The United States and China

productive restructuring and forms of resistance

Abstract

The article seeks to analyze the phenomenon of ongoing productive restructuring in the light of the main international power, the United States, and the strong emerging power in the Eastern world, China. It starts from the understanding that the 2008 financial crisis gave rise to economic changes based on the great recession and new geopolitical disputes, which have also led to new configurations in the world of work. In this way, the article analyses how productive restructuring has developed in both countries, both from the point of view of the implementation of industry 4.0 and the platformization of work. By understanding the forms of resistance in both countries, including new phenomena of unionization, the antagonism to the intensification of work, such as quiet quitting and great resignation, the link with agendas of oppression (such as movements like Black Lives Matter) from the workers' movement and the increase in strikes, in manufacturing and in the service industry. From this, we seek to show the difficulties in stabilizing these forms of productive structuring - incompatible with social harmonization - whose course will largely depend on the actions of the workers' movement in these two countries.