Guerrilla History - China and the Dialectics of Labour w/ Immanuel Ness

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we are joined by returning guest Immanuel Ness (fan favorite whom you will remember from our episodes Migration as Economic Imperialism, Political Traitors and Sellouts, Sanctions As War, Workers Movements in the Global South, and more!) to discuss his great new book Dialectics of Chinese Labor (please note, there is a free download of the book available through this link)!  This is a fascinating work, and a terrific discussion, as conversations with Manny always are.  Be sure to share the episode, and also download the book and give it a read! Immanuel Ness  is  Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York and Visiting Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg.  He is the author or editor of numerous works including Organizing Insurgency: Workers' Movements in the Global South, Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class, and The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism.   We have episodes with him about many of these, so check out our catalogue! Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You remember Den Ben-Brew in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your hosts, Henry Huckimacki, joined as usual by my co-host, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan.

How are you doing today? I'm doing really well, Henry. It's great to be with you. Yeah, nice to see you as always. And we're joined by a fan favorite, a returning guest, a good friend and comrade. But before I introduce him onto the show for probably the seventh or eighth time at this point, I want to remind the listeners that they can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to Patreon.com.

forward slash guerrilla history, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. Just with the reminder that you'll never hear an advertisement or anything like that on guerrilla history. We are 100% supported by the listeners on Patreon, and that allows us to pay our platform fees and things like that.

So it is greatly appreciated if you join us there. And if you are unable to do so, sharing our episodes, of course, is also the best way that you can possibly support this. podcast find a comrade send the episodes to them so with that being said as i mentioned we are joined by a many times returning guests and a very good friend emmanuel ness manny professor of political science at brooklyn college city university of new york author of many books you should go to the guerrilla history feed and find that we have numerous conversations with manny

about his books as well as other topics manny it's great to see you again how are you doing today doing well. Thank you for inviting me, Henry and Adnan. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. It's been too long since we've had you on. I didn't realize how long it had been until we decided that we were going to talk about this newest book of yours, but it certainly has been too long. And I'm hoping that we'll have you on a couple more times in the near future to make up for that. With that being said, we are going to be talking about your newest book, which is a really fascinating book titled Dialectual of Chinese labor, trade unions, under market socialism. This is out through Brill.

And before I get into the opening question for you, Manny, I just want to mention, I think very importantly for the listeners that while we often think of academic publishers being associated with remarkably high price tags on their books, there is an extremely important thing for you with regard to this book. Mani and Brill have made this book available open access. you can download the PDF for free from the Brill website.

And if you're unable to purchase the physical book, you absolutely will want to download the PDF, which again is free. And I will have that linked in the show notes. So definitely make sure to go and download that and read it. I'm sure that you'll want to after listening to this conversation. So, Mani, this is really an interesting book. But before getting into each of the individual, details about it. I want to ask somewhat of a background theoretical question, which I know it might

be strange to open the conversation with a really big theory question, but I think that it's important here. You've written extensively about the labor aristocracy. We've talked about labor aristocracy with you on the program before. And you've also talked and written about how workers in the imperialist core benefit from unequal exchange. One of the things that comes through in this book is that Western Labor Studies scholars who dismiss the ACFTU, which we'll talk about more as we go into this conversation, are themselves beneficiaries of this system, consuming cheap goods produced by Chinese workers, while at the same time condemning the unions that represent them. How do you see the relationship between the material interests of Western labor scholars

and the ideological hostility to actually existing socialism. And how is this representative of the labor aristocracy that you write so much about? Very good question, Henry. I'm thinking off the top of my head, I would say first things first is that if anyone is to counter the dominant perspective, they will be held in contempt by everyone else and will not be able to get jobs as easily or at all. And so I would say it's in many ways opportunistic,

especially those people who are part of a labor aristocracy, making well over $100,000 or hundreds of thousands a year, teaching China studies in one way or another, focusing on labor, and basically deriding the Chinese labor, movement, which is actually highly effective. So, I mean, I don't read people's minds, but I do know that, you know, to a fault almost, I mean, we have exceptions and we're very, very important, and I can name them. But if you are to counter this echo chamber,

which is what it is, you get basically banished and ostracized. So I'm already seeing a bit of towards me with respect to labor and so forth. And I think we have to actually study what is real and distinguish what is true and not true about these claims, which are very bizarre. I would say add one other dimension to this, and that is that they're very powerful organizations, NGOs, but also government-based organizations

in the United States, You know, the National Endowment for Democracy would be one of them. The Council for Foreign Relations and so forth, the Atlantic Council. Again, it's a group thing. If anyone is on the outside of it, they get attacked or shunt in one way or another. Now, I'd like to say very quickly that I'm not directing this toward anyone. I'm directing it toward everyone virtually. It's just basically a group think that people are engaged in.

And it's sort of funny when you read different accounts that are, you know, from the dominant discourse, they're basically all the same. And they harkened back 20, 25 years ago, something like 15, 20 years ago, before the Xi Jinping era, that's about all they can really get. And I can get into that with respect to the specifics of the People's Republic of China and the ACFTAU. But I would make this case very strong that I don't think, for the most part, one would be welcomed in the China studies community. if one actually counters the dominant narrative. A brief follow-up before I turn it over to Adnan to take us forward.

I was so excited to get into that discussion that I also forgot that we should probably remind the listeners, especially newer listeners, what the labor aristocracy is, and then also how these Western China scholars fit within that labor aristocracy. And since you also mentioned just to add in another little point here, You mentioned some of these non-governmental organizations and NGOs in the West. I'm also wondering if you can talk a little bit about how these China scholars in the West, who are part of the labor aristocracy, are utilized by and utilize, I guess the relationship goes both ways, these same non-governmental organizations that you were just talking about within the West that also analyzed China.

Yeah, of course. I mean, again, I have to be very careful about mentioning names because I don't want to antagonize anybody. But there's a direct linkage between some of the universities people work for and the State Department and so forth. I mean, I could mention a number of presses that may be a bit better, but, well, let me just go for it then. You know, so for instance, Cornell University has a industrial and labor relations school. I actually remember submitting a book, Lock, Stock and Barrow, in 2003. So it took me back a while ago to Cornell University Press, their ILR program, Industrial and Labor Relations. And for some reason, they said the book was reviewed and it was rejected, but for some reason, I got one

four-letter response. Don't publish Mani's book. I mean just because I mentioned Marx and so forth. Of course, that probably wouldn't be the case today. But many of these universities

have very close relationships with the government in one way or another, the U.S. government, which is and has become highly antagonistic toward China. And, you know, you just listen to some of the talking heads and academics and so forth. They say that the United States should be more directed to opposing China than what they're doing now.

