Chinese Danwei Work System Term Paper

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Danwei in the People's Republic of China, Past and Present

What is a Danwei?

In the People's Republic of China, a "danwei" became the conventional term for a "work group" or work unit, where a collective of workers are employed to accomplish a specific task. However, the danwei or work unit was also traditionally bound together as a political and social institution, often engaging in common social activities together, and engaging in competition, debate and solidarity.

What are the origins of Danwei?

According to Wu and Parry (1997), the early Maoist resident registration system of the original communist regime under Mao was designed to require every urban resident to belong to a unit or danwei to solidify the country under Maoist control and to prevent the urban elite from becoming too powerful and too mobile. At the time of the institution of such work units, most urban residents worked for different units such as government agencies, public organizations, and industrial organizations. The danwei provided additional government controls and stability over the vast, sprawling territory, after the social disruption of the civil war.

What are the major functions of Danwei in terms of political objective?

Thus, Wu and Perry (1997) stress that the danwei did indeed begin as a unit of collective social engagement during the Maoist period, as a way of encouraging workers to put aside bourgeois notions of self-perpetuated individualism in their personal economic striving, and to attain a collective and cohesive solidarity with the new, communist regime. The danwei remains one of the most fundamental units of Chinese society today, rather than one's individual status. What is your danwei?" Or "work unit," not only means to most Chinese individuals, where do you work, but what is your primary group, almost if not equally primary as one's familial status as husband, daughter, wife, son, etcetera during the height of the Cultural Revolution.

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Even today, a student's danwei is traditionally defined as his school; a worker's danwei is his or her factory, farm, or place of employment. But precisely because of the added dimensions to the work units over the course of economic reform, as well as the original collective intent that was to fundamentally change Chinese society as well as Chinese economics, the danwei began to alter in its political objectives. Rather than enforce collective action, it also gained the ability to create a sense of worker solidarity, and to create distinct units as well as a seamless societal and political fabric

What are the changes in those social and political functions during the economic reform?

As the danwei began to change with economic liberalization, the debates that took place within such varied urban and rural social contexts also provided fodder for political liberalization as well as collectivism and conservatism. Of course, this was not the intention of the danwei system from the beginning. It should be noted, in terms of political development, that the creation of the earliest urban work units did not meet with as much resistance as one might expect, unlike some of the acts regarding agricultural collectivization. The danwei or work units were very important and very desirable for urban residents because they provided jobs, houses, health care, and other social welfare benefits. In addition, as part of the collectivized work and social structures of the groups, the danwei's urban residents were encouraged to participate in state-sponsored political organizations such as the women's federation, youth leagues, trade unions, and residents' committees to promote their interests. Both the work units and political organizations were closely related to the Party….....

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