The strike is an extreme form of labor dispute. We analyze the nature, causes and characteristics of current strikes in China on the basis of theories of strikes and then analyze the effects of striking on the improvement of workers’ living conditions. We make use of a labor-capital bargaining model to compare the strikers’ cost when there is legislation protecting workers’ right to strike with the cost when there is no legislation and come to the conclusion that we should promote legislation to protect workers’ right to strike according to the current labor-capital relationship in China to construct harmonious socialist society, and this is a Pareto improvement.

There is much confusion in the world workers’ movement about unions in China, and even more confusion about the class character of the Chinese state. This article compares a state that arises from a socialist revolution, such as the Chinese state after 1949, to a “labor union risen to state power.” Trade unions in such states are like a “subcommittee” of this union-instate-power, with the important responsibility of defending workers’ interests in the workplace. But the new state also faces many other important tasks, including assuring food supply, economic development, equality for women, nationalities, and youth, environmental and other necessary tasks. The article argues for developing the relative separation and effectiveness of the “subcommittees” which are addressing each of those necessary tasks—and simultaneously developing periodic “harmonizing mechanisms” (ranging from conferences to legislative meetings) in order to achieve balance between those necessary tasks. Such balance is required because even states formed by a socialist revolution must make “the best out of a bad situation,” just like labor unions in capitalist countries.

Nuclear utilization and nuclear leaks reveal the merits and demerits of different types of enterprise ownership. The Fukushima accident is typical of the fatal defects of private capital, while the Chernobyl accident demonstrates the disaster a state-owned enterprise can cause. By contrast, an optimized public sector in China can combine full utilization of nuclear power with accident prevention. In an era in which high technologies are increasingly applied, private capital is becoming less dependable. On the other hand, state-owned enterprises must engage in competitive elimination through reform. This is determined by the checks and balances mechanism in the development of science and technology and especially by the laws of socialization. Evaluation of the merits and demerits of private and public ownership should be conducted from a comprehensive, historical and evolutionary perspective and through specific analysis of categorical comparisons. We should understand the trends (laws) of the interconnection and interaction of the large-scale application of advanced technology and optimized public ownership. In a new historical period, interconnections between rapid scientific and technological advancement and the socialist system are being created and reinforced.

The “Great Recession” in the United States exposed contradictions between the economic wellbeing of families and capital. Using social structure of accumulation theory, a qualitative institutional analysis and quantitative time-series models, I investigate historicallycontingent

In this article, we explore the idea that the current financial crisis is a manifestation of the exhaustion of the global capital accumulation process, a process that was established after World War II and based on the principle of globalization. The first signs of this exhaustion

The fundamental contradictions of capitalism—social commodity production for profit maximization paired with private appropriation of profit and the means of production—put capitalism in a state of perpetual crisis that intensifies over time in both severity and scope. Thus it is axiomatic that the present historical juncture finds capitalism in yet another moment of its perpetual crisis. In need of clarification are the unique features of the current stage of the crisis as well as the question of whether humanity will continue to live under a degenerating capitalism or make a progressive break with the old society and begin construction of a new socialist system that avoids the mistakes of the past while remaining free of capitalism’s fundamental contradictions. Degenerating capitalism and the social unrest that accompanies it raises the threat that the capitalist ruling class will resort to fascism in order to save their system, but

World capitalism is currently challenged by climate change, which is primarily caused by the greenhouse gas emissions associated with fossil fuel consumption. To prevent catastrophic environmental consequences threatening the survival of humanity, a fundamental

In order to think through the current, contradictory situation, this article aims at tackling a new form of development in (semi-)peripheral social formations by critically conceptualizing the formation of a fraction of the ruling classes and its specific development strategy. To

Since the 1980s, neo-liberalism and new imperialism have become a way of thinking that is praised highly by western countries like Britain and America, and which have also affected the political, economic and cultural fields of other countries. This process has drawn sharp criticism and debate from western Marxists and left scholars—among whom Professor David Harvey is especially representative. In his two books A Brief History of Neoliberalism and The New Imperialism, Professor Harvey not only studied current practical and complex problems of neo-liberal and new imperial hegemony, but also put forward various proposals for overcoming and defending against such problems. His work plays an important role in our understanding and criticism of the phenomenon and essence of neo-liberalism and new imperialism.

A STATEMENT OF THE SIXTH FORUM OF THE WORLD ASSOCIATION FOR POLITICAL ECONOMY