10:33,199 --> 00:10:35,570
urban politics are oftentimes

264
00:10:35,570 --> 00:10:39,214
not carefully integrated.

265
00:10:39,214 --> 00:10:42,439
Because we know that again

266
00:10:42,439 --> 00:10:46,084
about a quarter of
a billion people are living

267
00:10:46,084 --> 00:10:50,029
outside of their places
of hukou registration,

268
00:10:50,029 --> 00:10:52,175
so you have this big
swath of the population,

269
00:10:52,175 --> 00:10:54,110
many of which are living
in cities but have not

270
00:10:54,110 --> 00:10:56,390
been fully urbanized.

271
00:10:56,390 --> 00:11:00,649
So again, the situation
that China encounters

272
00:11:00,649 --> 00:11:02,629
in this period of time is that

273
00:11:02,629 --> 00:11:05,404
capital has been urbanized,

274
00:11:05,404 --> 00:11:07,430
people are urbanized as labor

275
00:11:07,430 --> 00:11:09,110
but not as full social beings.

276
00:11:09,110 --> 00:11:11,689
In other words, their
incorporation into

277
00:11:11,689 --> 00:11:15,440
cities is highly segmented.

278
00:11:15,440 --> 00:11:18,920
So in 2014 the central government
comes out with what's

279
00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:21,529
referred to as the National
New Urbanization Plan,

280
00:11:21,529 --> 00:11:24,890
which establishes a set of
guidelines for advancing

281
00:11:24,890 --> 00:11:28,460
urbanization policy from
2014 until the year 2020.

282
00:11:28,460 --> 00:11:30,979
So we're in the
middle of that now.

283
00:11:30,979 --> 00:11:32,719
And then a few months later

284
00:11:32,719 --> 00:11:36,065
they unveil this residency
reform program

285
00:11:36,065 --> 00:11:37,309
that some people say,

286
00:11:37,309 --> 00:11:39,305
is this the end of hukou.

287
00:11:39,305 --> 00:11:41,749
Again this is the first
time the central government

288
00:11:41,749 --> 00:11:43,774
is actively encouraging
people to move

289
00:11:43,774 --> 00:11:45,200
to cities in the history of

290
00:11:45,200 --> 00:11:47,359
the People's Republic. For a long
time they've been trying to

291
00:11:47,359 --> 00:11:49,580
deincentivize people

292
00:11:49,580 --> 00:11:52,579
to move to cities,
particularly after 1958.

293
00:11:52,579 --> 00:11:55,580
The media both in China
and internationally begins talking

294
00:11:55,580 --> 00:11:58,880
about this increased openness

295
00:11:58,880 --> 00:12:01,909
to these migrants coming
in from rural areas

296
00:12:01,909 --> 00:12:03,710
until it seemed like something

297
00:12:03,710 --> 00:12:05,660
was really changing.

298
00:12:05,660 --> 00:12:07,820
The problem is it
did not comport at

299
00:12:07,820 --> 00:12:10,474
all with what I was seeing
on the ground in Beijing.

300
00:12:10,474 --> 00:12:13,250
I was in Beijing and seeing
all of these efforts that

301
00:12:13,250 --> 00:12:14,689
the city government was taking

302
00:12:14,689 --> 00:12:16,550
to expel people from the city.

303
00:12:16,550 --> 00:12:20,819
So what was going on here?
The issue is this.

304
00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:24,400
The central government wanted

305
00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:28,074
certain kinds of people in
certain kinds of cities.

306
00:12:28,074 --> 00:12:30,295
And they make this quite explicit.

307
00:12:30,295 --> 00:12:32,349
It says quite clearly in the

308
00:12:32,349 --> 00:12:35,770
National Urbanization
Plan that cities that

309
00:12:35,770 --> 00:12:37,569
have an urban population of

310
00:12:37,569 --> 00:12:39,009
more than 5 million are to

311
00:12:39,009 --> 00:12:41,979
strictly control their population.

312
00:12:41,979 --> 00:12:43,780
And the smaller the city,

313
00:12:43,780 --> 00:12:45,849
the fewer the restrictions there

314
00:12:45,849 --> 00:12:48,429
should be on urbanizing people.

315
00:12:48,429 --> 00:12:53,154
So this then leads me
to the questions

316
00:12:53,154 --> 00:12:54,789
that I really want to address.

317
00:12:54,789 --> 00:12:57,294
And these questions are

318
00:12:57,294 --> 00:13:00,535
who gets into which
cities and why,

319
00:13:00,535 --> 00:13:02,979
and what happens to
those people living in the

320
00:13:02,979 --> 00:13:05,360
cities where they
aren't supposed to be,

321
00:13:05,360 --> 00:13:06,799
the people who were going against

322
00:13:06,799 --> 00:13:09,244
the spirit of the plan.

323
00:13:09,244 --> 00:13:12,470
In short, how do

324
00:13:12,470 --> 00:13:16,250
Chinese megacities
manage flows of people

325
00:13:16,250 --> 00:13:19,625
and what are the
social consequences?

326
00:13:19,625 --> 00:13:21,770
What are the social
consequences for the

327
00:13:21,770 --> 00:13:24,485
citizenship regime
and for inequality?

328
00:13:24,485 --> 00:13:27,455
And just a preview of my argument,

329
00:13:27,455 --> 00:13:30,035
my answer to this
first question is that

330
00:13:30,035 --> 00:13:32,060
Chinese megacities are pursuing

331
00:13:32,060 --> 00:13:34,504
what I refer to as
just-in-time urbanization.

332
00:13:34,504 --> 00:13:36,049
This is a concept that I

333
00:13:36,049 --> 00:13:38,659
develop by drawing an
extended analogy with

334
00:13:38,659 --> 00:13:41,690
the just-in-time production
method that emerged

335
00:13:41,690 --> 00:13:43,760
in the Toyota production system

336
00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:46,399
in the post-war era in Japan.

337
00:13:46,399 --> 00:13:50,944
And I'll draw this all out
as we move forward.

338
00:13:50,944 --> 00:13:53,480
And in answer to the question

339
00:13:53,480 --> 00:13:54,905
what are the social consequences

340
00:13:54,905 --> 00:13:57,079
I say what we see in China is

341
00:13:57,079 --> 00:13:59,779
the emergence of an inverted
welfare state in which

342
00:13:59,779 --> 00:14:02,930
the logic of welfare
states as they emerge in

343
00:14:02,930 --> 00:14:04,925
capitalist countries
in the 20th century

344
00:14:04,925 --> 00:14:06,289
is perfectly inverted,

345
00:14:06,289 --> 00:14:09,154
where public resources

346
00:14:09,154 --> 00:14:12,095
are diverted to people
who need them the least.

347
00:14:12,095 --> 00:14:13,940
Which again is an inversion of

348
00:14:13,940 --> 00:14:17,730
the logic of the welfare state.

349
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:21,965
As I mentioned at the outset,
my book also deals with

350
00:14:21,965 --> 00:14:23,930
coping strategies of
migrant workers and

351
00:14:23,930 --> 00:14:26,300
resistance among both
parents and teachers.

352
00:14:26,300 --> 00:14:28,579
And I'm not gonna be able to deal
with that today but happy to

353
00:14:28,579 --> 00:14:31,699
talk about some of that in Q&A.

354
00:14:31,699 --> 00:14:34,519
How do I go about
answering these questions?

355
00:14:34,519 --> 00:14:36,830
I'm not gonna walk you
through my methods too much.

356
00:14:36,830 --> 00:14:39,620
I do wanna say that
I'm focusing on school.

357
00:14:39,620 --> 00:14:41,029
There's a lot of
perspectives from

358
00:14:41,029 --> 00:14:42,815
which you can study urbanization.

359
00:14:42,815 --> 00:14:44,720
I think that schools are
an interesting site for

360
00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:47,764
understanding this problem of
the urbanization of people.

361
00:14:47,764 --> 00:14:49,040
Because it is a

362
00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:51,454
key site of social reproduction.

363
00:14:51,454 --> 00:14:53,599
And I'm gonna be talking
about social reproduction.

364
00:14:53,599 --> 00:14:55,249
What that term means for me

365
00:14:55,249 --> 00:14:59,269
is all of the interventions
that are necessary

366
00:14:59,269 --> 00:15:02,300
in the maintenance and
regeneration of human life at some

367
00:15:02,300 --> 00:15:05,630
sort of socially determined
level on a daily basis but

368
00:15:05,630 --> 00:15:07,684
also on a generational basis.

369
00:15:07,684 --> 00:15:08,990
So these are all of
the things that are

370
00:15:08,990 --> 00:15:10,859
necessary to allow

371
00:15:10,859 --> 00:15:12,995
social life to continue

372
00:15:12,995 --> 00:15:15,109
that occur outside
of the workplace.

373
00:15:15,109 --> 00:15:18,769
And key institutions of social
reproduction of course

374
00:15:18,769 --> 00:15:20,629
are the house and thinking about

375
00:15:20,629 --> 00:15:23,915
domestic labor that's
going on there, education,

376
00:15:23,915 --> 00:15:26,329
health care, these are
the main areas

377
00:15:26,329 --> 00:15:28,560
of social reproduction.

378
00:15:29,260 --> 00:15:33,244
So looking at schools allows
me to ask the questions

379
00:15:33,244 --> 00:15:34,520
how are people being

380
00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:36,560
incorporated outside
of the labor market?

381
00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:38,900
And part of this stems from
my first project which was

382
00:15:38,900 --> 00:15:40,459
very labor market

383
00:15:40,459 --> 00:15:41,570
and workplace focused and now

384
00:15:41,570 --> 00:15:43,160
I want to know
what's happening to

385
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:46,025
those folks when they go
home at the end of the day.

386
00:15:46,025 --> 00:15:48,050
Looking at the schools
also allows us to

387
00:15:48,050 --> 00:15:50,210
get an intergenerational processes.

388
00:15:50,210 --> 00:15:51,829
So we can ask the question

389
00:15:51,829 --> 00:15:53,299
will the children
of migrants have

390
00:15:53,299 --> 00:15:56,315
similar life chances
to urban children

391
00:15:56,315 --> 00:15:59,615
or might we be seeing a formation
of an urban underclass?

392
00:15:59,615 --> 00:16:01,355
And we can't say this conclusively.

