Papers by Alexander Witherspoon
Chinese tea production quality is increasingly able to satisfy the needs of the highvalue global ... more Chinese tea production quality is increasingly able to satisfy the needs of the highvalue global market, yet product communication remains challenging for producers. Through a literature review and series of econometric tests constructed with novel data from 408 international respondents, we explore consumer attitudes, habits, and purchasing behaviour. We observed that the green tea consumption frequency was negatively correlated with average purchase value and there was no correlation between consideration of organic status and purchasing behaviour. Based on these findings, we offered straightforward and practical suggestions for those tea producers who are interested in accessing the global tea market's high-end segment.
Monthly Review
There is a growing sense in China, Alex Witherspoon, Amir Khan, and Yu Zhou write, that the timew... more There is a growing sense in China, Alex Witherspoon, Amir Khan, and Yu Zhou write, that the timeworn methods of social advancement are yielding diminishing returns. Using an original survey of 301 individuals in Jingzhou City, the authors lay bare the roots of this widespread feeling of involution.
Yangtze University Master's Thesis, 2023
The success of China’s market-oriented development strategy has out-performed the expectatio... more The success of China’s market-oriented development strategy has out-performed the expectations of most Marxist political economists. Since the 1980’s, the loss of ownership over the means of production and the generalization of wage labor relations has coincided with sustained improvements in workers and peasants’ material well-being, with social stability only improving in the last decade. Marxist political economy must answer this seeming paradox: the re-emergence of specific dynamics of capitalistic exploitation identified in Marxian political economy has accompanied improved living conditions for rural residents, be they workers or peasants.
Through a comprehensive literature review of Chinese and English language sources, this paper clarifies a theoretical framework for understanding the basic dynamic of social accumulation in rural China. Based on surveying in Jingzhou City, we classify 301 individuals into eight different strata, and compare these strata’s relative changes in income between 2000 and 2020. A basic pattern of relative pauperization, as suggested by existing literature, is confirmed. Among the surveyed pool, inter-strata inequality seems to have grown in this period. The ratio of gross annual income between employers and all other income-earning individuals grew from 6:1 in 2000, to 10:1 in 2010 and 43:1 in 2020; employers represented 7.6% of the sample but had 81.9% the share of total income in 2020. More critically, the rate of income growth for employers well exceeded that of employees or independent producers between 2000 and 2010 or 2010 and 2020, matching Marx’s description of relative pauperization. A simple correlation regression further confirmed that it was private appropriation of the fruits of socialized labor that is the fundamental cause for growing income inequality within the sampled area.
This paper argues that (1) the pattern of accumulation in rural Jingzhou today are distinct from what existed in past periods of Chinese history or what exists now in most contemporary developing countries - pauperization without paupers. (2) Inequality in ownership has generated a Gatsby Curve - meaning that the ability to develop human or social capital has become differentiated between different economic groups, leading to greater inequality of opportunity as inequality of outcome grows. This might be a fundamental source of involution, as it is popularly understood. (3) The basic systemic advantages of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics guarantee that strata compromise in rural China will likely remain sustainable. However, the inequality in income generated by inequality in ownership necessitates further development of public, collective, and cooperative enterprise structures.
Conference Presentations by Alexander Witherspoon
Moscow Marxism Conference, 2022
The trials and successes of North Korea’s seventy plus years of rural development may largely be ... more The trials and successes of North Korea’s seventy plus years of rural development may largely be viewed as concrete results of Marxian political economic principles applied to the the DPRK’s specific geographic and historical conditions. The development of North Korea’s countryside and the Soviet theoretical models which informed it can and should be studied by all radical political economists. Looking at statistical and historical evidence, it can be shown that North Korea once enjoyed spectacular gains in agricultural output and overall material quality of life. Despite severe crises in the past two and a half decades, North Korea continues to boast a relatively superior material standard of living thanks to central planning when compared to Capitalist economies at the same level of per capita income. We argue that the inability to trade, not faulty planning mechanisms or lack of production enthusiasm is the primary factor in North Korea’s food insecurity. Understanding the means, costs, and benefits by which socialist planning and collective agriculture have managed to survive in North Korea are critical for all socialist third world activists and scholars’ whose nation may face similar difficulties.
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Papers by Alexander Witherspoon
Through a comprehensive literature review of Chinese and English language sources, this paper clarifies a theoretical framework for understanding the basic dynamic of social accumulation in rural China. Based on surveying in Jingzhou City, we classify 301 individuals into eight different strata, and compare these strata’s relative changes in income between 2000 and 2020. A basic pattern of relative pauperization, as suggested by existing literature, is confirmed. Among the surveyed pool, inter-strata inequality seems to have grown in this period. The ratio of gross annual income between employers and all other income-earning individuals grew from 6:1 in 2000, to 10:1 in 2010 and 43:1 in 2020; employers represented 7.6% of the sample but had 81.9% the share of total income in 2020. More critically, the rate of income growth for employers well exceeded that of employees or independent producers between 2000 and 2010 or 2010 and 2020, matching Marx’s description of relative pauperization. A simple correlation regression further confirmed that it was private appropriation of the fruits of socialized labor that is the fundamental cause for growing income inequality within the sampled area.
This paper argues that (1) the pattern of accumulation in rural Jingzhou today are distinct from what existed in past periods of Chinese history or what exists now in most contemporary developing countries - pauperization without paupers. (2) Inequality in ownership has generated a Gatsby Curve - meaning that the ability to develop human or social capital has become differentiated between different economic groups, leading to greater inequality of opportunity as inequality of outcome grows. This might be a fundamental source of involution, as it is popularly understood. (3) The basic systemic advantages of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics guarantee that strata compromise in rural China will likely remain sustainable. However, the inequality in income generated by inequality in ownership necessitates further development of public, collective, and cooperative enterprise structures.
Conference Presentations by Alexander Witherspoon
Through a comprehensive literature review of Chinese and English language sources, this paper clarifies a theoretical framework for understanding the basic dynamic of social accumulation in rural China. Based on surveying in Jingzhou City, we classify 301 individuals into eight different strata, and compare these strata’s relative changes in income between 2000 and 2020. A basic pattern of relative pauperization, as suggested by existing literature, is confirmed. Among the surveyed pool, inter-strata inequality seems to have grown in this period. The ratio of gross annual income between employers and all other income-earning individuals grew from 6:1 in 2000, to 10:1 in 2010 and 43:1 in 2020; employers represented 7.6% of the sample but had 81.9% the share of total income in 2020. More critically, the rate of income growth for employers well exceeded that of employees or independent producers between 2000 and 2010 or 2010 and 2020, matching Marx’s description of relative pauperization. A simple correlation regression further confirmed that it was private appropriation of the fruits of socialized labor that is the fundamental cause for growing income inequality within the sampled area.
This paper argues that (1) the pattern of accumulation in rural Jingzhou today are distinct from what existed in past periods of Chinese history or what exists now in most contemporary developing countries - pauperization without paupers. (2) Inequality in ownership has generated a Gatsby Curve - meaning that the ability to develop human or social capital has become differentiated between different economic groups, leading to greater inequality of opportunity as inequality of outcome grows. This might be a fundamental source of involution, as it is popularly understood. (3) The basic systemic advantages of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics guarantee that strata compromise in rural China will likely remain sustainable. However, the inequality in income generated by inequality in ownership necessitates further development of public, collective, and cooperative enterprise structures.