And they're wasting their resources on wars in Ukraine and the Iran War, et cetera, the genocide. So I would make this case that, you know, that's one place, but virtually any university press, just a, we'll not publish any book that goes against the grain because, especially public institutions, they get their funds from the government and, and also from private benefactors and so forth. And so, I mean, there are hundreds of scholars who write on Chinese labor, and there are some very good ones that I agree with, people like Ken Hammond and so the forth. But these people are marginalized in many ways, but they're also considered to be very strong China scholars with a rich background in the history of China, the politics of China,

and the sociology of China and so forth. And there hasn't really been any book on the labor movement. So this is the first that I know of. In China, there are many of the books on the topic. But anyway, I would just say that one of the reasons is ostracism, that people will be ostracized. And it's very easy to go with the group. So one has a group mentality, which is very comfortable to be in that category. I think we all feel that way at times. that you won't really step over the bounds. And once you do, you will be banished. And I think we all have experienced that in larger or smaller ways,

where we're basically out of the club, no longer in the position to correspond with people like that. But I'm hoping to have many discussions with people about this. And briefly, what is the labor aristocracy? Oh, yes, I didn't mention that. The labor aristocracy is a concept that actually emerges from Friedrich Engels and actually his preface to the 1891 condition of the working class in England. And it is a brilliant preface that deals with the question

and very, very painful question that for some reason, the British working class and other working classes that are in which countries are not necessarily supportive of workers in other countries that may be poor and are poor, part of the colonial world and so forth. And so the labor aristocracy develops from Angle's original work and it expands into other areas. So, for instance, Eric Hobsbaum has written a book called The Laborers, Laborer, I believe, laboring men, I'm sorry. And in Laboring Men, he examines the 19th and 20th century craft workers as being elite workers, that they would be paid higher wages, they would be having all the benefits from the job, they would not be fired.

this goes on frequently even today. I think probably the most important work was published by Vladimir Left. There really isn't a coherent connection between the working classes in rich countries and working classes in poor countries. So when one refers to the labor aristocracy, We're usually referring to not differences within countries, but differences between countries.

So the imperialist countries of the world are indeed beneficiaries of globalization and beneficiaries of outsourcing to countries such as China, India, Vietnam, and so forth, because they don't have to pay the cost of pollution, for instance. So if we take a look at AQI pollution rates in places like Delhi, they're 500, which is the highest you can get. They were that the summer. And yet they're producing either for markets in the West or for companies that are in the West who are financial corporations one way or another who actually get the profits from these. enterprises, which could be anything from automobiles to electronics, cell phones, and so forth, and so on. I hope that was a coherent description. So in other words, I would go so far as saying that I'm a member of the labor aristocracy in some respects. I mean, I can buy a computer

for $1,000, and that won't kill me. And so I think most people around the world, world, the place I'm going in the next couple of weeks, in a country like Montemalawi, the salary average GDP per capita is about $500 a year, give or take 100. And so, I mean, forget about a computer, just survival, the ability to live and to survive through having enough food to eat is a significant issue. And if you look at the UN Development Project Report, you'll find that increasingly there is a growth of poverty. This actually is a new development that took place within the last five years, that because of

climate change and many other factors, that there is a growing number of people who are in absolute poverty. So, you know, we have poverty in the United States. We're not talking about that. We're talking about absolute poverty where people cannot pay for their basic living expenses, food and so forth, clean water, and are subjected to displacement on a regular basis. We're talking about a billion people, give or take, about 350 million in Africa, about 250 million in India alone.

something like that. Yeah. You know, this prefatory discussion opens up a lot of other questions, but there's so much in this book and the framing of it that I think is worth discussing. I almost feel like I should just ask you, so why did you want to write this book? But I got a good sense of at least one side of it, which is the way. way in which on the one hand, there's a decline in organized labor participation in first world, industrial or post-industrial societies under neoliberalism, and in so many parts of the global south as well, where, as you just were describing, you have this, you know,

conditions of absolute poverty for so many people and so forth. where in contrast, in China, there are many people who are participating in organizations as workers, and yet their status as actual trade unions isn't even recognized. And so that's an interesting contradiction. Before we get into your discussion of why we should, should and how we should think of workers organized in state-sponsored institutions as participating in trade unions in a different way. I wanted to take up that other side of it and the gaps in the thinking in labor among labor historians about the reasons why there is

such reduction in participation in several places in the world. And what they get wrong about that, which might contribute to why they're also unwilling to really recognize organized labor in China. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about where you see the insufficiencies in the studies of, in labor studies, basically. Yes, I'd like to fill that gap. I think it's very important. I'm actually working on a project that would examine the working class of the South informal workplaces and so forth that most workers are engaged in. So about 90% of Indonesians are in the informal economy in one way or another. It depends on how you characterize it. And while they have trade unions, employers are, are highly antagonistic against them. And in a country like India, for instance, which is the largest population in the world,

which has the largest population in the world, there has been a significant amount of industrialization over the last 20 to 30 year period, especially since 1991, but it's accelerated, especially over the last 15 years under the BJP, fascist government. I would say that because of informality on the job, we have actually workers who are employed in enterprises, let's say it's an automobile enterprise that has 3,000 workers, and they're producing automobiles for both internal use by people who can afford them, and also mainly for export. So if you have, let's say, a workforce of 5,000, which isn't out of the question, I'm thinking of one place in particular called Manasar, and there may be about 500 workers who are paid

as workers, and the rest, you know, 80% to 90% are, in fact, contract workers who are on a six-month contract, who are paid a fraction of the wages as the full-time work. workers are. So this is a significant aspect of all of India and many other southern economies. Then just getting back, so in the post-colonial era, there are many of the trade unions and trade union leaders were amongst the forefront of the decolonization effort. And, you know, or in some countries, they became leaders of those countries. But that generation has passed. And so, for instance, public service jobs and so forth have been either eliminated entirely

or privatized in one way or another. And so while that generation has left the workplace more or less, I'd say almost entirely, a new generation of workers have emerged where you have the same kind of dynamic. They're 90% of the workers are what Jan Premon calls footloose laborers. In other words, they go from one place to the next. They may spend two weeks at a shipyard in Kolkata, and then they may work in the agricultural fields with rice and harvesting rice, let's say,

and then may work in a manufacturing company a month or two later. So this is another segment of the informal labor force that really trade unionism is not really an option for them because there is this dynamic that exists globally and that is that trade unions are primarily interested and motivated, it, not by ideological concerns, I have to be honest with you, but by concerns of essentially being a profitable enterprise. Many people call that business unionism. I know people like Stanley Aronowitz and others within the United States, but that also exists outside of the United

States as well. So I make, actually in this book, I make a very clear key. case that trade unionism, that is in Chapter 3, has declined even to a greater extent outside of the United States than in the United States. And that has definitely been in the global South, unfortunately. I mean, you have some examples where people say, you know, wave the flag, see, we have a victory of 500 workers, but, you know, it's really not necessarily a movement or anything like that. Yeah, we take a lot of solace and the fact that some workers are organizing, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah, I wanted a quick, you know, just a quick follow-up on that before Henry comes in, which is that I was having in mind, and I wonder if you think this is one of the big problems with labor studies that helps understand, which they won't talk about, necessarily, which helps explain why there's been such an immiseration and fragmentation of workers and work in the global South. And that is, you know, imperialism. Like, you know, they don't really want to kind of frame it from that. They just sort of say this is, well, the market kind of works. And they don't, you know, necessarily incorporate the way in which international institutions

and finance have kind of taken away all kinds of protections for workers as part of the conditions for of so-called structural adjustment that we saw in the 90s and so forth that have weakened the institutions that were there, that many of which were so important and part of the liberation struggles from colonialism, but that under these new kind of regimes of finance, and so forth, and with not having the Soviet Union and other kinds of places for resource and support is that workers in the global South have been left to fend for themselves against these massive forces of global corporations and so on, which helps explain and understand. And so much of what I've seen in labor studies is really kind of suppresses,

that kind of story within this larger story of like how market efficiencies have worked and, you know, other kinds of ideas or explanations for workers not being organized and how even the nature of their work, you know, has changed. And then there's the technology, you already alluded in previously about, you know, how technology is often used as a, kind of explanation where it's just kind of a component of the story. It doesn't itself explain why, you know, workers don't have organized structures, can't, you know, kind of protect themselves and achieve, you know, rights for themselves. It's not necessarily just about the technology, but it's about all these other things. So I'm wondering, you know, how you

would characterize that and whether that helps understand. understand what's happening in China by contrast? A very good point or set of questions. I completely agree with you that imperialism is the major factor that any country or that, you know, at least until now, you know, people say that the United States is in decline. I may challenge that, especially with respect to capital and finance, that if any country allows the formation of trade unions, that they will be penalized through disinvestment.