393
00:16:01,355 --> 00:16:02,780
But to some extent looking at

394
00:16:02,780 --> 00:16:04,430
dynamics within the
school allows us

395
00:16:04,430 --> 00:16:07,730
to anticipate future
social dynamics.

396
00:16:07,730 --> 00:16:11,480
I conducted 250 interviews

397
00:16:11,480 --> 00:16:15,289
and several months of
ethnographic observation.

398
00:16:15,289 --> 00:16:17,239
Most of the book and most of

399
00:16:17,239 --> 00:16:19,744
my presentation today is
about the city of Beijing.

400
00:16:19,744 --> 00:16:22,399
But I also did research
in Guangzhou and

401
00:16:22,399 --> 00:16:24,364
Chengdu and working with

402
00:16:24,364 --> 00:16:26,720
Christine Wen who's
a PhD student here

403
00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:28,384
in City and Regional Planning.

404
00:16:28,384 --> 00:16:31,739
I've also done some
research in Guizhou.

405
00:16:32,290 --> 00:16:35,989
Okay enough on the methods.

406
00:16:35,989 --> 00:16:39,740
So you have a sense of the
kinds of empirical questions.

407
00:16:39,740 --> 00:16:41,870
But how should we go about

408
00:16:41,870 --> 00:16:44,644
conceptualizing 
what's happening here?

409
00:16:44,644 --> 00:16:46,369
If we look at these,

410
00:16:46,369 --> 00:16:48,454
the 2011 school demolitions,

411
00:16:48,454 --> 00:16:51,410
this looks like a process
whereby the urban state is

412
00:16:51,410 --> 00:16:53,810
expelling the surplus population.

413
00:16:53,810 --> 00:16:56,074
This idea of surplus
population has

414
00:16:56,074 --> 00:16:58,790
been an increasingly
popular framework for

415
00:16:58,790 --> 00:17:01,190
understanding processes
of urbanization

416
00:17:01,190 --> 00:17:02,555
in the Global South

417
00:17:02,555 --> 00:17:04,310
where in many cities
around the world we see

418
00:17:04,310 --> 00:17:06,289
people moving to cities without

419
00:17:06,289 --> 00:17:07,309
any promise of

420
00:17:07,309 --> 00:17:09,979
gainful employment or
gaining formal housing.

421
00:17:09,979 --> 00:17:12,019
They're excluded
to the informal economy

422
00:17:12,019 --> 00:17:13,940
and living in slums.

423
00:17:13,940 --> 00:17:17,134
And this kind of looks like that.

424
00:17:17,134 --> 00:17:18,469
These are people that
the state is saying

425
00:17:18,469 --> 00:17:20,105
you're superfluous

426
00:17:20,105 --> 00:17:24,299
and we're going to remove
you from the city.

427
00:17:24,670 --> 00:17:26,899
But let's dig into this a little bit.

428
00:17:26,899 --> 00:17:28,189
I'm gonna try to keep this theory

429
00:17:28,189 --> 00:17:29,615
as brief as possible.

430
00:17:29,615 --> 00:17:31,190
But I do think it's
important to have some

431
00:17:31,190 --> 00:17:33,440
sort of conceptual
framework in hand

432
00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:34,879
before we return to the

433
00:17:34,879 --> 00:17:38,430
specifics about
what's going on in China.

434
00:17:38,430 --> 00:17:41,034
So what is a surplus population?

435
00:17:41,034 --> 00:17:42,130
Surplus population, or relative

436
00:17:42,130 --> 00:17:44,170
surplus population, is a term

437
00:17:44,170 --> 00:17:48,149
developed by Karl Marx.
He wrote about this in

438
00:17:48,149 --> 00:17:50,185
the first volume of Capital.

439
00:17:50,185 --> 00:17:54,325
And for Marx and
others more recently

440
00:17:54,325 --> 00:17:57,550
surplus population is defined in

441
00:17:57,550 --> 00:18:00,490
its relationship to capital,
its value for capital.

442
00:18:00,490 --> 00:18:03,100
So a surplus population is
a group of people that are,

443
00:18:03,100 --> 00:18:06,069
from the perspective
of capital, irrelevant.

444
00:18:06,069 --> 00:18:08,215
But they're not productive.

445
00:18:08,215 --> 00:18:12,739
They play no role
in capital accumulation.

446
00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:16,330
And therefore they are

447
00:18:16,330 --> 00:18:18,175
surplus to the needs of capital.

448
00:18:18,175 --> 00:18:20,819
That's really what
this term refers to.

449
00:18:20,819 --> 00:18:23,780
As I said, there's
been a recent revival

450
00:18:23,780 --> 00:18:25,730
of interest in
surplus populations.

451
00:18:25,730 --> 00:18:28,489
A lot of well-known
people have used

452
00:18:28,489 --> 00:18:30,139
this term or this kind of

453
00:18:30,139 --> 00:18:32,869
conceptualization either
explicitly or implicitly,

454
00:18:32,869 --> 00:18:37,670
including Mike Davis,
Saskia Sassen, others.

455
00:18:37,670 --> 00:18:40,009
I think there's some really
major issues with this

456
00:18:40,009 --> 00:18:41,960
conceptualization.

457
00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:43,970
And I could go on about this

458
00:18:43,970 --> 00:18:47,404
but to keep it very
simple and concrete,

459
00:18:47,404 --> 00:18:50,749
this just did not align with
what I saw empirically.

460
00:18:50,749 --> 00:18:51,860
Because when we look
at those school

461
00:18:51,860 --> 00:18:53,149
demolitions and the
people who were

462
00:18:53,149 --> 00:18:55,864
being removed from
the city of Beijing,

463
00:18:55,864 --> 00:18:58,609
actually a lot of them are
gainfully employed.

464
00:18:58,609 --> 00:19:00,949
They're making major
economic contributions

465
00:19:00,949 --> 00:19:03,710
to the city in various
different ways.

466
00:19:03,710 --> 00:19:06,950
And in fact the city could not
function without them.

467
00:19:06,950 --> 00:19:08,299
And we've actually seen this in

468
00:19:08,299 --> 00:19:10,764
successive waves of expulsion
that have happened in Beijing

469
00:19:10,764 --> 00:19:12,619
in recent years that actually

470
00:19:12,619 --> 00:19:15,095
oftentimes employers,

471
00:19:15,095 --> 00:19:18,439
in other words capitalists,

472
00:19:18,439 --> 00:19:20,900
are almost as angry about
what's happening as migrants

473
00:19:20,900 --> 00:19:24,154
because they were being
deprived of their lifeblood.

474
00:19:24,154 --> 00:19:28,550
In other words, these
people are not surplus,

475
00:19:28,550 --> 00:19:31,685
they're not a surplus population
by virtue of their position within

476
00:19:31,685 --> 00:19:33,334
the structure of the economy.

477
00:19:33,334 --> 00:19:34,999
They're being rendered surplus.

478
00:19:34,999 --> 00:19:38,210
There's an active role of the
state in producing them as a

479
00:19:38,210 --> 00:19:41,914
surplus population, which is
excluded from urban space.

480
00:19:41,914 --> 00:19:44,510
Has nothing to do

481
00:19:44,510 --> 00:19:48,740
with their utility

482
00:19:48,740 --> 00:19:50,869
from the perspective of capital

483
00:19:50,869 --> 00:19:54,020
so I think that this traditional
definition doesn't work.

484
00:19:54,020 --> 00:19:56,450
I'm gonna have to keep it
very succinct here

485
00:19:56,450 --> 00:19:57,859
but I think that

486
00:19:57,859 --> 00:20:01,039
Michel Foucault's concept and

487
00:20:01,039 --> 00:20:04,385
theorization of biopolitics
actually helps me rescue

488
00:20:04,385 --> 00:20:07,264
this notion of
surplus population.

489
00:20:07,264 --> 00:20:10,565
So, biopower.

490
00:20:10,565 --> 00:20:12,860
Biopower is a form of
power that Foucault

491
00:20:12,860 --> 00:20:14,720
identified that he said

492
00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:16,759
emerged in the 18th

493
00:20:16,759 --> 00:20:18,784
and to some extent the 19th century.

494
00:20:18,784 --> 00:20:22,369
It's a new form of power that is

495
00:20:22,369 --> 00:20:24,889
in contrast earlier forms of power,

496
00:20:24,889 --> 00:20:26,359
notably sovereign power,
which you don't have to

497
00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:28,219
worry about too much.

498
00:20:28,219 --> 00:20:30,334
But Biopower is the power,

499
00:20:30,334 --> 00:20:32,720
the way he defines it succinctly is to

500
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:35,240
make live and let die.

501
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:36,770
So it's not a form
of power that's oriented

502
00:20:36,770 --> 00:20:38,494
towards taking away life,

503
00:20:38,494 --> 00:20:40,399
which is what sovereign power is,

504
00:20:40,399 --> 00:20:42,214
as a sovereign I can go out and

505
00:20:42,214 --> 00:20:44,630
I can kill you if I want to
if I'm the king.

506
00:20:44,630 --> 00:20:47,480
He says that biopower
is oriented towards

507
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:51,515
making live and that these
life-enhancing forms of

508
00:20:51,515 --> 00:20:53,329
bipower are directed at a

509
00:20:53,329 --> 00:20:57,170
new object, and that new object
is called the population.

510
00:20:57,170 --> 00:20:59,810
Population is not
a concept that power has

511
00:20:59,810 --> 00:21:04,694
in its imagination prior
to the 18th century.

512
00:21:04,694 --> 00:21:09,534
And the sorts of
interventions that are

513
00:21:09,534 --> 00:21:14,079
employed by biopower
include things like hygiene,

514
00:21:14,079 --> 00:21:15,384
health, housing,

515
00:21:15,384 --> 00:21:17,559
education. These are
things that are made

516
00:21:17,559 --> 00:21:22,730
that allow a population
to live, to flourish.

517
00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:26,605
This raises the question of
why do people need to live?

518
00:21:26,605 --> 00:21:28,299
Why is this form of
power emerging in

519
00:21:28,299 --> 00:21:30,399
the 18th and the 19th century?

520
00:21:30,399 --> 00:21:31,810
And Foucault, in part

521
00:21:31,810 --> 00:21:33,550
because of his methodological
orientation, does

522
00:21:33,550 --> 00:21:36,159
not go on to answer
that why question.

523
00:21:36,159 --> 00:21:40,345
But if we asked Marx,
he would have an answer.

