Kontextmaschine

24th August 2022

Post reblogged from argumate with 204 notes

the comparison between the soviet propiska and chinese hukou systems is interesting because they’re seemingly comparable in form but ultimately had something like the opposite impact
in the USSR, housing registration was tied to where you were actually allowed to live - it was incredibly difficult to move somewhere without first acquiring the proper propiska. as a result, it was used for just what you might imagine: to prevent rural-dwellers from moving to large cities. this (1) slowed the pace of urbanisation in existing urban centers like leningrad and moscow, but (2) increased the pace of urbanisation in newly built, often geographically remote, monogorods, and (3) was compensated for by a campaign of rural industrialisation where light industry was brought to towns and villages instead of being concentrated in big cities. the overall impact was a relatively even distribution of industrial capacity across the territory of the USSR
in china, however, the opposite happened. there, hukou status is tied primarily to what level of state benefits you receive and only secondarily to actual place of residence. as a result, it was actually used to welcome a massive influx of rural-dwellers into existing urban centers - workers who would receive a far lower level of state benefits than people with urban hukou, and who could be freely exploited since they’re constantly under the threat of internal deportation by police. in combination with the chinese policy of keeping rural areas 100% devoted to agricultural production, this has propelled (1) some of the most rapid urbanisation in human history as well as the creation of the largest cities in human history, and (2) an astronomically unequal distribution of industrial capacity across the territory of china
anyway they’re both terrible but it’s an interesting contrast