Recently, Beijing Daily published an article proposing that colleges and vocational schools should “actively adapt to market demands,” add majors related to domestic services, and reasonably arrange enrollment scales. In fact, this is to let the petty bourgeoisie voluntarily go bankrupt to accept bourgeoisie slavery, which has caused opposition from the petty bourgeoisie. Since the capitalist restoration, the Chinese government has fully canceled the education reform movement, severely violating Chairman Mao’s directive that “the schooling system should be shortened, and education should be revolutionary,” by desperately extending the schooling system, promoting educational commercialization, building a large number of shoddy higher education institutions, and initiating a wave of university expansion. In 1977, the country enrolled 270,000 students in regular colleges, with an entrance exam admission rate of 4.74%. By 2023, the enrollment in regular colleges had reached 11 million, with an admission rate of 85.21%. In recent years, the number of graduates from higher education institutions each year has exceeded ten million. However, as the economy continues to decline, unemployment has become severe, and college graduates face the situation of unemployment upon graduation. Under these circumstances, the so-called “Middle Cultivation” advocates for college students to shed their “Kong Yiji’s long gown,” planning to train more so-called vocational skills talents, claiming to break the so-called correspondence between educational qualifications and hierarchical occupations, forming a social atmosphere that downplays educational background and venerates skills. Recently, at a press conference held by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, relevant officials stated that the current market size of China’s domestic service industry has exceeded 1 trillion yuan, with over 30 million practitioners, and highlighted that there is a particularly acute shortage of high-quality domestic service personnel. In fact, the booming development of the domestic service industry is a result of the intensification of class contradictions in China, which is a peculiar phenomenon unique to capitalist society. Some so-called emerging domestic service projects, such as pet boarding, on-site cooking, tidying, and children’s companionship, are manifestations of the increasingly decadent parasitic class. They indulge in luxury and enjoyment, but only treat their children as tools to continue their wealth and family business. Raising children is also a choice to hire “high-level domestic service personnel” with money, and they propose high requirements such as “holding teacher qualification certificates, nutritionist certificates, and understanding some psychology.” Meanwhile, with China’s aging population intensifying, in 2022, the number of people aged 65 and above reached 210 million, accounting for 14.9%, and some wealthier families’ demand for domestic elderly care services has increased. China’s National Development and Reform Commission states that the domestic service employment gap exceeds 20 million. Colleges and vocational schools adding domestic service majors is essentially another form of university expansion, which can increase student numbers and earn high tuition fees for schools. At the same time, the Middle Cultivation government falsely claims that the domestic service industry can increase employment, suggesting that unemployed students can enter these positions to deceive the people. The Middle Cultivation also seeks to use this method to reduce unemployment and maintain social stability. In capitalist society, the government is inherently a representative of the bourgeoisie. China implements a state monopoly capitalism system, and relevant institutions establishing domestic service majors align with the interests of the bourgeoisie in the domestic service industry.
The number of unemployed workers in China is increasing, and a large number of petty bourgeoisie are going bankrupt. Some of them are pushed into the low-wage domestic service sector. The growth of the domestic service market has attracted capital injection; in 2024, the proportion of enterprises with registered capital over 5 million yuan in the domestic service industry increased from 10.3% to 25.27%. According to Tianyancha data, there are nearly 2.65 million domestic service-related enterprises in China, including those in operation, existing, relocated, or moved out. Over 80% of these enterprises were established within the past five years. In the past five years, domestic service-related enterprises have continued to grow, with an average annual increase rate of 52% from 2017 to 2021. In 2021, based on industrial and commercial registration, China added about 1.19 million domestic service-related enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 64%. Data shows that there are currently over 1.93 million companies with names or business scopes including “domestic service.” Among these, 51% are individual businesses, 78% of domestic service-related enterprises were established within five years, and 36% are micro or small enterprises. The bourgeoisie has launched fierce competition in the domestic service industry. To lower workers’ wages and squeeze out small and medium-sized domestic service enterprises, a “front shop, back school” model has emerged to provide a stable source of domestic workers. The leading domestic service enterprise “Qingxi Daojia,” which was awarded the “2024 Shenzhen Industry Leading Enterprise Top 100,” has established its own vocational skills training school and directly promoted school-enterprise cooperation, training over 150,000 “high-quality talents.” This has changed the previous small-scale production mode relying on intermediaries, solving issues such as “irregular services, low skill levels, user distrust, and high personnel turnover,” and has promoted the establishment of a monopoly in the domestic service industry by “Qingxi Daojia.” The recent policies issued by the Middle Cultivation government to improve and expand domestic services specifically mention that, in principle, each province should have at least one undergraduate university and several vocational colleges offering domestic service-related majors and expanding enrollment. In fact, many colleges that offer domestic service majors have signed cooperation agreements with domestic service companies. For example, in 2021, Zhengzhou Normal University, with 750 students enrolled in the domestic service major, signed a cooperation project with a domestic service company in Guangzhou. In 2024, the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education even organized visits and research to “Qingxi Daojia” by three colleges: Pingxiang Health Vocational College, Gannan Health and Wellness Vocational College, and Nanchang Health Vocational and Technical College. During this period, “Qingxi Daojia” directly cooperated with Pingxiang Health Vocational College for internships and employment. According to data from the China (Guangzhou) Second Family Service Industry Roundtable Conference, domestic services still mainly rely on introductions through acquaintances. The bourgeoisie in the domestic service industry finds it difficult to expand capital scale and displace them, so they cannot obtain the corresponding labor force. Establishing domestic service majors and expanding enrollment allows the bourgeoisie to quickly obtain qualified labor through professional training, thereby squeezing out small capital and small producers in service quality. The Middle Cultivation government’s training of such labor force for the domestic service bourgeoisie will also increase the industry’s reserve army, which is beneficial for lowering wages and seeking huge profits.
A large number of petty producers engaged in domestic services will inevitably face bankruptcy due to competition from big capitalists. After entering unemployment, they will also affect the survival of all workers. The bourgeoisie can further depress wages, making proletarian poverty more severe. The Middle Cultivation’s promotion of the domestic service industry proves that China’s capitalism, after entering the imperialist stage, has become completely rotten and decadent. In the imperialist stage, which is also monopoly capitalism, the inherent contradictions of capitalism become extremely sharp, and crises of overproduction are very serious. Industrial sectors cannot develop at all, so the bourgeoisie has to find other ways to develop the so-called tertiary industry, which is an industry that does not increase material wealth. Many of these industries are useless to human society, and the domestic service industry is one such example. The degenerate and corrupt Chinese government’s attempt to establish capitalist production relations within the domestic service industry to squeeze out small producers fully demonstrates that they have no source of surplus value left to seek. Capitalist system has reached its end here.
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