524
00:21:40,345 --> 00:21:42,760
Or other Marxists, they
would have an answer.

525
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:44,679
And the answer
would be that this is

526
00:21:44,679 --> 00:21:47,309
precisely the time that
capitalism is emerging.

527
00:21:47,309 --> 00:21:49,129
And that capital
requires what Marx

528
00:21:49,129 --> 00:21:51,079
would call living labor.

529
00:21:51,079 --> 00:21:54,170
For Marx labor is
the source of value.

530
00:21:54,170 --> 00:21:56,584
And he refers to

531
00:21:56,584 --> 00:21:59,360
human beings and active
forms of labor as a form of,

532
00:21:59,360 --> 00:22:01,819
he refers to human beings

533
00:22:01,819 --> 00:22:04,624
and labor power
as living labor.

534
00:22:04,624 --> 00:22:07,160
You need to join capital
to labor in order to produce

535
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:11,269
value. Human beings
need to be alive.

536
00:22:11,269 --> 00:22:15,590
And that living labor needs
to be joined to capital in the

537
00:22:15,590 --> 00:22:17,390
appropriate qualities and

538
00:22:17,390 --> 00:22:18,979
quantities in space and time.

539
00:22:18,979 --> 00:22:21,259
They have to be brought
together in order

540
00:22:21,259 --> 00:22:23,900
for production to happen.

541
00:22:23,900 --> 00:22:26,014
And for my purposes

542
00:22:26,014 --> 00:22:28,160
negotiations over the bringing

543
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,770
together of the appropriate
qualities and quantities of

544
00:22:30,770 --> 00:22:33,229
labor and capital
in space and time

545
00:22:33,229 --> 00:22:36,620
is the essence of biopolitics.

546
00:22:36,620 --> 00:22:39,470
Furthermore, this
is not just about

547
00:22:39,470 --> 00:22:42,319
making humans
live at some sort of

548
00:22:42,319 --> 00:22:44,360
bare life level,

549
00:22:44,360 --> 00:22:47,360
they don't just need to
be biologically viable,

550
00:22:47,360 --> 00:22:48,380
this is the way
that a lot of people

551
00:22:48,380 --> 00:22:49,894
talk about biopolitics,

552
00:22:49,894 --> 00:22:51,649
but I think

553
00:22:51,649 --> 00:22:53,569
a more Marxian
perspective would say that,

554
00:22:53,569 --> 00:22:55,009
no, people actually
have to be alive at

555
00:22:55,009 --> 00:22:57,499
some sort of socially determined

556
00:22:57,499 --> 00:22:59,480
viable level of life,

557
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,610
some necessary
level of competency.

558
00:23:01,610 --> 00:23:03,140
So it's not just that
you are living,

559
00:23:03,140 --> 00:23:04,880
but that you are alive
and that you have

560
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:09,350
certain capacities to actively
transform the world.

561
00:23:09,350 --> 00:23:11,989
Now I think that this

562
00:23:11,989 --> 00:23:14,479
engagement with Foucault
is necessary because a

563
00:23:14,479 --> 00:23:16,639
traditional Marxian

564
00:23:16,639 --> 00:23:18,634
opposition between
the working class

565
00:23:18,634 --> 00:23:19,880
and surplus population,

566
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,010
this is the way that Marx
makes that distinction,

567
00:23:22,010 --> 00:23:24,095
the working class is exploited

568
00:23:24,095 --> 00:23:25,774
but it's necessary

569
00:23:25,774 --> 00:23:28,520
for capital accumulation.
You need a working class.

570
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:30,649
The surplus population
is irrelevant to

571
00:23:30,649 --> 00:23:33,620
that whole process of
capital accumulation.

572
00:23:33,620 --> 00:23:39,604
So I think

573
00:23:39,604 --> 00:23:41,869
that engaging with Foucault

574
00:23:41,869 --> 00:23:44,989
helps us overcome some
of the problems there.

575
00:23:44,989 --> 00:23:48,755
And when we look
particularly at cities,

576
00:23:48,755 --> 00:23:51,559
the dynamics of inclusion
and exclusion within

577
00:23:51,559 --> 00:23:53,449
urban space is relatively

578
00:23:53,449 --> 00:23:55,339
autonomous from
the needs of capital,

579
00:23:55,339 --> 00:23:56,360
whatever those might be.

580
00:23:56,360 --> 00:23:58,580
This is not just capital
needs this or that

581
00:23:58,580 --> 00:24:00,350
and so people get
excluded or included.

582
00:24:00,350 --> 00:24:01,715
That's not I think what

583
00:24:01,715 --> 00:24:04,310
I see happening in Beijing at all.

584
00:24:04,310 --> 00:24:06,575
So instead I'm proposing

585
00:24:06,575 --> 00:24:09,230
this reconstructed population

586
00:24:09,230 --> 00:24:12,110
schema which is different
from both the way

587
00:24:12,110 --> 00:24:15,169
Foucault and Marx
think about it

588
00:24:15,169 --> 00:24:19,349
but I think is a useful
synthesis of the two.

589
00:24:19,810 --> 00:24:27,304
And the axis of differentiation
in this schema is not,

590
00:24:27,304 --> 00:24:29,449
as Marx would ask, what is

591
00:24:29,449 --> 00:24:32,045
their relationship to
the means of production,

592
00:24:32,045 --> 00:24:34,715
but within a given space for whom

593
00:24:34,715 --> 00:24:37,460
is social reproduction guaranteed?

594
00:24:37,460 --> 00:24:38,989
In other words, what is
your relationship to

595
00:24:38,989 --> 00:24:40,550
the means of social reproduction?

596
00:24:40,550 --> 00:24:42,124
All those things that
I've talked about,

597
00:24:42,124 --> 00:24:45,479
education, health,
housing, et cetera.

598
00:24:46,060 --> 00:24:48,800
So for whom is it guaranteed?

599
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:51,544
Who has some sort
of provisional access

600
00:24:51,544 --> 00:24:53,674
and for whom is it denied?

601
00:24:53,674 --> 00:24:57,980
So in this reconstructed schema

602
00:24:57,980 --> 00:25:00,380
the population is
that group for whom

603
00:25:00,380 --> 00:25:02,929
social reproduction is
relatively guaranteed,

604
00:25:02,929 --> 00:25:05,374
it's never 100%
guarantee for anybody,

605
00:25:05,374 --> 00:25:07,385
but relatively guaranteed.

606
00:25:07,385 --> 00:25:10,564
Then we have the provisional
population, which is

607
00:25:10,564 --> 00:25:13,220
you have revocable
or precarious access

608
00:25:13,220 --> 00:25:14,480
to social reproduction.

609
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:16,760
This is more or less referring
to the migrant workers

610
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:19,039
who have their
children in schools

611
00:25:19,039 --> 00:25:22,054
but it's precarious. It can
be taken away by the state.

612
00:25:22,054 --> 00:25:24,439
And then finally we have
the surplus population

613
00:25:24,439 --> 00:25:26,000
which is those
who have no access

614
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,170
to social reproduction.

615
00:25:29,350 --> 00:25:31,849
Think back to

616
00:25:31,849 --> 00:25:34,055
those school demolitions that
I started with at the outset.

617
00:25:34,055 --> 00:25:35,900
What's happening here
is that the state is

618
00:25:35,900 --> 00:25:37,700
taking people who are in

619
00:25:37,700 --> 00:25:39,949
this provisional
population and they are

620
00:25:39,949 --> 00:25:42,980
pushing them into the
surplus population.

621
00:25:42,980 --> 00:25:44,090
The state did that.

622
00:25:44,090 --> 00:25:49,369
Capital did not do that.

623
00:25:49,369 --> 00:25:51,649
Enough of the theory.

624
00:25:51,649 --> 00:25:54,049
But with this framework I think in place

625
00:25:54,049 --> 00:25:57,544
I can now return to the
original question that I asked,

626
00:25:57,544 --> 00:25:59,509
which is how are megacities
managing flows of

627
00:25:59,509 --> 00:26:02,254
people?
Who was urbanized and how?

628
00:26:02,254 --> 00:26:03,559
In other words I'm asking

629
00:26:03,559 --> 00:26:05,405
the question, now that we have
this terminology in place,

630
00:26:05,405 --> 00:26:06,439
who gets to be part of

631
00:26:06,439 --> 00:26:08,749
that urban population with

632
00:26:08,749 --> 00:26:11,850
relatively guaranteed
social reproduction?

633
00:26:12,490 --> 00:26:14,705
At the most general level

634
00:26:14,705 --> 00:26:16,295
we already know that
the central government

635
00:26:16,295 --> 00:26:17,330
is interested in having

636
00:26:17,330 --> 00:26:21,364
more people in cities
beginning in 2014.

637
00:26:21,364 --> 00:26:22,490
And they're doing
this because they

638
00:26:22,490 --> 00:26:23,929
see urbanization as necessary

639
00:26:23,929 --> 00:26:27,245
to catalyzing the next
phase of development.

640
00:26:27,245 --> 00:26:29,089
Now to understand why

641
00:26:29,089 --> 00:26:30,829
the central government
is saying this at

642
00:26:30,829 --> 00:26:32,645
precisely the same time

643
00:26:32,645 --> 00:26:35,119
that migrants are being
pushed out of the city,

644
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,969
we need to consider
this particular city of

645
00:26:37,969 --> 00:26:41,240
Beijing within a
larger constellation

646
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:44,240
of cities in regions.

647
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:48,965
And this plan, the 2014
urbanization plan,

648
00:26:48,965 --> 00:26:52,460
what it does is it delineates
different functions

649
00:26:52,460 --> 00:26:56,960
for different kind of cities
within this urban hierarchy.

650
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:58,699
And I've identified a

651
00:26:58,699 --> 00:27:01,865
fundamental logic
undergirding this plan.

652
00:27:01,865 --> 00:27:03,650
And I wrote it out just to

653
00:27:03,650 --> 00:27:05,765
underline why I
think it's important.

654
00:27:05,765 --> 00:27:07,700
And I think that the
underlying logic is that

655
00:27:07,700 --> 00:27:09,800
the plan is oriented
towards affecting

656
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,919
correspondence between
individual endowments of

657
00:27:12,919 --> 00:27:15,934
human capital and that
person's location

658
00:27:15,934 --> 00:27:18,364
within the urban hierarchy.