I remember in 2013 when I was in India doing some research that the governments basically said we can't have unions because foreign countries will not allow us to have them. them and we will not be competitive. So imperialism, I just wrote it down, because it's a very important point. Imperialism with respect to labor, labor imperialism, is a very important point that needs to be developed to a greater extent. And I think it's crucial to do so. I would say that there are some trade unions in the global south that are doing very highly admirable work and doing their best. I can explain that later too, because it's related to the China question and why China has a legitimate trade union system and so forth. So how would I relate it to China? I would say

you had a period of transition from 1978 into the beginning of the 21st century. I think if you speak to most people who lived through that era, they could be very young, by the way, They could be even their 30s or 40s, I consider that young. And they remember that error as a time that was not necessarily one that was great because there was a tremendous amount of upheaval to some degree. You had 90% of the population in rural areas and trade union that was geared toward rural trade unions and not urban to any great extent. I think it's very important, just as aside, to actually raise the questions that people criticize China for and deal with them rather than avoid them.

So I'm dealing with it. I'm trying to. But I would also say that whenever you engage in a systematic change in one way or another, there will be a degree to which certain people will not necessarily do as well. you may not have as much rice, and I'm being very honest, it is rice, as you did in the past, from 1978 to 1985 or so. But that changes very rapidly, especially with urbanization. And so I would argue that the ACFTU is a unique trade union because I can't think of any other trade union is actually now representing an urban working class.

And it had to make that shift from representing rural workers and urban workers to a lesser extent to one that is almost entirely based in urban areas. And so we live in the real world. It takes time to learn. It takes time to educate an institution, organization, and so forth. and recognize the problems and also hear the complaints. And whether the trade union is responsive or not is really a question. And in my view, yes, there have been some issues with respect to urbanization and trade unions.

But I think it was a learning process over time. and the Chinese trade union was not as skilled in organizing industrial workers and now gig workers, platform workers, and so forth. And so it had to relearn how to organize in those sectors. It was not because they were essentially disinterested. They are very interested in the conditions of workers. And so it was around, 10, 15 years ago, when Xi Jinping became a chairman of the Communist Party of China, that things began

to change in a very positive way, where trade unions became far more responsive to the demands of workers. And this is significant because I find many of those. people who are criticizing Chinese trade unions to look at the past as opposed to the last 15 years or so when there has been a transformation. So you'll find many books on Foxcon and the Apple iPhone incident, but you'll all find books on what has happened subsequently or articles. in fact, actually, what has happened is that there isn't a union that represents

Foxcon workers at the iPhone facility, and that union actually is democratically elected. Of course, naysayers will say, well, the person who's elected will obviously be a party member. As far as I'm concerned, I think that's a good thing, but others will probably, not probably, they always do. They'll say, well, that's a bad thing because it shows that there's no, freedom, but I believe that the Communist Party of China is a very big institution that allows many different kinds of perspectives within it. So, you know, the main point is that about 75% of the Chinese working class is organized into trade unions, something like 300 million people.

And that's more than probably the rest of the world combined. I mean, major federations, one is a communist federation, the World Federation of Trade Unions, and the pro-US, pro-capital one at the International Trade Union Confederation used to be involved in the Cold War, makes up about 150 million workers at most. So, yeah, they try to actually exclude China from any kind of comparison whatsoever, where I think that's actually highly faulty because in most and many instances, I won't say most, but those labor unions that are successful in organizing workers and improving their conditions of life tend to be completely an arm of a political party rather than just independently forming,

as frequently it happens in the United States, political parties form trade union in most parts of the world. And this goes for Western Europe as well. And so one example I give is the Indian case of the Communist Party of India Marxists, which formed a trade union called C2, which is a trade union center, center per Indian trade union. So actually C2, that's what it stands for. And, you know, they've won elections, many elections over time. And so the critique of Chinese trade unions is that they're led by a party. Well, you know, that's the successful path, as far as I'm concerned.

If you have a big relationship with the party, especially if it has power, that's a really positive development as opposed to a trade union that has no connections to a political party whatsoever. And I think that's one of the problems with respect to U.S. trade unions, especially because the trade unions are an interest group in the United States. They have almost no connection, direct, none, to political parties. Now, Manny, you're pushing into the book, which is great because the next question that I have is directly related with where you're leaving off here.

I'm going to ask the question, kind of in two parts. The first part is going to be, it's going to make me sound extremely stupid for asking it this way, but you'll see why I'm framing it this way. The listeners, of course, will say, what do you mean makes you sound stupid? But anyway, the first question, the first part of the question, I guess, is, Mani, what are labor and trade unions? Now, again, I know we're a very high-level podcast. That sounds like a really basic level question. But the reason I ask it that way is because there's a distinction in these labor and trade unions and where they operate, as well as the system that they operate under, which is something that you examine within your book. And so there is a distinction between what a trade or labor union is, I mean, fundamentally is as well as the way that it operates and the way that it orients to both the workers as well as to the society that it's in.

if it's in the imperial core, if it's in the periphery, or if it's under a system of market socialism, as you examine in this book very heavily with the ACFTU, which you've been touching on in the last answer. So again, there's two parts of the question are, you know, in the most general sense, what is a labor or trade union? But then more specifically, what is a labor or trade union under these various conditions of being located within the Imperial Corps or being within the global periphery or under an actual market socialist system, because these are all things that you examine at quite some length in the book. And I'm sure that we'll probably get into each of these points in a bit more detail as we go on.

But we'll use this as a starting point. Yeah, I'd just like to start by saying that's a very sophisticated question. And I'll try to answer it. So, yeah, that's all I'll say. But trade unions are essentially organizations that form in solidarity with workers at specific workplaces or in specific locations to improve the conditions of work and also to give a sense of solidarity to the workers to the workers that they are a force that is, unified and they support one another. And I would say that it's very important not only to look at it comparatively, but also historically, but I'll stick with the comparative because of time

constraints. That, well, that's actually what happens when a trade union organizes, if it's done so well, it's actually the workers who are engaged in that organization and not political elites. So, for instance, in the United States, historically, the Flint sit-down strike and the Emerson Electric strike that took place in the 30s where there were sit-down strikes, both of them, involving thousands of workers, creating jet general motors, and also expanding significantly the electrical workers' union, which at that time was a communist union, and was disbanded by the United States because of that, that was actually organized by workers on the job,

and it was actually specific, I guess, leaders and people who are interested in power without any connection to any kind of political or social goal, absolutely none whatsoever, but just essentially interested in business unionism, that consolidated power and began negotiating on behalf of those workers. And for the most part, subsequently, those workers have very, very little role in the United States, almost none, in negotiations, even if they say they do. I've been in trade unions in Salem in one, and I see the ways, I can't say anything about my own. I see the ways. I see the ways.

how workers are manipulated and how power is something that is an end-all, power and to an extent money as well. And, you know, essentially there is a kind of general concern with the working class, but the concern is because the working class may get out of hand and may begin to organize on their own. So I would contrast that with the Chinese model, and this may surprise many, in saying that actually in China, workers make demands on unions, that the state, the Communist Party of China is the dominant organization in China, that also is responsible for setting policy or the

All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the National Trade Union. And I think that's another point. I'll make no, you know, I'm not cutting corners or I'm not obfuscating anything. There is a direct relationship, just like there is in many other countries, except

in China they have power. So, you take a union in the LO in Sweden, historically speaking, they took their direction from the Social Democratic Party or the Democratic Socialist Party. So I don't really see a difference between the way both operate.

