Labor reform is only one component of the larger process of economic and societal reformation experienced by China from the late seventies, and is the part of this process where paradoxes emerge most clearly. Labor theory and consequent policy and law-making emerge from a rapidly changing ideological environment and violently clash with the social and practical contradictions of policy implementation. It is argued that this is accompanied by increasing societal resistance to the state's overall policies, and by an increasing informalization of labor practices.
Tomba borrows historical analytical tools in order to shed light on how policy making takes place in contemporary China. This book will be valuable to students of contemporary Chinese society, and will be key to understanding twenty-five years of Chinese labor reform.