659
00:27:18,364 --> 00:27:20,029
So to put it another way,

660
00:27:20,029 --> 00:27:22,384
we have elite cities,
places like Beijing,

661
00:27:22,384 --> 00:27:24,409
Shanghai, Guangzhou,
and Shenzhen, that are

662
00:27:24,409 --> 00:27:27,154
supposed to be reserved
for elite talents.

663
00:27:27,154 --> 00:27:28,459
And that is the

664
00:27:28,459 --> 00:27:30,619
language of the state, elite talents.

665
00:27:30,619 --> 00:27:33,500
On the other hand we have
a low-end population,

666
00:27:33,500 --> 00:27:35,465
which again is a state term.

667
00:27:35,465 --> 00:27:37,489
And the low-end population
is supposed to be

668
00:27:37,489 --> 00:27:39,710
shunted to low-end places,

669
00:27:39,710 --> 00:27:44,645
to small cities and to
rural areas. Megacities,

670
00:27:44,645 --> 00:27:48,920
these tier 1 cities,
need to optimize the population,

671
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:50,329
again this is a state term,

672
00:27:50,329 --> 00:27:52,880
optimize the population, in order

673
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:56,314
to enhance their capacity
for economic upgrading.

674
00:27:56,314 --> 00:27:58,429
So this is bringing in

675
00:27:58,429 --> 00:27:59,930
people who will
allow them to move to

676
00:27:59,930 --> 00:28:01,639
these higher value-added forms

677
00:28:01,639 --> 00:28:03,034
of production that they're

678
00:28:03,034 --> 00:28:04,610
trying to pursue right now.

679
00:28:04,610 --> 00:28:07,954
Included in this optimization
of the population,

680
00:28:07,954 --> 00:28:10,460
this is not acknowledged
anywhere in the plan,

681
00:28:10,460 --> 00:28:14,360
but critically is for these cities,

682
00:28:14,360 --> 00:28:16,759
they're trying to deal
with the problem of a

683
00:28:16,759 --> 00:28:18,800
rapidly aging population.

684
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:20,855
There's been a lot of
noise recently about how

685
00:28:20,855 --> 00:28:23,975
China doesn't
have enough people,

686
00:28:23,975 --> 00:28:25,340
which is sort of ironic.

687
00:28:25,340 --> 00:28:27,050
Anyone who's been paying
attention to China from

688
00:28:27,050 --> 00:28:29,645
the 1970s until last year,

689
00:28:29,645 --> 00:28:31,640
the government has just said
we have too many people,

690
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,609
too many people, China's overrun.

691
00:28:34,609 --> 00:28:38,149
Any sort of social problem can be

692
00:28:38,149 --> 00:28:39,289
explained with reference to

693
00:28:39,289 --> 00:28:40,865
the fact that China's
too many people.

694
00:28:40,865 --> 00:28:42,050
Last year they said

695
00:28:42,050 --> 00:28:44,525
oh oops we don't
have enough people.

696
00:28:44,525 --> 00:28:46,400
And so they're really
freaking out about that.

697
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:47,900
And this problem of aging and

698
00:28:47,900 --> 00:28:50,419
China's potential
declining population

699
00:28:50,419 --> 00:28:52,279
is felt most pressingly in

700
00:28:52,279 --> 00:28:55,114
the largest cities, for a
whole series of reasons.

701
00:28:55,114 --> 00:28:56,719
But they're telling people to have

702
00:28:56,719 --> 00:28:59,525
more children now
in Beijing and Shanghai,

703
00:28:59,525 --> 00:29:02,329
again at the same time that
they're kicking migrants out.

704
00:29:02,329 --> 00:29:04,579
And it turns out that Beijing
and Shanghai residents

705
00:29:04,579 --> 00:29:06,395
don't wanna have
more children for

706
00:29:06,395 --> 00:29:08,075
all kinds of reasons but

707
00:29:08,075 --> 00:29:11,359
significantly because
it's very expensive.

708
00:29:11,359 --> 00:29:13,969
So you have this
aging population in

709
00:29:13,969 --> 00:29:16,129
the cities and they need to
bring in that living labor,

710
00:29:16,129 --> 00:29:18,020
that source of vitality in

711
00:29:18,020 --> 00:29:22,114
essence, to serve as an
engine for the economy

712
00:29:22,114 --> 00:29:25,249
such that this aging population,

713
00:29:25,249 --> 00:29:27,260
and remember cities
are on the hook for

714
00:29:27,260 --> 00:29:29,599
pension payments and for
health care payments

715
00:29:29,599 --> 00:29:31,520
and so as those people get older

716
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,319
they need an active workforce

717
00:29:33,319 --> 00:29:35,570
in order to sustain
that aging population.

718
00:29:35,570 --> 00:29:36,830
And so the optimization of

719
00:29:36,830 --> 00:29:38,390
the population is also oriented

720
00:29:38,390 --> 00:29:40,894
towards addressing that problem.

721
00:29:40,894 --> 00:29:42,619
So I'd like to
point out here that

722
00:29:42,619 --> 00:29:44,120
the urbanization strategy that

723
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:45,664
the central government is pursuing

724
00:29:45,664 --> 00:29:47,825
is not just about exclusion.

725
00:29:47,825 --> 00:29:49,625
They still need workers.

726
00:29:49,625 --> 00:29:51,529
And this is a pretty
different perspective

727
00:29:51,529 --> 00:29:52,759
from the way that
Chinese cities are

728
00:29:52,759 --> 00:29:54,409
often talked about
when you read about

729
00:29:54,409 --> 00:29:56,359
forms of exclusion
and the hukou,

730
00:29:56,359 --> 00:29:59,855
the focus is really on the
way people are excluded.

731
00:29:59,855 --> 00:30:01,939
And exclusion of
course is a big part

732
00:30:01,939 --> 00:30:03,784
of that and I've already
referenced that.

733
00:30:03,784 --> 00:30:05,179
But what the
urbanization plan in

734
00:30:05,179 --> 00:30:07,115
general is about

735
00:30:07,115 --> 00:30:09,649
is bringing certain kinds of

736
00:30:09,649 --> 00:30:12,260
people in and expelling others in a

737
00:30:12,260 --> 00:30:15,034
dynamic manner in response to

738
00:30:15,034 --> 00:30:19,339
the perceived or real
developmental needs of the city.

739
00:30:19,339 --> 00:30:22,039
I use schooling as a lens on

740
00:30:22,039 --> 00:30:23,149
the broader

741
00:30:23,149 --> 00:30:25,729
process of urbanization
that's happening.

742
00:30:25,729 --> 00:30:30,080
And so the key empirical
question for me is

743
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:34,140
how do migrants get
access to education?

744
00:30:35,830 --> 00:30:37,970
And as I've already said I think

745
00:30:37,970 --> 00:30:39,229
that education is critical for

746
00:30:39,229 --> 00:30:42,470
understanding the
intergenerational processes.

747
00:30:42,470 --> 00:30:45,349
So how to migrants get
access to education?

748
00:30:45,349 --> 00:30:49,220
It's particularly hard
in Beijing these days.

749
00:30:49,220 --> 00:30:50,749
And now I'm going to

750
00:30:50,749 --> 00:30:52,640
answer that question.

751
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,590
And in doing so I'm
beginning to delineate

752
00:30:54,590 --> 00:30:55,909
the architecture of what I'm

753
00:30:55,909 --> 00:30:58,830
calling the inverted
welfare state.

754
00:31:01,030 --> 00:31:04,594
So imagine you're
a migrant parent.

755
00:31:04,594 --> 00:31:06,979
You don't have Beijing hukou
but you were living in hukou.

756
00:31:06,979 --> 00:31:08,359
You want to get your child

757
00:31:08,359 --> 00:31:10,415
into school there.
What do you do?

758
00:31:10,415 --> 00:31:12,334
The first step is to ask

759
00:31:12,334 --> 00:31:15,289
will you be able to get
Beijing hukou or not.

760
00:31:15,289 --> 00:31:16,669
And hukou, if you have it,

761
00:31:16,669 --> 00:31:20,344
guarantees you access
to public schools.

762
00:31:20,344 --> 00:31:21,470
Doesn't say anything about

763
00:31:21,470 --> 00:31:23,225
the quality and there's

764
00:31:23,225 --> 00:31:27,020
variation and diversity

765
00:31:27,020 --> 00:31:28,880
within the public
schools for sure.

766
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:30,439
But if you have Beijing hukou

767
00:31:30,439 --> 00:31:33,434
the state is obligated to
provide public education.

768
00:31:33,434 --> 00:31:40,300
How can you go
about getting hukou?

769
00:31:40,300 --> 00:31:41,680
In recent years

770
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,560
Beijing and other large cities

771
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,184
in China have developed
what they call

772
00:31:47,184 --> 00:31:49,105
point-based hukou admissions,

773
00:31:49,105 --> 00:31:51,460
or point-based citizenship
I'm calling it here.

774
00:31:51,460 --> 00:31:52,869
These are relatively new.

775
00:31:52,869 --> 00:31:55,915
They were first piloted in
Guangdong and have now,

776
00:31:55,915 --> 00:31:58,060
the central government
has been encouraging

777
00:31:58,060 --> 00:32:00,100
all large cities to

778
00:32:00,100 --> 00:32:02,590
adopt some version of
a point-based scheme,

779
00:32:02,590 --> 00:32:05,389
and Beijing has
done so recently.

780
00:32:10,110 --> 00:32:12,865
The schemes are relatively new.

781
00:32:12,865 --> 00:32:17,765
But really what the point-based
hukou admission policies

782
00:32:17,765 --> 00:32:19,790
do is it's a

783
00:32:19,790 --> 00:32:23,045
systematization of an
already deeply ingrained

784
00:32:23,045 --> 00:32:25,219
political logic that
cities have been using to

785
00:32:25,219 --> 00:32:27,725
sort the population
for a very long time.

786
00:32:27,725 --> 00:32:29,660
So I'm gonna walk
you through

787
00:32:29,660 --> 00:32:31,745
how one goes about

788
00:32:31,745 --> 00:32:36,665
accumulating points such
that you can get local hukou.

789
00:32:36,665 --> 00:32:38,780
The most important metric that

790
00:32:38,780 --> 00:32:42,530
cities are using is labor market value.

