Laurie Taylor’s ‘Thinking Allowed’ newsletter is always a source of pithy provocation. It’s a good substitute for being able to listen to the show, when I’m stuck at work.
Today he notes:
“Caroline Hoy, I learnt that all new-born Chinese citizens are registered as either ‘rural’ or ‘urban’. Only by staying within their registered locality – country or town – can they enjoy state provision and benefits.
So what happens when millions of workers – anywhere between 140 and 200 million, according to current estimates – abandon their rural birthplaces and head for the towns in search of work? How can the towns themselves cope with such a massive influx? And perhaps more importantly, what are the implications for social stability, for the future economic development of the country, of having millions of people without basic rights to education, housing and medicine, camping outside most of your major cities?
Is this mass internal migration a recipe for future trouble and strife, or an almost inevitable consequence of the industrialisation of a predominantly rural nation: an economic fact of life?”
Since I can’t listen I don’t know what he’s conclude. Personally, I’d speculate that the rural populations might well use the threat of unrest as a lever to demand government investment into sustainable economic models for rural agriculture…