And when the Social Democratic Party is in power, the trade union does better. So you want power. And ironically, those who criticize the Chinese labor movement seem to not want power. And I can even go further, they want to actually undermine the, the state completely. They want to see, and I can cite particular authors, they want to see

local union struggles turn into a national struggle. And what does that mean? Just think about it for one moment. And it's almost to a fault that every one of those scholars, you know, notably

Kinkan Li at the University of California Los Angeles, will call them cellular loot unions and that for some reason they argue that the cellular forms of organization cannot expand. When I would say that the Chinese state is a representative of the Chinese Communist Party, Communist Party of China is a representative of the working class. And so why would you need to overthrow that party that represents you?

And actually Lenin writes significantly on this topic in his work on the labor question, where he believes very strongly that trade unions can do what they wish in terms of organizing, but they should not get involved in politics. And I completely agree with that position if you want to have a trade union that's strong. I can get into the nitty-gritty of it, if you'd like, but I think I don't want to draw you too far away from it. But I just say in general, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions is a national union that represents unions on the provincial level.

It also represents unions on an industrial level, and there are many different levels of unionization that are far more democratic than the United States or other Western. countries. They even have something called street-level unions, where you have street-level organization, really like very small communities of people who get together and talk about issues that are relevant to them. I know if I answer your question, but I thought it was a sophisticated question, but I would say trade unions represent the working class and the interests of the working class. However, frequently, they do not fight hard enough, because especially

in a capitalist country, and because of neoliberal policies and so forth, they essentially wither away. And that's what's happened in the United States and other Western countries. Very briefly, Manny, I'm wondering if you can just add in a little bit more on the unions in the periphery because you do have a really interesting discussion on unions on in the periphery in your book and in your answer which you did comprehensively answer of what I was asking but the focus was a little bit more on the core which I guess will be most relatable to the vast majority of the listeners of this program much to my chagrin I mean I wish that many more of our listeners were from the the global periphery but you know we we we do what we can with what we have

So it'll be relatable to them. And of course, you did also talk about the case of China, the situation in China as well. But you do have a really interesting discussion on trade unions and the periphery as well as you mentioned that you didn't want to get too deep into the historical aspect of it. But the historical dimension to the peripheral trade unions was particularly interesting for me as well. if you want to touch on that. It's up to you, Manny. You asked the question, so I will. So I make a very strong case that peripheral trade unions,

which represent workers in the majority, the majority of workers are living in peripheral countries, and they should represent those workers, but they don't. And I think there has been a lot of repressions. against trade unions in many countries, I mean, take Indonesia, for example, as well as South Asian countries and elsewhere, Africa, Latin America, and so forth, to essentially ban trade unions in the workplace in many instances. But I guess you want to hear more

about the positive cases in the global South. I can give them as well. Well, I mean, you know, I think it's right to be realistic about it. I don't want to be, you know, overly optimistic and flowery by hearing all about the positive examples. But, you know, you mentioned there are positive examples, but there also is a lot of negatives in terms of the dynamics in the periphery with regard to trade unions as well. Yeah, I would make the case that if there were trade unions in the Global South that were representing a significant. share of the population, not 75%, like China, let's say 20%, that you would have a far more equal world. Poverty would be reduced significantly, and it would contribute to the economic growth of those countries. So some positive examples, I would argue, would be in South Africa. They were

significant in terms of the anti-apartheid movement and some of the successor unions from Kwasatu, such as the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa, Numsa. They're the largest trade union in all of Africa with over 300,000 members, and they have a lot of power. In fact, It's a Marxist-Leninist union. You know, you go to speak with the union president or high-level union officials, they make it very clear we're Marxist-Leninists. Now, that means that they would probably support a Marxist-Leninist party in power. However, there are a lot of contradictions in South Africa that have prevented it from happening more recently.

And if you want, I can get involved in a discussion about it, but there has been a split in the labor movement in South Africa. And it's largely around the question of advancing the rights of workers and especially the poor. And so good, this has become a critical question. You know, there are examples of various forms of repression in South Africa, the Maracana massacre that took place in 2012, August 2012, as well as other events led to major strike waves in South Africa.

NMSA was probably the major beneficiary of it, but they were able to organize workers in industries that were historically not organizational. So they've been very successful. I would also say that C2, which is also connected to a political party, well, I should say that NUMSA was connected to the government, which was in power, which did not necessarily advance workers' interests, and that's problematic because it was an amalgam of various different interests under the tripartite alliance. I won't get into that.

But with respect to India, you have 10 or 12 union centers or federations. While they just lost power in Kerala, they're still very strong and will regain power, I'm sure. If you compare Kerala, where there's a communist party and communist unions, they have higher literacy rates, higher life expectancies, infant mortality is far lower, housing conditions are better. I mean, it's a far better place to live than virtually anywhere else. It's not just virtually anywhere else in India if you're a worker. So, I mean, that has actually been brought about by a strong trade union and backed by a strong party.

And when that party has been in power, it has advanced those interests. I'm going to turn it over to Adnan for a while, but I just want to make one quick note for the listeners. Many listeners who are, when I say new, I mean in the last four years to our program, interested in hearing more about NUMSA. I know that we did talk about it. I don't remember at what length, but I know that we did talk about it in our first episode that we did with you, Manny, which was about your book organizing insurgency. So that episode would have come out in like 2022 or maybe even 2021. It's one of our first episodes. So, you know, listeners that really want to go back into the back catalog,

you'll have to go back about 300 episodes or so, maybe 350 episodes at this point. But if you find the organizing insurgency episode, which you can also find on the Gorilla History feed, just type an Immanuel Ness into the search bar and you'll find all of Mani's episodes with us. I know we talked about Numsa in that episode for at least some portion of it. So do check that out. And of course, it's always great to learn from Manny. But Adnan, I'm going to turn it over to you now for a while. Yeah, that was a really great episode. Still memorable. Important work. This is in some ways, you know, building on these key concerns you've been having about labor. One thing that I was really interested.

in and excited by in this study is the chapter that's dedicated to digital and new economy workers, which is, of course, one of the key kind of challenges in neoliberal capitalist economies is the gig economy and apparently how insurmountable the challenges are now of this form of labor that undermines the possibilities for solidarity. People aren't in the same workplace. They're all just, you know, individual eight contractors essentially across a huge digital space. And what's so interesting about your study are some of the novel kind of techniques and demonstration of the fact that the digital economy doesn't. mean that it has to be anarchic, you know, it could in fact actually be organized and actually

meet some, you know, needs for stability, security, and so on that are used to discipline workers in the West or around the world, but not in China. So I wondered if maybe you could talk a little bit more about the conclusions that came out of your examination of this and how they, you know, are a response in some ways to a lot of the ways in which the inevitability of the new economy being unorganizable and, you know, the workers just simply have to accept it. That's, that sort of logic has become so common and normalized in the horizons of expectations and so on in working class, you know, in the first world, in Europe, North America, even around the world. So, you know, what did you find that was so different and why was it so different?