791
00:32:42,530 --> 00:32:43,940
So again these
have been promoted

792
00:32:43,940 --> 00:32:45,334
by the central government.

793
00:32:45,334 --> 00:32:49,820
And so this basic labor
market orientation is clearly

794
00:32:49,820 --> 00:32:52,250
reflected in the

795
00:32:52,250 --> 00:32:55,744
2014 opinion issued
by the State Council

796
00:32:55,744 --> 00:32:57,529
which states that
cities should, and I'm

797
00:32:57,529 --> 00:33:00,140
quoting, "emphasize
resolving hukou,"

798
00:33:00,140 --> 00:33:01,460
resolving hukou means giving

799
00:33:01,460 --> 00:33:02,899
them hukou, "for

800
00:33:02,899 --> 00:33:05,105
people who have been in
the city for a long time,

801
00:33:05,105 --> 00:33:08,015
have strong employability,
and can adapt to

802
00:33:08,015 --> 00:33:09,559
urban industrial
transformation and

803
00:33:09,559 --> 00:33:12,620
upgrading, and the competitive
urban environment."

804
00:33:12,620 --> 00:33:14,329
If we look specifically at

805
00:33:14,329 --> 00:33:16,985
Beijing's point-based hukou plan,

806
00:33:16,985 --> 00:33:20,150
there's a couple of
primary considerations

807
00:33:20,150 --> 00:33:21,829
that they set at the outset.

808
00:33:21,829 --> 00:33:25,354
And one of those primary
considerations is quote,

809
00:33:25,354 --> 00:33:28,010
"ensuring the human
resources to improve the

810
00:33:28,010 --> 00:33:31,160
central functions of the
capital city," end quote.

811
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:33,979
How concretely do you
go about accumulating points.

812
00:33:33,979 --> 00:33:36,874
The first absolute categorical

813
00:33:36,874 --> 00:33:38,329
necessity for every one of

814
00:33:38,329 --> 00:33:40,580
these plans is that you
have a labor contract.

815
00:33:40,580 --> 00:33:44,420
The second way that
you accumulate points,

816
00:33:44,420 --> 00:33:48,170
and this is true for all
cities, is education.

817
00:33:48,170 --> 00:33:50,224
Now they have different
ways of counting this.

818
00:33:50,224 --> 00:33:51,860
There's different

819
00:33:51,860 --> 00:33:55,114
weights in different
sorts of cities.

820
00:33:55,114 --> 00:33:59,179
Shanghai gives more
points for PhDs.

821
00:33:59,179 --> 00:34:00,829
Guangzhou gives more points for

822
00:34:00,829 --> 00:34:02,509
people with technical skills.

823
00:34:02,509 --> 00:34:04,430
But the consistent logic

824
00:34:04,430 --> 00:34:06,874
across them is the higher
level of education you have

825
00:34:06,874 --> 00:34:08,960
the more points you are
going to accumulate.

826
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:10,129
And in almost every case,

827
00:34:10,129 --> 00:34:12,590
unless you have some form
of higher education,

828
00:34:12,590 --> 00:34:14,390
it's going to be very
difficult to accumulate

829
00:34:14,390 --> 00:34:17,209
enough points to get local

830
00:34:17,209 --> 00:34:21,169
hukou. Some cities
issue lists of

831
00:34:21,169 --> 00:34:23,300
specific skills
that are in need at

832
00:34:23,300 --> 00:34:26,449
precisely that time and
it can change year to year.

833
00:34:26,449 --> 00:34:28,565
So you can say, well
we have a shortage of,

834
00:34:28,565 --> 00:34:30,365
I'm making this up but, welders

835
00:34:30,365 --> 00:34:31,910
and so we're gonna
give some advantage

836
00:34:31,910 --> 00:34:33,920
to people who are welders.

837
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:36,784
And then the following
year things could change.

838
00:34:36,784 --> 00:34:39,769
And in general

839
00:34:39,769 --> 00:34:41,990
these point-based
citizenship schemes are

840
00:34:41,990 --> 00:34:45,380
not open to people who
are over the age of 45.

841
00:34:45,380 --> 00:34:49,910
With the assumption
being that if you're over 45

842
00:34:49,910 --> 00:34:52,325
you have fewer years of

843
00:34:52,325 --> 00:34:54,964
productivity left to,

844
00:34:54,964 --> 00:35:00,560
fewer years of productivity
left in the city.

845
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:02,719
Some places cut off at

846
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:04,925
45 that you can't apply over 45.

847
00:35:04,925 --> 00:35:06,259
Other cities will give you

848
00:35:06,259 --> 00:35:09,320
point deductions for
every year over 45.

849
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:10,804
So again

850
00:35:10,804 --> 00:35:13,354
labor market value is the
most important metric.

851
00:35:13,354 --> 00:35:16,700
But another very important
metric is owning property.

852
00:35:16,700 --> 00:35:19,654
Most cities, including Beijing,

853
00:35:19,654 --> 00:35:22,775
will allow you to accumulate
points for owning property.

854
00:35:22,775 --> 00:35:24,320
In every case you receive

855
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:28,385
fewer points for renting
as opposed to owning.

856
00:35:28,385 --> 00:35:30,305
And almost across the board

857
00:35:30,305 --> 00:35:31,520
you receive no points

858
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:33,394
if you're living in
informal housing or

859
00:35:33,394 --> 00:35:35,029
if you're living

860
00:35:35,029 --> 00:35:38,735
in employer-provided dormitories.

861
00:35:38,735 --> 00:35:41,000
Contributions to
the local tax base,

862
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,340
or local fiscal
capacity more broadly,

863
00:35:43,340 --> 00:35:46,640
is also a critical
metric that they use.

864
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,310
And in most cases they
measure this by looking at

865
00:35:49,310 --> 00:35:51,769
contributions to
the social insurance

866
00:35:51,769 --> 00:35:53,270
schemes. Beijing has

867
00:35:53,270 --> 00:35:55,219
a hard requirement
that you need to have

868
00:35:55,219 --> 00:35:57,349
contributed to social
insurance schemes within

869
00:35:57,349 --> 00:35:59,705
the city of Beijing
for seven years prior

870
00:35:59,705 --> 00:36:01,460
before you can be considered

871
00:36:01,460 --> 00:36:05,119
for point-based hukou.

872
00:36:05,119 --> 00:36:07,370
Other cities will
give you more points

873
00:36:07,370 --> 00:36:08,750
for the more yuan that you've

874
00:36:08,750 --> 00:36:10,579
paid into the social
insurance scheme

875
00:36:10,579 --> 00:36:12,410
up to some sort of limit.

876
00:36:12,410 --> 00:36:15,080
You can also
accumulate points in

877
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,424
some cities for having paid
business taxes or things like

878
00:36:18,424 --> 00:36:20,599
that. But in all cases,
the more money you've

879
00:36:20,599 --> 00:36:22,490
paid in to the local system,

880
00:36:22,490 --> 00:36:26,674
the greater the likelihood
of accruing points.

881
00:36:26,674 --> 00:36:29,150
And then finally,
a political correctness.

882
00:36:29,150 --> 00:36:31,520
This is a catch-all
category that I have

883
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:33,259
for things that are not

884
00:36:33,259 --> 00:36:35,974
strictly economic in nature.

885
00:36:35,974 --> 00:36:38,029
This mostly refers
to things that you can

886
00:36:38,029 --> 00:36:39,709
get point deductions for.

887
00:36:39,709 --> 00:36:40,850
So if you have any run-ins with

888
00:36:40,850 --> 00:36:43,114
the law, legal violations,

889
00:36:43,114 --> 00:36:44,644
convictions, things like that,

890
00:36:44,644 --> 00:36:48,034
you can be excluded or you
can receive point deductions.

891
00:36:48,034 --> 00:36:51,035
If you're in violation
of birth control policies

892
00:36:51,035 --> 00:36:53,210
in some cases that
excludes you altogether or

893
00:36:53,210 --> 00:36:54,784
you get point deductions.

894
00:36:54,784 --> 00:36:57,740
In some places if you've
participated in

895
00:36:57,740 --> 00:37:00,830
so-called illegal
political organizations

896
00:37:00,830 --> 00:37:05,579
then you will be
banned from applying.

897
00:37:05,860 --> 00:37:08,195
What I wanna show here,

898
00:37:08,195 --> 00:37:09,709
we can run through
each one of these

899
00:37:09,709 --> 00:37:11,180
bullet points,
and each one of these

900
00:37:11,180 --> 00:37:15,334
metrics serve to
exclude the most

901
00:37:15,334 --> 00:37:16,879
vulnerable people, to

902
00:37:16,879 --> 00:37:19,310
exclude working class
people from getting

903
00:37:19,310 --> 00:37:21,109
access to hukou
and therefore

904
00:37:21,109 --> 00:37:24,300
becoming part of
the population.

905
00:37:24,340 --> 00:37:27,380
If we think about

906
00:37:27,380 --> 00:37:29,929
the access to the
labor contract,

907
00:37:29,929 --> 00:37:31,445
this seems like a
simple enough thing,

908
00:37:31,445 --> 00:37:32,810
a reasonable
thing for cities to

909
00:37:32,810 --> 00:37:35,015
require people before
they become citizens.

910
00:37:35,015 --> 00:37:37,189
Actually the number of

911
00:37:37,189 --> 00:37:39,199
migrant workers,
this is nationwide,

912
00:37:39,199 --> 00:37:40,519
the number of migrant
workers who have

913
00:37:40,519 --> 00:37:43,894
a labor contract is 35%.

914
00:37:43,894 --> 00:37:46,669
So you've just
eliminated 2/3 of your

915
00:37:46,669 --> 00:37:49,429
potential pool with
one stroke of the

916
00:37:49,429 --> 00:37:50,870
pen. The number
of people with

917
00:37:50,870 --> 00:37:52,325
labor contracts has declined.

918
00:37:52,325 --> 00:37:55,010
It was 42% in 2009
and it's now

919
00:37:55,010 --> 00:37:58,025
declined to about 35%.

920
00:37:58,025 --> 00:37:59,780
And of course the more
vulnerable you are,

921
00:37:59,780 --> 00:38:02,329
if you're an informal
worker or things like that,

922
00:38:02,329 --> 00:38:06,064
you're certainly not going
to have a labor contract.

