The horse is dead
Um
You know that public sector employees are doing wage labour right?
(Also idk how this is calculated, but these stats are mostly wrong and not just for China. Perhaps it is the way they are counted? )
If you define wage labor as just working for a wage, then yes
A critical element of wage labor is that workers are paid in wages.
Um yes?
If what you are being paid is not determined by the market, it is not a wage, and you are not doing wage labor.
Do you think there isn’t a market deciding prices? Do you think it makes any difference if a business nominally belongs to the state? I’ve never heard anyone argue that working at the public sector isn’t wage labour, ever. And what you said is not the defining feature of wage labour. The defining feature of wage labour is that you sell your capacity to work.
Why do you think the numbers are wrong?
Because I noticed other countries that I know about and the numbers were silly. For China in particular they offer a bunch of completely different estimates and enormous fluctuations that don’t make sense. For instance they have a source from the Business Insider which gives it at 50% and another which gives it at around 30% (although that is from some years ago). I think it has to do with whether or not they count mixed owned enterprises as public? I don’t know but something weird is going on with these figures.