Yeah, there's been a lot written on the gig economy, platform economy. I just want to make clear that we're referring to workers who deliver food, who drive taxis or car service. who are on the app, so to speak. The general rule in the world is that those workers are not employed by anyone. They're employed for themselves, and that's why we come up with these strange concepts of techno-feudalism as the replacement for capitalism, which I think is not correct at all. In the case of China, of course, I believe that the,

There's always a need to catch up. So you have new technology that comes on the market. It displaces workers in certain industries. You have a reserve army of labor that emerges that is seeking work. Much of that work may be low wage, and they enter that economy, which is the digital economy to a great degree. But that's not the end of the story. You know, many people just stop there.

and say, well, okay, these workers are exploited. In fact, it was the various locals, local unions, municipal unions of the ACFTAU, some around Shanghai and so forth, that formed digital workers unions. But they were formed and accepted by the All-China Federation of Trade Units. One thing that I should say is that in some context,

the trade union leaders and SAF were engaged in research. And some of that research is participant observation, basically doing the work of a, let's say a digital delivery worker. So let's say the equivalent of a Doordash worker in the West or something like that. And so they wanted to find out, well, what are the problems of these workers? What are they facing? why aren't they a employee? Why are they independent contractors?

Well, the long and the short of it, I just want to cut to the chase, is that in the last two or three years, there has been a tremendous organization of gig economy workers by the ACFTU. And much of it has happened through the actions of workers themselves because these workers are, in fact, engaged in the production of profits in one way or another and are essential to the economy.

That is recognized by some of the private firms. Oh, yeah, I want to say that point that, yes, under-market capitalism, there is a private sector, but they don't control the leading heights of the economy, and they're highly regulated by the state, so much so that in China, the major companies would be D.D. Taxi Corporation, many of them are linked into other technology companies. Another is Metjuan and DJ.com, which is very big. And so DJ.com decided, well, we have a new plan in which anybody who works for us, who is a digital worker in the logistics sector, let's say driving food delivery, worker driving food to different locations, is automatically a employee. And so this set a chain of

events that the other major firm said, well, this is going to be our method as well, because there were a lot of complaints by workers. Workers went to the union. they complained that we want better conditions. And so the ACFTAU has contributed to a significant growth in the organization of logistics and new economy workers, including the dig economy, where that is never the case. And that's not the case anywhere else in the world. I mean, in the West, there is no. organization of digital workers. And, you know, so you have the development of people who are

good scholars and so forth, who are saying, well, we need to have small unions, rank and file unions. We need, quote-unquote, indie unions, independent unions, because small is great, small is wonderful. Well, that actually isn't the fact necessarily, you know, in some context it might be, but not with respect to workers. You want to have as many workers as much workers as possible in the union so that they can exert some kind of pressure on the employer. So in the case of the digital workers in China over a period of 10 years or so, of course, we're talking about a very recent phenomenon of digital work, 10 years at most, people who've entered that work as a result of maybe displacement from industries and may actually not plan

to work in it as a digital worker for their entire life, but are using it as a way towards another job. And some people may actually like the work and stay in that job. So what the ACFTAU has done is it's developed wage agreements with major delivery firms and has enforced those contracts through the courts. I mean, are there labor disputes in China? Of course, there are many, probably more than the United States. They get settled very quickly.

In the United States, if you have a labor dispute, it'll never get settled. And the reason why they have more labor disputes in China is because you actually have, even proportionally, you have a far more militant working class in China than you do in the U.S. and most other countries that knows that it has power through the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and their locals and so forth, as well as the Communist Party of China. And so this is one reason why it's very important to have a strong party. And, you know, again, naysayers would say, well, why don't we have 10 or 15 different political parties? Well, that's actually not going to solve the problems of workers, especially if we take seriously what Mao Zedong said and what Xi Jinping says now, and many of the leaders in between, that, in fact, China is a dictatorship of the working class under the Communist Party of China, and that is a major point. I'd also like to say, just as an aside,

that when I refer to a market socialism, we're looking at an evolving form of socialism, a transitional form of socialism. It hasn't reached its apogee yet, but it will. So, in other words, it may not be the major or principal contradiction for China right now, but certainly the state operates in the interests of the working class, and you'll never find an example of a organizing drive that is lost by workers in China.

It's just not, it doesn't happen. And that especially in the Xi Jinping era, he has been very adamant about creating a very strong trade union. And they just celebrated their 100th anniversary. I can get into those specifics, but I don't think. If people are interested, contact me. Well, that's a fascinating, you know, point. I mean, of course, people probably want to hear something about those. But my follow was, in fact, actually going to be about what your story and re-definition,

or I don't know if it's redefinition, but understanding the ACFTU as a trade union kind of helps reveal about the nature of market socialism. you know, is that that it is a transitional form, but, you know, there are different things. You know, the categories would have to be changed, you know, for it to operate as a form of socialism, you know. So I was just wondering if whether the story of, because I know there's been so many debates, and of course, we've had great series about whether China is socialist or not. And, you know, Ken Hammond said, yes, it is. And he had his excellent reasons and a whole historical analysis about why it is. But we know these debates continue to bedevil people on the sort of overall left about the status of China,

whether this is just some form of capitalism that, you know, is more state controlled or whether it deserves the label of socialism. What's the place of the market in it? And so I wondered if you thought the analysis that you're giving here about trade unions. and understanding them in a different way helps also clarify the larger question of what kind of socialism this is for people who are only used to the kind of boxes, you know, without the transitions that come in history. Right. Exactly. I mean, I would argue that once again, that China is a state that is transitioning toward socialism, and it is accelerating that process under Xi Jinping to a great degree. And there is a highly regulated private economy that essentially the state controls

in it to a great degree because there are so many labor courts throughout the country that if there is a dispute between an employer and a worker or workers, it could be settled in a week, but certainly not 10 or 20 years like the United States, but it certainly be settled in a very timely fashion so the worker continues to be employed and so forth. And so that's a very important benefit. I also made the point that not only do the... does the trade union learn over time? Because transition means you have to learn how to operate within a specific context. And of course, China had to develop. That was the only way it could

become socialist at some point down the road. And we can say that it is a market socialist economy today without question. I wanted to say with respect to those cases, arbitrations or various types of cases, over 95%, maybe higher, are decided in favor of the workers. Now, compare that to anywhere in the world, and you see a certain degree to which there is a tremendous amount of support for the working class, and that it is a class-based dictatorship in the some respect because of these factors. But I, you know, a lot of people like to compare the Mao era with the post-Mao, the opening up period under Dong Xiaoping and his successors. Actually, if you read Mao, he believed very strongly that the first and most important,

and this is in the book, objective of the People's Republic of China was to devise. develop and to support business so that they can develop and eventually become a communist society. So supporting business doesn't mean you oppose the working class. It means that you are facilitating the development of new technology. You are most importantly taking everybody out of poverty. There is no abject poverty in China whatsoever. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but there is none.

And not only China, but its neighbors have developed economically as a consequence of China's high interest in economic development and so forth. So, yeah, there is a section on labor disputes and it discusses how they're settled. and so forth in various courts. So, yeah, so I agree with that perspective that China is doing precisely what it should be doing under the context of Mao Zedong. In 1948, he wrote a very important speech about how China must develop. It was an agrarian society. It was a fetal society.