923
00:38:06,064 --> 00:38:08,659
It goes without saying
that education,

924
00:38:08,659 --> 00:38:10,580
this favors people who

925
00:38:10,580 --> 00:38:12,214
are already doing 
relatively well.

926
00:38:12,214 --> 00:38:13,849
It will almost
certainly eliminate

927
00:38:13,849 --> 00:38:15,829
the vast majority
of rural people.

928
00:38:15,829 --> 00:38:17,300
There's been a lot
of discussion of

929
00:38:17,300 --> 00:38:19,834
the crisis in rural
education in China.

930
00:38:19,834 --> 00:38:23,225
A large majority of people
who are from rural areas

931
00:38:23,225 --> 00:38:25,550
do not complete
secondary education,

932
00:38:25,550 --> 00:38:27,094
are not gonna graduate
from high school.

933
00:38:27,094 --> 00:38:28,910
And so their likelihood of

934
00:38:28,910 --> 00:38:31,325
securing one of these
point-based hukous

935
00:38:31,325 --> 00:38:34,084
is extremely low.

936
00:38:34,084 --> 00:38:36,514
It goes without saying that
owning property thing,

937
00:38:36,514 --> 00:38:38,120
that advantages rich people.

938
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:40,744
If you can buy a house
in Beijing or Shanghai

939
00:38:40,744 --> 00:38:43,939
you are, by almost
any standard, rich.

940
00:38:43,939 --> 00:38:46,520
And that discrimination

941
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:47,780
against poor people here is made

942
00:38:47,780 --> 00:38:49,475
quite explicit in that

943
00:38:49,475 --> 00:38:51,365
you receive fewer
points for renting,

944
00:38:51,365 --> 00:38:53,735
you receive no points for
living in informal housing.

945
00:38:53,735 --> 00:38:55,820
Lots of migrant
workers are housed in

946
00:38:55,820 --> 00:38:59,539
informal housing

947
00:38:59,539 --> 00:39:02,495
as I think is widely known.

948
00:39:02,495 --> 00:39:04,910
Contributions to local tax base,

949
00:39:04,910 --> 00:39:06,335
the social insurance scheme is,

950
00:39:06,335 --> 00:39:10,370
lots of migrants would
like social insurance

951
00:39:10,370 --> 00:39:11,479
but they don't have it because

952
00:39:11,479 --> 00:39:13,669
their employer is unwilling
to provide it to them or

953
00:39:13,669 --> 00:39:15,650
they're in an informal setting.

954
00:39:15,650 --> 00:39:18,320
If only 35% of migrants
have labor contracts,

955
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:19,910
it's going to be some
fraction of that

956
00:39:19,910 --> 00:39:22,835
35% that actually has
social insurance.

957
00:39:22,835 --> 00:39:24,739
So again, you've eliminated

958
00:39:24,739 --> 00:39:26,419
large swaths of
the labor market

959
00:39:26,419 --> 00:39:30,110
from getting access
to this hukou.

960
00:39:30,110 --> 00:39:32,704
In general, what we
see is the greater

961
00:39:32,704 --> 00:39:35,690
the access someone
has to economic capital,

962
00:39:35,690 --> 00:39:37,925
cultural capital,
and political capital,

963
00:39:37,925 --> 00:39:39,559
the greater the likelihood is

964
00:39:39,559 --> 00:39:41,284
that they're going to

965
00:39:41,284 --> 00:39:42,949
be able to access
the nominally public

966
00:39:42,949 --> 00:39:45,800
resource of education.

967
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:49,380
Everyone else is
likely to be excluded.

968
00:39:50,050 --> 00:39:52,429
And I should also note that

969
00:39:52,429 --> 00:39:54,275
megacities including
Beijing and Shanghai

970
00:39:54,275 --> 00:39:56,780
have even begun to
issue green cards,

971
00:39:56,780 --> 00:39:59,660
what they call green cards,
to so-called global talents.

972
00:39:59,660 --> 00:40:01,009
And so they're trying to recruit

973
00:40:01,009 --> 00:40:02,629
labor even internationally.

974
00:40:02,629 --> 00:40:04,910
So some people probably in

975
00:40:04,910 --> 00:40:07,579
this room could show
up to Beijing and say

976
00:40:07,579 --> 00:40:08,720
I have a PhD from

977
00:40:08,720 --> 00:40:11,030
an Ivy League institution
in the United States,

978
00:40:11,030 --> 00:40:13,309
and you could have
better access to

979
00:40:13,309 --> 00:40:15,574
social services,
including education,

980
00:40:15,574 --> 00:40:18,739
than someone who comes
from Hebei province

981
00:40:18,739 --> 00:40:21,905
just an hour to the west or so.

982
00:40:21,905 --> 00:40:26,285
Again, we see here that
these hukou schemes are

983
00:40:26,285 --> 00:40:29,029
not oriented simply towards
excluding a population

984
00:40:29,029 --> 00:40:31,939
but in bringing in certain
kinds of people from

985
00:40:31,939 --> 00:40:33,109
around the country and even

986
00:40:33,109 --> 00:40:35,810
globally while excluding
other sorts of people.

987
00:40:35,810 --> 00:40:38,089
That's the first step in

988
00:40:38,089 --> 00:40:40,550
terms of accessing education.

989
00:40:40,550 --> 00:40:41,629
If we get through all of this,

990
00:40:41,629 --> 00:40:42,650
you accumulate enough points,

991
00:40:42,650 --> 00:40:44,195
you get hukou, your child can

992
00:40:44,195 --> 00:40:46,519
get into public school no problem.

993
00:40:46,519 --> 00:40:50,749
The second step. How do people,

994
00:40:50,749 --> 00:40:52,879
the tens of millions of
people who are living in

995
00:40:52,879 --> 00:40:56,015
cities that are never
going to get hukou

996
00:40:56,015 --> 00:40:58,204
but still might want to get
their child into school,

997
00:40:58,204 --> 00:41:00,395
how did they go
about that process?

998
00:41:00,395 --> 00:41:02,749
And in general there's
a very similar set of

999
00:41:02,749 --> 00:41:05,560
requirements that
you would see.

1000
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,570
A very similar set of metrics

1001
00:41:07,570 --> 00:41:10,720
as these point-based
hukou schemes.

1002
00:41:10,720 --> 00:41:12,789
Some places in addition

1003
00:41:12,789 --> 00:41:14,409
to having point-based
hukou schemes

1004
00:41:14,409 --> 00:41:17,890
now also have point-based
school admissions schemes.

1005
00:41:17,890 --> 00:41:20,619
So if you can't get the hukou,
then you can try to

1006
00:41:20,619 --> 00:41:22,149
accumulate points to try to get

1007
00:41:22,149 --> 00:41:24,099
your child into public school.

1008
00:41:24,099 --> 00:41:25,810
And once again,
you accumulate points

1009
00:41:25,810 --> 00:41:28,285
on more or less
the same metrics.

1010
00:41:28,285 --> 00:41:31,884
Beijing does not have point-based
school admissions yet.

1011
00:41:31,884 --> 00:41:34,404
Beijing has something
that's called the five permits.

1012
00:41:34,404 --> 00:41:36,940
You have to produce the five
permits in order to be able

1013
00:41:36,940 --> 00:41:38,170
to apply to get your child

1014
00:41:38,170 --> 00:41:39,714
into school. There's
no guarantee they do.

1015
00:41:39,714 --> 00:41:43,780
And those five permits
are a labor contract,

1016
00:41:43,780 --> 00:41:46,695
social insurance,
rental lease, hukou,

1017
00:41:46,695 --> 00:41:50,179
and a totally bizarre
form of permit.

1018
00:41:50,179 --> 00:41:52,190
You have to prove
that nobody back in

1019
00:41:52,190 --> 00:41:55,205
your home village can
look after the child.

1020
00:41:55,205 --> 00:41:57,440
Now this last permit
is particularly vexing.

1021
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:58,970
It's logically incoherent.

1022
00:41:58,970 --> 00:42:00,739
Of course you can't
prove a negative.

1023
00:42:00,739 --> 00:42:02,329
But practically speaking, what it

1024
00:42:02,329 --> 00:42:05,060
requires is that the migrant
parent go back to their hometown,

1025
00:42:05,060 --> 00:42:07,160
in some cases it can
be very far away,

1026
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,379
taking time off from
their job in Beijing,

1027
00:42:09,379 --> 00:42:10,520
buying a train ticket or

1028
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:12,289
bus ticket all the way back home,

1029
00:42:12,289 --> 00:42:13,640
going to their home village,

1030
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:15,920
bribing someone to produce this

1031
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,380
totally illogical
piece of documentation,

1032
00:42:18,380 --> 00:42:21,019
and then taking it
back to Beijing.

1033
00:42:21,019 --> 00:42:22,399
And then I've already talked

1034
00:42:22,399 --> 00:42:23,600
about the labor contract,

1035
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:24,709
social insurance, et cetera,

1036
00:42:24,709 --> 00:42:26,629
and who that's likely to exclude.

1037
00:42:26,629 --> 00:42:28,925
From 2014 on

1038
00:42:28,925 --> 00:42:32,630
the Beijing city government,
or Beijing districts, begin

1039
00:42:32,630 --> 00:42:35,539
establishing whole
series, dozens of

1040
00:42:35,539 --> 00:42:40,010
basically arbitrary
demands on top of that.

1041
00:42:40,010 --> 00:42:42,589
In some cases, including
that you have paid

1042
00:42:42,589 --> 00:42:45,410
social insurance in
the same district

1043
00:42:45,410 --> 00:42:47,330
that you live and in
the same district that

1044
00:42:47,330 --> 00:42:49,430
you wanna send
your child to, or

1045
00:42:49,430 --> 00:42:51,379
setting lengths of time

1046
00:42:51,379 --> 00:42:53,600
that you need to have paid
into social insurance.

1047
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:55,129
But the clear impetus

1048
00:42:55,129 --> 00:42:56,239
behind all of this is to make it

1049
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,030
more difficult on children
to get into school.

1050
00:42:59,030 --> 00:43:02,390
So to recap, we have
two layers of the

1051
00:43:02,390 --> 00:43:04,579
sorting mechanisms for parents

1052
00:43:04,579 --> 00:43:06,379
who are trying to get
their children into school.

1053
00:43:06,379 --> 00:43:08,480
The first question is
will you get hukou?

1054
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,659
In other words, will you
become part of the population?

