Abstract
Dr. Lin Zhang’s book, ‘The Labor of Reinvention’, critically explores entrepreneurial efforts in China after the 2008 financial crisis. The author evaluates digital entrepreneurship as a form of labour, considering its historical context, cultural differences and disparities in global capitalism. This book presents a unique investigation into state-led entrepreneurialism, emphasising the essential role of institutions. The book specifically focuses on the following three types of business models: information technology (IT) entrepreneurship based in the high-tech district of Zhongguancun (ZGC) in Beijing, the e-commerce village model in rural Shandong province and the cosmopolitan international commerce Daigou model. The book challenges the commonly held belief that entrepreneurialism is always positive through a detailed examination of urban, rural and transnational entrepreneurship in China. It unpacks the work of reinventing oneself as an entrepreneur, which involves the rewarding and challenging task of balancing the demands of capital and maintaining a high personal valuation.
The book draws inspiration from Kuan-Hsing Chen’s (2010) concept of ‘geocolonial historical materialism’ and Nancy Fraser’s (2016) interpretation of the crisis of neoliberal financial capitalism. Zhang believes that entrepreneurial reinvention involves various processes in which culturally and geographically diverse participants take part. These processes blur the lines between traditional labour and entrepreneurship in contemporary times. China’s entrepreneurial landscape is an excellent example of this reinvention, with self-reliance, flexibility and risk-taking being the primary characteristics. Although state-led efforts have encouraged industry upgrades and addressed unemployment, the benefits of entrepreneurship have been limited to a small, privileged group. This has failed to address issues of inequality based on urban–rural disparities and gender biases, which is not a sustainable approach in the long term. This approach may potentially subject marginalised communities to additional risks during economic cycles of growth and contraction while also bringing attention to the issue of underconsumption within the Chinese economy.
In Chapter 1, the author introduces the fundamental concepts of entrepreneurship and presents a chronological account of the history and evolution of entrepreneurship reinvention in China, which provides readers with a solid theoretical foundation for the book. The author also analyses the global financial crisis in 2008, which rocked China’s economy and caused hardship in recovery and also introduces the core entrepreneurship campaign, the ‘Mass Innovation and Mass Entrepreneurship’, calling on all socioeconomic backgrounds to become entrepreneurs and encouraging bottom-up innovation and entrepreneurialism.
Chapters 2 and 3 focus on exploring IT entrepreneurship in the ZGC district and covering the state policies, stories from elite and grassroots entrepreneurs, and the Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation Space (MEIS) endeavour. Chapter 2 begins by tracing the evolution of state-entrepreneurialism in ZGC, which provides a comprehensive context of the ZGC district as a national-level science park. The author depicts ZGC’s zigzag path to entrepreneurial reinvention by analysing the state-led entrepreneurship booster movements and policies. The state’s role is highlighted in addressing the crisis facing China’s export-led development model and shaping the experiences of different generations of IT entrepreneurs. In the cases of elite and grassroots entrepreneurs, the author puts forward China’s hybrid innovation model, which combines state leadership with market drive and has successfully incentivised a new wave of knowledge-based elites. These elites have created institutional and cultural channels that legitimise bottom-up entrepreneurship and add value beyond the economic sphere through state-led entrepreneurial pursuits. However, the state’s emphasis on individual achievement can sometimes lead to a misinterpretation of group success and may mask the long-term structural challenges faced by grassroots entrepreneurs. Chapter 3 further explores the MEIS in the ZGC and highlights the innovative capabilities of entrepreneurial technocrats striving towards technological self-sufficiency and revitalising China’s socialist techno-nationalist legacy by utilising financial instruments like venture capital and the stock market. To create a more inclusive economy, China’s new crop of social entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are drawing inspiration from global experiences and experimenting with novel state-market relations and entrepreneurial participation. The author explores the impact of MEISs on Chinese society, highlighting tensions and contradictions by analysing the cases of Garage Café and Publish Your Own Book.
Chapters 4 and 5 shift the camera to China’s rural e-commerce model, taking the story to the countryside. Chapter 4 explores how rural household production in China has been digitised and platformised. By examining corporate discourses, government policies, and entrepreneurial experiences, the author uncovers the widespread appeal of rural entrepreneurial labour among grassroots communities while revealing big tech companies gain from this new form of capitalist accumulation. The state promotes rural e-commerce as a crucial component of strategic policy for rural revitalisation. Chapter 5 further unpacks the complexities of rural e-commerce in China, exploring issues beyond the commonly discussed challenges of Shanzhai (copyright plagiarism), gender hierarchy and politics. Through interviews with local entrepreneurs, the author finds that despite efforts to tackle Shanzhai and the price wars, changing the status quo in rural China remains a significant challenge due to complex kinships in rural China. The local government established ‘Taobao’ city business incubation park strategies for e-commerce incubation and training in addressing branding and sustainable growth issues, ultimately benefitting politically and socially powerful bureaucrat-entrepreneurs. Moreover, it reveals a profound problem of local performance engineering and economic dependence on real estate. The chapter also delves into the gender dynamic in the family production system, which continues to reinforce gender inequalities and patriarchal and androcentric norms. The tensions between the individual and collective, innovation and copying, and manual and mental labour in digital capitalism and the new entrepreneurial labour regime have been exacerbated by the reinvention of existing production and valuation systems through digital entrepreneurship.
Chapter 6 explores the transnational female entrepreneurship of Daigou, which involves purchasing retail products overseas on behalf of Chinese clients. Revisiting the Chinese family values and women’s participation in the labour market, the author reveals that the entrepreneurial labour of Daigou serves as a means of empowerment nowadays for young women seeking a transnational and middle-class lifestyle. It is essential to acknowledge that the profession of Daigou entails conforming to strict expectations of hyper-femininity that can be burdensome and require extensive efforts in terms of exercise, grooming and indulgent spending. While this field celebrates gendered roles associated with affluent urban lifestyles, it often overlooks and disregards the experiences of women from rural and working-class backgrounds. Furthermore, the unregulated nature of the Daigou industry can lead to racial discrimination against Chinese conspicuous consumption, labour alienation and self-exploitation.
In conclusion, this book targets an academic audience with a neocolonial historical materialism perspective. It offers a comprehensive view of Chinese digital entrepreneurship as a labour of reinvention, covering high-tech urban entrepreneurship, family-based rural e-commerce and transnational retailing entrepreneurship. The book critically evaluates the celebration of entrepreneurship and questions whether it has fulfilled its promise of reducing inequality and regenerating the economy since the 2008 economic crisis. It is also an essential read for policymakers who seek to understand state-led entrepreneurship in times of economic crisis. Although state-led entrepreneurship provides some positive aspects, it also highlights the limitations in achieving equality and sustainable long-term development. The book is also valuable for industry professionals, featuring rich firsthand interviews with entrepreneurs and solid field work in various scenes. The language and structure of the book are easy to understand, with precise terminology and diverse references and contexts. It is suitable for a general audience interested in Chinese entrepreneurship studies.