And the only way to develop is to develop is to create some kind of market. otherwise it would never have. I mean, even in Soviet Union, the only way it developed was through urbanization under Stalin. And that urbanization process was significant. I mean, people characterize it in ideological terms. I would argue that the Soviet Union would not have developed, if not for urbanization,

which allowed an urban workforce to form and created the basis for a high level of economic development in a socialist country. Of course, there are differences between China and the Soviet Union that need to be examined. And the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore for now anyway. So that's basically what I would respond, that there would be no way that you would have workers who are living with decent incomes without the opening up of the economy. And, you know, you have a lot of Maoists. I can say, I'm a malice too, but a different kind.

A lot of Maoists will say, well, you know, I'm a Marxist, Leninist, and I'm not talking about myself, but maybe I am, who does not believe in any kind of distortions or, things like that, non-revisionism. So this term revisionism, I think, is a failed concept and box concept, because there's always revisionism. You know, even Mao is a revisionist of a certain type in certain contexts. People have to work within the material reality in which they are facing.

And in this context, to say that China made a major change politically and even economically, to some degree, they remained a party of the working class, the Communist Party of China. And the ACFTA, I think, did an admirable job. You see, people expect things to happen right away. we're talking about that article before, but Burkina Faso, they expect the transformation to take place overnight. And so that is non-revisionism. So China becomes an industrial economy, or a high-level economy with sophisticated industry and technology,

it has to get there some way. And without urbanization, that would not have taken. place. And I can add a few things without the expansion or the growth of life expectancy that would not have happened either. There was a demographic transition that took place in China far more rapidly than other countries. So I guess in the sense of, is China a socialist country, I would argue that these concepts of revisionism and so forth are not very helpful. And they're for the most part rooted in a kind of aspiration that doesn't exist in the real world. Now, of course, it's like people who say they're not revisionist.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really interesting issue because I think it's maybe a problem of not fully understanding how history works in the same. that revolutionary change doesn't mean that the revolutionary process means that it ends history, as it were, you know, and that also in the world, unless the entire world is all of a sudden at the same time, you know, going through the revolution, you have forces outside, inside, that require continued development. So in some sense, the dialectical method is really understanding that there always has to be revision. The question is which ones retard and which ones help facilitate eventually achieving the goals of, you know, achieving a justice and, you know, a system that meets the people's, you know, people's needs. So I think it's almost like freezing the ideology and forgetting, you know,

that history is continuing, whether you want to or not, the conditions change constantly that you are working at, you know. Yeah, I mean, I'll thank you. I'm sorry. I would say very clearly, you know, in China, at the very beginning in the 1920s and 30s, there was a principal contradiction, and that was to end the colonization of China. It was not necessarily to build. I mean, they did have socialist locations where there were socialism that existed, so Soviet communities.

But that was not the major contradiction. The major contradiction was imperialism. And that was successfully done through a national democratic revolution, which unified the Communist Party with the reactionary nationalists. and they succeeded in defeating Japan during the Second World War, in which something that really bothers me that, you know, 20 million Chinese people perished in that war. No one really talks about it. And then afterwards, the contradiction became, you know,

development really, because since 1948 and 49, That was the major objective of the leaders, especially Mao, of the Communist Party. How do we develop our society economically and to allow people to fulfill their wishes and goals to be the best at what they want to be? Yeah, which brings me to a follow-up that I had planned and that you were touching on in your previous answers, Manny, actually, you know, you were talking about this idea that in order to advance, you have to develop.

In order to develop, you have to enter transitionary phases. To enter transitionary phases, it means that you have to learn. But also in these transitionary phases and in that road of development, you have new challenges that come up. And therefore, you also have to have new solutions and new ways of thinking about the problems that you didn't have before, even if the struggle is the same, because of the way that the transition takes place and the way that absolutely new challenges emerge, new ways of thinking, it's not just learning, but new ways

of thinking entirely have to be made. I know Adon had asked earlier in this conversation about the informalization of labor and talking about these, you know, digital marketplaces and driving career services and things like that. But one of the other aspects that was a huge change, which you've touched on in a couple of your answers already, Manny, but really is something that we have to look at in terms of the way that the union itself was thinking about solutions to this problem

was urbanization itself. So as we've been touching on, China's urbanization was the largest demographic shift in human history where 90% of the population was rural in 1980 to basically 70% as urban today. There are a lot of challenges that emerge with that. Naturally, the so-called floating population, workers who fall through the cracks. But as you point out in the book, the AFCTU is responding and has responded in real time to these challenges,

and that it's a, and to quote you, a constant work in. progress. So I'm wondering if you can talk about some of the challenges that inevitably come up as a result of this massive urbanization that was necessary, as you pointed out, for development in China, but also in addition to how the ACFTU has responded to and changed its way of thinking about how to address these challenges, how also would you address the critics who say that the ACFTU isn't and hasn't done enough? What does a materialist analysis tell us about the pace at which a socialist state can absorb this sort of transformation, I guess, is also a question that we can think about here. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree.

not even agree, it's a fact that 900 million people move to urban areas or live in urban areas today. And so of the 1.4 billion, 900 million live in urban areas. That leaves a lot in the rural areas, too, by the way. But in any case, China had a system where people, and has a system where people have specific residences. and that they come from. And I think that's a very good thing because people have the ability to have all the provisions

from housing to health care, to education, educating the children and so forth, and so forth and so on, in those local communities. How do you make that shift to a, I'm just rhetorically asking this question, to a population that actually has their registration in a rural area

and is living in an urban area. And that is a high kind of leap to make, to be able to make that transition. And actually, under Xi Jinping, I must say, more than anyone else, under this migration process, urbanization has contributed to Chairman Sijian thing to increase the rights of populations that are working in urban areas. Again, that doesn't happen overnight. So in other words, let's say you're living in an urban area, but your registration is in a rural area

in another province. Well, you know, once you can prove that you're actually working there, you know, your children, if your child may be living elsewhere, or your spouse might be living elsewhere, that you can begin the process of incorporating that population into an urban area. In the present era, I'm talking about right now, 2026, the most advanced, the most dramatic level of incorporating that urban population into this state and state services is taking place. And in fact, the last five-year plan did not go far enough. And they recognized the party and state, recognized the fact that. that they have to even go further and they're going to in the next five-year plan to absorb

this population. There's no question that urbanization is not something in the past. It's happening right now and it will probably continue to happen until China's probably 80% urban or 90% even. So it's actually something that you have to deal with and something that, again, you realize that, okay, you have workers here, but they don't necessarily live here. They're living in dormitories. We want to put them in their own homes and so forth. And that takes, you know, so it's a long process that takes time. And concomitantly, I would argue that, in fact,

the party and the trade union is addressing those issues. The trade union is very, very clear about the fact that it is important for people to gain that status and wherever they live if they're going to be able to improve their conditions. So you have so many advocates for labor. In fact, that's probably most of the workers in ACFTAU are labor advocates who go to the courts and many different kinds of courts to try to ensure and help these policies. populations gain urban status.

And it's not just the poor that I'm talking about. It could be high tech workers who are living in, let's say, Hunan province and want to move to Shanghai. They too also need that process of gaining the residential rights to live in different places. I mean, in the United States, I would argue that this country is an urban country and doesn't have to face those kinds of conditions at all. But in the late 19th century, they certainly did. And there was a lot of tumult at that time, you know, where people, you had the dust bowl and you had people who were living in different locations. A lot of racism in this country against African Americans who were trying to gain status with the union, in fact, where they were subordinated to white workers. But again, this is not a socialist state.