1055
00:43:11,659 --> 00:43:14,089
And if not, which
most won't, can they

1056
00:43:14,089 --> 00:43:16,579
get provisional access to
school or what I'm calling

1057
00:43:16,579 --> 00:43:19,400
can you become part of the
provisional population?

1058
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:21,950
And what we see is that
the public resource of

1059
00:43:21,950 --> 00:43:24,199
education goes to people
who need it the least

1060
00:43:24,199 --> 00:43:26,359
and everyone else is
left to the free market.

1061
00:43:26,359 --> 00:43:27,769
The people who have
the least resources

1062
00:43:27,769 --> 00:43:29,000
to purchase education
are the ones

1063
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,759
who are forced
to purchase education.

1064
00:43:32,980 --> 00:43:36,589
Now I've been
talking about this

1065
00:43:36,589 --> 00:43:40,429
in a basically a spatial manner.

1066
00:43:40,429 --> 00:43:42,620
But we need to grasp

1067
00:43:42,620 --> 00:43:44,780
Chinese economic
geography to understand

1068
00:43:44,780 --> 00:43:46,400
the full implications of what I'm

1069
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:49,025
calling the inverted
welfare state.

1070
00:43:49,025 --> 00:43:50,780
Remember that the urbanization

1071
00:43:50,780 --> 00:43:52,684
plan from the central government

1072
00:43:52,684 --> 00:43:54,379
envisions a correspondence
between individuals'

1073
00:43:54,379 --> 00:43:56,435
levels of human capital,

1074
00:43:56,435 --> 00:43:59,645
and their position in the
sociospatial hierarchy.

1075
00:43:59,645 --> 00:44:02,945
That's a real problem

1076
00:44:02,945 --> 00:44:06,920
because the largest cities
are the wealthiest cities.

1077
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:09,515
So here we have GDP
per capita in city size.

1078
00:44:09,515 --> 00:44:12,545
Not surprisingly,
the larger the city,

1079
00:44:12,545 --> 00:44:13,639
the wealthier it is,

1080
00:44:13,639 --> 00:44:15,004
higher GDP per capita.

1081
00:44:15,004 --> 00:44:16,715
Now this is not unique to China.

1082
00:44:16,715 --> 00:44:19,909
What is unique to China is the
capacity to prevent people

1083
00:44:19,909 --> 00:44:21,680
from moving into
the wealthiest cities

1084
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:23,120
within a particular place.

1085
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:24,439
You can imagine in
the United States

1086
00:44:24,439 --> 00:44:25,460
if you weren't allowed to move

1087
00:44:25,460 --> 00:44:27,529
from upstate New York
to New York City

1088
00:44:27,529 --> 00:44:31,200
or to Los Angeles or some
other wealthy place.

1089
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:35,004
So that's an issue.

1090
00:44:35,004 --> 00:44:37,509
The other issue is that
the larger the city,

1091
00:44:37,509 --> 00:44:39,279
the better the social services.

1092
00:44:39,279 --> 00:44:41,679
And so here we have
education spending

1093
00:44:41,679 --> 00:44:43,780
per capita and city size.

1094
00:44:43,780 --> 00:44:45,399
And again, the larger the city,

1095
00:44:45,399 --> 00:44:48,070
the more they are spending
on education per capita.

1096
00:44:48,070 --> 00:44:49,434
And you can see that Beijing

1097
00:44:49,434 --> 00:44:51,910
sits well above the line,

1098
00:44:51,910 --> 00:44:57,190
as does Shanghai, which is
the dot right next to Beijing.

1099
00:44:57,190 --> 00:44:59,859
And given this, it's
not surprising that

1100
00:44:59,859 --> 00:45:02,320
most migrants want to go
to these extra large cities.

1101
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:04,510
So here you can
see migrants as

1102
00:45:04,510 --> 00:45:07,555
a share of the total
population and city size.

1103
00:45:07,555 --> 00:45:09,280
Once again, the larger the city,

1104
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:13,069
the larger the share
of the migrant population.

1105
00:45:13,890 --> 00:45:17,439
So the inverted welfare state

1106
00:45:17,439 --> 00:45:19,510
refers to the system that allows

1107
00:45:19,510 --> 00:45:22,389
regional forms of
inequality to reinforce

1108
00:45:22,389 --> 00:45:25,524
fiscal inequalities both
within cities and across cities,

1109
00:45:25,524 --> 00:45:27,760
and that the best
resources are reserved for

1110
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,700
those who are most
likely to succeed.

1111
00:45:30,700 --> 00:45:33,805
So if we think about those
school demolitions again,

1112
00:45:33,805 --> 00:45:36,279
we see that there's an
urban government that's

1113
00:45:36,279 --> 00:45:38,695
trying to prevent
population growth

1114
00:45:38,695 --> 00:45:41,650
despite strong ongoing
motivations on the part of

1115
00:45:41,650 --> 00:45:43,300
migrants to move to those cities

1116
00:45:43,300 --> 00:45:45,294
because that's
where the jobs are,

1117
00:45:45,294 --> 00:45:46,599
that's where if you
wanna make money

1118
00:45:46,599 --> 00:45:47,679
you're gonna go,
and that's where the

1119
00:45:47,679 --> 00:45:49,225
best social services are.

1120
00:45:49,225 --> 00:45:51,009
I showed the numbers
for education,

1121
00:45:51,009 --> 00:45:52,720
but spending on health

1122
00:45:52,720 --> 00:45:54,909
and pensions and housing
and any sorts of things

1123
00:45:54,909 --> 00:45:57,410
probably follow

1124
00:45:57,410 --> 00:45:59,699
a very similar sort of pattern.

1125
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:12,215
So how does all this

1126
00:46:12,215 --> 00:46:14,209
help us in conceptualizing

1127
00:46:14,209 --> 00:46:18,689
state strategy during
the urbanization process?

1128
00:46:18,700 --> 00:46:21,560
I'm gonna have to keep
this pretty succinct here.

1129
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:25,100
But what I do is I draw an
extended analogy between

1130
00:46:25,100 --> 00:46:29,150
China's urbanization process
and just-in-time production.

1131
00:46:29,150 --> 00:46:31,129
And the basic argument
that I'm making here

1132
00:46:31,129 --> 00:46:33,290
is that megacities

1133
00:46:33,290 --> 00:46:35,104
are attempting to treat
labor the way that

1134
00:46:35,104 --> 00:46:37,579
just-in-time production
treats auto parts.

1135
00:46:37,579 --> 00:46:41,840
And that they are attempting to

1136
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:44,029
manage the movement
of human beings

1137
00:46:44,029 --> 00:46:46,610
according to
just-in-time principles

1138
00:46:46,610 --> 00:46:48,319
even if they can't
actually accomplish it.

1139
00:46:48,319 --> 00:46:50,180
And they cannot. It's a utopia,

1140
00:46:50,180 --> 00:46:51,919
it's a fantasy. But it's one that

1141
00:46:51,919 --> 00:46:54,274
has pernicious consequences.

1142
00:46:54,274 --> 00:46:55,879
The idea underlying just-in-time

1143
00:46:55,879 --> 00:46:58,249
urbanization is to deliver

1144
00:46:58,249 --> 00:46:59,959
the right labor to
the right place at

1145
00:46:59,959 --> 00:47:02,599
the right time in just
the right quantities,

1146
00:47:02,599 --> 00:47:06,529
and essentially treating

1147
00:47:06,529 --> 00:47:08,060
labor as if it's any other factor of

1148
00:47:08,060 --> 00:47:10,834
production that can
be moved around at will.

1149
00:47:10,834 --> 00:47:13,760
So there are three
key parallels between

1150
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:16,580
just-in-time production and
just-in-time urbanization.

1151
00:47:16,580 --> 00:47:19,325
The first is an orientation
to the reduction of waste.

1152
00:47:19,325 --> 00:47:20,959
This is the central

1153
00:47:20,959 --> 00:47:23,690
principle of just-in-time
production.

1154
00:47:23,690 --> 00:47:26,975
Waste under
just-in-time urbanization

1155
00:47:26,975 --> 00:47:28,700
refers to moments
when people are not

1156
00:47:28,700 --> 00:47:31,339
useful to the city.

1157
00:47:31,339 --> 00:47:34,100
And the idea, and this is relational,

1158
00:47:34,100 --> 00:47:35,929
that someone who was
not useful yesterday

1159
00:47:35,929 --> 00:47:38,870
might become useful
today or vice versa.

1160
00:47:38,870 --> 00:47:42,350
The second is an orientation
to reduction of warehousing,

1161
00:47:42,350 --> 00:47:43,460
and this is a key technique

1162
00:47:43,460 --> 00:47:45,679
of course for reducing waste.

1163
00:47:45,679 --> 00:47:47,539
In just-in-time production

1164
00:47:47,539 --> 00:47:49,069
Toyota looked at what

1165
00:47:49,069 --> 00:47:50,915
the Fordist model
of production was.

1166
00:47:50,915 --> 00:47:52,850
Fordist model of
production, they basically

1167
00:47:52,850 --> 00:47:55,340
push auto parts through
the supply chain

1168
00:47:55,340 --> 00:47:56,450
and then the final
assembler has

1169
00:47:56,450 --> 00:47:58,879
these massive warehouses
and when they wanna make a car

1170
00:47:58,879 --> 00:48:01,145
they go out and
they take the parts

1171
00:48:01,145 --> 00:48:02,809
from the warehouse
and then assemble it.

1172
00:48:02,809 --> 00:48:03,799
And Toyota saying

1173
00:48:03,799 --> 00:48:05,059
you're spending huge
amount of money,

1174
00:48:05,059 --> 00:48:07,910
you're wasting a lot of space
and resources maintaining

1175
00:48:07,910 --> 00:48:11,375
these warehouses.
In just-in-time urbanization

1176
00:48:11,375 --> 00:48:13,775
the question is what do you do

1177
00:48:13,775 --> 00:48:15,589
with those laborers,
with the workers

1178
00:48:15,589 --> 00:48:17,615
before and after they're useful.

1179
00:48:17,615 --> 00:48:19,609
And the idea is
they wanna push

1180
00:48:19,609 --> 00:48:21,709
the warehousing out
of the cities and into

1181
00:48:21,709 --> 00:48:23,825
the small cities and,

1182
00:48:23,825 --> 00:48:25,189
out of the large cities and into

1183
00:48:25,189 --> 00:48:26,780
the small cities and rural areas.

