China’s Informal Economy, Reconsidered: An Introduction in Light of Social-Economic and Legal History (中国的非正规经济再思考:一个来自社会经济史与法律史视角的导论)

Abstract

This article presents an updated overview of China’s “informal economy,” based mainly on social-economic and legal history, and attempts to clarify its conceptual origins, composition, nature, size, and changes in the past thirty-five years. Special attention is paid to the rise of “dispatch work” and of the “new generation peasant workers” in the past decade. The article then introduces and discusses the content and issues raised by the six articles and two commentaries of the symposium, “China’s Informal Economy, Reconsidered.” The focus is on how China’s “informal economy” is different from or the same as the older category of “the proletariat” and the newer category of “the precariat.”本文从社会经济史与法律史的视角对中国的非正经济进行更新了的综述,试图澄清其概念起源,以及其构成、性质、规模和近三十五年中的变化。文章特别关注到最近十来年中“劳务派遣”以及“新生代农民工”的兴起。然后,文章介绍了本专辑“中国非正规经济——再思考”所纳入的六篇论文和两篇点评,主要关注的问题是中国的“非正规经济”和之前被广泛使用的“无产阶级”以及新近被使用的“危难工人”(precariat)两个范畴之间的异同。 (This article is in English.)