It's the epitome of capitalism. And the trade unions are motivated by non-ideological concerns, bread and butter, so to week, but I don't even know if they're even motivated by that anymore. I say, okay, bread and butter concerns ensuring that workers have safety on the job, ensuring that workers don't work too long, and workers are paid well. So I would say that the trade union ACFTU has facilitated the floating population or floating migrants to enter into urban areas where they want to live. And apparently that's where a lot of migrants want to live in urban areas in China.

So, Manny, we're getting towards the end of this conversation, but I do have two final questions for us. The first one is kind of a review of what we've been talking, but just framing it in a slightly different way and the way that you did in the book, actually. And then I'll end with a closing question after that. the question that's going to slightly reframe what we were talking about throughout the conversation, really, is this concept that you talk about in your book, holistic unionism. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit, because unless I forgot, we haven't actually

used this term throughout the conversation today. Can you talk a little bit about this term holistic unionism that you put forth, this concept, how it is a dialectical relationship between the bottom-up worker demands and top-down organizational capacity, as you described earlier with the Chinese trade union model. And if you can also just, I guess, reiterate, or maybe you have other examples that you'd like to share about how a transitional state developing socialism has this relationship and how the ACFTU's ability to actually deliver for its workers demonstrates the effectiveness of this model of holistic unionism.

Okay. The question's very good, very well put. And I certainly read the book well. Yes. It's an interesting book, Manny. The listeners will also read it well when they get to it. Okay. Okay, so I, you know, thinking about trade unions around the world and also sentiment amongst

working class people around the world, one of the major initiatives is to create bottom-up unions, especially amongst activists. What is a bottom-up union? Well, okay, very briefly, it's a union that is organized by the workers for themselves, and that's it. my view is a bottom-up unions really don't become unions to some degree. I mean, and if they are unions, they're very weak because they don't have the organizational and institutional support of a trade union that is very large that can respond to those demands. And make no mistake about it, just to answer your question with respect to holistic unions, I'm referring to, just to reinforce this point, that you have a lot of bottom-up demands in China

in a host of industries. So if we take the platform economy, you have a lot of demands of workers, you know, for better working conditions, a shorter workday, and a host of other issues, higher wages, maternity leave, which they have, and so forth. I mean, it's just unprecedented with respect to China. And so this was a problem, and it remains a very important issue for the party and the trade union. So how do we address these new forms of workers who are essentially in the logistics sector who have demands, and we really haven't experienced organizing them?

So the workers have made significant demands in many different contexts, and those demands usually go to the ACFTA. And once the ACFTAU is aware of it, it immediately responds and sets up a host of programs to assist the workers. it forces the employer, I'm saying forces the employer to abide by laws. It ensures that the employer actually recognizes the workers as employees as opposed to the United States where if you're working for Uber or Goresh, et cetera, you're not an employee of anyone. In fact, actually you are. Technically speaking, you're not, but if you take a look at the relationship, production or relations of exchange, it certainly is a employer labor relationship.

So in the context of China, they were able to establish that in most of those workplaces. And so what I like to think of is the idea that it is important to have a strong and powerful trade union. And it is also important for workers to exercise their complaints and, their right to have more services, and that requires the union, again, I use that term to recognize and understand the problem and then act afterward, not without thinking and without training and so forth. So many trade union workers have to be trained. And many of them are very much interested in socialism and believe that they're part of the cadre of the state,

activists and so forth. And so holistic, I'm just saying that as an aside, but holistic union is a means from my perspective that you have a working class that is making demands

and also interested in advancing the common good and a trade union that actually is responding to those demands as best of can. So that is under a transitional state, this must take place because if you eliminate the market entirely,

which I'm not sure if that's necessarily or not, but maybe you have those firms being nationalized, which that could easily take place, well, then there is a transition going on now. maybe at some point, Metwan, J.D.com, and LMA, these are the firms as well as D-D, they become part of the state-owned companies because some of them are getting fairly large. I mean, I think that Tencent owns one of those firms, I think D-D. and so we're talking about employers and firms that are very easily nationalizable by the state. And the state actually has that right to do that if they wish. So I believe that is a way of thinking of a transitional state. I'm not saying that that will happen right away, but I would say it probably eventually will take place.

As aside, which one point that we didn't discuss was the state-owned enterprises, and those are almost entirely, completely unionized facilities where wages are actually higher because it is a state-owned enterprise, and the workers are very, very highly valued by the state. And what the ACFTAU wants to lose, within the market economy, the socialist market economy, they want to see those workers who are employed by these firms to be highly valued as well. And I have to say that, you know, people will make all these bizarre complaints. Some of them may be true or not, but I'll just say bizarre because they pick on one small little issue, and that becomes the entire picture. in fact, the employers have to learn how to treat workers in a way that's correct. That's not done overnight.

It takes, the workers have to learn, the union has to learn, and the employers have to learn. I'd like to see eventually that those firms nationalized by the state. Notwithstanding the fact that the banking system in China is completely controlled by the state and most of the highest echelons of the state are of the economy is controlled by the Communist Party of China. So that was the overview of what we've already talked about, looking back. So the final question then naturally is going to be looking forward. So, Mani, looking forward, what do you see as the biggest?

And again, we've been talking about challenges throughout this. We're not trying to paint an overly rosy picture of anything here. And on guerrilla history, we try to take a fair and an honest look, an ideologically consistent look, but a fair and honest look at these global issues. So looking forward, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing the ACFTU and the Chinese working class more generally? you know, throughout this episode, we've talked about the digital economy, the need for new employment forms, ongoing urbanization. But, you know, what is it that, I guess, keeps you up at night thinking about the trajectory of Chinese labor? And I guess since we don't want to end just on a negative note, conversely, what also gives you hope? Yeah.

Yeah. Could I just add with that is also maybe if what may give you hope. is if you could also connect it maybe to how it, you did allude to this, Manny, about it perhaps having consequences for organized labor in other parts of the global South. That would be very encouraging, you know, if that's a direction for hope in the future. Thanks for both those questions. And they're both highly relevant. So I would argue that the most important challenge is to, for any trade union, is to further incorporate itself within the party, the interests of the party, and to develop a very strong cadre of organizers and

workers within the union so that they can have the capacity to become stronger and serve of the working class and essentially maybe contribute to a economy that is a state-owned economy, mainly state by I'm referring to as the people of China. And so I think that what keeps me up at night, which it does at times, is the fact that I'd like to see, and maybe I haven't seen it, and I'm sure it's taking place. It's the same challenge that the party has. It's that the development of a larger cadre of, obviously they have 90 million members of the Communist Party, but I'm talking about a really activist cadre of highly grounded yet fervent organizers and leaders who,

believe in the state's purpose and understand that those contradictions that exist in the sense that, for instance, before I was talking about the various kinds of principal contradictions. Tarkal-Lausen talks about that as well in this context. So the fact of the matter is that there's a great need anywhere to develop an act. activist cabre that can be both loyal to the, and not just loyal, but also committed to the principles of what the state is supposed to be, what it is, and to deepen that relationship. And I think that is very important to take place and is taking place. I think that's actually an issue that any society really wants to have a, want to have a deep connection to the principles that have been advanced, not the principal contradictions, but the principles of the state.

