Editorial Essay
On the Upstream Podcast: Dialectics of Chinese Labor
- Published
- September 1, 2026
- Read Time
- 1 min read
Immanuel Ness joins the Upstream podcast to discuss trade unions under market socialism, and why the ACFTU resists being read through a Western lens.
A new episode of the Upstream podcast features a long-form conversation on Dialectics of Chinese Labor: Trade Unions under Market Socialism. The discussion covers how the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) differs structurally from union federations in liberal capitalist economies — a distinction that matters for anyone trying to assess the real bargaining position of Chinese workers (Ness, Dialectics of Chinese Labor, p. 30, on union density, labor-court outcomes, and the ACFTU’s multi-tier structure).
The conversation moves across several of the book's case studies: glass workers, logistics workers, and app-based drivers. It returns to a central problem: most Western commentary imports assumptions about independent unionism that do not map onto a party-state-embedded labor federation operating inside a vast internal-migration economy.
Immanuel Ness on the Upstream Podcast — Dialectics of Chinese Labor
The full conversation is available now on Upstream's Patreon; the clip above is a short preview.
About the Author
Immanuel Ness is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg and author of Dialectics of Chinese Labor.