1184
00:48:26,780 --> 00:48:29,209
And that explains why
we see these villages with

1185
00:48:29,209 --> 00:48:30,980
these peculiar
demographic structures

1186
00:48:30,980 --> 00:48:32,749
of just old people
and young people.

1187
00:48:32,749 --> 00:48:34,490
It's a warehousing
function, at least from

1188
00:48:34,490 --> 00:48:36,995
the perspective of the megacities.

1189
00:48:36,995 --> 00:48:39,289
And the final point
is segmentation.

1190
00:48:39,289 --> 00:48:40,610
Segmentation was absolutely

1191
00:48:40,610 --> 00:48:42,485
critical for
just-in-time production.

1192
00:48:42,485 --> 00:48:46,655
Toyota innovated having
this core relatively

1193
00:48:46,655 --> 00:48:48,829
strongly protected
workforce surrounded by

1194
00:48:48,829 --> 00:48:52,055
contingent workers

1195
00:48:52,055 --> 00:48:54,170
that can be disbanded

1196
00:48:54,170 --> 00:48:55,939
with relatively little friction.

1197
00:48:55,939 --> 00:48:57,589
And you need this
kind of flexibility

1198
00:48:57,589 --> 00:48:58,729
to be able to respond to

1199
00:48:58,729 --> 00:49:01,864
market ruins in this
ongoing dynamic way.

1200
00:49:01,864 --> 00:49:03,920
And so in cities you
have this distinction

1201
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:05,945
between citizens and denizen.

1202
00:49:05,945 --> 00:49:08,870
Denizen is someone who can
occupy the space of the city

1203
00:49:08,870 --> 00:49:12,155
but doesn't have the rights,

1204
00:49:12,155 --> 00:49:15,510
the same rights as
an urban citizen.

1205
00:49:15,510 --> 00:49:19,360
Let's bring it all

1206
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:22,945
together now with a final
theoretical reconstruction,

1207
00:49:22,945 --> 00:49:24,939
bringing this concept
of just-in-time

1208
00:49:24,939 --> 00:49:27,370
urbanization into conversation

1209
00:49:27,370 --> 00:49:29,770
with a biopolitical
population schema

1210
00:49:29,770 --> 00:49:31,735
that I established at the outset.

1211
00:49:31,735 --> 00:49:33,340
And what I'm going to
do here is look at

1212
00:49:33,340 --> 00:49:37,945
analagous positions
between factory and the city.

1213
00:49:37,945 --> 00:49:39,834
The analogy here is between

1214
00:49:39,834 --> 00:49:41,800
a factory worker's position in

1215
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:43,449
the productive sphere within

1216
00:49:43,449 --> 00:49:46,750
the factory and their access
to the wage on the one hand,

1217
00:49:46,750 --> 00:49:48,549
and on the other
hand between a

1218
00:49:48,549 --> 00:49:50,049
urban resident's position in

1219
00:49:50,049 --> 00:49:51,280
the reproductive sphere and

1220
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:53,260
their access to social services.

1221
00:49:53,260 --> 00:49:57,599
We have here
the core members.

1222
00:49:57,599 --> 00:49:59,960
In the case of
just-in-time production

1223
00:49:59,960 --> 00:50:01,340
this is a permanent worker,

1224
00:50:01,340 --> 00:50:04,159
and in the case of the city

1225
00:50:04,159 --> 00:50:05,269
this is what I'm referring to as

1226
00:50:05,269 --> 00:50:07,654
the population.

1227
00:50:07,654 --> 00:50:08,780
The core member occupies

1228
00:50:08,780 --> 00:50:12,320
a privileged position and a
relatively stable position.

1229
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:14,059
We have the marginal members,

1230
00:50:14,059 --> 00:50:16,160
which for the Toyota
production system

1231
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:20,825
refers to contingent workers,
and in the city refers

1232
00:50:20,825 --> 00:50:22,400
to the provisional population.

1233
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:25,594
This is really where most of
the migrants are located.

1234
00:50:25,594 --> 00:50:27,680
And access here is provisional.

1235
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:29,285
It's contingent, it's unstable,

1236
00:50:29,285 --> 00:50:32,119
and it's an intermediate
category to hedge against

1237
00:50:32,119 --> 00:50:34,610
economic or even
political fluctuations,

1238
00:50:34,610 --> 00:50:36,320
that they can be brought in

1239
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:39,510
and then expelled
in this ongoing sort of way.

1240
00:50:39,510 --> 00:50:41,659
And then finally we have
the excluded members.

1241
00:50:41,659 --> 00:50:43,879
These are people who are
unemployed or fired in

1242
00:50:43,879 --> 00:50:46,549
the case of the factory,
and the surplus

1243
00:50:46,549 --> 00:50:50,519
population in
the case of the city.

1244
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:53,224
There are some
important differences

1245
00:50:53,224 --> 00:50:55,040
that I'm not really
gonna get into.

1246
00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:58,115
But the most important
difference to note

1247
00:50:58,115 --> 00:51:01,970
is that human beings
are not auto parts.

1248
00:51:01,970 --> 00:51:04,205
And human subjectivity poses

1249
00:51:04,205 --> 00:51:07,760
a major problem for
just-in-time urbanization.

1250
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:09,199
Because when
people move places,

1251
00:51:09,199 --> 00:51:13,025
they create community
and create bonds

1252
00:51:13,025 --> 00:51:17,284
to communities and
to particular spaces.

1253
00:51:17,284 --> 00:51:19,279
And they oftentimes
demand a say

1254
00:51:19,279 --> 00:51:21,825
and will fight back and
auto parts don't do that.

1255
00:51:21,825 --> 00:51:24,999
I'm gonna wrap up now.

1256
00:51:24,999 --> 00:51:29,049
So I've argued that the
urbanization of people

1257
00:51:29,049 --> 00:51:31,210
is an official recognition

1258
00:51:31,210 --> 00:51:33,070
that capital and labor
have been urbanized

1259
00:51:33,070 --> 00:51:35,440
but that people are not.

1260
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:37,494
On the other hand,
the state is saying that

1261
00:51:37,494 --> 00:51:39,250
more people should
be urbanized

1262
00:51:39,250 --> 00:51:43,509
but they are supposed to be
urbanized in specific places.

1263
00:51:43,509 --> 00:51:45,820
But just-in-time
urbanization is a

1264
00:51:45,820 --> 00:51:48,280
utopian strategy to try to

1265
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:50,349
marry appropriate
qualities and quantities of

1266
00:51:50,349 --> 00:51:53,485
labor and capital
in space and time.

1267
00:51:53,485 --> 00:51:55,584
It's a utopian strategy,

1268
00:51:55,584 --> 00:51:57,069
not meaning that it's good,

1269
00:51:57,069 --> 00:51:58,570
meaning that it's a fantasy,

1270
00:51:58,570 --> 00:52:00,459
and it is one that
can't be realized,

1271
00:52:00,459 --> 00:52:04,580
again because human beings
are different than auto parts.

1272
00:52:05,140 --> 00:52:07,699
The consequences of this

1273
00:52:07,699 --> 00:52:09,979
are what I'm referring to as
the inverted welfare state,

1274
00:52:09,979 --> 00:52:13,970
which funnels public resources
to people who need them

1275
00:52:13,970 --> 00:52:17,404
least. And working-class migrants

1276
00:52:17,404 --> 00:52:20,164
are largely left to precarious
social reproduction,

1277
00:52:20,164 --> 00:52:22,730
school demolitions are just one

1278
00:52:22,730 --> 00:52:26,150
spectacular example
of that precarity.

1279
00:52:26,150 --> 00:52:28,310
And I do wanna note that
there's growing recognition of

1280
00:52:28,310 --> 00:52:31,159
this problem that I've identified
both within the state

1281
00:52:31,159 --> 00:52:32,330
but certainly among people

1282
00:52:32,330 --> 00:52:34,070
themselves, parents and teachers.

1283
00:52:34,070 --> 00:52:35,480
There are forms of

1284
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:37,549
mobilization among teachers

1285
00:52:37,549 --> 00:52:38,929
and parents against some of

1286
00:52:38,929 --> 00:52:41,375
the injustices of this system.

1287
00:52:41,375 --> 00:52:43,385
But it'll take a major

1288
00:52:43,385 --> 00:52:46,309
political realignment to
actually address this problem

1289
00:52:46,309 --> 00:52:48,845
because there's going to
be fierce resistance from

1290
00:52:48,845 --> 00:52:52,129
urban residents who
themselves are under

1291
00:52:52,129 --> 00:52:53,689
immense economic
pressure and don't

1292
00:52:53,689 --> 00:52:55,759
necessarily want to
allow more people

1293
00:52:55,759 --> 00:53:00,034
into urban population,
and also from urban governments,

1294
00:53:00,034 --> 00:53:02,089
the wealthiest of
which don't wanna

1295
00:53:02,089 --> 00:53:04,790
share the resources
with other places.

1296
00:53:04,790 --> 00:53:07,400
But I think that if
China's going to step

1297
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:11,809
back from the
self-reinforcing dynamic of

1298
00:53:11,809 --> 00:53:14,824
widening inequality
and political oligarchy,

1299
00:53:14,824 --> 00:53:16,729
there will need to
be some sort of

1300
00:53:16,729 --> 00:53:18,440
important reconfigurations in

1301
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:20,270
terms of the economic geography,

1302
00:53:20,270 --> 00:53:23,765
in terms of disbanding these
state socialist institutions

1303
00:53:23,765 --> 00:53:26,630
of the hukou. There's probably
also gonna have to be

1304
00:53:26,630 --> 00:53:28,399
massive wealth
redistribution which

1305
00:53:28,399 --> 00:53:30,304
has gotten way out of hand.

1306
00:53:30,304 --> 00:53:32,149
Unfortunately, to leave you

1307
00:53:32,149 --> 00:53:34,310
on something of
a pessimistic note,

1308
00:53:34,310 --> 00:53:37,820
I think despite being the most
powerful ruler since Mao

1309
00:53:37,820 --> 00:53:39,499
Xi Jinping seems to not

1310
00:53:39,499 --> 00:53:41,855
have the appetite for
these political struggles.

1311
00:53:41,855 --> 00:53:44,849
So I'll leave it at that and welcome
your questions. Thank you.