And so that also contributes to a degree to which I have hoped because I think, very, very strongly I'm convinced that through seeing a number of the really dallient efforts of organizers in China, we're just talking about the ACFTEU in this context, but they are, you know, obviously very important to the Communist Party. I see workers who are committed to the cause of developing an egalitarian society. and that doesn't keep me up at night. That gives me a lot of hope because I actually saw that in real life and so forth. I mean, it's a really advanced society that I think has given absolutely hope to me

that we should not, you know, we should understand China as a process or an evolving process that is in transition, and that transition takes a very long time. But I think they've gone a long way in the last, I'll say, 12 to 15 years in serving the interests of the working class. The ACFTAU has done admirable work just in the last decade or so. And that's really saying a lot for People's Republic of China. So what are the consequences of the China example for labor in the South as a whole? Well, I think they said a very good example for other countries.

In fact, the Communist Party of India, Marxists, is an alliance with the ACFT. They completely support them. and they're motivated by the successes of the ACFTAU. And I think they have the possibility of it may be taking greater power in India, which is a state that is, I'm going to just be very upfront about it, that discriminates on the basis of religion, that discriminates on the basis of caste, but discriminates on the basis of race,

discriminates on the basis of gender is probably the most rapacious state in all these contexts. Notwithstanding that, I think that they're very good people, most people in India, that would like to see a society that has to be egalitarian

if it's going to be, it's going to develop in the first place. But even the mainstream and the Marxist mainstream literature, will say that it's the site Didek Chibber's book. It's locked in place because of the dynamics of capital and so forth that is local. But that notwithstanding, I think that China is on a trajectory that many workers throughout the world are admire.

Further, I did mention the World Federation of Trade Unions, though I do examine. and them in the book. The WFTAU was formed in 1945 just after the end of the Second World War. It is actually an international trade union representing workers throughout the world. It changed dramatically over the last 60 years, 70 years, 80 years, 80 years, I would say something like that. It's changed dramatically because of the nature of what happened history. in the Soviet Union, what I like to say, the dissolution of the Soviet Union that did not have to take place, that made a tremendous change.

I meant that the Soviet unions were not any longer part of the Royal Federation of Trade Unions. There were also many leading Western European trade unions that were members of the Communist Party of France or the Communist Party of Italy and so forth that were extremely strong. and I think remain fairly principled for the most part that actually left the World Federation of Trade Unions. However, the World Federation of Trade Units has become really a trade union movement that supports anti-imperialism. How can I say? It's a contradiction, but that's okay. It's anti-imperialist.

And so with respect to that, that actually is one of their major principles. They're anti-imperialists. the Palestine struggle, and they support the kind of laborers that make up most of the workers on the planet, and they are what is coming full circle, informal workers. And you see, I mean, I have seen and spoken with members of the World Federation of Trade Unions, who are, you know, committed to that cause. So, for instance, unlike the Western-styled Federation internationally, once called the ICFTAU, now called the International Trade Union Confederation, that there is a significant difference.

The union that the U.S. international union, the U.S. is aligned with and many other countries throughout the world are aligned. are aligned with, but they're also aligned with the WFTU in some other unions in the same countries. That union ITUC is, I would say, reactionary for the most part. It takes positions that are pro-imperialist in most instances. And the World Federation of Trade Union is actually growing and building a base. And, you know, I would love to see the ACFTAU merge with this just aspiration idea that to see them merge with the WFTAU and you would have a very strong communist labor movement. So I think people, if they look at the WFTAU World Federation of Trade Unions, and there has been a number of retrospective studies. You know, Lee, I think I mentioned it, but I just want to reinforce it, that the World Federation of Trade Unions had many members and the World Federation, yeah, and the ACFTU was a member of it, a very important member of it.

So part of the Southern movement, it was primarily from its origins at a Southern perspective. I mean, it reminds me of Lenin, who, after the Soviet Union was formed, he saw, India, China, and Russia-Soviet Union as making up most of the world's population. And one can actually envision that today, that the majority of the population, who are under the thumb of imperialism, can have an organization for their own, of their own. Well, on that note, and before I get into ranting about Vivek Chibber, which is a conversation for a different day, although I'm sure the listeners already can probably surmise what my opinion of Vivek Chibber is

by the fact that I'm not going to be bringing him up during this very pleasant and friendly and productive conversation. And I don't want to rant too much. But, Mani, it's been a great pleasure talking with you as always. You know, you mentioned a couple of questions ago that,

you know, it was clear that I read your work carefully. Well, if it wasn't clear from the fact that I always read your work carefully and the fact that you've been on the show many times, I am a fan of yours, Manny. And I say that all the time. I mean, I reference you all the time on the show. So hopefully, I said it's a remarkable oversight, considering that we chat, you know, we text each other periodically that we haven't had you on the show for a while. But we will rectify that by inviting you on many times in the near future. But I

want to remind the listeners that, again, the book that we talked about today, dialectics of Chinese labor, trade unions, undermarket socialism, is available open access as a free PDF download. So either buy the book or you definitely should download the free PDF. And I'll have it linked in the show notes. Listeners, you really don't have an excuse for not going through and reading this book. Manny, it was a great pleasure having you on the program again. And maybe in closing, if you've got any work that you want to tease to the listeners on the way out,

and then if you want to direct them towards anything, I know that your Twitter account got closed down by, you know, the big boss is there. But you might be able to direct them to something. Yes, I can direct them to actually, how do you download the book the easiest way type or in your system? Labor Dialectics, Labor with a U, L-A-B-O-U-Dialectics. And you'll get a free copy of the book. And actually, the book is in paperback, and it's about $25. So it's not that expensive, too. So that's why I actually went with this press, because they were willing to have a open access book that was accessible to people in the global south.

It would have been somewhat of a, I would be a hypocrite not to have major open access. And then I would say it's also not expensive as a print version if you're interested. I'm not interested in I don't get any royalty, so don't worry about that. Absolutely. Although, you know, still not possible to get it shipped to me here in Russia, which is the big shame. But nevertheless, I'll get a copy eventually, Manny. Don't worry, Manny. I'll buy one when I'm in a place that things can get shipped to me.

It's the shipping that's the issue. Adnan, I'm going to turn to you. Can you let the listeners know how to find your show and, you know, how they can follow you on social media? Since your accounts, as far as I know, haven't been closed down yet by Elon Musk. I haven't. You know, it's a mystery to me, why not? But, hey, you know, as long as I'm out there and able to keep posting, I'm happy to do so. So you can find some of those posts at Adnan, a.

Hussein on X, on Twitter. And of course, check out the other program that I do, which is also on YouTube, at Adnan Hussein Show. And we have office hours

weekly talking about history, religion, politics, often with great guests. And so please join that. And some of those episodes make it on to guerrilla history too. So it's a lot of sympathy

between the concerns that are interesting for our listeners here as well as there. So please join me there as well. And the fact that there is many topics that are in common or in sympathy with on the two programs should come as no surprise to the listeners. So if you haven't already subscribed to the Adnan Hussein show, shame on you. As for me, listeners, I'm a bit harder to keep up with these days, everything is blocked in terms of social media. But, you know, in theory, I have a Twitter account at Huck1995 that you can follow. It's been probably two years since I've tweeted anything,

but, you know, you want, you can. More importantly, though, help support guerrilla history. You can do so, as I mentioned, the best way of supporting the show is to share episodes like this with people that you think would benefit from them. But if you would like to help us pay for our platform fees and things like that, you can do so at patreon.com forward slash gorilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. So on that note then, and until next time, listeners, solidarity.